Foodie Files: Conveyor Belt Sushi

Quick: name the first Japanese food that springs to your mind. GO!

I bet it was sushi. Was it sushi? Just pretend it was, because this post will be irrelevant otherwise.

There are basically two ways to do sushi (or zushi) in Japan. The first is the famous "Jiro Dreams of Sushi" way, where an artist who happens to work in fish sets up shop and makes sushi directly for the people sitting in front of him. He'll watch you eat and shape the fish to your pace and your liking. These places are usually very small, with a reverent and quiet atmosphere, and they are very pricey. Plus, you pretty much eat what you are given, unless you have a serious food aversion or allergy. I hear it's lovely, but we haven't actually done it yet ourselves.

The second way is conveyor belt sushi. This is our local favorite. 

When sushi becomes part of a compound word in Japanese, it is pronounced "zushi". You'll see it both ways if you travel in Japan, but it means the same thing.

This is a very different experience. The restaurants are large,  very noisy, and super cheap. But they are still delicious and they are usually PACKED to the gills. (Ha.Ha.)

I have to admit, I had no hopes that my children would become sushi lovers. I was quite pleased to be wrong.

Tuna rolls are her favorite.

While I had zero expectations, I think the fun atmosphere really adds to thrill for my children. The booths are staggered around central "train tracks" as my children call them and the sushi circulates on the tracks.

This is actually in England, but it gives you a good idea of the overall layout.

You sit down at your booth and start snagging plates right away. Zero wait time also helps with little children. Plus, the lurid midori green soda we allow them to drink probably helps. I'm sure this color is all natural. This is Fanta melon soda which is very popular here and is always one of two sodas on offer, along with regular cola.

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If you don't like soda, each conveyor belt sushi place that I've seen has powdered green tea available at no charge at your table, with a hot water dispenser either at your table or at the soda fountain. And always, ice water is available for free, albeit in teeny tiny Japanese glasses that are about 1/3 the size of American soda glasses.

The chefs will prepare certain "standard" dishes and send them onto the belt.  For instance, there will almost always be tuna, salmon, roe, and urchin circulating along with some California rolls and cucumber stick rolls. There will usually be some edamame and a few desserts making the rounds as well.

You can see the plates on both sides of belt.

You save your plates which usually come in three colors to indicate different levels of pricing and then your waiter will total up your plates at the end for your bill.

You also have a screen at your table which allows you to place special orders. There are a variety of appetizers and desserts and sides available and you can also order special sushi rolls. Special orders come elevated on black plates and your screen will sound an alert when your order gets within a few feet of your table. This is also extremely exciting for my kids who like to scream "HERE IT COMES!!!!" when our alert sounds. I like to think we're bringing a special American vibe to the joint when this happens.

The leftmost plate is elevated, which means someone placed an order for it. Naturally it's bad form to snatch an order that isn't yours, no matter how tempting it looks!

The quality of the sushi is a cut above (I'm so sorry about all the bad puns, but I can't stop) grocery store deli selections and a significant step below a sushi chef's restaurant, but mid level sushi in Japan is still really darn good. And you can feed a large family very cheaply. I believe our bill came up to about $21 dollars and we all ate a LOT of food, including appetizers and desserts for each of us.

I believe there are quite a few of these in the States as well, but if you're here in Japan, it's a must visit cultural experience and very kid friendly.

Shinjuku

Today we finally, finally, finally made it into downtown Tokyo. We've only been here for four weeks or so, but I've wanted to visit Tokyo for about 3 weeks and 5 days of that time, so I was pleased.

We decided to take the train from Fussa into Shinjuku. Shinjuku is a huge commercial district, the kind of place that guide books love to call "bustling". It boasts the world's busiest railway station (two million passengers a day!), the Tokyo Metropolitan government (housed in weirdly Gotham City-esque skyscrapers) and a huge red light district (we didn't visit that, natch), along with no less than four or five department stores with ten to twelve stories each. It's ...bustling.

In the midst of all of this, is the Shinjuku Gyoen National Garden, which has been a part of Tokyo since the Edo era, in one capacity or another. And this is why I love Japan. The world's largest city, where space of any sort is incredibly expensive, and yet there are green spaces everywhere. And not just little pocket parks, but enormous, sprawling, lavish amounts of green space. The Japanese get so many things right.

