In Zen on a Saturday

One of our favorite restaurants in Koriyama is tucked away behind one of the many parks. It comes with a superb view of the cherry trees during Spring and the place is the perfect goal for a random Saturday midmorning walk which is just what we were in the mood for today.

The set course (the only thing on the menu) consists of 6 different dishes and is build around seasonal Japanese ingredients served with a western twist. The menu changes every second month. Here's a few shots of the three dishes we enjoyed the most this day.

Beets soup
I (B) loved the color of this beet flavored soup, and the way it matched the flowers on the table. Quite rare to stumble across anything with beets in our region which is traditionally not an ingredient found in the Japanse kitchen.

Fresh water eel quiche!
Till today, Japan seemed to be conservative when it comes to serving eel (see the bottom of this post), so this innovative savory quiche stuffed with eel and with wasabi flavored dressing on the side was quite a tasty surprise.

...and the dessert plate. Yum!
Green tea ice cream is always a winner as is a square block of dense chocolate cake. The slice of almond tart served with raspberry coulis turned out as a keeper too, not to mention the kabocha creme brulee :o)

Coffee Break
The random wandering continued after lunch, but as Summers are quite hot here (35C), - and not only hot but humid as well, those random walks are only bearable with sewn-in stops at air conditioned places.

It's not that we are the hugest fans of the concept of SB conquering the world, but it just happens to be the most cozy cafe in town. Soft chairs, great music, and soy as an option if one wanna opt out of milk. Also, the staff doesn't seem bothered with one lingering there for hours, so a weekend spent in Koriyama equals at least one cup at SB. It's located near the station, so fun place for people watching as well. The fan on the pic was given to us in front of the station. A commercial flyer one would just through away instantly, but a (free) fan decorated with commercials is a treasure in this climate and commercials or not, - this thing is being waved wildly around town. Hands down for the Japanese art of marketing.

Unagi no kabayaki
Time to end the lazy couple time and get social and adventurous, so we met up with Emiko and Yuko for the above mentioned traditional eel feast. In Japan it is believed that eel provides stamina and for this reason it's popular to eat 'unagi no kabayaki', which is glaze-grilled eel, during summer. It's served on top of rice and with a clear soup (suimono) made with eel liver served on the side. Apart from the soup, the meal is addictively good. Today it was served in a pretty lacquer box. The wood 'bottle' holds Shichimi togarashi which is a traditional chili spice made up of seven different kind of ingredients.

Zazen
We continued on to Fukujyu-ji temple in the neighboring village Miharu for a session of meditation led by a famous novelist and priest named Soukyuu Genyuu. It was our first time to experience traditional Japanese Zen meditation also named Zazen, and something we have been wanting to try for a while.

The fukujuushoku (Deputy head priest) is famous for having been awarded the Japanese award equivalent to the Nobel prize for literature and thus, despite the relatively small village of Miharu, many people find their way to his monthly meditation sessions. We were about 30 people this summer evening, which our good friend Keiko had joined us for as well.

The session started with the fukujuushoku giving a small teaching for then to guide us through a few stretching exercises before we were all asked to sit in either full- or half lotus position. Our recent stay at an ashram in India turned out useful here.

The meditation it self was initiated by a loud clap and the chimes of a bell. During the meditation session, the fukujuushoku would walk amongst us with a wooden stick called a keisaku ready to hit people on their shoulders if they seemed unfocused, fell a sleep or if they asked for it themselves as the hit is said to reset ones (Zen) mind. Not being really sure if he would go for the two gaijins made staying focused on the meditation quite challenging, but we treasure the experience nevertheless. He never did decide to hit us, instead we were treated with tea and cakes afterwards with the rest of the participants while he shared some words of wisdom. In Japanese.

Perfect Saturday.

Kawashigashi town - Aizumura

Saturday morning on our way to Aizuwakamatsu, we noticed a huge statue reminding us of Virgin Mary. We decided to stop and take a look.
Soon we found ourselves inside the most beautiful Japanese park, with full blooming cherry trees, various types of plants, bushes and trees, children feeding carps, a small shrine, a 14 meter reclining statue of Buddha and many great picnic spots. The park was busteling with families, school classes and elderly couple trying to find a place for o hanami in the shadow of the cherry trees. We felt the same energy we used to sense in some of the parks in Copenhagen. Nice!


The 57 meter tall statue, pictures 'Jibo Kannon'. 'Jibo' means 'Loving Mother' and 'Kannon' is the Buddhist Goddess of Mercy.
The reason why she resemble Virgin Mary could be found in the fact that Christianity was banned during the Edo era, so Christian people disquised Virgin Mary in many Jibo Kannon.

The name of the park was Aizu-mura, which means the Aizu village. We will soon return to this place for a whole day picnic/reading in the sun. Here are some more shots:

The Japanese children were well represented in the park, looking cute in their uniforms, or feeding carps.
Jibo Kannon smelling the Cherry blossoms:
Sleeping Beauty. This statue is a replica of one on Sri Lanka from the mid 12th century:

Happy Easter!

Even though Easter does not exist in Japan, we are trying to let Easter in to our home anyway. Well helped by the 'gækkebreve', candy and spring flowers we have received from some of you in dk. Thank you.


On Sunday, we are planning to have a 'traditional' Danish Easter lunch, followed up by a visit to a local temple to watch the celebration of Buddha's birthday. What might seem like religion mix-up is actually just 100% tradition exploitation. :-)

Our 'Easter' ends on Monday, when Barbara will show the members of Kalmia what a gækkebrev is all about.

We wish you all a nice holiday with friends and family, and envy you the food and company.

