A Few Pictures

This will be a short entry. I forgot to drop these into the Nikko entry I just did. Anyway, here you go... We don't have off work for Thanksgiving... so we celebrated today. I sneaked out of work two hours early on Friday so Denny and I could go to Japan Meat to get a chicken (or maybe a turkey). I wasn't impressed with Big Meat butcher.


Check out our Gi-normous chicken we found!!! I asked for a big chicken in perfect Japanese to the shop worker and he took me to a huge piece of beef. I am pretty sure I said it right. Anyway, I got my point across the second time and he took me to the chickens. He proceeded to talk about turkey and I got excited. I asked if he had one and he said no... Nice.


HA HA!!! just kidding, they were small. I was able to get Tyson Cornish hens or the larger chicken on the plate. I tried both so we knew for the next time we were at Japan Meat. This was about $20 in chicken.





Elin's center piece.











I tried to get a reference to how big the chickens were. I used my carving knife to show that it was actually bigger than the chickens. They were tasty, though.





I also found frozen green beans - for the first time. We have been here for 8 months and this is the first sign of canned or frozen green beans. They tasted like they came straight out of the garden.









At Japan meat, I have been seeing large steaks. The price is about 1000 yen ($12) for a big steak. I don't think that is too bad considering it is about 1.5 pounds - maybe 1.5 inches thick. Our whole family can eat off of one of them if we have a few side dishes. I bought 5 steaks, but two were smaller pieces. We grill out about once every week or two. Japanese people don't seem to grill at their houses much. They probably think we are weird since we do it regularly. Anyway... can't wait to eat this one. I brought my vacuum sealer so I went all out buying meat for the month. Japan Meat is kind of a haul to get there so I usually spend a lot when I go. Along with the steaks, I got 4 packs of chicken thighs and ground pork. Not sure what I am going to do with the ground pork, but it was on sale at half off so I could not resist. I think we might try our hand at making gyoza.

Nikko Soba Festival

Last weekend, we had planned on not doing anything since it was only a few days before payday (ran really low last month...). Sunday morning, our friends, the Mitani family called and asked if we wanted to go to a soba festival. Soba is noodles made from buckwheat. They are very popular in Japan. We could not resist tagging along.


I don't think that I have shown gas prices. I took a picture while we were milling around getting ready to go. The top line (red) is regular. The yellow block shows high octane. The regular is 127 yen per liter. That's about $1.53 per liter. There are about 4 liters in a gallon. So basically, we are paying about $6.12 per gallon for regular gas. This is one reason why I ride my bicycle every day. Based on a rough calculation, I have put about 850 miles on it just riding to and from work every day. The temperature in the morning can drop to freezing, but it hasn't been much lower than that. A hooded sweatshirt over a T-shirt is enough to keep me warm.


This is us getting off the highway at the Nikko exit. The Mitani's are in the car in front of us. We tried to get some pictures of the leaves changing but it was a little difficult.





This is a shot from the main road that we took looking for a parking spot. It seemed like there were a ton of cars, but not so many people. We had to park about 2 miles from the festival and take a bus in.




The bridge we crossed to get to the parking lot. We thought it was odd the way it was designed. It kind of leans...






Picture of the mountains. As you have seen before in the blog, Nikko is a mountainous area. I have heard mixed messages about hunting here. It seems like there is a LOT of unused land in the mountain areas. Kind of frustrating to not be able to hunt. I know there are deer here....



I HAVE PROOF!!! This is a large hoof print next to the main road. There was woods on either side of the road so the deer must cross it sometimes.





And I saw some droppings. Sorry if you are squeamish. I am probably going to get in trouble for this. The 'parade' pictures I added a few weeks ago didn't draw any negative feedback from Elin, but this might.




The Mitani family and the Parkers. One of the bus attendants took our picture for us. It was a little chilly, but not so bad.






There was a shallow river moving along the main road. It is so shallow that the weeds cover it pretty well. I didn't know it was there until I walked close to is.





More landscape pictures.












Here are a few trees turning colors. I think we are a few weeks late for the best colors, but we are told that it gets really crowded that time of year. We heard it can take 3 hours to get up the switchback road that usually takes about 15 minutes.








Denny and Yuki on the bus.

















Savannah and Lisa on the bus. Emma is in the foreground. The Mitani's spent a lot of time in the US. I think this may be part of the English sounding names. I'll have to ask.







Small creek I saw as we were crossing a bridge getting to the festival.
















Denny slurping up some soba noodle broth. Drinking from your bowl is acceptable manners in Japan... we love it.











Savannah and her soba with ebi fry (fried shrimp) on top. It was really tasty.
















Here is a closer picture of the soba dish.












We were able to get another person to snap a picture of the whole crew.











More landscape pictures.












One of the bigger clocks that I have seen in my time.













I could not resist taking this one. I saw them coming my way and could not believe how short her...coat?... was. It looked as if she was only wearing a coat. I could see no other clothing on her. Kind of looked like a flasher.















Fish on sale. I am not sure if these were cooked, dried or just for sale.











