Japan – Page 2 – Where to, Gumshoe?

Tokyo (Day 50): City Views and Shibuya

April 19, 2016

I guess we were really tired last night because we went to bed relatively early and slept in. Being on the go is very tiring, so it’s nice to have a day to just relax. I feel like we haven’t had a day where we kind of just did nothing since Taipei.

Before getting to Tokyo, we planned on doing a couple of day trips out of the city, to Mount Fuji and Yokohama, to maximize our JR Pass before it expired on April 21st. Now, we both agreed that we’re going to scrap those plans and just take it easy in Tokyo. There’s so much to see and so many different neighbourhoods to explore, I think I’ll enjoy that more on this trip. It’s my first time in Tokyo (Tim’s 5th time), and I don’t want to feel rushed. If we don’t see everything (which we won’t), it’s not a big deal. I know we’ll have other opportunities in the future to come back.

That being said, our morning/early afternoon was spent at the apartment working on our blog posts and catching up with things we haven’t had much time for. We started to get hungry and headed out for a late lunch. Tim was craving curry again (when isn’t he?) and wanted to try another Japanese chain called “Go!Go! Curry” that we’ve seen and heard about. Go! Go! Curry is named after a former Japanese baseball player, Hideki Matsui, whose jersey number was 55. The number 5 in Japanese is “Go”, so that’s why it’s called “Go! Go!”. Their hours are also a bit weird too, opening at 10:55 – 21:55 and their birthday is May 5th. They love the 5 theme. Go!Go! Curry has a few locations in NYC as well (what doesn’t NYC have?).

We walked to the Shinjuku location for lunch and had a pork cutlet and chicken cutlet curry (680 JPY $7.90 CAD each). Their curry was a bit different than CoCo’s. The curry was much darker and it had a bit more spice than CoCo’s. Overall, we both enjoyed it and I liked how they give you cabbage. Tim felt like he was cheating on CoCo a bit, especially when we passed by a CoCo close to our apartment on our way home from lunch.

After lunch we headed back to the apartment to finish up our posts. We decided to check out the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building (TMGB) observatory and go to Shibuya. We didn’t end up heading back out until close to 5pm.

We walked to the TMGB which is about a 10 minute walk from our apartment. The observatory on the 45th floor of the building is free for visitors and gives pretty decent views of Tokyo. When we got to the building, there was a line up to go on the elevator. We waited about 10 minutes before taking the elevator up. When we got to the 45th floor, the floor was filled with souvenir stands and a restaurant took up almost half the floor (which blocked one side of the building’s views).

We arrived at a good time since the sun was started to go behind the mountains and we stayed and watched the sun set. While walking around, I spotted a familiar face. It was William! Even though the observatory is a popular tourist sight, what are the chances of running into him in such a large city like Tokyo. We ended up making dinner plans with him and left the observatory once dusk fell on the city.

After taking pictures, we made our way towards Shinjuku Station and headed to Shibuya. The plan was to go to Ippudo for Ramen since Tim and Will were both craving it. According to Google, there were a couple of locations around Shibuya so it was perfect because I wanted to go see the famous Shibuya crossing and see the statute of Hachiko.

When we arrived in Shibuya, the place was crazy busy. It was filled with tourists but it was also rush hour so there were black suits everywhere! Right outside Shibuya Station is a statue of a dog named, Hachiko. His story is that he waited for his owner each day outside of Shibuya Station, and even after his owner passed away, he would still go every day for the next 9 years. This story makes me tear up…

As many of you know, I really wanted a dog while growing up and when I was younger I knew a lot about all the different breeds. SoftBank has a company mascot of a dog that Tim thinks is a good looking dog. I told him that it’s a Japanese dog called an Akita. After reading about Hachiko, it turns out he’s an Akita too. Maybe if we get a dog in the future, it’ll be an Akita and we’ll have to name it Hachiko.

