Day 3: A Fox's Meal

Akira and Hitomi had moved into the city to open a cafe for Hitomi. She was a pastry chef and they had been working on their cafe for a while. Unfortunately the opening was weeks after our departure from Japan. Their home was above their cafe and many of their neighbours also lived above their businesses. In the morning, we heard the front gate open and rushed downstairs to catch Akira before he left for work. I wasn't sure whether to hug him or shake his hand so I decided to stand and wave awkwardly while thanking him. After packing up and saying goodbye to Hitomi and Negi-Chan we walked over to our next adventure.

On his last visit to Japan, Will the Botanist had become friends with Masa from Kyoto and Tom, a Belgian guy currently living in Taipei. Masa picked us all up in the city and we hopped into his stubby Japanese car with not much of an idea of where we were headed.

We drove Southwest towards Shikoku. Between Osaka and Shikoku was a small island called Awaji-shima, famous for its onions. There were thousands of them bursting out of the earth.

We stopped by a Udon restaurant on the side of the highway. It was brightly lit from the sunlight coming through the big windows and there was a cool breeze from the sea. If we had been in Australia, it would've been a small shack selling defrosted meat pies. Instead, we each ordered a big bowl of Kitsune Udon (Udon with fried bean curd) and a large bottle of beer. The udon is named after the fox (Kitsune) because according to the legends, they love deep fried tofu. Is that not just the cutest thing?

Biggest Kitsune Udon ever

Tom, Masa, Will the Botanist

After picking up some food at the supermarket, we drove along the coast and came to a flat grassy spot by the water. Masa had prepared all the camping necessities and much more. He brought a table, a grill, a cooler, a campfire, water boiler, and all these other crazy gadgets. It was luxury camping that my mother would be proud of.

Tonbi (kite)

Photo taken by Will the Botanist

Fierce looking wild cat

Sakura Mochi (Cherry Blossom rice ball)

What a life it would be if every night I could sit with great people, drinking, smoking, and grilling fresh fish. A couple meters away the waves crashed against the rocks, becoming mightier and mightier as the stars became brighter and brighter.

Day 2: Eating real Japanese food

I awoke on my back with a black and white cat between my legs. Negi-Chan had spent the night moving between me and Will the Botanist, trying to find someone that would stay still. The night before while playing with Negi-Chan we had concluded that he was a big softie.

"His eyes are so close together," Will the Botanist commented.

Brunch was in a building filled with little restaurants. Most of them only had counter seating. We walked past the backs of men and women in suits enjoying breakfast by themselves and decided on a cute little place. This was a very important decision as it was my very first meal in Japan. As soon as we sat down we were handed an English menu, which we kindly refused because we wanted a challenge. The food was served on the hot plate to keep it warm.

 Yakisoba

Okonomiyaki

I was quite delighted to find that bicycles had umbrella stands. I was ecstatic when I found out that people used umbrellas while cycling - rain or shine. They don't bike fast enough for open umbrellas to actually slow them down significantly.

At the Otearaijou I washed my hands with purified water, took a mouthful and spit it back out. The instructions were clearly explained in the sign beside the Otearaijou.

These are Omikuji that people write and tie to to the rope, half asking about their future and half asking for good fortune, as explained by Will the Botanist. And that beside them is a cat with a really straight tail.

Pigeon doing some people watching.

Marmoset that we found in a pet shop. What the helllll.

On our way to Dotombori, we stopped by Americatown. Or at least it portrayed what the Japanese thought of America. A lot of tacky gangsta rap stuff with bling bling and all. Miley Cyrus's Wrecking Ball was blasting from this one shop. It was terrifying.

In my Lonely Planet guidebook, they had described Dotombori as "survival of the flashiest". They weren't far off. There were giant models of sea creatures- some even moved! We didn't quite trust the flashy ones though thinking that it was just another tactic to attract tourists. In the end we decided on a modest little place with a decent line up. Osaka is known for its takoyaki and I was eager to see if the Richmond night market's takoyaki was legit. I'm afraid not quite.

 Happy man and his takoyaki!

Will thought it would be a great idea for me to pose with this sign. My friend, Masa, just explained to me that that characters read "stupid". I do look pretty stupid but this was too good not to post.

 Hidden in a narrow alley was the temple Hozen-ji. In front of it was Fudo-myoo, a moss-covered statue. People passing by would throw water on it which kept the moss growing.

 Posing with Glico man

 I satisfied my inner child at the Pokemon Centre. Kinda disappointed Nurse Joy wasn't there.

In the evening, we met Akira at the train station and we walked to his second favorite sushi restaurant to meet up with Hitomi. His first favorite had run out of fish and was closed for the night. There was a bit of a wait because the shop was quite small but it was well worth it. We were brought upstairs to a nice room with tatami. A little tip, Japan isn't a place for hard-to-take-off high tops.

