lairdandjonelle

Our last day in Honolulu was spent traveling around the island on the hop on-hop off bus.  I think we went to the windward side, but I’m not absolutely sure about that.  We did see many gorgeous beaches, a real live blowhole and a fast driveby siting of Pearl Harbor and whatever other military stuff.  Our last bus driver/tour guide was obsessed with shopping malls and pointed out every single one on the island, I believe.  In two days we saw a whole lot of things we want to see more of, so there must be a return trip.  And no striking hotel workers, because I still want to have the full Royal Hawaiian experience.  [LAIRD: We talked the checkout down from a supplementary $125 to $0 and got a free breakfast out of the deal. Martina, the checkout clerk, was spouting a line obviously designed by corporate lawyers that they did not want to email notice to prebooked customers of the strike. The convoluted arguments was that the strike could settle at any time and they wanted to make sure that they could offer hours to the returning workers. And Martina did say that a few customers elected to find another hotel instead of the Royal. My memory, however, of checking in was only the apology and an offer to forgo the $37 a day “resort fee.” No mention was made of canceling our pre-paid reservation on the spot and getting help to check in at a non-striked hotel. So I’m contemplated writing a letter explaining that I feel betrayed by Royal management.]  We did wish the strikers GOOD LUCK every time we passed them.  They want $25/hr, which is still not very much in Hawaii when you consider the cost of living.  Marriott offered 75 cents/hr.  That’s a damn far way away for them to reach a reasonable consensus.  [LAIRD:  The organizing slogan for the strike was ONE JOB SHOULD BE ENOUGH!  The economics of the whole situation is in the favor of management, of course, because they’ve hired nonunion locals and brought in managers, etc from all over the country to help out in their various locations.]

Got to the airport in plenty of time and bought a lunch around suppertime — and wouldn’t you know it, they served supper on plane!  We had eaten in the airport because coming to Honolulu at  beginning of trip we did not get ANYTHING from LA to Hawaii (an 8 hour flight for pity’s sake) after spending 6 hours in LAX after sitting 3-4 hours in ABQ.  That was American, perhaps not the best one to fly if you want to eat.  Coming home from Honolulu was United and they were very nice to us.  I use a wheelchair when traveling because I can’t walk as long as it takes to get to most big airport gates, particularly if I’ve had to stand in lines to check in and go through security.  Anyone who has limitations should definitely travel this way!

[Laird:]  I decided to go to STEM club at Atalaya. The kids were hyper, having Halloween costumes (Harry Potter prevailing) and looking forward to the Haunted House and other activities Friday evening. Rather than persisting in my lesson plan with the pendulum rig, we made pumpkin slime and cornstarch oobleck. The oobleck was cool. I wanted to teach the kids how to turn a demo into a science fair project but failed. It was kind of weird to be working when 12 hours (and about 30 degrees F. temperature) ago we were in Honolulu.

Got home about 11 am [actually 10:31, but who’s counting?].  I wandered around for a bit, went through the mail in a daze and yearned for a nap.  No good.  Didn’t fall asleep until about 5:30 p.m., awake at 7:00, back to sleep by 10:00 and didn’t get up until noon today.    I still have more hours to make up.  A desultory attempt at unpacking has been my only effort so far.  Too hard.  Maybe tomorrow.  Speaking of tomorrow, Sunday, there is a benefit mariachi concert for Playschool of the Arts at the Lensic in the afternoon, 2-5.  Music by Lone Pinon and another group whose name I forget and dancing by Folklorica.  PLEASE GO AND PLEASE SUPPORT PLAYSCHOOL OF THE ARTS!  It’s an amazing preschool for Santa Fe’s kiddies and most of their students are low-income.  Our grandkids, Theodore and Sia, went there and loved it.  If you know anyone with children I think 18 months to 5 years of age, encourage them to check it out — the founder is a BRILLIANT teacher and the other teachers are tops, too!

