Golden Week 1: Osaka

My mom and dad came to Japan for ten days over Golden Week. Golden Week is always at the end of April and beginning of May and is when several national holidays land on the same week. Typically you can use two vacation days to get a full nine-day vacation.

For the first two-thirds of the trip, we crammed my parents into our tiny apartment and made it our home base from which we did regional sightseeing. We took advantage of a great train pass, called the Kansai Thru Pass, that let us have travel unlimited for two days.

We spent our first day going to Osaka, and we sure got our money's worth! We started the day at Umeda Sky Building, a great place to take in a view of the city.

After that we went to Osaka Castle. It was actually my first time there, even though I have been to Himeji Castle six times! Himeji Castle is one of Japan's most famous, and the best part about it is that its interior looks completely original. You get to walk to the top barefoot up the wooden steps that samurai walked up hundreds of years ago. Osaka Castle has a museum-like interior, including an elevator, but the castle grounds are much more expansive. It was definitely worth the visit.

We went out of our way to visit Bird Coffee, the hip cafe owned by the very hip Truck Furniture company. We got there around 3 p.m. but still had to wait 45 minutes to get a table! My croque madame sandwich and iced coffee was worth the wait.

Finally, we went to the Osaka Aquarium, or Kaiyukan, which I understand to be the second largest aquarium in the world. It's most famous for its gigantic, multi-floor tank, which utilizes massive panes of 1-foot thick acrylic glass and is home to a whale shark and manta ray among lots of other amazing creatures. I recommend it to anyone passing through Osaka.

This owl was part of a random Egypt exhibit

Addicted to Dots: Yayoi Kusama

We went to The National Museum of Art, Osaka two weekends ago to see an exhibit of Yayoi Kusama's art titled "Eternity of Eternal Eternity." Kusama is one of Japan's most famous modern artists, especially known for her use of polka dots. The exhibit was well worth the trip, and we really enjoyed the color/dot overload.

Anniversary Dinner

March 6 was our second anniversary. We spent the afternoon in Nishinomiya, where we did a little shopping for presents for friends, and we bought some new plates and bowls for ourselves. We decided a while ago that it would be fun to slowly purchase Japanese ceramics while we are here, so we have a nice little collection to bring home with us.

For dinner, we went to a new restaurant, Les Legumes, the  website of which I discovered on accident several months ago. The restaurant was too new to have a rating on the popular Japanese restaurant site we have been using, but their website had great pictures and the food sounded good. Les Legumes is French for 'the vegetables,' and the cuisine was Japanese-inspired French (or French-inspired Japanese?) with a heavy focus on organic vegetables. All their veggies come from one farm in Tamba, where the wild boar festival was.

Dinner consisted of a course of vegetarian hors d'oeuvres (including Japanese pickles), boiled vegetables, potato soup, a lamb chop and veggies for the main course, and ginger cake and crème brûlée with coffee for dessert. Everything was at least very good, but the hors d'oeuvres, main course, and coffee were fantastic! After dinner, we walked to Beer Cafe Barley, which is one of the only places in the prefecture serving craft beer. Expensive it is (especially in Japan), but worth it on a special occasion.

Making the most of small spaces

Unlike in the States, toilets in Japan are often in their own room, separate from the shower, bathtub, etc. These small toilet rooms usually include their own sinks, crammed into a tight space. Sometimes the sink is even built into the toilet, so that you can wash your hands while the tank refills.

In the case of our toilet room, there was a tiny sink with a broken spigot when we moved in. A maintenance man promptly replaced the spigot but chose to use an industrial model designed to connect to an outdoor hose. For a long time the sink went unused until we finally thought of a better use: a Totoro garden to match our bathroom decor! Making the most of a small home in Japan means making the most of every small space.

Cowboy Curry

We stumbled upon Cowboy Curry the other day on Tabelog, the Japanese equivalent of Urbanspoon. We've tried to discover restaurants on Tabelog several times before but found that Japanese food critics are not extreme enough in their reviews. Most restaurants sit very close to three stars, right in the middle of the five-star rating system. Perhaps it's the Japanese desire to be humble or to avoid confrontation, but looking at a webpage of  almost nothing but three-star reviews doesn't help one decide at all which restaurant are worth going to! The two highest rated restaurants in Miki are only 3.44 stars. Three of our favorite restaurants in Miki include a ramen shop called Hoppoya, an Indian curry restaurant called Shankar, and a Japanese barbecue place called Kashima, and they are rated 3.0, 3.0, and 3.11 respectively.