We walked through the crossing twice on our search for the Ippudo in Shibuya. After two failed attempts (thanks, Google Maps), we decided to go to the Ippudo in Ebisu. This is the first Ippudo both Tim and William had ever been to. It’s the location that changed Tim’s life (Tim: hardly Kait: You said it did!). We’ll have to go back to Shibuya to spend more time and look around the stores.

We took the Yamanote line to Ebisu Station (one station from Shibuya) and walked a few minutes to Ippudo. The neighbourhood around Ippudo seemed very residential and quiet and lucky for us there was no line up. Our dinner was nostalgic for both Tim and William and it definitely hit the spot. I really enjoyed the gyoza and the soft boiled egg was cooked perfectly and was really good in the soup. In Fukuoka we got a stamp card because Tim thought we’d be going back to Ippudo more to claim our free bowl of ramen before leaving Japan. I’m not sure if that will actually happen.

After dinner we thought about going back to Shibuya to spend more time, but decided to just save that for another night since it started to get really windy and the breeze was quite cold. We planned on seeing William again on Thursday, when we’ll go to Tsukiji Fish Market in the morning.

We took the train back to the apartment and started planning on going to Tokyo Disneyland tomorrow! This is the only trip “outside of Tokyo” that we kept in our schedule. We both really love Disney, so it’ll be a good day tomorrow.

Steps today: 14,000

Tokyo (Day 49): Akihabara & Ginza

April 18, 2016

Today was our first full day in Tokyo and I was ready to explore. We decided to go to Akihabara, the Imperial Palace, and Ginza. We took our time waking up and getting ready. It was a sunny and warm morning in Tokyo, so it was nice to just sit and have breakfast at the apartment before heading out.

For lunch we decided to go to a place around the corner from our apartment. We had passed by yesterday and it looked like Marukame Udon in Honolulu (one of my family’s favourite restaurants). There was no English signage but everything inside looked exactly the same (after googling, it turns out it is a Marugame Udon but in the US they call it Marukame). They make their udon fresh in house and also serve tempura, onigiris (no spam masubis here), and inari cafeteria style.

After we sat down, I looked down at my tray and looked around. I had way more tempura on my plate than any of the other Japanese men in the restaurant. Most people only had their bowl of udon and one piece of tempura. I loaded my plate North American style.

After lunch we made our way to Akihabara, which is an area most known for their many electronic stores. But more recently, it’s also become a place where die-hard anime, manga and gaming fans congregate.

The first large building you see from the train station is Yodobashi Camera, which basically sells everything and anything electronic. We spent around an hour there circling each floor to see what they had. If you’re looking for a tripod, they probably have every tripod ever made for you to choose from. Sometimes I think with so much selection in Japan, it makes shopping a lot more difficult (Tim: see “The Paradox of Choice“, by Barry Schwartz). How many choices of electric shavers do you need?

Along with being the electronic area in Tokyo, it’s also referred to as the “hobby” area. We found a store called Mandarake, which is a 7 floor building filled with anime, comics, and toys – both new and second hand. We started on the top floor and worked our way down. There was quite a collection of expensive vintage toys that were interesting to see.

After browsing around for a couple of hours, we made our way towards the Imperial Palace. The Imperial Palace Park is near Tokyo Station in the Chiyoda District and its total area is 3.41 square kilometres. The park is made up of large gravel walkways and green grass patches with perfectly manicured trees. Unfortunately, you aren’t allowed to go on the grass, which makes this park a “no fun park” in my opinion.

After walking through the park we made our way to Ginza, a shopping district. It is home to many high end brands, department stores, and more importantly, the world’s largest Uniqlo (its flagship store). The streets were busier with tourists, some very loud and obnoxious ones (I had to push and shove a bit). Once we found the Uniqlo, we realized that groups of tour buses drop off bus loads of people right in front of Uniqlo (great…).

After going through each floor, we ended up just buying small umbrellas. Most of the clothing we had seen in our many trips to Uniqlos in the last 48 days (Tim: who would have though different Uniqlo locations sell the same thing?) and their sales sections were severely over picked since there’s obviously more people who shop at this location.