 

My mouth is watering just thinking about what we ate. I have never in my life tasted such fresh sushi. Each piece was simple but prepared with such attention to detail. It was the kind of food that made you close your eyes and roll them back in ecstasy. Fuck.

Thanks for a nice day, Osaka. Tomorrow we leave for a road trip! 

Day 1: Lunch in Kuala Lumpur

Anna dropped us off at the airport at 11pm. We didn't have any luggage to check and were soon waiting by our gates, dozing off and looking forward to leaning that seat back and sleeping. The lights were on for the majority of the flight as the flight attendants walked the aisles selling stuff. I curled into fetal position and tried my best to sleep, dreaming of business class. When I woke up, my leg room had been taken over by Will the Botanist and the guy on my right.

Last week I had posted a message on Couchsurfing asking for things to do during our layover in Kuala Lumpur. As we only had a couple of hours, everyone suggested we take the train to Sentral and make our way over to Chinatown for some grub. Maybe it was the smell of garbage or the sweat covering my forehead but KL made me think of Hong Kong. It was the first familiar thing I had encountered in months and as strange as it sounds, yes, the smell of garbage was comforting.

We wandered through the bright streets of Chinatown lined with little trinkets to lure tourists in and took a turn into a dark alley where chickens were kept together in small ages and plucked, skinned, and chopped right before our eyes. Feral cats strutted by as Will the Botanist and I continued our journey to find lunch.

People always ask me what I miss the most about home. I always say my dad's cooking. But fish ball noodles is a pretty damn close second.

When I entered Malaysia, I had to provide them with a set of fingerprints. For some reason, at departure they didn't match. After three failed attempts, the lady at immigration shook her head, smiled, and said it was okay. At security, the man on duty was engrossed with his phone, too busy to pay attention to the people beeping as they passed through the security gates. Imagine the things and the people I could've smuggled!

Gate Q14 was at the end of the departure hall. I asked one of the Air Asia employees where I could fill up my water bottle. He said it was really far so I went back to my seat in the waiting area ready to suffer an uncomfortable wait. Five minutes later, he came up to me and handed me a bottle of water before rushing back to his post. I waved at him while lining up to board the plane.

We knew we were getting close as the city lights became brighter and brighter. I started to get nervous. My last 10 months had been spent in a foreign country and it was tough enough getting used to it and fighting homesickness. Who knew what would happen in another new country. I had done minimal research on Japan. For all I knew, I could soon find myself on the ground in the middle of Osaka airport having a panic attack.

Luckily I stayed on my feet the entire time as we hurried out of the airport to catch the last train that would take us to Osaka station. There we would meet Akira, a Japanese couchsurfer that Will the Botanist had stayed with the last time he was in Osaka. We would be staying with him and his wife Hitomi for two nights.

If I needed any confirmation that I was in Japan, this line of vending machines was it. I snapped a quick photo just as the train came to a stop. Melbourne to Kuala Lumpur to Osaka. Three countries in one day. Exhausted and hungry, we dragged our luggage to a convenience store and stocked up before heading back to Akira's. In my sleep I vaguely remembered something soft crawling on me...

Baking in a Man's World.

There are perks to living with two guys in their thirties - the house is neat, I never wait for the bathroom, and there is always someone to help me fix my bike or move my mattress. However, our kitchen is a little bit bare. There is no whisk, rounded wooden spoon, rolling pin, nor sifter. Baking in it requires a bit of creativity, time, and a lot of muscle.

It was Will the Botanist's birthday this weekend and I thought I would bake him a cake, never having once succeeded in making a cake. Some of you may recall my very first cake for my dad's birthday that was nicknamed "The Swamp Cake". It was a chocolate avocado cake. It was a disaster.

The Swamp Cake

Nothing makes me miss my house more than whipping cream with a fork. It took almost three episodes of Community before I started seeing soft peaks. I woke up the next morning with a preeeetty sore shoulder.

I also thought it would be a great idea to make marshmallow fondant from scratch for the very first time. I had to dye it from white to black.

And since I didn't have a  rolling pin, I used the pestle from my housemate's mortar and pestle set.

This is my X-files cake :) Vanilla pound cake with rose-flavoured marshmallow fondant and rose-flavoured whipped cream and slices of strawberries and kiwi.

The finished product had Scully and Mulder's floating heads as well.

Special Agent Scully 

I've been a bit frantic this weekend, making the cake, preparing for Will's party, finding someone to rent my room, and planning for my trip to Japan. But it's all done now! I have managed to pack three weeks of stuff in under 7kg of carry-on (that's 15.4 pounds for you Canucks)! My flight is in 2.5 hours, with a 8 hour layover in Kuala Lumpur before Osaka. Any tips and restaurant names welcomed!

Stay tuned for my updates and loads of foodporn!
xoxoxoxoxoxo