Went to the Meiji Shinto Temple today, which was very cool. The grounds were beautiful, and the buildings themselves were stoic, the temple had to be rebuilt after the Second World War, but these are apparently exact replicas. The tour guide also said that many people in Japan follow both Shinto and Buddhism. Shinto speaks to the living whereas Buddhism deals more with the after life. When babies are born they are brought to the Shinto Temples, but all funerals are done in a Buddhist style. Seems pretty well balanced to me.
This is the gate to the Meiji Shinto Temple.
This is the actual Temple.
I thought the best part was on the walk up the the Temple you come across two giant walls, one is sake and the other is wine. The sake is used as a gift to people who make big donations to the temple from the monks. The wine is from Burgundy and is sent there by winemaker's to try and gain good luck with their crops.
Sake.
Wine.
I have also been able to have a few meals since I got here. The first was last night, and was sushi at the hotel sushi bar. The difference in the fish really is amazing. None of the fish tasted, for lack of a better word, fishy. It was all rich, or sublte, or sweet. But never really fishy. Every piece I had was delicious, with one exception. Abalone. It had really no taste, nothing objectionable for sure, but the texture was like nothing I have ever had before. When I first put it in my mouth if felt like a thickish piece of rubber. Hard to chew. When I finally managed to bite through it it made a very disconcerting popping sensation. If anyone has ever had it and wishes to comment please enlighten me. I cannot for the life of me figure out what that is about.
There was also a small bowl of truly memorable soup. Actually it was not the soup itself but what was in the soup. The soup for all intensive purposes was a broth made from clam, the juices that are left after cooking clams. But in the soup were the smallest clams I have ever seen. It was amazing, I have never seen clams this small, much less tasted them. The broth itself seems to have taken on the essence of these tiny clams specifically, it was light and a tiny bit salty and tasted like the ocean in a way I have only experienced with certain oysters before.
I actually stole the leftover shells from the restaurant.
For the benefit of all, those are both an American and Canadian dime.
The two other meals I've had was breakfast today. Which was at the hotel buffet, after a failed attempt to go to the Tsukiji Fish Market. And lunch today, which was a very good bowl of udon soup. The noodles were very good. Slightly more tender then I've possibly had before but nothing like the impossibly small clam soup.
The rest of my day is going to be spent trying not to go to sleep and thinking about how I am going to get into the last Red Sox game in Tokyo.
It's sold out. We'll see.
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