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Bún DC is a brand new Vietnamese hole-in-the-wall at the corner of Harvard & Sherman. They have a few kinks to work out but overall they’re a solid addition to the neighborhood. The food is tasty, plentiful, and cheap.
I’m no arbiter of authenticity, so if they’re Doing Vietnamese Wrong don’t @ me.
Bún DC
2905 Sherman Ave
http://www.bunwdc.com
Cost: $18
Let me be clear – you don’t have to spend $18 here. The báhn mì cost $6 and are bigger than a Chipotle burrito. I just decided to branch out.
Bún DC is tiny. Converted from the first floor of a row house, the space was smaller than my living room. The dining area only had five 2-tops. Predicting that it would be fairly small, I thought it might be fun to do an unofficial restaurant takeover. I accomplished this with a whopping six people.
Drinks
No liquor license here. I got a salted lemonade – I’d never even heard of this, but it was recommended by somebody on Yelp. Like an actually tasty version of gatorade, this was sweet, tangy, salty, and incredibly refreshing on a day when I’d just walked a mile and a half uphill in DC’s 95% humidity. The citrus and salt reminded me of a margarita and I would have very much enjoyed this with a hit of tequila. They also have iced teas and coffee, and you can add boba if you like those squishy little eyeballs.
Food
I ordered clay pot rice with pork belly and black pepper. The bowl comes out screamingly hot and stays that way for at least 20 minutes, so if you’re an idiot like me be prepared to burn your mouth about 10 times on superheated rice. A smarter person would have been patient enough to let the rice cool a bit, but it was tasty and I couldn’t stop eating.
Pork ended up being an accidental theme – one friend got the pork báhn mì and another got the restaurant’s namesake pork bún, or vermicelli bowl. I also got the chance to try their shrimp roll and lemongrass tofu appetizers. The rolls were almost plain – pretty much just shrimp wrapped in spring roll pastry and deep fried – but still perfectly cooked. The tofu was crispy and delightful.
Flaws
There were a few areas that needed work. Please keep in mind that they have only been open a week, and I am confident that these things will improve as they iron out the kinks.
First, and easiest: they gotta get a shade for their big, west-facing window. There’s so little seating room they don’t have the option of leaving tables empty until the sun goes down, and I ended up sitting directly facing into the sun. An inexpensive half-blind would have kept me from being fully blind for most of the meal.
Second, and this was in large part our fault, they didn’t do a great job of bringing out the dishes in a coordinated way. We were seated at 3 tables and we all ordered separately so I fully realize we were making their lives difficult. And I’m not trying to hold them to 4-star standards. But one person didn’t get their clay pot rice until the rest of us were three quarters finished (the other half of that 2-top had her bún about 15 minutes earlier) and I had to ask a second time for my lemonade because it didn’t come out until I was halfway through my meal.
Even so, I strongly recommend you pay a visit. And if the dining area is fully packed – as it surely will be soon – they do takeout.
This one almost doesn’t count except for how I spent damn near $30 here.
Seylou Bakery & Mill
926 N St NW
http://www.seylou.com/
Cost: I honestly don’t remember the exact number but it was too goddamn much
So my first mistake was – as was so often the case – not reading the reviews. I went in, I ordered a coffee and a cookie, and I enjoyed them heartily. The coffee was coffee, ie: proof that god loves us, and the cookie was delightful. Seylou’s gimmick is that they don’t use refined wheat flours, only – and this is a technical term – the weird shit. House-ground whole wheat, oats, barley, etc. This cookie was straight off some 1960s commune with sorghum and agave nectar, but also it was genuinely delicious.
Unfortunately, then I dug out the review and realized I should have ordered the masala chai and slice of toast, because this place is known for its bread and I didn’t realize you could buy it by the slice. The whole loaves of bread did look amazing, but they’re upward of $10 each so, no. I’d also walked from Adams Morgan, via Columbia Heights and Georgia Ave so I was basically starving.
So obviously I got a slice of toast and a cup of chai. The masala chai was delightful; just enough spice with a subtle sweetness. The toast was excellent sourdough, generously buttered.