So back to regular daily life.  I had a huge scare yesterday when I got on the scale:  it said I had gained 11 pounds.  YIKES!  NOOOOOOOOO! But today it said I only gained ONE POUND.  Now that’s more like the miracle I was looking for! [LAIRD:  I clocked in this morning at 172 on the nose, for, at most, a one pound gain over the two weeks. And we did have some very good food. Did Jonelle talk about the amazing tuna we got at a sushi bar in the Tokyo airport? Really, really good in color, texture and taste. And, by the way, Americans use far more soy and wasabi than do Japanese. They only dip fish, and then very lightly on the fish side, not the rice side of the ball.]  OH MY GOD, that sushi.  Wild bluefin tuna — the best either of us has ever eaten, fur sure!]

We loved Japan and definitely must go back to see so much more than we saw on this trip.  We’ll still sign up for more cooking classes, I think, because they were amazing and it would be so swell to see our chef friends again, but there was so much that we missed.  I wonder if the Japanese do airbnb???  Probably not — they are probably way too private for that.  That’s how we feel about Kyoto.  I’m not sure either of us is much interested in going back to Tokyo.  Well, maybe to see the Imperial Palace and the amazing Japanese museum.  But other places are likely to be more enticing to us.  Still so much to see in Kyoto — and we have lots more shrines and temples to see just in Arishiyama — not to mention the rest of Kyoto.  A huge shout out to everyone we met in Japan — everyone was so wonderful to us!  And a special, special thanks, with many kisses, to Yoriko — can’t wait to get up of a morning and have miso soup with your homemade miso!!

Bueno bye till our next travel adventure, sure to include South Africa next year, along with maybe Spain or somewhere else — jm & lg

We spent today on two lines of the hop on-hop off trolley as well as the dining trolley we took to dinner at House of Wong — 4 1/2 stars on Trip Advisor.  It was very good; best pot stickers, perhaps ever.  But let’s start with yesterday.  After flying all Wednesday night/Thursday early we arrived in Honolulu on. . .WEDNESDAY.  Want to do a day over?  Cross the dateline and start over.  Ours wasn’t worth all that much.  When we got to the Royal Hawaiian, which I have wanted to stay at since I was a kid, we were in for a BIG DISAPPOINTMENT:  service workers are striking against all Marriott-owned or -managed hotels on Waikiki Beach.  That includes the Royal Hawaiian.  Great.  Rooms cleaned only every other day, which I’m willing to live with, BUT NO RESTAURANTS, NO BARS AND NO FAMOUS ROYAL HAWAIIAN BAKERY are losses too far.  I was so pissed yesterday!  I’m better today as long as I don’t think about it, but having to go out on the prowl for every meal when I had dreams of dining in their fancy restaurant, drinking gins and tonic on the many lanais, etc. is pretty damn sadmaking for me.  And considering the astronomical price the place costs with no amenities is really, really sadmaking!  Having a veggie delite sandwich at Subway for breakfast was not on my bucket list for this trip, believe me.   I expect to haggle over my bill tomorrow morning for sure.

But, we still had a lovely time here traveling around looking at everything.  Interestingly, most houses here are kind of ugly.  Plantation “Slave” Quarter is the architectural style.   And then there are some very ordinary, unexceptional ones built in the 1950s and 60s that were boring, though their location near the beaches was que swell.  The houses that are nice are very, very nice. Oh, and the lushness everywhere.  OMG, the lushness:  palm trees, plumeria, hibiscus, antheria (right, for plural of antherium???), golden and red rain shower trees, banana tree blooms, ferns galore, crocus, bromiliads, bamboos, on and on.  And GRASS.  Indian Banyan, Walking Palms, Monkey Pod trees and so many more, more on and on and on — Sandy, we sure needed you so you could name the palm trees.  There’s one here that is really, really skinny and grows very, very tall.  None of our drivers knew what they are.  The best thing:  all the trees, regardless of what they are, have the most amazing structures, so, so beautiful.  They have the tiniest lizards you’ve ever seen.  It’s pretty damn hot, though, and as humid as you would expect.  We are hoping to see the state capitol tomorrow and the Iolani palace.

