Hochner Family Blog

Todai-ji – UNESCO World Heritage

2010-07-23T19:35:00.000+02:00

With Akiko, we always had some interest for the cultural Unesco sites. Nara, city located near the famous Kyoto doesn’t get the interest level it deserves. It is however a must for any visitor to Japan.

Nara (Heijo-kyo) was, in 710 the first capital of the then Yamato state. Among the numerous touristic spots to see, our favorite is without doubt the Daibutsu, Great Buddha, hosted in the Todai-Ji temple.

This Todaïjï temple and the Daibutsu, great Buddha, are THE symbol of Nara. Built in 743 on the order of Emperor Shomu, this Buddha was finished in 752. Like all Japanese wooden temples, this structure burnt twice during the centuries, in 1180 and 1567. The current building protecting the great Buddha was built in 1709. This Daibutsu Vairochana statue is 16 meter tall and weights some 450 tons. The wooden structure hosting the Daibutsu is 47 meter high, 57 meter long and 50 meter wide – it is the largest wooden structure in the world!

Japan Nostalgia

2010-07-11T12:50:00.001+02:00

It’s been four years since we left Japan to return to France. From time to time, I check out my old pictures taken in Japan et I must admit feeling some kind of nostalgia. The fact that we have not returned to Japan this year makes all this more sensitive.

The two villages, Shirakawa-go and Gokayama, containing numerous Gassho-zukuri style houses were added to the Unesco World Heritage list in 1995. Located in a mountainous region that was cut off from the rest of the world for a long period of time, these villages with their Gassho-style houses subsisted on the cultivation of mulberry trees and the rearing of silkworms. The large houses with their steeply pitched thatched roofs are the only examples of their kind in Japan.

The main characteristic of these wooden houses is their high, peaked roofs. These are meant against the heavy snow fall that are frequent in this mountainous area. These large houses can be 18 m long and 10 m wide. There are up to four floors where the whole family lives. The upper floor, under the roof is traditionally reserved for the rearing of silkworms.

We visited this place twice, at different season. In August, the rice paddies are green and the scenery is quiet.

In winter, the place is quite different. First of all, the green of the rice paddies has been replaced by the white the snow. And it is cold. Very cold.

One can quickly understand the purpose of these steeply pitched thatched roofs.

Nowadays, one of the main activity of the place is Tourism. I’ve heard that some 1.5 million visitors come every year !

The view of the various night lighting is wonderful and helps to forget about the freezing cold.

A thought for Brasilia

2009-11-21T19:03:00.001+01:00

Nothing special. Just the wish to write something.

I was looking for photos from Brazil when I came across this one. What good memories! Brasilia is a very special city, thanks to its concept, its creation and its symbolism. We have been fortunate to discover it with a guide who was really in love with this city and was able to make us share his enthusiasm.

We are very grateful to him for sharing his passion with us.

Uzbekistan

2009-04-18T18:19:00.000+02:00

Uzbekistan, I must confess that we knew almost nothing of that country before deciding to go. Of course, the main reasons for this travel destination choice had names like Silk Road, Samarkand, Bukhara and Tamerlane. But it would have been hard to to provide more details and respond to simple questions such as: actual location of the country, history, current data, etc..

So, the first travel guide let us know that the country which was, up to the late 1800s divided into several small independent nations called khanates, was conquered by the Russians in the late nineteenth century.

Uzbekistan, as a single nation and republic exists only since 1924, when various territorial entities of Central Asia were united in the Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic. Uzbekistan is an independent country since 1991.

A century of Russian influence has of course not completly disappeared, but the country still retained its specificity and its national character. We were pleasantly surprised by the friendliness of the people, for their hospitality.

The outer walls of Inchan Kala, the old city of Khiva

Modern madrasah in Tashkent

People are incredibly friendly

The monuments of Timurid Samarkand are simply gorgeous! Here, a view of one of three medrese on the Registan square.

The Halong Bay, Vietnam

2009-04-16T17:04:00.000+02:00

Most probably one of the world most beautiful natural site. A UNESCO World Heritage site since 1994.

A couple of thousands islets spread around some 1500 square kilometers of the emerald water of the Gulf of Tonkin. These thousands limestone pillars and isles of various sizes and shapes are all around, disappearing in the distance in the mist in a mysterious atmosphere.

The legend of the dragon
Local legend has it that long ago, when the Vietnamese were fighting Chinese invaders, the gods sent a family of dragons to help defend the land. This family of dragons began spitting out jewels and jade. These jewels turned into the islands and islets dotting the bay, linking together to form a great wall against the invaders. The people kept their land safe and formed what later became the country of Vietnam. After that, dragons were interested in peaceful sightseeing of the Earth and decided to live here then. The place where Mother Dragon flew down was named Hạ Long, the place where the dragon children attended upon their mother was called Bai Ti Long island, and the place where the dragon children wriggled their tails violently was called Bach Long Vi island.

Inn - Around Fujigoko

2009-04-13T21:31:00.003+02:00

I always found that in Japan, the colors of the end of Falls were spectacular. Here a traditional inn at sunset.

I love the little deck of traditionnal Japanese country houses that are meant to allow you to just relax, have a cup of tea or simply read a few pages, while standing in front of a garden that is usually very well taken care of.

Near Mount Fuji, Japan

Yasukuni Jinja

2009-04-10T21:23:00.001+02:00

I took this photo during the last winter we spent in Tokyo. Within a few hours, the city was covered with snow and almost all the vehicles stopped running around. The atmosphere was quite special, mainly at nightfall.

The entrance of the Shinto temple Yasukuni Jinja had not been deserted by people.

Yasukuni Jinja, Tokyo, Japan

Registan in Samarkand

2009-04-09T13:05:00.000+02:00

The Registan was the heart of the ancient city of Samarkand. This is where the people were listening to their king, Timur (or Tamerlane). It was also the place of the numerous public executions that were held regularly until early in the 20th century.

There are three madrasahs around the Registan: Ulugbek Madrasah (1417-1420), the Sher-Dor Madrasah (1619-1636) (Lion Gate) and the Tilya-Kori Madrasah (1646-1660) (covered with gold). The site is really impressive -- just imagine to be in front or in the middle of three Notre-Dame cathedrals!

The Registan Ensemble is a wonderful combination of the structures built at different times. As we arrived, one of the guards suggested us to go up one of the minaret (for a little fee). The view from up there is really something special.

Face of Uzbekistan

2009-04-08T09:09:00.000+02:00

Old man at the Urgut market (near Samarkand), Uzbekistan, August 2008

Our eyes met at the entrance of the Urgut market and he almost stopped me to ask me to take this picture. And after he looked and approved of the photo on the small monitor, he went his way, without a word.

Uzbekistan. I must admit that we didn't know much about this country before deciding to go there. The main reasons for this trip choice have name like Silk Road, Samarkand, Bukkara and Tamerlan. Names that made us dream and think, but without bringing in any precise picture.

A country with very friendly people, very curious and often looking for contact with foreigners. No aggressiveness, on the contrary. But also, amazing monuments and buildings. Atmosphere of another time. Superb sites.

Mist Castle

2006-04-07T09:02:00.000+02:00

Maruoka Castle, the oldest castle still standing in Japan

While in the Fukui prefecture, we took the time to visit this nice little wonder. Located on a high hill above Maruoka Town, this castle is also known as Kasumi ga Jo ("Mist Castle") because a legend tells that whenever an enemy approached the castle, a thick mist would appear and hide it to protect it in time of battle.

The Maruoka Castle was completed in 1576, and is the oldest one remaining of all the castles in Japan. I think it is a National Cultural Asset.

As usual, the whole structure is meant for defense more than for comfort. Its access is quite steep. The inside rooms are actually pretty simple and small, and everything was made to make it difficult to reach the upper stories that were used as the living quarters for the lord of the castle.

A rope has been prepared to help visitors move up and down between the floors. I wonder how they were doing without it, while fighting each other with sword.

The park surrounding the castle has been selected as one of the top 100 most beautiful places for viewing cherry blossoms in Japan, but unfortunately we visited it way too early and won’t be able to come back.

Echizen Crab

2006-04-02T11:58:00.000+02:00

After leaving the ryokan, we briefly visited the park Kenrokuen in Kanazawa. The falling snow over the Japanese garden reminded us that we were still in winter and the view was just beautiful.

Igashi no Chaya in Kanazawa is the old entertainment area, full of tea house (where people used to meet geishas).

And before starting the real purpose of the second part of our journey — crabs, or to be more precise, the Echizengani (Crab from the Echizen Coast), we had a look at the local fish market, Konoemachi Ichiba, where we saw some incredible specimens of these Echizengani or Zuwaigani (actually, the crab is the same, but its name depends on the location it comes from.) Now is the end of the season to catch and eat these crabs and it is for us the last chance we have. They can reach a span of over a meter, and their price can go well over yen 12,000 at the market (this is over US$100 or euros 80). Needless to say, these figures increase when you order them in a restaurant.

The market was quite nice and as expected, all kind of fishes were available.

The Echizen Coast is famous in Japan for the Echizengani, or crab, drawing thousands of tourists each winter. We stayed in a small Minshuku (family pension) specialized in these crabs. The season which goes from the end of November to Mid March was drawing to an end.

Akiko and Julien choosing two crabs for the dinner. These crabs are so specific (and pricey) that they are marked with a label of origin upon their capture (the one from our place had a yellow plastic ring attached — its certificate of origin.) One can also find some cheaper imports from Russia and Hokkaido, but these seems not to be the real thing when it comes to taste, at least according to the local people.
The four ways of preparing the crab: Kani Sashimi (Raw), Yakikani (Baked), Yudegani (boiled) and Seikozousui (crab eggs) in soup with rice.
Kani Sashimi (Raw) — the legs are cut off and immediately placed into icy water. This will give the meat this special look.
Yakikani (Baked) — this was the body and half of the legs of the crab we ate raw. The green stuff is one of the best part.
Yudegani (Boiled crab) — The crab is first placed into a basin full of hot water. After a little while, it is simply boiled in salty water for about 20–30 minutes.
Seikozousui (crab eggs) in soup with rice — this was the last dish. The size of this female crab is smaller and it is full of eggs.

I usually do not like crab very much. First, it is somewhat troublesome to get the meat, and then quite often, the taste is not worth the trouble. But these dishes were different — they were really something. The three of us had two large Echizengani crabs and a smaller one (with the eggs). A couple at a table next to us had three of these huge crabs plus the smaller one. I have no idea how they were able to finish.

The oldest Ryokan

2006-03-29T08:19:00.000+02:00

Just after returning from Bali, we were invited to Houshi, the oldest hotel (Ryokan or Japanese inn) in the world. Before reaching the ryokan itself, we stopped on the way to the nearby Natadera Temple.

This temple, the central temple of the local Shingon Sect, was first constructed in 717. It is one year older than the Houshi ryokan! It is nestled in a lovely grove of cedar trees in the hills south of Komatsu City.

The area was still covered with a bit of snow, but we were quite lucky to visit the place under the sun. Natadera Temple is said to have been established by the priest Taicho (who also started Awazu Onsen) when he placed the Senju Kannon (a statue of Kannon Bodhisattva, who had a thousand hands) in a stone cave. Toshitsune Maeda, the third lord of Kaga, rebuilt the magnificent temple. Natadera temple covers a large area and is made up of seven buildings, some of which are national treasures. The temple is famous for its momiji (Japanese maples) in autumn.

After visiting the temple, we went to the Houshi ryokan.
The owner of this place belongs to the family of Akiko’s mother, and I have heard about the place for quite a while — I finally got to see it.
Staying at a ryokan is usually a nice experience, but staying at this ryokan was simply incredible. Every single detail is taken care of to make sure our stay was perfect.
Tea was served upon our arrival, just after being welcomed by the owner, the 46th Zengoro Houshi. (I know my way of bowing is neither very good nor elegant, but I can’t help it, I’m only a gaijin.)

Our room was actually an apartment! A nice Japanese garden is located right outside the sliding window.

Houshi’s history spans 1,300 years and 46 generations! Our host, the 46th Zengoro Houshi and his wife, take pride not only on taking care of the oldest hotel in the world (with Guinness registration), but on the preservation of the resolve that led to Houshi's establishment so long ago. While upholding many fine traditions, they have integrated new ways of doing things to create a harmonious and seamless atmosphere. The two days spent there were one of my most memorable and best experience of Japan.
After a nice ofuro or onsen bath, we met Akiko’s parents for dinner in one of the large room. Here again, the dinner too was amazing. The food is usually an integral part of the pleasure of staying at a ryokan.

Before leaving, we got a chance to visit the special VIP room of the ryokan that is reserved to really special guests such as the Emperor family, etc.
The VIP room, or apartment, is located in the middle of the garden and is actually a different building by itself. It is composed of several rooms separated by sliding paper doors. The place, its detail and its atmosphere represent without doubt the utmost of the Japanese refinement.

From Houshi’s web site:

The lives of the Zengoros
In 718, Garyo Houshi, a follower of Taicho Daishi who was to become the first Zengoro, established Houshi as a spa for helping people cure a variety of illnesses. In 990, at the time of the 10th Zengoro, the retired and pious Emperor Hanayama visited Jishuzan Genyaji Temple. He renamed the temple Natadera Temple and in subsequent years often visited Houshi to bathe. At the time of the 17th Zengoro, the Genji (Minamoto) clan and the Heike (Taira) clan began fighting for military supremacy. In 1189 Yoshitsune Minamoto and Musashibo Benkei passed Ataka no Seki. While the 27th Zengoro was running Houshi, a riot broke out. It is said that Rennyo Shonin (Saint Rennyo) disguised himself as a Houshi chef. Enshu Kobori visited Houshi and guided the creation of a garden at the time of the 33rd Zengoro. Around this time old kutani was also created. In 1640 Toshitsune Maeda, lord of Kaga, visited Houshi and a Komon cedar was planted in commemoration. At the time of the 35th Zengoro, Basho Matsuo traveled around Hokuriku and wrote the haiku Ishiyama no ishi yori shiroshi aki no kaze. In 1779, the 39th Zengoro oversaw the establishment of a code called the "21 spa rules." At the time of the 41st Zengoro, the eight most scenic spots in Awazu- Awazu hakkei-were officially designated. Taro Katsura stayed at Houshi and wrote Zengoro at Enmeikaku when the 43rd Zengoro was at the helm of Houshi. Under the guidance of the 46th Zengoro, Houshi joined Les Henokiens, an organization comprised of family companies from around the world with a history of at least 200 years. In 1994 Houshi was recognized as the oldest hotel in the world by the publishers of The Guinness Book of Records.

