Since I arrived in Tokyo last week, I've been on a minor ramen frenzy. I'm guessing many of you have only had instant ramen in a styrofoam cup. As I wrote before, I love them, and the Japanese voted the instant noodle the greatest Japanese invention of the 20th Century. I agree. That said, real well-made ramen is a thing of beauty and way, way better than the instant stuff.

Like many good things in the world, ramen comes from China originally (la mein in Chinese). Then, like many other good things in the world, the Japanese took someone else's idea and made it really great. It was all I could do this week to not drag my family and friends to ramen for every meal (it turns out the Japanese have other good food too...)

Jangara Ramen

I've written about these guys before after I went last summer. This time, I went to two different locations. The first was in Akasaka near the Live Search team's office. This was much smaller than the Harajuku location, with just a few seats. My foodie colleagues and I actually went after the team dinner, even though we were totally stuffed, just because we wanted to eat the yummy ramen. This time I had the Bonshan ramen, an even richer, whiter pork broth full of tongue coating collagen and deep flavor (they claim that it's good for your skin too!). It's really simply luscious. I think it's even better than the signature Kyushu Jangara. Like a junkie, I actually went back to the Akasaka Jangara after the next night's dinner, but cooler heads prevailed this time. (Wimps.) I later reprised our summer visit to the Harajuku Jangara with Michelle, the boys, and my cousin Jessica, who is working in Japan. The line was long, but it was worth the wait. They have English menus, and the staff handled my English/Japanese/pantomime ordering with ease.

 
My colleagues Jill, Helen, and John outside the Akasaka Jangara Ramen.

 
A bowl of Bonshan ramen at the counter. (Sorry for the lousy pic.)

 
The aftermath.

 

Tetsugama Ramen

We chose Testugama mostly out of convenience since it's close to our hotel in Roppongi Hills. Like Jangara, it's Kyushu style (so pork-based soup) but theirs are lighter tasting. Like many ramen places, you actually order at a machine first, putting in money and then pushing buttons for the things you want. You get a stack of little tickets which you then hand to the waiter.

I ordered the spicy soup with hard noodles. (You can order hard, medium, or soft noodles. This isn't a statement about the doneness of the noodles; rather it's about the type.) This was so good Michelle claimed eminent domain and took the bowl. I enjoyed her shio (salt) based ramen instead. Their gyoza (dumplings) were also delicious. We really liked the feel of the place -- very friendly. I'm sad we discovered it so late in our trip; I'm pretty sure we would have gone back again otherwise. They do not have English menus, but the waiter did a fine job pointing out the major things we might want on the order taking machine.

Tetsugama's entrance

Michael (8) in front of the order machine.

  
My (soon to be Michelle's) spicy ramen. (I started eating before I realized I should take a photo, so the lovely presentation is a bit messed up.)

 

Restaurant Kurosawa

I should also note that we had a great soba dinner at Restaurant Kurosawa, another repeat visit from our summer trip (I didn't write about it that time, mostly out of laziness.) Kurosawa makes handcut soba with great buckwheat texture and taste. It's really different from the ramen noodles I mentioned above. Michael (8) loved the cold soba (dipped in sauce) so much that he ate half of another order. They also have other delicious dishes including a simple yet amazing tomato salad. For a noodle joint, it's not cheap, but boy, it's good. They have English menus.

Roppongi Restaurant Kurosawa storefront

 

The amazing tomato salad

I want to go out and eat more now...

This is a long overdue post. Last month, just before we moved, I was in Hong Kong for an offsite. Since I had arrived early from the US, I followed up on a tip from a foodie buddy, Meng, who said I just HAD TO go try the dan ta at Tai Cheong Bakery (the website is much more fancy than the bakery). This hole-in-the-wall bakery is famous for these sweet desserts - thick egg custard in a pastry pie crust. Chris Patten, the former British Governor of Hong Kong, was apparently a big fan of the place.

So I trekked up the Central-Mid-Level escalators and looked around for the place. (As an aside, why do they have the escalators going down but not up in the morning? I don't care if there are more people going down. The damn hill is steep!) Although I was completely unable to follow a map that morning, I eventually found Tai Cheong and ventured in.