Oh, I forgot.  On our second trip, our bus blew up.  OK, it was its engine, not us.  But while we waited, we were right next to the Kwan Yin temple, so we went in.  It was SO BEAUTIFUL.  Our best serendipity for the whole vacation, I think.

I thought of lots of other things to tell you during the day, but I’ve forgotten them perhaps for good.  Oh well.  It feels like bedtime, so I’m off.  Mahalo to our readers and to Chris, a very special ALOHA.

Well, except for about 5 hours in the Tokyo airport.  But yesterday was a very full day, lots of time on a bus as we went to see Mt. Fuji, Hakone, Lake Ashi and the top of some mountain (Mt. Komagatake) by the lake on what they call ropeway — it’s like the tram up Sandia.  (Jonelle saw the ropeway sign and asked, “what do they brew there?” mistaking “ropeway” for “brewery”. It was a long day.) (Hey — I was a long way away from it when I said that!) I didn’t stay, came down soon after getting up because it was VERY COLD up there.  Laird wanted to walk up to the summit, with Shinto shrine.  No way I could do that with my back, etc. hurting.  I am really, really cranked that the pain down my leg, which had gone away finally, has come back.

Fujisan is worth all its press and is rightfully considered sacred.  What a beauty!  It looked EXACTLY like all the (good) paintings show.  It last erupted about 300 years ago, but is still considered to be active.  The countryside is gorgeous, with lots of familiar-sounding tree names and some evergreens that don’t look like ours, but must be some kinds of firs and pines (our guide, whose given name is “FUJI”, said that some of the evergreens are larch.).  Lots of mountain bamboo and fields of Japanese pampas grass.  In the fall, people come to walk in them.  We saw a group in the middle distance and it looked like they were lost in the pampas midst, but they were actually on a trail.  Our guide gave us an astounding amount of world statistics in which Japan featured, lessons in Japanese counting and the three types of Japanese writing, the differences between Shinto and Buddhism and a panoply of other information.  Alas, he told us about all the places and museums we must go to in Tokyo and other places.  All that we have not seen and will not see on this trip.  Definitely, there must be another trip to Japan in our future.

Soon we have to catch our ride to the airport.  I’ll report on it if it’s wonderful.  Probably will if it’s terrible, too.  But I can’t believe that it would be terrible — the Japanese wouldn’t do something terrible.  Then it will be on to Honolulu for 3 days — I”m really looking forward to flying on Korean air; it’s supposed to be super great.  Of course, that might be for first and business classes, not steerage.  WE’LL SEE!

Wingingly yours, jm & lg        Oh.  p.s.  What I will miss most about Japan?  Toto toilet!  I am getting one, I don’t care how expensive they are.  And I’m considering driving up to 10,000 Waves when I have to go to the bathroom until I get one!

After a very bad night’s sleep last night — we went to bed early, got awakened about 11:00 by a ringing phone that Laird could not find — it wasn’t his and apparently it wasn’t the hotel phone (I actually think it was) — he spent most of the night working on his tax reform data & modeling project and I kept waking up because his headlamp was on BRIGHT.  He started packing about 5:30 after taking shower and I followed at about 6:00.  Our suitcases are a damn sight heavier than when we came!  Cooking tools and presents, oh my.  When we checked out, I was handed a bag with PRESENTS FOR US from Yoriko — the most beautiful earrings that she made — I know all you women will be jealous when you see! — and homemade miso she made as well.  Can’t wait to make miso soup when we get home!  What a sweetheart she is!!

