Takaosan Round Two

Since the leaves weren't in full color last time we went to Mt. Takao, Gen and I decided to go again. It was a good plan. This is the first thing you see when you exit the station.

The colors of the Japanese maples were just brilliant.

It was super-crowded. We had to stand in line for about a half-hour for the cable car, so I took a lot of pictures of the surrounding foliage.

This is totally out of order- this was up on the summit. Gen saw one group of girls picnicking and they had brought at least 6 bottles of wine. For 5 girls! And he said 5 were empty. Hard core. I don't know how they made it back down the mountain after that.

This was also at the beginning, near the train station.

I should be a professional photographer.

Gen actually took the one above. I had to relinquish the camera because I was sure I was about to tumble to my death, and I prefer to have both hands when I careen off the side of a mountain. See, Path 1 is wide and paved. But we had a genius idea to try Path 4, because there is a suspended bridge that looked cool on the map. However, Path 4 is neither wide nor paved, nor are there any guard rails to prevent me from falling to my death. I am a teeny bit afraid of heights. Right before that picture was taken, I was paralyzed with fear. Gen heard me whimpering and came back for me. What a gentleman.

See. totally out of order. This was the cable car. Gen said it was much better than hiking up the first half of the mountain (that's what he and Kris did last time).

Gen standing in line for the cable car.

Me on the infamous suspended bridge. I don't know why we never remember that I'm afraid of heights, mountains especially. We continually make these ill-fated forays into hiking.

Good light on that one. I can't take credit- Gen had the camera at this point too.

Tsukiji Fish Market

It took us until November, but we finally got up early enough to make it to one of Tokyo's most famous institutions- the Tsukiji Fish Market. These first few pictures were actually taken at the outside market, which is the retail market. The inside is wholesale. Above are crabs.

These are eel.

Various tuna parts. The heads are in the front. The tail is on the back right. Second from left in the back are eyeballs. And yes, people really eat all this stuff. Actually, one of the best things we've had over here was grilled tuna jaw.

Close up of the heads.

Uni (sea urchin), Kris and Gen's favorite.

Lobsters. The price (2000 yen) equals about $20 each.

Various shellfish. The had scallops bigger than my hand.

I think this is yellowfin tuna.

More tuna. This is probably bluefin.

Here I am at 6:00 am. It was early. And cold. They are breaking down the tunas behind me. We have a picture of one of the knives they use, and it is no joke, about 3 feet long. It was easily as long as my arm.

We had to get up so early because the tuna auctions are only open to visitors between 5:00-6:15 am. They used to be open all the time, but then tourists got pushy and interfered with the people actually doing their jobs, so they were closed for a while. You can't imagine how big this warehouse was. This picture is maybe 1/10 of what was there.

And now a video of the tuna auctions!

Eating with Kris

So, eating with Kris for a week was quite the challenge. Two of his favorite TV shows are No Reservations and Bizarre Foods, and I think he was trying to create a similar experience. Above are the eel spine crackers I mentioned a couple of weeks ago. They kind of look like waffle fries in the picture, don't they? I tried some of the stuff he ordered, but some was just too weird for me.

This was a little yakitori (grilled chicken) place we went to for an appetizer while waiting for a reservation. Here Kris had horse sashimi.

This is a teeny restaurant. Maybe 8 tables, plus that little counter you can see off to the left. Also, when it's warm they put crates outside to make some al fresco room.

Here we are at shabu shabu. I love this. You get a pot of broth and all the food comes out uncooked and you cook it yourself at the table. The meat is cut into super-thin slices and only takes a few seconds to cook. We came to this same place with Lindsay and AJ. Yum!

This is Kris at Mt. Takao with dango, which are mochi (pounded rice) balls that are grilled and brushed with sauce. This kind was flavored with black sesame. It was tasty.

This is a pot of chanko nabe. This is the traditional post-match meal for sumo wrestlers. Many sumo guys open chanko places after they retire. This is the "before" picture. It cooks on the table, and then after you eat all of the meat and veggies, they add rice to the broth to make "Japanese risotto." The rice is my favorite part.

We ate chanko nabe with my English class, then went out for beers after. Say cheese!

Here we are at Kris's favorite place in all the world. This is a tiny sushi counter inside the Tsukiji Fish Market. We actually got up at 4:30 am (!) to see the world-famous tuna auctions, then ate sushi for breakfast. This place seated about 12 people.

You can just point to what you want on the board and it comes with miso soup, pickles, and tea. Many of these places specialize in donburi, which is a rice bowl. The fish comes on top of the rice, rather than in rolls or individual pieces like nigiri sushi.

Here is a close up of Gen's bowl. He ordered chu-toro (medium fatty tuna) and uni (sea urchin).

This is all three lines up. Gen's is on the left, mine in the middle, and Kris's on the right. Kris got the same thing as Gen, but added ikura (salmon roe). I had regular tuna and chu-toro. Kris said this was the best meal he's ever eaten in his life.

OK, this is monja. It is not my favorite thing. It's like okonomiyaki, which is sometimes called Japanese pizza or Japanese pancake. It's a batter with cabbage and onions, and then whatever toppings you like. I like okonomiyaki, but monja has a much looser batter and it's just not my favorite. Anyway, this is what the raw ingredients look like. This is another place where you cook it yourself at the table.

Here is the okonomiyaki bowl. We got pork and egg. The monja group had cod roe and cheese.

So this is what it looks like while cooking. First you cook the veggies and meats, then you pour the batter on top. For okonomiyaki, you just mix everything up together.

Here's a shot of the monja after the batter and cheese was added. They got another type of monja after this one, but I forgot what the filling was. I also had yakisoba, stir-fried noodles. We didn't get shots of all the crazy stuff Kris tried or made us try. Let's see, there was also grilled pork liver, chicken heart, marinated shark cartilage, fried chicken cartilage, fermented fish guts, tripe, and many other things I wouldn't eat. But it was fun for Kris, so we did our job!

Mt. Takao

This is Mt. Fuji (Fuji-san in Japanese), as seen from Mt. Takao. It's really rare to get a good view of Fuji-san, so this was pretty exciting. The week after we were here, there was a big snowstorm up on Mt. Fuji, so it's probably really pretty now.

This was all Kris's idea. I didn't even know this place existed. Apparently, it's a pretty popular day trip for Tokyoites who want to see some nature. It was surprisingly crowded.

This is at the start of the climb. The beginning of the climb is really steep and they have two options for getting halfway up the mountain, a chair lift or a cable car. I chose the chair lift. Because boys are dumb, Kris and Gen decided to climb.

Here is the pretty mountain range. The leaves were just beginning to turn. The term for autumn leaves in Japanese is koyo.

This was definitely the prettiest tree.

At one of the temples. There are all kinds of temples scattered all over the mountain.

This was on the way up (apparently- I was reclining in my nifty chair lift at this point).

These guys are all over the place at Takao-san. They are the Shinto-Buddhist mountain gods.

Temple with incense smoke.

This one was very pretty, very brightly colored. On the right you can see barrels of sake, offerings to the gods.

This was so cool- look at that moon! This is looking back into Tokyo from about halfway up the mountain. The foreground is actually more suburbs. If you squint, you can start to see the skyscrapers in the back. Takao-san is a little less than an hour from Shinjuku, one of the more western stations in Tokyo.

After the climb back down. There's a little town at the base of the mountain. Good times. Gen and I are going to try to go back this weekend to see more leaves.