Ep 15 Big Blog Adventure

The Blog adventure included a trip into the mountains. Given the Blogs are domiciled in Scotland, mountains are something they are accustomed to. After several hours of climbing upwards, Mr Blog asked Eric-the-guide-Blog how high up we were and was told that we were close to the height of Ben Nevis.

"Wow. So how big are those mountains over there?"

"They'll be over ten thousand feet."

Wondering if we might see some snow (despite this being springtime in Japan) Mr Blog noticed a sign on one of the gantries above the road warning of this very weather hazard. The Japanese department of transport thoughtfully used an image to warn drivers who struggle to read Japanese...

Sadly no signs to warn about the bears or large groups of snow monkeys!

Ep 14 Big Blog Adventure

It would be foolish to travel all the way to Japan and not experience a tea ceremony. The Blogs are not fools. So impressed was Mr Blog, that he recounted in detail the entire 45 minute ritual for Mate-Mike-Spoiltheparty-Blog. 

Here is the short version...

A venerable, well established tea house had lowered its standards far enough to admit us.

On entering the bamboo and paper-walled room, Mr Blog noticed a few things were missing, carpets, seating, tables, plug-in kettles and sugar. Instead there were tatami mats, cushions and a woman in a kimono with some pottery.

Sitting cross-legged (or at least the nearest the blogs could manage) the centuries-old ceremony was explained by our host. A mix of Zen, socialising, honouring guests, cultural conversation and tea drinking.

The tea is made following a very srict method and takes years to perfect. The host judges the temperature of the water in the kettle (non plug-in) from the sound of the bubbling water. The tea is a green powder which is whisked with a carefully crafted bamboo whisk. The cup is presented to the guest with both hands and with the decoration on the cup facing the guest. The guest drinks the tea and turns the cup so the decoration faces the host.

(And there is so much more.)

Back to Mate-Mike-Spoiltheparty-Blog, who, hearing all the above says...

"Forty-five miuntes for a cup of tea? You could have gone to Costa for that!"

Ep 13 Big Blog Adventure

Some things in Japan began life outside Japan.

One of those is the wooden stirrer for stirring your tea/coffee. For hygiene reasons the stirrer is individually wrapped. 

For avoidance of doubt about what the wrapper contains, (for English speakers), the contents are described in English. 

However the translation took an unexpected turn ...

Stirrers in Japan are referred to as...

Join the Blog campaign "Rename all stirrers in the UK as Muddlers" The world will be a better place!

Ep 12 Big Blog Adventure

These posts are affecting Mrs Blog's cognitive functions. After reading two consecutive episodes on weird food...she decided to have a bowl of granola with lashings of double cream for breakfast.

Having survived a bento box full of dead things looking back at him Mr Blog was all ears and eyes for the tour of the tea plantation. Just as well because there was a mountain (pun intended) of information to absorb. 

(To assist the reader it is summarised in the bullets below)

• Eastern Mountain Teas is a plantation on a big mountain with a trail up it of 4.8 km 
• At the top of the mountain is a Shinto shrine
• Japanese people like to visit shrines at the top of mountains repeatedly
• Records are kept which show that two people have been up Tea mountain 20,000 times
• One old fella managed his 2,000th ascent when he was 94
• One old lady and her daughter were walking up the trail while we were there
• They didn't make it because the old lady took a tumble
• We were part of an impromptu rescue involving four tourists, one guide, two tea plantation workers and a small Suzuki people carrier designed for 8 people
• With 9 people it makes sense to put the youngest (the old lady's daughter) in the boot, squash the shaken old lady in between two plantation workers and hope for the best
• Everyone was very happy when we got back down to the plantation 
• Not everyone was happy with the tea because it tastes very bitter

Episode 11 Big Blog Adventure - Food worse than Veggie

(It seems appropriate that this post should be about food given the veggie update in the last one)

Japanese food is the stuff of legend so the Blogs were keen to sample all that the country had to offer. That is, until we were handed our "Bento boxes" on a coach trip from a mountain railway to a tea plantation.

Our guide, Eric, was quickly tucking in and savouring the contents whilst offering helpful advice like,

"There's a whole fish in here, you can eat all of the fish, the head and everything!"

Mr Blog opened his box slowly and sure enough found a whole, dead, cold fish looking back at him. Next to it was a section of the box filled with what looked like red crisps with nigella seeds (but without  his reading glasses on, Mr Blog was only 90% sure). Next to this was a collection of translucent crunchy noodles with sesame seeds, something that looked like a shrivelled kiwi fruit and a rice ball.

Mr Blog munched and crunched and only later found out,

1. the red crisps were shrimps (the seeds were there eyes)
2. the translucent noodles were whitebait (the seeds were their eyes)
3. the shrivelled kiwi fruit was a salted plum that made your face pucker up to half its normal size, and
4. the rice ball was a ball of cold rice
5. Mrs Blog didn't eat very much

Had he known then of the delights of Tofu Chilli without chilli, Mr Blog might have gone vegetarian before arriving at the tea plantation.

A pause on Japan

My intention was to write a seamless series of blogs about the Big Blog Adventure to Japan. This was scuppered by the interruption of a walking weekend in the Cairngorms which has forced Mr Blog into therapy.

Mate-Doug-Blog has been organising weekend walking breaks in May for over twenty years for his friends. On one of the early trips to "The middle of absolutely nowhere" (somewhere left of Loch Ness) Mr Blog was introduced to taking baths in a midge-infested loch boasting a maximum temperature of 5 C. He was also re-introduced to outside toilets.

Much has changed over the years. This May, Mr Blog realised that Mate-Doug-Blog has gone soft. He booked a place to stay with inside toilets, hot showers, running clean water...and no midges! 

The blame for this backsliding seems to lie with his new found, younger friends. These millenial types like all that the modern world has to offer, sanitation, comfort and vegetarianism. 

Mr Blog can deal with all of this except being forced to go veggie for three days. 

Evening 1 dinner: Vegetarian Lasagne. Large helpings of uncooked red onion and slimy mushroom served in a sauce that looked and tasted like grey milk.

Evening 2 dinner: Tofu Chilli, served without the chilli in case it upset anyone. A bottle of hot chilli sauce was provided for any weirdo who actually wanted to taste chilli.

Evening 3 dinner: Pasta with all the trimmings except flavour

Never in his long life, has Mr Blog ever gone three days without meat. 

But there was worse!!

One of the guests brought home-made rhubarb muffins, made with home-grown rhubarb from the guest's allotment. You could taste the fertiliser :-(

The therapist said writing this all down would help so hopefully Mr Blog can return to the subject of Japan before too long!

Ep 10 Blog Adventure - Bullet trains

Having seen all that Tokyo could offer in three days the Blogs headed for the station for a train ride to Shizuoka.

On the way to Tokyo Station for the next leg of the big adventure Mr Blog reflected that this city was city of 37 million people was missing a few things, namely,

1. Car horns - no one uses them. They sit patiently in traffic rather than shouting and getting stressed with jams they can't unblock
2. Graffiti
3. Litter
4. Aggression/impatience
5. Late trains

When it was first launched the Bullet Train didn't have the aerodynamic design to the front of the lead of the lead carriage. As a result the train would barrel through tunnels at high speed causing a rush of air out of the tunnel, that made a booming sound which scared the wildlife. A nation which prefers to not use car horns is filled with people who worry about birds and small animals being deafened.

One of those people was an engineer who had worked on the project to design the train. He was also a bird-watcher. He'd noticed how Kingfishers make almost no splash as they dive into water so he set about mimicing the design for the front of the train. No more sonic booms... happy birds.

Charming!

Buller Train

Kingfisher