Pasta, bicycle and something around me ;)

 

It's been three weeks since I bought my lovely new bicycle. Unlike the one which I already had, this bicycle is amazingly light, easy to start, and moreover, having lots of fun to ride.

Since I had a part-time job in the European food restaurant when I was a university student, I like cooking, especially Italian food. I converted it with Japanese food for this time; "Japanese-style vongole bianco".

You can find a lot, sometime too much, Italian restaurants here and there in this country. Pizza, pasta, risotto, and many kind of wine. Since I am not a person who drink alcohol normally, I usually cook this kind of food by myself.

I have many hobbies like cycling, cooking and so forth. But if someone ask me "What do you like the best of all your hobbies?", I could tell him or her within a second "I definitely love taking pictures the best".

Shooting photographs is something like "express myself" for me. One big reason why I started to taking pictures is simple; I can't draw. You are not necessary to be depressed because you can't draw pictures. You still can shooting photographs.

I like to think my photographs are quality pics, but it could be mere my self-opinion. That is fine even if so, I just do my best to go my way.

Anyway, my daily life changed suddenly and became quite busy there days. But, but, but. I will never stop coming back here in this blog.
So, don't forget to check my place ;)

Tsumago, old post town in Gifu prefecture.

Driving through bendy roads, it's finally there. The place called "Tsumago" or "Tsumago-juku", an old, silent place in Gifu prefecture. I love this place, near from my hometown, not so many people except astonishing autumn leaves in the fall.

During Edo-era, this town was along the main roads. People travel or bring their own stuff to sell dropped in at Tsumago and other similar towns like Magome ( I will post it with this blog in the near future.)

After Meiji-era, in the period of modernization, these old towns were almost forgotten. However, thanks for forgotten, many houses and buildings are kept well.

Look, Gifu prefecture is mountainous, seems secret place like the film in Princess Mononoke doesn't it ?

I was hungry, so...

I got green tea and traditional sweets called "Gohei-mochi", which is made of rice, and with sweet source.

From the inside restaurant. Perfect ! ;)

Shinjuku, a big business city in Tokyo.

Everytime I come to Shinjuku, I think "Hell, what the dirty city is it ?" in my mind. It's something I never get used to.

Nameboard for chain restaurants, medicine store and so forth...I don't like this kind of things :(

I don't want to think it's the typical city in Japan. Sure, it's convenient, but too convenient to be relaxed.

I repeatedly told that I love old things. Old temples, old products, and old historical places. You can find this kind of things even in Shinjuku, like above picture, but small, almost ignored.

If you want to see something old, you can go to Kyoto, or Kanazawa where I visited before. If one of my foreign friend come to my country, I would rather take him or her not to Shinjuku, but to Kyoto or other old places.

Do you think of Shinjuku ? What do you see for people who is from foreign country ?

Through experience about 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami.

If I am correct, it was around 3 p.m. on 11th March 2011, early last year when huge earthquake hit east coastal area in Japan. I was in Tokyo at the moment, reading some books while lying.

First thing I thought was "Earthquake, it's coming !". People in Japan are always scared but ready for it. All children in Japan practice for surviving from earthquake when you are elementary, junior high, high school student. You have chance to do it after you join the company. It's not rare for this island to be shaken by it. It's depends on where you live, but we feel it every few months shaking the land even there is not so big one hit. I mean, you can't run from it.

It's some kind of destiny for suffering from quake, but that time, last year, was far from it.

Tsunami engulf coastal area in the east, so called "Tohoku" area. The word tsunami is originally Japanese word. So you may think people in Japan know well about Tsunami. However, that tsunami was far far far bigger and terrible than we ever imagined or experienced. Who can predict over 40 meters tsunami engulf us ? Almost all dikes placed along the coast were useless.

In Tokyo, as I experienced, it was from minimal shakiness, and few seconds later, became huge. I woke up and find fridge was start moving. I rushed to it and try not to move any more. This action was actually not correct. When you feel quake, first thing you must do is escaping from tall things like bookshelves, fridge, anything that is tall so that you could avoid to drop it.

I don't know how much time it lasted, but I felt it was around a few minutes. After stop it, I grabbed my cell phone and tried to contact my wife. But it took 20 minutes to talk to her since many people rush to call someones and overcrowded the lines.

I checked inside my home. Fortunately, some dish dropped but any damage weren't found. Gas was stopped due to the safety reasons, but shortly after the quake, it recovered.

I went out and walked through the nearest station. Station staffs repeatedly said that all trains were stopped and don't know when it would restart. Some walls on the station were fallen, but at the point, most people didn't know anything about Tsunami, nor problem about nuclear plant.

Since I have no TV in my home, I checked online news on my computer. And I realized the main source of that quake was in Tohoku, and horrible Tsunami hit there.

