Re: Japan trip report, with pics
 

Benny seemed to be a real fan favorite when I was there. Outside the stadium, there's a monument to commemorate the team winning the 2005 Asia Championship, with all the players' handprints and signatures. Here's his:

http://img396.imageshack.us/img396/586/dsc00988bd9.jpg

Re: Japan trip report, with pics
 

wait a minute...Bobby Valentine does WHAT before the games???

Re: Japan trip report, with pics
 

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wait a minute...Bobby Valentine does WHAT before the games???

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So I just looked this up to make sure I had it straight: Apparently, Bobby V was a high school ballroom dancing champion growing up in Connecticut. The Japanese got wind of this, so he now does dancing exhibitions at the Stadium before Saturday home games (according to this article, he "teaches the cha-cha to Marines fans") as part of an effort more female fans to the park. Nothing about the tux-clad on-field dancing in the article, but I'm pretty sure I saw it on SportsCenter about a year ago.

Re: Japan trip report, with pics
 

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It took us a while to figure out "Makudonarudo," but we had a good laugh once we did.

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This place has a scary looking clown as it's mascot, right?

Re: Japan trip report, with pics
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
wait a minute...Bobby Valentine does WHAT before the games???

[/ QUOTE ]

So I just looked this up to make sure I had it straight: Apparently, Bobby V was a high school ballroom dancing champion growing up in Connecticut. The Japanese got wind of this, so he now does dancing exhibitions at the Stadium before Saturday home games (according to this article, he "teaches the cha-cha to Marines fans") as part of an effort more female fans to the park. Nothing about the tux-clad on-field dancing in the article, but I'm pretty sure I saw it on SportsCenter about a year ago.

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This is awesome. Your trip report is awesome. [censored] dude, this is the best trip report EVER and this is just the baseball part of the report. I'm looking forward to the rest. You've made me nostaligic for my childhood and adolescent trips to Japan.

Re: Japan trip report, with pics
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
wait a minute...Bobby Valentine does WHAT before the games???

[/ QUOTE ]

So I just looked this up to make sure I had it straight: Apparently, Bobby V was a high school ballroom dancing champion growing up in Connecticut. The Japanese got wind of this, so he now does dancing exhibitions at the Stadium before Saturday home games (according to this article, he "teaches the cha-cha to Marines fans") as part of an effort more female fans to the park. Nothing about the tux-clad on-field dancing in the article, but I'm pretty sure I saw it on SportsCenter about a year ago.

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this is perhaps the most awesomest sports story ever. I'm tickled pink by this. Could you imagine if Bill Parcell taught yoga or something before Giants games back in the 80s?

Re: Japan trip report, with pics
 

that noodle girl is smoking.

Re: Japan trip report, with pics
 

A few people have asked about the food in Japan, so here are some random thoughts and a bunch of pics.

Japanese Food: Tokyo

You can get Western-style food in Japan, and if you go to a really nice place, it can be really good. Like this smoked salmon and poached shrimp in dill sauce that we had at the Fujiya Hotel in Hakone, one of the oldest Western-style restaurants in Japan:

http://img399.imageshack.us/img399/3521/westse5.jpg

But at less fancy places, Japanese execution of Western food is hit-or-miss. Japanese McDonalds', for example, have fried shrimp burgers and something called "McPork." And this Tokyo fast food place appeared to feature a double cheeseburger with a fried egg and a huge scoop of potato salad on top:

http://img383.imageshack.us/img383/8362/burgerol8.jpg

And occassionally, things go very, very wrong, producing stuff like this:

http://img383.imageshack.us/img383/1912/snoopid8.jpg

We generally avoided Western food and stuck with Japanese style places. Most of the restaurants (at least the good ones) are unbelievably specialized. If you go to a tempura place, you can't order noodles or sushi -- just tempura. There are restaurants dedicated to grilled chicken, pork cutlets, specific types of fish, etc.

Here are a few of our favorite places:

Daiwa Sushi

We had sushi breakfast at this famous hole-in-the-wall sushi shop located in Tokyo's Tsukiji Fish Market. I posted a longer report with some pics in the sushi thread; suffice it to say that this was the freshest, best sushi I've ever had. Here's a sample:

http://img383.imageshack.us/img383/1135/sushi2sw3.jpg

Kondo

This was a small, really good tempura place on the 8th floor of a Ginza commercial building. (Bars and restaurants in Tokyo are often located on higher floors; the buildings have high vertical signs listing the occupants of each floor. It's not unusual to have, for example, a hairdresser on the third floor, a sushi place on the fourth, and a massage parlor on the fifth.)

