Tour of Japan | Cary Academy Goes to Japan 2018 – Food

Oct 26 | Evan | No Comments |

This summer, Japan Photo Guide by Evan Pike was once again able to offer a spectacular trip to Japan just for Cary Academy students. Katie Taylor, 6th grade Language Arts teacher and Japan enthusiast, co-led the group with Evan. We began our trip in Tokyo, then traveled to Nagoya, Hiroshima, and Kyoto before returning home from Osaka. This post is written by Katie Taylor, a 6^th grade teacher at Cary Academy and Japan enthusiast.

Read about our 2016 trip to Tokyo, Hiroshima, and Kyoto or see all reports from the 2018 tour of Japan.

When I tell people about traveling to Japan, they inevitably ask about the food. Along with swords and anime, sushi is probably the most famous Japanese “stereotype” for people in the U.S. Of course, there’s so much more to Japanese food than sushi, but the sushi is pretty amazing! Our students particularly enjoyed conveyor belt sushi restaurants. Two of them had competitions as to who could leave the tallest stack of plates… and the highest bill. Evan knows a good conveyor-belt sushi place in pretty much every corner of Tokyo.

Ramen and udon were also favorites of our students. We learned how to make ramen at a cooking class with Yuca, an Insta-famous home chef in Tokyo. We ate at several ramen restaurants during our trip. Each student had his/her favorites, but most of us agreed that ramen and udon are better than soba.

We had a lot of fun dining at izakaya, which are like laid-back small plates restaurants. One of our favorites in Kyoto specializes in “yakitori”, grilled chicken on a stick. I think a couple of our students would’ve eaten there every day if there was one at home!

One of my favorite foods in Japan is the soft-serve ice cream. This usually surprises people, but the ice cream in Japan is amazing! You can get all the typical flavors (chocolate, vanilla, strawberry), but there are so many unique flavors too. One soft-serve spot in Hiroshima had blue “ramune” flavored soft-serve; we went there twice! My personal favorite was in Miyajima. After a long hike down Mount Misen, we enjoyed lightly coffee flavored ice cream. Delicious! I didn’t get a photo of it, but one stall in Kyoto sold cod-roe flavored soft serve. I thought it was strawberry from afar, but luckily I read the sign before anyone ordered it!