Oh Deer

Makoto, my mom and I took the train to Nara - once Japan's capital ages and ages ago (before Tokyo, obviously, and before Kyoto) and now a major tourist destinations for culture fiends, history nuts, and maybe even religious fanatics. Nara is, after all, all about the temples.

But this trip, I've been thinking with my stomach. And one of the first things I smelled after we got into Nara koen (park) was the distinct smell of freshly made senbei (rice crackers). It's a specialty here, and having your rice crackers just out of the fryer - or however they do it - is orders of magnitude better than the packaged ones you get at the store. And these come in even more flavors.

If you do wind up in Nara (and many people do), just keep in mind that not all rice crackers are equal. You might see a stand or two or fifty with a nice old lady selling bundles of flat rice crackers. These are called shika senbei as in "deer crackers," and they're specially made to feed the deer that pretty much have run of this place. They are everywhere, and other than the musky smell of wet deer - or worse yet, deer piss - it's pretty awesome. They're used to people so they'll eat out of your hands, let you pet them, and - don't tell anyone - let you spank their bottoms and ask 'em whose their buck.

The only group with a population greater than the deer's in Nara is the tourist. They are everywhere. Gigantic school groups. Hordes of stereotypical Japanese with zillions of cameras. And maybe only a few Westerners. They do flock here for good reason, though. Nara is home to Todai-Ji, the largest wooden building in the world. It also happens to be a ginormous Buddhist temple, and inside it contains a Buddha as tall as the building itself... reputed to be the largest bronze statue in the world.


They're impressive and huge beyond words. There's a pillar behind the Buddha that has a hole in it large enough for a person to squeeze through. It's supposedly the size of one of the Buddha's nostrils. That's how big the damn thing is. Oh, and as for the hole, it's good fun watching kids go through, but it's even more fun watching adults do it... because I have to admit - I was awaiting someone getting stuck and having to see the Jaws of Life used on an 800 year-old monument.

What? It's not like they don't have enough temples to go around Nara. And I fully acknowledge that it wouldn't be my dumb ass getting rescued. I know I'm a big boy. In fact, I was a bit bummed that I couldn't go through the hole, so I consoled myself with the local specialty kaki-no-ha sushi. Basically, it's sushi that's been wrapped in a persimmon leaf, imparting a more vegetal, herby flavor overall. Quite good for a little snack.

Refueled, we hiked around a bit and hit up Kasuga Taisha shrine. It was a bit underwhelming, to be honest, but the hundreds (maybe thousands?) of stone lanterns surrounding the place made it worth the trek.

Notice I used the words "hike" and "trek." It's not like it's that arduous a journey through Nara, but we found ourselves - you guessed it - hungry again. So we headed back toward the train station and had a late afternoon lunch at Tonkatsu Ganko, whose specialty is... wait for it... wait for it.. Tonkatsu! That's breaded and fried pork cutlets for the uninitiated - and they make 'em delicious here. Everything else was a bit on the weak side. For instance, their curry is nowhere near as good as mine. Trust me. But their namesake food is tender, juicy, crispy perfection. It's shocking that they're part of the hokey Ganko chain (their bespectacled logo can be seen all around downtown Osaka), but hey, sometimes even chains do it right.

Over lunch, my mom looked over our little photo together trying to find the similarities between two pretty dissimilar cousins. We figured we have similar eyebrows, and maybe the same nose. Besides that conversation, we pretty much just had our noses down in the trough and ate. Another distinct quality we share.

Anyway, I'm home now, but I'm already being pressed to get ready for dinner. What's for dinner? Well, my mom and I had a little discussion...

Radioactive Chickens!

I was just having a late breakfast, and as I bit into a hard-boiled egg with orangey center, I was reminded of a food blog on Japan I ran across while doing a bit of research yesterday.

This guy was startled by how orange the egg yolks are here, and was subsequenly afraid to eat Japanese eggs for fear that they were artificial.

News flash, buddy. That's what eggs are supposed to look like. Our hormone-injected, cruelty-laden, caged up, mass produced American eggs with yellow yolks are not the real deal.

