sushi – Candle in a Cave

Today was another travel day, and you don’t always expect travel days to be that exciting, but today was really kind of great. In the picture above, you should say if it was really kind of great, then you should be smiling, but as fast as that train moves, you can either take a picture or smile. It’s going pretty fast.

My travels today consisted of a 20-minute bus ride to the train station and then a three-hour train ride to Kyoto. It was peaceful and not crowded.

What strikes me about the countryside is that it is very much like Oklahoma. The only difference is that instead of growing wheat, they are growing rice. On any flat piece of ground, if there is not a building on it, there will be a garden, and in most cases, that garden will be growing rice.

Look familiar? If you’re from Oklahoma, it most certainly does. Although they have a lot more water than we do.

After arriving in Kyoto, I took another bus to my hotel. I read the reviews about this hotel, and there were some complaints about the rooms being too small. However, given the fact that land is at a premium in this country, I don’t think you can expect to have a sprawling room with lots of wasted space. Everything you need is right here, only a step away. I find the rooms to be absolutely delightful. The staff is very kind… Oh, I’m at the Hotel Resol Kyoto… it’s in the middle of everything, and there’s nothing that you are without. So, you can complain if you want, but this is a lovely place.

Besides, you have traveled 13 1/2 hours to be in Japan and an additional four hours to get to Kyoto from Tokyo, and you’re going to complain about the size of the room?! Get out and see the world, for crying out loud. You came this far. You are here. You are blessed and fortunate.

And then we hit the bucket list jackpot! Now we have discussed sushi, and you know that I am quite fond of the raw fish. Anytime I have the opportunity, I will try to eat my weight in the raw fish. I find fish, whether it be raw, broiled, fried, boiled, baked, canned, poached, etc., etc., etc., to be absolutely amazing. You know this. However, my all-time favorite is the sushi, and tonight I found the sushi conveyor belt. You pay based on the color of the plate. It goes round and round and round, and you just pick up what you want and eat it.

I kept saying to myself, “John, don’t embarrass yourself. John, don’t embarrass yourself.“ I reached a point when I just didn’t care! It was good, and I was happy. I was in a sushi-eating frenzy.

Look at all that loveliness go rolling by! It desires to fulfill it’s purpose in life by being eaten by me!

Oh, don’t judge me! The yellow ones are beer. LOL.

Afterward, I wasn’t quite ready to return to the hotel, so I wandered up and down the street for a bit, eventually ending up in a very small basement cocktail lounge. I was the only one there, along with the bartender, Uno. What a fantastic conversation we had. I understood most of what he said, and he understood most of what I said. We talked about Oklahoma, red beef, the differences between the big cities and the smaller towns, and, of all things, Pink Floyd.

My new friend, Uno, plays guitar. He’s a fan of Deep Purple but had never been introduced to Pink Floyd. He pulled up a track from The Dark Side of the Moon, and he’s hooked forever.

He gave me several recommendations on local restaurants that I need to check out, and I’ll do just that. He’s only about two doors down from my hotel, so I told him after my day was done tomorrow that I would swing by and let him know how things went. He seemed quite pleased with that.

What a good day.

Tomorrow is looking to be an exceptional day as well, including the fact that tomorrow’s blog post will include the word psithurism. One of the other spots I planned to visit means that I will need to get up early to beat the other tourists. Considering how I’ve been doing that every day, tomorrow should not be a problem.

That’s all I know for today. I pray your day has been good. Sleepy time in Kyoto.

How do we begin to describe this day? Well, given that it is the Lord‘s day we went to church. Saint Albans Episcopal Anglican Church in Tokyo. It was about a 30 minute train ride and I made all my connections. Arrived early and was able to pray my rosary before the service began. A very small church in size but it seemed to be a vibrant congregation. I would say that half the members were African.

The service was straight out of the Book of Common Prayer. Very few deviations. I like that in a service. The sermon was good however following the sermon (the priest was a graduate of Nashotah House) the former priest to the church (also a graduate of Nashotah House) gave a small presentation on a gift that he had received and that he was now giving to the diocese. The gift was a FUMIE.

A fumi-e (踏み絵, fumi “stepping-on” + e “picture”) was a likeness of Jesus or Mary to which the religious authorities of Japan required suspected Christians to step, in order to demonstrate that they were not members of the outlawed Christian religion. If they refused, they were put to death and a most horrible way.

The priest who gifted the fumie to the diocese provided us with a detailed description of how they were put to death. I’m not going to go into that here. They were the Martyrs of Japan. It’s worth reading up on.

During the announcements, they invited the visitors to tell who they were and where they were from. Yours truly spoke up and gave a loud shout out for Enid, Oklahoma! Funny thing, that was not my only connection with Oklahoma for the day.

Following the service, the day turned into a bit of a tourist outing. As I turned the corner on the street that leads up to the church I saw the Tokyo Tower.

I said to myself, “Self, you’ve got to get up there!” Both self and I were of the opinion that we would not be climbing the stairs, but we took the elevator. What a ride. It goes up and up and up.

Standing 1,092 feet high in central Tokyo, Tokyo Tower (東京タワー) is the world’s tallest, self-supported steel tower and 10 feet taller than its model, the Eiffel Tower. A symbol of Japan’s post-war rebirth as a major economic power, Tokyo Tower was the country’s tallest structure from its completion in 1958 until 2012 when it was surpassed by the Tokyo Skytree. In addition to being a popular tourist spot, Tokyo Tower serves as a broadcast antenna.

820 feet up is the top observation deck. Yours truly wrote the elevator all the way there. I can honestly say I felt a bit woozy at times, but what a view.

What goes up must come down…

To get my feedback on the ground, I traveled to the Imperial Gardens. Most everything has bloomed except for the azaleas. The variations of green were fantastic though.

At this point, I had been on the go for about eight hours and I had not eaten since breakfast. I was hungry. I took two trains to get back to the general area of my hotel, and then found a sushi bar. I ate my weight in sushi. I also had four very tasty beers. I had the salmon, shrimp, eel, salmon roe, tuna, mackerel, shrimp… and when all that was done, I looked at the guy and said, “I’ve never had sea urchin before. I think I need to try that.” I did. Salty and earthy. I would eat it again, but it’s not on the top of the list. I topped all that off with a salmon skin roll garnished with salmon roe. Dang! Good eats for sure!

Now, when I ordered the sea urchin, I noticed the two girls at the end of this bar about three seats away from me. They were very friendly and we chatted a bit. But they watched me eat that sea urchin, and then we discussed it. Come to find out, they were from Stillwater, Oklahoma. They both work at OSU. We had a really good laugh about that. They have one more day here and then they’re on their way home. How strange is that? There are over 14 million people living in Tokyo and I happen to run into two people from Oklahoma. A very good day.

Tomorrow, I have absolutely no idea what’s on the agenda, but I do believe that I’m going to go and visit some more of the churches that are here. I don’t know what the architectural style is but I have not seen it before. More on that tomorrow.

I pray you all are well. My cat sitter extraordinaire sent a picture of The Queen. She seems to be doing well.