The little orange thing that looks like a persimmon is actually a quail egg dyed orange!

The next day in Nara we enjoyed a kaiseki lunch.  The decor of the restaurant was beautiful and the food was so delicious.  I really liked the red table.

Tea before lunch.

Persimmon and veggie dish – savory with a hint of sweetness

Apple jelly, creme fraiche and kuromitsu (black sugar syrup) – a nice way to end the meal.

As always, the ingredients were top-notch and the presentation was beautiful.  One kaiseki dinner was at a long-standing traditional kaiseki restaurant that had opened up a branch at the Cerulean Tower Hotel.

This dish was soft shell turtle chawanmushi (steamed savory egg custard).

This restaurant also had a dessert cart which was different from the usual kaiseki places.

The other kaiseki place we tried was located in an old neighborhood in Tokyo, down an atmospheric, quaint alley.

We got to sit at the counter and watch the chefs work right in front of us.  Check out the tuna in the box!

We also had our own fish shabu shabu.

It was a very filling dinner.

The lamb was pretty good and the broth was delicious as well.

We had more Sichuan food at another popular restaurant.

And of course, we had to have Peking Duck which was so crisp and tasty at Da Dong!

It was a great way to end our trip to Beijing.

While Henry was checking out the restaurants around our neighborhood one day, he ran across a French restaurant right around the corner from our apartment – Restaurant Bacar.  It was ranked Top 50 Tokyo restaurants on a popular restaurant review website.  I called 2 months ahead for 2 days to get a reservation and it was clear that this place booked up fast.  We went to celebrate our anniversary with a special dinner.

The waiter was quite entertaining and we started off with an amuse of caramel covered cherry tomato with salt and pepper.

We also had the bagna cauda made with crab miso for dipping lots of fresh, colorful veggies including an oyster leaf (that really tasted like fresh oyster!) and fried ayu!

Then we had an appetizer of eel and foie gras with mango.

Yummy! The main dish was a roasted quail filled with grains.

We also had a rice course – I had chicken and negi and Henry had eel.  Dessert was peach with chamomile ice cream and hazelnut souffle.  It was an amazing, simple, delicious meal that ended with freshly made caramel.

Afterward, we had some delicious sushi and went to see the famous coastline where on a clear day you can see the Japan Alps across the sea…neat huh?

Then some of our friend’s friends joined us to go to Gokayama to see the UNESCO World Heritage Site of old gassho-zukuri farmhouses with very sloped roofs.  It was a very peaceful area and we spent some time wandering around and checking out some the museums and exhibits.  There was some very old Japanese antiques.  We also enjoyed the beautiful mountain surroundings.  Afterward we headed to the onsen and back to Takaoka City for a cheap local izakaya.

The next day, we visited a local shrine and headed to Kanazawa to see the famous landscape garden Kenrokuen.  We wandered through the old streets of Kanazawa and then the Modern Art Museum before taking our time in Kenrokuen.  Of course we had to take a picture by the well-known lantern statue next to the pond.  Then we went to see Kanazawa castle – a rebuilt castle – before heading back to Tokyo.  It was a great trip and we had a lot of fun meeting new friends and exploring a new area of Japan.

Check out the green grass of the same shrine.

That’s a lot of My Melody!

Delicious bento in the old area of Kanazawa.

Modern Art Museum – this exhibit was called Swimming Pool.  There is a layer of water on top of clear glass and you can go under the swimming pool and pose like this lady.

Kenrokuen

After browsing through their selection, we chose kimonos and the shopkeeper helped us put them on. It took her about 10 minutes per person and she was efficient and fast. I figure it would’ve taken me at least an hour to do it myself.  They were tight and walking was a bit difficult at first. We walked around the old town (Koedo).

Then Kawagoe Castle which was just recently reconstructed and open to the public.

There was even a special event going on where people were able to dress up as samurai.

It was definitely a lot easier to breathe after we took the kimono off though. Overall, a fun, girlie day.

There are too many food and drink pictures to post them all but here are some of our favorites of the trip.  Be forewarned, if you’re not hungry already, you will be!

Meat-filled Thai-style mochi balls

Some German restaurant/bar down the street from our hotel was roasting a whole pig.  It looked pretty good.  Too bad we weren’t in Bangkok for German food.

Check out the corn  cream ball from KFC.  Didn’t try it but it did look interesting.

Here’s Henry finishing his pad thai that he made at cooking school.  It was yummy!

My penang curry.  First time I’ve ever made penang curry.

We had lots of Thai iced tea.

And this carrot passionfruit juice was deelish!

We also went to this awesome Thai seafood restaurant on the Chao Phraya river with a great view.

We also had some mantis prawns at this restaurant as well as a yummy hearts of coconut palm salad.

We had a lot of Korean fried chicken which I hear is very popular in the US as well.

We also ate lots of red, spicy food.

Check out the “Special Menu”  In the airport at Jeju, we had to pass through a radiation detector!

Before the tournament and after the tournament, we did a little sightseeing – waterfalls, lava tubes and LOVELAND!   Henry’s ultimate frisbee team for Jeju included some old friends from the US.

We had lots of yummy food as well from Korean pork BBQ to fresh abalone sashimi and sea squirt.

You could even get fresh octopus from the old diving women of Jeju.

*NSFW*  The following pictures are definitely not safe for work! *NSFW*

Jeju had lots of different tourist attractions.  I had heard about Loveland and we went after the tournament and we were not disappointed!  Quite the interesting erotic art park.  There are more interesting pictures in the album.

The ferry ride took 10 minutes and we arrive to find beautiful sakura trees the floating shrine and torii gate and deer!

We walked around the island and saw some amazing views of sakura and the torii gate and pagodas before we took the ropeway to the top of Mt. Misen and gazed out at the Seto Inland Sea dotted with islands.

By this point, it was low tide so we walked out into the sea to visit the giant torii gate close up.  It was quite an experience.

We stayed at an onsen ryokan room that was half Japanese and half Western.

After a huge kaiseki meal including the famous oysters of the region (huge, fresh and delicious) in nabe and grilled form, we took a stroll outside to gaze at the lighted torii gate, shrine and pagoda.

We visited the shrine in the morning and the pagodas before heading back to Hiroshima.

We took the tram from the port to the Hiroshima Peace Park and Atomic Bomb Dome Monument.  It was quite moving to stare at what was left immediately above the atomic bomb.

Then, we barely made it to the gate for our flight back to Tokyo – 5 mins to spare!  Luckily it was a small airport and our friend convinced the gate agent in Japanese.  It was a wonderful weekend full of sakura and beautiful Japanese sights.

Thanks to our friend, the onsen ryokan we were staying at was very nice.  We had an amazing dinner and huge breakfast before hitting the slopes at Kagura.

We enjoyed another delicious dinner and relaxed in the onsen.

The next day we did some touring of the town, including sake tasting and mochi pounding – which we ate afterwards.  It was a great weekend and a fitting last snow trip in Japan.