Orchard Visit : Yummy Grapes

Going to a fruit orchard was an excellent outing for us and we went to an orchard that has a number of different fruit trrees planted. Read also our post : Day 4 in Japan - Fruit picking in Akita.

I love  the fragrant smell the grapes emit not to mention the delicious tatse of the grapes we picked too. And those sweet smell lingered in our room and in the fridge because it took days for us to finish all the grapes we brought back! Not to mention the delicious taste too. Those grapes were absolutely yummy!

Grapes, grapes, grapes everywhere.

Which one to pick? Decision, decisions.

Me, with our first bunch of grapes. There were many more to follow afterwards. *^-^*

The orchard can even pack the grapes you bought in boxes, for souvenirs or you can opt for the packing to avoid the grapes from being squashed.

Food We Ate : Food From Depachika

Sometimes, when we are too lazy or too tired to go out for dinner after a long day sightseeing, we opted to bring back food and eat in the comfort of our hotel room. Usually, instead of buying food at a restaurant to-go, we would just head to the nearest supa or depachika for our dinner.

What's depachika? A depachika is the basement floor of a Japanese department store. Depachika is short for "depaato-chika shokuhin uriba" which means department store basement food-selling place. You can find various type of booths selling groceries, delicatessen foods, liquors, deserts and sweets at these depachika, and food stuff to buy as omiyage too. Depachika at major department stores such as Mitsukoshi, Matsuzakaya and Matsuya located in major areas of Tokyo, like Shibuya, Shinjuku, Ginza, Ueno, Ikebukuro and Asakusa are a sight to behold. Do visit one these department stores if you are in Japan. Sure beats buying a burger from McD and eat it in your room.

Those bento meals sold at Jusco here in KL, pale in comparison to what is offered at a Japanese depachika.

I got this idea about writing this post on depachika, and then I realised one thing. I never tried taking photo while browsing in a supermarket or department store! I should do it next time, I guess. But in the meantime, no photos of the basement floor!

Anyway, we've gotten pretty nice dinner  bought at either depachika or supa. I remember fondly of a nice paella I bought from Queen's Isetan in Kinshicho and how we spent a lot of money going crazy buying way too much food at Seibu/Tobu. Or the time we literally had a free lunch just by sampling food items at Isetan in Kyoto.

Here's Raimie enjoying his dinner bought from Ito Yokado. We got it  at almost closing time, and got a pretty nice discounts for our dinner. Thrifty people like us won't say no to discounts!

Department stores in Japan do close early so our discounted dinner was bought not that late at night.We sure wouldn't want to let Raimie suffer hunger!

Black & Whites Part III

At Kitamuki Kannon Temple in Bessho Onsen.

Visiting the almost deserted temple in the evening, when the sun was almost setting was rather  an eerie experience for me. Wouldn't  you feel the same?

Another entry for  Budget Trouble : Show Me Japan

Food We Ate : Lunch At Akita Station

We took the shinkansen from Tokyo to Akita on Day 3 of our trip to Japan in September.

Read:

Day 3 In Japan - Akita : Bullet Train And Food Display
Places We Stay : Toyoko-Inn Akita

Arriving in time for lunch at Akita Station, the first order of business was looking for a decent place to eat. Not keen  to go out and about the area looking for places to eat lunch, we just head to the nearest food court in the station and found this restaurant.

What drawn us to this particular shop was the plastic food display they put in front, along with the corresponding prices too.

And thank goodness for the plastic food display because we were given this menu which had almost no photo at all! Not wanting to second guess the food that we're ordering, I resorted to dragging the waitress back to the front of the shop to check out the food display again and asked her about the items in each of the set displayed.

I must say, if we were to do this in Malaysia, we would've gotten impatient or sullen looks from the staff but in Japan, every question I asked about the food item I was going to buy/order was answered patiently. Customer is indeed king there.

Our seating area.

They do have a section with tables & chairs but I think it's more fun to sit on the tatami mats. Don't you think so? Of course, if one wants to sit on the tatami mats, make sure you are wearing clean socks because it's shoes off here. Don't want to show those manky socks to the rest of the diners there!

