Pretty exciting stuff. Lots of yatai stands. Lots of different foods. What do you Japanese eat at festivals? Deep-fried twinkies? Funnel cakes? Corn on the cob? Cream puffs? Hmmmm.... Let me show you the typical Japanese festival fare.
You can see the yatai stands on the right side. Getting excited.
Candy apples, corn on the cob, Chinese dumplings...
Fish on a stick, fish-shaped pastries... There's a funny story about the fish on a stick. I'm pretty sure that when we came to Yasukuni in 2008, they were 300 yen. In 2009 they were 400 yen. Last year I think they were 500 yen. This year, some places had them at 600 yen. Now that's inflation at work.
Closer to the fish.
These guys don't win any awards for being pretty. But they taste pretty good. Their skin is crunchy and there was steam coming out of the little guy as I gobbled him down. I searched carefully and got him for 500 yen or about 5 bucks. Generally, the further you are from the center of activity, the cheaper the prices.
Chocolate bananas...
A close-up of the choco bananas. One my stinkers got one. I think it was 300 yen or about 3 dollars.
Steak, pork and chicken sticks...
Okonomiyaki (Japanese pancakes with meat, egg, vegetables).
More steak sticks. Of course I got a steak stick.
Here they are cooking my steak.
Yum-oh. I'll do it again because it deserves it. Yum-oh! 500 yen.
Little red bean paste cakes.
Grilled squid.
Candied oranges and cherries.
Giant okonomiyakai.
Fried chicken.
Here's a piece of fried chicken. Yummy. We got our lines crossed and my father-in-law and I ended up getting fried chicken from two different stands. I liked his chicken better and wifey liked my chicken better. Each cup was like 5 bucks, around 500 yen for a large one.
Cotton candy. That's right. Yet more Frozen goods. Of course, we got a bag of Frozen cotton candy at around 5 bucks, or 500 yen. 500 yen is the magic number for most of the yatai food.
Here is the super store of yatai foods. They got it all.
Giant hot dogs without the buns.
Scallops, mussels and clams.
My father-in-law ordered three sticks. Each one was about five bucks or 500 yen apiece.
Here's a scallop. Damn it was good.
Various meat and fish on sticks.
They have games for kids too. No they aren't going to eat the goldfish. Kids scoop them up with a paper net. Once the paper breaks, the game is over. I've seen evil goldfish game operators that were giggling when a kid's paper net would break and the kid didn't win anything. That's just wrong. I think if an operator laughs when a kid fails to win, that operator should get punched in the balls "I make-a da shoes" style. That would be fair.
I have to be honest that when we finished eating our food it kind of felt like when you wake up on the day after Christmas. I really look forward to eating all of this stuff every year at this festival. As you can tell, the yatai food is pretty expensive and to save money, we load up on convenience store rice balls and sandwiches and eat them before we get the yatai food.
We ate so much this year during our cherry blossom viewing that wifey and I didn't feel like eating dinner. The in-laws generously took the kids for the afternoon and let us have some time alone. It was some really special time. I was very happy with wifey for planning it out. Although most of the time was spent walking around in Tokyo and drinking coffee at Starbucks, getting time alone is nice. I have to admit it was pretty strange being without the gremlins but it was relaxing. So a quick thank you to wifey and in-laws. That's it for now.
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