As tasty as it was, I can’t deny the price and limited selection is a barrier to me going back on a regular basis. But if I win that lottery, they’ll be a regular stop.
This restaurant bills itself as “authentic, not traditional*” and while I couldn’t vouch for their accuracy, it’s definitely delicious.
Espita Mezcaleria
1250 9th St NW
https://espitadc.com/
Cost: $150 for two
Espita Mezcaleria specializes in “elevated” Oaxacan cuisine, by which I mean expensive and made by white people. Fortunately for me, my mom was in town and it was her treat. (I picked up Julia’s Empanadas the previous night so clearly this was an even exchange.)
Drinks
Their focus is mezcal, and they carry a rotating selection of about a hundred different kinds. I’m not much for sipping it straight though, so I got two of their specialty mezcal cocktails. One was a margarita, with a chili-salt rim. The smoke of the mezcal was delightful next to the heat of the chili and neither was overwhelming. The second was fancier – or maybe just more complicated – combining various citrus with peach liquor for a delightful glass of summer. Mom stuck to the classic tequila margarita, which sadly didn’t come with the chili salt.
Food
The plates here are intended for sharing and come in a range of sizes and prices. You could easily make a light meal out of one salsa and one small plate.
We started with guacamole, which was fine but probably not worth $10, and the astounding salsa de marañón, made of cashews, charred onions, and pasilla peppers blended smooth. At only $3.50 it stole the whole show.
Next we got two small plates – the “fairytale” tacos with eggplant, corn salsa, and pepita crema. These were surprisingly good, considering I don’t usually like eggplant. I probably wouldn’t repeat them but I wasn’t displeased to be eating them. The second plate – huaraches de carne apache – was one of my favorites. However, please note it was fully raw beef. I loved it but my mom was not a fan. Credit to our excellent waiter – though the menu made it clear the dish was raw he also brought that to our attention. It was not a surprise, my mom just prefers her beef rare over tartare.
Finally we got one of the larger dishes, the tlayuda de arrachera. A very crisp, blue corn tortilla with salsa, cheese, and some type of slaw, topped with a perfectly seared sirloin. This was generously portioned for two to share.
While I didn’t expect it to be quite as expensive as it was – nor did I realize that literally none of the dishes applauded by the Post’s Tom Sietsema would still be available – I have no regrets. And it’s past time that DC had some high end Mexican food – one NOT run by José Andreas. Espita Mezcaleria’s rapidly changing but flawlessly executed menu does the trick.
*This definitely means “some white people went to Oaxaca and now they think they’re experts but don’t @ them when they do something weird.”
Weirdly, I was just walking past All Purpose in September and telling my mom how delicious it was when a completely random man stopped to say that their pizza was trash and I should go to Etto or Timber instead.
I’m sure those are both fine restaurants, but this Opinionated Stranger was wrong. All Purpose makes great pizza.
All Purpose Pizza
1250 9th St NW
I didn’t make a reservation for All Purpose, and that was stupid. This place is good sized but even on a weeknight it was jam-packed. We found a spot technically in the bar area – but more like squished between the bar and the hostess stand – that I do not believe was intended as a dining space. Fortunately they agreed to bring us pizzas there.
I went with two vegetarians, which was something of a tactical error because I didn’t want a veggie pie and that meant I couldn’t in good conscience demand a slice exchange. Still, my pizza was so good I’m not sure I could have given any of it away.
yes that’s pickled cauliflower
It’s been long enough (six months) that their menu has changed but the Duke #7 is still on the list – and for good reason. The ‘nudja (a loose, spicy Italian pork sausage) combined with a pickled pepper relish known as giardiniera makes a fantastic riff on the classic sausage’n’peppers. The cheese was generous and the spice level was perfect. I ate every bite and mourned its passing.
I can’t remember quite which pies my companions ordered – I have much less of a memory for food that I didn’t eat – but at the time they had multiple vegetarian options available including one that was heavy on the mushrooms if that’s your thing. They also have a make-your-own option if the specialty pies aren’t to your taste.
