Shiojiri from above / Eating in Japan

Snow-peaked mountains dominate the view, right outside my window. How exciting! From the first time I've seen them I could not wait to stand on top of them and look down into the valley, onto this lovely little town that shall be my home for the next year. Of course, I realize that they are probably further away, and taller than they seem to be, but yesterday the weather was so lovely that I decided to set out and reach the pine covered hills to the East.

On my walk I encountered quite a few surprising things. First of all, what I'd thought were village streets turned out to be country roads. Narrow as they are, there is no sidewalk, and barely a shoulder to walk on. But there are houses on both sides, with the occasional vinyard, or barren fields. I really felt like a Guliver, walking along a Lilliput highway, which was really not much wider than a driveway in America, or a European bicycle path. Unlike on either of those two, however, there was intense traffic going on. Just like on a road! Those little, compact Japanese vans (more appropriately mini-vans), mini-trucks, and mini-cars, are still formidable forces in spite of their size. Especially because they tend to use the side OTHER side of the road than what I've been used to. Needless to say, I didn't see any other pedestrians out there. They must have thought I was mad, or simply a gaijin (=foreigner), which counts as pretty much the same.

As I was reaching higher elevations, I looked back on Shiojiri, and realized that it was not as small as it looked from within. In fact, most of it is probably not even Shiojiri. There must be other villages too, all grown together on this narrow strip of farmable / buildable land between the mountains to the East, South and West. Only to the North, where there are no hills, could it stretch out, forming a large patchwork of houses and farms, like the ones I have passed on my way. That place is referred to as "the town of Matsumoto" by the locals, which is either a synonym for uncontrolled suburban sprawl, or simply the place to be, where you can get anything that's not availablein Shiojiri.

It took me about an hour to reach the border of the forest, which separates nature from culture like the sharp line between yin and yang. And just like in the ancient symbol, there were pieces of culture scattered here and there between the trees, just like there is always some greenery in the village. No, I would be wrong if I called these hills trashy. In fact, considering their proximity to civilization, the woods I walked through were about the cleanest I have ever seen. And the color of the pines, illuminated by the afternoon sun, just shined in the brightest of green. How wonderful. Above me some bird of prey swooped down, inspecting the nearby vinyards for food, below my feet dry leaves and pine needles promised an even fuller green, once Spring would start. What a beautiful place I'd come to.

I did not stay in the forest for too long, as hunger drove me back to town. I wanted to look for a supermarket to buy myself something to cook. There were all sorts of eateries along the way, but I wanted to make something for myself this time. The previous days I had experienced Japanese restaurants, ordering from the picture menus, and once going for the surprise of ordering from a menu without pictures. The food was pretty good each time, though I never got what I thought I was gonna get, be it from a picture or not. Once it was a dish of rice, with meat and green onion on top, and a raw egg to the side. I observed another customer emptying his egg into a small dish, mixing it up with his chopsticks, and pouring it over the meat, so I did the same. The other time I got a big bowl of noodles, which were cold. On the side I also got a bowl of hot soup. At that point I didn't care to act like the crazy gaijin that I probably looked like, and poured the hot soup over the cold noodles. Who knows, maybe that was the way to eat it. Anyay, it was pretty tasty!

But now I wanted to make something for myself that I knew was gonna be good, plus I felt bad about keeping an empty fridge running, so I decided to explore the supermarket. It was a shocking experience. Just like every superarket in the world, this one has everything under the sun. However, I soon had to realize that the key word is always selection. Bread, milk and cheese were available, though hard to locate, but their selection was so poor that I decided against getting any. Seriously, only a fool would go to Japan and eat bread with cheese! So I had to look for alternatives. What else is there? The produce section was the easiest to familiarize myself with. Between many exotic types of mushroom there were also better known things, such as tomatos, cabages, and onions. But when it came to the packaged stuff, I kinda lost it. Many many things, with bright, flashy, colorful labels, explaining the ingredients and reccomended use... but everything in Japanese!!! And here selection seems to be the top priority, as there were at least thirty different soy-sauces to choose from. And then other sauces, in many different colors, some runny, others more pasty, for different purposes. The rice and the noodle sections were just as plentifull. Not to mention the fish and sea-food section, or the sweets and crackers. I tried to look for some miso, but gave up due to a severe case of illiteracy.

So in the end I bought some rice, some veggies, some soy-sauce, some surprise sauce (which turned out to be rather hot, which wasn't bad), and a package of dried squid to much on as a snack. More importantly, however, I have decided to take some cooking lessons (along with grocery-shopping lessons). It would be a shame, after all, to live in Japan and not to be able to make some sushi, a miso-soup, or even that dish with the raw egg.