Every Day is Sunday

Jeff:  I love a good steak.  And I was lucky enough to marry a meat and potatoes girl.  Instead of going to an overpriced restaurant in Tokyo for Japan’s most famous meat, we decided to head directly to the source.  We hopped a train to Kobe in search of the perfect steak. 

Erin:  I expected Kobe to look like Wisconsin in summer.  I pictured rolling green hills, wide-open pastures, and hundreds of cows being massaged by thousands of tiny Japanese women.  Looking out the window as our train pulled into Kobe, there were tons of skyscrapers but no cows to be seen.  It turns out that Kobe is a suburb of Osaka and looks a lot like Newark, New Jersey.  I was disappointed until I took my first bite.

Kobe beef is a special grade of beef that comes from Wagyu cattle raised in Kobe, Japan.  What makes Kobe beef distinctive is the special breeding of Wagyu cattle.  What makes Kobe beef famous is the way the Japanese pamper their cows. 

On a daily basis, Wagyu ranchers brush their cattle with sake.  Believing that the softness of cow’s skin is related to meat quality, Japanese producers brush the cow’s skin with sake to soften the animal and improve the flavor of the meat.

Also, Kobe beef cows have a diet that includes large amounts of beer.  Apparently the beer stimulates their appetite during the hot summer months when the temperature and humidity make it too hot to eat.  We never found out if the cows prefer lager or ale.

Finally, the cows actually get regular massages.  This is not an urban legend.  The massages are done for the same reason that anyone gets a massage: to relieve stress and muscle stiffness.  The Japanese producers believe that they can improve the eating quality of the meat if they keep their cattle calm and content.

We made our way to Wakkoqu restaurant to measure the effects of all this tender loving care. 

Jeff:  I could taste the sake, beer, and shiatsu massage in every bite.

Erin: Each bite melted in my mouth like butter.

The tiny restaurant had room for only 30 people, and we had our own personal chef cooking up our tasty meal.  He cooked the first half of our steak, sliced it up and presented it to us.  He monitored our progress and waited until we finished the pieces on our plate before starting to cook the other half.  The effect was that we were always eating a deliciously hot steak right off the grill. 

Several people have asked: Was it the best steak you ever ate?

Jeff:  This steak was amazing, but the steak I had at Alberto’s in Bariloche, Argentina has a slight edge in my mind.  The Argentinians cook their steak in a asado over wood charcoals, and the wood adds a unique flavor that takes the beef to another level.  Also, Kobe beef is served in thin slices suitable for chopsticks and (as Erin said) melts in your mouth, but the steaks in Argentina are thick and juicy and the flavor explodes when you chew.  For my last meal, I’ll head to Bariloche.

Erin:  The Kobe beef I had in Kobe was by far the best steak I’ve ever had. I especially like the way it is prepared: bite-sized bits of goodness.  I couldn’t get enough of it.  I even considered postponing our flight out of Japan so we could make another trip to Kobe.  It’s just that good.

It’s hard to be on the road when we’d rather be sitting around the Thanksgiving table with the people we love most.  But Thanksgiving means that we’ll be home in less than a month, and  today we’re thankful that in a few short weeks we’ll be sharing stories of 2009 with our closest friends and family.  We didn’t find any turkey today, but we hope you did and it was delicious.  Gobble Gobble.

Erin and Jeff

It was late afternoon and our bus was the only vehicle on the quiet streets of Koyasan.  At the second to last stop we got off the bus and, with our bags in tow, began walking up the hill toward the monastery.  By the time we reached the entrance, a young Japanese monk with a shaved head and dark brown robes was waiting outside to greet us.  In broken English he asked us to remove our shoes and to leave our bags in the large foyer just inside the entrance.  He led us on a brief tour of the monastery: the communal bath, the meditation rooms, and the shrine. He ended the tour at our small room where our bags were waiting for us.

More than 1000 years ago the Buddhist monk Kobo Daishi received permission from the emperor to build the first monastery of the Shingon sect of Japanese Buddhism.  After searching for years for the perfect spot, Kobo Daishi ultimately built his monastery in a 2000-foot high valley nestled between the eight peaks of Mount Koya.  The original monastery has since grown into the town of Koyasan with over 100 monasteries, many of which offer lodging to pilgrims.

