Food, Travel, Culture and more

Sitting around a Japanese dinning table, either in a traditional hotel, either in a modern restaurant, in an izakaya pub or, if you’re lucky enough, at a local’s home, or simply enjoying a bento lunch box at the close JR train station, you’ll have the chance to experience something unique!
Like an ukiyo-e painting, the table will be full of vivid colors, kawai (cute) designs (the concept of cuteness being so important in the life of modern Japanese!), challenging, not exaggerating, aromas and small, but enough, portions (a practical implementation of the “eat 80% of what you feel hungry” common say in Japan), that consist a clear, but yet abstract, synthesis, a true reflection of the Japanese soul!
Of course, one can easily observe (and taste) the love that the people of Japan have for fish, seafood, seaweeds and whatever sea product, a result of their country being a complex of islands, as well as for rice, soy, and tea, influences from China that can be traced centuries back, which have been developed into an independent culture, producing tastes like the internationally known terriyaki sauce and maki sushi rolls, or zen tea ceremonies.
Moreover, one can feel the close relation that Japanese people keep with their ancestors: the itadakimasu expression, which is required for starting a meal, is not just a bon appetite! It’s a grateful message to the spirits of the family ancestors for providing food once more.
Apart that, if you’re lucky enough to enter a Japanese kitchen, or if you simply enter a cook shop, you’ll see immediately the co-existence of tradition with modernity: cooking utensils, made out of common materials, such as wooden rice containers, sushi bamboo mats, ceramic tea cups, or copper sake warmers, carrying a history of centuries, are frequently used together with modern state-of-the art electrical rice cookers; this, however, is Japan: the old and the new, living in harmony!