Food We Ate : Ekiben From Akita Station

After spending two nights in Akita on Day 3 and 4 of our vacation in Japan; it's time for us to head back to Tokyo. Taking the shinkansen from Akita to Tokyo is another excuse for us to enjoy the ekiben sold at the station.

Ekiben covers are always interesting. I think I should start collecting them (and add more junk to my current pile of all Japanese-related junk!)

What we got for lunch, enjoyed whilst zipping through the country, viewing the breathtaking scenery out of the shinkansen window.

I wasn't too crazy about the bento in the first photo, with what seems like dried fish or something in it, preferring the latter - the one with salmon and ikura (salmon roe).

You know what I'd like for a bento now? Those lovely anago bento and oysters bento we tried in Hiroshima. mmmmmm........

Musashi Mitake Shrine

A comment from Floating Camera Tokyo made me dig through my archive for some old Mount Mitake photos. Hope he had fun going up the mountain and share with us all the awesome photos taken there!

Musashi Mitake Shrine is known as a symbol of the mountain worship and the Shrine is said to have been founded 2,000 years ago. It is is believed to have been established during the era of Emperor Sujin. 

 Found along the way, whilst climbing up the steep slope up to reach the shrine.

I posted about our trip up Mount Mitake in several posts (yea, I can be rather exhaustive, not to mention long-winded in my trip reports):

To Mount Mitake We Hike!

Mount Mitake Scenery (I)

Mount Mitake Scenery (II)

Musashi Mitake Shrine On Mount Mitake

Mossy Splendour At The Rock Garden On Mount Mitake

Bugs, Bees and Buds On Mount Mitake

My entry for this week's #11 Budget Trouble : Show Me Japan. Keep it going!

Food We Ate : A Simple Konbini Bought Dinner

Our trip to Japan on Day 4 last year saw us going to:
A fruit farm and enjoyed our time plucking delicious fruits
then, going on a trip on the Resort Shirakami train for an awesome seaside view route from Akita to Hirosaki;
and taking a sleeper train; Akebono on our trip back to Akita

Arriving quite late back to Akita Station after the Akebono train ride, there weren't much option for us to find places to eat dinner so we decided to check out a nearby Sunkus (a convenience store) for something to eat.

Looks yummy, right? Raimie was rightly famished and enjoyed his dinner a lot! He even ate my portion.

What can you get for a meal at a konbini in Japan? Well, a lot of variety, that I can say. From rice to noodles to pasta to sandwiches. Also, if you'd like to try oden, and  too chicken from trying them at a stall or an oden place - why not buy them at a konbini to try and have a taste? Read about our adventures going to try oden in Asakusa last year at : An oden adventure in the back alleys of Asakusa.

Nightime In Asakusa

When night approaches, all the shutters went down and the shops are closed. Another occupant take his place and settle in for the night.

This was taken in Summer 2010. I wonder how they cope with the winter chill? 

Life can be hard and we need to continue fighting.

Fukuurajima's Beach

Personally, not really a beach to lie down and sun-bath. But it was nice, because the gaggle of tourists  to the Island did not bother to come down to the beach.

My entry for this week's  Budget Trouble : Show Me Japan.

Drinks Fit For A Super Hero

Another juvenile post, after last week's super heroes post. *^-^*

Fancy a can of cider or two with Kamen Riders?

or some cola with Ultraman Jack, Leo or Hikari?

or are you a bad ass and fancy drinking with the villains - Macron, Zetton or King Joe Black?

Some of those drinks you can find only in Japan and for sure, we bought some for our son; him  (not to mention the Dad too) being consumate fan of all tokukatsu series.

Food We Ate : My Son's Favourite Lunch On-The-Go

It's pretty easy feeding my son during our vacation in Japan because what he likes to eat can pretty much be found everywhere; from the nearest konbini to depachika to food courts.

It's a food item that can be easily eaten while on-the-go and we appreciate the convenience. What is it? It's onigiri!

Onigiri, also known as Omusubi, is a snack of Japanese rice formed into triangle or oval shapes and often wrapped in nori (edible seaweed). Onigiri traditionally is filled with umeboshi, salted salmon or bonito flakes moistened with soy sauce. Of course, there are plenty of other fillings to choose from now.

Raimie with two balls of onigiri bought at a speacialty onigiri shop.

Enjoying a quick lunch of onigiri bought in a depachika, while comfortably sitting in a train

More onigiri! Quick snack while waiting for the train. Munch munch munch

What do you like to eat while on-the-go?

Super Heroes Time!

I'm going all juvenile for this post!

