Dinner at Ichinoyu Shinkan Ryokan

Here you can see the courses we were served for dinner at the ryokan. I'm not certain of any of the names of things, but I'll try to explain as best as I can. Starting from the top:

1. An appetizer platter consisting of tuna salad salad, also peppered, rare beef, eggplant with a sort of BBQ sauce , pickled (?) fish, and a really yummy, beautiful thing that seemed to include couscous and was wrapped with raw fish and onion (I think, maybe; anyway, you can't see it as it's behind the tuna salad salad).



2. A nabe pot of mussels, carrots, bacon, enoki and shiitake mushrooms, and Chinese cabbage.



3. Shrimp, calamari, and daikon in a chicken, um...glaze? (it was the consistency of a really thick Chinese sweet-sour soup, and you can see the chicken bits floating around in it).



4. Pickled vegetables.



5. Red Snapper, mmmm!



6. Yuzu Sorbet for dessert.



The meal was delicious. Interestingly, it was also required. You see, normally, when making reservations to stay at a ryokan, you can opt out of dinner. However, today is the beginning of the winter holiday season, so the ryokan required everyone to have dinner. But we figured if we were going to have a vacation and stay at a nice place, we may as well pay the extra ¥3000/person and enjoy ourselves. And so we did.

Boat Ride on Lake Ashinoko

We took a little excursion to Hakone this week for an early Christmas vacation. Money and time permitted one night and two days, otherwise we'd certainly have stayed some more. Hakone is a very popular vacation spot for Japanese and foreign visitor alike, and is noted for its spectacular views of Mt. Fuji, a nice big lake complete with odd 17th century-styled warships, and hundreds of hot spring baths, as well as local woodworking crafts known as yosegi-zaigo.

We took a ride in one of the above mentioned boats (modeled after King Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden's "Vasa") during our trip. This picture is from the main deck, looking north-ish towards Mt. Komagatake, which has an observation tower at its summit. The white cloudy sky to the left of it is obscuring the aforementioned view of Fuji-san, but he was there. Also, you can see the red torii gate at the water's edge, marking the entrance to Hakone Jinja.

A Cool Playground

The Hakone Open Air Museum has a really neat play area for kids. Check it out. Kids can climb into various nets...all the way to the top! Or, they can swing on the balls that look like drips coming from it. Oh to be little again...

Post of the Day

I haven't blogged anything recent lately, because I've been getting some old news up. So you'll have to scroll down to see it, or even check the archives. I finally took a Saturday and went through a lot of pictures from Brandon's visit back in October, and so a few posts are sneaking in through the back door. When I figure out how, I'm thinking of adding a new sidebar option where you can see the newest post, not just the most recent dated post. (I do a lot of retroactive posts on this blog.) Believe it or not, Brandon has a blog about his trip here, but you'll have to ask him for the link.

Anyway, it's mundane, but here's some news:

We bought a kerosene space heater. I guess they don't sell them in the U.S. much anymore because of the risk of carbon monoxide poisoning. But they're big sellers over here. Cheaper than other methods of keeping warm.



Anyway, this is what it looks like.

Bunnies!

Click on the picture above and be sent to an hilarious site I just happened upon. You can watch your favorite movies in about 30 seconds, done by bunnies. This one should put everybody in the Christmas spirit.