Our monastery required that all of its guests attend morning prayers at 6:00 am.  We awoke at dawn and waited for the monk who knocked on our sliding door at 5:50am. We followed him to the shrine for an hour-long ceremony of rhythmic chanting.  After morning prayers we followed the monks to a small temple on the edge of the grounds for a beautiful 20-minute fire ceremony.

Each night we were served “shojin-ryori,” or Buddhist Monk vegetarian meals.  As with most Japanese cuisine, the food was unidentifiable, it had a mushy texture and a slightly fishy aftertaste.  Not the best food we’ve ever had but at least we knew we were eating healthy.

Koyasan differs from the other Buddhist holy sites we’ve seen recently.  Unlike the monks in the Luang Prabong who wear bright saffron colored robes, the monks in Koyasan wear more somber colors.

And unlike the garishly decorated temples in Koh Samui with their huge florescent statutes of the Buddha, the temples in Koyasan were simple and elegant in design. Shingon temples mimicked the natural beauty of the surrounding mountains and giant cedar trees.

And unlike Bodhgaya, the city in India where the Buddha achieved enlightenment, the city of Koyasan is quiet, peaceful, and spotless.  After walking around Koyasan we were finally able to understand the kind of peace the Buddha had experienced under the Bodi tree.

In Tokyo, we felt like the city was moving at 100 mph all around us.  In Koyasan things hardly seemed move at all.  On our first day we explored the Garan, a temple complex designed by Kobo Daishi on the western side of town.  At the center of the Garan is the Konpon Daito pagoda, which according to Shingon doctrine represents the central point of a spiritual circumference that covers not only Mt. Koya but all of Japan.

The temples were nice, but the heart of Koyasan is the Okunoin – the mausoleum of Kobo Daishi.  The mausoleum is surrounded by an atmospheric and immense graveyard, set among giant cedar tries with winding paths throughout. 

Some of the gravestones were quite funny, including a monument erected by a pesticide company to commemorate all its insect victims, and a corporate tombstone.  Rest in peace, Panasonic.

Jeff:  It looked like I was going to miss baseball season this year.  I don’t remember ever letting an entire season go by without making at least one trip to the ballpark, and this year I haven’t seen a single pitch.  When we decided to add Japan to our itinerary at the last minute, I wasn’t thinking of sushi, samurai, or sumo.  I was thinking of baseball.

Erin:  I may not be as big of a baseball fan as Jeff, but I do love going to the ballpark and watching the game with a beer in one hand and a hot dog in the other.  I hoped the game would be just as fun with beer and udon noodles.

Tokyo has five baseball teams, which means there is a baseball game in the city every night of the week.  We went to Jingu stadium for a contest between arch rivals in Japan’s Central League: the Yakult Swallows and the Chunichi Dragons.

The rules of the game may be the same, but the baseball experience is completely different in Japan.  Where U.S. fans only to cheer in unison when their team scores or makes a spectacular play, Japanese fans sing songs and perform elaborate cheers whenever their team is at-bat.  They even have official cheerleaders at the bottom of each aisle who wear whistles and coordinate the cheers.  The atmosphere is closer to an English soccer game than an American baseball game.

We decided to root for the home team, and so we had to learn the unusual way that Swallows fans celebrate a run scored.  All the fans bring umbrellas to the game (even when there’s no threat of rain) and whenever the Swallows score a run their fans open the umbrellas and move them up and down.  We didn’t know about the crazy umbrella cheer, but some fellow Swallows fans were nice enough to let us use their umbrellas when the Swallows scored their first run in the bottom of the 6th.

Although the players’ uniforms looked familiar, some of the spectators were wearing outfits you wouldn’t see at the Nationals Stadium in Washington DC.

Another difference is that the Japanese take safety very seriously.  In addition to the screen behind home plate the Japanese installed screens all the way down the field.  .  And, in case anyone forgot about the danger of foul balls, they had a guy walking around with a bull horn between innings warning people of the danger.