We had to be at the train station for the 9:35 bullet train to Tokyo and it took us awhile to find where we were supposed to be on the tracks.  Well, by the tracks.  Train was fast, certainly faster than the Rail Runner at home, but it wasn’t as fast as I thought it would be, but it was very nice: lots of leg room and we had reserved seats.  Alas, you can’t see much out the windows because the tracks are screened in lots of places and also there were three or five or some number of tunnels.  Lots and lots of buildings upon buildings, with some rice fields and other agriculture and a goodly number of solar panel fields. We did have a beautiful view (and some decent pics) of a snow-covered Fuji. I asked at the hotel. Fuji is 4,800 meters (about 14,400 ft.).  Tokyo is Skyscraper City — on steroids.  Our hotel, the Park Hotel Tokyo, starts on the 25th floor of one of them.  It is very nice and has a big focus on art, including 31 rooms on an upper floor that have been painted by artists — very cool!  We got into Tokyo station at about 11:53 and it took us sometime to determine how and where we should get out of it.  We debouched into a long line for taxis, but finally got one.  We handed the guy the map of how to get to the hotel, but he seemed pretty confused about where to go.  Luckily, he got us here.  I knew cooking class was at 1:30, but somehow I got that confused with 1:00, so we checked in, came up to our room and went immediately back down to have a taxi called for us.  We got there about 1:15, so it worked out.  There were 8 of us students, 5 from Australia (they were a group.  Note to grandkids:  there was a boy and a girl y’all’s ages who did a great job at sushi), 1 from the Netherlands and us.  Our instructors, Kanae and Yuki, taught us several types of sushi:  rice-on-the-outside CA roll, tamago yaki, inagi, nigiri and maki.  We were all stars!  Well, for cooking class, but I don’t think any of the Latinos making sushi in Santa Fe, etc.   grocery stores will have to worry about us taking their jobs.  It has been years since Laird and I have made sushi, but we held our own and nothing fell apart upon eating.  We came back to hotel and collapsed.  After naps, it’s time for bed.  Tomorrow we have a very exciting day — so stay tuned!  Oh, and we have a BEAUTIFUL view of river and a park from our window,with a window seat to sit on and admire the beautiful view.  Yours from On High, jm & lg

Let’s see.  Yesterday we went in the afternoon with our wonderful guide, Yoriko, to a sake brewery.  First she took us to lunch at a place near where she lives for okonomi yaki — an oh-so-delicious pancake stuffed with cabbage, with a great dark, thick sauce on it.  YUMMM!  The Gekkeikan sake brewery was interesting, but, frankly, I would rather have gone back to Arashiyama.  Though we would have missed that pancake, which would have been a shame. I do have to admit, I liked the sake we sampled much better than I thought; it was much better than what I’ve had in US.  Gekkeikan was started in 1637.  We were in Fushimi, the southern ward of Kyoto City.  By then, my cumulative walking/standing had reached beyond the OUCH! stage and I was in a world of hurt by the time we started back to the train.  When we got to Kyoto station, the big transportation hub, I was ready to just lie down on the concrete floor!  But, we were on the search for a soba knife and a miso muddler so Yoriko took us to the big department store.  By big, I mean 7 floors!  Oh, they had such beautiful clothes, kitchen wares, linens, everything.  The store is owned by the Japanese railroad — surely a tidy profit center for them.  Alas, no soba knives.  We took a taxi back to the hotel and I collapsed on my bed.  Later, we went out searching for a near-enough restaurant and walked several blocks on the big main street just up from our hotel.  Didn’t see anything, so I said let’s just go down our street because I knew there were restaurants there.  Laird was skeptical.  But we found a little hole in the wall and had a nice meal — not a great one, but nice.  And the waitress could not have been nicer.  I had cold soba and tempura; Laird had a hot pot.  The cook was definitely NOT in the same league as the chef for our first dinner — his tempura was like something from heaven.  Last night’s, not so much.  Back to hotel, early bed so we could get up this morning and go to. . .

Arashiyama!  Back to the kimono forest (god, I want it in my yard!) and land of many temples and shrines.  Do you know the difference between the two?  Shrines are Shinto and temples are Buddhist.  We went to tenryu-ji, a zen temple that is a huge place, with many buildings that we don’t know what they are.  And two beautiful statues of Kwan Yin, one where she’s surrounded by clouds.  We did not see Buddha.  The buildings have all burned to the ground at least 8 times in their very long history, but the garden and pond look very much the same as they did when they were made in the 1300s.  In the temple, of course, one must take one’s shoes off, so in the women’s restroom (I don’t know about the men’s), there are slippers at the door of each toilet stall.  You slip them on, take one step, turn around and squat; then up, turn around to flush, take one step, turn around and leave them at the door.  But what a sweet gesture.  Sushi for lunch.  Back to town.