Unfortunately, a quick glance shows fewer vegetarian choices now. Their current menu has one mex-ish vegetarian pie (cotija, corn, cilantro, fresno chilis – somewhat confusingly named The Salem?? I assure you Massachusetts is not the place for Mexican food), and one with four cheeses, but the other six all have pork or anchovy. Hopefully they’ll mix things up going forward for those with dietary restrictions who want something more interesting than a cheese pizza.
Way back in 2011, Toki Underground was DC’s first ramen shop. That’s no longer the case, but Toki still holds its own against a host of more conveniently located ramenya in the northwest quadrant.
Toki Underground
1234 H Street NE
www.tokiunderground.com
Cost: $35
I’m not really a soup person. More often than not, the broth is underwhelming and the rest is overcooked to cardboard. Chicken noodle is the worst offender – mushy pasta and stringy chicken that manages to be simultaneously soggy and dry make this the world’s least appealing soup.
- I know this is anti-American. All of America is wrong; I alone am correct.
Ramen is one of my exceptions. Every component is prepared separately and only assembled mere seconds before you slurp it up, so nothing has a chance to overcook. And the focus on a rich and flavorful broth means every sip is worth having.
Of course, you do have to find a decent ramenya, which can still be tricky in … most of America. Fortunately for me, Toki Underground is more than decent. They keep things simple by offering only two broths – a rich tonkotsu (pork based) broth, and a vegan option. (why tho?) From there, you can get seven variations on a theme, with toppings including braised pork, fried chicken, onsen egg, and assorted vegetables.
The Drinks
Half of the team was doing dryuary, and it was a Tuesday, so I got a Japanese apple “sidra” – more of a soda than a cider, and nonalcoholic. Sweet but not cloying, and very apple-y.
They also use this in a gin based cocktail if you’d prefer to spend $14 instead of $4.
The Food
We ordered the fried chicken steamed buns to share. This was tasty, but should have been better – the fried chicken had spent a little too long in its sauce and it wasn’t as crispy as I hoped. It was also DIY – a plate of popcorn-chicken sized bits, 4 buns, and kewpie mayo and pickles to garnish.
The bun base seemed pretty mass market and bland.
From there I got the Abura Tsukemen – Toki’s version was the standard tonkotsu broth served in a separate bowl next to the warm noodles & stuff. (This is not a standard tsukemen, which would be a cold noodle with a warm dipping sauce, often served only in summertime. However it was delicious.) I personally enjoy the extra fun of dipping my noodles but if you don’t, get a regular ramen.
bright! colorful! delicious!
there’s an egg in that broth!
Finally, we split the chocolate chip cookies for dessert. As is becoming my standard, I managed to fuck this up – described on their menu as “served with red miso buttercream and milk” I interpreted “buttercream” as “ice cream” and had pictured something like a Chipwich full of miso ice cream.
I was so ready, you don’t even know.
Instead, we got three small cookies, a smear of “miso buttercream” (basically a frosting, of miso, butter, and sugar), and a little cup full of milk.
The cookies are baked to order, so expect them to take a solid 10-15 minutes to get to your table. As chocolate chip cookies go, they’re just all right – I’m a firm proponent of the classic Toll House recipe and these are cakier, which is not to my taste. Serving them fresh baked is a nice touch. The smear of “frosting” was pretty good, when combined with a dip in the milk. But partially because of my disappointment, and partially because this did not manage to be more than the sum of its parts, this one is skippable.
Because fried pork crackling, juicy chicken, and lots of avocado wasn’t enough, we made a quick stop for dessert.
Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams
1925 14th Street NW
https://jenis.com/14th-street/
Cost: $5.50 for a small
Maybe you didn’t know, but ice cream is my JAM. I throw myself ice cream social birthday parties, and if you think that means I buy four pints of Ben & Jerry’s and call it a day then THINK AGAIN. We’re talking seven or eight batches of the home-made good shit, M I N I M U M.
