October 23 to November 19, 2022 — Existential Autotrip

Saturday Post, November 19, 2022
Number 1581

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Lead Picture*
Assisi, birthplace of St. Francis

Assisi is the birthplace of St. Francis who founded the Franciscan order of priests and monks, and St. Clare who with St. Francis, founded the Poor Sisters, which became the Order of Poor Clares after her death.

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This Week’s Pictures:
Continuing the theme of the last several postings, we present more pictures from Japan.

Photo: Dom at Mt Fuji The size of the mountain and the symbolic place it holds in Japan strikes our spiritual core, much as the birthplace of St. Francis in Assisi. We interacted with this natural behemoth by descending into two of its caves and enjoying a park created on its side, including, of course, snacks.

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Commentary
One recent morning, while I was eating dinner at home in Boston, the richness of my meals struck me. In the few days since I returned from Japan my meals have included fresh organic turkey, thick pork chops, a roast duck, fresh cod, and a dry-aged steak.

I watched a series of YouTube videos in preparation for my trip to Japan. One thread was entitled “A day in the life of…” a Japanese waitress, a Japanese office worker, restaurant owner, etc. The underlying commonality of the shows is the long hours and the financial and other sacrifices they each make.

So what gives me the right to eat as richly as I do? Travel across the world to eat even better? Begin to plan a trip to Tuscany? The good fortune of birth in the United States of America. No morality. No dessert. Luck.

What to do. You know, deserved or not, I’m not going to forego my elevated position. My rationale is that my wealth is a drop in the bucket. To affect the entire world, we must bring our nationhood to bear down on the problems.

The recent election was a significant step in moving our country that direction, a resounding endorsement of President J Biden’s stout defense of democracy and his long-overdue baby-step in the cause of a redistribution of wealth. The election is cause for joy and relief, a vindication of noble sentiments but just the beginning of a decades-long quest to bring basic necessities to every corner of the world.

Tokyo Skytree is a broadcasting and observation tower in Sumida, Tokyo. It became the tallest structure in Japan in 2010[3] and reached its full height of 634 meters (2,080 ft) in March 2011, making it the tallest tower in the world, displacing the Canton Tower, and the third tallest structure in the world after the Merdeka 118 (678.9 m or 2,227 ft) and the Burj Khalifa (829.8 m or 2,722 ft). It is also the tallest freestanding structure in the OECD, the G20 and G7 countries.

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Dr. Mike shares:

Will COVID surge in Greater Boston this winter? We asked the experts.
AP

It’s hard to predict whether there will be another COVID-19 surge this winter, Biddinger said. “Obviously, we’ve had substantial surges of COVID in each of the last two winters and the previous winter in particular, because omicron was so transmissible and infected so many people,” he said. Tufts Medical Center’s Dr. Shira Doron echoed Biddinger’s uncertainty, noting: “It’s simply impossible to predict what will come next with this virus.” The infectious disease physician and hospital epidemiologist cited vaccinations, variants, timing, and population health and age as factors.

Photo: Grapes on Mt Fuji. Yes, they really are grapes. Two of us could be satiated splitting a single one.

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Chuckles and Thoughts
“In the words of a very famous dead person, 'A nation that does not know its history is doomed to do poorly on the Scholastic Aptitude Test.”
~ Dave Barry, Dave Barry Slept Here: A Sort of History of the United States

All pilgrims hope to gain in spirituality with visits to this awe-inspiring creation.

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Family Zoom
We love getting mail, email, or texts.
Or Zoom events.

Our family, three sons and a daughter, scattered across the country, came together for an hour’s zoom this past Sunday. It was a fun catch up. My son Dom and daughter Kat will likely be joining me on my 2023 trip to Tuscany. My granddaughter, Francesca McDonnell Capossela, is achieving success in her efforts as a writer. The hour flew by and we are scheduling another Zoom for early February.

We also received a bunch of messages and responses from the fifteen tour attendees at our recent trip to Japan.
The messages were universally filled with the joy from the trip and praise for the tour directors and aides who smoothed the way, ironing out the dozen or so wrinkles that greeted every morning.

Blog meister responds: So much fun listening to the voices of our fellow-travelers. The emails brough back the sounds and smiles of each of our new-found friends.

By the way, if anyone is interested in either joining me or just getting ideas for their own trip, just email me and I’m happy to share.

Photo: Roller Coaster on Mt Fuji. I did not indulge.

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Short Essay

We’ll land in Rome, pick up our rental car, and drive two hours to Assisi. After checking into our hotel, our only Bucket List stop is at The Basilica of Saint Francis of Assisi, the mother church of the Roman Catholic Order of Friars Minor Conventual. It is a Papal minor basilica and one of the most important places of Christian pilgrimage in Italy. With its accompanying friary, Sacro Convento, the basilica is a distinctive landmark to those approaching Assisi. It has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2000.

The basilica, which was begun in 1228, is built into the side of a hill and comprises two churches (known as the Upper Church and the Lower Church) and a crypt, where the remains of the saint are interred. The interior of the Upper Church is an important early example of the Gothic style in Italy. The Upper and Lower Churches are decorated with frescoes by numerous late medieval painters from the Roman and Tuscan schools, and include works by Cimabue, Giotto, Simone Martini, Pietro Lorenzetti and possibly Pietro Cavallini. The range and quality of the works give the basilica a unique importance in demonstrating the outstanding development of Italian art of this period, especially if compared with the rest of Christian Europe.