Alannah and I joked in Europe and back on her parents' farm that real eggs we were eating are "nuclear" orange.

In the spirit of that, I'm going to try and start a rumor that Japanese egg yolks were yellow like ours, but became glowing orange after a couple of incidents in 1945. In fact, it's these nuclear yolks that spurred the idea of Godzilla. Startled by their mutant eggs, Japanese filmmakers devised a cautionary tale about a nuclear future by coming up with the big, rubber-suited beast we've come to know and love.

Ok, it's a stretch, but I'm sure anyone silly enough to think that eggs more real than what we get are home are actually artificial would buy this story hook, line, and nuclear orange sinker.

Of course, such obliviousness can be forgivable in Japan. After all, this is a country that - while having some of the freshest foods imaginable - likes to package the hell out of everything and dazzle you with an array of artificial flavors. Do you like bread? Perhaps you'd like to try the tomato flavor. Or the grape flavor. Or the banana flavor. Yes, of bread.

The most offensive of this formulary of flavors has to be melon. As a kid, I was wary of sweets brought over from Japan. It was always a minefield of melon-flavored candy. Melon-flavored gum. Melon-flavored cake. Melon-flavored mouthwash. Melon-flavored... anything. Good god, they love their artificial melon flavor here. The only exception is meron-pan (melon bread), a delicious, soft, not-too-melony delight that tastes like an all-natural gift from heaven. I don't know how natural anything is when it's chock full of bleached flour, refined sugar, melon flavor, and green coloring - but believe me, it's good. You can pick it up at almost any Asian bakery back home, by the way. Try it.

And when you do, tell everyone that Japanese egg yolks are orange because of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Wow. Just Wow.

I should be hung over.

Considering the amount of beer, wine, and grappa I consumed last night, my head should be hurting, my stomach should be burning, and my gag reflex twitching whilst keeping down bile.

But I'm not. Because I think all that booze was buffered by amounts of food most Americans don't see until Thanksgiving. Or in Oprah's glove compartment.

At any rate, we ate. And ate. And ate.

We all met up at what's pretty much ground zero for our family gatherings in Osaka - Aunt Fusako's restaurant. There's a super-casual back room reserved for family gatherings. You take off your shoes, grab a piece of floor, and dig into the nabemono (hot pot) or whatnot on the low little tables as you slurp your beer. Traditional family stuff.

Naturally, there was sushi artfully made by Makoto. And quickly. So quick, that I could barely see what he was doing with his hands. Even with my fancy new photographic gear, good lighting, and everything, he was still a mysterious blur. But the quality wasn't lost in the speed. At all. Deliciously rich yellowtail. Crazy fresh tuna. Amazing amberjack. Good lord... this was a feast!



Then there was the hot pot, where a delicious broth bubbled with the freshest enoki mushrooms I've ever had, the most tender leeks, astoundingly delicious salmon, and the gorgeous white flesh of the ugly monkfish. When my mom informed everyone that I love ankimo (that's monkfish liver), everyone was shocked. Gai-jin aren't supposed to like that! They're supposed to revile organs. Especially seafood organs. My aunt was so surprised (and happy that I'm not a total roundeye devil) that she gave me a hunk of ankimo nearly the size of my fist. I was very honored. And I shared... some of it.

The real highlight, though, wasn't the meal. As fantastic as it was, it was completely unmatched by the company. Here we were, three generations of my mom's family. My mom, her sisters, my cousins... It was awesome. Oh, and there were my cousins' kids, who are among the cutest in the damn world. Wanna see?




THIS JUST IN: There must be some great genes in my family. As I was blogging this, my cousin Neema just IMed me with a video chat, with his son Parsa on his lap. I'm swimming in cute.

Anyway, it was a great evening. And even if we hadn't been eating piles of startlingly fresh seafood, had we not been tucked away in the awesome back room of a cool little restaurant, had we not been drinking to our hearts' content - it still would've ranked as one of my best days traveling. Ever.

Because as awesome as it is scaling mountains, jumping off bridges, diving - whatever - nothing warms the heart nearly as much as connecting with relatives you last saw when you were barely old enough to tie your own shoes... and somehow communicating with them despite a huge language disparity.