Japanese Diet

A word to myself and anyone else who thinks that the Japanese diet consists of sushi and side dishes:  Sushi`s not exactly hard to find, but it does not constitute the Japanese national dish any more than sake constitutes the Japanese national drink.  That would be beer, incidentally, and by a huge margin.  Second, somewhat distantly, is wine.  Sake is an also-ran.

Sushi is often on the menu but the big dishes are two things I`ve mostly been avoiding -- one in the past decade or two and one pretty much my whole life: tempura and "red" meat.  My stomach is not on especially friendly terms with fried food a lot of the time, Chick-Fil-A notwithstanding, and I haven`t had meat since, by an odd and unaccountable and (of course) then-unknown coincidence, the day the Watergate Hotel was broken into.  17 June 1972.

They serve a lot of pasta too.  The problem with that is, the Japanese, and you know I LOVE them, overcook their OWN noodles a lot of the time.  So, pasta not so much either.  I can find sushi but it`s just not that easy.

So how do these people ALL stay as thin as rails?  I have to guess two reasons:  one, almost certainly, is that good friend, heredity.  And the other is that at 10 a.m. today as I was walking to the station I noticed that the entire walk along one of the main arteries of Kyoto, there were almost no non-taxi cars.  I think that kind of speaks for itself.  Yeah, there`s a lot of public transportation but it seems as though everybody walks and bikes a whole bunch.  It`s hard for me to imagine someone complaining because they had to park two blocks away instead of one.

So, anyway, I get sushi kind of when I look for it.  I`m hoping to get some for lunch today.

Tsuyu

It hadn`t rained for almost a week, I think, so it saved up its seven-drops-a day and really poured -- you know, a total of whatever that is, forty-two drops.  I`m never going to believe the words "rainy season " again.

Yesterday

Poppins before Disney

All day was devoted, other than internet, showering and paying my ryokan bill, to shopping and tea.  So, I`m thinking, shopping and tea -- who does that remind me of?  I`ll tell you, I think it reminds me of the mother who left her kids all day every day in the charge of Mary Poppins.  I`d say Mrs. Darling but that was Peter Pan, I think.  Anyway, didn`t she dump the babies on Mary Poppins so she could go out to tea and shop every day?  Is that what women with nannies did in Mary Poppins`s day -- dump the kids, and go shopping and to tea?  Upper-middle I mean.  I guess which kids were lucky depends on your point of view.  The Mary Poppins in the movie was a sugary treat.  The one in the books was a good bit drier, not at all unlike Nanny McPhee, and definitely cooler.  Then Disney Winnie-the-Poohed her and took away all her charm.

Just back from shopping, on her way to Tea

Anyway, I`m thrilled to say that after all my shopping I can still close the suitcase.  I still have a little bit to do, too.  I packed this morning and hope not to get into my suitcase again. 

Plum Candy

So, the plum candy.  I received some plum candy, Japanese plum hard candy, from a friend a little over a year ago.  I really didn`t like it, but I tried a second piece.  I`m not usually a fan of hard candy and I`ve never had candy before, that I remember, that`s salty, sweet and sour.  It grew on me, and in pretty short order.  By the time I realized how much I liked it I had thrown the wrapper away, and I didn`t know what it was.

It's a great taste, once you've acquired it

Well, I found it again.  It`s called (in Japanese) "Men`s Plum Candy."  Somebody in charge of the Candy Naming department at Nihon Kandi (not the real name) should be informed that Men`s Plum Candy`s internationally biggest fan spends his days shopping and at tea.  And, really, half of the shopping is tea-related.

Anyway, a lot of what I`m bringing back is Men`s Plum Candy.  Yes, you may have a piece.  Even if you`re not, you know, strictly eligible because of the name.  By weight a lot of what I`m bringing back is a stone.  It goes with the yanagi-ba.

Goodbye Kyoto

Last blogging day in Japan is tomorrow.  I have a lot of photos and I have spoken only in half-hour, generally, fits, so I have more to say even after I get back, if anyone`s still interested.

I have now come to the end of my Kyoto stay.  I will be here tomorrow but as a visitor from out-of-town.  I will miss my friend Kyoto, a bit to my surprise considering how homesick I was a week ago and, sometimes, still am.

I will miss her, as I said, a lot.  I have come to feel a real affection for her, and as you may know, since I mentioned it before, I talk to her a lot, every day.  The problem is, of course, that she really doesn`t exactly talk back, we don`t have conversations, and even if we did, they`re not the kind of conversation I think of, not the kind where she listens when I tell her about my panics and embarrassments and worries.  The two reasons for this are that first she`s not a person and second, and more to the point, she`s Japanese, and we really don`t work that way here, I don`t think.

So, thank you dear reader.  I`ll be back, I hope, as a guest of Kyoto tomorrow, traveling on Saturday, and back in the U.S., back in the U.S., Back in the U.S. Sunday.

P.S.  Welcome Australia.  I always get a big kick out of a new country.  I even did when it was me, twice.