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Giappolandia - Part 3: Food

very interesting section of this restaurant. Issue could in fact be making the decision to go to Japan considering what we hear around the Japanese cuisine: fried the fish, the fish raw, these broths ... That

fried fish, the fish raw, and all those other things are great!! The sushi
Western fashion is not just a pale imitation of the original Japanese cuisine.

But let's order. I will speak before the dishes I tasted it and then the "systems" of Japanese restaurants, some very special and interesting.


Rice: Rice is the almost inevitable element in every dish. It is important, so much so that there are shops that sell only rice. It is almost always cooked by steaming, resulting in slightly sticky for easy handling with chopsticks.

Sashimi: Raw fish filleted and served with soy sauce and turnip. The prized fatty tuna. Prepared with fresh fish (ie Tzukiji around the area where there is the fish market) is divine, it literally melts in your mouth.

Sushi: sashimi together with the balls of rice and a tocchettino (if not escape the finger to cook) Wasabi, spicy sauce. Be careful not to eat it directly (the wasabi say), the effects can be unpleasant. The sushi is delicious ' unagi, eel lightly grilled with soy sauce. My favorite dish!

Okonomiaki : the closest thing to this dish is an omelet. Can be made with fish, meat and vegetables, bound together by an egg and cooked on a hot plate at the center of the table. It literally means "the way you want kitchen." In fact you can find many restaurants where it is left to the free choice customer on how to compose the dish to taste, choosing from a wide variety of ingredients such as meat, seafood and vegetables, then dipped nell'ingrediente main, consisting of a batter of cabbage and other vegetables, thus forming a kind of pancake to be cooked on the plate. It is seasoned with a sauce for okonomiyaki and can be coated with soy sauce, mayonnaise, ao-nori (dried seaweed), fish scales and anything else to suggest your own personal taste

Soba are of brown buckwheat noodles. They are eaten hot and cold or as a soup. Particularly good (at least in my opinion) is the version -aki soba by adding a bit 'spicy, with bits of meat and other spices.

Tempura: fish or vegetables fried in batter. Served with the sauce for the tempura (do not know exactly what it is made)

Mishiru: miso soup, fermented soybean paste. The call always miso soup, but in reality there are a thousand versions of this soup always taste good and gentle but sometimes it's a bit 'way to eat what's inside.

Tea: Tea is served at any time of day, is the symbol of hospitality and has therefore a very important significance in cooking and Japanese culture. The Japanese tea is green because it generally does not undergo fermentation, it is very refreshing and thirst-quenching. It has a bitter taste and is drunk during meals, instead of water.

These are some of the dishes I tried. But we envision a little 'how the restaurant.
It starts from the fact that the Japanese hardly leave you hungry. In fact, every 2 / 3 meters is a restaurant. There are whole buildings of 8 floors of restaurants. In any mall is at least one floor dedicated to food. And is not that the mall is eating less well. The food is good everywhere. But sometimes you can eat better. But the lower limit is more than satisfactory.
Details of the various restaurants is monotematicità: single restaurant specializes in one type of food and nothing else. You must first decide what you eat. Side effect is if you go to dinner with friends and two people want different dishes. For the choice of eating
Just take a stroll in a floor of a shopping center. Out of the individual restaurants, there is a supper table plates (plastic or wax) that show what you can find inside. Although made of plastic sometimes look very appetizing.

come in and pick the dish you will be greeted by a thunderous "Irasshaimase" (Welcome). They make you sit and you are now tea-towel rods and hot sterilized to wash your hands (I think that feeling in the winter must be beautiful:))
The rest works like all the restaurants in this world except for the thanksgiving mass of all the cooks and waiters when you are about to leave the room: Arigato gozaemaaaaaaaas.

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Giappolandia - Part 2: Respect for others

Concluded the first part on the description of transport in the city of Tokyo, we continue our story. I continue to treat people's behavior on several occasions and not only when it comes to transport. Resume on the cleanliness of the streets. Always candid and without even a cigarette butt on earth. How do you ask? Simple: you can not smoke on the street! Nothing less smoke no cigarettes around.