I have my own ice cream maker. And no, I don’t mean one of those chemical-filled bowls that you have to store in the freezer for 48 hours ahead of time. (I did have one of those, and I used it so much it broke and the mystery liquid inside leaked out.) I have the fancy one, with the built in compressor.
No waiting period between batches, no bulky bowl that takes up 1/3 of my freezer space.
So given the opportunity to hit up the new branch of Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams I couldn’t resist. And frankly, splendid is right.
Flavors Sampled:
Thank you @ our server who graciously handed out A LOT of samples while we dithered.
- The Matterhorn – wildflower honey ice cream with white chocolate and smoked almonds
- Gooey Butter Cake – cream cheese ice cream with vanilla cake crumbles and caramel ribbon
- Brown Butter Almond Brittle – vanilla ice cream with crumbles of almond brittle
- Pistachio & Honey
- Bangkok Peanut – peanutty, spicey, hint of curry
- Riesling Poached Pear sorbet
- Coconut & Cacao – vanilla coconut base with cacao nibs
I went with a split small – The Matterhorn and Pistachio & Honey – while my friend split the Gooey Butter Cake and the Brown Butter Almond Brittle. The Matterhorn is a classic flavor with some delightful touches – the smokey flavor of the almonds, the floral sweetness of the honey – taking it to new heights. The Pistachio & Honey was rich and nutty – more like pistachio-butter than the watery “green” flavor of a cheap supermarket version.
This ice cream is … amazing. The flavors are delicious and surprising without being so strange you don’t want a whole serving. On the contrary – I could have eaten a LOT more. It came with a complimentary waffle chip garnish that I was expecting to be basically styrofoam but was actually far more delicious than it had any right to be.
By which I mean, he showed up! At 9:30 when I said 9! He was so on time, it was exciting!
Then, he fixed the disposal in about thirty seconds. Apparently, I should have asked my dad about stuff that might need fixing, because it turns out there is a reset button on disposals! I DID NOT KNOW THIS. And there is a wrench thing, and you make sure the blades are turning and then you press the red reset button and then your disposal is fixed!
Miraculous.
Now, my landlord did ask me about a reset button, but it was in the context of my saying “and the test/reset button on the outlet didn’t fix anything, and neither did the circuit breaker!” and I told him that there was no reset button dedicated to the disposal. It turns out that there is, and it’s located on the bottom of the disposal itself, and I just didn’t know it was there.
Hopefully I won’t be charged for this visit.
I popped into a ‘net cafe in Sendai first thing, mostly just to kill some time before my hostel opened and I could stash my luggage there. Sendai had surprisingly few options on the websites, and the place I ended up staying was clearly run by an older Japanese couple and while it was a business, they hadn’t really modernized much. I couldn’t even book online – I called them and managed to reserve a room in mangled Japanese. It was lovely though, particularly because they were virtually empty: I’d paid for a multi-person room, but I was the only person in it. It was spacious, and the heater was very effective. (A bit confusing though. They like kerosene heaters here, and I’m always a bit twitchy about my Press Random Buttons method of turning them on – I worry that they’ll SPONTANEOUSLY EXPLODE! even though that is of course extremely improbable.)
I hit the hostel at about 9am, before dashing off to hit the sites of Sendai. I made a mistake here, however. Toyama has been quite warm – almost 70 degrees. Kyoto and Nara were warm too, and so was Tokyo. Nikko was a bit chilly, but only when it was windy. I assumed, foolishly, that Sendai would also be nice.
Sendai was not nice. Sendai was freezing. Far from the 70 of Toyama, Sendai couldn’t have been above 40, and the lighter jacket I was wearing was definitely not warm enough. If I stayed in the sun, it was just about okay. Still, I kept on – I hit a museum full of bronze statues of naked ladies and heads, which was interesting but I did eventually want to find the artist and take him aside and say “Okay, yes, the nude form is lovely but it is mildly creepy that you have made so many naked lady statues. Have you considered clothed models? Surely the folds of fabric would make a new and exciting challenge!” I went to the site of the old Sendai castle, but it’s not actually there anymore. There’s also a museum dedicated to the history of the city. They’re very fond of their noble family, the Dates, and in particular the head of the family, Masamune. (The unofficial symbol of Sendai appears to be an onigiri wearing Masamune’s samurai hat, which had a distinctive crescent moon emblem on the front. It’s very cute.)