Borobudur

2006-03-27T12:11:00.000+02:00

Borobudur is one of these places I have dreamed of visiting for years, but didn’t get around to go before this trip.

We could have taken a simple day trip from Bali to visit Borobudur, but this would not have enabled us to really see this amazing place. And on top of this, Borobudur is not the only site worth seeing in central Java. We selected to stay at a hotel in Yogyakarta, but if I had to decide now, I would most certainly choose to stay at the only hotel located right in the archaeological pack of Borobudur, to be able to see the sun rise over the monument.

We only had three days in Java and the first one was dedicated to Borobudur. We left Yogyakarta as early as possible to take advantage of the good morning weather.
Borobudur, the temple on the hill, is the largest Buddhist structure in the world. It is not just an amazing structure full of beautiful bas-reliefs — it is a complete initiation to Buddhist art, religion and customs.

Little is known of Borobudur’s early history. Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles revealed Borobudur Temple in 1814. He found the temple in ruin condition and ordered that the site be cleared and surveyed.

As mentioned, the whole monument was conceived as an initiatory mountain, and conveys the visitor to the heart of the life of Buddha with strong iconographical details. The temple is to be ascended level by level by those seeking the enlightenment that corresponds with the unity of the shrine's top.
The most intricately adorned level features 160 carved panels depicting human joys and despair of the World of Desire. The 1300 bas-reliefs along the balustraded corridors of the square galleries forming the next five levels of terraces - the World of Form - represent scenes and teachings from the life of Buddha and the lives of 43 bodhisattvas: at this level, it is assumed that a person has achieved some mastery over worldly desires.
Finally, the three circular terraces are left plain except for the 72 perforated stupas, each containing a statue of Buddha: this World of Formlessness culminates in the bell-shaped but totally unadorned central stupa that is Nothingness and All, and symbolizes the Absolute.

Since around the 12th century, Borobudur lay forgotten, abandoned to the destruction wrought by dense tropical vegetation and earthquakes. The construction came almost completely loose, gradually turning into a shapeless mound. It is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Prambanan, the second place we wanted to visit, is the largest temple complex in Java, with 224 temples. Located about 30 minutes east of Yogyakarta, the temples are believed to have been built by King Balitung Maha Sambu in the middle of the ninth century.
There are three main temples dedicated to Shiva, Vishnu and Brahma (all manifestations of God for the Hindu).
The parapets of the structure are adorned with beautiful bas-reliefs depicting the famous Ramayana story.
The 40 meter high main temple of Shiva houses a magnificent statue of Shiva's consort, Durga.
During the high season (Summer), it is possible to see a representation of the Ramayana in the open air theater located right behind the archaeological park of the temple.

We took advantage of our visit to Jogyakarta to visit some batik school and factories. They really do some amazing work.

Balinese Interlude

2006-03-22T03:52:00.000+01:00

One of the nice things about living in Japan is that there are many nice travel destinations around. During Julien’s school vacation in February, we decided to go to Bali and Java.

There is no doubt in my mind: Bali, the Island of the Gods, is one of these magic places on earth (and don’t get me started about what I think are the other magic places around the world).

Bali has it all — incredibly rich cultural heritage, beautiful sceneries such as these picturesque rice terraces, extremely friendly people, fascinating dancing with gorgeous costumes, good food, nice sandy beaches (although we didn’t really go there for these), sacred caves, lush tropical forests full of exotic wildlife, mountains and active volcanos, and much more.

This was our second visit and this time, we first stayed in Nusa Dua in the South, and then in Ubud, a little North of Denpasar, the capital.

No need to write a touristic review of Bali. let’s just say that we all really enjoyed our stay. Here are simply a few pictures.
The direct flight from Tokyo took about seven hours and we arrived after night fall — the arrival drink to put us in the mood was quite welcome.
Bali offers so many ways to indulge oneself. Needless to say, we both enjoyed some time at a spa.
Visiting market and temples
Everywhere, we could see some beautifully made handicrafts and souvenirs.
And just about every day, we enjoyed some Balinese dancing — Barong dance, the famous Kecak, Legong dance, Kris dance, etc.
A simple visit to a temple can become an adventure…. Julien was firmly asked for food by a monkey at Ulawatu temple.

And then, of course, we managed to learn a little something about Balinese cooking. Our hotel arranged a cooking class for us.
This started early morning by a visit to the market, followed by
some work in the kitchen and an excellent lunch!

Our dishes include the above skew (Sate Lilit with chicken and beef), Balinese boiled vegetable (Lawar Bali) and two desserts (Rujak Segar, mixed fresh fruits with tamarind and palm sugar and Kolak Pisang, boiled bananas with palm sugar and coconut milk).

Have a look at more photos HERE .

To be followed by a post on Java and Borobudur.

New friends

2006-03-15T09:00:00.000+01:00

Meet our new friends at home. On the left, you can see the Emperor and on the right, the Empress. These Kimekomi Dolls are the first ones made by Akiko.

Kimekomi in Japanese means Ki (Wood) Me (Groove) Komi (Insert). So, these dolls (Ningyou) are made by inserting fabric into the grooves of a wooden model.

Here is how she did.

As a beginner, she started by purchasing a kit containing all the necessary elements, the wooden shape onto which the fabric will be placed and inserted into the grooves, the fabric pieces, the heads, the paper model that will be used to cut the fabric, and the various accessories.

The wooden shape (made with wood paste) is the base for the doll. It features numerous grooves carved on it that recreates the flow of the cloth and/or kimono.
Akiko starts by smoothening the wooden shape to make sure no irregularity will show up in the fabric that will be applied.
A hole is made for the head. It is sometimes necessary to correct or fix some defects or part of the wooden shape.
The kit contains the fabric and the paper model with the pattern for every pieces of tissu that will be necessary for both dolls (her kit is for two dolls). Akiko has to select what part (color, design, etc.) of the fabric will go where.
She then cuts these pieces one by one.
After that, she puts some glue into the groove, and
wrap the fabric around each section, inserting it properly into the grooves.

It is important to be careful not to create any wrong crease. This is not as easy as it looks.
The first piece of fabric in position.
And the second,

Once all the fabric has been placed on the model, the head is inserted and the accessories attached. The dolls are done.

(It took her about six hours (with the help of an instructor) for these two dolls.)

Back online

2006-03-11T07:47:00.000+01:00

Well, if you have kids, you most probably know what school vacations means. Yes, we just had two weeks of total family time together, and went to Bali and Java first, then we went for a little weekend on the other side of Japan, near Kanazawa, on the Japanese sea coast. I managed to catch a cold just before coming back home and this explains the long silence.We will catch up during the next few days.

During these three weeks, we managed to do quite a few things. Here are the next few posts we will working on.

Making Japanese dolls

Akiko has joined a few French ladies and started to learn how to make some of these beautiful dolls by herself. Quite interesting.

Bali / Java

Borobudur

Houshi is the oldest Ryokan in Japan. It has been welcoming travelers for the last 1,300 years, and is being taking care by the same family for 46 generation. It was an incredible experience, mainly because being members of the owner’s family (by Akiko’s mother side) we were especially well treated.

Eating Echizengani Crabs in Mikuni (Fukui)

And last, we visited the Eiheiji Zen Temple in Fukui.

Japanese Cooking Course: Day 1

2006-03-10T04:59:00.000+01:00

It’s been a little while. After finishing my Sushi course, I was a bit tired and didn't have much energy to do anything. But time is now limited as we have decided to leave Japan in July — this means that we only have 4 month left to do things and learn. Well, I'll try my best.

Fortunately, I found a cooking class right next to our place and I am now starting a Japanese Cooking Course! I told the teacher, Yanagiya sensei, that I would like to learn as much about Japanese cooking as possible, in 4 month. I am also interested in Japanese formal cuisine, "Edo Kaiseki". The Kaiseki Ryori was born as an adjunct to the tea ceremony. It's made with seasonal foods and we enjoy the table ware and the atmosphere as much as the dishes themselves.

For the first day, Yanagiya sensei started with the basics, Rice and Dashi (Japanese fish soup stock).

Rice
I won't go into details now, but what's important to prepare a good rice is:
- clean the rice fast, so the smell of rice bran doesn't go into the rice itself
- drain the water and leave the rice for 10 minutes
- then leave the rice in water for 20 minutes before starting to cook it.

Dashi (Japanese soup stock)
This fish based stock is at the heart of quite a few Japanese dishes, somewhat like the various “fonds” are in French cooking. Up to now, we almost always used instant Dashi (preparation), but it was good to learn how to prepare the real thing. This is an excellent base that can be used for a number of dishes, and can really add a great touch to ones cooking. On top of this, it is not difficult to do at all. The difficult part outside of Japan may be to find the ingredients. We use Katsuobushi (shavings of dried bonito or tuna fish) and Konbu (kelp). I was surprised by the volume of Katsuobushi Yanagiya Sensei used for her stock, 10g of bonito for 200 cc of water — I was using about 10 g per liter, so she is using five times more! Simply put the Konbu in cold water and leave it for about 20 minutes. Start to heat the water, and as it is getting warm, take out the Konbu. When the water comes to the boil, add the Katsuobushi, and boil it for a few minutes. Turn off the fire. When the shavings drop to the bottom of the pan, filter the water and you have your Dashi or fish stock. This will be used for a number of dishes. It is so useful in Japanese cooking that usually people prepare it in large quantity and use it little by little over a few days period. Yes, you can freeze what you don’t use right away.

Today's menu was:
Atsuyaki tamago (Rolled Omelet)
Aji no sanbaizu (vinegared Jack Mackerel) Tara to konbu no suimono (Cod & kelp soup) Atsuyaki tamago (Rolled Omelet) At the Sushi Academy, I learned to make egg roll with dashi (fish soup stock) for sushi, but this one is made of pure egg and it's great as an appetizer. It's easy to make and you can prepare it in advance.

[As it contains sugar, this Japanese omelet has a sweet taste. It is really light and very good. I am sure one could try various combinations with other ingredients — I am thinking about some mushrooms, maybe some truffle — ndlr] Ingredients: 7 eggs Preparation (A) 5 Table spoons sugar (use more sugar to keep the roll longer) 2/3 tea spoon salt 1 tea spoon soy sauce 2 table spoons sake (you can use simple and cheap sake)

1. Mix the preparation (A ) in a pot, bring it to the boil and let it cool.
2. Put the eggs in a bowl and beat them lightly.
3. Add 1. into 2 and mix them.
4. Heat a square omelet pan, coat all the surface with oil and pour in 1/4 of the egg mixture.
5. When the surface is half cooked, hold the far end of the omelet with your chopsticks, and fold the egg (roll it) towards you completely to the other end of the pan. Coat oil on the pan, add 1/4 of the egg, and repeat the operation. 6. When it's cooked, let it cool down before eating it. You can keep it in freezer for one month.

You need to have “Flash” installed to see the following. You can also click on the arrows to see the next picture.

After the cooking, Yanagiya sensei prepared the table. Dishes, cups, chopstick, and trays, all the table ware is very important in Japanese cuisine. We also learned today that we don't use Hashioki (chopstick rest) with lacquered tray. Also plain wood chopsticks are used for special occasions and we wet them with water just before using them. We’re going on vacation for a couple of weeks and the next lesson on cooking will be when we return!

Puppet Show

2006-02-15T01:37:00.000+01:00

Edo Marionette

Until last Saturday, for us, puppets in Japan were always associated to Bunraku, the famous Japanese puppet theater where each large size puppet is controled by three puppeteers. But thanks to our friend S., we got a chance to discover another type of Japanese puppets, the Edo Marionette (Edo-Ito Ayatsuri Ningyo).

M. Mitsuru Kamijo is a puppeteer of Edo Marionette, a Japanese traditional type of puppet coming straight from the Edo period. These are the more standard type of string controled marionettes. Actually, these 45 cm high marionettes are controled by up to 25 strings. This allows for a very fine control of each part of the body and the limbs, in any direction, thus expressing all kind of attitudes. These strings are divided into the three main ones (the kiki-ito for the control of the head and the shoulders) and the rest of them, the asobi-ito.

On his web site, I discovered that M. Kamijo was a technical engineer who started working with marionettes over 25 years ago. He wanted to know more about the Japanese culture and spirit, because he was feeling that the Japanese people were gradually losing their own identity. This was in 1979, the year I arrived in Japan. His group, the puppet theatre Youkiza creates modern plays based on traditional techniques.

The location, a small theater in the middle of a lovely flower park (Hyakkaen) was selected because it is the only such theater today in Tokyo that allows drinking. Yes, eating and drinking were an integral part of going to watch a theater play during the Edo era, and this point was important to M. Kamijo. There was only seating for some 35 people.

The show started with an explanation of the puppets, a little word about their history, and a description of the differences between the man and the woman characters. Male character marionettes are larger, have feet, but do not have buttock, and instead only feature a simple string. This is to allow more freedom of movement of their legs. The female character marionettes don’t have feet (we wouldn’t see them under the long kimonos) but do have a derriere, and therefore have very limited movement of their legs — this is to represent the restrained way Japanese women move and walk while wearing a kimono. On the other hand, their trunc is hollow to allow for minute detailed movements of their body.

We had several little plays.
Kappore was a very popular dance performed by men in the streets when Tokyo was called Edo.

Yoidore, a drunkard. During the Edo era, people liked to dance in a funny way to the merry music of flutes and drums. The almost complete mimesis of the puppeteer and the puppet was impressive. M. Kamijo was the drunk dancing.

Shishimai, Lion dance, that remains in various parts of Asia. People believed that if a strong lion roars loud, bad things like sickness and harmful insects will be gone. Here, we realized that it was not only the lion that M. Kamijo was controling directly, but the two men under the lion costume!

The last play, Setsubun, involved a human and an Oni, you know, these little gremlins that are chased away with beans. Great fun!

Have a look at M. Kamijo web site and if you have a chance to see this show, don’t walk, run!

Martial Arts

2006-02-13T07:02:00.000+01:00

I always liked movies — and yes, I enjoy spaghetti western, but more than these, I love Japanese Samurai movies. Some of my all time favorite flicks are in this category. without any doubt, Kurosawa was a Master. So, when Akiko mentioned the 29th All Japan Traditional Martial Ways (Kobudo) Demonstrations, I immediately was interested in going. I also knew that Julien too would be interested.