Our meal for the day. 

A completely satisfying meal of about 1,000yen++ per set. I think mine was the most expensive at abut 1,800yen. If I remember correctly, the total for the three set meals was about 4,000yen.

Posing time!

Dad and son enjoying their lunch. Raimie and Zaini do love their udons.

The next order of business for the day was to check-in at a nearby hotel and then, going on a train trip to Tazawako later in the evening.

Food We Ate : Street Food

Everytime we hit Yoyogi Park, Omotesando, Shibuya and the surrounding area, we always end up just eating street food there instead of finding a restaurant because the lunch time crowd there was always too much for us. People started queueing in front of a restaurant as early as 11.00am! Of course, it didn't help that we always ended up in this part of Tokyo on Sundays instead of on weekdays.

The stalls nearby Yoyogi Park. 

The stalls are always colourful. Standard food fare to be found here are : takoyaki, okonomiyaki, yakisoba, sausages and during summer, there were kakigori stalls too.

Takoyaki! 

Definitely not as nice as the ones we tried in Osaka, but this is way better than any takoyaki we ate in Malaysia!

Raimie and his lunch. 

Street food in Japan is not cheap, a packet of takoyaki is already 500yen. If I top up another 100yen and eat at Yayoi-Ken, I'd get a pretty decent meal!

I'd like to try festival street food but try as we might, we always ended up not going to any "matsuri" when we were in Japan. But there's always next time, eh?

Food We Ate : Tempura Feast At Tenya

Another affordable (read:cheap) place we found in Japan in Tenya. Tenya is a chain specialising in tempura and no worries about what they serve here because the tempuras are of fish, prawns and vegetables. Though, do note that the miso soup have chicken extract in it, the last time I checked; so some of the readers here might want to avoid drinking the soup.

One can't miss the bright and cheery sign of a Tenya outlet. Even if you can't  read the sign in Japanese, just take note of the blue and yellow stripes. ^-^

Tenya's menu conveniently has a variety of set meals and from the pictures, you can usually tell what's included and the set meals there are very, very good value for money.  You get  piping hot tempura served and drink free mugi-cha too. What more can you want? The outlet we visited in Asakusa has English menu (just ask for one) so ordering is easy at Tenya. Plenty of foreigners visited Tenya so I guess the staff there are pretty used to serving us "clueless" foreigners.

What Zaini and I had in Tenya. 

We didn't go to Tenya all that much, preferring Yayoi-ken but we made a visit there the last time we were in Japan to let my friend; who was tagging along with us try out the food here.

Raimie was anticipating his dinner. He was famished but he didn't want to eat rice so we ordered for him:

an udon set. He's a big boy now so he finished this on his own.

Everyone's ready to eat dinner! Raimie is pretty good at slurping his noodles and also using chopsticks. Oh my! I'm getting hungry just looking at his photo slurping all those udon! LOL

Black & Whites Part II

An evening spent going up to a temple.

A photo meme at  Budget Trouble : Show Me Japan caught my eye, and here is my first entry! Check out other entries there.

Food We Ate : An Affordable Meal At Yayoi-Ken

Time for me to start on posts of places and food we enjoyed while in Japan and I'll start with a place that is affordable and can be easily found in most cities; Yayoi-ken. Do check out their site to see what food they're offering, if you want to give it a try.

Ordering food here is simple. Buy your food ticket at this machine (don't worry if you can't read Japanese; there are photos of the items on each button); wait to be shown to a table and the staff will collect your food ticket. They'll read out your order upon collecting the food ticket, so just nod to confirm even if you don't understand what they're saying.

A word of advice. Don't hog the machine and only decide what to eat there and cause inconvenience to other diners who are queuing behind you. I've seen this happen when a gaggle of fellow (very noisy) tourists just blocked the machine and can't decide what to order; going back and forth to the rest of the members talking and poring at menus. When in doubt, ask for assistance.