The city museum had free English audio guides, which was splendid. I learned about some guy who went off to Europe to bring back missionaries from Rome, though his efforts were thwarted when the Japanese government decided – in the middle of his trip – that they weren’t interested in missionaries visiting, Thank You Very Much, and were instead interested in executing Christians. So that failed, though they had interesting artifacts from his trip including a portrait of the Pope, various prints of the Japanese nobleman who went from European sources, and a beautiful certificate from the Vatican granting the nobleman and Date Masamune Roman citizenship. There were wooden cannons that apparently fired clay cannonballs, the armor of various of the Date clan, some beautiful old obi worn by one of the ladies, possibly Masamune’s wife.
My feet were kind of killing me though. I’ve mostly been wearing my Fuji Boots, for the extremely practical reason of “they don’t fit in my bags” but I did bring along a pair of cheap ballet flats and I’d taken my stop at the hostel as an opportunity to change shoes. This was dumb though, as the ballet flats have virtually no support, and were therefore uncomfortable after about 3 hours of walking.
To be fair, most shoes are uncomfortable after three hours of walking. But the boots are of course built for hiking, so even when my feet are sore in them it is a different type of sore that is easier to keep walking through.
I’d walked back into town because I was starving and also because I wanted to rest my feet for a while, only to find that the restaurant I wanted was closed – it was that awkward, 3pm-ish time between lunch and dinner. But the restaurant came recommended, so I grabbed a sandwich and a coffee and sat for a while reading a book I bought in England about the spice trade. It’s not something I read straight through, obviously – I tend to pick it up and put it down haphazardly, though of course it’s full of interesting information. Japan is essentially unrepresented however, due to their general policy of isolationism.
Awesome Spice Fact: the Aztecs believed that chocolate was improved virility and stamina, and not just in the bedroom. Soldiers going off to battle would be given little packets of ground cocoa to carry with them, so that they could make ‘instant chocolate’ when they made camp.
After I finished my coffee and my sandwich, I went off to find the Zuihoden Mausoleum, which houses Masamune and his son and grandson and also some later, unimportant Date lords. I got a bit twisted around here – my map, which was generally quite good, made it look as though I could take one road and it would be shorter, but after walking that way for some time and noticing that the sidewalk sort of petered out and so did the shoulder, I stopped a Japanese lady who was going the opposite direction to check. She essentially told me no, you can’t get there from here, and led me to the right path. (I think she thought I was lost, but I didn’t have the Japanese to tell her that no, I wasn’t lost so much as confused about which road was a viable path. But she was very helpful.) As it turned out, there wasn’t much to see at the mausoleum at all. The building which housed Masamune was closed off from the public for no reason I could see, but I looked at the outside of the buildings that held his son and grandson. Still, for a goal that included a long hill with a nearly 40 degree incline, it was disappointing. I assume it would have been more awesome if I’d been able to see the star attraction.
By this time, the Indian restaurant was bound to be open again – walking everywhere is a grand way to kill time without spending money, though it’s a bit hard on the feet and problematic when the weather is cold. The Indian restaurant was delicious, though not nearly as spicy as I’d hoped – I ordered a dish listed as “very spicy,” but clearly they were working with Japanese standards rather than Indian standards. I was hoping for something a bit hotter, though they came by to check it wasn’t too hot.
I always expect things to be hotter than they are. Ever since I went to My Thai in Chicago and was taken seriously when I asked for my meal to be “very hot” – and wow, it was painfully delicious but I loved it, it was like a hot pad sitting in my belly when I went out into the cold Chicago weather – I have been consistently disappointed by the lack of fire in other dishes.
Anyhow, after a very tasty curry, I walked back to the hostel – and by now it was dark and damn cold and honestly, I could have used that spicy hot pad – and turned up the kerosene and took a much needed shower. After the last two nights in busses, I decided to call it an early night, and to get up the next morning for a trip to Matsushima.
