Tripe

There are times when ignorance truly is bliss. One of those times could, for example, be when you are enjoying a delicious, but somewhat suspiciously textured "pork skewer" braised in a special white miso sauce. Sure, you might have unconsciously had an inkling that this wasn't a normal cut of pork, and that it was strangely translucent and jelly like in the areas closest to the skewer (all meat looks the same when its been grilled to a crisp! It's the barely cooked meat at the center which gives you an inkling of what you're eating), but hey: if it's delicious, so don't rock the boat, right? It is therefore very disconcerting and down right nauseating to suddenly have one of your dining companions wonder out loud "I wonder what I'm eating? Intestines maybe?" This was the situation at the restaurant (tantan-men) that we found on the Pontocho street in Kyoto. The food was excellent -- my favorite was the spicy szechuan style white miso sesame soup with ramen noodles. I'm going to try to reproduce this one at home sans some of the oil. The skewers really were excellent, but I had to stop eating it as soon as Kenji articulated my intestine concerns.

Earlier in the day, Chloe and I had gotten up to get some pictures of the Aomori harbor


and then taken the plane from Aomori to Osaka. I was impressed by the speed with which we were corralled onto the plane and we got into the air, but a little troubled by this:

Hopefully use of the emergency battery doesn't require the panel to actually be removed!
We were treated to a view of the Japanese "alps" along the way.


and had the first day of our Japan Rail Pass. This pass is offered outside of Japan, and we have been using it for years. There are different periods and both coach and first class passes available. Its function is similar to the Eurail pass. The first class ticket gets you access to the green cars, and makes it easier to get reservations on overbooked trains, and is well worth the extra money. And that's not even talking about the miles of legroom that you get! We took the bullet train from Osaka to Kyoto, dropped off our things at our palatial digs at the Amherst House, and headed out to the Nijo Castle (completed 1626.) At the Kyoto train station , we ran into Kenji's friends from San Francisco AGAIN!




Although one cannot use a tripod, camera or even sketchbook in the palace, they thankfully do not require a partial lobotomy at the end of the tour to prevent any unauthorized remembering of the beautiful screens. Among other fun things were nightingale floor and concealed body guard chambers in all of the rooms where the shogun(?) might receive visitors. I had heard of the nightingale floors before, but had chocked it up to a little Japanese poetic license, but those floorboards really do sound like birds when you're walking on them! And as for the bodyguard chambers, I'd like to have some of those at home: salesmen at your door? Samurai jump out and cut them to pieces.

Our last stop before McTripes was a pilgrimage to the Aritsugu Japanese knife store. At four and a half centuries old and eighteen generations they've had plenty of time to perfect their knives, which is why I didn't blink at paying $120 for one (there was a lot of blinking by Kenji and Gail though!). I bought a "deba", which completes my set of knives -- a paring knife, a long sashimi knife, and now the most fearsome of japanese knives -- the Deba. Kenji actually has two of these and offered to give one to me, but they are WAY too big, and I don't want to lose a finger, so I bought a small one. The deba is strong enough to cut through chicken and fish bones, and is the historically favored weapon of disgruntled housewives in Japan.


I looked at the popular stainless MAC knives, but I find them harder to sharpen because of the bevelled edge and well, lacking in soul

They even engraved NANAO in Kanji on the deba for free!