Any time you travel, if you really want to absorb the local culture, you need to eat the way the locals do. This may require a leap of faith at times, but it’s usually worth it, even if it may take some getting used to.

Some snapshots from the trip so far:

– Indian lunch with a Japanese twist: ketchup on the samosas

– full Japanese breakfast with miso soup, apples and yogurt, a rice dish with sticky rice grown in their own paddy a few hundred yards away, mackerel with chopsticks

– dinner of eel (delicious!) with fried eel bone appetizer (crunchy and salty and easy to choke on)

– Cheese curry: curry sauce with some grated cheese and sticky rice. That’s what I get for just pointing at the menu without pictures. Definitely not something I’d order again.

-Wonderful red bean paste desserts