I bought the last two dan ta and some sugar puffs (blobby donuts covered in sugar). They were all still warm and fresh smelling. I took the bag and ate the goodies right on the street, across from the bakery.

OMFG, I had never had anything like these dan ta. The crust was tasty and flaky (apparently they use lard -- further evidence that pigs are proof of a kind and loving God) and the custard was rich, eggy, and densely flavorful. (My mouth is watering again as I write this six weeks later).

After I scarfed these two tarts down, I ate the sugar puff; this might have been even better than the dan ta. It was kind of like a warm brioche covered in sugar. If I hadn't bought the last two tarts, I might have gone back in for more. These were heaven on earth. What's more, they were cheap. I love Hong Kong. If you are in HK, be sure to go.

Tai Cheong Bakery
35, Lyndhurst Terrace
Central, Hong Kong
Tel: (+852) 2544 3475

Other info:

• In Cantonese, they say "daan taat" instead of the Mandarin "dan ta".
• The Tai Cheong website
• A nice write-up
• Ignore articles you find on the web saying the bakery is closed. They apparently did or almost did, but they're still around. I almost didn't go thinking the place was closed.

Last week, we went back to Beijing to finalize stuff for our move there. We also spent two days at the very lovely Commune by the Great Wall resort (more on that later). This resort is just downhill from an unrestored section of the Great Wall (the section is called Shuiguan). Andrew (10) and I made the quarter mile hike up to the wall and then walked along the quarter mile section that was open (a fence at the end prevented hikers from getting to the really dangerous collapsed sections.

The unrestored sections of the Wall are very different from the restored parts. These "wild" parts have trees and grass growing on top, the walls and towers are partially crumbled, and the walking surface is broken up. There are only a few places where they've installed safety measures like a hand rail on very steep sections. I actually quite like these parts of the Wall better.

Although the sky was hazy, it was still very picturesque given the mountainous terrain and the fall foliage. Andrew and I really enjoyed it.

Here are a few photos for your enjoyment.

 
Beautiful fall foliage and the Great Wall.

 

Trees, grass, and shrubs growing on top of the Great Wall.

 

Andrew on top of a guard tower with a collapsed roof.

 

 
Andrew about to climb a very steep section of the Great Wall.

I'm in Beijing again, with the family this time. We're going to finalize our move stuff plus take a few days at the Great Wall (more on that later). We flew coach over here, which is different from our usual MO of flying business class on long flights. It certainly wasn't as nice but aside from some inconveniences like not being first off the plane (and hence getting stuck in long passport lines), it didn't bug me too much.

Surprisingly the thing that bugged me the most, other than Michael (8) giving me dirty looks the whole flight, was dealing with the travel amateurs. In business class, most people seem to know what they're doing. They are pretty efficient about finding their seats, getting their luggage stowed, ordering meals, etc. That wasn't the case in coach. Between the people arguing loudly about which seat was C and which was G, the family who couldn't get their bags into the overhead bin, and the flight attendants having to explain all of the drink and meal options to each person ahead of us, I wanted to scream.

I think rather than board by row number, they should board by experience. Get all of the novices squared away first while I enjoy my drink in the terminal. Once they're buckled and ready, I'll zip aboard.

I'm in the Northwest Airlines lounge in the Tokyo airport (Narita) right now on one the Macs they have arrayed around the room for travellers to use, waiting for my flight to Beijing. (I'm going for meetings with my new team). I just spent the last few hours exploring the airport. For as many times as I've been here, I really haven't walked around much. Since I was just on my butt for the past nine or so hours, I figured a walk would be good.

I turned out to be a productive walk. I found a neat origami museum and, more important, a duty free shop with a tasting bar! (The Fa So La Liquor and Tobacco shop in the south wing.) I tried a few nice Japanese whiskies (the Suntory Hibiki 21 year was especially good) poured by a Chinese lady who was happy to find a Chinese person who knew anything about whisky. It seems there are a lot of Chinese passengers transiting through here and tons of Chinese-speaking store attendants -- definitely a change from a few years ago.

I also had a good katsu curry (fried pork chops in this sort of sweet, gloppy Japanese curry with rice -- yum!) in a food court. I've been dreaming about katsu curry for sometime and was a little upset that I didn't get any this summer when we were on vacation here, so it was a nice find.

