All of the meals I had in Japan were quite a big adventure. In most of the cases I didn't know
what the thing I was looking at consist of. What's more, all of the names were written with kanjis, which I wasn't able to decipher. Even though, on the first day I've told Daniel that KFC and so on will be allowed after the first week, during the rest of my stay I didn't feel like giving up amazing Japanese restaurants for occidental junk food. I'm not going to present here Japanese cuisine theoretically but practically from my subjective point of view.
Kyoku no Fukushimakensan momo jamu & kuriimu pan (jap.
Delicious peach jam produced in Fukushima prefecture & cream bread) is a kind of peach jam flavoured donut, which I've picked for my first breakfast in Japan. Extremely artificial and funny looking!
Matcha aisu kurīmu (jap. green tea ice-cream) was on my top 10 list of things to try in Japan. It turned out that those ice-cream don't taste exactly like the green tea but much more sweet. Obviously the color is so strong that after a while of eating my pinky tongue turned into green.
The funny thing about Japanese vocabulary, as you see above, is that they convert typical English words in the way that still sounds familiar.
Daifuku (jap. great luck) might be considered a typical Japanese sweet. It's a kind of cake made of glutinous rice and filled usually with very sweet red bean filling. Those little cakes are usually covered with corn starch to make them less sticky.
For the first time, I've tired daifuku on the train from Kyoto and I thought that was a kind of green tea flavoured jelly. I loved the green part but I couldn't bear the sweetness of red beans. I took some daifuku to Poland and my family said that it was very funny to touch it - it's very soft outside but the filling makes it hard inside. In reality, what it reminds me of the most is Turkish
Lokum.
Bentō is a take away meal, always packed in a box. It always includes rice, meat and some vegetables. One of the features of good Japanese mother is ability of preparing
awesome looking bentō for her child. I've picked the one below at Himeji train station but I didn't have a chance to eat it immediately. After 1,5h Daniel was sure that it was not eatable anymore but it turned out to be still fresh and tasty.
Sakura Ebi (jap. cherry blossom shrimp) is a tiny shrimp typical for Shizuoka Prefecture. Daniel made me eat some of them in one of Shizuoka's sushi restaurants.
Unforgettable but terrible experience!!!
Black sepia spaghetti was probably the weirdest dish in Japan for me, even though it's not Japanese but Italian! I've seen it for the first time in my life. Before Daniel started his meal I asked him with disguise: 'Are you really going to eat this?'
Melon soda/Melon Fanta - absolutely love it!
Gyōza are the Japanese equivalent of Polish
pierogi.
Udon a type of thick noodles served with a vegetable soup. This was the meal that I used to order most often. It is always served warm and in big portions so there is no risk of being hungry after eating. Udon should be grabbed with sticks and the soup is usually eaten afterwards with a spoon or drank as if it was a cup.
When I order a soup in Poland I usually say the name of soup, for example Tomato Soup and I don't care much if it is served with rice or noodles. Meanwhile, Japanese soups are actually more about noodles than about the liquid that is around them. The other popular
Japanese noodles are ramen and soba.
Shokudo at the Nagoya University is a place where Daniel eats most of his daily meals. I envy him! Before ordering the dish, students are not only able to choose among many dishes but they can also see them in 'real' plastic version! On that day, I've picked fish and aubergine tempura with rice and miso soup.
Tempura is a name for deep fried battered meats or vegetables. It is believed to have been brought to Japan by Portuguese missionaries. What a pity that they have introduced tempura to Japanese but seem to have forgotten about it in their homeland.
KitKat is probably world's most famous chocolate bar. For me Japan seemed to be a KitKat paradise because they have so many different kinds of it. I had no idea what flavour should I actually expect, while buying each box. I loved those sweet surprises!
Despite of being scared of dying of hunger in Japan I'm still alive and I really miss most of the food I ate there. I'll be back soon!
(This is one of over 30 posts, which I accidentally deleted one day in January. Luckily, I was able to recover them thanks to the backup done by DanielSan! It's a pity that the comments are gone but someting is better than nothing.)
The Agora took place in the buildings of Kiev Polytechnic Institute, including its gyms and a canteen.
Before the Agora started we had the whooole Thursday free to hang around the city. On that day, Cigdem, Sveta, Magda and I went to see the place that Kiev is the most famous for - the Pechersk Lavra.
After leaving the metro at the Arsenalna station we kept on asking people on the street, which is the right way to get to the nearby Pechersk Lavra. The funny thing was that before even asking a question, people were answering "I don't know". Obviously, we didn't try it in English but in Russian. As soon as,Sveta got discouraged, I've tried few more times and one man finally answered our simple question. We took a nice walk along the Dnieper river and finally found what we were looking for!
Pechersk Lavra, also known as the Monastery of the Caves, shines above Kiev with it's golden domes and bright colors. Its beginnings reach the early XIth century when the first cave monastery was founded. In the XVIIth century first constructions representing the Ukrainian baroque were brought up and remain there as the symbols of Kiev until now.
The other day, Joanna, Magda and I skipped the plenary to visit the oldest part of the city. While getting a bit lost we came across some more or less fascinating things and places.
Finally, we've found ourselves in the middle of the Bohdan Chmielnicki square (sorry for the Polish spelling of his name but "Khmelnytsky" doesn't appeal to me!) located just between Sofiys’kyi sobor and Mikhaylovsky zlatoverkhy monastyr.
Sofiys’kyi sobor was not only named after but also designed to rival the Hagia Sofia of Istanbul - Saint Sophia/Holy Wisdom Cathedral. It belongs to the Seven Wonders of the Ukraine, together with the Pechersk Lavra.
Mikhaylovsky zlatoverkhy monastyr or simply St. Michael's Golden-Domed Monastery, is actually a reconstruction of the cathedral complex demolished by the Soviet authorities in the 1930's. Sad but true.
Last but not least, place which I wanted to visit in Kiev was the Andriyivs’kyi uzviz (eng. St Andrew's descent), a pretty long street going down around the hill. This street is also known as the Montmartre of Kiev because of its artistic character. The place is usually full of street painters and what's more, by the street may be found its own museum - "One Street Museum" and Mikhail Bulgakov's house.
On the last evening we had a nice surprise. There was a huge concert in the Maidan Nezalezhnosti (eng. Independence Square) - main square of Kiev, because of the upcoming elections. The whole square was filled with music and blue and yellow Ukrainian flags.
Even though I'm not a smoker, for me the smell of Kiev is the smell of the Kiss cigarettes... usually it's the smell of apples but eventually of strawberries.
