The sky over Tsukiji was the color of Ridley Scott’s hair. The boy was up early, tracing the satellite signals to a place not the meeting point. GPS fail under a light rain. Perhaps the taxi hadn’t left him at the designated corner, and now the metal roof that kept the sky off his head blocked the signal. The other outsiders were on the far end of an invisible radio link, somewhere in the crushing crowd. He was flying blind; despite its moniker, the phone had no eye. Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea.
No. It was. Mitsui-san appeared out of the mist, beckoning the boy and his local cohort. “The auction ends soon; we should hurry a little,” he called in a slight accent, ducking from the sidewalk into an industrial garage. Trucks, hand and power, executed an impossible choreography of loading and driving off with their precious cargo, sprinting to the customers across the city with their goods losing value by the minute.
Continue reading ‘My Morning in the Land of Styrofoam and Ice’
I have only one burnin’ desire. Let me cook next to your fire!
Who doesn’t love some yaki-niku? Plates and plates of delicious meats, and sometimes vegetables too, maybe some shrimp and scallops, all brought to you in profusion by cute waitresses with their hair in pigtails, and left for you to cook yourself upon the bed of brightly glowing coals. With maybe some kimchee on the side.
Oh and beer too.
I think this may be Korean in origin, but I’ve never been to Korea, so to me it’s Japanese.
There are four of these places (that we know of) between our hotel and ISAS. Two of them are part of the Gyu-Kaku chain, of which I am especially fond. Mainly due to their ice cream sprinkled with some kind of malted flour (oat, maybe?)
I’d like to see them get away with this in the US. Seriously. But I know that would last until some kid or drunk frat boy grabs the screen, burns himself badly enough to land in the hospital, and sues the chain back to Japan.
But this isn’t about things I hate. This is about love. Love of food, in point of fact. Something a good deal more dangerous. It gets hard to say no, y’know? But how can you hurt the feelings of something like this? Look at those marbled beefs, that basil chicken, those pretty peppers, that not-so-fresh corn. Okay, never mind about the corn. But the rest…
Yeah. Keep ‘em coming!
It was in my mid-thirties that I started finding I had to finish a night of drinking with a glass of water unless I wanted a headache in the morning. Then it was a couple glasses of water, eventually getting to the point where it’s pretty much a 1-for-1 proposition now. Which is okay, I just have to remember. Still, I miss being young.
But that’s not what I’m on about here. It’s what I noticed two weeks ago in Japan: I drank most every night (cause, y’know, Japan), and didn’t have to worry about it. So why is that? I think it’s because Japan is so heavily into heavy drinking, even among the middle-age set, that the country as a whole has adjusted its social and brewing fabric appropriately. Every glass of Japanese beer comes with a built-in glass of water!
Genius!