Photo: Assisi Basilica San Francesco,
Berthold Werner - Own work

The Upper and Lower Churches are decorated with frescoes by numerous late medieval painters from the Roman and Tuscan schools, and include works by Cimabue, Giotto, Simone Martini, Pietro Lorenzetti and possibly Pietro Cavallini. The range and quality of the works give the basilica a unique importance in demonstrating the outstanding development of Italian art of this period, especially if compared with the rest of Christian Europe.

* The Blog Meister selects the topics for the Lead Picture and the Short Essay and then leans heavily or exclusively on Wikipedia to provide the content. The Blog Meister usually edits the entries.
**Pictures with Captions from our community are photos sent in by our blog followers. Feel free to send in yours to domcapossela@hotmail.com

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Saturday Post, November 12, 2022
Number 1580

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Lead Picture*
The Banshees of Inisherin

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This Week’s Pictures:
Continuing the theme of the last several postings, we present more pictures from Japan.

Japanese children added life to every destination we visited.

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Commentary
Why I enjoyed (or didn’t) being part of a tour group.

1. Someone else makes the itinerary.
That’s a burden taken off us. Especially when dealing with all the places that require ticketing. A point for tours. At least one.

But wait. Someone else makes the itinerary? It’s not us, i.e. it’s not us. Sometimes, for our taste, the tour spends too much time at a site; sometimes too little time. The planned tour leaves out some things out we’d like to see and includes things we might not pick ourselves. We compromise.
For example, on my tour we spent a day in Hiroshima centered around the Hiroshima Peace Museum. It’s a great museum, especially for a younger person without decades of exposure to the horrors of war, let alone nuclear war.

Perhaps for us more experienced adults, we don’t need to spend an entire day on the horrors of war; on man’s inhumanity to man. Especially at a museum as graphic and rich as the Peace Museum which requires total immersion in devastation, radiation, cries of the soul, living life, bearing the unbearable, video testimonies, the dangers of nuclear weapons, and creating a peaceful world. All important, of course, but been there…A point against.

2. Fellow Tourists

A point for the tour. What fun. So many companions to hang with, new friendships to form. So many to joke with, eat with, walk with. So great a sense of belonging. So many are kind. A point for.

But also irritating, needy, dilatory. A point against.

3. Ambitious

Tours cram in many destinations. Some are exciting. Very. Even too. For sheer efficiency of touching bases, you can’t beat a well-planned tour. A point for.

But in the tour’s drive to give its participants an amazing checklist, often leads to too many hotels, too much packing and unpacking. Our tour fell into this trap. Moving us into five hotels in twelve days. Very nice hotels but nonetheless a point against.

4. Meals are provided.

On the days the tour arranges dinners we have no planning to do. No reservations to be made. And, in the better groups, as was ours, dinners are always decent. And in our group, on the free nights, the tour director was always at hand organizing a group to eat together at a favorite local restaurant and a better one at that. A point for.

Meals with the tour group were always decent.
Not wonderful.
In our tour, I broke off and ate in the greatest restaurants in Japan, the match for any other country. Admittedly, these restaurants were quite expensive, about $250.00 a person compared to $45.00 for dinner with the group. Since great food was one of the two most important draws to Japan, I fully expected the price and budgeted for that. Point is: if food is important to us, dinners are a point against tours.

5. Tour Group Only

Tours obviously move in groups. We don’t invite anyone to join in. The tour is safe, disciplined, and efficient. A point for.

For these advantages, we become antiseptic, having little or no significant contact with residents.
And that’s a great loss.

My best single experience was getting lost on my way to dinner at a wonderful restaurant. I was alone. It was 6.30pm, dark, and time for all good Japanese to be home eating dinner. I stopped a man emerging from a food market, ostensibly on his way home to dinner. He didn’t speak English but called across the street to his daughter, she carrying a nine-month child and holding the hand of a five-year-old, the three talking with four others. The entire group, spotting the white stranger, crossed over to us. The young woman was fluent in English. Instead of giving me directions, the entire group walked me ten minutes out of their way to take me to my destination restaurant. We had a great conversation.

Next morning we met again at the hotel’s breakfast. They were guests of the same hotel. Their family and our tour group had a very happy fifteen minutes laughing and bowing. What a fine moment.
That is ongoing: we’ve exchanged six emails. A point against tours.

The Café scene in Japan is poor. Starbuck’s light years ahead of its competition. Except for the Ferrari dealership. We walked into the showroom [the cars are magnificent] and went up to the second floor to patronize their small but totally elegant cafe. We ordered three latte. [One for each of us.] Then we posed for a headshot. After each coffee was brewed the staff lifted it to a camera which then posted the headshot onto the milk foam.
It was a hoot.
The coffee was poor.

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Dr. Mike shares:

Baker urges big shift in health care payment models

SHNS

Job vacancies loom as one of the most significant challenges, Baker said. He warned that a depleted workforce could spill over into slowing the "throughput" of patients from one provider to another. That creates both "real cost consequences" for patients as well as "pretty severe" financial challenges for providers, who as a result need to carry patients longer than expected while still getting paid a fixed amount, the governor said. "You shouldn't just think about the staffing issue as a challenge for each particular part of our system," Baker told the HPC. "That's real, but you should also think about what it means (for) the system's ability to behave as a system when they end up in a situation like this."

Greater Tokyo contains 37,000,000 million people who make the city vibrant. All visitors are hungry. To satisfy them, thousands of excellent tiny restaurants provide delicious, inexpensive pleasure.

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Wellness

I’m back on melatonin, 8mg per night. So far so good. Monday night I got near seven hours sleep, an amazing event for me.