It reminds me of Central Park a bit, with its juxtaposition of modern buildings and venerable old trees.

 Anyway, before Shinjuku Gyoen National Garden was a public park, it served as a private garden for the Imperial family, where presumably they entertained themselves by creating various types of landscapes to stroll through. We wanted to see the traditional Japanese garden portion of things, so off we went.

At first, I was highly unimpressed, though it was not the garden's fault. Our large shipment of furniture hasn't arrived yet (it's coming in two days!) so we don't have a stroller suitable for Tokyo yet. The Double BOB jogger is definitely built on American lines, let's put it like that. I was packing Emilia and girlfriend puts off a lot of heat. It was basically like carrying around a small portable furnace in the 90 degree weather. So there was sweat. And there were mosquitoes. Lots of them. We were pursued through the forest portion of the park by blood sucking insects whilst carrying screaming children. I think that might have been one of Dante's levels of hell, but I can't be sure. 

Then all of a sudden we popped out onto a lawn and we were in historical Japan. 



 



There were dragonflies everywhere. I have never, ever seen so many dragonflies, nor been so excited to see dragonflies because it was mosquito free territory. We lolled under some trees and then lolled some more because we were totally defeated by the heat and blood loss.

Staring up into the trees

Perfect patches of shade under each tree

We didn't move an inch, but we suddenly found ourselves in the midst of a flock of ladies that surrounded my children, cooing and snapping pictures and pinching their cheeks and declaring things like "I love you, little babies, you are super kawaii" (rhymes with Hawaii and means cute). Tim and I were slightly bemused because we suddenly experienced what it was like to parent Suri Cruise, minus only the wealth and the looks and the strange alien religion.

We were happy to let the ladies take pictures with the kids, as they (the women) were radiating goodwill and happiness and also because we were slightly stunned. Our kids were filthy. I mean, dirty in the way that only small children can manage. Graydon had grime in the folds of his neck. Addie's feet were smell-able at ten paces due to her refusal to wear socks with her sneakers. Her face is sporting several scratches thanks to an attack by Graydon and more bug bites. We had been walking around Tokyo in 90 degree heat for several hours and no one was at their best. Some of us (ok, me) were decidedly at their worst, sporting streams of sweat, lank hair, approximately 86 mosquito bites and a broken foot. (Note: Yes, I have broken my foot. I wish I could say it was doing something coolly Japanese, like sumo wrestling or one of those game show obstacle courses, but alas, I simply walked into a chair.) No one wanted my picture, that's for sure, and the kids were not in much better condition.

In addition to THAT, the women taking pictures with them? They were in full kimono. Brilliant cloth bright with embroidery, flowers in their hair, those divided socks with the high wooden flip flops, fans in their hands, the whole stunning, glittering array of traditional Japanese attire, and all they wanted to do was take pictures with my dirty, cranky, corn-fed American kids. "Exotic" is very much a matter of perspective, it seems.

Sweaty. Bug bitten. Dirty. But those eyelashes...

And the dimples...

I guess they still are pretty cute.

Strangers in a Strange Land

Tim told me that I needed to blog tonight and that he did not care for the little tidbit posts. Humph. So here I sit, trying to manufacture some coherence out of a brain that is still hovering somewhere around Alaska.

We are here. Boggling, my mind is. Yoda, channeling I am. Because the name Yoda sounds like it could be Japanese.That's funny to me right now, which gives you a clue to my enfeebled mental state. God, jet lag sucks. More about THAT later.

First, Japan. Introductions are in order.

According to Wikipedia, Japan is an island nation and a nation of islands, composed of over 6,852 islands in total, though I think the actual number is subject to debate and climate change.

We are on the largest island of them all, called Honshu, seen in that fetching shade of mauve below.

And on Honshu, we are located in Tokyo prefecture, in a small town called Fussa, highlighted here. We are about 1.5 hours from central Tokyo, heading generally northwest, but we are still considered to be in Tokyo, because it's huge. That's a bit confusing to me, and it feels as though North Carolina suddenly decided that the entire middle portion of the state was just "Raleigh". But hey, this is the world's largest city, so I guess they can make their own rules.



