Food Notes on Our Final Itinerary

Academic Travel Abroad sent out packets on Monday to all those signed up for our tour and included copies of our final itinerary. Taking logistical and other considerations into account, this schedule alters Lee's original just the slightest bit while still keeping the essential outline in place (and, in fact, adding some wrinkles and details that improve on his earlier plans).

More meals are now included, for example, taking into account the difficulties involved in setting us all loose in an out-of-the-way location with few available alternatives. The Japanese usually travel in groups and eat together while on the road, so the shared meal approach is easily enough accommodated and provides us the opportunity to try out a variety of cuisine options we might otherwise not encounter. In addition to our In Flight meals, breakfasts, our Welcome and Farewell Banquets, two Buddhist tofu-centered lunches and our hot spring resort dinner as originally included, we now can look forward to lunch in Nara our first day "in country" and a similar repast in Kamakura near the end of the trip.

With that in mind, let me suggest that the expenses for the other meals we personally will be responsible for should run around $300.00 apiece. Surprised?

Japan, unfortunately, has a reputation for being expensive; to some extent that's deserved -- being taken to dinner on a corporate expense account can mount into the hundreds of thousands of yen!

However, reasonable alternatives exist, and the nation abounds in moderate priced restaurants serving appetizing and filling meals presented with flair and originality. Adding beer and sake into the mix can run up the bill considerably (wine and mixed drinks, even more so), but that need not be the case.

Some of these provide a wide range of menu choices while others specialize -- in wide, flat soba noodles, for example, or sushi and nothing else. Usually these more moderate restaurants feature plastic models of menu items in their display windows -- and, in a pinch, patrons even can drag the waitress outside and point to what one wishes to order!

Another alternative lies with the "to go" meals found in the local Lawson's or Seven Eleven convenience stores (where the stock of fresh food items is "updated" several times each day). When you're in a rush or not particularly hungry, they are the way to go.

A wide variety of snack items is also available, everything from salty soy crackers to delicious dark chocolate morsels. Coffee is readily found, not only the Starbucks variety but also heated (or cooled) and dispensed from seemingly ubiquitous vending machines everywhere one turns.

In a pinch, one can also an revert to any number of recognizable fast food franchise operations, everything from McDonald's to KFC to Wendy's . The menu may be a bit strange -- shrimp pizza, anyone -- but the comfort level provided is considerable.

And no one should have to starve, either! Just remember that, at dinner time, the Japanese are apt to eat quite early -- "last orders" are usually taken around 8:30 p.m.