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Ageing

When I complained that a group of seventy-year-old women were able to keep up with our tour as well as I did, I, who lifts weights and walks at least six miles a day and carefully watches his diet, a veritable superman, Dr. Mike advised that between seventy and eighty years old, me being eighty, there is a terrific drop off in physical ability and their performance is not unusual. He advises that people in their sixties should be fulfilling lifelong dreams. Enjoy yourself, it’s later than you think.

Grab and Go restaurants proliferate by the thousands. They are fun, varied, popular, inexpensive, colorful.

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Social Life
My social calendar is healthy and robust through early December when I will have in person visits from three of my children, and a zoom meet-up with my fourth. But, as happened last year, the following three weeks, past New Year’s Day, are very quiet for me. I am preparing myself for the meditative opportunities.

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Chuckles and Thoughts
“Perhaps you are thinking: 'But a tank costs several million dollars, not including floor mats. I don't have that kind of money.'

Don't be silly. You're a consumer, right? You have credit cards, right?

Perhaps you are thinking: 'Yes, but how am I going to pay the credit-card company?'

Don't be silly. You have a tank, right?”

~Dave Barry

Grill and go restaurants are very popular in Japan.

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Mail and other Conversation
We love getting mail, email, or texts.

Send comments to domcapossela@hotmail.com
or text to 617.852.7192

This from our brilliant movie critic Tucker J:

I saw a really lovely movie over the weekend Dom!

It’s been a while since I wrote something so it felt good to put finger to keyboard for something so good!

Blog meister responds: The Banshees of Inisherin. Delighted! Both for the review (found in Short Essay below) and something to anticipate going out to see.

And from Tommy D:

My Favorite Photo (referring to the Japanese family that walked me to my destination to both spend a little time together and ensure I didn’t get lost.)

I reprint that photo for Tommy’s sake.
Thank you, Tommy.

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Short Essay

How painful would it be to learn that your best friend has decided, with no apparent provocation, that he wants nothing to do with you anymore? It's a nightmare realization of the supposedly irrational fear that your loved ones might stop loving you if they really thought about it hard enough. Colin Farrell, the star of this story, conveys the agony of that moment with startling clarity, realization passing over his normally sunny features like a dark cloud.

Once upon a time, Hollywood looked at Colin Farrell’s good looks and saw only the future biggest star in the world, the next Brad Pitt. Now comfortably in his 40s, Farrell has accepted his fate to become a great actor instead, and his leading-man handsomeness—barely burnished with age—has proven no impediment to getting in touch with his inner fecklessness. Yorgos Lanthimos’ The Lobster stands as the most thorough sidelining of his charisma. But let's spare a word of thanks for his countryman, the playwright-turned-filmmaker Martin McDonagh, maybe the first to really unleash a comically forlorn quality in Farrell by casting him as the regret-choked hitman of In Bruges.

Remarkably, Farrell is even funnier in McDonagh's new movie, The Banshees of Inisherin—and even sadder. He plays Pádraic, the most blissfully ignorant resident of a fictional, deceptively idyllic island off the west coast of Ireland, circa the early 1920s. "A limited man," is how one character describes him. Another goes with "One of life's good guys"—a backhanded compliment meant to celebrate his geniality while acknowledging the simpleness he exudes with every breath. First seen widely grinning as he strides into town, not a care in the world, Pádraic is the picture of unburdened, incurious contentment, and though his interior life is plainly a shallow pool, Farrell mines it for deep wellsprings of humor.

Every day at 2 p.m., Pádraic grabs a pint with his best friend in the world, Colm, played by Farrell's In Bruges costar Brendan Gleeson. But as the film opens, something is amiss. Colm won't come to the door. And when Pádraic later finds him alone at the pub where they've convened for years, maybe for most of their lives, Colm insists that his nearest and dearest pal sit somewhere else and not speak to him. Has Pádraic offended him somehow? No, it's deeper and more serious than that. Pressed for an explanation, Colm finally offers one: "I just don't like you anymore."

This is not a mystery about what came between these true blues. Initially inscrutable in his sudden hostility, Colm soon clarifies. His rejection of Pádraic is both personal and existential: He wants more out of life than what his amiable but dim friend has to offer. He hasn't that much time left, and he plans to spend it in pursuit of intellectual reward—making music, not endlessly shooting the shit over beers. When Colm looks at his life, he sees wasted days and missed opportunities, all of them linked to a friendship he's suddenly outgrown. Gleeson, so paternally warm in In Bruges, finds a certain logic in this change of heart without softening its emotional brutality. We can understand, on some level, his harsh decision.

But Pádraic can't. And that's the dramatic and comedic engine of The Banshees of Inisherin, in which the unstoppable force of his stubborn, hurt confusion and refusal to accept this platonic breakup collides with the unmovable object of how completely Colm has made up his mind… and the extreme lengths he's willing to go to make himself understood on the matter. To say that the situation escalates would be an understatement, and probably a given, considering who's behind the camera and the keyboard. McDonagh loves pigheaded conflict, the wringing of laughs and pathos from two characters racing towards each other at full speed. That was the driving force of his last movie, the divisive Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. Here, he's traded an archetypal depiction of the American heartland for a microcosmic vision of his homeland, but the ideological cantankerousness remains intact.

