Imagery
Tokyo, 2006
Our trip to Tokyo started quite a few hours before this photo was taken, but this was the first chance I had to take out my camera. We got to Narita airport sometime around noon and had to haul all our luggage (because, despite the fact that we were only spending three days in Tokyo, we had to pack for three weeks and change in the States) through the subway to Ikebukuro and then find our ryokan. After checking in and dropping off our luggage, the first thing we did was head out to find some lunch. Not too far from the ryokan was a ramen place, so we stopped there.
Pictured here is shoyu (soy sauce) ramen with pork. I do enjoy Korean food, but Japanese ramen beats Korean ramyeon hands down, any day of the week. Korean ramyeon tends to be merely spicy, but Japanese ramen is very flavorful. Ramen is also a more expensive food in Japan than ramyeon is in Korea. Korean ramyeon is more or less the equivalent of a McDonald’s cheeseburger in the States—quick, tasty, and probably not that good for you. Japanese ramen, though, is a little classier (although it still probably falls into the fast—or at least moderately speedy—food category).
Anyway, I really enjoyed this meal. I think Hyunjin might have had shio ramen (ramen flavored with salt rather than soy sauce), but I can’t remember. That round thing on the left, by the way, is a hard-boiled egg that has been marinated in soy sauce. Yum.