What do you think when you think Japan? For us, it's super heroes, aliens and monsters! That was the reason we made our second, third, fourth.... trips to Japan, by the way.

Meeting up the Ultra Heroes were awesome memories for our son. He still loves them but has now moved on to Kamen Riders. He's already a big boy, after all.

Some of the heroes he met all these years vacationing in Japan, and met a lot, he certainly did!

Ultraman

Ultraman Agul

Ultraman Cosmos

Ultra Father & Taro

Ultraman Justice

Ultraman Mebius & Hikari

Ultraman Tiga

Xenon

Ultraman Zearth

What's Japan for kids if not for those tokukatsu series? Those Kamen Riders, Super Sentais and ofcourse,Ultraman. HENSHIN!

Anyone still remember Space Cop Gaban? *^-^*

Another entry for  Budget Trouble : Show Me Japan.

Tea Time

Tea! We love them, we do. Bitter tea, herbal teas, tea with huge dollops of sugar, tea with milk, teh tarik (pulled tea?) - I drink them all! The only tea I won't drink, strangely is Zaini's favourite and that's Jasmine tea.

Sipping frothy green tea was nice. I felt genteel.

while enjoying with some confectionary, talking in hushed tone.

Maybe one day, I should go to a tea ceremony proper.  Maybe. I can't sit still and be quiet too long.

Making a pot myself and enjoying a cup in my room was nice.

What's your favourite cuppa? I do actually love my coffee, but coffee in Japan isn't for me. LOL

Black & Whites Part IV

Write on a tablet for your wish to come true?

My entry for this week's  Budget Trouble : Show Me Japan

Update:

An explanation by the excelllent Yoshi, that somehow got lost in the comment netherworld, for your reading pleasure. (To be read as Part 1 of his 5-part comment series) :

"As I commented earlier, Ema E(絵) means painting/drawing and MA(馬) means horse, is a small wooden plaque that, in principle, the image of the horse is drawn on one side and your wishes, desires, ambitions, dirty minds, and prayers are written on the other side. Don't forget to put your name since Shinto deity cannot tell who wished what".

And Anna & Yoshi, no - I didn't fell asleep. Enjoying the read very much. Thanks!

Food We Ate : Akita Ekiben - While Enjoying The View

After our trip to an orchard and having a great time looking at grapes, pears, apples and kiwis still attached to their trees/vines or whatever; we decided on the last minute to take the Resort Shirakami train on the Gono Line. By last minute, I mean - arriving Akita station literally a few minutes before the train was scheduled to depart.

We ran up the JR Ticket Office to book our seats and ran back down to the train's platform. Thank goodness for Japan Rail's punctuality. We never doubt their train schedule and pretty much can hop on any trains we suddenly have a fancy there and then. Zaini never leave behind his copy of the JR train timetable booklet.

It was nearing lunch time and we didn't have time to stop and buy any bentos at the station while running to catch this train. We got these from the food cart in the train. There aren't plenty of choice of bento sold by the food cart; and out of the two sold, we bought just one type because well... we can't eat what was in the other bento sold.

Bento box cover

It was kuri (chestnut) season so of course, there's kuri in the bento. Love, love, love them, I do. Nyum nyum. I also love the black fish in the photo above. The fish was so soft, one can eat it whole - fish head, eyes, tail, everything. It tasted like a savoury, chewy candy. Mmmmm... Anyone can enlighten me on what it is called?

Raimie was so hungry, he finished a box all by himself.

The train trip was really nice and for five hours we got to travel through the countryside from Akita to Hirosaki. The coastline view along this Gono Line was absolutely awesome!

I'll post more photos of the coastline sometime in the future. Wait for it!

Orchard Visit : Juicy Pears In Akita

Apart from having a ball of a time picking grapes at Kagaya Orchard/Farm, we also enjoyed our time seeing pears on trees for the first time! Of course we've seen pears before, but we always see the fruit in the supermarket aisles and not still attached to a branch.

Anyway, read also our post : Day 4 in Japan - Fruit picking in Akita and yummy grapes.

Pear, pears, pears and more pears!

Two poor abandoned pears nobody wants.

Raimie trying his hand at pear picking. Every single pear we picked was sweet and juicy. Mmmmm... yummy!

Would you visit a fruit orchard in Japan if you go vacationing there? We highly recommend it!

If in Malaysia, a visit to an orchard would mean looking for durians, rambutans or some local fruits. I kinda miss running around looking for fallen durians in a durian orchard like I did when I was small. Nowadays, the only orchard we went to was the Taman Warisan Pertanian in Putrajaya - if you can call the park an rochard, that is.