On Friday, our last full day in Japan, my friend Kristin Yamaguchi invited us to meet her and her three kids on Odaiba, an artificial island in Tokyo Bay. There are a couple of ways to get to Odaiba. We were hoping to take a boat down the Sumida River. Specifically, this boat, the Himiko, […]
People often ask me about my favorite food, and I have a favorite evasive, wordy, and unsatisfying answer, which goes like this: Any kind of spicy noodles with vegetables and meat. That’s actually an oversimplification. I specifically mean dry noodle dishes, not noodle soups, and they don’t have to be spicy at serving time, because […]
Iris and I stayed at a popular Asakusa tourist hotel called Ryokan Shigetsu. Everyone seems to have heard of the place, and with good reason: they took very, very good care of us. By the time we arrived at the Shigetsu, it was about 3am Seattle time and each of us was shocked that the […]
One thing I wondered about Japan was whether we would get tired of Japanese food. This sort of thing has happened to me before—I’ve had pizza in Bangkok and pancakes in Paris—and I don’t see any shame in it. Here’s what happened in Tokyo. On our third or fourth day in Japan, while we were […]
I have a lot more to tell you about Japan and will do so as soon as I have time. Right now I’m neck-deep in an article about how to buy insurance on your grilled chicken, or something. -Matthew