No smoking in any public place (train stations, beaches, roads ...). But because Japan does not discriminate against any sector, in the street (but also in the beaches and local) there is always an area for smokers.

is easy to see around the corners because of some special street where the smokers gather outside to smoke their cigarettes, ashtrays with cigarette butts and trash to the finite.

It remains strange street cleaning considering the fact that it gets really hard to find a basket. On the latter point is perhaps debatable, However, it is surprising that although there are, the streets remain tidy.

yet another demonstration of the sensitivity on the cleanliness of public spaces and roads in particular are the cleaning of the wheels of a truck in leaving a construction site. Since it is a fact difficult to believe, the document made with a photo

Incredible is not it?

Already we have entered a minimum in a car, we continue the traffic issue. If Tokyo were to keep the average person's car in Rome (706 cars per 1000 inhabitants) only center there would be something like 8 million and a half by car. Crazy! I could not find the number of cars per inhabitant, but I can assure you that the number is much lower. Most cars you see around are taxis and buses. The people in fact move or two media or with the very efficient metro. To discourage car use (to increase the traffic ... and the beauty of the streets) in the metropolis because you can not park on the roadside. No sir. No double / triple ... but not individual files. Do not you park and nothing else. Look there are paid parking lots located in areas of the city with good access and easy to reach. Moreover, these parks are "controlled" at least three brigades entry / exit into the parking lot so that does not require too much time (and hampering traffic). The three men are charged with: one to stop the traffic for a second one to stop the traffic of pedestrians in one direction, one for me to pedestrian traffic in the other direction. Time required to let the machine: 3 sec.
addition, if you want to own a car you must prove to have a place where staff able to park, otherwise no one can sell. I can understand that the system is a bit 'tricky, but you want to put a smooth road, and have a beauteous eyes on the road?

Within the topic respect to the other little details I conclude with another typical Japanese. Whenever you are given something, something that is given to you to put both hands to form a kind of shell and with a slight bow, be it money, the receipt and any other thing, thanks (although in reality you had to be to thank you) with a virgoroso: gozaemas arigato!

Part 1: The stations

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Giappolandia - Part 1: The stations

Here I am writing the post (s) so perhaps the whole blog is based (just see the graphic): Japan! Although I'd rather talk about Giappolandia since, Tokyo in particular seems to be a great playground in the eyes of tourists.

I have just returned from a ten days, intense, immersion in the culture well that giapponese.So hardly be able to use any words to explain what you feel in this new world, primarily because they are not able to write.

The question everybody asked me to return the trip was of course "as Japan?

I can tell you that the little I have seen it is impossible to give a dry answer. I try to wriggle out saying that there is no Japan, only in Tokyo but already we can talk about dozens of new worlds (as opposed to an average Italian). Each "neighborhood" of In fact, Tokyo is world unto itself: it can be completely different from another that is ten minutes away by subway. We pass the old city, the area hypermodern, the business district to the area for young people (but ggggiovani ggggiovani), etc ...

But let's go in order otherwise you may only make a conclusion. More than the natural beauty of Japan, I will focus on the beauty of civilization (in the broad sense) in Japan. Since there is much to say, I'll write the piece in several posts in which I'll try to describe a particular way of behaving.

On days when I was in Tokyo staying in a hotel in the Shiodome area (looking at the map of the metro is down slightly to the right, just below Shimbashi).

Tokyo subway map. Click to enlarge.

overpass from the station to Shimbashi and Shiodome

Shiodome is the area offices, and many apartment blocks, many lights. Within office hours and rarely see people around you constantly ask where are the 12 million people of which you speak. The answer is simple: I'm at work! If by chance you see one is definitely dressed in white shirt and trousers blacks. Is to see the impressive sight of hundreds of people dressed all alike take the metro to go to work. Net in this area (if one can speak of the district) the predominance of males. However, the Shiodome station is a little 'nerd, has a few lines of a meter (2). But the area is well connected with the rest of Tokyo's Shimbashi meters from the nearby, much larger. Every day so they would make the stretch to go from the station through a Shimashi overpass. The first thing that catches the eye of all is clean. In earth there is nothing, not even a speck. Everything is perfect, the glasses are polished all the time. Especially in an area around the station, one hardly expects such a high cleanliness. See all around the huge apartment blocks and several reflective green here and there.

