Breakfast Day 7
Our hotel in Niigata provided a free breakfast buffet. Like the hotel in Nagoya, it was pretty good. I had rice with seaweed and sesame seed seasoning, omelet, roasted potato, potato croquette, pineapple, cold noodle soup (cold soup isn't good in the morning), two types of fish, and tofu.
L-R: Rice, egg, croquette, potato, pineapple, cold soba soup, tofu, and fish
Lunch Day 7
Lunch was difficult. We were in the middle of Tokyo tourist town. We wanted to find a reasonably priced restaurant that wasn't awful. We picked out a little restaurant in the basement of a building that was pretty inexpensive. The menu was only in Japanese, so we figured it would be better than the tourist traps. It really wasn't. My food was just fine but Scott's tempura was really soggy. I had a bowl of rice with ground tuna sashimi with a raw egg and some vegetables; a bowl of udon; and two little bowls of vegetables.
L-R: Vegetables, ground tuna sashimi with raw egg over rice, Udon soup
Snack Day 7
We got hungry walking around Tokyo in the late afternoon and stopped for a snack. We bought a warm cake of an-pan - a pancake filled with red bean paste. Yum! And more importantly, warm on a cold rainy day.
Dinner Day 7
Dinner was ready soon after we arrived at Emiko's house. She didn't know whether I liked Japanese foods so she tried to make more "American" dishes. We had a croquette of hamburger and mushrooms in tomato soup/sauce. It was a little odd but tasty. I hate the texture of mushrooms but didn't notice them in the croquette. We also has salad and rice. Dessert was not to my taste. It was a bowl of yogurt with bananas and oranges. The yogurt and oranges were fine, but I hate bananas. I managed to quietly slip them to Scott.
Breakfast Day 8
Emiko's kindness unfortunately backfired due to my weird food preferences. She tried to cater to my American tastes. But...I just happen to dislike many typical "American" foods. This was reflected clearly in our breakfast. To explain, I hate ketchup, bananas, hot dogs, and canned vegetables. We had an egg (which I ate), salad (which I ate), toast doused in ketchup and cheese (picked at and then slipped to Scott), a banana (slipped to Scott), and soup with hot dogs and canned vegetables (gave the hot dogs to Scott and ate most of the rest). "Dessert" was a yogurt drink that is very popular with the Japanese. I thought it was nasty - too sweet - but Scott liked it well enough.
Awful yogurt drink
Morning Snack Day 8
We stopped at a rest stop on our way to Ueno Park. Since Scott ate half my breakfast, I was ravenous. We bought a warm onigiri with soy-sauce seasoned rice and no filling. It was delicious.
Lunch Day 8
We ate lunch at a restaurant at the base of Ueno Park. I ordered a bowl of ramen with shrimp tempura. Fabulous.
Afternoon Snack Day 8
After touring and freezing through Ueno Park, we had a snack at a little restaurant that reminded me of Perkin's or Denny's. Scott and I split an apple galette. We also bought unlimited cups of hot chocolate, from one of those automated coffee/hot chocolate machines. It was cheap but warm and that's all that mattered at the time.
Dinner Day 8
Dinner was at the restaurant in the onsen. Scott ordered okonomiyaki. That looked really good to me, but the yakisoba sounded better, so I ordered that. My yakisoba was much better than the version from 7-11. Both of our plates were quite small so I ordered a daikon (white radish) salad. We also split a plate of takoyaki, fried dough with octopus. It was really good.
Okonomiyaki
Yakisoba
Daikon Salad
Takoyaki - The beige flakes on top are fish flakes
The inside of the takoyaki - the octopus is in the right
Dessert was some of the mochi that we gave Emiko.
Black sesame mochi
Breakfast Day 9
Once again, my picky anti-American food tastes came back to bite me. Breakfast was from a convenience store this morning. Emiko wasn't feeling well, so her boyfriend grabbed some takeaway sandwiches and other items. They weren't very good, but it was kind of him to provide for us. There was egg salad sandwiches and tuna sandwiches. I hate canned tuna, so steered clear of those and ate several egg salad sandwiches (even though I also hate mayonnaise). There was also salad with tuna (skipped that too) and a creamy pasta salad (tried some, but had too much mayonnaise). The only part I really liked was the yogurt with jam.