One similarity we thought was weird: the team names are in English.  “Swallows” is not an English translation – the team has an English name.  Japanese people who don’t speak a word of English yell “Go, Go, Swallows!” throughout the game.  We never found out why.   

Jeff:  The Swallows were down 3-1 in the bottom of the sixth and I figured the game was over.  I’ve been a Nationals fan for four years and, unfortunately, have become accustomed to my team falling behind and staying behind.  But despite their terrible name these Swallows have heart!  They rallied for three runs in the bottom of the 7th to take the lead behind a controversial homerun down the left field line by their first baseman Jamie D’Antona – the only American on the team!!  The Swallows relief pitchers retired the Dragons’ next six batters in order, and we got to celebrate the Swallows victory with a jubilant home crowd.

Erin:  It was a great game and even when it got a little dull there was always a super cute beer girl and a bowl of udon close by.

 The hotel alarm clock screamed out static at 3:15 am. Why do hotel alarms always go off at the maximum volume no matter how carefully you set them? Erin hit the snooze button and we both slipped back into that wonderful sleep that you only get during the five-minute snooze window. We finally managed to struggle our way out of bed and found a taxi to take us to Tsukiji.

Of all the wholesale fish markets in the world, the Tsukiji Fish Market ranks in the top in every measurable category: more than 40,000 people buy and sell about 450 varieties of fish from 60 countries at one of the market’s 1,500 stalls that span 57 acres.  Tsukiji makes the Maine Avenue Fish market in DC and the Fulton Fish market in the Bronx look like flea markets.

Although Tsukiji is a serious place of business, the buyers and sellers are surprisingly tolerant of tourists.  We squeezed through the aisles surrounded by tubs and tanks and plastic-foam trays, dodged forklifts and narrowly avoided the hoses streaming water across the concrete floors.

The main attraction at the fish market is the tuna auction, which sets the tuna prices for Tokyo and the rest of the world.  Having arrived 45 minutes early, we were the first tourists to enter the warehouse and were able to stake out the best spot for viewing the action.

We both gasped as we walked in the front door.  Hundreds of giant frozen creatures were laid out in neat rows on the floor of the chilly warehouse, giving off a faint frozen mist under the fluorescent lighting.

Men in work shirts and rubber boots were bent over the frozen fish, inspecting them by lifting a flap of skin that had been cut open on each one and peering at the meat with a flashlight.

After watching thousands of pounds of tuna sold at auction, we started to get hungry.  It was only 6:20 am, and questions of sustainability still lingered in our heads, but we couldn’t pass up an opportunity to eat a breakfast of some of the freshest sashimi on the planet.

After 10 months on the road we had become a bit cocky.  We thought we could just roll into any new city and figure it out in no time.  Then we got to Tokyo.

The bus from Narita airport dropped us in the heart of the Shibuya neighborhood, a densely packed area with thousands of businesses, hotels, bars, restaurants, and shops right on top of each other.  We exited the bus and found ourselves in one of the busiest intersections in all of Tokyo.

We were a bit intimidated, but we didn’t doubt our ability to navigate to our hotel.  After all, we had the address (albeit in English) and we knew that the hotel was only a five minute walk from the bus stop.

After 10 minutes of vainly trying to decipher the street signs we started asking for help.  After 15 minutes we found a local who spoke English and was nice enough to use his cellphone to call the hotel and ask for directions.  After 20 minutes the local gave up trying to understand the hotel’s directions and hailed us a taxi.  The fare for the 3-minute ride to our hotel was more than the cost of a mid-range hotel in India.  Welcome to Tokyo.

We spent our first two days in Tokyo looking up in wonderment.  Much of Tokyo looks like Times Square with neon lights and huge television screens everywhere.  Tokyo is in constant motion, yet it doesn’t feel like a huge urban center because the city is so quiet.  The cars don’t honk their horns, stores don’t play loud music onto the street, and nobody yells at anybody else.  It has all the action of New York and all of the serenity of San Francisco.   

From the architecture to the high speed trains and high fashion, everything in this futuristic city looks new, polished and sleek.  It probably helped that we don’t understand Japanese – even garish neon advertising promoting “2 for 1 Deals” looked pretty cool to us.