With its rolling green landscapes, at once welcoming and foreboding, Banshees is the writer-director's most visually striking movie yet. But his roots in stage drama are apparent still in the way he's reduced the world of this small island to an even more condensed ensemble. Besides Pádraic and Colm, there is Dominic, an impulsive rapscallion brilliantly played by Farrell's Killing of a Sacred Deer scene partner Barry Keoghan. At first, he seems even more the town fool than Pádraic, but McDonagh gradually reframes his buffoonery as the words and actions of a damaged young man, caught in the grip of his abusive policeman father (Gary Lydon). And watching from the sideline of the disagreement is Pádraic's sister Siobhán (a hilariously exasperated Kerry Condon), whose own weariness with the tedium and insular resentments of her island community comes to look like another version of Colm's soul sickness, the "despair" he laments in the confession booth, and which has spurred his drastic choices.

There's a larger allegory here, pertaining to McDonagh's chosen setting. Just beyond the boundaries of Inisherin, Ireland has erupted into a larger conflict—the civil war turning brother against brother, detectable to those on the island only via periodic updates from the mainland and the distant flash of gun- and cannon fire. Are Pádraic and Colm, lifelong companions in danger of being destroyed by what's come between them, stand-ins for the opposing factions of their country? Scholars of national history might balk at the film's simplifications on that front. The Banshees of Inisherin is perhaps more satisfying as a symbolic war of worldviews: happy complacency versus informed dread, the value of kindness versus the virtue of creation, enjoying the moment versus leaving a mark.

You don't need to key into any of that to appreciate the strange alchemy of McDonagh's scenario, though. Banshees is often laugh-out-loud funny in its heavily brogued verbal sparring—maybe the fineset example yet of the filmmaker's talent for antagonistic tête-à-tête and humor steeped in regional peculiarities of personality. It's also a deeply melancholy picture about the way dissatisfaction, the anxiety of recognizing the emptiness of a supposedly comfortable life, can creep up on you, with Pádraic and his carefree ways the casualty of another man staving off those feelings. Toeing the line between the hilarity and the heartbreak is Farrell, who offers an indelible portrait of dunderheaded innocence, then steadily dims its glow. The word "tragicomic" was coined for performances, and movies, like these.

The Japanese love to dress, both fashionably and in costume. Many celebration days provide opportunity. Here, the family is celebrating a holiday that celebrates children reaching their third and seventh years of age. Stems from a time of high mortality among children.

**Pictures with Captions from our community are photos sent in by our blog followers. Feel free to send in yours to domcapossela@hotmail.com

End of post.
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Saturday Post, November 5, 2022
Number 1579

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First Picture*
Peking Duck at Tousenakaku

An extraordinary Chinese restaurant in Tokyo.
To say this was the best Chinese meal in my life would be a classic case of damning with faint praise.
How I wish they had served six of these rolls instead of the miserly single one.

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Commentary
Just before I left on the trip to Japan, my son urged me to be occasionally extravagant.

And, to a limited degree, I was. Twice.

Our group of fifteen was almost evenly divided between an over-seventy group and a younger group. On the night of our farewell dinner, I treated the elderly group to a before-dinner drink at the bar on the top of the hotel, the 30th floor. They were very grateful.

The second extravagance was lavished on our tour director. Massa was amazing, handling every wish or need of everyone on the tour. But in particular, helping me. We spent most days side by side. He called every restaurant I had booked months before to confirm my reservation and to get directions from our hotel. At the hotel, he arranged with the concierge to call me a taxi at the appointed time. He researched every restaurant and congratulated me on their excellence.

In the last instant of great restaurants, he booked a reservation at a phenomenal Chinese restaurant that was featuring Shanghai Crab, only available in October. His mouth was watering as he reviewed the banquet menu. His expression when I directed him to book the table for two, and told him he was to be my guest, was well worth the $500.00 the dinner for the two of us cost. An extravagance that brought me great joy.

Kawaii permeates Japan, from Hello Kitty, to anime and manga, from K-pop to the edgy, near pornographic Japanese idols.

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Dr. Mike shares:

Children’s winter viruses strike early, filling ICUs
Boston Globe

“Pediatricians are definitely seeing a high volume of respiratory illnesses this fall. We are seeing more viral infections but also seeing slightly different infections for this time of year,” Dr. Mary Beth Miotto, president of the Massachusetts Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics, said in an e-mail. RSV is a common virus that usually causes a mild cold for a week or two. But it can be dangerous for infants, especially those who are born prematurely or have other illnesses. Nationwide, an estimated 58,000 children younger than 5 are hospitalized with RSV each year.

20-Story Display Ads make Japan feel vibrant and hyper-active.

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Social Life
I’m having dinner with two of my tour-Japan friends on the 15th. A nice bonus for me.

Maid Café Signage.
As overtly sexually-perverted as Japanese idols, Maid Cafes, in which female servers entertain male-clients, propagate the tradition of male-dominated, female subjugated societies.

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Chuckles and Thoughts
“Panicky despair is an underrated element of writing.”

~Dave Barry

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Mail and other Conversation
We love getting mail, email, or texts.
Send comments to domcapossela@hotmail.com
or text to 617.852.7192

This from Sally C:

Dear Dom,

Grateful that you are home again, safe and sound, and that you had such a wonderful time. Your descriptions of your exquisite Japanese meals, whether at top restaurants or from tiny street vendors, are marvelous and are good reminders that a meal can be a special event, even when nothing special in particular is happening. I’m always attracted to people who have open, inquisitive, adventurous minds – like yours!

Dom Forever!

