Seasoning the Seasons

NHK TV has a series called "Seasoning the Seasons" (Exploring the Four Seasons of Japan) and they have one episode on winter, in which they visit Echizen, northwest of Kyoto and feature the special foods that become available in winter, like smoked persimmons, taro, sake and Echizen crab from Ishikawa (not Kyoto).  We'll have to keep an eye out for those foodstuffs.  We also watched an episode on Hosenji, a neighborhood of Osaka.  Now, have I watched the one on Udon or not?  I've watched "Udon" on Begin Japanology...  Good gravy.  Does this mean I have to make another list to keep track of them?

Most of Seasoning the Seasons feature destinations outside of Tokyo and so they don't have much that is immediately useful for our trip in January.  There is one on Ekiben, the bento boxes they sell at train stations that vary by region, but I can't find a video for it on YouTube, which apparently is one's only option.  We watched another one on Kyoto: The Enigmatic Entertainers of Gion about the geishas, or really the maiko, the young girls training to become geishas.  Wasn't "Maiko" the name of that Japanese restaurant we used to go to on San Pablo Avenue in Berkeley?  That was Willy's first time eating out, although he really didn't get to eat since he was only a few weeks old.

Too few of the episodes are online.  I'm waiting for Boris Popov to upload the latest episodes to YouTube...