The place, the Budokan or the Mecca of Japanese Martial Art, is actually very near our place. We went there by bicycle as the weather was pretty nice (cold, but clear and sunny). As planned, we met some friends there just before the opening. An older gentleman entering the building saw us and asked us to accept a free invitation ticket.

After a brief opening ceremony and a few speeches, the demonstration started with the firing of some old big matchlock guns (called Seki-ryu hojutsu). That was something quite unique. I am sure it was for all of us the first time we could see such demonstration.

Then, we saw various swordmanship and combat demonstrations, all pretty interesting and some quite impressive.

One of the demonstrations was between two men dressed like samurai taking part in the Sekigahara battle. I wished I was nearer to take a few pictures.

Before leaving, we absolutely wanted to see the ancient style of Japanese archery (Ogasawara-ryu kyuubajutsu) – shooting long arrows from the back of a horse. The horse was here replaced by a wooden structure, but the basic idea was supposed to be the same — shooting several arrows, one after another at different targets, while moving. Really impressive, even with the comic touch given by the wooden horse turned around by an assistant. Again, I hope to be able to see a real life demonstration of this art.

We had enough and left. We would have liked to see some Kendo but this will be for another time.

It is also quite nice to see that while Japan is probably the country in the world that embraces and adopts new technology easier and faster than any other, the Japanese people were able to maintain and even develop their culture and tradition.

Setsubun Festival

2006-02-09T06:11:00.000+01:00

Time flies too quickly. We just finished the posting about our last weekend that I realized that I forgot to talk about something else: the Setsubun event.

The Setsubun and the associated Mamemaki ceremony always remind me how superstitious the Japanese people are. For us, it is mainly an opportunity to go out visit some shrines, have fun, and see something specifically Japanese.

So, what is it, you ask? Well, as you may have heard Japan has four distinct seasons: spring, summer, autumn, and winter. The name Setsu-Bun literally means "division of season" and it originally referred to the days marking the change from one season to the next — yes, this means that there were four of them before, but today only the day before the beginning of spring according to the traditional Japanese calendar (Risshun) is called by that name. Setsubun was celebrated last week, on February 3.

And on that event, it is traditional for the Japanese people to hold the Mamemaki or bean-throwing ceremony. The what? Well, they exorcize the demons (called Oni) by throwing beans at them, while at the same time welcoming good fortune (Fuku). In practice, they throw roasted soybeans all around the house, shouting "Oni wa soto! Fuku wa uchi!" meaning "Demons, get out! Good luck, come in!). By doing this, they drive out evil spirits and the seeds of misfortune, and they pray for the family's well-being and good business.

After the Mame-maki is over, everyone eats the same number of beans as their own age, plus one (in some regions) for bringing good luck for the year to come. It is believed that by doing so, people will be free of sickness during that year.

Families with little children especially look forward to this day because Mame-maki can be a lot of fun. One person acts as the devil, usually taking the form of a goblin and runs around, while the others throw beans at the person. At some schools, the students make goblin masks and enjoy mame-maki.

Thanks to the great fun of Mame-maki, Setsubun is still a popular traditional event.

At Buddhist temples and Shinto shrines all over the country, there are celebrations for Setsubun. Priests and invited guests will throw roasted soy beans (some wrapped in gold or silver foil), small envelopes with money, sweets, candies and other prizes. In some bigger shrines, even celebrities and Sumo wrestler will join. Many people will come, and the event turns wild, with everyone pushing and shoving to get the gifts tossed from above.

We first went to Zoujouji Temple in the morning to see this celebration. A large crowd was already there, waiting for a group of celebs to throw things at them.
To give an idea of what this is about, the speaker mentioned that 35 millions yen worth of goods and presents were to be throwed this morning! He also said that the security was this year taken care of by some 350 police officers ! Yes, things can get rough as people push around to try to get some of the items thrown around.

After this, we met our friend G. at another place, Kanda Myoji Shrine. This was is a much smaller place but the ceremony was also quite beautiful, with lots of costumed people and lots of fun. Again, large quantities of beans and presents were thrown at the crowd.

Snow Country

2006-02-07T08:16:00.000+01:00

"The train came out of the long tunnel into the snow country". . . . wrote Kawabata in his masterpiece. Well, we took a bus to go to this area of Gifu Prefecture. We already went there this Summer and liked so much that we absolutely wanted to see it in winter. This is indeed snow country, and it is gorgeous under a white carpet.

The main point of this trip was to visit Shirakawago, the World Heritage Site famous for its unique thatched farmhouses called Gassho-Zukuri or joined-hands farmhouses. This had to be a Saturday because of the night light-up of these houses. There are only a few opportunities per year to enjoy the night light-up and we certainly didn't want to miss this.

The bus left Shinjuku (Tokyo) just after 8 in the morning. Smooth ride on highway — I personally appreciated it more because I didn't have to hold the wheel — to Hirayu onsen for a quick lunch. After this, onward to Shirakawago where we arrived well before night fall.
There was indeed a lot of snow -- at least two meters!

The early arrival time enabled us to see the place by day. It truly was gorgeous. We saw a number of these huge farmhouses on our way to the other end of the village to board the shuttle bus to go up to the view point overlooking the whole village. We were not alone — when we reached the starting point, a sign was announcing a 40 minute waiting time to board the buses. Actually, it went faster than that. This is the only way to go up to overlook the village as they do not allow walking anymore. We were told that this had been a source of numerous accidents in the past because of all the people going all over the places in the snow and in the dark. This year, organized and free shuttle buses for everyone was the only option.

We were not the first ones up there. Rows of Japanese tourists were waiting camera on hand for the night to fall and the houses to be lighten. Everyone had some kind of a camera, from the top notch professional model on heavy tripod to the light phone built-in model, and everything in-between. It was an impressive sight.

We managed to find a nice little spot to enjoy the view. It was quite cold, but we were dressed and equipped properly — Akiko insisted that I place a Kairo (pokapoka) patch (you know, one of the little bags that once opened generates heat over several hours) on my toes, between the two socks that I was wearing.
The lights came on on time (of course, we’re in Japan, aren’t we!) and with the darkness slowly setting in, the view was more and more magic. This is where an announcement mentioned that if anyone “had” to return downstairs, now was the time because in another 15 or 20 minutes, the waiting time for the shuttle buses to return to the village would be between one and one and a half hour! Akiko went to take the line for us while I shot a couple more pictures. We managed to join the line just before the crowd and didn’t have much to wait to board the bus. This gave us more time to enjoy the place, walking around these incredible houses coming from another age. This unique architectural style was developed to survive the extreme weather, always with a lot of snow that is characteristic of this region.

We were on time back to the bus which left the place right away to Takayama where we were to stay at a modern Spa Onsen Resort place. We enjoyed a nice hot spa with lots of different baths, both inside and outside.

In the morning, visit of Takayama, an old castle town, with a very well preserved old town area. Its history-filled streets with Koushimado (latticed bay windows) and linked eaves of merchants houses from the Edo period offers a special and quiet atmosphere, accented by the snow that started to fall again. We were lucky enough as the white sky was soon replaced by a sunny blue one. We had both nice and heavy snow fall, and sunshine during this weekend.

We took the optional side trip to Furukawa, another old town near by. Here again, the old section covered with snow was a delight to visit.

The day visit ended around 2:30 as we started our return to Tokyo.

As usual, you can click on any of the pictures to see a larger size one. You can also see all the pictures and many more HERE.

Sushi Maki

2006-02-03T16:16:00.000+01:00

I guess this is some kind of a contagious virus — I too went to spend a day at the Sushi Academy with Akiko. The idea this time was to learn how to make some Sushi Maki, or Sushi rolls.

We started with the beginning — making the vinegrated rice, a very important factor of the final quality / taste of the sushi or rolls. After this, Mr. Kawasumi, the teacher, explained a few points about the knives we use, showed us the basic principles of how to cut, and mentioned a couple of details about sharpening the knives.

Before starting to make our first rolls, we all practiced a bit with a piece of tissu, supposed to be the Nori or sheet of seaweed, 60 gr of rice and a piece of cucumber. After a little while, we got to make our first rolls, the basic cucumber and Kampyo rolls. These are simple and straight forward vegetable rolls. We ate them for lunch.

After this, we got to try ourselves at making the famous Uramaki (reverse rolls), also known as the Californian rolls and another couple of variations. This is actually pretty easy, once you got the basic principle. The point is the combination of the ingredients. The Californian roll contains a piece of lettuce, Cucumber, Avocado and some Kani Kama (crab meat). We also put some Tobico (Flying Fish Roe) on the rice that is on the outside.

The second roll we made, called “pink Dragon, simply contained crab and cucumber inside, and is recovered with a thin slice of salmon.

The third one was called “Crunchy Roll” — it contains a piece of lettuce, some eel and a tempura shrimp. Sesame seeds are spread around on the rice.

All three are visually appealing and delicious.

And for the final, we learned how to make the “Odairi Sama Maki” and the “Ohina Sama Maki” — representation of the Emperor and the Empress, and Sakura roll — all three are decorative rolls, Mr. Kawasumi’s specialty. Rather than describe with words how these rolls are made, we’ll make them again and take pictures of each step. This is for another post.

I didn’t put the links for the larger size pictures. You can see them and more pictures by clicking here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/patosan/sets/72057594058516024/show/

The Tai Full Course

2006-02-01T13:33:00.000+01:00

OK, now that we have prepared our fish, let's take care of the Tai full course.
Here, I’ll give you some ideas for a complete Japanese course. The dishes are separated and classified according to the different ways of cooking. Usually each portion is quite small, but there are a lot of different dishes. We start with a little appetizer, then we’ll have raw food, grilled food, baked food, boiled food, rice, pickled vegetable, soup, etc. As much as possible, we always try to choose seasonal ingredients (today, it's a Tai).

-Tai Sashimi (raw fish) and Cucumber with Karashi Sumiso sauce* (vinegrated Miso with mustard)
Cut off the stomach bones and cut the meat into half.
Cut off the bones and peel the skin off.
Slice the meat for Sashimi and Sushi.
Tai no Sashimi.
*Sumiso:
Shiro Miso: 30g
Rice vinegar: 1/2 table spoon
Sugar: 1/3 table spoon
Mustard: 1/2 table spoon.

-Tai Sushi
Using the same sliced pieces, I made some Tai Sushi. The pieces of fish for Sashimi (raw fish) are cut differently from the ones for Sushi (raw fish over vinegrated rice), but I made my life easier this time (don’t tell my teacher).

-Tai no Mushimono (boiled sea bream)
With the fillets, I used the lower parts for Sushi and Sashimi, and kept the back parts with the skin on for this dish.
Here is a small technic: Place some kitchen paper on the fillets and poor boiled water over them. Then, cool them down with cold running water and clean the surface.
This way, the beautiful skin can be kept on. By the way, we can also make Sushi with these fillets.
1. Cut the meat in 3-4 pieces, put some salt on and leave them for 10 minutes.
2. In a gratin plate, put a bit of seaweed, then place the pieces of Tai on top.
Poor one table spoon of Sake. Wrap with a vinyl sheet (film) and put it to cook in a wave-oven for a few minutes.
3. Poor one table spoon of vinegar and Shoyu over the Tai.
Et voila, Tai no Mushimono with some spinach.

- Tai no Kabuto Shio Yaki (grilled sea bream head with salt)
The Tai has a big head and it contains a lot of meat — of course, we cook it as well.
Cut the head into two. The Tai head is very hard and it is necessary to be careful not to cut fingers at the same time. If you position your knife at the right place, in between the front teeth, it is easier to cut the head into two halves.
Cut off the gill and wash it.
Dip the head in boiled water. Then put some salt over it and grill it.

Here is our Tai no Kabuto Shio Yaki

- Tai no Suimono (sea bream soup)
Cut the fins and tail off, clean the bone part, and cut the bone in 4 or 5 pieces.
Pass theses in hot water until the meat starts to turn white, then take them out and remove as much of the water as possible.
1. Boil 4 cups of Dashi (fish soup stock) with the fish bones in.
2. Add 1 tea spoon of salt, 1 table spoon of Sake, 1/2 tea spoon of Shoyu (Soja sauce).
Here is my Tai no suimono.

- Tai no Kawa Yaki (grilled sea bream skin)
This is a kind of option. It's usually not served in a restaurant. However, the skin contains a lot of vitamins and it tastes quite good. During the cooking class, we ate them each time we had a chance.
Peel the skin off and put it around a barbecue stick.
Put some salt on and grill them over the fire.

Here is our dinner.

This Tai costs Yen 1,260 and after preparing three servings, I still had some meat left. It's quite cheap, very healthy and so delicious.
Bon appetit!

All about Sea bream

2006-01-31T14:38:00.000+01:00

Today I got a Tai (sea bream), about 40 cm long and Sashimi grade (fresh enough to be eaten raw). I'll make our complete dinner for three with it. This means the appetizer, a salad, the main dish and a side dish -- everything with this one Tai (well, except for the desert). The Tai is a special fish in Japan and we use it for special occasions such as celebration, festival, ceremony, etc. Now is the beginning of the season for the Tai.

We got a Tai bred in a farm. Before such breeding, it was a very rare fish, but now it is easy to find it in just about any supermarkets.
To start, I forgot the fact that the Tai has a lot of thick scales. I didn't have a scale remover so I struggled with my knife. Pretty unpleasant work because when removed like this, the scales fly all over the place.
It was tough but I made it, and it was now clean. The fins of the Tai are very sharp and one has to pay special attention not to get hurt while cleaning the scales.

Let's work on our Tai. First, we open the belly. Once this is done, we have to cut off the head.
Place the knife behind the pectoral fin and cut the meat toward the bottom.
Turn over to the other side and do the same.
Cut the back bone and take off the head together with the intestine.
Open the thin skin with a knife, and clean off the blood under running water.

Next, let's cut the body parts into fillets. We usually start to work on the right side of the body. Because the fish is placed with its right side down (this means that the head is on the left and the tail on the right) this side of the body may get more damaged and therefore, it is usually the other side (the left one) that is presented at the table.
Start by cutting the surface of the skin a little bit from the anus (located around the middle of the length of the fish) toward the tail to draw (mark) a cutting line.
Then slide the knife in along that line and cut the meat deeper and deeper in several strokes all the way up to the back bone.
Cut the back of the body, from the tail toward the head. Again, start by first drawing a cutting line, then cut slowly deeper and deeper into the meat.
One of the point to take care about is not to leave too much meat on the bone.
Once the front and the back of the body are cut all the way in to the back bone, separate the tail part and cut the middle part.
Half of the body meat is now cut.
Flip the body over, and start to cut the other side from the head toward the tail.
Cut the belly side.
Slide the knife over the back bone and remove the meat.
Here the fillets are ready.