Tempura is pieces of vegetables or seafood that are battered and flash-fried. Chef Kondo manned the fryer while his assistant cut and prepped the food:

http://img383.imageshack.us/img383/9214/fry1xf1.jpg

We had a set menu that included 5 or 6 different vegetable tempura (bell peppers, okra, eggplant, radish, and some others), two kinds of fish, two pieces of shrimp, and then a rice dish served with tea and fried scallops.
The only adornments were sea salt, lime juice and soy sauce. Here's an example:

http://img383.imageshack.us/img383/4308/fry3oq3.jpg

Chef Kondo really was an artist. He had a different type of batter for each kind of food, and worked the fryer like an expert. The tempura was fresh, totally not greasy and very delicate. And the seafood was ridiculously fresh. The shrimp were kept in a tank and still wiggling when they went into the fryer. I didn't get a picture of the fried shrimp head (it was crunchy and not bad), but here's one of the pieces of fish tempura:

http://img383.imageshack.us/img383/4575/fry2tp2.jpg

Maisen

This Tokyo restaurant serves nothing but tonkatsu -- fried pork cutlets. These were nothing like heavy, greasy American pork chops; they made from a special Chinese "red pig," cut thin and breaded with panko breadcrumbs. This is Japanese comfort food, and so delicious. It's served with a homemade sauce that tasted a little like Peter Luger sauce

http://img162.imageshack.us/img162/3714/katsucj2.jpg

Jojoen

This was a yakiniku -- Korean barbecue -- place on the 54th floor of one of the tallest buildings in the city. The view was amazing:

http://img300.imageshack.us/img300/8894/meat2ze4.jpg

We started with some raw beef and kimchi, then they brought out a big plate of sliced beef, chicken, shrimp and veggies that you grilled yourself on a burner build into your table:

http://img358.imageshack.us/img358/3814/meat1th8.jpg

The really old-school yakiniku places use charcoal grills, which probably tastes better but is kind of impractical on the 54th floor.

New York Grill

We decided to try some Japanese beef at the Tokyo Park Hyatt's steakhouse restaurant. Mrs. Weir had a traditional, well-marbled cut of Kobe beef, and I had some beef from Kanazawa prefucture that was less marbled but recommended by the chef. Both had a really mild, buttery taste (neither was cooked in butter). Unlike an American steakhouse, the Japanese cut their steaks very thin (maybe 3/4 of an inch thick); they were really tender and could be cut with just a fork. Overall, an interesting experience, but I prefer good U.S. sirloin or porterhouse, which just has more beefy flavor. Sorry, no beef pics from here, but here's one of the Park Hyatt bar, where Bill Murray met Scarlett J. in Lost in Translation. I had a Suntory here, and it truly was relaxing times.

http://img516.imageshack.us/img516/1503/sunt2lt6.jpg

Random Noodle Place

This was lunch at a noodle place in a nice mall whose name I forget. Basically, Japanese mall food:

http://img353.imageshack.us/img353/3079/noodrw3.jpg

One other great, tangentially food-related, thing about Tokyo: the beer vending machines lining the streets. When I went back through our Japan pictures, I realized that I was holding a brew in literally every picture Mrs. Weir took of me in Tokyo.

http://img234.imageshack.us/img234/4637/beerqn1.jpg

Next I'll post a few pics of our food experience in Kyoto, where we had a chance to try a multi-course kaiseki feast at a traditional Japanese inn.

Re: Japan trip report, with pics
 

[ QUOTE ]
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It took us a while to figure out "Makudonarudo," but we had a good laugh once we did.

[/ QUOTE ]


This place has a scary looking clown as it's mascot, right?

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You got it.

Re: Japan trip report, with pics
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
It took us a while to figure out "Makudonarudo," but we had a good laugh once we did.

[/ QUOTE ]


This place has a scary looking clown as it's mascot, right?

[/ QUOTE ]

You got it.

[/ QUOTE ]
I walked into the one on Takeshita dori intending to grab a coffee. I looked up and saw a big ad for a "McPork". had to have one. since i was at McD's, I decided to try the fries to see if they were the same as back home (they were). McPork was ok-kind of like the sausage from the breakfast menu, but not as spiced. if I could do it again, i'd have tried the fliet-o-shrimp, but I saw it too late and never got the chance to order one later. that actually looked like it had potential.