弁当生活: a week in my bento life

Before I move on to last December's trip to Taiwan, here is an ode to my daily bento, and the occasional special bento.

Every day at my main school I eat a bento for lunch. In the main teachers' room there is a sign-up clipboard and a box for the 500 yen payment; around 10am one of the teachers calls up the bento shop and puts in our orders. Somewhere around noon a delivery person shows up and deposits the stack of bento on the counter right by the clipboard.

In the US, I often brought leftovers for lunch and heated them up in the microwave or the toaster oven, but my main school has neither of those, just a hot water kettle for tea and coffee. I went through a konbini-sandwich phase, and a cafeteria-bento phase, but got tired of those options pretty quickly.

The delivery bento has the advantage of convenience, relative affordability (really 450 yen because every ten orders earns you a free bento), and variety. No two days' bento are exactly the same. The various side dishes come in small portions, only a few bites each. I read somewhere that our tastebuds get tired quickly, and you only fully taste the first few bites of an item. In practice I've found this to be true. The daily bento has just the right amount of each dish to keep your tastebuds awake.

What's in this magical bento? Here is (a bit more than) a week's bento photo journal, plus yesterday's extra-special bento:

Day 1: Mapo tofu, fried fish with mustard sauce, grilled fishcake with teriyaki sauce, meatball in cream sauce. Preserved vegetable salad, nimono with carrot, konnyaku, lotus and fish cake.

Day 2: Omelette, preserved vegetable salad, pork stir-fry, igamenchi, eggplant, teriyaki pork, grilled mackerel. Shiso salad, spaghetti with scallions and basil. I confess that although I love mackerel, that little piece with the bones in, is beyond my ability at the moment...

Day 3: Potato salad, marinated vegetables, beef (!!!), steamed spinach, fried fish cake, chicken nugget; bbq eel, eggplant, pork in tomato sauce. The other teachers got very excited about the inclusion of beef, which is not typical.

Day 4: Marinated burdock, shiso and bacon, roasted chicken, sausage, tempura fish; cabbage roll, okra, glass noodle salad.

Day 5: Vegetable omelette, carrot kinpira, cheese-filled hamburg, egg roll, white bean and hijiki salad, tempura kabocha, wonton, steamed spinach, vegetables in sauce.

Day 6: Chicken leg, vegetable and konnyaku nimono, breaded fish, eggplant, mashed potato, teriyaki meatball, potato nugget, carrot kinpira, noodle salad.

Day 7: Potato salad, steamed vegetable and chicken, baked fish, asparagus wrapped in pork, teriyaki meatball, crab claw, root vegetable and hijiki salad, agedashi tofu.

Day 8: Agedashi tofu with pork, stir-fried onions and pork, mushrooms, sausage, breaded fish, cabbage roll; steamed root vegetables, daikon nimono.

Day 9: Special Bento Day 1 - fried chicken, tonkatsu, omelette, sausage, salted salmon, chicken vegetable roll, chicken tsukune, shrimp dumpling, tsukemono, yakisoba.

Day 10: Special Bento Day 2 - In a lovely bento box which I just realized might be rotated in the wrong direction. In honor of the teachers' all day entrance exam-grading extravaganza.

Day 10: Special Bento Day 2 - Chirashizushi, raw fish on rice. My first time eating actual raw shrimp, surprisingly soft.

Footnotes:
I didn't mention that each bento contains a portion of rice with black sesame seeds and a pickled plum, but I'm sure you can see that's true. I always ask for the smaller portion of rice, but I can never finish it. Each bento also has one little broccoli tree with a dab of mayonnaise on a bed of shredded cabbage, and some kind of tsukemono (pickled vegetable) tucked into the smallest cup.

Also included are a soy sauce packet, and a miso packet that is sometimes aka (red) miso, sometimes shiro (white) miso, and sometimes awase miso (a combination of red and white). I don't usually eat it because it's so salty.

On special occasions we get a little treat too- on Valentine's Day, the delivery included little individual packages of chocolate, which got even more enthusiastic response than the time there was a piece of beef... : )

Kanto Trip Part 3 - Osaka and Tokyo (November 2015)

Part 1 here
Part 2 here

Day 5: Transit to Tokyo, Gourmet Ramen with Friends, and Senso-ji at night

Beyond bargain value, hostels also have a kind of counterintuitive good point- they're usually just uncomfortable enough to incentivize you to get up early and get out into the place you're visiting. My hotel room on the 17th floor of the Sheraton had neither of those upsides, but it did have a fabulous view (see Part 2), a luxurious private bathroom, and a pillow-top mattress like sleeping in a cloud. Also free delivery of the Japan Times. Checkout was at 12 and I stayed until 11:45.

The most comfortable bed in Japan

I realized I hadn't gotten enough omiyage in Kyoto, so I changed my shinkansen ticket departure from Shin-Osaka to Kyoto Station, and took an earlier local train to Kyoto. From the local train I caught a glimpse of the tall buildings around Osaka Station and felt a pang of regret that I didn't at least walk around that area. Ahh, that pillow-top mattress.

