Japan

Imagine a country where 1/2 the population of the United States inhabits an area no larger than California. Now imagine that only 20 percent of the land in California is populated by the same number of people. This is Japan...

view looking out of our hotel in Asakusa, looking away from the downtown area.

We spent a month traversing Japan, using our Rail Pass, as only non-Japanese can. Chaim often tried to compare parts of Japan to New York City. And I remind him that this place is incomparable.

"Yes Chaim, it would be just like Times Square during rush hour...
only imagine Time Square being 10x bigger and there are 10x

more people there."

A typical Saturday morning during the beginning of summer break at Kyoto Station.
These students are on their way to a historic shrine for a field trip.

Theodore Geisel, aka Dr. Seuss wrote Horton Hears a Who, and dedicated this book to "My Great Friend, Mitsugi Nakamura of Kyoto, Japan." There is little doubt Dr. Seuss had Japan in mind when he wrote this book, about Horton, an elephant who finds a whole world living on a speck of dust.

Dr. Seuss-ish trees in Kyoto

Chinese food in China is just called "food" and contrary to popular western belief, Japanese food consists of more than sushi. Every restaurant in Japan serves a specific type of Japanese food: sushi and sashimi (of course) but also, curry (derived from India, but much sweeter and less hot), tonkatsu (breaded pork cutlets), shabu shabu, tempura, okonomyaki, and izakaya, to name just a few. The system is very structured and so you would never find curry in a sushi restaurant. Even with all this variety, there is surprising very few fresh vegetables and one gets tired of eating there.

Chaim searches out the Chinese restaurants and finds that unlike in NYC Chinatown, Chinese food is very expensive, but we go there anyway just so we can get a plate of sauteed green vegetables. On the other hand, we find a lot of Korean BBQ places, that prove to be much cheaper than in New York. The only problem is, this Korean food is laced with MSG. emergency hot pepper travel set

Most all Japanese cuisine is fish based and thus my vegan uncle has a hell of a time trying to find places to eat. Knowing of the sweetness of Japanese food, I bought Chaim an emergency hot pepper travel set for his birthday. It came in handy quite often. After a month of Japanese food, (mostly seasoned with soy and sugar) I was ready to get back to New York and have some real Thai.

a few days of eating Nippon style