Wednesday, July 27, 2005

Summer Vacation Part 1 of 5

Time flies. Yeah, no kidding. I am now in my fourth year studying in Kyoto University. They say time flies, especially when you are having fun. And it seems that all good holiday trips are never long enough. Every summer, our laboratory goes on school trips.
Year 1 : Toba Bay and Ise-shima.
Year 2 : Nagashima Spa Land.
Year 3 : Kinosaki Marine World and Amano Hashidate.
This year we headed off to Shirahama of Wakayama Prefecture. It was not my first time to Shirahama but the itinerary was somewhat different from the previous one.
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Shirahama is a resort town on the south coast of the Wakayama Prefecture (part of the Kii Peninsula on Honshu Island), approximately 3 hours drive from Kyoto. The japanese swimming season is from mid-July through the end of August, during which the beach is crowded. Although we were scheduled to head to the beach, the plan had to be canceled because of the approaching typhoon No. 7.
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The gloomy sky did not dampen our holiday spirit. Tore Tore Ichiba was the first stop of our summer vacation. 170-7084_IMG
Like a fresh market, one can shop for fresh seafood. There are a wide variety of fishes, fresh oysters, shrimp, scallops, crabs, etc at reasonable prices (although some are really expensive).
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We were hungry. If you love fresh seafood (sashimi), you will absolutely love this place. (Left to right, Tatsuhara-san, Yazaki-san, Yamauchi-san and Uchida-san; front, Sugawara-san)
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I ordered fresh salmon and red caviar (ikura) served over rice. These eggs explode and crunch in the mouth.
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According to japanese thinking, the best way to cook a fish is not to. Therefore, raw seafood is served chilled and sliced and elegantly arranged. But if you are not a big fan of sashimi, there is a wide range of cooked food as well.
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Next, we tried scallops. Plump and juicy scallops grilled with melted butter - it was so good.
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A man is seen here cutting fish into fillets. Next to this counter, you may find the taraba gani (king crab).
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After a good meal, we headed off to the Shirahama Adventure World (Part 2/5).

8 comments:

Mad Ethel said...

Why does everyone have "san" after their name? What does it signify? And eating scallops out of giant sea shells - that is exotic and beautiful!

pinkylicious said...

Wow....those scallops are really BIG. Yum yum~~~

Anonymous said...

Scallops.....scallops.....yummy!
AL

Anonymous said...

the scallops and sashimi looks so good!!! *envy*

Patrick Leong said...

mad ethel : The suffix -san, which is equivalent to all of mrs, mr, ms, etc is customary in addressing a person by name. failure to use it maybe considered exceedingly rude in common japanese practice.

emotionalistic, ailing : yes. very good. yummy yummy. wanted to try more but was just too full. we should visit fresh market one day. any in osaka or kyoto ? i heard that the tokyo tsukiji wholesale market is one of the biggest.

seri : thanks for visiting my blog. where are you from ? do you have sashimi in your country ?

zbjernak said...

wow wow
the scallops are huge...
yummy

so nice...so many trips.....i think the amano hasidate is great...

i just cannot understand ....japanese really loveeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee seafood... heheheh but i know japan is lack of land...hence most of the food are from sea...

i think i can safely say...japanese eat the most type of seafood...
i think basically everything.... pregnant fish, whale,squizd, baby octopus,eel,shark and etc

but i still love jap food
kekekekeke

ycling said...

The food looked so good, my mouth is watering. Cool way to make your blog readers hungry!

Patrick Leong said...

zbjernak : japanese sushi is good. but i miss malaysian food very much. char kuay teow, wanton mee, chicken rice, assam laksa etc etc. amano hashidate is regarded as one of the three most beautiful sceneries in japan.

flaminarse : thanks for compliment. i am glad that we visited the tore tore ichiba. in fact we went there again on our way back to kyoto.