The Tai is now ready to be cooked. I’ll post a few recipes next.

Sushi Master: Day 15

2006-01-29T02:03:00.000+01:00

Today is the final day of my course at the Sushi Academy.
Everybody was a bit tensed. And, as usual, we had a briefing, the final one.

Then we started to fill the refrigerated display area with pieces of fish. We had Maguro (tuna), Kanpachi (young yellow tail), Sake (salmon), Sayori (halfbeak), Tai (sea bream), Hirame (flat fish). As "Hikarimono" (shiny fish, which taste more fishy...), Saba (mackerel), Kohada (gizzard shad), Aji (jack mackerel). As shellfish, Akagai (red clam), Akagai no himo (another part of the red clam), Miru Gai, Hamaguri (clam). And the rest, the usual items, Ika (squid), Amaebi (sweet shrimp), Ikura (salmon roe), Tobiko (flying fish roe). The cooked fish, Anago (conger eel), Ebi (prawn), and the Dashimaki Tamago (rolled omelet). In addition, each one of us had to prepare some ingredients for the Rolls.

We finished the preparation 30 minutes before the opening. Imai san was tensed and started to worry about his performance....

Here, we got our first customers, Gwendoline and Patrick.
"Irashaimase!" (Welcome!)

— this was the beginning of my life as a Sushi Master.
Talking to the customers and making sushi at the same time is quite difficult. On top of that, you have to pay attention to other customers as well. I got the order "Omakase" (Chef's choice) so that made my task a bit easier. I started with Sake (salmon) and Kanpachi (young yellow tail).

Everything went quite smooth, and at the end of the day, Goto san made us ….. some nice Sushi. She is the assistant of the course and is also a Japanese restaurant owner. She was one of the student 6 month ago and now she is helping the course.

Ikura (salmon roe), Sayori (halfbeak) and Toro (fatty tuna).

At the end of this long day, we all received our certificate from Nishie san, president of the Academy and Kawasumi sensei, our teacher and world champion of decoration sushi!
We all made it to the end!

As a present, we received a bottle of Sushi Vinegar. As I mentioned in the beginning, vinegar, rice, and shoyu are the three most important factors to determine the taste of Sushi. This sushi vinegar is the one used during the course and it's already mixed with sugar and salt. We are used to this taste (once we had a different sushi rice during the course, and everybody notified the difference of the taste), and it's a pleasure to take this taste back home.

These three weeks passed really quickly, and we just went through everything once. This is just the beginning and from now on we have to practice based on what we learned.
Some of the students already go back to their country this weekend. We promised to keep in touch and to make our Sushi Dream a reality.

For myself, I am still missing a lot of practice. I have only 5 month left before we leave Japan. I'm interested in learning more traditional Japanese cooking. Now I'm looking for other courses and I'll continue the report.

Sushi Master: Day 14

2006-01-28T14:47:00.000+01:00

The exam is now finished and all that is left is the graduation party. The plan is for each student to invite two or three persons, and we make sushi for them, as we would for actual customers. This is the day we start our new life as sushi master and that day is tomorrow. So today is the preparation day.

We started by making a Dashimaki Tamago (Rolled Omelet).

While we continue the preparation, we got a final checkup by our teacher, Mr. Kawasumi, on the way each of us was making sushi.

We’re working hard...
And we’re also watching the other students and criticize them as well.

Today, we got a new teacher? No, actually, Kawasumi san (his name is the same as the name of our actual teacher, but this is a coincidence), is one of us, a student, but we call him The Master, because he already has his own Sushi shop in San Francisco. He showed us the famous and popular American Sushi Rolls as they are made in his shop.

He started with the Crunchy Roll. This is a roll created by Kawasumi san himself, and the most popular one in his shop. It features fried shrimp, eel, avocado and cucumber, with Tobiko (flying fish roe) spread over. Price: US$8

Then here we have the Pink Dragon Roll, which Kawasumi san calls "Barbie Roll". There is Crab meat and Avocado inside, then salmon slices are placed around with slice of lemon on top. Price: US$9

The Astroboy Roll. What's interesting with this roll is the Mango. Mango, cucumber and Hotate (scallop) inside and Tobiko (flying fish roe) around. Price : US$6.45

Spicy Tuna Roll (left) and Rock'n Roll (right) — Spicy tuna roll is Tuna with Mayonnaise and hot sauce, and Cucumber, with Tobico (flying fish roe) around. Rock'n roll is with Eel, Avocado and Cucumber inside and Sesame seeds around.

Here is our lunch, assorted rolls.

In the afternoon, we got to work with all kind of Shell fish.

Here is the first, a shell called Miru Gai
Akagai (red clam) (Patrick’s favorite)
Hamaguri (clam)
Hotate (scallop)
Awabi (abalone) — This is one of the most expensive shellfish. For example. this one costs Yen 5,000 and we can only make about 10 Sushi with it. Yes, this means that each order in a Sushi shop will cost 1,000 yen !

And finally, we started the preparation for tomorrow\s party — planning for about 60 servings,

Tomorrow is the final day.

Sushi Master: Day 13

2006-01-26T01:20:00.000+01:00

Today was the day, final examination.

We started with the written test in the morning. There were 10 questions. How to cut the Anago (Eel) and the Hirame (flat fish). How to defreeze a block of Maguro (tuna). What to take care when you are behind the counter. What does "Edomae" mean, etc.

It went smoothly and everybody finished in 30 minutes.

Then we had the Maki sushi (Sushi roll) test. We had to make 4 Hoso maki (thin roll), cut them in 6 pieces and place them on a plate. The check points were: finish within 3 minutes, rolls must be well closed, same height for all the pieces and good general appearance. Everybody finished on time and the teacher checked the details.

The 3rd test was about making one serving of sushi with 7 Nigiri (sushi) and 1 Hoso maki (thin roll). The check points were: finish within 5 minutes, the rice should not exceed the size of the piece of fish, nice shape, well presented.

Kawasumi Sensei checked all the details and explained them to all of us.

Here are my colleagues with their respective Sushi.

We all passed!

Here are the results and the lunch.

We continued the test in the afternoon.

The 4th test was about Sashimi Santen Mori (dish with 3 types of raw fish). The check points were: Cut the fish and place them on a plate within 5 minutes. Cut them properly, place them nicely, make a good balance on the plate. We had to work with a Tai (sea bream), a Maguro (tuna), and a Saba (mackerel). Cutting the fish didn't take much time, but placing them on the place did. Specially placing the Tuna (with thin cut of Daikon (Japanese radish)) under each group of fish and making a general balance was quite difficult.

The last test was about the Nigiri Sushi. This was the most difficult test. We had to make a minimum of 18 Sushi within 3 min (yes, this is one sushi every 10 second). On top of that, the teacher checked the look of the sushi and removed the bad ones. We then removed the fish meat (called neta) and weighted the rice — it had to be between 16 and 18 g.

My results were that 18 Sushi made within the time allocation, but only 12 of them had the correct weight, 6 of them were too small.

After the tests, we were all exhausted, but we still had to do some work with Anago (eel).

We put sake and salt on the Anago (eel), and cooked them on a fish grill instead of boiling them. Then we ate them during the meeting. It was so good and I would have loved a nice cold beer to go with.

It was a very long day....

Sushi Master: Day 12

2006-01-24T13:56:00.000+01:00

Tomorrow is the final examination day.  Today, we learned the various ways of presenting the Sushi.

During the Edo period, when a Sushi shop got an order, they used to pack as much sushi in a box as they could (lining them one after another like in the picture). And today in Japan, a really crowded train is called a "Sushi zume" (packed sushi) — the expression came from the Sushi world.

Then the person who placed the order, a geisha house for example, would arrange the sushi in a nice way for their customers. When they arranged the sushi like this, they could save a few pieces, and resell them — this was their share and profit.

We also learned to prepare and display Sushi for one person. Here is the work of each one of us.

Then here is my lunch. From the top row, Gobo (burdock), Tamago (egg), Ika (squid), Sake (salmon), Tai (sea bream), Sake (salmon), Binnaga (albacore), Tai (sea bream), Tsuna (Tuna), Tai (sea bream), Saba (mackerel).

Today's fish was the Hirame (flatfish).
It has small scales everywhere which we have to cut off with a knife.
As its name indicates, this fish is very flat and it was quite difficult to cut the meat off the bone.
We cut the fish into 5 pieces. The meat parts and
the bones.
The meat is chewy, so we cut it in very thin slices. We eat them with Momiji oroshi (Daikon (Japanese radish) with red pepper) and Ponzu (Shoyu with Yuzu (some kind of some sort of orange)).
Mr Usuha made us a very nice sauce with the liver of the Hirame (left).
Pass the liver in hot water, and put it in a mixer. Mix with Sake (1) and Shoyu (2).

The last lesson was about Santen mori (a serving with three different types of fish).
We can put them on a long dish as well.
Imai san, who goes to Germany after the course, shows off his nice Sashimi (raw fish)

Sushi Master: Day 11

2006-01-23T12:30:00.000+01:00

Because of the heavy snow on Saturday, we still had some ice left on the road. I left home a bit earlier as I was concerned there could be some kind of traffic trouble. During Saturday and Sunday, a total of 713 people got injured (many of them slept and broke bones or somehow hurt themselves) and one person died because of a car accident caused by the icy road. Unlike in Hokkaido, we, Tokyo city folks, are not used to the snow at all, and people get panicked with just a little drop of snow. . . .

At school, one student caught a cold and was absent. Besides him, everybody showed up on time. This week is the last one and we have our final examination on Wednesday.
There is a written test and also some practices:
- making at least 18 sushi within 3 minutes
- making 4 Hoso Maki (thin roll), cutting them in 6, and presenting them nicely on a plate within 5 minutes
- making a Sashimi Mori 3 Ten (assorted raw fish with three different types of fish) within 5 minutes
- preparing a Sushi serving for one person (7 Sushi and 1 Hoso Maki)
My problem is about the making of at least 18 sushi within these short minutes. I have to practice more, I think.

Today we got to work on a Tai (sea bream).
This fish is used commonly for celebration. There are two reasons for this. First, in Japan, its red color symbolizes the happiness. Second, the Japanese word to wish happiness to someone is "OmedeTAI" (yes, the Japanese people are playing with words).

We started by cutting it into fillet. The back parts are used for Sashimi (raw fish) and the belly is used for Sushi. And we eat the skin as well — we roll it on a stick, put some salt around and cook it over an open fire.

The skin of the Tai is really tasty so we left it on the back part and poured water over it to make it softer. It also gives it a nice reddish color.

This is the presentation of Sashimi, with the skin and without.

We don't waste the head and bones either.
We cook the head with some Shoyu (Soja sauce), sake, sugar, and some ginger. Tai has a big head and therefore we can only eat 40% of the whole fish, so the head can’t be wasted. And we make a soup stock using the bones.

In the afternoon, we started actual service training as it would be done in a real Sushi shop setting today. We took turn and half of us became Itasan (Sushi Master), while the other half were the customers. In a Sushi shop, customers can see how the Itasan makes the sushi in front of them, so they have to make them in a nice way.
Here are a few points: As a Sushi Master, do cut the fish swiftly, do clean the work place all the time, do always pay attention to the customers and do find out what they want, but by the way, do not eat the rice left on your fingers, etc.

Ogura san was my Itasan today. He came from Switzerland to become a real Sushi Master. He was getting a lot of orders at the same time, but he was handling them very smoothly, always with a big smile! As an Itasan, you have to remember all the orders, paying attention to your clients, and when asked, make the bills, all without writing any notes — there are a few tricks for this (some people use grains of rice to count the orders, etc.)

Sushi Master: Day 10

2006-01-22T15:43:00.000+01:00

Friday is without doubt the most difficult day of the week. Everybody is getting tired and thinks about the weekend. If the weather is nice on Saturday, I would like to visit "Kappabashi", a street where you can find everything and anything related to the restaurant business. This includes all the kitchen goods, the tools, the furniture, the uniforms, the decoration, the dishes, etc., and of course, all kind of foodstuff. I've been there once and I did a lot of grocery shopping. It's near Ueno station and it's not too far from home.

Today in school, we did our second exercise of cutting the Anago (Eel). The Anago is a very popular fish among students because it's so tasty. It is however one of the most difficult fish to cut. Today's, the Anago (eels) were in great shape and it was really difficult to cut them because they moved around too much. Well, I won't go into detail. At least nobody cut their finger today.

Then, we got a chunk of 4.5 kg frozen Maguro (tuna). It's just a chunk of tuna meat and we had to cut off the skin, the bone, then cut it into Saku (a piece of meat in the shape of a long bar which we cut into the small pieces used for the Sushi). Actually 30% of the meat we start to work with can't be used and this is one of the reason the Maguro (tuna) is so expensive. Still the Maguro is the most popular fish in Sushi shops and usually some 40% of the money used to purchase the ingredients and raw material by the restaurants is used for Maguro.

For the lunch, we made a Caterpillar Roll.
My teacher’s work, and
Mine!

Like the famous California roll, this roll was also invented in the United States. The rice is placed on the Nori which is then flipped over, Nori up and rice down. We put the anago (eel) and some cucumber inside and rolled it first. Then, we cut an avocado in thin slices and place them on the roll. Using a film, we wrap it around and we cut the roll through the film.

Sushi Master: Day 9

2006-01-19T16:55:00.000+01:00

I'm really sleepy now because I woke up quite early this morning. Why? Because we visited the Tsukiji Fish Market this morning together with my teacher.
From the left, Goto san, my teacher (Mr. Kawasumi), and my colleagues, and Julien who came with us before going to school.

Tsukiji, also known as Tokyo Central Wholesale Market, is the largest fish market in the world. To give you an idea, it handled 615,409 tons (2,246 tons a day) of marine products, 498 billion yen (1.8 billion yen a day) (figures of 2003). Some 450 kinds of fish are received; this figure is unparalleled in the world. Marine product sections are not the only ones available at Tsukiji — you can also find fresh vegetables and all kind of other products. All in all, Tsukiji is “a Kitchen for the 12 Million people leaving in Tokyo".

