Arriving in Okayama 岡山
So I finally left Kansai and now I was all the way West in Okayama.
That was just my last stop with the Shinkansen and I have to say the Shinkansen express might be a bit expensive but it is extremely comfortable.
Please make sure you ask someone in the train station where your carriage actually stops and don't be like me who pretended to know where exactly it was going to stop because that's only going to cause you some troubles.
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| Nara Station Shinkansen |
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| Inside Shinkansen Hikari |
In my case, and now I can laugh about it I wasted some 15 minutes walking from one carriage to another. I repeat don't think the train is not going to be packed in case it didn't in the station you go it. I'm saying this,because most likely you'll have to move in the next train station.
I recorded a video on my way to Okayama so you can have an idea of how things look like inside the Shinkansen.
When I got to Okayama Train Station I was ready to meet my friend's father once again after almost 9 years. Mr. Tanabe is a great man and even though he is Japanese he has lived in many places around the world and that helped him open his mind. Contrary to what many people would think Mr. Tanabe speaks English very well and even a bit of Spanish. But I can hide that I was a bit anxious and nervous to meet him once again and now in his homeland after so many years.
He picked me up and he took me to his place where my friend Miho was waiting. She wanted to pick me up but due to work she had to do some overtime so in the end his father went to pick me up. Anyway, there I was talking with my friend's father about international politics and of course "Chavez".
The first time I met Mr. Tanabe it was during the second year of Chavez rulling Venezuela and even though things were not as bad as now, he knew things would turn to worse.
And so it happened. So anyway, we talked a lot and he made me feel as I was part of the family immediately.
If anybody were to ask me, but what about Okayama and Kurashiki at night? My answer would be I don't know.
My first impression of Okayama was that of a big city, similar to Nara but perhaps smaller in size. But at that point of the evening it was hard to tell as I was talking to Mr. Tanabe and I was trying to pay attention to everything he told me.
When we arrived home (some 20 mins later) I got to this amazing house. It was honestly very big for Japanese standards and if anyone would have told me how to get there I would've got lost after the first 5 minutes.
Anyway, I say hello to my friend's mother whose face I honestly didn't remember very well. When I got home my friend was already there and then I saw her mother and wow I had forgotten how lovely my friend's mother is.
She was pure love and kindness from day 1. Whatever I needed she would give it to me. Her English was not great, but well "there's an app for that" and so I used it a lot and we ended up talking a mix of broken Japanglish.
After a massive dinner with great food I really wanted to try a typical Japanese dish. This dish is so typical but so different in terms of flavour and smell that I reckon only 1% of the foreigners who have tried it completely dislike it (some of my japanese friends dislike it as well although that's not very common)
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| Mixing Nato in Kurashiki |
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| Nato and rice in Kurashiki |
I'm talking about "nato", which is a paste made of fermented soy bean. Just try to imagine the smell. I'd say the closest smell could be the smell of gruyere but mixed with another fermented food. However, unlike Gruyere which taste is although strong it's amazing, nato's taste is very strong and unusual. Indeed you can like it but it'll take you some time before you can get used to it.
I'm quite sure you won't be able to find it anywhere outside Japan or at least it'll be very hard to find. There's nothing special to it, but the flavour and the look also doesn't help it.
I had seen pictures of how it looked but I never thought it was so easy to make. To make "nato" all you have to do is to get a small bowl and pour the nato mix which comes in a sachet. Then you add some water and you mix it for like a minute so it gets this funny (disgusting?) look. It'll get sticky, very sticky and you'll see it because even your shashin (chopsticks) will remain together as if the nato mix is made of crazy glue (ok, not that much, I'm exageratting a bit).
Once that's done, you have to take another bowl, put some plain rice and finally put the nato on top of it and that's it! itadakimasu! (if you can) ^_^
Oh well I had eaten a lot that evening as well as dranka lot of some good sake. Now it was time to unpack everything and talk to my friend for a bit before she went to sleep. So she asked me how was Nara and my trip on the Shinkansen - which I said SUGOI! Shortly after she gave the house tour and explained me the latest toilet at home.
Well I knew Japanese toilets were soffisticated, that's one of the things that makes Japan different. But I wasn't ready for this one, because this one was the latest of the latest.
I'm sure you've heard you get the toilets that clean your arse as well as dry it up. Till there, we're ok, right? cool, now what about having a toilet that automatically lift up the top lid as you get near to it? That's new. So the thing goes like this: there's a sensor that catches your presence of your body when you get 1.5 mts away from the toilet and that sends a signal,lifting up the top lid. For the second one you need to press another button.
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| Japanese toilet control panel |
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| Japanese toilet |
That's not all, because if you want to play some background water sound it can also do it. I didn't know what was this for but then I watched a tv programme where they explained how important it was for women to have some background music everytime they went to the toilet. Tell me about refine manners? Of course I tried everything on the panel - that by the way it looks like a airplane cockpit.
Ok, done in the toilet after some 30 minutes (hehe) and now I really felt like having a shower.
The shower is another great part of the Japanese life and in this house things are not different.
Let me ask you something, how's your bath or shower? I presume the normal one right? Ok, what about getting inside a bath room with an insulation door that looks from outside? I bet you don't have that yet! Or what about having a massive mirror from wall to wall so you can see everything around you? Amazing, isn't it? This is exactly like that. First of all, everything is electronic: you switch the water temperature with an electronic panel on the wall as well as you turn the bath-tub water temperature from that panel as well. You have different combinations and with the panel you can even choose whether the steam and humidity should be extracted whilst you shower or afterwards. Pure magic! Seriously that's what I call a bath -mofo-room!
The next day we were going to go to Okayama which is the neighbour and bigger city.
Time to catch some sleep and charge my nikon and iphone.
Matane!
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