Kumamoto, Saga, and Shimane Prefecture!!

Ok I know its 6 months late.. but here is more info from my trip back in Jan 2011!

Kumamoto Castle! Did a quick day trip to Kumamoto from Fukuoka. It took an hour and 20 minutes from Hakata station. Unfortunately The new Kyushu bullet train was not scheduled to open til march so I could not take ti to kumamoto. Latest bullet train shaves time to like 35 minutes. Anyway Kumamoto castle was a short 20 minute walk from Kumamoto station.  You can take a road trolley but the walk was nice.

What is Kumamoto known for? Why Horse Sushi of course! Tried some and it was pretty good!

Also went to Saga prefecture to get some crab at Takezaki. There three ways you can get it there: Broiled, Baked, and Sushi! Personally I though it was pretty good crab but it wasn't worth the price in my opinion. The best part of the meal in my mind was when the Okami-san of the res truant took the left over parts and made miso soup out of it!  That was good!

Ok speaking of crab, more crab! :) Scrab is really good in the winter time so we went to Tamazukuri Onsen in Shimane prefecture. This was the place where we stayed and it was pretty good! The place is know fpr having the largest outdoor onsen in Japan. I'm not sure if the largest in Japan really is true or not but it was definitely big! had the place all to myself. Its a little embarrassing because people in the hotel can look down onto the hot spring from the room windows but there wasn't that many people staying at the place so it wasn't really an issue I guess.   Ok  back to crab! Had Crab the same way as above but this time I liked it a lot better. The meat was much more easier to get to in the "Echinzen " crabs.

Okinawa~~~! If only the weather cooperated some more..

OK so on to Okinawa!! 1st let me say its a beautiful place! 2nd Its not as warm as Hawaii! It was about Highs in the 60F's while I was there! Water temp was actually warmer than air temp! That being said if it were a bit warmer I think it would have been a nice place to go. Also I couldn't go diving because the waves were a tad rough... 3m waves :)  We stayed in the Intercontinental Hotel in Manza Beach ( the middle part of Okinawa). Its about a 45 minute drive from the Naha airport.

それでは沖縄へ！まず沖縄は綺麗な所ですね。それから沖縄はハワイほどあたたかっくなです。平均１５℃でした。水温のほうが暖かいのでちょつと海水浴に行くのにはさむすぎ！後ダイビングはいけませんでした。波が荒く３Ｍほどの波が押し寄せていてとてもじゃないけどいけない状態でした。泊まったところは万座ビーチＡＮＡインターコンチネンタルーホテルです。（沖縄の真中　あたり）那覇空港から車で４５分はなれた所にあります。

The hotel was renting out a bicycle but schedule wise it didn't work out. Would have been real nice to ride a bicycle around  there. Anyway more shots of the interior of the hotel its really nice. Its only missing one thing in my book... a hotspring! :) 

ホテルで自転車レンタルしてましたけど予定にうまく入らなかったから借りませんでした。そこらへんを自転車でうろうろしてたら面白かっただろうな。とにかくホテルの中もかなりよかったです。ただ一つ足りないのが温泉かな？　＾＿＾

Ok on to the food of Okinawa! Here is what I tried!

それでは沖縄の食べ物の感想！　沖縄で食べたのは。。

Okinawa soba  - Had some in the airport so it may not be too authentic but compared to normal ramen the soup is a lot less salty. I would say its closer to Hawaiian Saimin. I like tonkotsu trype ramen (Fairly salty flavor so it didn't agree with me as much) The hotsause/ vinigar they use was pretty good though!

沖縄そば　－　空港で食べましたが本場の沖縄そばかどうかは判らないのですがふつうのラーメンに比べるとあさっり系のスープで塩分控えめです。どちらかと言うとハワイのサイミンに似てますね。個人的にはとんこつ系が好きなのであまり味が合わなかったような。からし入り酢はおしかった。

Taco Rice - Tastes just like what you'd expect mexican taco ground beef over rice. Nothing special if your from the California.

タコ　ライス　－味は名前道理でタコとご飯です。Ｃａｌｉｆｏｒｎｉａからの人はあんまり新しい味とはいえないかな。

umi budou - Sea grapes! now this was novel! taste like little sea water filled caplets. goes very good with soy sauce and vinegar!

海ぶどう　－これは面白い食材ですね。海水粒粒ですね。醤油としそ酢とあいます。

goya-chamburu - Goya stir fry! very good almost available every where you go. I like this dish! its very simple and good. If any of you had bitter melon its that with scrambled egg. you can definitely taste the Chinese influence on this dish.

ゴーヤ　チャンブル　－ゴーヤのバター炒めですね。これは美味しい！。簡単で美味しいですね！中華のビターメロンプラス卵閉じ見たいな味ですね。中国の影響がよくわかる一品ですね。

Not sure what the shell fish above was called but it was good whatever it was. We were walking around Makishi Market and we saw this shell fish asked about it and we just ended up buying it and eating it. As soon as you buy it they will cook it up and serve it to you so its very fresh! It was made into a sashimi and then stir fryed with butter. It went really well with this Okinawan Sochu.  Its like 30% alcohol but it goes down easier than say Korean Soju which is typically 20%. Good stuff cheap too like $10 for beer bottle sized bottle. 

