Sister cities?

Long lost twins? You tell me. Both Hiroshima and San Francisco:

• Have a cherished system of trams / streetcars, and have a main line that thrives on cars rescued when other cities abandon their transit
• Recently built new stadiums for their baseball teams and have cultivated weird rituals and odd food
• Are both, as far as I know, nuclear-free zones and generally at the forefront of peace promotion
• Have really good tasting menus if you know where to look (or just get lucky!)

If you can think of more, leave them in comments!

More than 10,000 miles away, but right at home

As all you Ichiro fans out there know, the Japanese love their baseball. And why wouldn't they, it is a great sport! I took advantage of being in one of the few other countries that likes this sport so to see a few games.

Game 1 was in Tokyo, where the hometown Yomiuri Giants (the Yankees of the Far East) battled the Chunichi Dragons. They play in the Tokyo Dome, which has many similarities to the lovely and now defunct Metrodome in the Twin Cities. Consider:

Both have odd rollercoasters nearby (Tokyo in the same complex, Minnesota in the Mall of America)

And both have a highly sterile baseball watching environment, always a shame when it's 75 and gorgeous outside (as the day was...)

On this day, it was the Giants turn to prevail, and they are off to a fast 10-5 start to the season.

Game 2 was in Hiroshima, where the oh-so-lovely named Hiroshima Carp took on the Yakult Swallows (the Mets of this country). Here they play in a nearly brand new stadium called the Mazda Zoom-Zoom Stadium (I wish I was making this up). It is new and outdoor and pretty sparkling, if a bit empty (both in terms of fans that night and also in terms of things: ads, food, events, etc.). My seats in right field provided a great lens on the action.

Alas, there was no action. When I arrived, the score was already 2-2. Neither team would score again in regulation, and the Carp didn't even manage to get a hit. As the temperature dropped and the wind rose, I was begging them to finish it. And the home team complied, with one of their stars hitting a game-winning jack in the bottom of the 10th. Game over!

One highlight in between was the Carp version of the 7th inning stretch. At about the 6th, everyone around me starting blowing up these odd shaped balloons. I was intrigued. Then, as the stretch happened, the loudspeakers played a song with a kind of lulling grace to it. Simultaneously, the fans released their balloons into the air, untied, and they swam straight up, wiggling like...carp. Oh, I get it!!!

Finally, no discourse on Japanese baseball would be complete without an assessment of their concessions. In the Tokyo Dome, I had takoyaki (fried balls of octobpus). For the Carp, I tucked into a big bowl of rice topped with so much eel and a weird white goo. Luckily, there was a massive ball of wasabi to cover up the flavor of too much eel. For dessert (?) I had a deep fried octopus tentacle. I wish I had a picture of this folks, it was like 8 inches long and looked like a seahorse. Definitely weird, a bit poorly cooked, seems about right for ballpark food.

PS - Go Twins!!! At home in a new stadium, they are off to a great start last time I looked. Hometown hero and lifelong Twin Mauer will be MVP again, no doubt.

Chaya Mario: An izakaya tasting menu to put all others to shame

In what I hope to establish as the "What's That?" way, a recent dinner in Hiroshima was a bevy of questionmarks. Using the Get Hiroshima! website, I set out from my hotel with little more than a name (Chaya Mario), a map (with poor detail), and a poorly transcribed set of kanji (thanks Google Translate!). As I neared my destination, nothing was fitting the bill. This kanji had too many strokes, that one had too many kanji! After several fitful trips up and down the street, I scouted a 7-11 (everywhere here) and decided to ask for directions. And what directions they gave me! One of the cashiers took me outside and led me the two and a half blocks to the restaurant. Auspicious.

I entered the place and sat down at the counter. It was rustic and sparsely populated, though it was a weeknight. I opened the menu to another raft of kanji. I asked the waiter for an English menu and he delightfully replied "No English menu". Excellent! I saw a set meal in the menu for the reasonable price of 1680 yen. I pounced.

And thus began a journey through seven courses that I shan't soon forget.

Perhaps the standout of the meal, this appetizer presented a trapezoid of tofu topped with roe and in a light, viscous broth. The tofu, oh my god, the tofu. It had a hint of peanut butter to it and was creamy in texture. The pop and extreme saltiness of the roe served as perfect contrast. At this point, I knew I was in for a treat.

The second course was some fish carpaccio, in a light sesame oil drizzle. Pickled plums and scallions rounded out the garnishes. Light and fresh, if a bit too heavy on the sesame flavor.

My first salad in Japan! This had some simple lettuces, chicken, and a vinaigrette. Light and refreshing.

The first stumble. This visually appealing course had an odd flavor to it that I'm not sure how to describe. Earthy and old, perhaps? I think the large cylinder was daikon, not sure at all what is in the sauce (which could have been tasty in another dish).

