This afternoon, my son and I arrived in Tokyo for a three-week research trip and celebration (my son graduated from university this week, with a degree in Japanese language). First stop, the hotel in Shinjuku: and shortly thereafter, dinner at Lotteria! (Some people might find it ironic that my first meal in Japan was not “Japanese food” – but I counter that with the fact that Lotteria is a Japanese burger chain and, therefore, qualifies as Japanese food.) After dinner, we made a quick stop at a convenience store for Japanese coffee-in-a-can, which I love and miss when I’m not here. (If you
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To Kyoto By Shinkansen
We arrived at Tokyo-Haneda airport at 10:30pm on June 6 and spent the night at the Royal Park Hotel, which is conveniently attached to Haneda airport’s international arrival terminal–about a five-minute walk from the customs windows. You can’t see much of Tokyo’s skyline from the hotel, but that didn’t matter. Any view would have been exciting, because it meant I had reached Japan. Matcha is a finely ground powder made from the leaves of shade-grown, high quality tea. Unlike most tea, matcha isn’t steeped and removed, it’s whisked directly into the water, where it forms a suspension. Matcha is an extremely popular flavor
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