By the way, as you are aware, you missed the Boston Book Festival this past Saturday. I attended to help manage the tent for the Association of Rhode Island Authors, of which I am a member. (This group is not discriminatory: if you’re willing to stay current with your dues, you can join, whether or not you live in RI.) A young woman came by – she works at a Boston bookstore (“I Am Books”) which specializes in Italian-American books and authors. I didn’t catch her name, but she was happy to know that she and I both have you as a friend. She wondered why you weren’t in Copley Square for the festival, until I reminded her that you were in Japan. It was a great day – perfect weather – and so nice to see people mingling over books in person.

Go well, my friend!

Sally

Blogmeister responds:
Nice letter.
Thank you my dear.
I love the dedication you have to the craft, always lending your support.
Blessings will cover you.

Love

Japanese subways are clean clean clean.
Japan is triple-clean.

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Dinner/Food/Recipes

Cooking class in Japan
We went to a cooking class as a group and learned to make Miso Soup and Chicken Teriyaki.
I was pleased to discover that I make my Miso Soup the same way. And pleased to discover that I can now add Teriyaki to my repertoire. I made a Swordfish and a Chicken Teriyaki this week.
We also helped make Japanese omelets. They don’t work for my diet so likely I won’t develop a facility with these.

Buddhist Altar Store.
I came away from my visit here to redo my own shrine at home with the Nativity Scene taking center stage.

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Written November 1 2022
Interim Post
Number 1578
Street food.

One of my concerns regarding the trip was my weight. How would I handle the food?

So much pride in everything the Japanese do.

The hotels we stayed at all included breakfasts, all opening at 7.00am. Every hotel served buffet feasts, including two cooks preparing Japanese omelets. I ate huge breakfasts, a meal I marked at home with half a buttered muffin. Period.

I wasn’t very hungry at lunch so I typically marked that moment by searching for stores that served ice cream. Not that many. This is where I discovered that the Japanese did not share my need for chocolate: nine of ten food stores that sold ice cream did not carry any chocolate. When I did encounter chocolate ice cream, it was always from the same producer. Fortunately. Because the chocolate was an intense 80% cacao from Belgium. It was wonderful. I often had two ice cream cones for lunch. I rarely eat ice cream at home: too many calories.
I did have some lunches on the street and they were universally delicious.

Six of the dinners were at the greatest restaurants in Japan, rivalling the greatest restaurants in the world. These meals were long, two dozen course affairs that were splendid. Memorable.

China used in upscale restaurants are often one of a kind pieces.

Three of my dinners were en route, jerky but satisfying affairs. The business class meals on JAL were amazing: delicious and without end. Passengers had the option of ordering from two dozen delicious menu items, including ice cream. I did buy a couple of meals at the airports: a full breakfast once; once a steak dinner (I was having a red meat withdrawal).
Five of my dinners were provided by the tour. These I graded a C/B. But they were included and I did want to socialize so I ate them.

So, I ate without thinking too much about my weight, fully convinced that I would be gaining five unwanted pounds (or worse). I don’t know why, when I weighed myself on arrival home, I did not gain a single pound.
I was stunned, disbelieving. But net evening’s weigh-in confirmed it: no weight gain.

Wonderful.

Wasabi before it's turned into the paste we all know and love

END OF INTERIM POST 1578

With this post I will go to a Saturdays-only post.
However, I will occasionally feel the need for an interim post, like this one, describing my return flight home, interspersed with photos.

Interim Post
Number 1577

First Picture
Fatty Tuna Anyone?

Pleasing to look at.
Scrumptious to eat.

Return Flight
This was a storybook flight for me.
At Japan’s Narita Airport, I had two guides anxious to smooth my way through customs. They were not necessary but were reassuring.

During the long wait (4 hours) before departure, I had an amiable companion: my new tour friend, Marisa.
The flight was perfect; the business class perks, legendary; the diversions, Tucker’s downloaded movies, among them, Déjà vu and the Matchstick Men, Ridley Scott movies, were perfect.
The four-hour wait and the thirteen-hour flight passed quickly.

I followed my son’s advice and went off my diet.
I ate two ice cream cones a day.
I discovered that Chocolate ice cream is hard to find.
I found Chocolate four times in the two dozen ice cream cones that I ate and they were dark chocolate and extraordinarily rich.

The brilliance of the flight however was the arrival at Boston’s Logan.
Five minutes to disembark, a business class perk.
Ten minutes to wait in line for my passport to be scanned.
Five minutes to walk through customs.
Five minutes to wait for the bus to the Blue Line.
Five minutes from the bus to the T.
Ten minutes, including waiting for the train, to get to the Aquarium, my stop.
And five minutes to walk to my apartment.
Wonderful.
Leaving me enough time to walk to Whole Foods and do my shopping.

This was the greatest Mushroom Soup on earth.

Here’s a quick email from friend Jim P:

Your already a legend in Japan!! No surprise. 😊
Jim

Japan Tour Group: Blake, Jane, Massa, our Tour Guide, Henry
Our group was mixed age, half were over seventy and the other half ranged from 25 to 50.

And here’s a note from Dr. Mike,

COVID-19 public health emergency extended through January 11

The AP (10/13, Seitz) reports the Biden Administration on Thursday “said...that the COVID-19 public health emergency will continue through Jan. 11 as officials brace for a spike in cases this winter.” The Administration “said it would provide 60 days notice before it ends the public health emergency.”

END OF TODAY’S POST

Japan Tour Group Entire
I spent time with every one of the group.

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Post for Wednesday, November 2, 2022
Number 1576

Here are some emails I received during my Japan vacation, interspersed with some random pictures.

K Pop is very big in Japan.
This is a cardboard cutout in a kawaii store.

