Sylvia's Scenario

During our trip to Japan, we spent one day sightseeing in Kamakura that was once the ancient Capitol of Japan from 1185 to 1333.  There are many beautiful temples in Kamakura and it's a place that is always worth visiting when in Japan.  This is also where the giant Buddha is located called Daibutsu.  We visited Daibutsu in 2014.     Kamakura has a historic railway called the Enoshima Electric Railway or Enoden line that looks like a streetcar which dates clear back to 1902.  It is fun to ride and takes you to many of the sightseeing stops.  Kamakura is also right along the coast making for beautiful scenery.  It is about an hour train ride from Tokyo so it's similar distance as Nick's home town of Yokosuka.  Lots of people come from Tokyo to Kamakura on the weekends for the beach and it's laid-back, earthy vibe, organic restaurants and cafes, and lots of unique shopping.  We always enjoy...

There are no Mexican restaurants in Japan so when Nick needs a Mexican food fix, he'll have one of his favorites:  Taco Rice.  They offer this dish at some restaurants in Japan and Nick ordered it for lunch when we went to one his favorite places he likes to go to during work, called One Shot.    It's a lot like a taco salad only there is a layer of rice on top of the salad greens, then the taco meat and then cheese. (Notice that it's mostly salad) I like that the rice adds another dimension to the otherwise typical taco salad.   At home, Nick layered it differently with the rice on the bottom, then the meat mixture and cheese  and then we added our salad fixings.  Nick's version of Taco Rice is more the Western style - lots of meat and carbs and less salad. LOL   We did find some salsa in the grocery store in a little jar, similar to a small mustard jar.  Then we added some tomatoes and avocado.  (We loo...

Nick has been living in Japan now for five years full time and he feels that he has gotten to be a pretty good judge of ramen. We visited a ramen place near his house that he believes is one of the best ramen places around. I blogged about ramen during our first visit to Japan - here .  It's one of my favorite foods in Japan.  But there are so many kinds of ramen.  It did not originate in Japan but in China.  How it arrived in Japan is sort of a mystery but somehow between the 17th and 20th centuries, it ended up in Japan.  In 1910, a restaurant opened in Tokyo called Rai-Rai Ken by a customs agent who'd worked in Yokohama's Chinatown. He served what was then known as "shina soba": shina for China, soba for the noddle dish that was already well established in Japanese cuisine.  It caught on with the blue-collar workers because it was cheap and filling.  Today, eighty percent of ramen shops are small businesses with ramen chefs who are proud of th...