It's located near Ginza, Tokyo’s most famous upmarket shopping, dining and entertainment district. Work starts there around 5:00 in the afternoon when all kind of fresh foodstuffs pour in by truck, plane and ships from all over the world. Around 3:00 am, before daybreak, the jobbers start to check out what will be sold this day. The day’s auction of tuna starts at 5:30 a.m. Right after the purchase, the goods are carried to the various wholesale company stalls located within the market, and processed (cut into smaller pieces) so that caterers and other purchasers can buy them easily. Around 8:00 am, the retailers start to take away their purchases to their own shops in town. Around 11:00 am, the place slowly closes after being cleaned. The market takes a rest and is ready for the next day of work.

We arrived there before 8:00 am and the people who finished their shopping were leaving the market. There were so many people and chariots and lifts and trucks and trolleys carrying the fish right to left, left to right. There are also a lot of shops around the market, hence their name "Jogai", around the market. These sell all kind of items, related or not to the main activity, the products from the sea. You can also find numerous restaurants, sushi place, etc.
Dried food: These beans are used for Setsubun, the bean scattering festival.
Dishes
Accessories
Japanese pickles
Vegetables
Scales and calculators
Yoshinoya — the actual 1st restaurant of what has become a very large chain.
Hocho (knives)
Boots shop
Brush
In the market, there were so many little carriers moving around in all directions. And then fish, fish, and more fish.

There is a Jinja (temple) next to the market. There we saw a Tamagozuka and a Sushizuka — this is where people come to thank the gods for providing them with these specific ingredients. I picked up a Omikuji (oracle) and I got a "Daiichi" the best of fortune!
We then had a nice breakfast at a Sushi shop in the market. 7 sushi and 4 maki (rolls).
I bought some Katsuo (bonito) for my Miso soup.

This concludes our tour of Tsukiji. There are many more pictures and you can see them HERE.

Back in School to continue our practice and study.
Today's lunch: Salmon Sushi, and broiled Salmon Sushi
My colleague
Today's special: Suzuki (sea wolf). We made sashimi with.
The teacher made a beautiful rose with the Suzuki Sashimi (fish without rice).
And here is some Inada Sashimi.

Again, there are many more pictures and you can see them HERE.

Sushi anyone?

2006-01-18T15:58:00.000+01:00

Today, Akiko came home tired, but happy. Not only did she passed her test, she also got her best performances so far. And to celebrate, guess what we had? A great Sushi dinner.

I think we have all been infected by this Sushi virus. That is all we eat every day. And this is one of our main subject of conversation. There are so many things to discover. I am very impressed by the attention given to all these details, truly fascinating.
For me, there were only very few types of fish. Salt water fish from the sea and fresh water fish from rivers. There were small fish and large fish, flat ones, round ones and long ones. And then there were the fish you eat and the ones you try not to be eaten by. That was about it. Then, after a number of years in Japan, I got to differentiate more and to know the name of the various fish, in Japanese — soon I will know these names in my own language! And meanwhile, these are a great subject for me to take pictures, and mainly macros.

Here are a few shots of what Akiko brought back with her today. She is getting better and better every day. Needless to say, we are all enjoying this course and the food very much. Tomorrow morning, I will join her group to visit Tsukiji, the largest fish market in the world. I’ve been meaning to go there for quite a while, and I am very glad to be able to visit Tsukiji with professionals like Mr. Kawasumi (her instructor) and Ms. Goto.

Sushi Master: Day 8

2006-01-18T14:39:00.000+01:00

Like most people, I never did like any kind of test. I'm usually too tensed and cannot perform up to my real level or ability. But today was the day. We started the test with the exercise with the fish. We got two fresh Aji (horse mackerel) each, and the teacher gave us a demonstration. Today's Aji were a little smaller than before. Is it a good thing or a bad one? It is easier to cut in fillet but it is more difficult to peel the skin. Well, we can't have everything. This one went smoothly and everybody passed.

Then we had to cut a salmon. This was the second salmon we got, and it was quite smooth and easy to cut them into pieces. The next test, making Sushi, started using these pieces.

This time, the goal was to make a minimum of 10 perfect Sushi, as I described yesterday. I made 13 Sushi in three minutes, but the teacher took one away because its shape was not adequate. Then, when we measured the weight of the rice (remember, it has to be between 16 and 18 g), I got only 8 left. I couldn't pass the first time.

The teacher then asked us a second try, and I went for that. This time, I made 15 sushi within the three minutes, and 12 of them were perfect! I usually make my sushi too small, so this time I added a bit more rice for all and it worked!

We then made a few Maki Sushi (rolled sushi) with the Aji used for the test.

Today's lunch, salmon, tuna and egg sushi.

We also got a soup with the salmon which we just cut into pieces this morning.

In the afternoon, we worked on some Futomaki (thick roll).

Then we practiced decoration with cucumber.

After the test, everybody was quite tired, but happy — yes, everybody passed the test!

Sushi Master: Day 7

2006-01-17T17:24:00.000+01:00

It was a beautiful day but the lesson started with bad news, practical test. It's tomorrow, and there will be a test for the actual Sushi making and another one about the preparation of the fish. For the making of the Sushi, we were talking about making 15 pieces within 3 minutes, but this time, we have to make a beautiful sushi with rice weighting between 16 and 18 g (no more no less!). The minimum requirement is 10 perfect Sushi within 3 minutes.

For the fish, we first have to clean the scale, chop off the head of the fish, cut the bodies and take out the intestines, wash the bodies in salty water, cut them into fillets, take off the stomach bones, take off the rest of the bones, drop the fillets in water with vinegar, wipe the fillets and cut them for Sushi. From start to finish, we have to fully prepare two fish within 8 minutes. Actually during the lesson, we were told to do it within 6 minutes, and two of us cut their finger because of the rush.

During the lunch break, we went to Seiyu (a local shop) to get some more fish for practice. We found one pack of four Aji (horse mackerel) for Yen 200! (less than $2).

This morning, we also worked on Kurumaebi (shrimp).

Here is our lunch, Salmon, Aji (horse mackerel), Ika (squid), Amaebi (sweet shrimp), and Kurumaebi (shrimp). Goto san made pickled giant radish with the radish we practiced on to learn how to peel.
We also had a Miso soup (soup with soy bean paste) with Ebi (shrimp) head. The shrimp gives a really strong taste to the Miso and it was really excellent.

In the afternoon, we tried ourselves at some Rolled Sushis. We already tried some of them last Friday, and I tried again alone at home as well. I repeat it: the key point is the way to spread the rice on the Nori (seaweed sheet).
Californian Rolls with avocado, crab, cucumber and egg. As you can see, the Californian Roll is a Uramaki, or inside out roll. It was invented by a Japanese fellow who was working in a restaurant in Los Angeles (little Tokyo) around 1975-1980. This is what triggered the Sushi boom in the United States.

Futomaki (thick roll) is a Japanese traditional roll. They include cucumber, Kampyo (ribbon-like strips of gourd), Takuan (pickled yellow color daikon), Shiitake (mushroom), spinach, Denbu (pink colored sweet cod fish) and egg.

Sushi Master: Day 6

2006-01-16T15:57:00.000+01:00

This morning, we got the results of the first written test and . . . . I got 100 points,
full mark! Wow! But I realized that most of the students got a full
mark as well. Anyway, this made my day !

I tried some Sushi Rolls yesterday at home, and this week, we’ll start to make
some of them at school. Today’s lesson started with the making of omelets (tamagoyaki).
Points to take care are: turn over the omelet when it is still wet, burst
the air bubbles with your chopsticks, do not put too much oil, etc.
I guess everybody has experience of making an omelet, so I won't go
into details.
Poor in one ladle of egg in the omelet pan,
then flip and fold the omelet with chopsticks, and repeat the process 5 times.
Place the omelet on the lid and let it cool down.
Mr kawasumi showed us another way to proceed. Wrap the omelet
around with a makisu (bamboo rolling mat) and place a long chopstick on both side, holding everything with
rubber bands.
When it cools down, it takes this shape.

When making Makisushi (Sushi Roll), the most important thing is how to place the
rice.
Take about 80 g (for a half sheet of Nori) of rice with your right
hand,
place the rice in the middle, from left to right,
then, with the help of your left hand, push down the rice. From this
position, spread the rice over the Nori sheet, leaving about 1cm of space from the upper side free.
Many people (including myself) spread the rice from the beginning — it's
wrong.
roll it with the makisu,
and cut the roll.
here is another way to present the roll.

We had a nice lunch with Maki Sushi. We rolled Tuna, Kampyo (long, beige, ribbonlike strips of gourd), Cucumber, Takuan (pickled daikon) with Shiso (herb) and Sesame seeds, Ikura (salmon roe) and Cucumber, Avocado and Tuna. They were all delicious.

Today's special, Anago (Conger Eel)
They looked so cute!
First, we nailed the head.
then start to cut behind the fin,
slide the knife on the bone and cut the body.
For the last half of the body, you have to pull the knife toward the end.
then cut off the back bone.
The fish meat is still moving, even when the body is cut!
We were joking when the teacher put a box of band aid on the table,
but I did cut one my finger. Eels are very slippery.
We cooked the head to make a stock.
Here is a sushi made with an Anago (conger eel) just cooked. I've never ate such a
delicious eel in my life. It’s worth cutting a finger?!

And we finished today’s lesson practicing some decorative cuttings.

Sushi rolls

2006-01-16T05:27:00.000+01:00

I didn’t have the time to add the various links to the larger size pictures. All of them (and then some) can be seen by clicking HERE .

———————

It’s Sunday. Neither Akiko nor Julien go to school today. The weather is not really inviting — so guess what we’ve been up to? Yes, you got it, SUSHI!

Actually, I wanted to practice taking pictures of foodstuff (including some macro photography) and Akiko is always ready to work on some makisushi or sushi rolls to practice. We help each other — the perfect couple. I’m also taking advantage of this blog to learn a lot of vocabulary — not only all these words related to Japanese cuisine, but also the name of the ingredients and of the fish in my own language !

Akiko, the chef, decided on “Rose Rolls”, something her teacher does so well, and the famous “Californian Rolls”.

We started by gathering the various necessary ingredients.

Tamagoyaki —several eggs are mixed and flavored with a light fish base and then lightly fried layer upon layer in a special square frying pan. These “omelets” are somewhat sweet and Julien loves them.
Thin omelet — used for the rose Rolls.
Ebi — Shrimp, one of the most popular sushi.
Kani — Crab, one of Akiko’s favorite.
Ikura — Salmon eggs preserved in salt.
Oboro — Sweet white fish colored pink
Tobikko — Flying fish eggs (also includes soy sauce and sugar)
Kaiware — Sprouts of the Daikon Radish. These spicy sprouts add a nice little touch to the rolls.
Daikon — A variety of radish also known as Japanese radish. We use here yellow pickled ones.
Beni Shoga — The root of the ginger plant, pickled, adds a hot and spicy flavor to various Japanese dishes.
Nozawana — Traditional turnip green.

We started by preparing the Sumeshi, or vinegared rice. Good rice is of utmost importance for good sushi. The first time we ordered sushi in Paris, they were not eatable just because the rice was so dreadful. Sushi-su is the seasoning added to the sushi rice. It’s basically a mix of rice vinegar, sugar and salt. Once cooked, the rice is placed in the hangiri or wooden rice bowl. Akiko pours the vinegar mixture over the rice and fold in using a spatula or Japanese rice paddle (shamoji) while Julien uses a fan to breeze away the heat to quickly cool the rice and help vaporizing the excess of vinegar smell.

We start with the Rose Rolls.

Here are the various ingredients used.

Akiko starts by placing the thin omelet over the Makisu. This bamboo mat is used to compress soft materials into cylindrical forms.
She then mixes the oboro (or sweet white fish colored pink ) with the rice.
After this, she places small rice balls over the omelet.
Next come the Ikura (salmon eggs) and the Beni-Shoga (red pickled ginger).
She starts to roll it slowly.
She mentions that it is important for the roll to be well closed.
The rose is done and put aside in a film.

Akiko starts to prepare the Nori (thin, dried seaweed sheets) with rice on.
She places three Nozawana as the stalk of the rose.
She place the rose on top.
And then roll everything together.
Again, it is important to tight the roll.
Cut the roll into half, and then again in small slices.

Et voilà !

And now, let’s have a look at how to make the Californian Rolls
Akiko starts by spreading the rice over the sheet of Nori as seen above. She then returns it placing the side with the rice on the Makisu (covered with a thin film). She places the Kaiware (sprouts of Daikon or Japanese radish) and some Kani (crab) directly over the sheet of Nori (seaweed) as shown.
She adds the shrimps and the eggs.
And the avocado.
Roll and close tight.
She ends up with what is called a Uramaki (roll inside out).
She puts some tobiko around, and
Cut it.

Et voilà !

I didn’t have the time to add the various links to the larger size pictures. All of them (and then some) can be seen by clicking HERE .

Sushi Master: Saturday special

2006-01-15T11:55:00.000+01:00

Today, I took care of cooking the two Inada heads (young yellowtail) I brought back
yesterday.

Mr. Kawasumi (our teacher) mentioned that these can be prepared baked over the fire with salt around,
or by boiling them. I chose the boiling method and here is how to cook these heads:

Inada no ara taki (Boiled Inada)
500g of Inada head (I used two heads)
200g of burdock (2 pieces)
A few chive leaves

A) Mix the following together
One cup of water
One cup of Sake
1/2 cup of Mirin
4 table spoons of sugar
1/3 cup of Shoyu (Soja sauce)

1. Peel the two burdocks and cut them in 5 cm long pieces. Then cut them in the thickness of chopsticks, and leave them in water.
2. Cut the fish head into pieces. (Unfortunately, I forgot my knives at school and I couldn't cut them in little pieces.)

3. Put the heads into boiling water until they turn a little white. Then take them out from the water.
4. Poor the mixture described in A above in a pot, and add the burdocks. When it comes to the boil, add the fish.

5. When the water boils, drop the lid and let it cook for 4 – 5 min.
6. Add the Shoyu sauce (keep one spoon full) and let it cook for another 12 – 13 min.

7. Add the rest of the Shoyu sauce and turn off the fire.

Et voilÃ !

Here is the lunch, and my boy.

After this lunch, I had a short course on Sushi shops management at our school.

Here are a few special Sushi made by Mr. Kawasumi for "Setsubun" festival (bean scattering ceremony). He really is good!

