2017 Autum Japan part 1 - Nagoya, Gifu

It was the wifey big milestone (hint: the BIG candles on a birthday cakes hit the next '0'). It was off to her favourite country, Japan! It's one of my favourite destinations too, having been to Hokkaido twice, Tokyo a few times, Nagoya once too, everything from their politeness, manga, technology, water, food, sake etc are all done with utmost dedication.

The last visit to Yuji was in ~2009, glad to have met them again on day 1 of our trip, and onward to a nice lunch in Gifu, followed by a trip to Gifu castle

Gifu castle, nagoya can be seen 'far far' away. Note the amount of flat land that Japan seem to have?

Gifu castle was manned by Samurai in the olden days, and they would hike up and down the hill daily, till one day a tired bum decided to call it home up there. Here toys used by Sam to protect what was needed.

Tofu. Yums. The soup was super with the soya sauce. Didn't get the brand of the sauce though.

Lovely place for lunch. Completely immersed in "Japan'" right away!

View from near the top !

Reaching top soon

Lunch

Lunch

A 200 yen entry to play with Squirrels.

An-almost attempt at Squirrel Sashimi.

The trip up was via a cable car, we decided to hike down, not the best option for the missus.

Yeah, squint your eyes and you can see the white spec, a relief to tbe down on solid ground.

yes and i WORE SLIPPERS on the hike, #HERO

it was off to some Japanese ice kacang after the warm/tiring hike. A Giant bowl here cost 850 yen. Way too sweet and artificial for my liking

The ice kacang shop

A very early dinner after.

Izakaya style,with Akamiso （赤みそ）(red miso) as the popular dish. A bit sweet/heavy for me

Other yummy stuff

image: http://www.meitetsu.co.jp/ map

Our host then dropped us off at a stop called Kashiwamori, it was the Meitetsu line, and not the easiest to navigate back to central Nagoya to our Air Bnb. Around 650m of luggage lugging to our tiny airbnb with a super single bed. End of day 1!

day 2. Magome, Tsumago.

The missus planned the trip, and an option was to go for the hiking places of these famed town ~2 hr off Magome. We were up bright and early and got to Kashiwamori. Here visit to old house, pretty nice little down for Magome, while Tsumago is a bit more backward and less touristy. We would hve preferred to hike the ~8km between the two towns but Yuji suggested drinking which we gladly obliged.

Traditional jap house in Magome

Japanese playing cards

Time was measured by the amount of time incense took to burn

A view of the Japanese Alps.

LIned with shophouses, one that drew my attention was this shop selling products from Hinoki wood. And I knew I had to get a board, as they just smelled so good.

Here back home, with the Magome inscripted board made from the most authentic Japanese Cypress wood refer!

Poor lunch at Magome touristy area. Handmade soba but it was blah.

Streets of Tsumago.

image: https://nagmag.jp/nagoya-subway-and-transportation-map/ Nagoya Subway map

It was ~4pm when we go back to Kashiwaromi station and it was a decision to make to go back to rest before dinner or just cheong for dinner. Nagoya is famous for Unagi (eel) with their Hitsumabushi (3ways of eating methods). A quick search and Horaiken Nagoya Unagi restaurant seemed the best bet but the connection to a rail station near was pretty challenging as the about Meitetsu network didnt' link to the another network(turned out to be the Subway), as google /maps were giving incomplete information. We did located the place and still at ~5pm, there were 30 pax in the Queue already and a 20min wait later, the famous dish was in front of us and it was perhaps the top 2 meals of the trip! The Unagi alone is super tasty with umami flavours. Comparing with Singapore's Manman Unagi at 1 Keong Saik Road, Horaiken's was supreme. Man man's won in the wasabi / dashi department though.

A clearly satisfied missus.

This building has like 12 stories? (many giant buildings around Nagoya are like this, with 'all in one' ensuring you won't need to leave the building). We went to shop for headphones ( considerably cheaper in Japan than Singapore!)

My absolute pick (yes, I tried as many 5-6 digit yen head phones) and this just got stuck onto my head and security needed to wrangle it off me. The 'how to test a headphone' is simple: If you don't feel like taking it off, that's it. Many other 5-6 figure Headphones were awesome, but this was, 'un-take-off-able!' The Sennheiser HD 800 S Handphone . Hint: X'mas is coming

earphones: yes this was da bomb

Grand Seikos.

