Happiness is … sharing yummy food
December 3rd – At last! A Japanese meal! After another day of the same fare we found where all the Japanese restaurants are that serve Japanese food. Spoilt for choice. So we are now just back from a lovely meal where we cook our food in a delicious boiling soup mix – two separate flavours of soup boiling away together side by side. We had plates of thinly sliced meat and a huge variety of vegetables and we dropped them in the boiling soup mix and fished them out when we thought they would be done. The restaurant is 5 minutes walk down the road down a side road from our hotel. Check it out if you are in this area some time http://www.hinabe.net Ask for the menu in English, they have a copy out the back somewhere. Incidentally, the first restaurant we went to was full. The hostess there saw we were getting wet and gave us an umbrella each with profuse apologies that she couldn’t accommodate us in the restaurant. This is just one example of the hospitality of the Japanese people. We have found them to be extremely courteous and helpful at all times and will go out of their way to help strangers.
Today we planned to see the Imperial Palace and Electric Street. Electric Street is a child (or geek’s) paradise. Eight floors of a large warehouse-sized building selling electrical goods – a whole floor of mobile phones and laptops, and two floors of children’s toys many of which we had no idea what they were or what they did.
The rain was pretty steady by this time so instead of the Palace we decided to take a train out into the country-side. We failed miserably at the task as the country side was nowhere to be found with city and industrial areas giving way to residential areas with a peek of the sea and we think a very brief peek of Mt Fuji at one point but cannot be sure. After an hour and a half of travelling we hoped off the train at a town called Odawara which is near the east coast of Japan. A very Japanese-looking town, and just the perfect place for a look at Japan away from the hotels and tourist spots. I will put some pics up tomorrow.
Yes, Odawara did have Japanese restaurants but we didn’t get there until mid-afternoon after we had eaten.
Tomorrow we fly to London.
Wow, sounds like you are having a fantastic time! The best restaurants are found under or near the railway stations. Save travels to London, I am sure they do sushi there!