It was 2:00 am, Australian Eastern Standard Time. I was 9,000 miles from home and I’d been drinking, as one does on a semester abroad in Australia.
“Laura!” I yelled to my incredible roommate turned travel companion, through our open breezeway panels, “Roundtrip to Tokyo is $300!”.
“Let’s go!” she replied.
So easy – we’d been looking for a big trip to finish off our time abroad. We were already on the other side of the world. A quick flight to Tokyo for an 8 day adventure, how awesome?! NINE grueling hours on the most budget airline ever, included the passenger next to us being detained midflight for drunken disorderly conduct and a failed landing attempt because there was another plane on the runway, we made it to Tokyo. Somehow on top of failing to realize we were no where near Japan while in Australia, we failed to realize that we were leaving the Southern Hemisphere summer and entering the Northern Hemisphere early December winter. Ah college naivety disguised as I-can-do-anything confidence. We followed the incredibly clear, concise and color-coded train maps to the Asakusa Neighborhood. My pay-as-you-go Voda Phone was the size of a saltine cracker and did not provide a google map so we relied on the handwritten directions I’d scribbled on scrap paper (see image below…yes I kept this as a memento along with a travel notebook that helped me write this long memory from more than 12 years ago). Once we finally found our hostel, down the dark, tiny street, through the spitting rain, we showered and ventured back out into the cold midnight hours in search of food. Every single dollar in my wallet was designated to food or the transportation taking me to another food destination.
On our first night in Tokyo we discovered the incredible creations lining the shelves of Japanese convenience stores. I had the best egg salad sandwich of my life, known as tamaga sando. It was slathered in Kewpie Mayo (find some if you’ve never had it) on white bread so thick and so soft it made Texas Toast look pathetic. We bought candy and salty snacks, cream soda, green tea, a loaf of that insane 2 inch sliced bread and a tub of what I now think is Japanese Margarine and headed back to the hostel to enjoy our free arrival beverage and lots of snacks on a crusty worn couch.
Day two was much more comfortable. We headed up town to a market and ate our body weight in robata charcoal grilled meat skewers, called Yakitori, and the single most delicious dessert I’ve ever had. It was shaped like a fish and filled with chocolate ganache that tasted exactly like Swiss Miss Pudding. I had no idea what they were at the time but later learned they are called Taiyaki and are a staple street food in Japan. They are traditionally filled with sweet bean curd, but I’m more of a chocolate lady myself. I shamelessly and happily ate three of them that day and went back for a few more throughout the week. I still think about those little fish-shaped treats.
Our days ahead were spent sightseeing, mostly walking off our last meal in search of our next. We slurped ramen for breakfast, shoulder to shoulder with businessmen headed to work. Let me tell you the experience is loud and messy but so much fun. Leave your American made manors at the door, they do not apply here.
We ate mystery vegetables shaped like stars and clouds in a bento box after a 30-minute blissful chair massage in the middle of a packed department store, it was approaching Christmas time after all. We wandered Harajuku marveling at the costumed locals walking the streets and stopping into a hotdog shop for a wild creation that included several pickled mysteries and a spiced Japanese-style ketchup (I wasn’t in Chicago after all, ketchup was allowed).
Midweek we treated ourselves to a nice dinner at a traditional hibachi restaurant. It was located down a tiny lantern lit street that had an old-world vibe I will never forget. The storefronts were wood paneled with beautiful cloth signage hanging lengthwise from the windows. It was the Tokyo I had always imagined. We devoured sweet onion pancakes, fatty steak bits and crispy rice. We were feeling thoroughly warmed and freshly emboldened from the sake. I pointed to an unknown item on the menu and said “Tabete kudasai” (I’d been practicing this, it means please eat, it wasn’t the right phrase for this moment but it worked). The server nodded and smiled. A minute later a LIVE OCTOPUS was tossed onto our fire-y hot griddle table and the crowd yelled something in unison. I’d just accidentally ordered the ritual sacrifice of a sea creature. We squealed and screamed along with the octopus that was twisting and crinkling in front of us. We laughed so hard, we cried, we may have cried a little for our ceremony guest as well. We ate the octopus, it was tough. We then walked back to our hostel, taking a detour at the night market for another Taiyaki.
