food in Japan – awordfromjapan

The Shinkansen has been moving people around Japan at high speed since the 1960s, and throughout that time the network has continued to extend, with new, ever faster and more futuristic-looking train designs appearing every few years.

The latest development, which opened in March 2015, extends the Hokuriku line to Kanazawa and Toyama on the Sea of Japan coast. The journey from Tokyo to Kanazawa is reduced from 4 hours to 2 and a half, in the stylish comfort of the new E7 series train.

This morning we took the local train to Shin-Osaka station, where we reserved seats in the Shinkansen for our journey to Tokyo and for the onward journey from Tokyo to Sendai. The JR pass entitles us to unlimited travel for one week on the JR rail network. This represents excellent value as the cost of the pass is equivalent to that of one return journey from Osaka to Tokyo.

The trip to Tokyo took just under 3 hours on the Hikari service, which reached a top speed of 285 km/h and made several stops en route. Punctuality is extraordinary, with departure and arrival times accurate to within a few seconds over the journey. The reclining seats are spacious and comfortable and have electric sockets and seat-back tables to facilitate use of laptops.

The faster Nozomi service covers the same distance in 2 hours and 25 minutes but is not available with the JR pass.

When we arrived in Tokyo station it was time to think about buying lunch. Japan has a tradition of 駅弁 eki-ben, lunchboxes sold in stations for eating on the train. eki means station and ben is short for 弁当 bentou meaning lunchbox. You can buy a lunchbox in the shape of the new E7 train.

My lunchbox commemorates the opening of the Ueno-Tokyo line.

Each of the 9 little compartments contains food typical of Ibaraki prefecture, with a wonderful variety of ingredients, including melon jelly for dessert.

This is the train that took us to Sendai. It was the first time I had seen the E5 train, with its cartoonishly long nose cone.

The train information board shows where to find your carriage when you go upstairs to the platform. We were in carriage number 8 on the 12:36 train. Needless to say, it pulled smoothly out of the station at exactly 12:36.

In January I started weekly one-to-one Japanese conversation classes. My teacher comes to the house on Saturday or Sunday morning and we sit at the kitchen table and discuss various topics in Japanese. Sensei has a “light-touch” tutoring style, allowing me to speak mainly without interruption, and only correcting my most egregious or repeated errors. My spoken Japanese is absolutely terrible and full of errors, and I often wonder how she puts up with it!

It is a rare situation for me to have to speak Japanese for one hour without being able to “fall back” on English if necessary. This forces me to (and teaches me the confidence to) find ways to express what I want to say even if I don’t have the right words. When my work-arounds become too laboured, sensei will teach me some key vocabulary (such as 肋骨　rokkotsu—ribs, which is painfully topical for me at the moment).

In addition to “free conversation” I prepare for each class by studying an article or essay on some current or news-related topic. This means an hour or two per week of reading practice in addition to the one hour of conversation practice.

The idea of getting private lessons was recommended to me by an Irish friend, Claire, who lived in Japan for years and said that private lessons had been the most effective way for her to learn Japanese. It has turned out to be a very effective way of learning for me too (surprisingly so, since it is only one hour a week), and my only regret is not having started earlier.

Today was my second-last class, and next Saturday (just a few days before we leave Japan) will be my last.

One of sensei‘s former students is a Turkish man, Aiten, who runs a restaurant called アルピーノ　”Alpino” in Nishitanabe.

Last weekend, sensei asked us to join her and her family there for a meal.

sensei, otto-san and musume-san

musume-san loves to pose for photos

Aiten-san has apprenticed as an Italian chef, and in addition to Turkish dishes his restaurant’s specialty is pizza (both Turkish and Italian style).

We ordered 4 different types and shared them between us. The food was freshly prepared with top-quality ingredients and was absolutely delicious. The bill came to around 2000 yen each including drinks and coffee. I recommend it very highly.

On an unrelated (okay, food-related) topic, I spotted this “Boy’s Day” fish made out of bread in a local bakery (Nakamura’s bakery in Shinkanaoka shopping centre). I thought it was a work of art!

Tag: food in Japan

駅弁 Eki-ben—lunchbox for eating on the train

ピザ　piza—pizza