takoyaki

In Nagasaki we happened to stumble upon some kind of dragon celebration. Although we didn’t see the fabled paper dragon head being carried down the street, there was a huge set-up of food stalls, vendors and little kids games down by the pier. We wandered among the brightly colored tents for awhile, took pictures of some of the stalls, and ate at this stand:

This is takoyaki which means “cooked octopus”. Basically, she takes the bits of octopus (the purplish bits in the left-hand corner), wraps them in seasoning and dough and then cooks them in what looks like tiny muffin-holders. They’re then packaged into sets of seven and sold of 500 yen or about $5. It’s a little expensive for normal takoyaki, but then we also bought a grilled ear of corn for the same price. It didn’t seem to matter what you ate: it all cost $5.

We ate down by the pier where families had congregated to watch the boats. This old boat in front of us was there, I think, just for decoration for the festival. Behind us there’s a restaurant with a live musician singing “Tears in Heaven”. A very popular desert among the kids was pieces of fruit coated in some kind of hard, red, candy shell. When they bit into the shell, however, it started to melt and drip all over them. Right next to where I’m sitting is a big, gooey pile of red candy.

For all the kids and packages and sacks being handed out at every stall, there was a surprisingly little amount of litter. We had to walk quite a ways to even find a garbage can, but compared to the fair at home these streets were practically spotless. We gobbled up our takoyaki (it is actually quite chewy but delicious), bought ourselves a crepe and walked down the clean streets of Nagasaki to the bus station.