Cowboy Curry is a 3.54. Technically it is just over the border from Miki into West Kobe, but it's only a few minutes drive from our house. We noticed it the other day, because its 3.5+ rating gave it orange stars on the map instead of the usual yellow stars like the other restaurants in Miki. When we clicked through, we were shocked by the pictures of the unique and delicious looking roast beef curry (which we didn't get to try because they were sold out for the day), and especially by the cowboy theme and decor. It triggered in us the 'This place looks way too cool to be in Miki!' response.

It turned out to be even cooler than we had hoped for. We were so unprepared that we didn't have our good camera, so the few photos I took are from the iPhone. We also failed to get a picture of the boss and his partner, who donned cowboy hats and leather vests. The boss also did card tricks at our table before we left! Both he and his partner (pun intended?) asked us how we heard about the restaurant. It only opened in November, so I guess the word is getting out slowly. The boss used to be a painter at Universal Studios Japan in Osaka, so he designed the interior himself and sourced every piece of Americana in Japan, which probably cost a fortune! Becky said it felt like a BBQ restaurant from home, and we even spotted an Oklahoma Portland Cement sack with "Ada, OK" emblazoned on it!

The curry itself was wonderful. Becky tried the mushroom curry, and our friend Philip and I tried the curry with a piece of hamburger in it. In my humble opinion, it was probably the best Japanese curry I have ever had. This is largely because most Japanese curry I have had tastes very similar, and this curry totally diverged from the norm. The three of us thought there were hints of chocolate and wine in it, giving it quite a unique flavor. The boss happily told us we were right and that the curry also included bourbon and cola! He said it was inspired by how he thought an American (and presumably a cowboy) might re-imagine Japanese curry.

The cheesecake was so good that it was almost gone before I could get a picture!

Becky decided to try the cheesecake for dessert. Japanese cheesecake is typically more similar to American spongecake, often times lacking the satisfaction and gooey richness one hopes for when indulging in cheesecake. To our surprise, this cheesecake was legit and tasted like a homemade American cheesecake. When we asked the boss about it, he told us it was a Kraft recipe!

All in all, Cowboy Curry is a little bit of magic in Miki (officially Kobe), and we plan to be regular customers.

Intruderz!

Intruder Cat 1, tentatively being called 'Shina,' short for cinnamon

A few weeks ago, two black cats appeared on our porch. Apparently, the word had got out that there was cat food there. So we started giving the kittens only enough food to eat in one sitting, so there weren't any leftovers for strangers to eat. The black cats came less frequently, so we started getting lacks again. Yesterday, we heard strange meows outside, and throughout the evening we observed three new intruder cats trying to bully the kittens away and eat their food! We haven't seen Akamimi, their mother, in several days.

Intruder Cat 2: 'Stumpyriltskin'

We're a little concerned the cat fighting might start bugging the neighbors and threaten the fragile kitty habitat we have created. But at least it makes for entertaining evenings in Miki!

"Saves uz from teh intruderz!"

New Wheels!

First things first. Our car is not pretty. I think the Honda Fit itself is a cute little hatchback. Unfortunately, the paint on ours has faded into what we have started calling "Old Lipstick Red." The rear passenger side door, quarter panel, and rear bumper are a much brighter red, so it was clearly in a little accident at some point.

Other than that, it drives great, and it's quite roomy inside. It has a 1.3 liter engine, too small to be available in the US. It is a 2001 model, and it has 55,000 miles on it, quite low for 11 years by American standards, but I'm told quite high by Japanese standards!

The car is a long-term rental, which we got quite affordably. It is my first time having a car in Japan and my first time driving outside the United States. Over the years, not needing a car was something I often sided as a plus about living in Japan. But that experience was based on where I had lived, and it is true for the majority of the population that lives in urban areas with accessible and affordable public transport.

After moving to Miki, we learned that it does not fall into this category. It is a sprawling town with mediocre bus routes and the most expensive train line in Japan. My current job requires me to travel to three different branches of my school, which means I need to spend a lot of time walking and waiting for trains when driving would be much more convenient. There are also many places around town that are quite exhausting to get to by bicycle, and having a car will really change our lives.

Lastly, while Japanese tollways can be extremely expensive, local trips to Kobe will be so affordable now. For example, IKEA Kobe is about an hour and a half away by car or by train. The round trip cost of gasoline is $6 or $7, but for both of us to go by train is almost $50!

We spent our first night with a car getting our favorite ramen across town. Definitely expect some Japanese road trips in the future!