Our last cooking class was Izakaya (bar food) and we made dashi (of course!); hojicha pudding, a dessert; soaked grilled eggplant; shiso and chicken gyoza;  yakitori; burdock and carrot salad; and somen noodles with chicken and miso sauce.  Everything was great — the nice thing about cooking class is that they make it so you can’t fail.  Anyone expecting Japanese meal from us might not have the same experience.

Tomorrow we have to get up early to catch the bullet train to Tokyo.  There is so much we did not get to see, we really need at least another week here.  I’m sad to leave all the wonderful women we have met: our coordinator, Heromi; our guide, Yoriko and our five cooking instructors at the two Cooking Sun studios.  Plus the beautiful woman at the dashi workshop and the ones at the tea place in Uji, and the one man, who took us to the tea plantation.  They all made this trip amazing and we are so glad we got the opportunity to meet them.

Here, they say ita wakarimasu = a blessing for good food and good company.  We had both, in spades.

On to Tokyo.  I hope we can get our suitcases closed.  I knew we should have taken the big one.

Hello all you lovely readers, if you exist.  Since no one has commented or emailed, we have no idea if anyone is reading this blog — surely you, our friends, are hanging on every word????

Yesterday started with soba noodle cooking class.  It’s HARD.  Laird was the star, since he’s a bread maker.  I think the only time I use flour is to make gravy or thicken stew.  {L note: we found out from Yoriko — on the Uji trip — that 100% buckwheat flour noodles are really hard to do. Our teacher yesterday let us use a 30% bread flour/70% buckwheat mix. It was very similar to activating the gluten by kneading for bread dough. But no yeast.} It was great fun, though, to try to get the ball of soba dough to be really, really smooth and then to roll it out to the thinnest possible square.  Learned a cool trick of folding edge of dough over the rolling pin and then pulling the dough.  After we finally got the dough as thin as thin is, like an i thin, we folded over and began cutting.  Wow, what a major knife we had to cut with!  We used a guide, but the trick is to cut straight down, then tilt the knife to move the guide back just the right amount to ensure all the noodles look the same.  Boy, did I fail that part!  I kept having to reset my guide, I think for each noodle.  I felt a little better that Laird’s weren’t so much better than mine.  {L again: the soba knife is key. We will try to buy one or two if we can find a store. It’s ground flat on one side and the taper on the other. In my mind, I can see a brace on the end of the knife so you can quickly replicate the angle. Once an engineer, always an engineer, I guess. } We then unfolded them and what had been short noodles became long noodles.  For lunch we had our cold soba noodles and tempura onion/carrot/parsley.  It was yummy, but I believe I prefer commercial noodles to my homemade ones.  Then we went to the great market, whose name we can’t remember and can’t find the right map to tell you.  Turns out, the taxi driver kept that map.  Laird says call it Nishkei until we find out otherwise.  Daniel, do you know?  It’s like the Grand Bazaar in Istanbul, only newer and cleaner.  It has everything you could possibly want, except perhaps a present for Theo who we know will not wear a yukata or eat strange food.  Still searching for you, my dear one.

