Words and photos from around the world.

Kyoto

Mon, 12 Jan 2009 22:51:09 -0500

A cold, but sunny Sunday afternoon in Kyoto. First visit for me, stupid should have gone here years earlier, one of the nicer places to go and not that far from Nagoya. Temples, bamboo forest, the Golden Pavillon, a Yu-Tofu lunch, zen gardens...all from an afternoon visit, many more places to visit. My hostess was Yoko Morita the accounting manager from Hosco. She’s since been back three times in a month to have more Yu-Tofu.

K. Yairi Guitars

Sun, 11 Jan 2009 23:13:26 -0500

Mr K. Yairi has been building guitars since he was 15 and judging from the twinkle in his eyes he’s still enjoying it at 75. Doesn’t speak any English but it didn’t matter even without interpretation, easy enough to point at tools, wood and guitars. The factory makes 300 guitars a month and has been added onto for the past 60 years. Many buildings with wood stored everywhere, in the rafters, outside under tires holding down tin roofs, in the smallest of attics...all over and he knew each spot.

Very comfortable place to work with a really nice lunch and concert room. Good guitars, not great, no longer imported to the states, all the production is for Japan.

One thing I’ve never seen, or heard, before; there wasn’t any music in the factory areas however when you went in the climate controlled room where the shaped necks and bodies were located they played loud music constantly, go in the area where finished guitars are located and they play loud classical music constantly...they believe it helps the resonance of the wood. Hey, can’t hurt, unless of course you worked there everyday.

And the “sexy” guitar...

Tebasaki Dinner

Sun, 11 Jan 2009 22:46:22 -0500

In November I was in New York city and the boys from Athens; Louie Lane, Jake Wentworth and Asa Eslocker took me to the Japanese Tapas restaurant, Kasadela . Which meant we had many small Japanese dishes with the specialty of the house being chicken wings. Now I’m not a big wing eater but these were fantastic. Asa and I couldn’t stop eating them. Turns out the recipe originated in Nagoya Japan where I was heading in December. I gave my host a heads up that I wanted to try the “tebasaki” wings. I think they thought I’d lost me mind as these are some low rent food places, I just wanted to go to the source and figured the wings would be better than the New York ones...I was wrong.

We went to two places in Nagoya on my last night looking for chicken wings as good at Kasadela. Guess what? NYC has better wings, at least at the two places we went. First was a very greasy spoon, sat at the bar and watch the Chinese guy drink his beer and cook. Thought that was fine although it was early in evening...then he started smoking, haven't seen that in Japan. Luckily they had two big greasy exhaust fans in the wall.

Now all that was fine, the wings were pretty good, although they lacked the pepper sauce that Kasadela does so well, then the side dishes started showing up. (Remember this was the dirtiest restaurant I've ever been to in Japan.) The beef stomach in sauce and eel liver was fine, however I wasn't ready for raw chicken...I'm still not getting that, but I ate it, it was good, I'm still here...in hindsight I'm not sure I'd do that again.

Second place: http://www.yamachan.co.jp/index.html Is a large chain, wings all over the city, much spicier than the first place. I liked the first place better but as I said Kasadela has them beat. However the deep fried oyster were fantastic, but then they were everywhere I had them in Japan.

So if you’re in New York it’s worth a trip to Kasadela: www.kasadela.com

A local Sushi restaurant

Thu, 1 Jan 2009 19:19:57 -0500

Imagine having a first class sushi restaurant a few blocks from your house that’s owned by a husband and wife who go to the fish market everyday and serve up some of the best sushi I’ve every had in their very small dining room and bar. Tom Hosokawa took me, his wife, son Shinji and Yoshi to his local place to eat, if only there was a place like this in Athens, make that Ohio, I’d be there all the time.

Food highlight was the fresh abalone, the real highlight was the charm of eating at a very small, very friendly local mom and pop place to eat. Hope these survive, sure wish we had more places like this.

I loved the umbrellas...

Karaoke night in Japan

Sun, 28 Dec 2008 22:49:54 -0500

First it was the Hosco company party followed by a trip to a Karaoke box for more singing and drinking. I must be getting used to this since it was fun, of course this is easier than my first trip when I had to get up on stage in front of strangers. No matter, everyone is happy if you try.

Let’s see, first up was Blue Christmas, followed by Love Me Tender and then some Frank. I skipped over I Want to be Your Dog by Iggy...man, they have everything song and then some. Most of the folks sang in Japanese, but Kajiyama san and Shinji both sang some in English. Shinji is the pro, he sang along with every song that came up without looking at the words on the screen. We sang a few duets, never good, the solo stuff was better. Yoshi is very good, lot’s of hours spent in Karaoke bars after work.

I’ve been introduced to workers at some of the factories and after then leave someone will lean over and whisper to me “He’s a very good singer.” Then take this very seriously. If you fight it no one is happy, best to jump in and sing from the start. Of course more beer doesn’t hurt...

Beijing Duck--For the Love of Skin!

Sun, 8 Jun 2008 23:26:51 -0400

I’d been in China now for a couple of weeks, had plenty of lamb and other creatures...it was my last night, I was ready for some duck. We were downtown and it was getting late so we picked a place we’d been to before, not the best but an average Beijing Duck restaurant. I’d like to know how many ducks Beijing goes through in a day, have no idea, could it be 100,000...or more?

I do love the dish, as much for the fact that it’s all about what we’re not supposed to eat--really greasy skin! Done right it’s succulent, so what if it’s bad for you and really who says it is, just some old Meiguo doctors. This is China, do as the Chinese and love the greasy skin or the steamed pork fat (another of my all time favorites). It’s the flavor that they’re after. This wasn’t a bad duck but I’ve had better.