The next day we set off on a bullet train to Kamakura. The reason I had wanted to go is because the sushi restaurant in East Wilmette, one of the only restaurants in East Wilmette when I was growing up, was called Kamakura. I had to see this town. There is a statue of a giant Buddha in the middle of the town. It’s weathered and a beautiful aged aquamarine color. The gardens surrounding the Great Buddha are pristine with beautiful Japanese wood working comingled with ancient foliage. We each wrote a wish on a small panel and hung it on a tree branch as was tradition and then we walked back into town towards the sushi train restaurant. We passed by school children in their perfect uniforms with knee high socks and matching box backpacks and small parchment shops that made hand pressed stationary and paper goods. It was a place trapped in time, until we got to the restaurant. There was a neon sign of a choo choo train over the entrance. If you’ve never been to a sushi train, you probably never will because Covid ruined that fun for all of us. A conveyor belt runs the length of a small restaurant bringing freshly rolled sushi for you to browse. You snag whatever catches your fancy and the cashier rings you up based off the color-coded plates you’ve compiled. Japan really knows how to work a color-coding system. We ate a foot tall pile of plates worth of sushi and hopped a train back to the city.
On our last day in Tokyo we woke before dawn and headed to the Tsukiji fish market to see the overnight catches being unloaded for global auction. One of the first things I noticed about the market was its lack of smell. It didn’t smell like anything. It was so clean and the fish was so fresh that there was no stench. If you’ve ever worked with fish you know they stink in some way or another, but when they are clear eyed and fresh off the line, they don’t smell like anything except maybe sweet ocean water. We wandered the market and then headed for a sushi breakfast, because why eat anything besides raw fish when you are in the greatest fish market in the world? We passed through aisles of tiny artisan vendors selling their goods. They were displaying some of the most gorgeous chef knives, plate wares and hand carved wooden crafts I’ve ever seen.
Afterwards we made our way to Ginza. An upscale shopping district in the downtown area. The buildings were dripping in Christmas decorations and the stores were packed. We browsed huge shops selling purses the price of a years tuition and eventually found a food court. It wasn’t an ordinary food court, because nothing is ordinary in Japan. It was the mecca of food courts. There were open stalls with pristinely dressed cooks and attendants serving up bite sized delicacies from around the world. Everything was bite sized. This place had to have 30 different stalls of beautiful tiny bites of food. We tried petit fours from France, meat skewers from North African and what we thought was a meatball from Italy but it turns out it was filled with gamey liver that seemed more like hot metallic sludge pouring from the inside. I smiled at the cook through my discomfort and disgust. I wish I could forget that meatball but I still remember it, vividly.
We left Japan with full bellies and empty wallets and headed back to 40°C heat (105°F) and the beautiful beaches of the Gold Coast. I plan to go back to Tokyo one day and also explore Japan as a country. And I will definitely pack the right clothing and maybe more then just a backpacks worth. If you ever get the chance to visit, give yourself a week for the city alone. It is truly incredible and the people will treat you with kindness and hospitality like no where else in the world.
I have barely cracked the surface of Japanese cooking. It is a cuisine so honed and practiced over generations that the technique alone is a college education. The recipes below are simple representations of everyday flavors from Japan. I wish I had half the skills of a Japanese itamae (chef) but for now I will keep my beloved Kikuichi knives sharp and my soy sauce will always be tamari. Enjoy the bites!
The Menu :
Ice Cold Toki Highball Cold Soba Noodles with Scallion Vinaigrette Pan Roasted Horseradish Shishitos Yakitori Skewers Sticky Mochi Cake Sake
The Playlist…Hold on to your butts, this is a wild ride pulled directly from my college iPod