As we learned the hard way, Tokyo is a city where it really helps to have a local connection. Lucky for us, Erin’s cousin John does a lot of business in Tokyo and put us in touch with his colleague Yoshiko.

Yoshiko and her boyfriend Steve took us out for dinner, and immediately confirmed everything we heard about Japanese hospitality.  They met us at our hotel, organized our taxi to the restaurant, explained the menu, ordered for us, gave us great sightseeing advice, and bought us many, many cups of sake.  Yoshiko did all this even though she had just spent the last week in bed recovering from swine flu!  We had a wonderful evening at Gonpachi, which Yoshiko called the “Kill Bill” restaurant because Quentin Tarantino used it as his inspiration for the fight scene in Kill Bill with the Crazy 88’s.

Despite a slight sake hangover, we got up early this next morning to visit the Meiji Jingu shrine and learn about Shinto, a religion we hadn’t come across anywhere else in Asia.  Practiced by millions of Japanese, Shinto is characterized by an intense worship of nature and based on the belief that everything in nature contains a kami (spiritual essence) deserving respect.  With its heavy focus on ritual purity, Shinto is a religion in which actions and rituals are much more important than words.  The beautifully simple Meiji Shrine is one of the most important public shrines in Tokyo.

The Japanese take fashion very seriously and spend a lot of time and money on their clothes.  For casual clothes the predominant color is black – the standard weekend uniform for most Japanese men and women is black designer shirts, black designer jeans, and some kind of grey accessory.  For work clothes, every Japanese man who works in an office wears a suit to work.  During rush hour the trains are packed with pinstripes and shiny black shoes.

When we got back to the hotel we asked the concierge about the girls dressed like dolls.  The concierge took a slight offense at the question, informing us curtly that the girls were dressed like princesses not dolls, and that the “hime gyaru” fashion is an accepted style in Tokyo.  We apologized profusely for our cultural insensitivity.

EE:  I tried to stay hip by getting a haircut in Tokyo.  Unfortunately, the hairdresser only spoke three words of English: shampoo, cut and shaggy.  After failed attempts at hand-gesturing and pointing at magazines, I let her do her thing.  When she finished cutting, smiled and said: shaggy!

When most people think about Japanese food, they think of sushi.  Although there are tons of sushi restaurants all over Tokyo, sushi is just one of dozens of different types of Japanese cuisine.  After making the obligatory stops in traditional sushi bars, we started to get a little adventurous.    

The last time Erin ate teppanyaki was at a restaurant in Madison called “Ginza of Tokyo.”  To test its authenticity we traveled across town to the Ginza neighborhood for some grilled beef teppanyaki.

Many restaurants had menus with English translations, but even then we weren’t always sure what we were ordering.  At Shabu-zen, we ordered beef and were asked whether we wanted shabu-shabu style or sukiyaki style.  It took 15 minutes and 4 waiters to explain the difference.  We chose shabu-shabu, and so they brought us thinly sliced raw beef and boiling hot broth and told us not to leave the beef in the broth for too long (it was a lot like Chinese hot pot without the oil).  We later found out that the famous “angry lunch” scene in Lost in Translation was filmed at the table next to us, and it made us feel better than neither Bill Murray’s nor Scarlett Johannson’s character had any idea what they were doing either.

On our last night we went looking for a nightcap and stumbling into a tiny bar in the basement of a nearby building.  The place looked more like a garage than a bar – it was decorated with toys, gardening tools, baseball souvenirs, random business cards and clothing.  The owner was a character, and we spent an interesting evening with him and two of his very drunk patrons.

The culture shock hit as soon as we landed in Singapore.  We left one of the dirtiest countries on the planet and arrived in one of the cleanest.  After five weeks in India, we were excited just to see streets completely devoid of trash.

Singapore is an exceptionally clean country – and not just by Indian standards.  It is actually illegal to chew gum there.  The Singapore government didn’t like the fact that people were tarnishing the city by leaving their gum on the street and under tables, and so in 1992 banned the import and sale of chewing gum.    

