I have been looking forward to trying lots of interesting food on this trip. In general, Japanese food in Japan is about what we know of Japanese food in the U.S. However, I have been able to find some rather unique items.

The first was a mini octopus on a stick, with a quail egg stuffed head, in the Nishiki market. It tasted a whole lot more normal than it looked, but still makes for a good picture.

Next was a delicious sushi dinner at the sushi train restaurant, Mushashi, across from our hotel in Kyoto. In general, the sushi was typical; fatty salmon, scallops, and the salmon rolls got good reviews from our group. Unfortunately, we did not get a picture of the ‘horse and mane’ sushi I tried. It came with two pieces, a red piece that looked like beef, and a yellow piece almost the color of tamago. The red piece was tender, tasted like a very mild beef. The yellow piece was hard and tough, almost like grizzly steak, and tasted very gamey. It would be very interesting to know what exactly that sushi was.

For dinner one night, Ryan enjoyed delicious ramen at an always packed hole-in-the-wall looking place right near our hotel. In keeping with our notion of Japanese food, he said it was relatively similar to the ramen at Tatsuya, marinated egg, pork, and all.

Ice cream, more specifically green tea ice cream, is all over the place here. Every other store has soft serve, and the 7-Elevens and mini-marts all have green tea ice cream in their freezers. I could definitely get used to this. And green tea is good for me, right?