Location: Osaka, Japan
For the first time I scheduled morning and evening tours booked thru Silversea. After visiting Osaka Castle and Sumiyoshi-taisha Shinto shrine I returned to the ship and changed clothes for dinner.
Tea
But first the ship was visited by a tea shop. There we were entertained by a koto player.
Essentially, she wears guitar picks on her fingers and plucks the strings.
I don’t know why I was surprised to see the koto music was not written in western musical text.
As she played, we enjoyed green tea, and then were introduced to an abbreviated version of the Tea Ceremony. So, the normally two-to-four-hour event was shown to us in five minutes. We world cruisers are an impatient bunch.
“Matcha“, the green tea used in the tea ceremony, is the only kind that is made by grinding the tea leaves into dust and then mixing the dry ingredients into hot water – other types of tea boil the leaves. The matcha has an ocean/seaweed taste – I enjoyed it, but don’t need to drink it every day. I clearly surprised the English-speaking host when I knew to turn the cup before drinking.
Teppanyaki
Afterwards eight of us were taken to Taiko-En, which has conference rooms, traditional tea houses, a walking garden and restaurants. We went to a private teppanyaki room. I love me some teppanyaki – I’ve eaten it in Hawaii, the Japanese pavilion in Disney World Epcot Center, Harrogate, England (where I lived for four years), and almost every city I’ve lived in. I was very much looking forward to this meal. The below picture is the room we used – we were there in the evening, but the view was still wonderful.
I knew that chopsticks (hashi) use chopstick rests (hashi-oki), but this is the first time I’ve seen rests supplied for western utensils. I did not need to use the fork with my meal, but thought it would be safe to have one. This was also the first time I’ve seen chopsticks with two pointy ends.
I am not a drinker (maybe one glass of wine a year), but in my past travels as I visited Japanese restaurants, I found that I enjoyed plum wine (umeshu). Yes, that is an actual green plum in the glass.
Below the chef is steaming the mushrooms on the grill. I have never seen that before.
We were served several different cuts of wagyu beef. I have never put better meat in my mouth. I don’t care if that sounded weird, it was amazing.
Dessert was a cranberry tart – not cooked on the grill. Since cranberries are not native in Japan, and many come from North America, this put a grin on my face after such a Japanese dinner.
After the meal we walked thru their gardens and other buildings. The facility has a shinto shrine and western church to support weddings and receptions. In their main building they had rooms where the lucky couple can change clothing. Below is a display.
On March 3rd the Japanese celebrate Hinamatsuri, a doll festival. They had a display in their lobby.
All in all, a wonderful evening. Tomorrow I start a field trip to Kyoto and will meet the ship in Tokyo in a few days.