Japan - Day 4 (Part 2)

Japan – Day 4 (Part 2)

Friday, 25 May 2024

The path leading to the shrine was indeed very beautiful, with green lush trees and plants as far as my eyes can see. On the way, I saw barrels of wine consecrated at Meiji Jingu, which had been offered by the wineries of Bourgogne in France in the spirit of world peace and amity and continued friendship between Japan and France. This is in keeping with the Meiji period’s policy of ‘Japanese Spirit and Western Knowledge’ to learn from the best of Western culture and civilisation while keeping Japan’s age-old spirit and revered traditions. In promoting modernization, Emperor Meiji embraced many features of western culture in his personal life such as donning western attire, eating western food and enjoying wine with it. A poem by Emperor Meiji reads:

By gaining the good and rejecting what is wrong,

It is our desire that we’ll compare favourably

With other lands abroad.

At the opposite side of the barrels of wine, there are barrels of sake wrapped in straw, which are offerings by various sake brewers wishing to show their respect to the Emperor and Empress.

At the shrine itself, there were two big camphor trees planted in 1920 at the time of the enshrinement of Meiji Jingu, and are considered to be sacred. Well known as Meoto Kusu or Husband and Wife, the coupled trees have become a symbol of happy marriage and harmonious life within the family.

And then I was done and off I went (yes, by taxi) to the Tsukiji Outer Market. Honestly, I thought this would be a sort of fresh fish market selling all kinds of fresh seafood, with live demonstrations of local fishmongers cutting salmon and tuna and octopuses, but I was only half correct, as it was much, much more than that! Sometimes luck (or as I would like to believe, the travelling gods which I sort of believe in although I generally do not believe in any kind of God and yes, I know I am all kinds of contradiction and so what!) is really on my side and I would like to pat myself on the back for choosing to go to this place.

Before 2018, this was the largest wholesale fish and seafood market in the world. It opened on 11 February 1935 as a replacement for an older market that was destroyed in the 1923 Great Kanto earthquake. Then it was closed on 6 October 2018, with wholesale operations moving to the new Toyosu Market. So you see, I was partially correct in my wild imaginings of professional fishmongers slicing salmon, tuna and octopus before my very eyes. Except that I was a few years too late.

But! There were all kinds of fresh seafood sold here (salmon, tuna, cod, thorny crab, soft shell crab, eels, lobster, prawns, octopus, scallops, oysters, and dried seafood. But the place was much more than that as it sold all kinds of other stuff such as vegetables (really??), souvenirs, nuts, sushi, and all kinds of ready to eat stuff. I really enjoyed myself looking at the myriad of food choices available to me. Here I bought an array of assorted nuts, including wasabi green peas which I intend to give to my father who is a squirrel (who loves nuts) just like me.

(Have I ever written about how I am every bit my father’s daughter? And how my mother cannot accept this because she (in my view, mistakenly) invested in her two sons who turned out to be far less interesting than her only daughter? It’s no secret but not an appropriate story here).

Then I decided to be adventurous (why not?) and try Tamagoyaki (a type of Japanese omelette made by rolling together several layers of fried beaten eggs, often prepared in a rectangular omelette pan called a makiyakinabe or tamagoyaki. The word “tamago” means egg in Japanese, and the word “yaki” means to be cooked over direct heat) and Takoyaki (a ball-shaped Japanese snack made of a wheat flour-based batter typically filled with minced or diced octopus (tako), tempura scraps (tenkasu), pickled ginger (beni shoga), and green onion (negi), brushed with takoyaki sauce and mayonnaise and then sprinkled with green laver (aonori) and shavings of dried bonito (katsuobushi)).

The Takoyaki I have tried before in Malaysia but this one in Tsukiji Outer Market was really, really good! The Tamagoyaki I never tried before and whilst good, I found it a bit strange as it tasted a bit sweet which I didn’t expect an omelette to be. So altogether I find that the food in Japan (teriyaki, ramen, soba) is much more delicious than what we can find in Malaysia, but sushi and miso taste almost the same as what we can find in Malaysia. This I find not surprising at all, because I find that generally, the food in the country of origin always taste better than when it is sold outside that country. So, for eg, even the vegetarian food in India taste a LOT better than any Indian food I have tried in Malaysia. In other words, I can actually visualise myself being a vegetarian in India, but not in Malaysia.