About a third of Fussa is taken up by Yokota Air Base, which is where we are living.

 As you can see, everything centers around the airfield. I have already gotten used to feeling the hum of jet engines deep in my bones and to seeing large aircraft flying around at low altitudes. This is basically THE hub for all Pacific operations, as I understand it. There is apparently a typhoon heading into the area this week, so aircraft from Okinawa have been coming in to ride out the storm in the safety of the enormous hangars here.

We picked out our house this week and we will be living in the East Housing area, which is the area closest to the hospital. There are parks everywhere, two elementary schools, swimming pools, a library, and even a Chili's, among other American restaurants.Right now we are living in the TLF*, or temporary living facilities, which is basically a three bedroom apartment.

*So far I have gathered that if the military can create an acronym for something, it's going to do it, even if it would be easier to just say the words. Example: We live in the TLF and shop in the BX at the YCC which is located beside the AFRC where people might ask you "Did you just PCS? What's your MOS?" among other things. 

We haven't set foot off the base yet, mostly because there has been so much in-processing to do and it seems like everything has to be done in triplicate. The strange land I'm referring to in my title is not Japan at all. Technically, I haven't even touched Japanese soil yet. That's fine because we have the minor culture shock of military life to adjust to first.

Things are different here. Uniforms are more common than civilian clothes. Everyone needs military I.D. to do anything, even buy groceries. Tire shredders, vehicle barriers, and heavy machinery are much in evidence. It's all quite intimidating and vaguely menacing to my civilian eyes.

This is to say nothing of the many rituals and customs of the military that we barely comprehend. I don't know a sergeant from a colonel or what to do when music comes over the loudspeakers. Every day has us furiously Googling something to figure it all out. And poor Tim is of course coming in as a Captain and is nominally "commanding" people that have served their entire lives. In reality, of course, they are showing him the ropes, at least until they scrub in the OR, which won't happen for another week or so.

Fortunately, the people are enormously kind. Tim's fellow orthopedic staff met us at the airport here at Yokota by waving a model of a hand in the air, which was a great foreshadowing of the role they've played in our lives. They have lent us their hands, and vehicles, and time to help us settle in. They've cheerfully ferried us around to buy groceries, look at cars, and attend classes.

We've tried not to drive them TOO crazy and we do try to catch the free shuttle that runs around base. We're not always successful at that, as I noted in an earlier post. Sadly, that wasn't the only time we missed the shuttle, but it led to us meeting a great woman named Marla  who took us home from the grocery store in her van. All five of us, and our bags. And then she babysat my kids during my driver's education class, for five hours, and refused to let us pay her. These are the kind of neighbors we've inherited and I'm already incredibly grateful. We know from our time in Rochester than having a family-away-from-family changes everything for the better.

There is SO much to write about, but my brain feels like goo right about now. It's only been a week since we got here, which makes my mind/goo slosh around alarmingly. I think this has been one of the longest weeks of my life, despite actually being the shortest, due to losing a day to time travel  the odd effect of traveling westward.

As you have probably gathered, jet lag is real and it is not kind. Tim is perfectly fine and thinks his years of torture training as a resident have enabled him to fall asleep on command, anywhere, and at any time. He is only slightly smug about this, the lucky bass...et hound.

Adelaide is approaching fine, waking up at 6 or 630 AM. Graydon wakes up at 530 AM, and Emilia is waking at 430. Poor Emilia is like a baby in a cruel science experiment right now. "Hey, I know, let's see what happens when we take a baby and move her every few days for the entirety of here life!" Well, after much testing, I can confirm that what happens is that Baby gets her security from being with Mom, preferably with a breast in her mouth at all times, the better to ensure that Mom doesn't slip away in the night. I can't blame that little punkin a bit, although I am very much looking forward to some stability, for her sake.

For now, we are here, we are adjusting, and we are happy if slightly confused at all times. Kind of like puppies tumbling out of their kennel for the first time, but with better control of our bladders*.

*Well, most of us anyway. Graydon did announce his presence at 5:30 this morning by climbing into bed with me and saying "Hey, Mom, I need  you to change my diaper." Good morning, son. Good morning.