Sushi Master: Day 5

2006-01-14T16:45:00.000+01:00

Today, we started with the first actual examination. I didn't drink any booze last night (that was day three without any drink -- thanks to Patrick) but I only started to study the subject after the blog was uploaded. I didn't study for any kind of examination for quite a while and it was difficult to concentrate. After a long day of work at school, my effort couldn't last very long and I went to bed sooner than I was planning to.

There were 10 questions -- describe how to cut the fish and handle them for making Sushi, preparation of the workplace and actual positioning of the various tools and utensils, how to make Sushi Rice (Sushi's taste is determined by three factors, rice, vinegar and shoyu (soja sauce)), etc. I don't know the results of this test yet, but I finished last and I was too tired to work on Sushi after....

Today's special is the Inada (looking for the proper English word)

When it grows older and bigger, the Inada becomes the Hamachi (young yellowtail tuna) and later it changes into the Buri (yellowtail).

Here is the way to prepare it:

Cut the head off,

Open the stomach, and take off the intestines,

Cut the right side of the body first.

The point here is to slide the knife while always touching the back bone.

then take care of the left side. The bony part of our Teacher is so well done, so clean.

Take off the bone around the stomach.

cut into two,

peel the skin off and the filet is ready.

Now we prepare the head. Off course, we eat the head too.

Open the head and cut off the gill with scissors.

The head was quite hard to cut. Cook it over the fire with salt around, or boil it with Shoyu, Sake, and Mirin is also good. I'll try it tomorrow. Little decoration with Ika (squid).

Once the Sushi is prepared, we always have parts left over. Out teacher quickly made a squid and a rabbit with squid. The eye balls are made up with Ikura (Salmon roe) and rabbit ear is made with tuna.

Here is today's lunch. Inada (Grunt), Tuna and Ika (Squid) with Miso soup with Salmon (yesterday’s left over salmon — nothing is ever lost!).

Today, I asked my teacher, Mr. Ken Kawasumi, to give us a special lesson to create special Sushi rolls. He is also known in Japan as a Master of “Decoration Sushi”. Here what he showed us today.

He also writes books

This is the English translation of his book — Sushi for Parties. Maki-Zushi (Rolled suzhi) and Nigiri-zushi (known as a sushi) By: Ken Kawasumi, Publisher: Graph-Sha / Japan Publications.

You can see his home page at: http://www.sushiya.net. It's written in Japanese, but if you use one of the Internet translating tools (such as Google http://www.google.com/language_tools?hl=en), you can enjoy the art of Sushi.

Here is my school home page: http://academy.sushi.ne.jp

Sushi Master: Day 4

2006-01-12T14:33:00.000+01:00

This morning, I woke up, went to the Sushi shop, put on my uniform, drunk a cup of tea, prepared the knives, and somewhat felt like a real Ita san (Sushi Master). It was a good start.

We started the day with the preparation of the rice. We start by putting 30 kg of rice in the Sushi Oke (Bucket) and mix it with the Sushi Su (sweet Sushi vinegar).

We then mix the rice right away without kneading it. We have to move fast before the rice gets cold otherwise the rice would taste too much the vinegar. We cool down the rice up to body temperature and then keep it in a warm jar.

A Sushi is made in 10 little steps or actions of the left and right hands and fingers. For the practice, we only make the rice ball. Today, my score was 15 within 3 minutes (we note the results everyday) and at the end, we have to be able to make 18 Sushi (not only the Sushi ball) within 3 minutes.
By the way, our teacher won twice the National Sushi Championship — he can make 40 sushi per minute!

First fish of the day, the Sayori (Halfbeak).

I encountered this guy several times while diving in the sea. They have a very long chin and swim around near the surface of the water. Their chin is useful to gather the little creatures near the surface and I've also heard that it can actually go through a diver’s wetsuit.

There isn’t much meat left in the case of the Sayori (Halfbeak) after cutting the filets, but we also eat the skin.
We put the skin around a wooden stick, put some salt on it, and cooked it over the fire. Yummy!

Today's special, Sake (Salmon).

The intestines were already cleaned out in order to keep it fresh.

First, we start by cutting the right side of the head,
then we continue to cut toward the left side,
then we turn the head around and take it off.
We draw a line on the back of the body with the knife,
then we cut the body from this point toward the tail.
The right side of the body is then separated.
We slide a knife under the bone and cut off the central bone.
Here is the left side of the body.
Akiko cleaning the body and cutting it into half.
The skin is then peeled off.
Here are the filets,
and the rest of the fish.

Here is today's lunch, Salmon sushi, Ikura sushi, Sayori sushi, and Sayori sashimi. It is too much, but it's so good.

In the afternoon, we fought with more squids.
Yari ika and Surume Ika. Surume Ika is the squid we see in streets baked with Shoyu (soja sauce) spread on the skin.

Tomorrow, we have our first written test. I have to study....

Sushi Master: Day 3

2006-01-11T16:09:00.000+01:00

Today, I finally received my Sushi knife set! There are four knives, Deba Bocho (to cut the fish), Ajikiri Bocho (a small Deba Bocho to cut smaller fish), Yanagi Bocho (a long knife to cut the sashimi), Saikiri Bocho (to cut vegetables).
What is the biggest difference between the Japanese knives and the foreign knives you asked? Well, the Japanese knives are made of soft and hard steel instead of just stainless steel. So they are subject to stains. What surprised me is that I started to see some rust on the knife, after cutting some pickled fish for less than one hour! My knives are treated in a special way so it will be more difficult to get rusted, but I still have to polish them properly after usage.

Akiko’s name is engraved into the knives (well, they can do this when you consider the price…!)

Today's special was the Ika (squid), but this time, we worked on dead and frozen ones.

These mollusks are not pleasant to touch as they sticky and slimy. Well, still we have to cook them.

The body part has to be cut in pieces of 3 cm or so,

First, we take out the hard shell,

then you put both thumbs into the cut

and separate the head from the body.

CAREFUL – Do not break the blue ball which contains a colored fluid.

Clean the head,

peel the skin off,

separate the intestines from the body. We eat the head part raw but boil the legs. That's all there is to it.

Today, we also had the second trial of Aji Sanmai Oroshi (cutting the jack mackerel in
fillet) . The teacher showed us the Aji's special Sashimi presentation.

We also learned a different way of presenting the Aji Sushi using larger, complete pieces.

Yasuko san with our lunch. Goto san made us a really good Miso soup with the meat left on the bone of the fish. (It is quite difficult to make a clean and thin cut and remove all the fish meat — but at least we didn't waste them.)

At the end of the lesson, we learned how to cut bamboo leaves to decorate the Sushi plates. The teacher showed us a lot of way of cutting these leaves and we got to try ourselves.

The teacher’s work

Akiko’s work

See you tomorrow.

Sushi Master: Day 2

2006-01-10T15:47:00.000+01:00

Today, I had a bad hangover from the mixture of white wine and others we had yesterday. The morning lesson was pretty tough. Fortunately, we started slowly by learning with how to sharpen one of the knives, the Yanagi Bocho (Sashimi knife which is very long and thin).

Then, we started to prepare the Saba (mackerel) which we already cut and marinated in vinegar yesterday. We peeled the skin, and cut it to prepare it for our lunch.

Actually, we eat for lunch what we prepared in the morning, and bring back home what we make in the afternoon. This way, we eat Sushi ALL DAY LONG.

Today, as Day 2, we timed how many Sushi we can make in three minutes.

I take this opportunity to mention a few facts about Sushi:
- Neta (the piece of fish or else that is placed on top of the rice): 3 cm width x 8 cm long
- Neta weight: 12 g
- Shari (rice) weight: 20 g (normal), 16 -18 g (light), 12 -15 g (very light:
this is what is usually served in the cheaper Mawaru sushi — you know, these sushi restaurants where the sushi dishes are presented on a conveyor belt.

We prepare the Neta in advance. To actually make the sushi, while rolling the proper weight of rice with the right hand, you take the Neta with the left hand. Then you take a little bit of Wasabi condiment) with your right index finger, and spread it on the Neta. With your right hand, you put the rice on the Neta which is on your left hand, and you make a sushi in 10 steps.
Today I made 10 Sushi in 3 min — to pass the test to be a Sushi Chef, I have to make 18 Sushi in this time, which means 1 Sushi every 10 seconds! Well the test is Day 13th, so I still have some time to practice. Today the teacher gave me a little Sushi rice shape made with wrapping film to enable me to practice at home. Anyway, I look a bit more like a Sushi Chef, don't I?

Here you can see a huge Sushi made by Masayuki who came from San Francisco. He said that Americans love very large Sushi with a mountain of Wasabi on (this is unthinkable in Japan).

And here, you have today's special, Tako (Octopus). It was alive and we touched it, punched it, teased it, etc.

First we turned the head skin inside out, and
cut the four attached parts.
The Octopus is moving around,
and Yasuhiro san is trying to cut off the intestines, while saying "Gomen nasai" (sorry…)
It's still moving…

We put some salts…

then scrub the skin to take off the slime from it — it was really slimy, a strange feeling!
Akio loved the slime!
We then cooked it in boiling water. We introduce it in very slowly as to not break the skin. We ate the head part later on (the legs were kept for tomorrow's lesson), and it was delicious. It is usually difficult to get to eat Octopus while it's still warm — it's so good.

Today we worked on some Kohada (some kind of fish). We cut it into three pieces (upper and lower parts — fillets, and the bones) and leave it with salt, then marinating in vinegar.

Also we worked on Aji (Horse Mackerel), and here you can see some Aji Sushi with Ginger and leek.

At last, we made a Bou Sushi (Sushi Stick) with Saba (mackerel). The Saba has quite a strong fishy smell and is oily, so the teacher mixes with the rice some Gari (Sweet Ginger which is usually provided alongside with the Sushi) cut in little pieces together with some sesame seeds. We really press the rice tightly, trying to reduce the air contained within it — this way we can keep the Sushi longer.
At the end of the lesson, we clean the knife we used and clean the kitchen. A 6 hour course is quite long, but it's so exciting — the time flies away. Some of the people attending live some 3 hours away from the school and have a total of 6 hours of transportation, but it is worth it!

Sushi Master: Day 1

2006-01-10T00:57:00.000+01:00

Today, I started the first day of my Sushi Master course. Usually, to be a Sushi Master (Itamae), you have to follow an apprenticeship for 5 years or so. But the course which is provided by “Sushi Academy”(http://academy.sushi.ne.jp/) in Sugamo ward makes you a Sushi Master after a 90 hours course (9:30 to16:30 mon-fri for 3 weeks).

When I came back to Japan, I was seriously thinking of undertaking some kind of apprenticeship in a sushi shop, but I didn’t have the time. This time I searched on the Internet and DID find a school to learn all the techniques to become a real Sushi Master.

This was the first time to visit the Sugamo area, and FORTUNATELY I made a mistake and ended up visiting the Koganji Temple which is famous as "Togenuki Jizo" (Toge-nuki means "pick a thorn out". "Jizo" is in Sanskrit Ksitigarbha; guardian deity of children. "Togenuki Jizo" is believed to remove the cause of all kinds of illness.)

There were actually quite a few of people coming to pray, one after another. And so did I. I prayed to be able to become a Sushi Master. This was my first visit to Sugamo. The area has the atmosphere of Tokyo shitamachi, or old town Tokyo.

Here is our Sushi Academy, a 5 min. walk from the Sugamo station. It was an actual Sushi shop named “Jyanome” which was acquired and transformed. Its interior has been adapted to become our school.

Below is the owner “Mr. Fukue”. He used to be an accountant and became a consultant specializing in Sushi shop. He started the Sushi Academy three years ago because he was concerned about the serious manpower shortage of real Sushi Masters.

We are 7 participants altogether, all Japanese people, and all living abroad. Two are coming from Switzerland, one is from San Francisco, one from Norway, another one is from Sydney, and one is planning to go to Germany. And then me! All the people coming from abroad already have some experience working in Sushi shops, but all came back to Japan in order to become real Sushi Masters.

I am sure one can find good Sushi Masters in the States, but in other countries, there is a real shortage and shops are always looking for real Sushi Masters.

We started with a brief meeting. The first thing we learned was how to wear our uniform, the Sushi Chef costumer.

Here is Akiko the Chef

After putting the proper attire, we started our course. We basically use two types of knife, the Deba-bocho, a wide knife, used to cut the big fishes and the bones, and the Yanagi-bocho, a long knife, used for sashimi, very thin slices of fishes. We learned how to hold these knives and we cut some tuna and squid for lunch!

After cutting the fish in pieces, we went into the main point of this course — how to make Sushi. We set the table with the fish pieces, specially cut for Sushi, the water with vinegar for the hands, the wasabi, and the rice.

Et voilà !

Harajuku on Sunday

2006-01-09T09:44:00.000+01:00

While Shinjuku is the entertainment area for the adults and Shibuya is the one for adolescents, Harajuku is the realm of the teens. This area is located between Shinjuku and Shibuya, and between Omote Sando and Yoyogi Park. It is for me the perfect location to see both extremes of Japan, the traditional with the Meiji shrine (dedicated to the Meiji emperor) and the ultra-modern with Takeshita Dori and the various Japanese teenage counterculture. Harajuku on Sunday has always been a lot of fun.

I had great fun when the main street in front of the park was closed to traffic on Sundays and given to the various 50s rock'n'roller bands, the other loud Japanese pop groups, and mainly the numerous Takenoko-zoku street dancers. These must have been the first publicized rebellious teens in Japan postwar era. They were generally high-school dropouts engaged in smoking (gasp!), lighting firecrackers (wow!). They dressed strange and funny. They were dancing in group and had fun (or tried to) within the limits allowed by what was a very rigid system. They started by stunning their elders, but soon were assimilated into the society as the prevalent consumerism was simply too strong.

From this point (we were in the early 80s), various shops responding to the needs of this small consumer market started to appear. I am in no way familiar with all this, but I guess it is from there that the "Fashion" and "Style" of Harajuku spreaded.

Today, I am rediscovering this area with the same amazement and pleasure. The main street remain open to the traffic (I guess this must have been a simple way to eliminate these gatherings). The Takenoko have grown up, got married and probably joined reputable Japanese companies. But their children are still in the streets of Harajuku on Sundays.

They are following the new street culture and fashion scene of Harajuku. We can see various well defined styles (which I have no doubt are almost completely dictated by the magazines.) And yes, a quick look in a recent publication about Tokyo confirmed my thoughts!