The sign says "2010 Nikko Soba Matsuri". Matsuri is a festival. The Japanese find many reasons to have small festivals. It is interesting.










Savannah and Lisa in a heart balloon.


















Denny riding a sign... once again, Denny being Denny.















Savannah riding the bus back to the parking lot.

















The sun was starting to come down at about 4:00 or so. It was making the clouds turn colors. I didn't realize how the clouds looked until I put the blog together. I think this looks pretty cool.










Savannah posing in front of the mountains.
















Picture of some weeds in front of the river.















One of the shop workers rolling out the soba dough. They did this in a small plastic lined hut. I think it was to ensure no bugs or germs get to the noodles, not sure, though.

The same worked hand-cutting the noodles.




The kids playing 'anpanman' which is a popular Japanese cartoon.




Walking on the rocks.

Monkey Business

On Saturday, we went to Round 1. It is basically a game/sports complex. There are 4 floors with a roof section. They have a bowling alley on the second floor. We spent the three hours at the game section. Well... there was more than games...

I thought I got more pictures at Round 1 than I did, but I must have been busy playing "all you can play video games". It was like Chuck-E-Cheese without the tokens.



Elin and the Denny roller skating. Savannah is off to the right somewhere, but I missed her in the picture.






They have an indoor fish pond... yes, there are real fish in here. Denny and I each caught one. Denny's was bigger so he won. Savannah really wanted to catch one, but they just would not take her bait. There will be other times.




This is the claw game area. They also have slots and other gaming machines. It has to be gambling because there were a lot of people playing.





After we were done with Round 1. We went to the Utsunomiya Monkey Restaurant. Yep, you heard me right... a Monkey restaurant. This is Elin, Denny and Maddie outside the restaurant.




Savannah, Emma, Denny and Maddie waiting for their grub. When we showed up, the owners seemed really concerned. We tried to understand, but never did quite figure things out. The only thing we could think afterwards was that they were serving a set meal. Basically, the menu was already set and they knew the kids would not come close to eating a full serving. We think they were trying to tell us that they should eat from our plates. After a 10 minute struggle, we were seated next to the stage. Whew! I thought we were going to have to go somewhere else.


I don't usually put food on the blog, but here are a few pictures of what we had. This is shashimi - raw fish. I think it was tuna (maguro), but there were two distinct colors so I am not sure.





They served a large cast iron pan with cabbage, onions, chicken and sauce to cook at the table.







These are gyoza. I think I may have put a picture of gyoza on the blog at one point, but I can't remember. They are like pierogies or pot stickers. These were deep fried and they had vegetables and meat inside. A little like spring rolls.

This is nabe (na-bay). I think it is more of a method of cooking rather than the ingredients. This pot had pork, vegetables and broth that you cooked at the table.

This is edamame (ed-a-ma-may). Basically soy beans. I think you boil them and then add salt. I don't think you are supposed to eat the pods. We just eat the beans inside. They are surprisingly tasty. This is a typical dish that they provide as a free appetizer.

For those of you who have never seen a squat toilet... here you go. Take a look for a while. See if you can figure out the best way to use this thing. When you figure it out, simulate it. I bet it is harder than you think. If you do figure it out... LET US KNOW!!! I had the pleasant experience of needing to use the facilities on a train one time. I was not happy to see the squatter as I entered the toilet room...

What would a monkey restaurant be without monkeys? Just another restaurant... We were fortunate enough to find out that they had babies. One was a baby girl and one was a boy. Every time the boy got out of the cage... he took off and hid. The girl allowed everyone to hold her and feed her apples. You can see the excitement in their eyes, can't you?

Denny with the baby monkey.

Savannah with the monkey.

A close up on the baby girl.

Elin with the monkey.

And yes... they got bing ones too!!!

At the end, they allowed the monkeys to jump on our backs so we could get pictures. Most of what I took were movies so there are a few below.

The owner kept telling the monkey to smack me on the head. She must of hit me about 15 times. It was hilarious.

Denny has the monkey on his back. She is just about as big as he is...

I was surprised that Savannah allowed this. She was nervous the whole time about the monkeys. You could tell she wanted to do it. After everyone took a turn, she felt brave enough to allow it to jump on her back.

Some of their decorations.












Bull riding at Round 1 - Denny's turn.





Savannah's turn at the bull.





Baby monkeys in their cage. The one freaking out is the boy.





The girl monkey eating her apple (ringo).





Monkey on a basketball.





And she can use stilts too...





The sexy dance is what they said... Not sure who found this sexy...






This was a skit that the big male monkey did. Basically, he was fishing. He went through several items - fish, eel, bananas, etc and threw everything back. The man says "iranai" (ee-ra-na-ee) each time he threw something back. Iranai means "I don't need it". The last thing that he went fishing for was 1000 yen ($12). He stuck this in his pocket. It was funny.





The girl monkey smacking Denny on the head.

Since it was a set menu, we were not really sure what we were getting into. The bill ended up being about 9000 yen ($110) per family. A little expensive, but we all ate as much as we wanted and Elin had 2 or 3 beers on top of the food. I am sure the beer made the show all that much better.

Hope you enjoyed this as much as we did.