Our time in Singapore was limited, and since we didn’t want to spend all day marveling at the clean streets and taking pics of garbage cans, we acclimated quickly to our new sanitized surroundings and ventured out to appreciate what this new city had to offer.

The world’s only city-state is full of fascinating dichotomies: it’s a tiny country and also a large city; it has a tiny GDP yet it is the fifth wealthiest nation in the world; it is a former British colony yet most of its citizens hail from Malaysia, China, India and the Middle East – it’s like a real life Epcot center.

With 2 million ethnic Chinese living in Singapore, many parts of the city have a distinctly Chinese flavor.  We stayed in a neighborhood which had tons of Chinese shops and restaurants, but was way more sleek, clean and organized than the typical neighborhoods we saw in Beijing or Shanghai.  Erin quickly dubbed Singapore “China-lite.”

One of the most popular things to do in Singapore is explore the many different ethnic areas, the three most popular being Chinatown, Arab Street, and Little India.  We ruled out Little India immediately.  Craving dumplings more than falafel, we decided to head to Chinatown for a wonderful dim sum lunch. Afterwards we sipped on Chinese jelly drinks that were positively gelicious.

Singapore rivals Dubai as one of the best shopping cities in the world.  Giant shopping malls line both sides of Orchard Road and stretch as far as the eye can see.  Offering brands from all over the world, Singapore has something for everybody.

The Swiss hotel offers the best views of the harbor, and so we climbed to the 88th floor for a drink in the Sky Bar.

In addition to marveling about how clean Singapore is, we were very impressed by the way Singapore meets the challenges of being such a small country.  For example, facing a scarcity of land, the Singaporians built a soccer field on the water. 

Also, without a natural fresh water source, Singaporeans have relied heavily on imported water from Malaysia.  To solve this problem, Singapore has spent more than 5 billion dollars over the last five years on several desalinization plants.   

After a full day of touring around the city-state, we asked a local for the best place to sample the local cuisine.  We were pointed towards the Hawker market to try the freshest seafood in all of Singapore.  About 40 seafood stalls compete with each other at the market, and we window-shopped for the best deal and chose a deliciously inexpensive dinner of local lobster and crab.

In his novel Life of Pi, Yann Martel wrote: “A stint in India will beat the restlessness out of any living creature.”  By the time we arrived in Darjeeling, we certainly felt beat up and far from restless. Our plan was simple: sit, relax and enjoy the famously delicious Darjeeling tea.

Darjeeling differs from other parts of India in some important ways. Perched 7000 feet high in the foothills of the Himalayas, Darjeeling’s skyline is dominated by Khangchedzonga, India’s largest peak and the world’s third-highest mountain. Because of the high attitude, Darjeeling was about 25 degrees cooler than any other city we visited in India.    

Also, there aren’t any cows lining the streets or cow pies to dodge. We could actually walk through the town without keeping our head down. And best of all, the city smells like tea rather than garbage. We finally started to feel like ourselves again.

Darjeeling exports its fine teas all over the world, and we took a tour of the Happy Valley tea factory to see where the magic happens. Happy Valley has an exclusive contract to provide Harrod’s department store with its brand-name teas, so we knew the tea was first-rate.

As you might imagine, Indians in Darjeeling take their tea very seriously. The Cochrane Palace Hotel had their very own expert chai wala on staff with his own tea station and more than 46 teas on the menu.

Our chai wala explained each fragrance and blend in a way that would make a Napa winemaker blush. “The first sip is joy, the second gladness, the third is serenity, the fourth is madness, the fifth is ecstasy.” We found a comfortable spot and put ourselves in his hands.

Darjeeling is also home to the Tenzing Norgay Himalayan Mountaineering Institute.  Norgay, the Nepali Indian Sherpa who led Sir Edmund Hilary on the first-ever Everest summit, is a local hero in this part of the world.

Although we typically don’t like seeing animals in small enclosures, it was worth visiting Darjeeling’s zoo for up-close looks at the beautiful Bengali Tigers and very elusive Snow Leopard.

