1098 Days Later, and Burgers

1098 days after graduation from our first graduate school, we finally triumphed over our student loans.  It's been about eight years since I haven't owed money to various banks or institutions, and it feels a little alien (great, but a little alien) not to.  We'll still be saving most of what we bring in while we're in Japan, but we'll get to keep it.  So, yay us and good luck to the numerous people we know who are still working on those loans.

That aside, this post is really about the burgers we made to celebrate.  Our internet butcher offers "Ridiculous Burgers" and they've been on our radar as something silly to do for a while.  We can get hamburger easily but hamburger buns are practically unheard of here, and the idea of 10 inch diameter real burgers with buns holds a certain appeal.  Given the excess of it all, a celebration themed as a reward for thrift seemed an appropriate time to deploy them.  We didn't hold much if anything back.

 No pan we own (and that's a 13 inch cast iron pan) was remotely close to being able to hold them both.

 The full spread - note the chocolate pudding and lemon meringue pies in the background - one each

 Ana's burger, complete less the top bun - she did one half with sauteed leeks and the other half had homemade onion straws with bacon.

 My burger was somewhat more adventurous - starting with the thick layer of cheddar cheese (pretty much have to go an expensive store to get cheese that is actually cheese and not a "cheese product" here) toasted on to the bottom bun.  Directly on top of the patty I put a thick layer of guacamole.

 On top of the guacamole I put sauteed onions...

 ...and then bacon...

 ...and then onion rings...

 ...and a whole sliced tomato...

 ...and then finished it with BBQ sauce from the US.

 That's no moon...

 Contemplating how to approach a burger of that magnitude.

   We both ended up slicing ours into quarters, which worked surprisingly well.  

We had concerns about maintaining the integrity of the burger during consumption, but they sliced easily and held together well in quarters, so it went very well, though we both stopped halfway through - were I not also eating fries and so forth I might have been able to eat it all in one go, but it'd have been a near thing.  I suspect it will not be quite as tasty the second time around, but those who know me know I probably won't care anyway.

The rest of the pictures are on Flikr if you're feeling brave enough.

Retroactive Travels: Tedori Gorge

We both thought I'd written this entry several weeks ago, but apparently I'd only thought about it while putting the pictures up on Flikr. I will now rectify this oversight.

The Haku-san region to the southeast of us is rather mountainous and remote, but puts a lot of effort into having tourist attractions and promoting them. We, as part of the preparation for our epic Noto Bike Trip, headed out to visit Tedori Gorge, which is about 18 miles from out apartment and one of the attractions of the Haku-san region that we'd been meaning to see for some time.

As usual, the weather was iffy and we went prepared for rain.  We were 13 minutes into the trip when it started raining, which is did intermittently the whole day, something like 10 minutes on, an hour off, so it wasn't that bad.

We had a map and compass, and moderately clear ideas about how to get from our place to the gorge and back. After getting clear of places we knew well, navigation was a significant concern for us and we had to double back and forth a few times and make guesses here and there about where we were supposed to be going. This was slightly problematic, until we found the bike trail that went specifically where we were trying to go. It was part of the goal but we were not too sure where or what, exactly, it was. The trail was much clearer and nicer than anticipated, and we're definitely eying it for future use as well.

Had plenty of time to take pictures here when wondering where to go.

Oh, so that probably goes where we're going.  Score.

The way out was mostly uphill, as it goes from a valley into the mountains. Not sharply uphill, just constantly a little bit uphill, to the point where I thought it was flat and Ana correctly kept telling me it was uphill. Anyway, we were making steady but not outstanding progress and got hungry, so stopped for lunch at a soba (buckwheat noodles) place that made their own noodles which were pretty good. I got the feeling they don't tend to get a lot of foreigners in those parts as we got stared at kind of a lot (more than usual) and of course the menu was entirely in Japanese which fortunately we could (mostly) read.  We got food, at any rate.

 Outside the soba restaurant

 Combine the noodles and broth, eat the deep-fried leaves separately.

Continuing on, we started getting closer to the gorge proper and were treated to more good scenery.

