Goodbye Kyoto (and Lisa), hello Osaka!

Yesterday was so fun.  Our last day in Kyoto (and Lisa's last day in Japan) we spent doing a cooking class and a "highlights package" of our favourite things in Japan.

The cooking class was brilliant. I'd googled "cooking class in Kyoto" and came across a website of a Japanese woman who holds cooking classes in her home for up to 4 students at a time. A few emails later and voila - we took a bus north east of Kyoto and met up with Emi and two Canadians and had a great afternoon.  Emi was so cute and passionate about the ingredients and showing us how to cook in a traditional way, and busied about the kitchen while we helped and laughed with her and at her enthusiasm. 



A productive table, including fresh yuzu (top-right)!



Freshly-roasted ginko nuts

I had requested to learn to make dashimaki and chawanmushi, two similar egg-based dishes, and I suspect Emi and the Canadians thought we were quite egg-mad! We also made a spinich salad and marinated grilled yellowtail.  Highly recommend.





Dashimaki, Kyoto-style

  

Chawanmushi - my favourite!

  

Grilled yellowtail



Spinach and sesame salad

Rice with soy, carrot, tofu and burdock root



  The rest of the day we did what I'm calling our highlights package, including:

- sticker photos
- eating crepes
- eating izakaya
- karaoke
- shopping at Loft

- eating ramen

- eating sweets from a basement department store   

Rice cracker salad at the izakaya 

 

Kyoto Ramen Alley @ Kyoto Station. Look at the egg!

Our ryokan room in Kyoto



Lisa left early this morning to catch a plane back to London.  I left Kyoto via shinkansen to Osaka, and spent the day eating and shopping.  Osaka is so different to Tokyo and Kyoto - the streets are filled with food, karaoke and game arcades. People are eating on the streets, and there is less of the rush that is everywhere in Tokyo.  I had lunch in an okonomiyaki restaurant - it was cool, the place had a counter setup with hot plates in between the chef and the people sitting, so the okonomiyaki is cooked right in front of you. I couldn't read the menu and the chef didn't understand English, so I ordered an "okonomiyaki surprise" by pointing at the menu and got one with seafood and kim chi and what tasted like coleslaw. Pretty nice but I may need to go back to try a different one. Two girls at the other end of the counter ordered 2 okonomiyaki, a huge monjayaki and a big plate of noodles between them.  Respect.

In a day of food ordering fails, I found Kamakura ramen, decided on the ramen I wanted but couldn't figure out which buttons on the ordering machine correlated to my ramen!  Which meant that I sat down at the counter and was handed THE BIGGEST BOWL OF RAMEN EVER.  Yes, really. I don't understand much Japanese but the sounds of awe I heard from the cooks, and the looks of amazement from other diners really just confirmed the ordering fail.  To my credit I pretty much finished it all, however I am all ramen'd out for this trip and can cross it off the "eat in Japan" list.

 

The largest bowl of ramen I have ever seen. (Use the egg as a relative size comparison)

I found another kit kat flavour in the Lawson's across the road from the Osaka hotel. The kit kat flavours I have found so far on this trip are:

- Almond

- Dark

- Salt and caramel

- Bitter almond

- Green tea

- Brown tea

- Strawberry

- Orange

Europe's snow is playing havoc with flights.  I just checked Frankfurt airport's page and Lisa's flight from Osaka is landing late and the flight to London city has been cancelled.  Most of the remaining flights to London city and Heathrow from Frankfurt tonight have been cancelled so I hope she gets back ok somehow. Australia is also having some unseasonably cold weather, so I'm concluding that the world's weather has simply gone mad!