Wes Anderson fans might be disappointed to know there is no train called the “Darjeeling Limited.” In fact, the only train that runs through Darjeeling is the less glamorous “Himalyan Bird.”  The locals call it the “Toy Train,” and indeed it’s a tiny train that chugs along the street very slowly on its coal-fired engine.  It may not move very fast, but it’s super cute. 

In 522 BCE, a young prince named of Siddhartha Gautama gave up his noble title, his land, and all his worldly possessions and left his family home in search of spiritual enlightenment.  After six years of self-denial, he arrived at a small village at the banks of the sandy Neranjara river.

Prince Siddhartha found a grove in the countryside and settled himself under the spreading branches of a nearby tree to begin his meditation.  He sat under this tree all day and all night until the clouds of ignorance dissolved and he saw the Truth in all its splendor and glory.  At that moment he was no longer Prince Siddhartha; he had become the Awakened One, the Compassionate One, the Light of the World, the Buddha Supreme.

We figured that if the Buddha could achieve enlightenment under a Bodi tree in Bodhgaya, the Wertkinborns could find some peace in this holy city.

Bodhgaya was indeed a welcome change of pace from Rishikesh, Hardwar, Delhi and Varanasi.  As a Buddhist holy site, it is home to dozens of monasteries, hundreds of monks, and thousands of Buddhist pilgrims from all over the world.

Roaming around Bodhgaya felt a little like stepping back in time.  The locals use horses and carriages – not for joyrides around Central park – but as public transportation. 

We spent a few hours each day touring around the various monasteries, and the rest of the time we stayed in bed hoping our fevers would break the next day.  We may not have achieved enlightenment bliss during our week in Bodhgaya, but we both set personal records for number of hours slept in one day –  Jeff: 20 hours; Erin: 16 hours!

After walking through the narrow alleyways of Varanasi dodging motorbikes, garbage, errant cows and shit piles, we stumbled on the peaceful banks of the River Ganges - an oasis in the middle of a difficult city. 

Varanasi is one of the oldest and most holy cities in India.  Hindus believe that bathing in the holy water of the Ganges remits all sins, and millions of pilgrims visit Varanasi every year to bathe in the holy water.  As we walked along the various ghats (or steps leading to the river), we saw women in beautifully colored saris (so bright they are nearly florescent) bathing in the river, holy men draped in orange cloth praying, and others doing yoga or meditating along the river bank.  It was like entering another world.  

Most of the ghats are bathing ghats, but others are used as cremation sites.  According to Hindu teachings, if you die in Varanasi and are cremated on the banks of the Ganges, your soul will be free of the cycle of death, reincarnation and rebirth. Many terminally ill and elderly Indians literally come to Varanasi to die.

We walked along the banks of the river until we came to the “burning ghats” where they perform public cremations.  The cremations are an incredible sight.  The priests and families don’t mind if tourists watch the proceedings, but there are absolutely no photographs allowed. 

Each family member has a role to play in the cremation ceremony.  If a mother dies, the youngest son is responsible for lighting the fire. If the father passes, the oldest son takes on the responsibility.  We saw a young boy about 7 years old stoicly lighting the fire under his mother’s funeral pyre.  We also saw old man who was there to cremate his wife.  But he couldn’t do it.  Her body was prepared but he sat on the hillside just looking out at the water probably contemplating their life together.  It was so sad but at the same time a touching way to say goodbye.

There were 10 cremations occurring while we were standing at the ghat, and there seemed to be room for a dozen more.  The ghats run 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, but somehow they didn’t smell and it wasn’t gross.  It was oddly beautiful.

That night we attended an Aarti ceremony in Varanasi that was twice the size of the one we saw in Rishikesh.  We couldn’t help but be inspired by the sight of thousands of devout Hindus coming together and offering a sincere and heartfelt collective prayer.

The cremation ghats are the most interesting part of Varanasi.  After our experiences we decided to take a break from the assaulting sounds and smells of the city.  Erin was still running a consistent low-grade fever and Jeff’s fever seemed to spike every evening.  We decided to splurge on a hotel with air conditioning and uninterrupted electricity, so we moved into the Raddison and didn’t leave the hotel complex for two days.