 We'll bring you pictures from a lot, lot closer to that in the next few months.

The sun came out ever so briefly for this picture.

Eventually we arrived at the major scenic viewpoint (though we'd been following the gorge for some time), and there were even signs, which we were beginning to doubt.  And a parking lot and a campground (not open yet) and various buildings for the campground that weren't open yet either.  To reach the main attraction, a fair-sized waterfall, a fairly crazy staircase had to be navigated.  In a more litigious country, this staircase probably may have been deemed unsafe.  We made it down fine though, as did some women in other groups with much less sensible footwear.

 Tricky to get down; I paid attention.  Mom, you wouldn't have willingly tried.

 Some secondary waterfalls in the area

 And the main one, which is nice but nothing particularly special.

All in all, we had a nice ride, saw some nice things, and it was a good day.  Also, on the way back (all downhill, went about three or four times faster than the trip out) we documented a van with both flames and the Last Supper airbrushed on the side, just for you:

Noto Bike Trip: Day 5

Day 5 we rose early (sunlight is better than any alarm) and broke camp to ponder how to get back to Kanazawa.  Our legs informed us that while it was probably possible, it would be grueling and very time-consuming to bike, so we grabbed a bus to Kanazawa station for a whopping ~$13 each and gave ourselves a break.  The last day would have been across the interior of the peninsula, as we'd biked up and down the full length of the peninsula, so Ana maintains that we "biked the Noto" which has some truth to it.  I maintain that we wussed out, which is also true, but it was quite pleasant to do so and it gave us a lot more time at home before having to go back to work the next day.  Our bikes took some effort to stow under the bus, but we got them in, and knocked about 40 miles off the trip back to Kanazawa.  We still had to bike from where we got off the bus back to the apartment, and we stopped at McDonald's so that Ana could have the milkshake she'd been craving for some time.  While there, I noticed that a quarter pounder with cheese is, in Japan, still called a quarter pounder with cheese.  I assure you, the vast majority of Japanese people have very little idea what that means, using only the metric system.  Anyway, we made it the last few miles back by bike and it was a lot easier than biking the whole distance.  Our total mileage (not counting the bus) came to about 192 miles over the 4.5 day trip and we saw a lot of cool stuff, much of which was very different than the parts of Japan we have seen, and overall the trip seemed to be a pretty solid success.  Plus, where else can you go to eat emu?

 Campsite by the river

 I believe they assembled this one inside and couldn't get it out again - saw next to the bus stop

 Not a Royale with Cheese, apparently

 Survived, and it was sunny on yet another day that it was supposed to have rained

Both made it back

Final Mileage

Noto Bike Trip: Day 4

The morning of day 4, we woke early with the sun, and being determined to for once set up camp in not-complete-darkness, hit the road for Nanao, the next major city and fully 50 miles away.  The scenery was pretty but largely without tourist attractions, so despite hilly terrain and a murderous headwind we made steady progress.  You may recall that heading northbound some days before we had also faced a strong headwind...meaning that the wind seems to flow counter-clockwise around the Noto, counter to our direction of travel.  Were we doing this trip again, we'd try going counter-clockwise around the Noto - you wouldn't have the best views from that side of the road, but it would be more than worth it.  You can always cross the road for a better look, but you can't cross the road to avoid gusting headwinds.  We stopped for lunch in a local equivalent of pretty much a diner in Anamizu (where we'd gone for the oyster festival), which was...amazing...again.  I ate more than I probably should have but it didn't prove to be a problem.