Once I got to Tokyo, I checked into my hotel in Asakusa and met up with Roxy, who had taken an overnight bus from Osaka the night before. We went to Kojimachi, to the ramen shop Soranoiro, to meet up with my Tokyo friends Mina, Gaku and Natsuko, and to eat the unique vegan (!!!) ramen.

Vibrant and flavorful vegan ramen at Soranoiro

Re-uniting with friends for ramen ; )

After a relaxing and delicious meal, Roxy and I headed back to Asakusa just in time to catch the last ten minutes or so of the nighttime illuminations at Senso-ji, and then we headed off to our separate lodgings.

Kaminarimon Gate with Raijin and Fuujin (gods of thunder and wind)

The giant lantern (提灯, chouchin) at Kaminarimon Gate

Nakamise-dori shopping street, emptied for the night

Five-storied pagoda

Hozomon Gate and Skytree in the distance 

Senso-ji Main Hall (本堂, Hondou)

Day 6: Senso-ji, Skytree, Freshness Burger and Ekiben

Roxy took an early train back to Aomori while I stayed in Asakusa for some sightseeing. My hotel was really well-placed and convenient to seeing some of the more popular sights in the area.

I really liked my Asakusa hotel room- it had some neat decorator touches from the surrounding area, including a translucent print of the Skytree on the bathroom door, and the silhouette of the skyline on the window shade.

I went back to Senso-ji for the daytime experience. I couldn't find the pancake restaurant we had stumbled upon the night before, so I "settled" for the best melon pan in the world made fresh in front
of my eyes in a shop on the western edge of the temple grounds. I've had cold, day-old melon pan from the konbini and I'm not exactly a fan, but when it's fresh, it's warm, a little crisp on the outside, soft and steaming inside, and just really good.

The weather had been pretty chilly in Kyoto and Osaka, but it was warm enough in Tokyo to go without a jacket, and sunny enough to pull out the shades. I got another page filled in my stamp book, bought omamori for health, and decided against waiting in the long line to ring the bell and make my requests to Kannon. When I'm traveling solo I really hate getting in long lines unless there's a bowl of ramen at the other end...

Senso-ji in the daytime

Incense burning in front of Hozomon Gate

Line of visitors heading in to offer a prayer and a contribution

I wanted to make the most of my last few hours in Tokyo, so I took the train one stop from Asakusa Station to the Skytree. The situation in the ticketing hall was extremely confusing- instead of just buying a ticket to go up to the main level, there are multiple ticket windows, various queues of ticketholders wrapping around the outside of the building waiting for their timed entry, and just too many signs and options. In terms of wayfinding, I think there is an ocean of room for improvement...

In the end, I opted for the "foreign tourist" ticket, seemingly the most expensive ticket of all, only available to foreigners, and the fastest way to get to the viewing platform with only a 15-minute wait instead of a two- or three-hour wait. On principle, I dislike these kinds of special deals that aren't available to local residents... but I had a Shinkansen ticket for 3pm, and it was the easiest ticket window to find (just follow the other non-japanese visitors).

Heading towards Skytree

Looking back down at Asakusa, with Senso-ji in the middleground

Skytree shadow is like a giant sundial

Afterwards, I took the train back to Asakusa and had lunch at Freshness Burger. By chance I passed a store that sold taiko and taiko accessories, and managed to buy a special bag to hold my new taiko bachi (sticks). Then I headed to Tokyo Station to be early for the Shinkansen back to Aomori.

Freshness Burger, coleslaw, and a Sprite (or maybe 7up?)

Tokyo Station is massive and confusing, so I made sure to get there more than an hour ahead of my train. I got to the Shinkansen transfer zone easily enough, but couldn't find the gates for the Tohoku Shinkansen that goes to Aomori, only the ones for Tokaido line heading west towards Osaka. I stood in front of the station map and furrowed my brow. Momentarily I was approached by a very kind businessman in a suit with a rolling briefcase and a serious face. "Do you need help?" he asked. I explained that I needed to find the Tohoku Shinkansen, and he seemed surprised when I said I was heading to Aomori. He took me around the corner to where the Tohoku gates were hiding, and had a brief conversation with the station attendant on my behalf. Then he invited me downstairs to the shops for coffee and a chat about living and teaching in Japan, what Americans think about Asia, learning languages and other things. It was a really nice way to end my trip, and made me glad I was early.

Finally, I grabbed a grilled chicken ekiben (train station bento) before getting on the three-and-a-half-hour train. Ekiben are just one more reason why Shinkansen is the best travel method of all...

Yakitori Ekiben from Tokyo Station

More Information:

Senso-ji
Soranoiro (in Japanese)
Soranoiro (Review in a travel magazine)
Tokyo Skytree (Official Site)
Freshness Burger (Frivolous news story)
Ekiben (train station bento)