Japan - fishy photos!

[Moonlighter]

Hi all

I was inspired by Henno's excellent posts to share a bit of the story of our Japan trip in Feb 2007, so here goes!

The brief background is that in 1989 we hosted a young Japanese student, who was then 17, at our home for a few weeks whilst she studied English and learnt about Australia. We became great friends and she came back 5 times in the following 18 years to visit us - sometimes by herself, other times she brought friends or family.

Then late in 2006 we got an e-mail from Yukimi that her boyfriend had proposed and she was getting married, and asked would we like to come to her wedding in Japan. My wife Rhonda could barely contain herself and before we knew it flights booked and we are on the way to Nagoya in central Japan.

We had 2 weeks there with the wedding about half-way through, held on a small Island Miyajima that's just off the coast from Hiroshima. We were hosted by Yukimi and her parents and by her new husband's family down at Kobe - they are great hosts and welcomed us like old friends. As Henno said visiting Japan this way where you stay with and are looked after by locals is just a brilliant way to see a country.

Whilst Rhonda wanted to look at pottery, historical places etc, I had always wanted to see the Tokyo fish markets, especially after seeing Starlos reports all those years ago on Rexy's show.

So one morning early we jumped on the Shinkansen (that's the Bullet train to us westerners) and went up to Tokyo - about the same distance from Nagoya as Rockhampton is from Brisbane. Trip took around 2 hrs! At 300kph its like flying, only smoother. Thank God Yukimi acted as tour guide for us otherwise we'd still be somewhere down in the Tokyo subway!

Here's a few photos to whet your appetites. Some huge frozen tuna, some unknown species, lots of slimies (good chewin', those slimies!).

Like Henno I ate sushimi style seafood of just about every description, and quite a few things that I still am not sure what they were, but once you get past the "thought" they do actually taste great! I will post a few pictures of the seafood meals I was served as well if anyone's interested.

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[Benno1]

yes please post the pics of the meals...love sushi (well the sushi rolls the wife makes)...fantastic report Grant...looking forward to the rest of the piccies

[jez and suze]

great pics mate..........i love asia, i have gotta do japan sometime.
i grew up with japanes students around, great fun.

[el_carpo]

Thanks for posting the pics GB!

[Moonlighter]

Thanks for the feedback everyone, so here we go with a few more fishy photos - this time served up on the plate.

These are some photos of the seafood meals I ate (note the "I" rather than we, as the missus won't eat any seafood at all - athough I strongly suspect that she did eat quite a bit in Japan without realising it.... )

Species that I can recall eating sushimi style whilst in Japan include:
Slimy mack; tuna, snapper (or a close relative called Kai I think), kingfish, squid, river trout, scallops, leatherjacket, octopus, gurnard, salmon (naturally) and scad.

It was all great!

From top to bottom, L to R they are:

1. Leatherjacket - plate sized done in a kind of soy sauce - for breakfast!!

2. This is one of the dishes served at the wedding reception - the clear bowl is actually moulded from ice - as Henno san says the Japanese take as much pride, maybe more, in the presentation of their meals than in the taste. We won lots of points that night with them as we are both pretty good with the chopsticks and refused the offered knife and fork.

3. River trout at a restaurant that was a converted Shogun's house in the mountains

4. A selection of different fish we were served by Yukimi's mum one evening after a day's sightseeing. She and her friends had worked all day in the kitchen to prepare a feast of some maginitude for us that night!

5. More seafood that same night

6. Crumbed huge oysters to top off the feast - this was just my plate full - yum!

7. One stage in the meal that night - it seems like every 20 mins or so there would be 3 or 4 more dishes served up and empty plates removed. Japanese beer is pretty damn good, I have to tell you!! Soon disccovered that one big Aussie can drink 2 little Japanese guys under the table without trying very hard!! Body mass always wins.....

Grant



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[tim2]

Hi mate,
The Snapper is called Tai (Like neck tie) it translates to Sea Bream, but it is accepted as snapper among most people i know. There are many types of tai in Japan.