They bring it out and cut it at your table. You then wrap the duck in the steamed pancake with scallions, cucumber and sweet noodle sauce....mmmmmm.

That’s if for this trip....I’m going to post a few misc photos at a later date, I’ve got so many photos of food you’d think I was a food critic. I’m not a critic, just a lover of culinary adventures.

Beijing Furniture Market

Sun, 8 Jun 2008 11:13:22 -0400

Back in the city we decided to go look at some old/new furniture. There’s a furniture market located in an old warehouse, many stalls of dealers selling either refurbished old stuff or new pieces made to look old. Some nice stuff, prices weren’t bad. Christie found some stools that she liked, we couldn’t tell if they were knew or old. She ended up going to the factory after I left and found them to be old, they would take broken ones and combine them together to make a good new ones. I love the last photo of the happy factory workers.

Hot Saturday Night in Hohhot

Sat, 7 Jun 2008 20:54:01 -0400

We had a nice Korean dinner and made it back to the hotel in time to walk around the big town square. It was a hot night in Hohhot, lot’s of people out enjoying games for the kids, food, the huge video screen, sending mini hot air balloons into the sky (where do they land?), water calligraphy...really just milling around and waiting for something to happen. First we came upon this big circle of people singing and playing accordion. It was like Karaoke but of a group sing along, I think most were old patriotic songs.

Here’s a video of the singers:

During the singing a man walk up to me and in Chinese asked “Does this happen in your country?”. I had to say no, I can’t think of a time when I’ve been in a public space and this many singers got together to sing songs about their country. I liked the atmosphere here, a pleasant time for all involved except one guy who I’ll take about later.

After the singing I drifted around, Christie watch the singers, here’s another video taking 20 feet away of the surrounding events.

I love the water calligraphers, my kind of art to not leave a mark on the world. I got Christie going with the old man, she could do this for hours I think. They want you to buy the big brush, we gave him 30 RMB as a donation, a little less than $5. He refused to take, she keep shoving it in his hand, finally a crowd encourage him to take it...he stood like a little kid, dejected, he really didn’t want the money...at least he made it seem that way.

As we were finishing with him a man came up to Christie and asked her in Chinese if I would speak English with his daughter who’s learning English in school. Christie and I stood and talked with her for a couple of minutes (she didn’t know much) and Christie took started to write an address so we could mail her the photo of the two of us. I hadn’t been paying attention to anything buy her, when I looked up the crowd around us was 5 people deep, they were fascinated by the Meiguo, “American”.

Except for one big Chinese guy who started yelling at me in Chinese, I finally had to lean over and ask Christie what he was saying. He was yelling “If you didn’t donate to the earthquake victims you should leave the country now.” No one else said a word. Soon he drifted away and we started back to the hotel. As we walk people came up to me and apologized for his behavior, they wanted me to know they weren’t like that. I already knew, having had one of the warmest welcomes from people I didn’t know at all, they certainly know how to make you feel welcome. Goodbye Hohhot...

Hohhot Goat Farm

Sat, 7 Jun 2008 18:23:58 -0400

The museum closed at 5:00 and we were off to Chun Xia and Mr. Tong’s goat farm. I thought it would be hours out of town, we were there in a 1/2 hour. We were still in the Yellow River valley, farmland all around and this nice goat farm, which is the headquarters of their education area for raising goats for milk in the Huhhot area. As I mentioned Chun Xia is very well know in this field, having written a book about the best way to raise goats for milk. We saw the little room with the straw roof that she lived in for years as she learned to raise goats. Today they have a nice new building complete with a learning center.

They only have a few goats, what they’ve done is get others to join their organization and together they are all raising goats for milk. Mr. Tong hopes they have 30,000 goats in the organization in a few years, today they have 8,000.

Their son was an absolute handful, most photos he would strike a Kung Fu pose, he seemed to constantly do battle with some farmland invaders. I got the feeling that he spent a lot of time with his grandmother, who was feeding goats when we arrived. Chun Xia immediately jumped out of the car and tried to make our ride into the farm smoother by working on the road.

They showed us the packaging for the goat milk, the book, the farm...then took us to a nice Korean restaurant. Over the top hospitality for someone that you’d never met before, I hope they end up with 100,000 goats.

Inner Mongolian Museum

Sat, 7 Jun 2008 15:41:25 -0400

Imagine our surprise when we arrived at the modern airport in Hohhot, drove to the heart of the city and passed this ultra modern museum--it’s the spanking new Inner Mongolian Museum. The facility on the right is a concert hall, on the left are displays of dinosaurs and the history of Mongolia. We came back to do a race through the displays in a few hours--how come everything is on a hectic pace when trying to few art over here? Most likely because we never got on track with our times, strange however that it was always a rush...the price you pay for packing many adventures in a day, or the fun of trying to keep up with Christie. I keep thinking; let’s see she’s 5’3” and I’m 6’2”....why can’t I keep up with her...must be the Chinese food.

The museum was fantastic, a huge section (and HUGE skeleton of a dinosaur) that we had no time to absorb. I elected to skip the dinosaur, I thought American invented them. Just kidding, think about it, out in the desert and wilds of Mongolian there are hundreds of dinosaur skeleton sites, however today I didn’t have the time, wanted to see more about the history of this area.

Took me half the museum to realize that photos were allowed, I was expecting to buy a big book at the end of the tour, they didn’t have one so photos were okay. They sure had the diorama knob turned up, some fun stuff, loved the young Mao waving to his new generation. And once again the Horse Head Fiddle was front and center. The Rocket is from a space section of the museum. Worth another trip....