The first destination is Tokyo, or expressed in complete form, "Tokyo Station" to start the tour the gardens of the emperor. Tokyo Station is not the center of Tokyo, because no serious person unbalanced to say that there is a "center." In taking the first few meters you see the facts. Tokyesi I am super-organized. Nothing is left to chance. There has never mess (maybe just at rush hour in the morning at some stations). People without touch and shoots without losing time. Every minute is crucial.

a "race" has the escalators who has just left in a hurry. For tickets there, in addition to the system known to all, a prepaid card that the only way (even within the portfolio) allows the opening of the doors that lead to various tracks. When you exit the destination station, you will be deducted the money from the card. The paper in question will not only serve the metro, but you can use in different contexts: metro, buses, kiosks, vending machines for drinks (ubiquitous) ... But you can also pay by placing some phones provided on the appropriate machine.

absolute novelty (at least for me) are the directions to the ground on all the tracks (both metro trains). On the ground shows the location where you will stop the doors of the metro, the number of the coach and the services you will find inside it.

On the right the signs that indicate the door of the car.

So if you happen to know exactly what disabled car is prepared for this occurrence and will be exactly where the door to enter, so as to avoid having to make some progress when the bus stop. Before mounting on the subway and then to blows with people who have to come down, it is in perfect single file and wait patiently for ALL passengers must have fallen down. Obviously I think goes without saying that the station was not only clean, but everything inside is clean. I have personally seen the little women come in and clean the various coaches during the stops to end.

The subway line is the largest Yamamoto Line. A line that forms a huge ring, which according to legend, said to contain within it all of Paris. Is it true? Big is definitely great. Suffice it to say that it alone carries the equivalent of the entire transport system in New York. Chills!

'd avoid going there at rush hour in the morning (around 8), although this time around there are meters every two minutes. The frequency and efficiency station are something that our city can not help but dream, represent the normal custom in Japan. If the start date of the meter is at least 16:52 to 16:52 ... a few seconds and arrive at the station. You download and charge in a very short time (since no one should be chasing the doors ...) and at 16:52 the underground part. Not sgarra. In 10 days spent with all the metro and trains that we took we had a delay of up to 1 min once.

The system is easy to use even those who do not understand one iota of Japanese, in fact the whole system is bilingual in both written and in the voices of the various alerts. In fact, I would say three languages \u200b\u200bas also the non-blind person can easily take a meter because the ground path is marked with various signs embossed on every street, entire Tokyo and all are written in Brail. A sign of civilization of a certain importance.

All the features described here can be seen in the following video:

We are now in the metro. In here is a new world. High above the door you can see two screens: with an indication of where you are, where you're going and when will it take from here to your destination station. All in two languages. In the other screen you will find the simple advertising. The walls are full of advertisements and written recall how we should behave with the use of numerous figures. First, the phone must be set to silent and second: not talking on the phone and if you have to talk to the phone you speak softly, with his hand in front. You must not disturb the next most likely is sleeping. It is customary to doze off between the station of departure and arrival times, even hung up with one hand to the handles. You know the rules before long you route and in any case you will be notified by a sweet music to the arrival of each station. There are also seats reserved for pregnant women, for elderly, disabled ... and for these places around the mobile phone must be switched off, if there are people with pacemakers, which can interfere with electromagnetic waves from mobile phones. Since you can not talk to the phone or otherwise out loud, most of the people or read a book or playing with the phone or sleeping. Given the prevalence of meter reading books, books in Japan are mostly sold in paperback version in different parts. So you can handle it easily with one hand and fits easily in your pocket and quickly.

There is enough of this past civilization? Do you want another? I wait for the next chapter in the saga.

Part 2: The respect for others