Oishii~!

[osaraba]

One thing I will definitely miss when I'm back in NY is the FOOD.

I normally don't like much seafood (exceptions include shrimp, scallops, smoked whitefish salad, and recently, spicy tuna rolls). But I have never been so happy to eat seafood as I have been here! I just had the most delicious onigiri basket that had 4 onigiri (with different unidentifiable things in each one), one takoyaki ball (octopus, and OMG, it was SOOOOOOO delicious!), one shrimp tempura, and two pieces of fried octopus&veggie-thing.

I have also been having the best ramen, called tantan men, which is noodle with spicy-seasoned ground beef. It is just to DIE for.

I seriously need to find some good ramen places when I get back to New York 'cause I will definitely have a craving for tantan ramen.

And I'm still really surprised that I liked the takoyaki!

One of the onigiri had this brown flakey-like thing on it... Yoshi thinks it might have been natto, but I don't know. It did smell like seafood, but I can't be sure. I'm pretty sure I've had it before; it smelled and tasted really familiar, slightly salty -- but the last time I had it seemed like years ago. I might have to try natto so I can rule it out if that's not it.

Also, I have to remember to buy shichimi (seven spices) seasoning for when I make ramen at home. =D

Comments

[kitsune-kitana.livejournal.com]

Hey, I just started using LJ again and thought I'd check up on some old friends. So you're in Japan right now? That's awesome! What area are you in? What kind of things are you up to?

One of the worst adjustments I had to make when I came back from Japan was the complete lack of good ramen. *ANYWHERE*. It was so depressing, since I'd have these enormous bowls of delicious ramen basically anywhere I went in Japan, but the moment I stepped foot back onto American soil, trying to find decent noodles was laughable.

Oh, I'm so completely jealous of you for being there right now. Hope you're having a great time~

[osaraba]

Well, I was in Japan. I came back to NY on Friday, so I'm already missing the food. I was staying with a friend in Sayamashi, Saitama (about a 45 minute train ride away from the Tokyo city areas). I went with a couple of other friends, so we did shopping (the Animate stores killed my wallet), went to a few shrines, and the daibutsu in Kamakura, and also stayed home and played video games. ^_~

Where were you when you were in Japan? How long did you stay for? For vacation or school? (I'm nosy curious.)

One of the good things about NYC is that you can get genuine ethnic food. My father's Indonesian-Chinese and I grew up on asian food, from home, and from Chinatown. LOL. So I know where to get good soup. But good (Japanese-style) ramen is still pretty hard to find. Japanese restaurants generally only have sushi or the typical noodle soup (chicken teriyaki, tempura, etc.), nothing like the tantan men I'd had.

I noticed on your profile that you're going to Stanford -- are you able to get good food in Chinatown? (When I've visited the SF Chinatown, I've been unimpressed by the food, but maybe I didn't go to the right restaurants...) Have you gone to (or are you going to) Yaoicon in SF, in October? ^^

[kitsune-kitana.livejournal.com]

I was in Japan maybe...two years ago? I'm so bad at keeping track of things like this. It was a two-fold thing: part homestay, part research. I did some of the Japanese school thing and my host family took me to Kyoto for a few days. The temples were *amazing* but I didn't really get to explore that much. Our initial days in Tokyo were pretty outrageous too; it was mostly a haze of drinking and manga buying. ^^; There are these stores...I keep thinking Book Box, but I know that's not it. They're all over Japan and they have a Yellow sign with Blue writing and dots? ANyway, they sold manga for less than a buck a pop, so anytime I saw one of those I went crazy. When all that finished though we went to a small set of islands in Okinawa (Miyako--really rural islands) for research. Aside from a weekend where we all went to the main island of Okinawa for a break, it was all pretty boring research stuff. The main Okinawan Aquariam was pretty badass though. I didn't have much of an opportunity to buy all the things I wanted. ALso, I totally wanted to go to a Jrock live and was so disappointed that I couldn't. You don't even know how jealous I was that you got to go see DEG live! I was going to see them in LA but I had a fucking final the same day that my TFs wouldn't let me out of unless I was dying (believe me--I tried).

The special Okinawa soba I had there was possibly the best bowl of noodles I've ever had in my life. SF and Chinatown are relatively far away when you take into consideration how lazy I am. The few times I've been there I haven't been really impressed with the food either, and I didn't really find great places in Japantown either.

You know, I haven't even thought about Yaoicon. That might be around my first set of midterms, though, so I'm not sure that I can. I'll check out the site now and see what the dates and all that look like. I've never been to a convention before--what kind of stuff goes on there? Is it worth going?

[osaraba]

It sounds like it was a cool time in Japan. How long did you stay? Did you pick up the language while you were there?

It's too bad you didn't get to go to the DeG live. I've been pretty lucky to be able to see DeG, and Buck-Tick (my favorite band) when I was in Japan last year.

As for conventions... there are always panels about different topics. At Yaoicon, as you might guess, the panels are about yaoi-related subjects -- fanfiction, certain anime series that have a large yaoi-fandom following (whether it's canon or not), etc. They also have interesting events, like the "bishounen auction" and the masquerade (cosplay), and AMV showings/contest. There's also the karaoke room, where you can get up and sing an anime/Jrock/pop song in front of other otaku. And, of course, there are video rooms showing different anime from open to close.

It's pretty cool if you're into yaoi. For me, I'm not into yaoi for it's own sake, and I don't attend the panels much, but I have a lot of online friends from the GW-fandom that I've gotten to know over several years, and this con is my chance to hang out with them. ^^

As for other conventions, they're similar, but panels and discussions tend to have a broader range of topics as they aren't so focused on a particular topic. They're just places to go and watch anime, participate in intelligent discussions, or learn particular skills at workshops and/or be social with other otaku. I go to Otakon every year (it's the largest con on the east coast with around 20,000 attendees), which is the con where the focus for me is cosplay, the dealer's room, and friends. My group of friends doesn't do a skit, but we do a group cosplay for fun and attention, LOL.

At other, smaller cons I tend to go to more panels and discussions, and hang out with -- or meet new friends. I've met some of closest friends at both Yaoicon and Anime Boston in the last few years. =D

And did I mention the dealer's room? You can go a bit crazy buying novelty items or doujinshi sometimes...

If you're into yaoi, it's definitely worth going to Yaoicon -- you'll find a lot of people who will share your fandom interests. And you can always give me a call and hang out with me. ^_~