teamEggers

salad dressing

I spend a lot of my culinary time guessing. I’ll take a bite and then try to match the flavour profile of what I’m eating against something familiar.

Salad dressing is always rough, but not usually disappointing. Playing it safe, I first picked out a bottle of something moderately resembling Honey Mustard and was pleasantly surprised with Roasted Sesame. One time I got something white and it was a perfect mix of ranch, buttermilk and caesar. “Japanese dressing” turned out to be a very flavourful vinaigrette.

I just bit into my lunchtime salad and was so impressed that I had to blog about it. The bottle was pink and while it looks loosely like a tomato vinaigrette, it doesn’t taste like any other salad I’ve ever had.

A couple more bites and…. ahah! Umeboshi!! I’ve just discovered a pickled plum salad dressing.

And that’s why i love japan. Eating is an adventure.

Hakone [Part 1]

Our well-worn tour book describes the journey:

Starting out by train from Tokyo, you switch to a small two-car streetcar that zigzags up the mountain, then change to a cable car, then to a smaller ropeway, and you end your trip wth a board ride across Lake Ashi. From Lake Ashi, you can then board a bus bound for Odawara Station where you board the train back to Tokyo.

Sounds whirlwind, right? While it seems like we spent the better part of the weekend “in transit”, it still felt like an adventure.

it was kind of like this

On the zigzag parts, the streetcar conductor would actually hop out of the train and run along these little platforms to the other end, where he’d start driving again.

The train was standing-room-only packed which added to the craziness of it all, but really detracted from the picture taking.

Midway up the mountain we stopped for lunch. This is me, jill and wally (jill and stephen’s houseguest):

The only place open (on a Saturday at noon?) was this little korean place. Which is cool because we’re going to Korea in three days. (more on that later)

Stopping randomly in a little mountain town sounds like a great spot to have a little mountain town adventure, right? We hopped off the train midday to find some lunch and explore a bit. We stumbled on into this really old hotel that has awesome architecture and really cool gardens.

And I met a monkey.

And in true form, Jon fed some fish. If only there were a petting zoo. I’m going through goat withdrawals.

So what’s the deal with peace prevailing on earth? I see this shit everywhere. I mean, i’m peace-lovin and whatnot, but come on.

Okay, okay, after that we hop back on the ziggy mc zaggerton and up on the ropeway to the top of the mountain. But wait! On the way, we stopped at this place… we’ll call it the Hell’s Valley… it was this mountain full of sulphuric smoke and seismic activity.

Okay, so what’s the very coolest about this is that they do this thing called tamago onsen. Tamago means egg. Onsen is a hotbath. So a tamago onsen is an egg hard boiled in the hot springs! omg! and the shell turns black.. and look! here’s Hello Kitty as a tamago onsen!

What’s even awesomer is that the tour book billed this as a 30 minute “nature hike”. hahaha. here’s the nature hike. check it:

AND … stay tuned for part 2.

Hakone [Part 2]

…Back up on the gondola, there should be fantastic views of Mt. Fuji.

Obviously, it was a bit cloudy. It’s unfortunate because Hakone is supposed to be one of the best spots to view fuji from on a clear day. On an overcast day, it was just another beautiful vista.

And here’s the gondola that we like to sit in when we want to travel from one mountain peak to another mountain peak:

But we eventually got to the lake and found our bea-u-tiful cabin.

and like, oh my god. there was a kitchen and a great view and two bedrooms and a vaulted ceiling. We brought in some food and boozy mc boozerton and made dinner and such. It was awesome.

Also there are lots of crazy shoes. They like to have different shoes for different places in the house. there are outside shoes, there are inside shoes, there are bathroom shoes, and there are porch shoes. These are the special porch shoes. And this is a special picture.

This is jon and michelle:

And this is stephen and Jill:

and this is the famed tamago onsen:

And I think I’ve written enough for one night. we will continue again in the ‘morrow. Perhaps I will be more coherent with my story telling.