Matsushima is supposed to be beautiful, and I suppose it probably is when it’s not cold and rainy. But there isn’t really that much to see – there’s a temple, which was, you know, fine, but I’ve seen kind of a lot of temples recently and between Nara and Nikko they were far more impressive than Matsushima had to offer. There was a tea house, that was cold. And there were some little islands that were indeed lovely, but rainy and wet.
Also, it turns out I’m allergic to aspirin! Who knew?
This is kind of a convoluted story – it starts a month ago, when I took some aspirin early in the morning and went back to sleep, only to wake up an hour later itching like crazy and worried that my futon had somehow been infested with bedbugs. I was flushed with little white blotches and when I couldn’t find any bugs I thought maybe I was having some sort of reaction to detergent – aspirin never even crossed my mind. It was actually kind of nervewracking – not only was I itchy, but when I got in the shower to see if that would help, the steam made me so dizzy I actually fell over. But that passed and I had work to go to and so I ate an English muffin and went to school and had no more symptoms. And then I was in Nagoya and I had a headache and I took some more aspririn, and about 40 minutes later I was itching again, and my wrists were flushed and covered in little white blotches. I was of course worried that I’d get dizzy and fall over again, but I just told my companion about it and was like “I might need to sit down, clearly I am allergic to something.”
I still wasn’t connecting it to the aspirin, because I was so sure I’d had aspirin before as a child, and surely somebody would have noticed.
But I didn’t get dizzy that time, I think because no sooner did we get to the temple with the festival than I immediately bought a delicious Beef On A Stick and then a baked potato and both were delicious.
But then I had more aspirin at Matsushima, and bam what do you know, I was itching again, and I thought Oh, fuck, three times is clearly not coincidence. Three times is proof. But I remembered that in Nagoya the effects were much less severe what with the fair food, and that the first time the symptoms didn’t come back after my English muffin, so I ate some rice crackers and did not get dizzy.
I can live with the itching, if I have to. I really am not interested in the “falling over” aspect, which fortunately has not been repeated. Having something to eat seems to be the key.
Still, it made my trip to Matsushima a lot less pleasant, and then it started to snow, and I decided that it was time to head back to Sendai and do something inside. I ended up wandering around Sendai Station, which has a lot of shops inside, and then walking around the covered shopping roads. I looked down the uncovered roads lined with trees that are in some way special, but frankly, the trees didn’t have any leaves and that made them a lot less special than they might otherwise have been. I decided that I have, in fact, seen quite a few trees and I probably didn’t need to see these ones from any closer.
I called it a bit of an early night again – I didn’t feel like going out to a club, and I’d actually covered most of Sendai on the day before. I stopped off at the ‘net cafe again, this time without my own laptop, and was reminded of exactly how painful the internet used to be back when it was hideous and slow and so were computers.
Interesting fact actually related to Japan: miso has been found to be very beneficial to victims of radiation poisoning, which the Japanese have of course extensive experience treating. As a result, in an extremely kind but also helpful gesture, the Japanese shipped approximately a bahillion tons of miso to the victims of the Chernobyl meltdown. But miso is sort of a weird substance, made of fermented soy beans (as is natto, but unlike natto, miso is not hideously vile) and no doubt the recipients of the generous gift had a reaction more in line with “what the hell? than genuine thanks. Hopefully the Japanese included some sort of instruction, or recipe suggestion at the very least.
In Tokyo, I stashed my luggage again before proceeding to turn myself around crazily on the subway system and waste, oh, nearly an hour and a half. Eventually, however, I managed to make my way to Nikko, which is a little city on the outskirts, full of temples and shrines and monkeys.
I didn’t actually see any monkeys. I think they’re a bit outside the city itself, in the rural onsen. I’m quite sad about that, though everybody tells me that monkeys are often quite aggressive and tend to leap at people and steal their things.