H&B

Weekend lazy

Another weekend just flew by. We stayed home for once and enjoyed the tranquillity of not doing much, but had a lot done anyway. Letters were written, delayed birthday cake made, new shopping centres discovered, video watched and Nintendo DS played.

In the city, we were, once again, amused by the numerous signs of Denmark around us. We can’t figure out, if they are there, because we seek them, or because little Denmark is quite popular here… It can’t be, can it?
So what can we add to the list...? We have found a Danish bakery “The little mermaid”, a display of the productions of H.J. Wegner in the furniture department, our national football t-shirt in the sports shop, Rosandal products and the year-plate from Royal Copenhagen in the chinaware assortment.

We also had time to visit the Planetarium, for the sake of the view. On the 22nd floor, you have a pretty cool view of the Shinkansen train as is speeds its way through the landscape emerging from under the building – a must see.

Sunday we slept in, splashed in the bathtub and then went for a walk. We visited a big Buddhist temple, not far from our apartment. All the pictures are from there. A local tried to explain some origami figures to us. In Japanese, of cause. Something with wings. We guess a bird? Later we could hear him tell his family about some Gaijins. That we understood ☺



We found a new favourite Italian restaurant/coffee shop and a French restaurant we are bound to try any day soon. And that's about it. It is still snowing on and off every day, so the cherry blossoms are still on hold.
One last shot of part of the temple:

Temples and Teens

As the two latter days had been all about browsing we wanted to dedicate this day for typical must see places. We started in Asakusa, which used to be the "Yoshiwara" for Tokyo, the red-light district. Some how, this area of Tokyo has succeeded keeping a historical atmosphere intact. For us this place is very different from what we so far have seen in Tokyo.



The most famous tourist attraction in Asakusa, is also the most visited attraction in whole Japan: The Senso-ji Temple.
To reach the temple we walked through three impressive gates. After the first gate, we found our selves at the Nakamise shopping street. Here is full of life from the many little shops and the many visitors on their way to the temple, believers and tourists.
In the many small shops we found endless rows of Asian souvenirs, like decorative fans, various kinds of rice crackers, samurai swords, Hello Kitty mugs, colourful kimonos, miniature ninjas and the 2-5 toed stockings. It was all a bit too overwhelming for someone finding Japanese souvenirs soo kaiwai (cute), but in the end – too much of it all. We enjoyed some freshly made ningyo-yaki (pancake batter cakes with fill of bean paste), and bought a few items before heading to the temple, leaving the rest of the shops, for the next time.

The Senso-ji temple was built to honour the goddess of Mercy, as a small golden statue picturing her, was found in a nearby river a thousand years ago. We forgot to see the statue this time, but due to the size of the temple, it must be very special.

At the temple we used all the options we could find to enhance life.
After watching the native Japanese having their fortune told, we wanted to try for our selves. We rattled a container until a stick fell out and we matched the character written on it, with those on the drawers.



Barbaras fortune was not very good, so she tied it to a rack, so that the wind would neutralize it.
We also wrote a wish on a wooden stick. We were told that the priest would burn it during his prayers the following morning. Lets see, where it takes us.
Finally we purified our selves, first with smoke and then with water, and entered the temple.

We bought a shuin-cho, which is a pilgrimage book. On the front is written our last name (the small characters on the left). Inside the book, a calligrapher wrote the name of the temple. In every temple and shrine we visit from now on, we can have the place’s name written with calligraphy. Beautiful. Isn’t it? (Our Japanese teacher cant read it – so we doubt we ever can too)

Next to the temple is the Asakusa Jinja Shrine. It is quite small compared to the temple, but turned out interesting as a couple was getting married.

Afterwards we were up for something completely different, so we went to Harajuku bridge. It is not the bridge itself that makes the Harajuku bridge a must see. It is the people standing on it. Teens and young women dressed up in gothic Lolita looks or like manga figures. Why? Hmmmm. Let us know if you have the answer.
We had a rather ambiguous feeling, watching all these girls. Even though there were other tourists, we felt like the odd ones being watched…

We completed the day with an o bento hunt on the Tokyo train station…. It's a hunt, because so many places sells o bentos, and they are all different, so you want to find the best one, to enjoy on the train ride back to Koriyama.

Setsubun

How odd it did sound in our ears, knowing that February is the coldest month of the year (at least in Koriyama), the 3rd of February is known as the first day of spring according to the traditional Japanese calendar.
It is also thought off as a kind of a new beginning of the year, so the Japanese use the day to make a fresh start, by cleaning out any evilness of the former year, by throwing soy beans either out the door or at someone wearing an Oni mask, while they shout Oni wa soto! Fuku wa uchi! ('Devils out'! 'Fortune in!')

We met one of these Oni’s (devils) jumping around in front of the supermarket wearing a red cat suit, looking more cute than frightening, but inspired by him, we bought a devils mask and a bunch of roasted soy beans, so he might just have had the effect the supermarket wanted.
Instead of throwing the beans at the devil though, we decided to use them on the other ritual done the same day: By eating 1 soy bean pr. year of our age, we have secured our luck for the year to come. :-)

We also passed by the local shrine hoping something festive would take part there. A stand was put up, but we did not have the guts to visit it. A few women rang the bell in front of the shrine, to tell the Gods that there were visitors. We reckon they visited the shrine, not because of the date, but because of their mindset that day.

This gate is the symbol of a Shrine (a Shinto shrine). It is called a Torii and it represents the division between the everyday world and the divine world. The tall red building in the backround is Lion's Mansion Shimizudai - you'll find our apartment on the 12th floor.

Next year we will try to get closer to the rituals of the spring Setsubun. We will check the schedules at the local temples and/or shrines and hopefully get hit by a soy bean or two thrown out the door by a woman as we pass by…