2025 Japan: Food

 One of the things I tend to take regular pictures of in Japan is the meals.  Most of them are at the center we train at and are served buffet style.

Curry and Rice:  The curry is a bit spicy but manageable for me.

You will notice the soup and rice at almost every meal.

My guess is this is a breakfast.  We regularly had salad for breakfast, which is quite different for me.

Beer with the meal, so probably dinner.

As with last year we went to a traditional soba restaurant in Tokyo.

Udon, rice, and gyoza (and beer, of course).

Breakfast in our hotel.  They were all similar to this.  Japan has excellent baked goods.

During one of our days of training, we grabbed lunch from a mini-market.  They are quite upscale, especially compared to the average American one.

We took a morning trip to Asakusa and had lunch at a stand up sushi bar that had about 10 places to stand.

Udon:

Udon with tofu.

And dessert!  Coffee ice cream.

Breakfast the day we left - because you should always try something familiar when far away.

2025 Japan: Fuji And Vending Machine Outputs

Having finished our trip to Turkey,  I have a little catching up on other travel to do.

So, meanwhile over in Japan....

As you may recall, I have the opportunity once a year to train in Japan in Iaijutsu, the Japanese sword art that I have studied and practiced since 2009. I have gone from 2018-2020, then (sigh) The Plague, and restarted again in 2024.   Our training sessions are such that we perhaps have half a day to "sight see" (which is often taken up by going to Asakusa in Tokyo to the sword shop as well as shopping for supplies like tabi, setta, obi - things that we can get in the U.S. but are less expensive there).

Still, I try to chronicle what I can.

This is flying into Haneda airport, the first time we have done so (for those that may not know, Haneda is the older of the two airports that serve Tokyo.  The newer one, Narita, is approximately 1.5 hours by train from the center of Tokyo; Haneda is located on the edge of Tokyo Bay, about 20 minutes by train from the hotel we use when we stay in Tokyo.  

Fuji-san was very co-operative for photos; not so much the plane window.

One of the pleasures of Japan (at least for me) are the outputs of their delightful vending machines.  Items cost between 150 and 250 Yen (about 1-2 USD when we went).  It is the only way to get coffee before our early morning training, but they also have a selection of other things served hot and cold from the same machine including tea, milk tea, fruit juice, sports drinks, and other wonders.

Including, as I found when hitting the wrong buttons, corn soup.  Served hot, of course.  Not what I was expecting at all.

Coffee can come cold or hot, with milk or without milk.  Interestingly, most of it is sweetened.

A vending machine.  Red indicates hot drinks, blue indicates cold drinks.  Some play happy music when you make your purchase.

A different brand of coffee.  "Platinum", in case you were wondering, is probably not what platinum tastes like in reality - no metal taste evident.

This was a hot lemon drink.  Quite delightful.

An ice cream vending machine outside.  Even though it was cold, I had to try one.

"Sai-da" is the katakana.  "Soda"?   

It turned out to be an flavored ice sort of squeeze pop.  Kind of like cotton candy flavour.  I was disappointed; I really should have just gone with the ice cream.

This is a map in our hotel in Shinagawa, Tokyo.

That is our hotel! (Based on the size, you can place it on the map above.)

And this is the Nippon Budokan, where we performed our demonstration.

No pictures of vending machine drink outputs would be complete without a mug of Japanese Beer (Kirin, in this case).