Food: Onigiri (Japan)

Photo: Googlesnatched Onigiri

Onigiri, (Kanji 御握り, Hiragana おにぎり), also known as Omusubi, are Japanese rice balls. They are relatively simple to make, especially once you get used to the basic techniques, but you can also buy surprisingly yummy Onigiri in any konbini (convenience store) in Japan.

Onigiri come in many different varieties. The most common shapes are the little triangles, shown in the picture, and disk-shaped Onigiri. Normally, Onigiri are made of plain, white, sticky rice, and have a single filling in the very center. The most popular fillings are Umeboshi (sour pickled plum) and salmon, although any reasonably dry and strong-flavoured ingredient works well... for example, I have made super-American breakfast Onigiri with sausage and egg. There are also Onigiri that have a topping of fish or ginger instead of a filling, and some Onigiri are formed from rice flavoured with sesame, katsuoboshi (fish flakes), or other traditional seasonings.

A little bit of dried seaweed is wrapped around the rice ball just prior to consumption. The idea of eating seaweed may be a little bit frightening to the uninitiated, but don't be afraid! The flavour of the seaweed is very mild - not even my pickiest friends object to it. The main purpose of wrapping Onigiri in seaweed is to allow you to hold it without getting your fingers too sticky. And, it has a delicious crunch!

Onigiri make great breakfasts and packed lunches. Laura and I started each day in Japan with a nice, filling rice ball or two! Onigiri are easy to eat on the go, although remember that in Japan it is considered rude to eat while walking.

Naantalin Aurinkoinen (Turku, Finland)

Naantalin Aurinkoinen is a small chain of cafes in Southwestern Finland, mainly Turku and it's suburb of Kaarina. The name means "the Sun of Naantali" -Aurinko means sun, and Naantali is a nearby town known for it's lovely sunshine, even spawning the local idiom "to smile like the sun of Naantali".

The cafe and bakery has a wide variety of goods, from fresh bread and the Finnish favourite 'new potatoes' to pizza, pasta, salad, hotwings, and panini sandwiches. The pastries looked the most tempting to me, though, and I picked the Mansikkajuhlawiener (strawberry pastry) because if you go to Finland in the summer you should eat strawberries at every opportunity.

Photo: Liisa's shot of my Mansikkajuhlawiener.
It was five times more delicious than it looks.

Photo: The storefront of the Kaarina branch I visited.
Looks sweet, doesn't it?

Their website is only in Finnish, but your mouth will water just looking at it: http://www.aurinkoinen.fi/fi/

No Google Map this time, because there are multiple locations. This page on the website shows all the addresses: http://www.aurinkoinen.fi/fi/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=62&Itemid=30

A View of Tokyo

We filled our arms with beer and juice and took the elevator to the top of Mayumi's building. Our tour book recommended several places for a good view of Tokyo - from where I was standing, this one was hard to beat.

We were shocked to be able to see Tokyo Tower (think: Japan's Eiffel Tower) from the little rooftop garden. Laura's sharp eyes also picked out two Ferris Wheels, and Rainbow Bridge, which Mayumi hadn't realized she could see before.

We tasted Japanese beer, saw the electric energy of Tokyo shining in the night, listened to the bugs hum and buzz in the bushes around us. And I wondered; those poor, lost bugs - how did they get here? How did we?

- Journal, 07/17/09

Photo: Tokyo by night, as seen from a rooftop in Toranomon.

Chokladkoppen (Stockholm, Sweden)

No matter the season, Stockholm's Chokladkoppen is delightful. Perfectly situated in the Stortorget square, the center of Gamla Stan, it neighbors the Nobel Museum and the Swedish Academy, and only the imposing Stock Exchange Building seperates it from the Cathedral and the Royal Palace.

Everything in Stockholm is expensive, so once you surrender yourself to that idea, Chokladkoppen, where you can put down about 14$ on a slice of cake or pie and a drink and call it a meal, is a bargain.

Photo: The guilty pleasure Liisa and I counted as a meal.

I've heard the cafe is a lovely, cozy place in the winter, where you can duck in out of the cold for bowls of cocoa and hot pie. Liisa and I visited in the summer, so we sat outside in the square with iced chocolate and white chocolate cheesecake and watched the world go by instead. Everything tasted creamy and fresh, and the orange slices added a bright, tangy note to both the flavour and the presentation.

The food is delicious, the atmosphere and the location are top notch, and you won't even have to go broke to experience it. I'll definitely be returning to Chokladkoppen during my next trip to Stockholm.

Photo: Chokladkoppen is the orange building in this
picture from Wikipedia's Stortorget article.

View Larger Map

Photo: Toxic Environment Cow (Costa Rica 2008)

Toxic Environment Cow

Where: San Jose, Costa Rica
When: Afternoon, June 5th 2008

During my visit to Costa Rica in June 2008, San Jose was holding a CowParade public art exhibit. Dozens of artists had decorated cows, placed throughout the city, in ways that were sometimes beautiful, sometimes hilarious, and sometimes expressed a poignant social or political message. We made it our mission to look for these cows wherever we went. This cow, with it's gas mask, green hooves, and carbon emissions statistics printed in green, warned passers-by against creating a toxic environment.

Photo: Buddhapada in Kamakura (Japan 2009)

Buddhapada in Kamakura

Where: Kamakura, Japan
When: Afternoon, July 16th 2009

I found this decorated stone in Kamakura's Hase-Kannon Temple. It is a stylized depiction of the footprints of Buddha. In early Buddhist art, it was considered taboo to directly depict a being as sacred as the Buddha, so they alluded to his presence by showing his footprints, called Buddhapada in Sanskrit.

These Buddhapada are covered with a variety of symbols. Look at the most prominent one, which looks like a sun or wheel. If it looks familiar to you, you may be thinking of the Flag of India, which has a similar design in the center. The wheel shown on both these footprints and the Indian flag is a dharmacakra, or a "wheel of law", and symbolizes the Buddha's path to enlightenment.

Japan's many sacred places are filled with items and objects that are often laden with symbolism. Knowing even a little bit about the many cultural traditions that make up Japan can add a lot to a trip through the country.

Late Night Okonomiyaki (Miyajima, Japan)

Miyajima shuts down quickly after the bulk of the tourists leave around 4 pm. The majority of those who spend the night on the island eat dinner in their ryokans or hotels, so when 6 o'clock rolled around, Laura and I found that nearly all the town's restaurants had already shuttered for the night. Luckily, the owner of our ryokan told us that a small Okonomiyaki restaurant a few doors down was open until 8.


I ordered yakiudon with shrimp and Laura ordered yakisoba with pork. As usual with okonomiyaki they put just about a whole head of cabbage in each of ours. It boiled down a lot, but there was still more food on our plates than we could possibly eat. It was good, too - the amount and flavour of the sauce was just right. This wasn't the best food we ate in Japan, but it was definitely a solid choice for a 'late night' meal.

Since the tiny okonomiyaki restaurant we ate at isn't shown on the map, the best thing to do would probably be to follow these directions to the Ryokan Kawaguchi, and follow the road it's located on a few storefronts north. If you're going there at night, it should be one of the only places open, so pretty much impossible to miss.


View Larger Map