There’s a brilliant deal in Nikko that involves a combination ticket and that saves quite a lot of money. I was tremendously pleased by this. Almost everything is included. I saw the three gold-lacquered buddha figures – one of the 1,000 armed Kannon, one of a lesser known buddha named Amida Nyorai, and one of Kannon with a horse’s head. They were very shiny. And large, though not on the same scale as the Nara Daibutsu, of course.
The Tosho-gu, a famous shinto shrine, was particularly beautiful. All of the buildings were extensively carved, in high relief, with beings both real and mystical. There were some dodgily rendered elephants which looked nothing whatsoever like an elephant, as well as birds and fish and dragons galore. One building is carved with many monkeys, including one small panel with the three monkeys warning against evil. (Bizarre truth: somehow I associated those monkeys with Christianity, but apparently I was entirely off base there. I’m very puzzled about that.) There is also a famous carving of a sleeping cat, beloved for it’s realism. It’s nice, but ultimately it’s awfully small.
Sadly, my camera battery conked out quite early on this day. That’s the peril of night buses – not staying at a hostel means there’s no place to plug in and recharge.
Awesome Nikko Fact: the Japanese have a tendency to do bizarre and masochistic things in the name of good fortune, and Nikko has it’s own crazy tradition. Every year, on the 2nd of April, the wealthiest men are invited by the local priests to participate in a festival called the Nikko Torment. During this ceremony, the wealthy dress like samurai and the priests dress like mountain ascetics. The priests present the wealthy men with enormous bowls of rice – larger than my head by a substantial margin – and then force the wealthy men to eat every bite.
I headed back to Tokyo, and thought I’d have time to visit and onsen (I needed a shower so badly) and hit up a net cafe and then make it to Shinjuku to make my night bus. But transport in Tokyo always takes longer than I think it will – often double, sometimes triple – and I decided as I was on the subway that I didn’t have time for an onsen, and then I realized if I tried to tote all my bags to the ‘net cafe I wouldn’t have that much time to actually be there before I had to start walking back. So I found a plug in the station, and parked myself in front of it.
It was actually the only plug I saw anywhere, and I’m not entirely sure I was supposed to be using it. A station person dashing by shouted something at me – not angrily or rudely, just informatively, but he didn’t stop for clarification. I thought I heard something about “security” – but I decided that rather than unplugging or even moving I’d just put my computer away and read my book instead while my phone charged discreetly, and that I’d do something more if they cam back and actually spoke to me. I managed to improve the charges on almost everything before getting on another night bus for a long, uncomfortably cramped nap. But Sendai was the last stop on that train, so I didn’t have any similar problems with missing my stop.
Japan, like most of the world, has a thing about threes – three tallest mountains, three most famous hot springs – and at Nara, Kamakura, and Takaoka are Japan’s three largest Daibutsu. Daibutsu are enormous buddha figures, usually cast from multiple pieces of bronze. The daibutsu at Kamakura and Takaoka are exposed to the air, while the daibutsu at Nara is enclosed in a large building. But more on that later.
As might have been expected, everything took a little longer on the 21st than anticipated. I woke up late – precisely at 10, actually, when my Friendly Japanese Housewife rang my doorbell so that the gas man could shut off my gas and return my deposit. This was unfortunate mostly because it meant that I didn’t get a shower – I did wash my hair, but the water was almost painfully cold. Still, I got everything done with time to spare before she came back at three with the landlord company’s representative, who made sure everything was in order and cleaned and very generously didn’t mind when my friend spilled my flower arrangement sending water and petals all over my freshly cleaned floor.
Okay, the story behind that is that my schools both gave me flowers, but my only vase was about 5 inches tall, so I ended up taking them apart and making a new arrangement and the vase, which I made, was actually quite unsteady so I’d balanced it in a bowl. There were two, actually – one was just the Gabarra (??) daisies which didn’t fit into the other arrangement well. Anyway, I’d set aside a bunch of things to give my various friends here – one got her things the day before, and the other I’d asked to come over on Saturday before I left. She must have tried to carry too many things at once – and she definitely tried to carry the arrangement by the bowl, rather than the vase – and it tipped over and spilled everywhere.
