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Hello and Welcome! Where abouts in Japan are you? My fiancee lived there for 3 years and absolutely loved it…
Hi Odessa, thanks! I am in Ashiya, inbetween Osaka and Kobe. I love the emphasis on quality (instead of quantity) here. People are nice, everyone treats kids respectfully. I am grateful to be here : )
How many raw foodies here live in Japan? I will be going to the Seibold university in Nagasaki this september until late july and then for about two months I will be exploring [northern japan i hope] as much as I can while camping/backpacking. i want to see things tourists don’t. I want to buy produce from farmers and farmers markets and really connect with people as much as I can while i’m there.
I would love to hear from anyone living in Japan.. I don’t think i’ll have a problem being raw there. From what it sounds like there is a lot of fruit available and vegetables too.
Also if anyone has backpacked in japan before i’d love to hear advice/suggestions/stories.. thanks very much!!!!
Alright everyone, I’m posting on this thread again.
Anyone living in Japan want to be friends? :) hah, come on!
hey mango woman—i backpacked all over the pacific rim 2 years ago and tokyo was my first stop. i then took the bullet train to kyoto, saw nara koen, and stayed in fuji goko… didn’t get to go north. i wasn’t raw at the time, so i wasn’t focusing too much of the produce. the fruit there is sold like gold. but the greens are very reasonably priced. there were some great green grocers in the small towns i went to where the produce was very cheap (bok choy i remember in particular).
oh, the people are just the greatest in the world. there are so many amazing temples that you can just take a little walk and happen upon. the air is just infused with this zen calm i’d never experienced before (after you get out of tokyo!). i would go back in a heartbeat!
the japanese are total xenophiles though… they’ll LOVE you. and be totally amazed if you even know how to pick up chopsticks—let alone use them! =)
there is a great book called “learning to bow” by Bruce Feiler that would be helpful to read before you go if you want a little insight on the cross-cultural experience. it’s pretty hilarious.
what else? oh gosh… there’s so much cool stuff about japan. feel free to email me: airmusique@gmail.com
nb: their definition of vegetarian includes fish there, so if you are going to eat soup keep in mind the broth is undoubtedly fish stock.
Thanks a ton pianissima- that’s awesome! Sounds like you had an awesome time. I’ve begun researching the whole food thing.. as I am pretty sure I’ll be eating some cooked food. I have no intentions of giving up veganism, but WOW are people trying to scare me or something.
A ton of people have told me it’s going to be impossible to stay vegan in japan.
I say: try me.
I did read about fish stock.. [gross.] they also ferment certain things on beef apparently [that natto stuff..] and in general I think i need much more research to be done before I feel like i’ve looked into everything. I like soy, i’ve liked soy for a while, and i think i should be fine eating certain forms of it. I don’t want to eat fried stuff though. I know tempura has egg in it.. or milk or something, but I think i’ll probably eat things like rice, veggie sushi.. this is where i trail off because i’m not really sure. Thanks so much for your reply!
If there are any other words of advice regarding the food in Japan that’d be great. Basically, I need to find out what’s generally vegan, and then from there I will figure out which things I will eat. I also heard that bit about fruit being expensive, but i’ve heard from others that raw vegetables are also overpriced! This is where i get nervous.
I’ll be there one year, so making sure I know what i can eat for the most part BEFORE going abroad will prove most helpful. ;)
thanks again, hopefully others feel like chiming in with links/help/advice/suggestions..