 Campsite

 Restaurant exterior in daylight

 Boat that inexplicably had whole bamboo trees tied to it

 Some kind of structure in Anamizu Bay

 The helmet hair was pretty constant

 Pretty darn good for nine bucks - and you could tell that most was fresh and homemade

We were definitely beginning to feel the miles we were logging, and the headwind stayed with us for nearly the entire day, so when we finally reached Nanao, most of eight hours after we'd hit the road, and 188 miles from where we started in Kanazawa, we were pretty bushed.  They had another festival there, which seemed pretty standard until we heard chanting and then a four-story tall float darted across the main road before disappearing again to more chanting.  The festival was lined up along a major street that lead to their "Fisherman's Wharf" so we went down to the wharf while inspecting the food offerings along the way.  At the wharf, they had a restaurant named Fish and Chips which we fully expected not to serve fish and chips.  When we checked the menu and they did, we had to try them.  We weren't expecting much but the fish was obviously fresh and the beer batter of significant quality so we enjoyed them thoroughly despite the paucity of ketchup for the fries and the mildly deranged interior decor.  Still hungry, we hit the festival and bought a gyro-meat pita from some Turkish immigrants and some dessert items like chocolate covered bananas and crepes filled with fruits and cream before pitching our tent in a riverside public park (which is A-OK in Japan) and falling instantly asleep despite the nearby train tracks.

Very nice blue bay water with seaweed

 Actually made it to our goal in daylight for once - found another festival

 As I said, Fish & Chips had pretty wacky decorations

 Pretty good fish and chips

 Apparently, sometimes huge floats just appear and cross the street and disappear again

 Pretty good pita

 Chocolate dipped banana

We ran into a bunch of English teachers we knew from Kanazawa in Nanao - and one took our picture for us

Noto Bike Trip: Day 3

Day 3 dawned overcast, but quickly changed to sunlight.  This was probably the most active and exciting of the three days of the trip, though it had the second-lowest mileage.  Day 3 featured numerous interesting tourist spots that we mostly discovered on the road (as opposed to having any knowledge of them beforehand).

Jungle campsite

First we found the special Shiroyone Senmaida rice paddies.  Seeing the signs talking about it up ahead, we felt some skepticism, given that we have, for instance, three rice paddies visible from our back porch. These ones, however, proved to be rather spectacular.

 Nice coastline before the rice paddies

 Impressively terraced rice paddies

 We walked down amongst them for better views

 It was a planting day, but only the biggest of the terraced paddies could be planted by machine

Just to prove that we were there

Next we encountered a salt-making shop along the side of the road, and wandered in to test their wares.  They handed us salt-boiled potato slices when we walked in to the shop, which tasted amazing, as did everything we ate starting around the middle of the second afternoon.  We tasted samples of their various salt grades, purchased a bag of the kind we liked best for later, and then, yielding to temptation, bought a cone of the purple-sweet-potato-flavored ice cream sprinkled with fresh salt.  It tasted both like purple sweet potato and like salt, and was pretty good.

 Tasty taters

 Surprisingly tasty potato ice cream

 They like taking pictures of tourists behind their banner

Salt shop

Another interesting aspect of day 3 was that it featured the trip's sole flat tire, on the rear tire of my bike.  The steering felt a little shaky and squirrely going down a big hill at speed, so at the bottom we pulled over and I checked my tires, discovering that my rear tire was quite soft.  I pulled it off the bike, inspected it for punctures (didn't see anything at all noteworthy) and decided to reinflate it and try to go to the next town rather than trying to fix it in some dude's driveway.  In the next town we asked to see if there was a bike shop nearby, as while I had a patch kit with me I'd never even seen a patch put on before and wanted to get back on the road sooner rather than later (didn't necessarily trust that my patch would hold for another 150 miles, either).  The guy at the grocery store (we were there buying water) directed us to the service station across the way, who told us there was a bike shop two miles down a road that went not-where-we-were-trying-to-go.  I was trying to ask them if they knew for sure that it was open, prior to heading down there, but when they called the guy he told them he'd just come fix my bike in their parking lot and save us the trip.  Sure enough, he drove up, pulled my wheel off, and spent a significant time doing a very through job of patching the hole in the tube (he didn't find what caused it either, we were both kind of confused about that) using a collection of patches and chemicals that looked to be older than me, and therefore probably incredibly toxic, and therefore probably incredibly effective.  Charged me a whopping $20 for driving to my location and spending at least half an hour patching the hell out of my tire - that seemed more than fair to me.  Also tuned up Ana's rail derailleur (fidgety transmission widget I didn't want to mess with on the road) which had taken to missing shifts on the second day for a further $10, which we considered an excellent investment.  All in all, I have to say that we found the folks up on the Noto to be very helpful and friendly, doubly impressive considering that we probably smelled like.