The chef picked himself right back up and delivered an amazing pair of pork balls. Contrary to other land protein I've had in Japan so far, these were rich with pork juices. They were accented by a rich dipping sauce and balanced with a light cabbage salad.

In the running with the first course for best dish was this seafood stew. Filled with clams and with stewed fish, the broth had a grainess to it reminicint of grits, albeit heavily diluted ones. After each bite of this I just wanted more, until the bowl was nearly licked clean.

The meal closed with an assortment of traditional meal accompaniments. Miso soup with thick cut carrots and onions. Rice with large peas (that didn't ruin the rice!). And more pickled plums. The miso soup and the rice were hearty versions of each and a great match to the rest of the food and the surroundings.

I washed it all down with a couple of pints of Kirin and that was that! The duo of friends running the place, one as waiter and the other as cook, were chuckling the whole time and seemed to enjoy the restaurant business. I'm not sure if they were grateful or amused when this gringo tried his hand at a compliment: gochiso-sama deshita (according to Lonely Planet, "it was a real feast"). And a real feast it was!

"We must find a way to make our mutual pain a positive gift for the future"

One event has become so synonymous with Hiroshima that it can be hard to think of the place as anything else: the dropping of the first atomic bomb at the end of World War II. I went to Hiroshima partly to learn more about the bomb and what happened after - and what I found was fascinating. The city, as exemplified in the quote that is the subject of this post, has confronted that experience with a tremendous amount of grace and responded with the most forward-thinking outlook I could imagine.

The city has converted a large swath of land on a main island near the hypocenter of the explosion into a beautiful Peace Memorial Park. Around this park, several landmarks and monuments are presented. There is the A-Bomb Dome, a Czech-designed local products exhibition hall very close to the explosion that was hollowed out yet its frame and recognizable dome remained.

There is the Children's Peace Monument, a monument created by schoolchildren all across Japan. It remembers the story of a local 12 year old girl who died from leukemia contracted as a result of radiation exposure. After she was diagnosed, she pledged to fold 1,000 paper cranes to bring good luck to her and to forestall her death. The monument is in the shape of these cranes and many are received to this day from classrooms around the world.

There is a cenotaph and an Eternal Flame of Peace that remember those killed in the bombing. The Flame will not be extinguished until nuclear weapons no longer exist on the planet.

Most interesting was the Peace Memorial Museum. The exhibition presents Hiroshima before the war, the war itself, the day of the bombing, and the aftermath. Anyone who has been to the Holocaust Museum in DC knows what an overwhelming experience such a presentation can be. The parts that particularly fascinated me were the explanations of the "why" of the bombing and the city's long-term response.

The museum demonstrated incredible balance in its interpretation of the cuases of the war and of the bombing. Several times, it went into detail about Japanese aggression in the 30s and 40s. It also mentioned forced Korean and Chinese laborers in Hiroshima who were killed by the bomb several times.

The city has also adopted a forward thinking stance of peace promotion. The Mayor of Hiroshima sends a protest letter to the head of state each time a nuclear test is conducted. In addition, there was a peace clock that counted the days since the bombing and the days since the last nuclear test. Hiroshima has put itself at the vanguard of the nuclear anti-proliferation movement and managed to do so with a truthful look at the city's and the country's past contributions to war. Absolutely amazing.

(Footnote: seems timely too, what with this in the news: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/12/world/12nuke.html?sudsredirect=true.)

Sometimes simple is best

On my first day in Hiroshima, I awoke to steady drizzle of rain. With my trusty convenience-store-bought umbrella, I ventured out into this new city. I walked up, down, and around its pedestrian arcades. As I grew weary, I knew that I needed a nibble. Still bewildered by all the kanji and with only plastic food to guide me, I wandered into a storefront that looked pretty popular. Turns out it was for good reason: they had udon, and it was rich and delicious.

My particular variety was quite simple: udon, fresh leeks, and lightly fried tofu. It was also heartwarming and satisying. Somehow the fried tofu never got soggy, just a wonderful chewy. The broth was like homemade chicken soup, and the udon were plentiful and a tiny bit al dente. I cozied up to the counter, opened up my novel, and spent the better part of an hour savoring that bowl of soup.

As luck would have it, after a day of sight-seeing, I found myself venturing through the same streets, this time from the south and west. I saw some stairs up to what looked to be a little kitchen furnishings store. It opened up into a rustic second floor cafe, Cafe With Aida. All of their desserts were handcrafted and with so much apparent care. After much deliberation, I settled on a berry sandwich.

Oh man, was this a good berry sandwich. The bun was homemade, and both crunchy and chewy, with the essence of Paris inside. The berries were black and plentiful. And the white filling! A mix of yogurt and whipped cream that just oozed everywhere. Contented with this delightful sandwich and some chai tea, I again pulled out a book (this time my Japan travel guide) and frittered away the late afternoon satisfactorily.