Here are some of the various groups:

- The Lolita, wearing cute clothes with laces

- The Gothic Lolita, showing good coordination between Black and White

- The Decorative, showing tacky and colorful accessories

- The Romantic Punk, a cross between a romantic and a hard look

- The Zipper, a style modeled on a popular magazine

- The Fluffy (Kigurumin), the one impersonating a cute Anime Hero

- The Uniform (Seifuku-kei), trying to assert themselves wearing their school uniform

The scene is quite strange as it has become a crowded tourist spot. On one side, we have these kids dressed like in magazines or manga, being with their friends who are all alike (always in group). On the other, a bunch of photographers, both Japanese and foreigners, staring and taking pictures. Some of the kids welcome the pictures while other are doing their best to avoid them.

Japan is really an amazing and wonderful place.

(You can see the complete picture series from http://www.flickr.com/photos/patosan/sets/1799767/)

Japanese swords

2006-01-06T09:22:00.000+01:00

Because of the time we’re recently waking up (jet lag from Europe is still serious) and the generally bad weather over the Oshogatsu period, we didn’t go out and attend events as we have been planning.

On January 4th, the last day of the festivities, we woke up too late and merely ended up visiting the Yasukuni jinja again.

There was an exhibition on Japanese swords that attracted our attention. I have always been fascinated by these Katanas and other Japanese blades. Here was a chance to see a few nice ones as well as the man who were making them.

I thought that sharp edged swords had become illegal in Japan since the American occupation. I certainly should review my history book to refresh my memory and update my knowledge on the subject.

Patrick holding a “Katana”

Akiko holding a “Tachi”

We discussed a bit with a couple of young swordsmiths and found out a few things about this old traditional Japanese art form. I learned that while they require actual registration (like guns do in Europe) and cannot be freely exported, real swords can be owned by people. There are currently about 300 people involved in this trade, but only 100 of them are full time professionals, A few among them have been designated as Intangible Cultural Assets, or more commonly known as Living National Treasures, because they embody knowledge that is considered to be fundamentally important to the Japanese identity.

These swords are truly beautiful, and can be quite expensive. A regular one costs about yen 300,000 and takes several months to finish. A real nice one costs about yen 1,500,000 and takes even longer to finish. We were invited to visit the place of Ishida san in Gunma to see the whole process.

About the Osechi Ryori

2006-01-04T17:18:00.000+01:00

As mentioned in the previous post, we’d like to try to describe the food prepared for the Oshogatsu festivity. The entry on this blog will be limited to a summary of the various dishes and we’ll post a more complete description, including some of the preparation process on our web site (when ready, it will be announced here).

Osechi ryori (New Year Dishes) differs from household to household but in general it is associated with health, happiness, and a good harvest. Most of the food has special meanings. For example, kuromame (black beans) is associated with mame ni kurasu, health; konbu (kelp) is almost found in yorokobu, a word that means to be glad or happy; and kazunoko (herring roe) with its myriad of little eggs is for the hope of having many children. Japanese people also look at the shape of the ingredients, and the curved shrimps is a symbol for longevity as its shape reminds us of a bent old person. The shape of a turtle, another longevity symbol, is found in the way some of the items are cut.

The first day of the New Year is for the Japanese people a very important and auspicious one. Since it symbolizes the year that has just begun, the day should be full of joy and without stress, conflict or anger. No work is supposed to be done by anyone; this included regular chores such as cleaning, washing dishes and other household tasks. So Osechi ryori, or special New Year cuisine, was developed in order for wives to also enjoy the festivities. Most items are prepared in such a way that they can be stored without refrigeration for up to the three or four days the festivities usually last. The dishes that make up the Osechi cuisine are prepared in advance and can be kept in a cool area for a few days without spoiling.

This was a first for Akiko and she started by studying the recipes and drawing the list of the necessary ingredients.

Once prepared, everything is placed in compartmentalized lacquer boxes that are stacked in layers -- the jubako.

We prepared three such jubako boxes, each with three levels.

Here's a brief description of what we had: (Click on any photo to see a larger one)

Ichi-no-ju (top tier)

Here, we find the appetizers - Kuromame, Kazunoko, and Tazukuri are the main three items.

Kuromame (black beans), a symbol of health, are boiled in syrup. Kazunoko, with its myriad of tiny eggs, is a symbol of procreation and fertility. It is usually seasoned with soy sauce. Tazukuri (dried little sardines) symbolizes a good harvest, and is made with small sardines simmered in sugar and soy sauce. Datemaki is a sweet cake-like egg that symbolizes knowledge (because it is rolled like the books used to be during the Edo era.) Kurikinton is a mixture of kuri (sweet chestnuts) and mashed satsumaimo (sweet potato) boiled in a sweet sauce.

Kuromame (black beans) and Hoshiebi (caramelized dried shrimps). Because of the number of guests, these were placed separately in an orange skin. They were arranged around the shrimps in the form of the chrysanthemum, the symbol of the Emperor.

Circling from top left: Konbu (seaweed), umami-rich kombu rolled tightly and bound shut with a ribbon of gourd strip (kampyo) - Kurikinton (chestnut with mashed sweet potatoes) - Kazunoko (herring roe) - Gomame (aka Tazukuri) (small sardines that have been dried and then finished in a sweet sauce of sugar, mirin, soy sauce and sake) - Kamaboko (dense cake of fish paste, is colored red and white (the traditional New Year's colors)) - datemaki (white fish paste with egg -- quite sweet)

Going from outside to inside: Kurikinton (chestnut with mashed sweet potatoes) - Kazunoko (herring roe) - Gomame (a.k.a.Tazukuri) (small sardines that have been dried and then finished in a sweet sauce of sugar, mirin, soy sauce and sake) and Hoshiebi (caramelized dried shrimp)

Ni-no-ju (second tier)

Ni-no-ju contains the grilled dishes and also pickled foods.
Namasu is a salad of shredded daikon (Japanese radish) and carrots seasoned in vinegar. Also included are: Ika (vinegar-seasoned squid), Kabu (vinegar and sugar marinade of Japanese turnip). And grilled shrimp, always popular.

Osechi - Ni-no-ju Grilled dishes
Chicken rolls with gobo and carrots, beef rolls with asparagus, and smoked salmon rolls with cucumber, radish and nori (seaweed).

Osechi - Ni-no-ju Grilled and Pickled Food
KurumaEbi (prawn), Buri (yellowtail), Kabu (sour radish) and Chicken rolls.

Osechi - Ni-no-ju More Grilled and Pickled Food
From top right: Kabu (sour radish), Gobo, salmon rolls, beef rolls and chicken rolls are the animal and marinated stuff. Below, Ika (squid), Buri (yellowtail) and Ebi (prawn) are the seafood.

San-no-ju (third tier)

Boiled dishes and desert come last. Mushrooms, carrots, nagaimo yam, pea pods, gobo (burdock root), renkon (lotus root) and other root vegetables are seasoned with sugar, stock and soy sauce. Broiled taro, twisted konnyaku and other root vegetables are common. The desert is made of Youkan (sweet bean jelly).

Osechi - San-no-ju Boiled dishes Ebi balls, Sayaendo (pea pod), Shiitake (black mushroom), Nagaimo (nagaimo yam), Konnyaku (devil's-tongue starch), Carrots and Spinach in the center.

Osechi - San-no-ju Balls of shrimps with pea pods

Osechi - Special youkan (sweet bean jelly) made for Oshogatsu with the Mount Fuji figure

We finished the meal with the Osumashi, traditional Japanese soup made with Dashi (stock), Kamaboko (fish cake) and Mitsuba (vegetable).

We hope everyone enjoyed this meal as much as we did.

The end of the year in Japan

2006-01-02T18:59:00.000+01:00

This year, we wanted to try to be a bit more traditional, or in other words, Japanese. So, the basic idea was -- in Japan do as the Japanese.

This period is actually split into two parts -- the end of the year and the beginning of the new year. The first is, of course, December 31 and early January 1st, and the second lasts for three days, from January first to the third. Almost nobody works in Japan during these three days!

The whole New Year period (o-shogatsu) is probably one of the most "Japanese" of all celebrations. This traditional New Year's celebration is full of symbolism, and that symbolism is particularly evident in typical New Year's food, the "Osechi Ryori". This is where we wanted to concentrate. Usually, when in Japan during this period of the year, we were invited by Akiko's parents for the traditional family gathering and new year food. This year, we had decided to prepare everything ourselves and invite Akiko's family, her parents and her brother.

Akiko armed herself with a couple of recipe books, took care of the shopping and organized everything. I started by taking care of cleaning the house (yes, this "is" part of the o-shogatsu). Meanwhile, Julien was taking care of enjoying himself camping with S., his uncle and Dully, their dog.

G. and E. joined us for the end of the year dinner, and together with several millions other people, we went to Tokyo's Meiji Shrine for "hatsumode", the new year first shrine visit. As they say, if you are afraid of crowds, don't go. It took us almost two hours (in the cold) to reach the front of the shrine, throw our coins, clap our hands, buy our arrow ("hamaya" for protection against the year's bad spirits) and some lucky charms for a fortunate new year, enjoy the various food stands, and go back to the car. The organization was as usual in Japan, excellent -- no rush, no stampede, with a lot of policemen for making sure it stays this way.

On January first, the final touch -- the presentation of the Osechi Ryori (special New Year dishes) we prepared (mainly Akiko) during these three days was finished just before the first guests arrived. We then went out to Yasukuni Jinja (yes, this controversial one, selected because it is the nearest one from home, not for political reason) to meet Akiko's family. Unfortunately, being a bit late, we missed some of the day events, but we enjoyed the crowd and all the little food stands.

Back home, we started the family gathering -- its main purpose is to be together and to eat these special dishes (and talk and comment on them). To the Japanese, the first day of the New Year is the most important and auspicious one. Since it symbolizes the year just beginning, the day should be full of joy and void of any stress, conflict or anger. Speaking about Akiko's cuisine, there was no real risk of argumentation.

The Osechi ryori, special New year dishes, are in general associated with health, happiness, and a good harvest, and much of the food has special meanings. Akiko's parents explained a lot of these symbols for us. All the details will be the subject of our next post. Meanwhile, here are just a few pictures.

The first round, called Ichi-no-ju. Also known as first or top tier, first level or first stage.

Contains Konbu, umami-rich kombu, kampyo - Kurikinton - Kazunoko - Gomame (Tazukuri) - Kamaboko - datemaki

(Explanation coming with the next post, if I find all the vocabulary!)

Ni-no-ju or second tier (second stage, second level, etc.)

Most items in this second box are animal and seafood tidbits. Ours contains chicken rolls with gobo and carrot, beef rolls with asparagus, and smoked salmon rolls with cucumber, radish and nori (seaweed)

San-no-ju or third tier (third stage, etc…)

The third box holds vegetables and roots seasoned with sugar and soy sauce. Ebi rolls, Sayaendo, Shiitake, Nagaimo, Konnyaku, Carrots and Spinach.

The desert, Youkan with Mount Fuji, was also included in this last box.

We discussed kimonos and all enjoyed watching E. trying one with the help of Akiko's mother.

We all had a great time and I guess this is the first step for a great year to come.

Back online

2005-12-29T16:03:00.000+01:00

We’ve been silent for the last two weeks because we were traveling. It is not always easy to take care of a blog from a hotel room without Internet. We’ll try to do better next time.

We spent a quick 12 days in France, between Paris, Marseilles, Nice, Cannes, and again Paris.

We shared our time between friends, family and visits.

Busy, busy, busy.

We’re now back in Tokyo and will start working on the preparation of the Shogatsu food — the end of the year traditional food set.

Kimono Party

2005-12-13T14:15:00.000+01:00

Madame Suzuki, Akiko's mother, has been waiting for some 25 years for this dayâ€ -- her daughter has finally asked her for help to wear a Kimono. So, it is with great pleasure that she sent a few items to our place and accepted to come over to show Akiko how to do. Two large boxes arrived a few days ago. Well, she mentioned a few items, but we found FIVE kimonos, FIVE Obi, a couple of coats, SIX pairs of shoes, and all kind of other accessories (to be seen on the pictures.) In addition, Madame Suzuki also sent another large box yesterday (making sure that it'll arrive this morning!) with more stuff. And she brought yet another kimono and more items with her!

Our friends G, K and M-C, arrived as planned around 11 am to witness this happening. Madame Suzuki arrived a few minutes later. The Kimono Party began.

All these items have been stored in "kiri no tansu" (Japanese Kimono closet) for the last 25 years or so. This dark kimono (Oshima Tsumuri) was purchased for Akiko at this time, and has never been worn.

I’m ready!

Akiko is starting this session by undressing and wearing some specific underwear.

Over these, Akiko puts on an under-kimono with a fake collar (Han Eri) as seen below. Both are put into position by a first string or belt.

You can see Akiko here with the second layer being maintained in position by the string tighten by her mother.

The Kimono is then placed over this.

After being placed around the waist, the kimono length is adjusted at the bottom to make sure it is straight. The bottom of the tissue line should reach just above the line of Achille's heel. No more, no less.

Madame Suzuki then adjusts the middle section of the kimono, by folding the tissue over the belly.

The upper part is then adjusted to be straight, without opening.

A series of belts is then placed over the belly to maintain everything in position.

Adjusting the whole thing, using a couple of more belts. Then a long one -- going around the belly two or three times (also called mini-obi) is placed to fix the whole structure.

Yet, another belt / obi is then placed on top of all this to enable a good positioning of the actual obi.

The Obi

The Obi, a long piece of tissue, from 20 to 30 cm wide, is then placed around the series of belts. The back of this obi is positioned around a little cushion (Obi Age) and made into a knot.

This is probably the most difficult part of the whole session. There are a number of different ways to proceed to fix and position the obi. Akikoâ€™s mother does this by herself in a few minutes. It took her much longer to do it for Akiko.

The Obi is secured with the Obi Dome (in green in the photos). You can also see the Obi Age (in red at the top of the obi), tissu that contains the little cushion that is used to heighten the back of the obi and give it its shape.

Et voila !

(This is the third time in my life that I see Akiko in Kimomo. The first time was when she turned 20 (Seiijin Shiki ceremony ÃƒÂ¢â‚¬â€ coming of age), the second time was when we got married, and now.)

Many thanks to Akikoâ€™s mother for her help!

Chilly Sunday

2005-12-11T14:33:00.000+01:00

Upon Julien’s request, we went to Yoyogi park by bicycle. It’s a 4.5 km ride from home and it took us about 20 minutes. He loves the park because there is a nice cycling course.