Through the night in the day, I kept watching news which showed on computer. There were not enough information to understand everything of this tragedy, but it's enough to understand it was true tragedy. Death toll jumped hour by hour, nobody knew how many people were missing. I knew any rescue people did the best, but I was totally helpless.

The date had been changed to the next day, slowly trains were restarted.

And we all realized that nuclear plants that were damaged from Tsunami was devastated and we were running out of electricity. Then so called "power cut schedule" started. People in Tokyo was confused, yet the most confused people were there in Tohoku. Big earthquake still hit in Tohoku many times. Actually, it's continued even now.

Japan seems to recover from Tohoku earthquake. power cut schedule was finished,  quake become decrease slowly, people start working again. But for many persons, this life-changing event never be removed from their memories. Many people lost their families, relatives or friends. So am I. There is no one in this country who has nothing to do with Tohoku earthquake.

Well, I could talk whether we use nuclear power or not.
But I spare this kind of controversial discussion as always.
I am one of them who just hope to live peacefully in this country.

Butatama.

Cooking butatama is always fun for me. cabbage, flour, eggs, pork, and toppings.

It's mainly eaten in Kansai area, including Osaka and so on. There is a food called "okonomiyaki", looks alike. I don't know the difference between them :D Moreover, I had never known this food before I found it in the book few years ago.
Anyway, this Butatama is really nice. Flour and eggs....perfect combination !

One old restaurant.

It's been a while, maybe more than 10 years since I came here last time. This old, old, old inter-mountain restaurant probably launched before I was born, is still running. 10 years ! I was a junior high student, I had never thought of my future at that time. Anyway, glad that we are still fine ;)

Edo-Tokyo Open-air Architectural Museum part2.

It's some kind of my routine activity to go to "Edo-Tokyo Open-air Architectural Museum". Always I go there and find new thing.

There was a time when one of my grandmother was still alive, and her home has such kind of old style phone... It reminds me of an old days that never comes back... She was one of the most friendly and close to me.

Well, do you know what they are? they are seals and marks that have their own meanings. Second one from above marks is simply written "dog". That cautions people this home has a dog. It's good for keeping some people away from theft or people who are terrible with dogs.
(I love dogs, by the way ;)

Do you know what this is again? It's a broom for the garden ! We don't use this kind of broom recently since many houses in urban area don't have any garden :D

I like this place the best of all of this museum ;)

It's a place where they sell dried things like seaweeds, shrimps, squids, eggs (Is this dried thing!?) and so on. Of course they are replica, but it's mouth watering !

Those dried squids are called surume-ika, People usually eat it with drinking alcohol ;) You can find it with one portion even in the convenience store.

It was a beautiful sky at that time. I like looking up to the sky and clouds. That's the moment when I belong to the space.

Edo-Tokyo Open-air Architectural Museum is located in the outskirt in Tokyo.
Admission fee is 400 yen, or about $5.

I have a passport for a year ;)

Taiwan tea in Tokyo.

It was a rainy day, my friend and I got together in the local station. She said there is a tiny tea shop nearby, but she couldn't remember where it is, what its name. I took my phone and checked it out. Ah, how great iphone is !

They served the cold water and tea first. Although it was rain, the temperature was over 30 degrees Celsius. Moreover, like everyday in the summer in Japan, it's too humid :( Those two drink make us relaxed.

I took a tea with food that was a menu of the day, that day was Uguisu mochi, a kind of rice based food. it was usually eaten in the cold winter, or we eat it in the restaurant like this.

well, I like Taiwan tea. It pours tea to the small (very small) cup one by one, and drink slowly with chatting with people. I definitely love this style. I would like to buy stuffs for Taiwan tea, but it was a bit expensive. Maybe next time ? ;)

chayagai, or tea houses in Kanazawa.

After the sunset, I took a short walk from Bukeyashiki-ato, or soldier's houses to chayagai, or tea houses. It took around 20 minutes by walk. To tell the truth, I have been here last year, but that was during the daylight. Someone told me it's better to come in the night because of lots of illuminations, so I came back this time.

Most of the houses are place to eat, drink, or shopping.

But they use old houses for that. How attractive! ;)

Although I really should go inside one of the houses, I wasn't hungry, so I didn't (maybe next time?).

Many of Japanese traditional houses have doma, or dirt floor like above picture (this doma also seems to be used as the garden). This is for taking shoes off, or some of them even have kitchen in it. Recently we don't have any doma, but you can find it in the houses that were built few decades ago.

This is the restaurant. Seems they serve the traditional Japanese food. Ah, I don't afford to eat it! :(

After taking pictures, I was sufficient and came back to Kanazawa station:)
It's really difficult to find such old buildings in Tokyo. Most of traditional ones were burned during the Second World War, or because of earthquake. Tokyo is convenient place to live. Yet Kanazawa is much attractive for me :)