Back at the air Bnb, we watched Kimi No Na Wa for the first time. The missus has been asking to watch but both of us haven't forked out the time required. Usually before a trip, the few weeks are generally very hectic for us. A trip is a time when we can push back some work and boy, this was clearly our movie of the year. I can't even name a #2 which comes close. The cinematography, animation, music, character development were all Oscar-worthy. I've never seen anime with chalkboard-writing so realistic, Comet depiction so kaleidoscopic and storyline so mesmerising!

A great way to anticipate the Takayama leg of the trip on our very next day, day 3: Takayama!

On a human scale: The number on the weighing scale Episode 1!

Humans are perhaps the only specie which bothers about body type, body shape and goes all out to achieve a perfect body shape and type. Social influences, media on what a 'correct' shape contradicts the lure of delicious food and hence the weight loss industry is probably worth SGD$100 Billion world wide.

Here in Episode 1, we'll try to clear some basic terms and doubts.

The Calorie (Cal): "the energy needed to raise the temperature of 1 kilogram of water through 1 °C, equal to one thousand small calories and often used to measure the energy value of foods". In basic terms, it's just mean energy. When you move at all, you need energy, when you eat any food, they contain energy, hence all this is the basic measurement of energy.

Basal Metabolism: The amount of energy a person requires for basic functions (breathing, blood circulation, basic organ function) at total rest. For a regular person, additional of a person's life style is important too. A small sized sedentary person might require just 1200 Cal, while a big active person might require up in excess of 3000 Cal.

The important equation:

Caloric intake - Basal Metabolism = Net excess or deficit

It is a simple or as difficult as the above if a person wants to increase or decrease weight! Basal Metabolism can be measured by a few various ways and also via a few different machines. A type of calculator is found here. https://www.muscleforlife.com/bmr-calculator/. Such methods are not 100%, a survey of the various methods has yielded around a 15% variation. Hence a ball park figure is probably what you might get.

The difficulty increases quickly with the tedious nature of measuring or estimating the amount of calories one is consuming. Professional body builders and athletes measure every gram of their intake for peak performance. For the rest of us, we grapple at the amount of calories of a 'medium sized steak'. One popular free app-based calculator is http://www.myfitnesspal.com/recipe/calculator. It gets to pretty accurate within 10-15% of what you are consuming.

The difficulty will increase further, with is a fat calorie the same as a protein calorie? Dozens more confusing and conflicting topics floats in cyberspace, perpetuating this multi billion dollar industry.

Golden State Warriors Versus Cleveland Cavaliers 2017 NBA Finals

Last yr's 7 game thriller saw the hungrier Cavs coming back from 1-3 down to win the series.

The off season saw Warriors signing free agent Kevin Durant, many predicted that the GSW would win the Championship even before the season started. Yes GSW sweep all teams in the playoffs, went 3-0 up, lost to a record breaking Cavs in Game 4.

KD was obviously the hungrier player, not having a ring. The dedication was written all over his face, esp on Game 3's 3 pointer right over LeBron James. Yes, I do agree LBJ is a better overall player, possibly the best player in the league for the last several seasons, but I just don't like him. period.

I was shocked that Starhub wasn't playing the games, leading to a frantic sign upon Eleven Sports, signalling yet another move towards online/mobile/pay-per-view type of coverage. Even though recording is not possible, pauses and 10second fast forward are possible options on the browser!

Game 5 saw ups and downs and finally GSW put the string of baskets in Q4 and Cavs just look defeated.

Congrats to KD on his first ring!

9th Anniversary

 Yummy meal.

Ambience
Place looks great, lighting/layout/ is 'correct'.
The table top is laminate, though the colour 'looks right'
it's not the Hinoki wood you'd see in 'authentic jap places.


Starters:
Taste superb, light, flavourful, refreshing, one veg based,
another is some prawn/lobster shredded dish. both great

Sashimi
Very good,just a tad 'dry'

Ikura/toro/uni bowl
Excellent flavours,  the 'toro minced' portion however, tasted very gamey, intestine like. I flagged to Chef, he says it's the uni. I tasted the uni,and it's quite murasaki but the banyard? taste was obvious, he says it's 'correct' to taste like that. in my opinion, it's pretty off, almost sewer like or something. Wenhui cldn't take more than a pea size and wanted to spit out. Of cos i was the champ and took all of her share. This was the low point of the dinner.

Sushi:
Mostly good, pacing, sequence. Generally i find the rice/meats on the dry side.

Soup:
Miso/small clamps. a bit overpowering,don't quite like the combi of the miso/clamps.

Fruits:
Great sweet melons.umami.

Overall:
Great value for the price. I asked a question: JYD or Isojiman. He said Iso, which confirmed my hypothesis, his food was more linear/straight, not bombastic not try to wow you with fancy flaming/sauces/condiments.