　

名前のわからない貝類を食べました。牧志市場でうろうろしてて市場のねーさんに進められて買いました。その場で調理してくれて新鮮でした。これは日本では当たり前なのですがアメリカでは珍しいので個人的には好きです。半分は刺身で半分はバター炒めで本当においしかっちたです。上の写真の沖縄焼酎とよく合いました。アルコール度は３０％なのですけどスウーと飲めました。韓国の焼酎はアルコール度が２０％なのですがこれはそれよりも飲みやすいのでよかったです。後すごく安い！ビール瓶ぐらいの大きさで千円でした！

Speaking of Alcohol.. there was one sake I wanted to try but it was really expensive. See picture below for price.. 7.5L for 129675 Yen or $1500 for 7.5L... some how I think I'd have a hard time getting that through customs:) 

酒と言えば沖縄はハブ入り酒が有名ですよね。僕も飲んでみたいですけどこれほど高いとは！

７．５Ｌで１２万９千６７５円です！　ちょつとこれをもって税関通るのはむずかしかも　

＾＿＾

Anyway a little more on Okinawa next time!

後もちょつと沖縄の事を話したいけどまた今度！

A lot has changed in the last month or so...

A lot has changed in my life last few months. Where to begin... Lets see I've postponed my 1 lap around japan trip as of now. An opportunity popped up that I needed to take advantage of. Started my new job in the beginning of this month. hopefully this job will allow me to go to Japan. (Would have gone to Japan but Earthquake and Fukushima nuclear plant problems has put a damper on that)
この数ヶ月で私の人生色々変わりました。さあ何から話そうかな。今のところ日本自転車１周旅はちょつとお預けです。つい最近いい仕事のお話が来たので転職しました。今月から仕事始めました。この新しい仕事で日本に行く機会が増えると思うので楽しみです。（地震と福島原発のせいで四月の出張は取り消されたました）

Anyway I was in Japan Late Jan to mid Feb this year. I would like to share my experience of that trip. The basic trip itinerary went something like this:
と言うことで私は今年の１月下旬から２月中旬まで日本にいました。その旅のお話をしたいとおもいます。旅の順路は：

SFO->Fukuoka（福岡）->Tokyo（東京）
->Fukuoka(福岡)->Okinawa(沖縄）->Saga(佐賀）
->Kumamoto(熊本）->Yamaguchi(山口)->Totori（鳥取）
->Shizuoka（静岡）->Gunma（群馬）->Yokohama（横浜）->SFO


A lot of traveling in 3 weeks!  Ok so Fukuoka! My family is originally from Fukuoka so I spent most of my time at my parents place in Ito-shima. It was cold! This shot was taken at night from my parents balcony 30 sec exposure.. If you look to the left side of the picture it looks bright.. thats the light pollution from Fukuoka City. (3rd largest city in Japan)　とにかくかなりあっちこっち行きました。それではまずは福岡！私の家族は元々福岡出身なので福岡の糸島にいました。とにかく寒かったです！これは親の家のバルコニで撮った晴れた夜空です。シャッターは３０秒あけてとりました。写真の左は明るいのは福岡市からの光がもれてるからです。

You can't see it in this pic but there is a little fishing village near by (around the green light in the picture) and they BBQ oysters every day! it smells so good! So we had to have some too!　この写真ではよく見えないのですけど近所に魚業場がありすき焼きのカキを焼いててすごくいい匂いがして！我慢ができず我々も食べました！

This was a little cute. Its a table top charcoal BBQ where we cooked up some oysters.It tasted so good with some good sake. So much good food down in Hakata! Can't be in Fukuopka with out eating Mentaiko!
これが使った卓上炭焼きです。アメリカではこの大きさの卓上炭焼き暖炉（？）は珍しいです。とにかく美味しいです。いい酒と食べるとさらにおいしいです！博多は美味しいもいっぱいあるばい！博多に来て明太子食べずにいられません！

Anyway thats all for today. More trip info to come later.. so much to cover!
まだ色々話したいのですけど　また跡で！  

A lot of Earthquake activity in Japan

My heart goes out to all those suffering in Japan right now. It is gut wrenching to watch the stuff going on over there. As you can see from the USGS Earthquake map not only has there been a magnitude 9.0 earthquake but there has been a bunch of magnitude 5+ aftershocks going on over in North East Japan for the past week.(all the Yellow boxes are 1 week old earth quakes. Blue boxes are earthquake from the day before and red are ones that happened with in a day. Size of the box tells how big it was)

If you can spare a few bucks please donate to what ever charity that can help.

I have donated to here : http://www.jcccnc.org/

Thanks All.