We came back to the hotel and decided pretty late in the afternoon to go to Arashiyama.  Oh, my, it is what one thinks of Japan:  on the river, backdrop of mountains, many, many temples and bamboo forests.  And thousands of tourists.  We took a rickshaw ride and our guide, Ryo, was marvelous — very cute and VERY fit.  He spoke pretty good English, lived in Italy for several years, had been a professional skier.  What a beautiful, beautiful place Arashiyama is!  Beautiful traditional houses — and land, space, sky.  The first real scenery we’ve seen in a wide sky — like all big cities, Kyoto’s sky is hemmed in by buildings; Osaka’s by container ship gantries and buildings.  Also so lovely in amongst the bamboo, oxygen pouring into us.  We wanted to go to the Tenryuji temple, but there was not enough time, alas.  I wish we could skip the sake tour and go there this afternoon.  Town is famous for tofu because the water, the air are so pure.  Rightfully so, for dinner we had tofu and more tofu and teoke yuba.  OMG, it was so good!  I don’t mind tofu, but I’ve never raved about it before.  I cannot tell you how wonderful it was — and yuba, the skin skimmed off when making tofu, is amazingly good.  Not a fan so much of the custard with a piece of fish at the bottom.  Or the “dessert”, some weird gelatinous thing that feels like uni (sea urchin) in the mouth, or like tongue, only softer.  These are not textures I like.  That’s a yuck for me.  Laird liked it, thought it was the best thing on his tray.

There was an amazing, soul-thrilling exhibit in the train station called the Kimono Forest.  It was hundreds of light tubes scattered around the station with what might have been papers inside — all like kimono fabrics.  Sia, you would have been SO HAPPY to see it!  Talk about color and pattern!  Just walking among them made me want to stay there all night.  I wished for a sleeping bag and the absence of tourists.

We finally got a taxi for the ride back to hotel.  Some of them have automatic door openers on the back doors but the driver was a bit too ready to go and pushed the button too soon and tried to shut the door on my ankle.  When we got back to the hotel, it was quite swollen.  Luckily it went down overnight, but, boy, is my body over walking and standing and sitting.  I may or may not get to the sake factory today — it takes an hour to get there and I don’t even like sake.  Time to take some drugs.

Yesterday we went to cooking class with two Australians, one Austrian and one Swiss and had a great time making the little dishes for bento boxes.  We learned how to make tomago, rolled egg (gotta get the pan!); gomaae, a Japanese spinach dish; maki sushi with the rolled egg, processed crab, kombo and maybe something else; teriyaki chicken and tempura.  They made the miso soup.  We made dashi and I will have to clarify what I said yesterday about dashi when we have our Welcome Us Back dinner.  We also learned some terrific tricks of the cooking trade to make everything turn out much better — like flouring your tempura ingredients and letting them sit before dipping in tempura batter and frying.  And we learned that “teri” in Japanese means shiny.  And other things.  It was all MUCHO DELICIOUS!  We felt very pleased and accomplished by the end of it.  I loved all their dishes and cooking chopsticks and they had the cutest little soy sauce containers that you pressed on the top for each bit of soy sauce — much easier to control than using regular container.  Oh, yeah, and you put a few drops of soy sauce on the spinach and then massage it before putting it into the sesame dressing.

I was hoping to get one of those myself, a massage, when we got back to the hotel, but they only come at night.  We walked to cooking class and overshot our location by a couple of blocks and then stood most of the class time, so I was ready for someone to help me out.  We waited until ofuro (bath) opened at whatever time, Laird worked on some data project he’s involved in and I read and napped.  He went first to reconnoiter and I went afterwards.  The baths at the hotel are sex-separated.  Because we were going early, Laird’s side was empty for him and there was only one other woman when I went.  It was lovely and relaxing, but I think I prefer Turkish bath.  I love that wonderful large heated stone circle to lie on — though to be loofa’d by a Turkish bath attendant is a skin peeling experience, believe you me!  Afterwards, I tried the massage chairs they had in the reception area but it was all in Japanese and I finally had to give up because when the back massager worked it was way too hard.  Apparently the down arrow didn’t mean NOT SO HARD.  But I loved having calves and shoulders squeezed.  It wasn’t until the end that I discovered the the hand holes, so I didn’t get them squeezed, or whatever would go on in there.

We walked around for awhile and found an Indian-Nepalese-Kashmiri restaurant.  All the independent restaurants appear to be very small.  Must be hard to make a living with so few tables.  The food was good and we happily did not overeat.  Our time there was accompanied by a silent TV showing flirty amorous dancing with lots of pops and locks and pelvic thrusts while looking soulfully at each other.  Oh, god, I’m old!