I had forgotten, however, that the Japanese like the room temperature about 3 degrees warmer and 50% more humid. I'm steaming to death. The cold Asahi Dry beer from my favorite beer pouring machine (it pours a beer with a perfect head) is not keeping back the heat, but I'll keep trying.

Anyway, two more hours until my flight...

Throughout our trip to Japan, I took the boys to go play video games; there were tons of great arcades through out Tokyo and Kyoto. There were a few trends in games that I hadn't seen much of (if at all) yet in the US.

First, many of the popular games had physical components you could use in the game play, like a card or a token. Each time you play, you get another piece, randomly selected. The more you play, the more players or moves you have. This also adds a trading/collectable element to the video game and rewards players who play more often; brilliant. We saw this with Mushiking in the US, but this went even further in Japan, including the Pokemon Battrio game the kids played which gave out poker chip-like tokens with different Pokemon on each (gotta catch 'em all indeed).

A specialized form of this genre involved buying a starter deck of cards for 300-500 yen or so (about US$3-5) and then moving multiple cards from the deck on a game surface to control armies or players. For instance, the boys started playing Sangokushi Taisen3, a real-time strategy game based on the Chinese Three Kingdoms period. (It was pretty interesting learning to play a complex game like this without being able to read anything...) Each card represented a different military unit like archers or cavalry. You position the cards on the surface to select which units were in play and where they started. Then, you move the cards to advance or retreat; you can also turn the card to aim the attacks (like arrows) a particular direction. It was an elegant way of handling a hard UI problem for a video game (normally solved on PCs by mouse and keyboard) -- much more physical and direct.

In addition to Sangokushi, Lord of Vermillion, a party-based real-time adventure game, seemed popular. We also saw a baseball game, a soccer game, and a Gundam 0083 game in this genre. I hope they come to the US soon; they looked really fun. I'm sure they're even more fun if you can understand the instructions!

 

We bid Jonathan, Tetsuo, and Toshiko farewell and headed back to Tokyo today on the Shinkansen. We were met on the platform at Tokyo Station by a bellman from the Four Seasons Tokyo, who took our bags and lead us on the short walk to the hotel. After a quick check-in and some lunch, I took to the boys to the Pokemon Center a few train stops away while the ladies partook in more retail therapy in Ginza.

The Pokemon Center is heaven for Poke-geeks like Andrew (10) and Michael (7). There was a big store full of everything Pokemon related you could imagine, from cards to video games to candy to nori (dried seaweed sheets cut into Pokemon shapes to put on your rice -- Michael bought some of this) to toys to clothes. They had someone teaching kids how to play the Pokemon trading card game, Pokemon videos playing on the overhead TVs, and rows of Pokemon capsule vending machines enticing the kids (the boys got Pokemon Pez dispensers out of one of the machines.

After they sated their shopping, we went next door to another room where you could play Pokemon Battrio, a video game the kids started playing at the Pokemon Center in Odaiba. You could also play Pokemon Battle Revolution, a Wii game where you use your Nintendo DS' to control your Pokemon; this is cool since your opponent can't see what moves you selected because the UI is on your DS screen.

 

They also offered a special birthday surprise if you had a Nintendo DS, a Japanese version of Pokemon Diamond or Pearl, and proof it was within a day of your birthday. The boys had their DS', their English copies of Diamond and Pearl, and proof it was within a month of their birthday, but that wasn't good enough. Oh well.

Some sick person planned this section of the Pokemon Center; the sun blazed into the room where the kids were playing Battrio, turning it into a solar cooker. In the focal point of the cooker, they had a cold drink machine selling Pokemon branded soda. Naturally, I bought one to keep me and the kids from catching fire.

Although Andrew (10) and I missed a bunch of the major sights in Kyoto yesterday, he felt fine today so we joined in seeing some of the other lovely older parts of town. Unlike the rainy downpours yesterday, today was a lovely, sunny day. In addition to Barbi's nephew Jonathan, we were joined by her aunt Toshiko and her husband Tetsuo, who came up from Kobe to meet Barbi and us. They were super delightful and great tour guides.