This email, the last I received before my return, from the sous chef of the greatest restaurant in the world:

Hello Dom,

This is Kay, sous chef of the restaurant SAKANA in Takayama where you enjoyed plenty of mushrooms.

I read your blog and explained the content to the owner-chef, Imai. He was very happy and impressed with your understanding of Japanese food.

Thank you very much for posting each photo and your wonderful comment on it

I wish you the best of luck on your journey, wherever it may be.

Best regards,

Kay
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This menu, outside one of the numberless restaurants in Tokyo, is an example of the common practice all over Japan.

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This email, from Ai, who, with eight other family members, walked me to my restaurant when I was lost. They were staying at the same hotel as I was and we saw each other again at breakfast time. At that time, my fellow tour members expressed universal gratitude for the kindness Ai et al showed me. It was a warm meetup among the more than twenty participants.

Dear Dom san,

Hi, this is Ai from Kyoto (not that I'm from Kyoto but I was there for my brother's wedding, remember!?).

Thank you so much for the photo, and I've read your blog about the night too!

I have to apologize, my English speaking skill was a disaster... need to brush it up again!

Anyway, it was great meeting you and your company, it became one of the special memories of my brother's wedding! Thank you.

Hope the rest of your stay in Japan will be wonderful, and next time you come to Japan, please put Hokkaido on your list.

From Ai, back in Hokkaido now!

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I received my son Mino’s first text the moment I disembarked from the plane to Osaka, my destination for hooking up with the tour. He asked me if I arrived safely.
My son’s timing is impeccable. He sent another email as I was packing to return to Boston, urging me to make something of my last day in Tokyo.

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Gift inside.
These little games are found by the hundreds all over Japan.
Inside are pre=teen collectibles.

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This from Colleen G,

Holy Crap Dom!

I don't know how to say that in Japanese--I wish I did:) You are in Japan!!

This fall has been so busy that it's like I've been abducted by aliens and then realizing I hadn't had a chance to tune into your "road trip" in a while--I saw: Best restaurant in the world and it being close to dinner, clicked. What restaurant would Dom Capossela claim was the greatest in the world??? Then, I think--"Oh MY I think Dom's in Japan right now!!" Amazing and walking through your meal of so many mushrooms I was so jealous---I LOVE mushrooms. In fact I've had packets of mushroom plugs in my fridge at two different times in my life with every intention of "inoculating" a wood branch, seal it with beeswax and grow my own mushroom garden--but then life keeps getting in the dang way and they remain in my fridge well past the time they were supposed to and I toss them and plan to order more plugs in the future when a window of time opens up.

And there you are in Japan--living out my mushroom dreams--haha:) I love how intimately that chef marries garden and meal. Talk about farm to table--it's the farmer's table itself and reminds me of that line you wrote way back about "making love to your gin and tonic." I'll keep it clean, but you just had a really good time with a Fungi :)

So happy for you, Dom. Have a great time and savor every moment.

The great thing is that you are writing it all down and capturing it with your camera so you can relive it.

Bon appetit!!

Cheers,

Colleen:)

And she followed up,

Sure, Dom!

Be sure to find the translation of Holy Crap in Japanese--haha:)

Have a great time. I am SO happy for you.

Mangia,

Colleen:)

Another photo of the ‘Gift Inside’ craze
Omnipresent grabs to try.
Put coins in and draw a surprise prize.

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And a couple of emails from good friend, Tommy D,

A wonderful episode of a journey not to be forgotten, Dom. Enjoy every minute.

Tommy

And, Tommy again:

You are in heaven
Tommy

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And two emails from good friend Jim P:

Love that photo and the love that is in it and that you felt. Despite all its turmoil, we do have world with a lot of love in it. Keep loving it!

And again,

The food looks amazing Dom. What a trip! I'm so happy for you!

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Similar multi-story display ads brighten up many neighborhoods in Japan.
This one from the Arkihabara district of Tokyo helping make it bright and gaudy.

And there were many other emails.
Thank you so, so much.

Although I had little to no time to respond, I greatly appreciated hearing from all of you.

In retrospect, now, I loved that I connected to citizens of Japan.
Some of my fondest memories will be of them, personally.
For example, Ai’s nine-month-old child spontaneously reached across the space between us and grabbed my finger, holding it tightly for twenty seconds while he stared at me.
Perhaps he was telling me, “Stay away from my mother or I’ll break your finger.”
Perhaps he meant something more kindly.

In any case, it’s Saturday and I am at Norita airport in Japan. My plane leaves in less than two hours. It’s a thirteen-hour non-stop flight arriving in Boston at about 6.20pm on…Saturday. The clock. I am traveling back in time.

This will end a post I wrote on Saturday and am dating for Wednesday, November 3. That will buy me time to get my bearings.

Oh! Let’s include an entry from Dr. Mike, sent about a week ago.

Subject: UMass doctors work to find antidote after patients eat poisonous mushrooms

The doctors were able to determine that Look and Chen were suffering from amatoxin poisoning because the mushrooms they had ingested were Amanita phalloides, also known as death cap mushrooms. The doctors were able to recognize the severity of what the mother and son were experiencing and sent them to UMass Memorial Medical Center in Worcester. Dr. Stephanie Carreiro, a toxicology expert, said at a press conference Thursday that the family members were very, very ill when they arrived at UMass with signs of liver damage.

END OF WEDNESDAY’S POST
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Post for Monday, October 31, 2022
Number 1575

My last restaurant review of this trip. The place?

Tousenkaku, a Chinese restaurant in Tokyo, was a brilliant choice, recommended to me by my son, Mino, by virtue of an article he sent me on eating in Tokyo. Turned out to be one of the greatest meals of my life.