Yogurt pre-jam (definitely not good without some jam)
Tuna salad and pasta salad
Tuna and egg sandwiches
Lunch Day 9
We ate lunch at the home of a family who Scott had known for years. We had a wide selection of drinks to choose from and a little wafer cookie for an appetizer. They cooked Mexican food - either because they worried I wouldn't like Japanese food or because it was fun to cook something ethnic. They made tacos - the ground beef flavored with taco seasoning was just like the tacos I grew up with. For the taco, there was also tomatoes, cheese, lettuce, tortillas, and salsa. They also served hot dogs and fried chicken. Even though the ground beef was good and familiar-tasting, I didn't like the meal that much. My favorite was the fried chicken, which I wouldn't eat at home. My funk wasn't due to the food really...it was mostly due to sitting with a large group of strangers who didn't speak English for 3 hours.
On the bright side, they did serve a delicious strawberry cake for dessert. Scott warned me that the cake might taste weird because Japanese desserts aren't as sweet, but I thought it was perfect.
Drink choices - I went for the Mitsuya Cider and Fanta
Appetizer bowl
Chocolate Wafer
Tacos plus fried chicken (which may have been from KFC and was very good)
Delicious strawberry cake with fresh whipped cream
Dinner Day 9
Our last dinner in Japan was once again delicious. I had a plate of sashimi, grilled fish, rice, daikon pickles, egg custard, and miso. The fish had bones, so I had to be careful as I was eating it. A few times I had to spit out the bones but I generally managed to pick out the meat with my chopsticks. The fish was absolutely fabulous.
Part of the menu was in katakana, one of two Japanese phonetic alphabets. I'd studied it earlier in the day and was eager to practice. I found something that sounded like "Bay" "Ka" "N." Emiko said it was "whale bacon." Our curiosity got the better of us and we ordered it. There was enough for everyone at the table to have a slice. The whale looked like raw bacon. It was smoked, but I assume it was raw otherwise. It had the smoky flavor of bacon but was much lighter than pork bacon.
For dessert, Scott and I ordered two parfaits - one with mango and the other with chocolate and an oddly textured pudding. They were just okay.
L-R: Sashimi, fish, miso, egg custard, daikon radish (invisible), rice
Grilled fish
Sashimi - Salmon, whitefish, and raw shrimp (I didn't eat the heads) Whale bacon
Mango parfait
Chocolate parfait
Breakfast Day 10
Emiko came through with our last breakfast in Japan. She cooked a fabulous Japanese meal, no longer fearing that I wouldn't like Japanese food. She redeemed her cooking skills in my eyes. I loved everything. In the center of the table were those awful yogurt drinks, umeboshi plums, pickled cucumber, and kimchi. The pickles and kimchee were great - Scott doesn't even like kimchee. Emiko made two main dishes: okonomiyaki and fish with eggplant. I couldn't decide which I liked better. We also had miso soup with tofu and the same vegetables. The miso made the vegetables taste better.
Yogurt drink, umeboshi, cucumber pickles, and kimchee
Everything in the meal
Miso soup with vegetables and tofu
Okonomiyaki
Eggplant and fish
Snack Day 10
On the train ride to Narita airport, Scott and I had drinks: CC Lemon for me and Pepsi for him.
Lunch Day 10
There was no decent food in our part of the airport terminal. There was a Japanese restaurant, but it was really expensive and the food looked bad. So we resigned ourselves to McDonalds. But we got Japanese McDonald's food. We had a teriyaki burger, which was ground pork in teriyaki sauce topped with a poached egg. We didn't really like it. The ground pork made it taste weird. We also split an Ebi burger, a fish filet made with shrimp. It was really good. I wish I'd ordered an entire burger for myself. We also got fries but didn't eat them until we were on the plane. By that time, they were cold and not very good. I gave most of mine to Scott.
Teriyaki burger
Ebi burger