We all first set out for Kiyomizu, a gorgeous temple set in the hills. The walk up to the temple area was through a cool pedestrian street lined with restaurants and shops. The area was clearly popular with student groups and tours since it was packed with kids in uniforms and throngs of older tourists. A pair of girls approached Michelle and Kellie to try out their English, asking their workbook questions like "where are you from?" and "do you like Japan?", dutifully writing down the answers as they went.

After we checked out the temple grounds, we walked through the streets nearby toward Gion, the traditionally geisha quarter. This was what we really expected Kyoto to be more like -- quaint Japan with narrow streets and little shops. We even ran into some maiko, apprentice geisha, headed to some assignment I suppose. They were up on their tall geta shoes, so when they went down a flight a stairs, they had to support one another to keep from falling. We then passed through the Yasaka Shrine (you really can't spit without hitting a shrine or temple in Kyoto -- they're as common as Starbucks in Seattle) and then were out onto into the downtown area again. The ladies went shopping; I took the boys to play video games and to grab a tasty sushi snack in the Teramachi Street market-- a series of covered alleys (kind of like the Fremont Street Experience in Las Vegas only much smaller in scale).

We had a great udon-suki dinner (thick, handmade udon noodles cooked in the style of sukiyaki) and then topped the evening off with some karaoke for a quintessential Japanese experience.

 

Andrew (10) and I are spending the day in our room at the Hyatt Regency Kyoto; he's not feeling well - dehydration or something heat related I think. I've had a lot of time to watch Discovery Channel shows including a good series on Modern Marvels about the cool new buildings in Beijing and my new favorite show, Man vs. Wild. (MM is on Discovery Channel out here, not History Channel like in the US.) I also read a lot, including Andrew's Young Bond books (Double or Die and Blood Fever)-- books about James Bond as a student at Eton -- not a bad rainy day read. The others are out looking at all the shrines and temples in Kyoto, but frankly, it's pouring (and I mean pouring) rain outside, so it's not the worst day to be in the room.

Yesterday, after we got in on the Shinkansen, we met Barbi's cool nephew Jonathan who came up from Miyako (a little Japanese island near Okinawa and home of Japan's best beaches) where he teaches English. Although we were getting around pretty well in Tokyo without any of us being able to speak much Japanese, it was great to have Jonathan's language assistance.

We first went up Kyoto Tower to get a lay of the land. It seems that there was a tower building rush across Japan at some point; there's even an association for city towers in Japan. The tower isn't very nice looking frankly, and it really doesn't blend with the older, more traditional feel of Kyoto.

The tower did, of course, have a nice view though. From this vantage point, it was clear that Kyoto was much smaller than Tokyo, with many temples mixed in with the newer buildings. Apparently, Kyoto wasn't bombed nearly as much as other Japanese cities during WW II, so there were many more old buildings than in Tokyo.

After the tower, we walked to the nearby Higashi Honganji, a Buddhist temple with the largest wooden building in the world; unfortunately, the large building was being renovated so they had built an aluminum building around the building to protect it while they worked on it. Fortunately, we could see the inside plus some other buildings. I loved the sparse design aesthetic - unadorned wood with minimal painting; it's quite different from Chinese temple design.

For dinner, we stuff ourselves at a decent inakaya - basically bar food where you order lots of little dishes like grilled skewers of meat, noodles, sushi, etc. We also ate a lot of mochi, a Japanese glutinously rice dessert that is a Kyoto speciality (this is the first time I've had it stuffed with chocolate and dusted with cinnamon.) Good stuff.

Today, we took the Shinkansen (bullet train) to Kyoto. There are several flavors of Shinkansen that run from Tokyo to Kyoto, but of course, if you're going to take the bullet train, you have to take the fastest -- the Series 700 Nozomi. The train left right on time. (Of course. According to Wikipedia, the Shinkansen arrives within six seconds of the scheduled time on average - and that includes natural and human accidents!) The Nozomi can get up to 177 miles per hour in service, although I don't know how fast we really went. The ride was very quiet and extremely smooth; there's virtually no clacking sound like most trains because they weld the tracks together to remove the seams. It's really even nicer than the TGV in France.