Not good

 Did not bring gloves for dirty work

 The bicycle repair brigade swooped in and very thoroughly repaired my tire

After spending so much time not making any progress, we were starting to feel some pressure to make some miles in order to reach our goal for the day.  In an excellent act of goal-thwartage, the town of Otani had a tremendous Boy's Day Festival (Wikipedia reference) going on and we stopped, took pictures, and bought very reasonably priced snacks from the vendors, before heading onwards.

 The symbol for Boy's Day is carp - because they persevere upstream or something

 No shortage of carp banners - the most I've seen in one place

Grilled chicken skewers for cheap

We made good progress on the relatively flat coastal roads, and saw a lot of pretty dramatic ocean and harbor scenes.  We stopped for lunch at another salt-making place and had homemade soba noodles in broth (amazing...again).

Lunch place on the side of the road - was overrun by a tour bus when we arrived

 Had coals in the middle of the table to warm your hands

 I've no idea what the vegetables were, but it was all tasty - broth had some seaweed in it for some proper coastal flavor

As the afternoon started getting late, we began encountering very significant hills, with switchbacks.  These took some getting up, and while the views were great they slowed us down further and burned a lot of our available energy.  The hills were on the outskirts of the town of Rokkosaki, which has a famous lighthouse, and is renowned as sort of the "real" tip of the peninsula even though it has a pretty wide top with some points further out.  When we reached the town, we knew we were going to have trouble making our goal for the day, and dashed up the hill to get pictures of the lighthouse before getting back on the road, by now having rounded the peninsula and heading south on the eastern side towards Suzu, beyond which was our goal, a specific restaurant renowned for serving home-grown emu and home-brewed beer.

 This was the point when we swore in unison

 View from the other end of the picture above

 Not such an impressive lighthouse for the trouble

The terrain remained hilly, and we made solid rather than speedy progress.  When we got to Suzu, we needed a boost, and stopped at a store where we discovered a candy bar named Almond Rush that we concluded upon tasting was probably nature's most perfect food.  We also got a honk and a wave from an employee at the place we'd eaten lunch at, who apparently lived in the area.

 Yes, it tasted that good

 Possibly nature's most perfect food (Bourbon is the brand, not an ingredient)

 Rather spectacular helmet hair to go with the candy bar

We, powered by Almond Rush, powered into the darkness in search of our emu restaurant.  Being behind schedule from the adventures of the day, it actually started getting quite dark on us, and we fastened our headlamps to our helmets to supplement the headlights on our bikes.  I put my headlight facing backwards and set it to flash so as to increase our odds of surviving to eat dinner.  We had to dig deep into the reserves to keep going for the miles past Suzu (the roads in the area were so curved that our estimated distance to travel turned out to be most of ten miles shorter than it actually was, which was disheartening) but we were in no case going to stop before finding our goal, which by this time had taken on mythic proportions in our mind as a kind of post-biking Valhalla, and we persevered, following the numerous but not-necessarily helpful signs leading to it.  We arrived after 8pm and were very glad indeed to find out for sure that they were open.  We staggered inside and started ordering everything in sight.  Will you pretend to be surprised when we tell you the food was amazing?  Intellectually, I would probably tell you in retrospect that it was decent, perhaps verging on good, but at the time every calorie was nectarous wonderment and I even liked their beer.  Stuffed, satisfied, warmed, and mildly buzzed, we walked the bikes out of their parking lot and onto a grassy field about 200 feet up the road, where we robotically set up camp and fell asleep instantly.

 I just thought this picture was totally awesome

 We'd planned to be there, say, two hours before this

 Very pleased to be there and to have beer

 The place is called the Nihonkai Club, and the crane represents the fine and frothy foam on their beer or something like that

The meaty bits here are smoked emu, and they clocked in at basically halfway between chicken and beef and were not bad at all.  They also sold deep fried emu, which was even better, and cheaper.