Tousenkaku Amusee Bouches
A trio of a thinly sliced chicken breast in a delicious sauce, thinly sliced jellyfish, and tofu.
I apologize for the lack of detail. I was part of a trio of tour friends and the conversation was animated and, necessarily distracting.

Tousenkaku Shanghai Crab #1
Shanghai Crab is only in season for four weeks in October.
Weren’t we lucky?
It was awesome.

Tousenkaku Peking Duck
Delicate and groaningly delicious.
How disappointing was the minute size.
Three tiny bites and it was over.
Three of these would have been a small course.
And we only got one, (1), uno.
Cheapskates.

Tousenkaku Shark Fin Soup.
A decent size serving of this uncommon specialty.
It was delicious. Very.
Tasted like chicken.
😊
A bit viscous, a fishy, a bit chewy.
Wonderful.

Tousenkaku Sea Bream
I’ve had sea bream recently at three of Japan’s greatest restaurants and this ranks among these.
Fresh, pleasing texture, lovely flavor.

Tousenkaku Male and Female Shanghai Crab #2
The side with the reddish-looking roe is the female, making the other the other.
A second preparation of the specialty, very different, no less wonderful than the first preparation.
What a meal.

Tousenkaku Wagyu Beef
The dish was as remarkable as you might guess.
The asparagus were delicious, the beef perfectly prepared, and the potatoes on which the beef sat were luscious.
A variation of the French bistro standard, Biftek pomme de terre frites

Tousenkaku Shanghai Crab #3
In the thinnest, crispiest, least oily spring roll ever.

Tousenkaku Bok Choy
A minimalist presentation.
Juicy and fitting to help the meal wind down.

Tousenkaku Penultimate, a Kaiseki homage.
Rice with egg and broth
A chicken stock based dashi
An extraordinary cabbage pickle and
A tofu preparation.

Tousenkaku dessert,
Mango Pudding

End of Monday’s Post, October 31, 2022
The post for this coming Wednesday will be closer to the emerging framework, although there will still be some stories related to my Japanese trip.

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Post for Friday, October 28, 2022
Number 1575

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Lead Picture*
Being Cookers of Japanese

We learned to make Miso Soup, Chicken Teriyaki, and onigiri rice balls.
It was fun and we really learned.
But we had just come off a 6-hour bullet-train commute from Hiroshima to Tokyo and barely took a breath in between events.

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Commentary
One of the pros of group travel.
You belong.

This is my group.
I’m taking the photo.
All nice people. Each with her own story. Hopes. Likes.
Joys.
Irritations. Misunderstandings.

Some cons of group travel.
Pacing. Hurried.
Rushing from place to place.

One of our fun events was a visit to Takeshita Street.
Here are some images.

Crowded and the Japanese tourists haven’t yet returned.

The tiniest spaces are turned into attrative shops.

End of Friday’s Post

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Post for Wednesday, October 26, 2022
Number 1574

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Lead Picture*
World’s Greatest Restaurant

Amazing fall mushrooms foraged by Chef Hayao Imai himself.
He is also an avid fisherman and often catches the fish he serves in the summer when the rivers are full.
His menus feature winter game and spring wild vegetables.

All in Takayama, Japan, the restaurant: Sakana, formerly Hida takayama Sakana.

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Commentary
On the basis of his foraging and understanding and love of nature,
on his perfect translation of nature’s bounty into gastronomic delight,
his commitment to a green earth and healthy life,
on his creating a gastronomic experience unique in my rich lifetime,
we choose Hida Takayama Sakana as the greatest restaurant on earth and
Chef Hayao Imai a genius. And hats off to his talented and personable acolyte who added attention and service to the meal.

On my visit, in autumn, Sakana is into mushrooms.
Mushrooms.
And more mushrooms.

This was the first-course translation of his mushroom cache: twelve species, twelve preparations, all subdued, permitting the mushroom’s personalities to boast, and it was a stunner.
I ate every scrap of shroom and sucked every drop of dressing or broth from every cup, and precious little of that existed. My goodness but it was gigantic, powerful, natural without embellishment, so non-overcooked.
This was the greatest single food course I have ever eaten.
The texture, taste, and smell of the mushrooms were not altered by any of the dozen preparations.

With it came a teapot of matsutake mushrooms in the lightest, most flavorful broth imaginable.

Next course was a fresh sashimi plate that included grouper, fresh prawn, and squid with a guitar-string-thin mound of mixed vegetables.

Lovely.

Next was a chef-caught sweetfish slowly roasted for 2 hours, crispy and salty outside, tender flesh and crunchy bones inside. A pleasure to look at and even more to eat, head through tail. The ginger was pickled in house.

Then came a tempura of mushrooms with a single sweet pepper to complement.
Sakana Tempura.
The crunch, lightness, and warmth of a perfect tempura combined with those shrooms. Shroom!

Juri may dream of sushi but I dream of repeating these first several courses.

Followed by a splendidly grilled Hide Wagyu Beef.

Then an opulent Cream of Cepes soup. Amazing.

Then a steamed shogenji mushroom as smooth as butter in a ginger-miso paste.

Then a kurokawa mushroom in an olive oil, soy and garlic sauce. Wonderful.

Then an unctuous, brilliant wild mushroom soup with a small pot of sushi rice with mushrooms, a traditional kaiseki ending to dinner, not counting dessert.

The meal ended with a Sweet Squash Soup or Pudding.

End of Wednesday’s post.