Also, there are so many trees in the park and we enjoyed the beautiful autumn colors. Now, the leaves are falling on the ground and are covering it.

We played Frisbee. . .

And we played with paper planes. . .

We met this fellow who is an paper airplane amateur. He gave us a quick aerodynamic theory lesson. His plane really flew very well.

At the end, he gave this wonder homemade plane (made with used postcards) to Julien and promise to teach Julien how to make such plane the next time they meet.

Today's fishing!

2005-12-10T16:51:00.000+01:00

It was a beautiful and warm day, and Julien and I went to do some fishing. Not in the mountain, nor the sea, but very near from home, in a fishing center.

Actually this fishing center is next to our local train station and I used to see so many people fishing while waiting for the train, even on week days. Well, not everybody works hard, even in Japan.

The last time, Julien got 6 huge carps so he was expecting to get even more this time. There is also a little pond for goldfish, and even small kids can enjoy themselves. Julien got his first pet “Mimi” here.

There are three carp ponds and one is dedicated for kids and ladies. I guess there are more carps in the pond and they are quite hungry (and therefore easy to catch).

Even with the big sign, we see quite a few men fishing in this pond — go figure!

In the goldfish pond, you actually get the goldfish you pick up, but here, we only get points instead of the actual carps (the first time, I was thinking about some carp dishes for dinner while we were fishing, but…)

When you’re done fishing, you carry all the fish you captured and the attendants weight them. You get one point for each kg, and for 6 points you get a free fishing session (4 points for the kids).

One of the kids in front of us got a beautiful red carp.

Us, nothing yet…

We started to fish at 15:50, and now it’s getting dark,

Nothing yet….

It’s getting cold and here is Julien . . . unhappy.

Today’s results, no carp…

Well, now is the time to go home… empty handed.

(Akiko’s Report)

"Forget-the-year Party" - Bonenkai

2005-12-09T13:20:00.000+01:00

In Japan, the end of the year gives us not one, but two reasons to party together with friends and colleagues. One party to forget about the ending year, the Bonenkai, and another one, to celebrate the new coming year, Shinnenkai.

We had our little Bonenkai party in Tachikawa where the company is located. Goto san picked up a nice restaurant where we gathered in a private room.

Happy new year to all!

The various courses, with unlimited drinks!

We need a larger fridge

2005-12-07T16:33:00.000+01:00

No, the current one is not broken and still works fine. No, we do not eat more than before. So, you must be wondering what the problem is?

Simple, we’re running out of space to put Akiko’s magnets!

Whenever we go somewhere, we do our utmost to find a magnet to add to Akiko’s collection. She already has a few of them, from quite a few places. Have a look!

– London, Vienna, Amsterdam, New Mexico,

– Alsace (France) Easter Island, China, Sushi from Japan, Mexico

– Thai fruits, China, Okinawa, Brittany (France)

– Australia, Japan….

– Victoria (British Columbia), Japan, Holland, china,

– Los Angeles, Hollywood, Paris, Vietnam, Okinawa, Matisse (Paris), Noh Mask (Japan)

– Legal Seafood (Rhodes Island), Klimt (Vienna), Canada

– Boston, Hollywood, Caminito, Buenos Aires (Argentina)

– Las Vegas, Venice, Grand Canyon,

– French wine, Australia penny (1959 — guess why), Brazil

– Japan, fruit from Thailand, The little mermaid of Copenhagen, Japan, Saint Martin

– Provence, Texas, Saint Martin

– Courchevel, Bora-Bora, Courchevel, etc.

And if you wonder, yes, there are many more…!

(So, if you don’t know what to give to Akiko, think “Magnet”, and you know you won’t go wrong.)

Little news

2005-12-07T13:51:00.000+01:00

Not much to talk about — I am slowly recovering from a bad cold and didn’t go out much for the last three days. Taking the opportunity to work a bit on our web site. Quite a few additions – more photos on food, more photos from our trip in South America, little changes left and right.

I implemented another blog keeping track of what I am doing for the web site. This can be accessed from the bottom left on our main pages.

Have a look —> www.hochner.com

Xmas came early this year

2005-12-04T13:36:00.000+01:00

Julien is really quite good at extracting presents from his grand-parents. At least, he does ask us if it's OK, and this year, he gave us the choice between an M16 BB gun, or a PSP!

A happy fellow!

First Piano Recital in Japan

2005-12-04T11:26:00.000+01:00

Following the advice of the Japanese Piano teacher, both Akiko and Julien presented a piece at the PEN Joint Concert in Tokyo.

Needless to say, the week was slightly tense at home with Akiko somehow nervous â€” she really is subject to stage fright, while Julien seems to not care if there is anyone listening or not. He’s a natural.

Julien played the parts “Prelude” and “Serenade sur l’eau” of “La Petite Suite” by Jacques Ibert.

Akiko selected a piece by Chopin, “Nocturne” in E minor. This is the last piece written by Chopin for his sister — it was only published after his death. It is full of rhythmic variations and quite difficult (says Akiko).

Akiko’s parents were present to encourage her and Julien.

With the Piano teacher.

A beautifully played piece by three future musician professionals (students of a Japanese music university) concluded the recital.

Traditional Japanese dinner

2005-12-03T15:29:00.000+01:00

From time to time, we like to indulge ourselves to a nice little Japanese dinner. Today, with a couple of friends, we selected a Japanese restaurant in Kagurazaka, the traditional neighborhood near our place. We had a private little room with tatamis and on a low table, we had a Kyoto style traditional Japanese dinner.

We started with the starter, also called Zensai (kyo yuba, kamo, konyaku, ebi, ofu no nitsuke).

And while we were eating a delicious plate of sashimi,

the next dish, ofunabe, was slowly cooking on a little candle burner.

We continued with some tofu

Next came a plate of fish (buri no yakimono)

followed by a crab salad (kani)

and Rice, Misoshiru and Tsukemono.

We finished with a fruit plate (kaki and grape).

An excellent dinner it was!

Southern All Stars Concert

2005-12-01T17:16:00.000+01:00

SAS, you probably don’t know what it is or who they are — I didn’t a few months ago. Southern All Stars is one of Japan mythical old rock band. They have been famous for more than two decades, and have just made a come back after seven years of silence….

And today was the first Tokyo concert of their “World Tour 2005”! HUGE. Impressive scale!

The location was Tokyo Dome, the local equivalent of Los Angeles’s Staple Center. The concert was sold out “minutes” after the tickets went on sale. We were lucky to win a lottery to get ours!

The place was fully packed with thousands of old and younger fans — a curious mix of people, all united in enjoying the music and the concert’s techno artifacts such as lights (300 spots just for the stage alone!), inside fireworks, lasers, more lights, screens, projections, balloons works, etc.

Akiko and Juju knew all the songs and were jumping and singing together with everyone else (except me, and another little girl seating seemingly bored near us next to her dancing mother).

Great fun for everyone!

Superb Exhibition!

2005-12-01T16:31:00.000+01:00

We made it!

We were right to go there early as it became quite crowded quickly. This is an exceptional exhibition, with 300 original works by Hokusai, one of these famous artists everybody knows about, without actually knowing it is him.

Indeed, everybody knows about the Great Wave, one of his most famous work, part of the 36 views of Mount Fuji. This is one of Japan's most famous woodblock painting — it was created by Hokusai!

And then you have all these wonderful woodblocks and paintings on silk like this one (should be on the left).

These Ukiyoe are one of the symbols of Japan, and we enjoyed them very much. And we were not the only ones — by the time we left, there was a 30 minutes queue to enter the museum!

We missed the Hokusai exhibition

2005-11-30T07:52:00.000+01:00

We have to go there before it is over, and the deadline is December 4th.

Akiko got the tickets a while ago, but we were waiting for the good timing to enjoy the Ueno park at the same time as this exhibition of Hokusai work at the National Museum.

The information we got about the color of the leaves was outdated, and there were not much leaves left. It is still a nice park to walk around.

It is full of museum, shrines and temple, is host to Japan's first zoo where one can see giant panda bears.

Anyway, our purpose was the Hokusai exhibition…. but there was already a 30 minute queue to enter and we gave up the idea, at least for today. We’ll try again tomorrow, earlier.

Just as I thought it all works!

2005-11-28T17:39:00.000+01:00

Our French blog started to act bizarre with the utility I am using. Actually, the blog looks OK when I check it online, but I can’t use BlogJet to manage it or access it. Wasted a couple of hours on this today and I am feeling a bit down…

Outing in Takao

2005-11-27T17:51:00.000+01:00

We talked about visiting this place for a little while and we were just waiting for the right time to enjoy the changing of the autumn color.

Too early! Not yet! Akiko has been monitoring this on the Internet as we certainly didn’t want to miss one of Tokyo's most popular koyo (autumn foliage) spots.

Today, Sunday is the day!

So we woke up early (well, kind of) and took the Keio train from Shinjuku for the 45 minutes ride to Takaosan (Mount Takao). This place is still located within metropolitan Tokyo! We took the cable car (featuring the steepest slope of all Japanese cable cars, with 31 degrees!), walked around a few temples and reach the peak at 599 meters. Unfortunately, the weather didn’t allow us to see neither Tokyo nor the Mount Fuji.

The various leaf colors were amazing. Lots of beautiful spots, each with numerous photographers around — after all, we are in Japan. I started to use my new tripod while Julien enjoyed using “our” Nikon D100 and my tripod….

Had a quick look at the monkey mountain where we shot a few nice pictures.

Mount Takao (Takaosan) is considered a sacred mountain and has been a center of worship for more than 1000 years. The attractive Yakuoin temple stands near the mountain's top. Visitors pray there to Shinto and Buddhist mountain gods (tengu) for good fortune. Statues of the gods, one with a long nose and one with a crow beak, can be found at the temple and all over the mountain.

We knew that this place could become crowded, mainly at this period, but . . . Well, we had to wait almost one hour to get a car to go down the mountain, and were able to catch a train right away for Tokyo.

New page on our web site

2005-11-26T18:35:00.000+01:00

I am working on our web site and testing/trying numerous programs and utilities for this purpose. I need to find an easy and fast way to create and post photos on our web pages, in galleries, in slide shows, etc. Some good stuff. Some useless crap, as usual. Today, I posted our first photo page at http://www.hochner.com/food.html.

I am also working on the French pages which I hope to have ready and up in a couple of days. More tomorrow.

Fame

2005-11-24T14:40:00.000+01:00

Wow….I found out that this Summer, during the Shareware Industry Conference, I was inducted into the Shareware Hall of Fame. And can you believe it — I didn’t even know about it! Nothing is mentioned on the SIC web site (www.sic.org). I actually found out accidentally by discussing with a friend.

Here is the official text…

Shareware Hall of Fame 2005 Inductee:

Patrick Hochner – created P. & A. Inc, along with his wife, Akiko, in May of 1984. At that time it was strictly a translation company, but in 1991 Patrick entered the world of software distribution. He used his contacts, experience, and knowledge of software to present high-quality programs to Japanese computer users. And, while providing good programs, he also provided good Japanese instruction with each and every product he sold. In 1992 his company was the first ASP approved shareware vendor in Japan and he distributed some of the most popular products including games such as Doom, Quake, Duke Nukem 3D, and more. Patrick has gone on to distribute a wide range of games, applications, and utilities taking care of the translation and localization in Japanese. Patrick has worked hard to promote shareware not only in Japan, but around the world as well. As a member of the shareware community, Patrick has become known for his honesty and integrity. In his dealings with shareware authors around the world, he always puts principle before profit. In view of his contributions to shareware and the shareware community, the SIAF board of directors is proud to induct Patrick Hochner into the Shareware Hall of Fame!

Our Family Web site is up!

2005-11-24T02:27:00.000+01:00

Again, things are moving in the right direction. After years of thinking, months of procrastinating. Days of work…..

We have finally posted the English version of our family web site!

Have a look at: www.hochner.com

And be sure to let us know what you think.

It finally arrived, our MyPublisher photo album

2005-11-21T07:17:00.000+01:00

It took us quite a while to select the 300 pictures from our South American trip that are featured in this album.

We were supposed to receive the album in 7 to 14 business days, but after waiting for almost one month, we were close to give up the idea of ever getting it.

Needless to say that we are now very happy that it arrived. It’s really great!

Akiko wants to try

2005-11-21T04:39:00.000+01:00

Of course, as soon as she saw what I was doing, Akiko wanted to give it a try.

Here on the right is a picture taken at the Mont Saint-Michel. This was really a great trip and an incredible location.

Let’s post this.

Now, of course, she was not happy with this first post and had to modify it. (Actually, we're testing our tools, Namo WebEditor 2006 and BlogJet.)

Testing BlogJet

2005-11-21T02:45:00.000+01:00

I have installed an interesting application - BlogJet. It's a cool Windows client for my blog tool (as well as for other tools). Get your copy here: http://blogjet.com

Hopefully, this will enable me to get an easy to manage, good looking Blog.

Voilà , j’essaie un nouveau programme pour me faciliter la vie avec le Blog. Nous allons voir comment ça marche. J’espère que ça ira mieux que la dernière fois.

2005-11-20T14:43:00.000+01:00

Tori No Ichi

Today, we took our bicycles and went to Hanazonojinja, a Shinto Shrine in Shinjuku, to have a look at the Tori no Ichi Fair "festival of the rooster" (open-air market). This is a famous annual event held in November on the days of the Tori (Rooster). In the Japanese traditional calendar, modeled after the Chinese one, the years, days, and hours are represented by a repeating cycle of 12 animals: the rat, ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, sheep, monkey, rooster, dog, and boar. In most years there are only two days of the rooster in November, but sometimes there are three. It is said that in such years, there will be many fires.

There are numerous food stands around and we enjoyed the customary yakisoba and yakitori for lunch.

This event started during the Edo period and still continues today. These fairs are held at various Shinto shrines around the country where many people come around to pray for good health, good fortune and good business. They buy colorful kumade, or rakes, from the many vendors who set up stalls in and around the shrines (see picture below).

These Kumade are decorated with good-luck items such as masks, replicas of gold coins, and miniature treasure ships and chests.The good luck only lasts for one year and one has to buy another Kumade every year -- many people or shops buy a larger one each time to increase their good fortune.

In the beginning

2005-11-15T07:34:00.000+01:00

Et voila... We have finally started our family blog. We'll try to post here regularly and always add lots of photos.

This Blog is being written from Tokyo, our new home.

Here is a view near our train station, Ichigaya, located just a couple of minutes away from the apartment.