Today is soba cooking class.  Hmmmm.  Me.  Cutting soba noodles.  Well, maybe.  Hope they have a cheater grid or my soba will be very ugly.  I could not cut a straight line to save my soul.

Yesterday was a full one to say the least.  We took buses, trains and feets to go see a tea “plantation” (not like you saw in Elephant Walk, more like an in-town big garden) and its matcha factory in Uji, the 2nd biggest tea-growing region in Japan.  We had a lovely tea ceremony.  Everything is Matcha in Uji!  I was so proud of myself because I recognized that the tea bushes in some rows were different than others.  They were hybridized from original.  They had one tea bush that was at least 300 years old, might be 600 years old.  While walking down by the river (beautiful place, too bad we aren’t here in cherry blossom time), there was an old, old weeping cherry — probably knew that tea bush when they were both young.  What a labor intensive and skill-based business tea is!  From leaf pickers to stem pickers to grinders — though now they have machinery to do the grinding, we got to try our hand at grinding by hand.  HARD WORK.  Our hosts have won national awards for their tea.   After lunch at a little place that makes its soba noodles by hand using 100% soba flour, not like most soba that has about 20% wheat flour to make it easier to work with,  They also hand cut the soba noodles and they all look the same, and like factory cut ones.  I can’t imagine that skill at all — since I can only cut big chunks of anything.  I think we came back to Kyoto, but neither of us is sure of that, and I think we were in Inari (pronounced in-a-ri, not E-na-ri as I have always said) area, but, really, how would a roundeyes know???.  Anyway, we went to a dashi workshop.  Now, we talk about another labor-, time- and skill-intensive business.  Dashi is broth made of bonito flakes and kombu.  We learned how to make bonito flakes and you would not believe how hard bonito becomes after boiling, drying and infecting with mold (like blue cheese mold, she said).  The piece we were given to try our hands at making flakes was literally rock hard.  You would never identify it as fish or food.  And it is hard to flake, too.  Yet another skill that we don’t have down.  Here’s what we learned:  you don’t boil dashi.  You make it at 60 degrees C.  First, you must steep the kombu (seaweed) for at least two hours, or even overnight if you want.  When ready, you bring the kombu water up to just under a boil and add the bonito shavings and turn off the burner.  Take out the flakes, strain the remainder and you have dashi.  Add some miso paste (Daniel, she did not have a miso muddler, she used a fine strainer and a kitchen utensil whose name I cannot remember at this moment, it has rubber tip (I’m not sure hers was rubber) on a handle — what the hell is its name?!? — to melt the miso) and there you are:  miso soup.  Miso soup the way it is supposed to be, not miso soup made with water, but with dashi.  Both Yoriko, our guide, and the woman teaching us (we didn’t get her name) were scurrilous about young people who make miso soup with water.  Bah!, they said, lazy people!  This workshop makes an instant dashi that while not as rich and deep as real dashi, still is way more flavorful than water.  Daniel, we got several sheets about kombu, bonito, etc, etc, and it appears we left them there.  We will have to see if we can get them back somehow so you can see.

Our next jaunt was to Fushimi Inari-Taisha monument — a shrine dedicated to rice and sake.  The shrine goes all the way up a mountain with the walk filled with torii, kind of memorial “gates”.  They were built to commemorate donations to the shrine, with the name of the donor (probably nowadays most likely companies rather than individuals).  Getting there, we walked a long street filled to the gills with food vendors and tourist shops.  All over there were young women and men dressed in traditional kimono and whatever name of men’s outfit is (Yukata).  They rent them!  There were several businesses vying for customers to come rent their outfits.  For women, such rental comes with a hairdo, too, that includes hair decorations.  Beautiful colors and patterns, but Yoriko said they were not good quality.  I guess if you’re only renting it, you don’t care that much about quality.

Another train, another bus and we were back at our hotel, dead-dog tired!  We were going to take ofuro (bath) at hotel, but we couldn’t make ourselves move that much.  Perhaps tonight.  Today is cooking class and it is almost time.  We have to walk to the cooking school, so will have to take extra time to ensure we find it.

