TRAVEL 67 : Chris Willson Photography

Living in Japan can be a little tricky if you are vegetarian or vegan, but it is far from impossible.

In general you don’t get products that are specifically targeted at vegetarians. So no veggie burgers at fast food chains, no veggie symbols on packages of food, no spicy bean burgers or anything by Linda McCartney.

There are  veggie / vegan restaurants but they tend to be quite rare and, until recently, it was difficult to find out where they were.  For the opening evening at Cotonoha I asked a local vegan restaurant, Salon Cuttho, to provide half the food. They made samosas, spring rolls, bruschetta,  croquettes and ratatouille. The guests thought the  food was delicious, and it disappeared fast (too fast in fact – didn’t realize that an international crowd require far more food than an all Japanese crowd of the same number).

The next day, while settling the bill at Salon Cuttho,  I saw they were selling a Japan Vegan Restaurant Pocket Guide. Written by Herwin Walravens it gives information on over 100 vegan/veggie restaurants in Japan.

Japan Vegan Restaurant Pocketguide

You can find out more about the book at Herwin’s homepage www.veganjapan.net He lists 8 vegetarian cafe/restaurants in  Okinawa including Salon Cuttho so I have lots of places to check out. Also when I go traveling around Japan I’ll know exactly where I can find veggie food rather than relying on inarizushi and shiso onigiri from convenience stores.

Box just arrived from Amazon.com with a couple of books, a couple of cd’s and a movie I’d ordered.

One of the books was A Photographic Guide to the Birds of Japan and North-East Asia by Tadao Shimba.

A Photographic Guide to the Birds of Japan and North-East Asia

I’m most impressed by the book. Colour photography throughout , over 600 species, a little bit of a description on each bird, and its geographic range. The photographs range in quality but still give you a good idea of what the birds look like.

One problem I have already noticed is that the book has the English name and the scientific name of the bird but not the common Japanese name. If you  buy this book and plan to use it while in Japan (which would be most people I imagine)  having the Japanese name would allow you to ask locals what a bird was or confirm your guess.

Until the photographic guide came out the standard book (in English) of Japanese birds was A Field Guide to the Birds of Japan by the Wild Bird Society of Japan. I managed to find a copy in a box of junk, which was fantastic as they were last printed in 1985 and they usually sell for upwards of 100 dollars.

A Field Guide to the Birds of Japan

The field guide is excellent with great drawings of adults and immature birds along with summer and winter plumage. There are the English, scientific and Japanese names for each species also. (Impress you Japanese friends with your knowledge of obscure Japanese bird names.)

In summary, I would recommend either book. If you can find a copy of the field guide at a reasonable price, having both books will provide you with a great resource.

As I mentioned learning the Japanese names of birds before…

Suzuki Hayabusa

This is the Suzuki Hayabusa, one of the fastest production bikes in the world.  The name makes a lot more sense when translated from Japanese to English – Suzuki Peregrine Falcon.

If you are wondering how fast that is….