Food in Japan

We are a bit of a foodie couple. Ok, probably quite a foodie couple haha. We enjoy cooking together, trying new restaurants, and having people over so we have an excuse to cook a bunch of food.
It is probably no surprise, then, that one of the best parts of our trip to Japan was the opportunity to get the real deal on known favorites and try lots of new food and drink items.

Vending machines was one of the culinary adventures we thoroughly enjoyed. They are everywhere, usually two or three at a time so if you cannot find what you like in one, move along to the next one (or cross the street, or walk around the corner). We found vending machines with cigarettes, beer, hot and cold tea and coffee, hot soup, soft drinks such as coke and various flavors of fanta, sports drinks including Pocari Sweat and CC Lemon, and fruit flavored waters like peach (delightful), pomegranate and guava. Sometimes vending machines are used for food orders at restaurants, we got to experience this at a tonkatsu restaurant (fried pork cutlets) on our final night in Okinawa. Luckily they had an English menu...otherwise we might have just hit some buttons and hoped for the best :D

Convenience stores were another readily available and convenient option for food and drink. We found they were far easier to find than supermarkets, and just as affordable for the amount of food we needed. You could get eggs, meat like sausages and bacon or sandwich fixings, occasionally fruits and vegetables, bento meals they could heat for you or send home cold for you to heat, and all manner of instant snacks, cup noodles and delightful treats. They also sold ready made sandwiches, hot steamed buns, rice balls stuffed with fish or seaweed or.... was not sure on some of them :) Good ones sold fried chicken or vegetable patties and other miscellaneous things that we sampled but did not always figure out what we were eating.
Drink options included hot tea and coffee, lots of cold beverages, alcohol, as well as boxes of instant or brew tea and coffee and hot chocolate. They were great if we needed a snack on the go, and provided enough options we could pick up breakfast items to save on having to find something before we set out adventuring for the day.

Approx. $2 for a cup of sake :)

All the hot drink options at a convenience
store, the cold options took up a couple of walls!

Dinner was usually the meal we would eat out, and we enjoyed a delightful range of things. Our go-to choice when we were indecisive or too tired to try deciphering menus was to find a noodle shop. But often we would pick a direction and wander until we found something that looked yummy. Japanese restaurants often have pictures in the menu, or plastic molds of the food or both, so if all else failed we could point at what looked delicious!
We only had one funny night where we felt as if our food-ordering skills got a bit subpar. We had spent all day out on an island exploring and were feeling pretty tired so we opted for a Chinese restaurant that was only a block from our apartment. This was of course the one place with minimal photos and no models, but we felt brave anyway. We thought we were ordering a set meal that came with chicken and some miso soup and a salad, so Troway wanted a bit of extra chicken. We thought the "extra" we ordered was an appetizer size of kara-age (Japanese-style fried chicken, which is divine). In reality, we ordered a meal-size one, oops. Never mind we thought, as I was sure that for myself I had order a medium size mabodofu (a Chinese spicy beef and tofu dish), which meant I could help out with the fried chicken. In reality I had order two meals for myself as well, a large order of the mabodofu and a delicious chicken fried rice. We are sure the chef must have thought we were seriously gluttonous foreigners! We gave it a good effort but we definitely could not get through it all.

Matcha (green tea) latte. Not my new favorite...

Ramen and karaage lunch in Kyoto

We were impressed to find burgers like this in Japan!

Karaage

Hiroshima okonomiyaki

Pokemon donuts!

Yakiniku restaurant, where you get to cook your own!

And of course, the must-have sushi

Tempura

Tonkatsu curry and udon, Okinawa

Japan Trip - Some Highlights

We decided before we even had a wedding date that we wanted to honeymoon in Japan. For me, it was both a long overdue return to see friends and eat the food and soak up the culture but also a chance to introduce Troway to one of my other homes. For Troway, it was an opportunity to tick off one of the biggest and first desires on his travel list, so win win :)

On 1 Jan, we flew from Washington DC (will give an update on our DC trip later) to Osaka via Toronto and Tokyo. We enjoyed a blissful 16 days exploring the cuisine, culture, shops, temples and castles throughout several cities. We only got lost a few times and with the exception of a bit of a mishap with our accommodation the very first night, had smooth sailing the whole way (if you are interested I will share the story with you, it involves miscommunication with a taxi driver, last minute change of our booking by the accommodation, a very kind diner manager and a grandferly hotel manager who managed to book us an alternate room at 2am when we were tired and I was perhaps a bit stressed). For the moment, I will share two things from our trip: purikura and the outdoor shopping malls.

Purikura is a delightfully intense experience that I think everyone should embrace while in Japan. Found in arcades, shopping malls and bowling alleys, photo booths offer various themes and styles of photos for you and your friends/partner/anyone you can drag in with you. The horrid elevator music they play at deafening levels is slightly more intimidating than it was last time I was there, but I suppose it adds to the fun in some fashion. The best purikura sites provide mirrors and space where you can fix your hair and make up before the photo shoot begins; some we saw on this trip even had hair straighteners and curlers! Once you're in the booth (which have hooks for your bags and coats and umbrellas, I love Japan's ability to be prepared for everything) you pick a theme and the countdown is on. Most booths take up to about 12 photos so that's a lot of poses to come up with in about 2 minutes total!
Once the photos have been taken, you rush around to the other side of the booth to pick your favorites, then you get to decorate! You can set backgrounds, add text, give everyone hats or funny hairstyles, sky's the limit really. Hit save and the machine spits them out :) Kudos to Troway for agreeing to give it a go, given most of the other patrons in the arcade we found were about 17 haha. Of course the bonus to this is a group of high school girls took us under their wing to show us how to play some of the games, so even though we did not win anything we had a blast and had our own personal cheer squad who seemed pleased they would have bragging rights for helping the foreigners.

Neither of us are huge shoppers, but we enjoyed exploring the outdoor shopping malls that seem to be in just about every city in Japan. They are a seemingly endless maze of shops and food and people watching. One morning in Hiroshima we walked for two hours and I am sure we only saw half of the streets that were part of the mall. Shops range from tourist traps full of knick knacks to clothing stores, tea shops, swords chopsticks, kimono stores, sock shops (where they sell NOTHING but socks) and $2 shops full of everything imaginable. There is usually a couple of museums and arcades, and maybe a movie theater, and at least a couple temples in case you need a quick prayer break. We actually stumbled on a beautiful Buddhist temple just as they were beginning afternoon prayer. It was an incredible experience, listening to the chants and drumming, totally away from the hustle and bustle of the shopping street that was just outside the door. Food can range from McDonald's and Mos Burger to squid on a stick and seaweed salad. We sampled quite a few tasty treats during our explorations, and found that playing "Spot the Foreigner" was an excellent game to play because they stick out like a sore thumb, even the other Asian tourists.

The Buddhist Temple we found, Kyoto

An ad for a Karaoke parlor...

If all else fails....go to the hedgehog cafe!