Akashi and Ashiya

Last weekend, we visited one of S's colleagues and his family in Ashiya, a small city to our west. Ashiya is home to the Tanizaki Jun'ichiro Museum of Literature, which we had been wanting to visit (our friend was able to interpret, since the museum displays are in Japanese). We've both read The Makioka Sisters, which takes place in Ashiya (and features the great Ashiya flood of the 1930s), and I use one of Tanizaki's essays ("In Praise of Shadows") in my Asian Philosophy course. It was quite interesting to spend an afternoon thinking about Tanizaki's life and work, and to see a replica of one of his gardens and study.

It was also quite interesting (and fun) to visit our friend's family. J especially enjoyed the antics of the 2 and 4 year old kids, and it's always interesting to us to compare childrearing practices in the U.S. and Japan.

We had two notable meals while in the region. We went with our friends to Akashi, a famous fishing port, for lunch at a sushi place. Our friend had reserved a tatami room so the kids could play on the floor. Judging from the flavor and the proximity of the fish market we walked through on the way to the restaurant, the sashimi was quite fresh. In fact, some of the future sashimi was trying to escape from buckets at the market (as pictured below--check out the ebi (shrimp)), and when one fish seller was picking up an octopus as we walked by, there was a distinct "shwump" as the suckers were pulled away from the other octupi. Now that's fresh. We declined the tako (octopus), but did try some local eel.

We were guests of our friends for dinner, which was delightful. They cooked meat, tofu, fish (bought at the market as we walked through), and vegetables over a hibachi in their apartment, and we enjoyed warabi mochii for desert. The fish was "tai," which is sea bream--an Osaka Bay delicacy noted in The Makioka Sisters.