OK, we started to doubt we would ever get here. Here’s Laird’s email on the subject:

The trip to Japan was, on the whole, brutal. Our initial flight out of ABQ was delayed almost two hours by weather in Dallas. We were transferred to another American flight to LAX, where we stayed in the airport for about 6 hours waiting for the flight to Honolulu. We sat on that flight at the ramp for almost two hours, until the thunder showers had passed. So we didn’t get into Honolulu to the hotel until 1:00 am local time (about five hours behind Santa Fe.) We had to be at the airport by 8:15 am. The Scoot Airlines flight to Osaka was uneventful, but long – about 8+ hours in the air. It took a little time to figure out how to get to the hotel, and eventually decided to take a taxi. The cost of the taxi was 1 ½ times the cost of the night in the hotel. I did a very poor job of selecting a hotel near the airport. Jonelle’s back is hurting a lot, but we wandered out into Osaka last evening and found an udon shop, where we had a light dinner. Scoot is a “non-frills” airline – noticeably cheaper for the Honolulu to Osaka flight, but we paid for everything else, including checked luggage, water, food. We are supposed to be picked up by the program at 12:00 or 1:00 to be driven to the hotel in Kyoto. Last night, our clocks were totally unset, and we did not sleep well.

Now me: by the time we got to Osaka we’d been awake since 6:30 a.m. on Thursday the 12th. We got to Osaka on Sunday, crossing the dateline. Turns out, we’re way to tiredly stupid to tell how long it was other than A LOT of hours. After “dinner”, we went to bed. Well, I did. After taking one or two of every sleep aid I brought with me (that would be about 6 or 8 packages of assorted aids), I finally went to sleep. In the middle of the night, Laird gets up, tells me he needs me to hold the door open because he has to go get the car. I’m going: what the hell are you talking about?!? OK, no, I didn’t do that because he was freaking me out. He kept mumbling and I kept saying, Laird, we are in Japan. We do not have a car. Are you dreaming? Are you awake? He shushed me, but finally, having found his pants, sat back down on the bed and saying he had to go find Molly. I told him again we were in Japan, didn’t have a car and Molly was at home. Finally, he said. Oh, I guess I don’t have to go get her and fell back into bed asleep. Whew! Sometime also in the middle of the night I had the most wonderful dream about Hilary Clinton — it was so real, I am now sure that I have, in fact, met her. We had a long, long talk and she was just so friendly and present with me. She started out with a puppy, but I don’t know what happened to it during the time we were talking. As we were having a great time, Laird and a friend, I can’t recall who, came in and started building some weird ladder thing that they used to climb up to the top windows, way far up on a very high wall. They just stood there looking down on us. Laird does not remember meeting Hilary, though I introduced them.

Now, we have had a wonderful Japanese breakfast buffet and are waiting around for our ride. I think I have done permanent damage to my right butt cheek after being on planes and in airports for the hours and hours it took to get here. Every time I try to move it screams. Turns out, butt cheek screams are REALLY, REALLY LOUD.

From what Laird said, he might not have liked Scoot airlines as much as I did. Everyone we dealt with, from check-in through cabin crew were really friendly, nice and wanted to be helpful. We’re pretty low-maintenance travelers, don’t ask for much, but I liked that they would bring you anything you wanted, even if we did have to pay for it. I recommend traveling on Scoot. I was also relieved to know that when we got to Honolulu, our shuttle driver knew Scoot, that it was actually an airline (used to be Tiger airlines) and not some joke played on us by Travelocity.

One thing I love about Japan: they don’t know about tipping. Another thing: the toto toilets.

Can’t wait to get to Kyoto, get unpacked and start our real adventure. Our room here in Osaka is VERY SMALL. I have the fear that so is our room in Kyoto. Tokyo may be even smaller. It instantly reminded us of our room in London after coming from Laird’s year in Ekaterinburg and my month there. We had to walk on our luggage to get to the bathroom. Really.

So more later. Love from the Far East, jm and lg