Holidays and Difficult Dinners

The beautiful Chikubu Island

Ok!!  I survived my trip to Shiga Prefecture!  I know that survival is usually a given when you go on a simple vacation, but this time I wasn't so sure.  So here's what happened.  I woke up extra early on Friday because in theory my ride was supposed to show up at around 6:30.  I don't know if you noticed, but I posted that last blog at 3:40 am Japan.  When I get excited I have a hard time sleeping, but I think I finally nodded off around 4:15 or so.  My alarm started ringing at 5:45.  I stumbled into the shower and, as I got out, I saw that I had missed a text from my driver's copilot Etsuko saying that they would be a little late.  They eventually got here at 7:10-ish and we began our journey north.  I was riding with Etsuko and Yukiko with Flo driving, and our other car had Jon, Chinatsu, Machiko and Matt bringing our group up to 8.  It was about a 2 hour drive from my apartment in Tsu to our first stop in Nagahama city. 

Buddha!

Ok, this is a Daruma Doll, and it is a
good luck charm.  You write a wish
on a piece of paper and put it inside
the doll then leave it in the temple.

The weather wasn't the best that day, so we decided to do our sightseeing instead of our cycling, because nobody likes to ride a bike in the rain.  Our first sightseeing stop was at the Chikubu Island ferry port.  We got our tickets for the ferry and started the 30 minute ride across the lake.  It was really a beautiful ride.  The rain had turned into more of a mist, and it really lent the whole scene a sort ethereal feeling.  Lake Biwa is surrounded by mountains, so watch the mountains grow out of the mist over the lake was really quite beautiful.  We  floated into the dock on the island to discover that the place is basically covered in shrines and temples.  The coolest part about that is that most them are devoted to giving good luck!  The bad news about the island was that it was basically just a big rock in the middle of a lake, so the whole thing was a sort of steep-sided hill.  That meant a lot of stairs!  But apart from that, the 80 minutes we spent there were about as enjoyable eighty minutes as a person can have on a rock in the middle of a lake.  

These discs are also good luck charms.  We write our name
and a wish on them and try to break them as we throw
them towards the Gate outside the temple.  Mine
went in the lake :(

After Chikubu Island, we took a ferry back to Nagahama City, which as it turns out is famous for glass making.  The girls wanted to look at all the pretty glass art, and Jon, Flo, Matt and I were more than happy to oblige.  At least, we were more than happy to oblige until we realized that obliging would entail a lot of walking through very crowded aisles surrounded by very expensive and very fragile art.  Me being the something of a klutz that I am, I decided to just wait outside after the first museum.  As fragile as the art was, I somehow managed not to break anything.  After seeing as much glass as the city had to offer, we found a nice pub offering a very reasonable happy hour, and much of the rest of the night is a bit fuzzy to say the least.  After the first pub we hopped over to a local brewery/restaurant combo and sampled (here I use the word 'sampled' very loosely) the various house brews.  Again, the evening and night are a bit fuzzy; I can report however that we all made it back to our hotel safe and sound!

Pitcher 1-3 of 8, all local brews.

The whole crew with our bikes.

The next day, we woke up at the ungodly hour of 6:00 am thanks in no small part to Mr. Jon Richards:  Alarm Clock Extraordinaire.  As ungodly of an hour as it was, it did give us plenty of time to start the days activities.  Our first order of business was breakfast, which we had at Micky D's!  I hadn't had McDonalds breakfast in so long I had almost forgotten how amazing it was.  After breakfast, we moved onto the bike shop, where we rented the battery-powered bicycles that we would take from Nagahama to Hikone City, follow the road around Biwako.  I don't remember exactly how long the trip took, because we stopped a lot along the way, and the whole trip was so beautiful I lost track of time anyway.  Hikone is home to the oldest original castle in Japan.  It was one of the only castles not to have been destroyed at any point in its existence, which began in 1622.  It was a really beautiful castle, situated on a hilltop overlooking the lake.  Its original purpose was to be a outpost protecting the waterway into Kyoto from the lake.  After a brief tour around the castle and the surrounding gardens, we got lunch at a local sushi place and hopped on our bikes for the ride back to out cars in Nagahama.  The trip was fanatastic, beautiful and very tiring.  Many sights were seen, much food was eaten, many steps were climbed, and many drinks were drunk.  I deem it a success.


When I got home, I felt like I could have used another week of vacation to recover from the previous, but that wasn't meant to be.  It was back to work for the OBC crew.  However, the next weekend proved to have some challenges of its own.  


That saturday, I decided to go to Toba, a city south of Tsu, in Mie prefecture, with Sarah.  We needed to buy some gifts for our mothers and Toba happens to be the pearl capitol of Japan, so we decided a trip was in order.  We go to Toba shortly after two in the afternoon and in desperate need of lunch.  Toba, being on the coast and home to many a talented fisher-person, is quite famous for its seafood.  So, Sarah and I set off in search of a restaurant that could meet my need for delicious sashimi and Sarah's need to be a crazy vegetarian.   (Sarah is one of those vegetarians who cheats by eating shrimp because, "they have really tiny brains and can't think.")  

The shrimp of death.

Well, we found a place, and walked in, finding it devoid of customers.  We sat down and got our menus, which were typically full of kanji.  Fortunately, there were pictures so we weren't totally screwed.  Sarah ordered some fried Ise Shrimp and I ordered a sashimi donbori which is basically raw fish on sushi rice.  Sarah's food came out first, and there we were met with our first surprise, a giant, raw, lobster head in the middle of her plate.  The waitress looked at us expectantly, and started talking in really fast Japanese.  We realized she was asking if we wanted to take a picture of the plate.  Sarah said "oh god no," and they took it away, we thought for good.  Then came my plate with the biggest surprise.  I had indeed ordered a sashimi donbori, but instead of the harmless fish that I had seen in the picture, the focus of my meal was on the still wiggling shrimp in the middle of my bowl!  The chef had simply grabbed a shrimp out of the fish tank and stuck it on my plate.  No knife, no boiling water, no grill, nothing!  The poor shrimp's legs were going a million miles per hour, and his little eyes were staring me down,  quite clearly and accurately accusing me off torturing it for my own enjoyment.  Well, needless to say, that did a number on my appetite, and forced me to leave a large portion of my delicious and expensive lunch untouched on my plate.  Then, right as I was beginning to get my stomach back under control, the waitress returned with Sarah's lobster head, now neatly boiled, but still whole, in miso soup.  I think the worst part of the whole ordeal was the fact that the four members of the waitstaff were basically just standing around waiting for us to get our food so they could watch our reactions.  I think they knew that we had no idea what we had ordered and were waiting until we left so they could laugh at us.  Anyway, we survived to hit the shops of Toba in search of the perfect gift for our mothers.