Key point I missed mentioning – instead of just chucking the flowers out, which weren’t anywhere near dead because of course I’d only just gotten them about 2 days before, I’d decided to give them to my Friendly Japanese Housewife because she was extremely helpful and generous. After falling over, however, they weren’t anywhere near as nice looking. But I’m sure she made a successful arrangement herself once she got home.
Between everything, I didn’t get on the train for Kyoto until about 5 – I missed the 4 o’clock train, unfortunately – which meant I didn’t get to Kyoto until about 8:15. I foolishly misjudged the distance between Kyoto Station and Marutamachi-dori (I was thinking maybe a ten minute walk, but in reality it’s more like a 40 minute walk and longer with luggage) and then I got a bit twisted around trying to find the actual hostel, so I didn’t get there until about 10. (Maybe 9:45. I wasn’t walking the whole way, there was some Waiting For the Subway in there too.) Anyway, I had to call the hostel and ask them to please let me in, because the website said they stopped taking people at 9pm. Fortunately, that seemed to be a very loose rule – the man who answer the phone assured me he’d wait for me, and didn’t seem at all put out when I got there. He probably just gives such an early time on so that he doesn’t get people rolling in at 2am.
On the 22nd I got up and took my stuff to the station and skipped off to Nara. It’s about an hour away from Kyoto, and the ancient capital of Japan. There are scads of temples there, but the most important of course is Todai-ji, the Great Eastern Temple. Todai-ji has plenty of attractions – a beautiful gate with particularly fine carved guardians from the 13th century makes a splendid entrance way – but the main attraction is the Daibutsu and the hall that shelters it.
Nara’s Daibutsu is the largest in all Japan, cast in bronze, and gilded. Some of the gilding has come off – and it may not have been gilded in entirety – but there’s still quite a bit on there. The hall housing the buddha is the largest wooden structure in the world, and is still only about 2/3s the size of the original hall. There are a couple of other statues inside, though none so impressive as the Daibutsu.
Interesting fact of the 23rd: there is an enormous pillar behind the daibutsu with a hole in it, which I watched a young man squirm through fairly easily. Legend says that those who can pass through the hold are ensured enlightenment. I didn’t try. But the real interesting fact is as follows: the hole in the pillar is precisely the same size as one of the Daibutsu’s nostrils. Now you know!
Nara is full of deer. They were once considered sacred, but now they’re mostly considered hilarious and cute. (I have some pictures.) They pester people for food constantly, butting their heads gently at people’s behinds or poking their heads through people’s arms to blink up at them with wide, liquid eyes. In many places, there are vendors selling deer treats – and enough people buying the treats to keep the deer satisfied. However, I imagine that if this were not the case – or on colder days when fewer tourists are present – that people unfortunate enough to be carrying their own food have the dubious pleasure of being mugged by deer. Having been mugged personally by a swan, I know that this makes a hilarious story later but is rather unsettling in the moment. And I was only accosted by one swan – when I bought the deer treats like the gullible sucker I am, I was quickly surrounded by at least five deer.
That night, I hopped on the night bus for Tokyo.
Night busses in Japan are wretched. Or at least the ones operated by 123Bus are. It’s a bit like flying coach, except that conditions are even more cramped. I wouldn’t have thought that possible, but apparently it is. Japanese people are quite thin, and the seats are narrowed accordingly. I am not, really, that large, but I filled my seat precisely to the edges. There aren’t tray tables, so the seats are even closer together. There is approximately no foot room whatsoever. Fortunately for my sanity, I managed to curl up with my coat and sleep the entire time, and actually almost miss my stop at Shinjuku because I didn’t hear the driver announce it.
It’s hard, in Japan, because people never seem to announce just the information I need. They insist upon burying it in a full sentence, most of which I don’t understand, and which therefore gets a bit tuned out. I tune out a lot of things here, though I’m sure I used to do nearly as much of that in the States. It’s going to be absolutely crazy to be back though – here, everything in English is something that Requires Attention. Relearning which things I can ignore is going to be disorienting and strange.
Venture Forth: Taking Myself Out Edition 
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