Yuba is made from soymilk before it is made into tofu. Like cow’s milk, soy milk forms a skin on the surface when it is heated; to make yuba this skin is carefully removed and dried into sheets. It is very good, although I am not sure it is “molten”.

The fish in question is almost certainly an ayu which is usually defned in English dictionaries as “sweetfish”, a singularly appropriate name for such an exquisitely delicious delicacy. It is a relative of the trout and is not related to a koi (carp), so far as I know. Trout in general is called masu in Japanese, although the masu usually available at fishmongers in Japan is considerably larger than what we call a trout here; it looks more like a small salmon and has pink flesh. AFAIK, the river-going trout in Japan that we would recoignize as trout are referred to under the general rubric of iwana (”stone fish”). (A rainbow trout is called just that: niji masu.)

Unfortunately, like trout in the US, most ayu in Japan is farm-grown now (sob!), but occasionally wild ones can be obtained, and if you ever have the chance to have one, you should by no means miss it.

Yukata, once they are old and can no longer be worn in public, are used as pajamas at which time they are no longer referred to as yukata but as nemaki (”sleep wraps”).

I must really have that fish to have swallowed that pointy pole.

And that’s how you can tell it’s not any fly-eating trout.

I think it’s a male Pisces Vladis Impalens, to use the technical Latin name.

Pictures! More Pictures!

What other areas of Japan do you plan on visiting?

So much for your sex life.