Having a Whale of a Good Time
The past couple of days we’ve been making the most of our tour guide Tudes and seeing some places we probably wouldn’t get to see otherwise. One of those places was a market street chock-a-block full of tasty looking food and some other things which I had never considered as edible before now.
Local market place
Fugu - Japanese poisonous fish which has to be prepared with great care
One of the food stalls we happened across was for lack of a better word – a whale butcher. Now in Australia at least, whaling is a big no no and to make it even more interesting alot of anti-whaling, ‘terrorist’ acts have occurred to commercial Japanese whaling ships at the hands of Australian activists of late. Now given all this, I would have expected that the owner of this stall would have at least tried to hide the decorative whale flag hanging into the street. Not this fella. He even had a whale size chart so you could see how the average human measures up to a blue whale – right before you buy a nice chunk of it.
Mmmm Free Willy
Of course, I had to buy some whale slices which apparently can be eaten as is, right out of the vacuum sealed pack. They didn’t look half bad either, kind of like an ultra fatty piece of bacon which curiously is more palatable than some of the bacon strips we had in the states. The smell too was quite inviting, again quite like bacon but with more of a smoky aroma.
But the taste…. uggh.
Eating a whale strip
The white blubbery bit is like a gristly, oily sponge and consequently the oil you get on your fingers was enough to water proof the wooden bench we were sitting on and perhaps the business man on his lunch break next to us as well. We figured out after more trial and error that if you just avoid eating the blubber and just eat the meaty flap then it is just OK, but certainly nothing to write home about. At least now I can firmly say that if nothing else, whaling is wrong for the simple fact that they aren’t worth eating.
After that, it felt like my internal organs had been well oiled and I needed a couple hours in a scolding hot shower to degrease. Thankfully the feeling passed in a couple hours and we got ready to eat again in Tim’s old neighbourhood out in the ‘burbs’.
Cooked chicken skewers and lemon
Right opposite his old shoebox apartment we drank and ate an assortment of meats on sticks all of which were very tasty and not too exotic, except for maybe the chicken knuckles which are just a little too crunchy for my taste. That was until Tim and Ai ordered the raw chicken and raw egg bowl! Alarm bells were ringing and I swear that at least once I saw a vertically challenged version of my mum appear on my shoulder saying, ‘Don’t even think about it!’. I couldn’t help myself, Tim and Ai were enjoying it too much for me to just sit back and watch. I must say that it was the most tender and tasty bit of chicken I have ever eaten and thankfully even hours later my meal was still in my stomach.
Raw chicken and Egg.
On the way out we stopped in at a cosy bar down the road where some old fellas that Tim used to drink with were busy with karaoke. We all had a go at it and eventually word got around that it was Leeru’s birthday so the whole bar sang happy birthday and bought more rounds of drinks.
Tudes on the Mic
It was getting pretty late on, but we had one more bar to pay homage to – The New Yorker. A trendy little bar albeit a little small for the 10 people crammed in there. There I vaguely remember trading Zippo lighter tricks with people until we taxied it home.
One year older in the New Yorker
All in all a very enjoyable night and a good sendoff / impromptu birthday celebration. Tomorrow we are off to Kyoto for a couple nights. Here are some final pictures of our area in Shinsaibashi at night time.
I love the nightlife...
The great wall of neon
Rob