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From Wagokoro, one of the great assemblages of fresh fruit I’ve ever tasted.

At the end of a Kaiseki dinner: a pot of rice and
in this case, the ‘and’ pickles, broth, mushrooms.

Sweetfish
Eat it head first.
Crispy outside and juicy inside.

Gold inlay.
On what else would you serve your amazing food on?

This remarkable gesture: nine people delaying their own dinner to get me to mine.
Hard to describe the feeling of love that I felt at this moment.

Posts for Sunday October 22 through Saturday, November 19, 2022

Post for Sunday, October 23, 2022
Number 1573

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Commentary
A review of a terrific restaurant: Wagokoro Izumi

The first course was a brilliant combination of matsutake mushroom, blue crab, carrot, and radish in a sesame sauce.
(Matsutake is a species of choice edible mycorrhizal mushroom that grows in East Asia, Europe, and North America. It is prized in Japanese cuisine for its distinct spicy-aromatic odor.)

Followed by a combination of conger eel stuffed with a blended fish paste, daikon, matsutake, and turnip, in a puddle of dashi. Lovely.

Then a plate of bluefin tuna, squid, kinmedia, and red snapper, the squid with salt and wasabi, the three others with a drip of soy sauce and wasabi.

Then came a slice of grilled barracuda served with rice and wood ear fungus.

Then the piece de resistance, a platter of quail, duck, edamame, taro, spinach, matsutake, chestnut, salmon eggs, fish paste and egg square, and garnished with tonburi, black seeds considered a delicacy in Akita prefecture, Japan.

Followed by deep-fried radish and gorgeous sweetfish served in a vinegar sauce.

Then came an opulent bean curd, sea urchin, and an unnamed mushroom in a vinegar sauce.

Next was a dashi broth containing potato, ginger, chrysanthemum, and fried tofu.

Then a red miso soup with a blend of yam and taro, plus eggplant and small-chopped rabe.

Dessert was the highlight: a plate of wonderful fruit: pear, a huge grape bursting with juice and having an extraordinary texture, a luscious melon, persimmon, and chrysanthemum ice cream as smooth as Tennessee whiskey.

For a second dessert they served a sweet potato and brown rice custard with tea powder accompanied with a small bowl of cold matcha-tea soup.

Overall, the restaurant deserved its two-star rating by virtue of the scope of the kitchen’s offerings and its successful execution. For sheer genius, however, the three-star Nakashima was superior.

Several times during my meal the servers took brought out a large book crammed with photos of food items and used the pictures and the English headings, to explain to me what I was eating. None of the staff spoke much English. The other patrons, including the Japanese, got the same treatment.

On my entrance into the restaurant I was escorted to the only open seat at the counter, beside a young Chinese woman. She, too, was alone and we engaged each other through the meal. She proved exceedingly knowledgeable about the food and amiable enough to serve as my hostess, guiding me through the courses and the sake selections (I bought her a glass to thank her), often interpreting between me and the wait staff.

The restaurant seated only six at the counter with a small private room that on this night served three. The restaurant was very quiet. The conversations were subdued. By comparison, Nakashima was raucous. No one on the staff had a personality, except for a single young man who tried hard. Difficult without the language.

As the restaurant emptied, my Chinese friend and I were the last to leave, I noticed an elderly man in work clothes at the other end of the counter wiping his mouth as his final gesture. He, too, was alone. He was very alone. Lonely, perhaps. Me, except for my meeting my Chinese friend and except that I kept myself occupied between courses taking pictures and scribbling notes.

Three servers tended the nine customers (a full house) and there were at least three in the kitchen.

Overall, the experience was as elevated as one would expect. I definitely recommend it. But personally, in search that greatest of all dinners, it was not here.

I chose to walk to the restaurant and promptly got so lost I couldn’t even retrace my steps to the hotel if I wanted. I approached a man of fifty and, showing him the address, asked if he could direct me to the restaurant. He called across the street to his daughter who walked over with her nine-month-old baby in her arms, and six other family members interested in the excitement.

After they attempted to point the way, they decided the easiest and safest way would be to take me. They did, a ten-minute walk. It turns out she had gone to high school in Canada and then to McGill University. Her English was impeccable, her manner amiable. She was visiting Kyoto because her brother is to be married the next day. By coincidence, her family is staying at General Kyoto Hotel where I am also a guest. We lingered outside the restaurant and took pictures. What a hoot this turned out to be.
There was an epilogue.

Next morning, at breakfast, a wonderful affair included in the hotel rates, so not to be missed, my Japanese friends arrived. And what a holiday moment that turned out to be. My tour mates made a big fuss over them for bailing me out. Everyone was beaming. None of us will forget that splendid act of charity.

Dinner was 32,000 yen, or $216.00, more expensive than Nakashima while I ranked it behind. I was the only white person at the counter.

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Understanding Ageing
My body is a disappointment. I constantly worry where the bathrooms are. I don’t seem to be in better shape than other of the older people here. Leg cramps. Not enough sleep. But nothing embarrassing has occurred.

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Mail and other Conversation
We love getting mail, email, or texts.

Send comments to domcapossela@hotmail.com
or text to 617.852.7192

So many concerned that I enjoy the trip. The classic was a text from my son Mino arriving at 10.00pm local time, as I disembarked from the final flight. “Dad, did you make it okay?”
And we texted several times as I walked around my hotel enjoying the very safe night scene in Osaka, Japan. So many young couples strolling.

Blog meister responds: Thank all of you so much.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Oct 22 October 23 to November 19, 2022

Oct 8 October 10 to October 21, 2022