Fellow diners behind you will wait patiently to purchase their food ticket but they'll be annoyed for sure. There is a menu outside and also plastic food display for you to see. Also, have manners and wait till a staff show you to a table and don't pointedly wait at a table where diners are still  finishing their meal. The food here might be cheap, but don't act cheap too! It's  not a food court, so don't fight for seats!

These two items happen to be our favourite when dining at Yayoi-ken. Grilled saba & shima hokke. The portions are big and they're yummy too! A set with fish, rice, tofu and miso soup cost less than 700yen. And oh! You can get free refills of rice too here.Not to mention, free tea.

Zaini sometimes likes to eat this saba misoni and I like the grilled sanma.

We also tried this assorted seafood platter one or two times. But I still like my grilled fish better.

Our favourite side dish. Yummy and chewy.

A Special Pass For Unlimited Travel On JR East Lines

For us, any trip to Japan would involve a significant amount of time travelling on trains; be it short or long distance. To keep the cost down, finding the correct pass to use is of course advisable. We've bought a number of passes for previous trips; JR Pass (7 days and 14 days), JR East Pass and for the trip in Sep 2010,  JR East Special Passes.

On sale for a limited time between Sept. 1 to Nov. 30, 2010, this pass allowed us unlimited use of  the Narita Express connecting Narita Airport and the Tokyo area as well as Shinkansen and limited express trains to Shinshu (Nagano), Nikko, Sendai and Aomori. The JR East Pass Special is even available for travel on trains other than those of JR East going from Tokyo to Izu, Naoetsu and the Nikko area, as well as trains in the Shinshu (Nagano) area. 

The pass can be used for three days of our choice within a ten-day period at just 10,000yen per adult and 5,000yen for children. Buying the pass is easy. We have the option of buying them online, through agents or buying them when we get to Japan at travel service centres.

There is another fun thing about having this JR East Special pass and that's getting gifts at certain exchange offices. 

The gifts were :

• Temari bell netsuke at Matsumoto City TIC
• Hand towels at Yamanouchi Town tourism association, Nagano TIC, Nozawa Onsen Tourism Association
• Notepads at Karuizawa Tourist Hall
• Picture postcards at Ueda Sation ticket gate and tourist centre (though the staff manning the ticket gate at Ueda Station was quite oblivious about the gift or the promotion) and Omachi tourism association

Who doesn't like getting freebies? We sure do! And look for those freebies, we did! *^-^*

Places We Stay : Our Room At Uematsuya, Bessho Onsen

Read my previous posts on Uematsuya here :
Day 10 In Japan : Checking In At Uematsuya
Day 10 In Japan : Time To Get Naked
Breakfast Of The Day - Seating With Legs Folded At Uematsuya
Places We Stay : Uematsuya, Bessho Onsen

Continuing from my previous post, after we were amply refreshed by a cup of frothy green tea and some confectionery; we were shown to our room.

Entrance of our room

Upon entering, we saw a shoe rack with plenty of slippers. Those aren't in-room slippers, so don't wear them in the room! It's to be used when walking around the hotel or walking out sightseeing.

Our room at Taenoyu Onsen in Nyuto Onsen which we stayed in last year had no bathroom and we used a communal toilet, but here in Uematsuya, plenty of space for us to do our "business".  Interestingly, only the toilet got used by us because we didn't even go in the bath tub in our room, preferring instead all the hot spring the hotel offers. Yes, for me a private bathroom when staying in a Japanese Inn with onsen facility is quite unnecessary. But of course, in colder weather, an in-room loo is good in case of our frequent need to visit it!

A mini bar is provided too.

Ou really spacious room complete with a veranda

My son wanted to be like Doraemon and here he was, pretending to sleep in the "oshiire" or closet for beddings to be used at night.

After dinner, which we had in our room (a post on that sometime in the future); we decided to take a stroll around the area. While we were out, our futons were laid out ready for us by the time we got back. It is absolutely fun sleeping on/in them. I sure had a good night sleep. Just rolling around in them was fun too!

I also love sitting by the veranda, enjoying the cool night breeze.