When we left Uniqlo, it was raining so we made our way back to Shinjuku for dinner. While lining up for sushi last night, Tim noticed a yakitori (grilled skewer) place beside it with fairly decent prices. We decided to give it a try since we hadn’t had yakiori on this trip yet. The restaurant was on the 2nd floor of the building beside Numakuzo, and when we entered we were surprised to see that the restaurant was quite large inside and full of (mainly) Japanese people.

We ordered a variety of yakitoris: chicken & leek, pork belly, chicken skin, and quail eggs. Besides the skewers, two dishes that I thought were very well done were the “Yokohoma croquette”, which was a mixture of beef and potato (180 JPY each = $2.10 CAD) and their chicken karaage, which was very tender and the batter was very light (380 JPY = $4.45 CAD) . I didn’t take pictures of a lot of our food because the skewers just came as they were cooked and we were really hungry.

We ordered quite a bit of food and everything was delicious. I would go back again if we have a chance. For two drinks, chicken karaage, 2 croquettes, yaki soba and 16 skewers, the bill came to 4,122 JPY after tax ($48 CAD).

After dinner we walked back to the apartment using a different route than usual and ended up walking through where a bunch of clubs and host bars are in Shinjuku. If you’ve watched Anthony Bourdain’s Parts Unknown Tokyo episode, you will probably recognize some of the sights. We passed by the Robot Show which is supposed to be really interesting and very random. But the price per ticket is 8,000 JPY = $93 CAD, which is higher than what we would value watching that show. I think I would watch it for $20 CAD. We also walked past a lot of male host bars with their pictures all over the front of the buildings. Male hosts in Tokyo basically just sit and talk/flatter you while you’re eating dinner or having a drink.

We saw a lot more signage like the ones above on our way home. Tim asked if I learned anything about Tokyo today. I said I didn’t learn anything new because these were all things that I had heard about before coming here. But of course it’s different seeing it first hand. From the octopus porn anime (and other questionable comic books) to countless male host bars, I don’t understand Tokyo’s culture. I feel like if you put a male host bar in Vancouver with similar signage, people would see it as a joke and not take it seriously, but here it’s normal. The first word that comes to mind when I see all these things is that it’s so “weird”, but Tim corrects me and says it’s not weird, it’s just different (Tim’s the culturally empathetic one in our relationship). But to me, different is having to take off your shoes when you try clothes on at a store. Weird/wrong is having multiple comic books entitled “Rape All Girls” in stores (there is no apparent translation error).

Japan’s culture is just different and I don’t think I’ll ever understand it. Specifically, the fact that they have a whole other underbelly of anime porn, lots of prostitution, and hundreds of host bars makes it seem a bit counterintuitive as they want to present you with a certain polite image.

I think most westerners visiting Japan will tell you that Japanese people are extremely polite, everything is orderly and clean. But I also feel like everything is very surface level. A blog Tim reads regularly, called Wait But Why, talks about his experience in Japan (he just stayed in Tokyo) and how as a foreigner (or basically anyone not of 100% Japanese ancestry), there’s an impenetrable wall you can’t get past. Tim showed his cousin, who lived in Tokyo for 7 years this article and he agreed with it. We’ve only been here for 2 weeks and although people are super “nice” and polite, it does feel a bit empty. We both feel that people in Thailand were genuinely nicer and it wasn’t just surface level like it is here. Sure, not everyone in Thailand is super nice but that feels a bit more real, doesn’t it? Not everyone is happy 24/7. They took interest in you as a foreigner and it felt genuine. I guess that’s why Thailand is called “the land of smiles”.

But don’t get me wrong, I’m really enjoying my time in Japan, I appreciate how pleasant everything is, which makes visiting nice. Japan is very nice and pleasant.

Steps today: 22, 500

Osaka/Tokyo (Day 48): Konnichiwa, Tokyo!

April 17, 2016

This morning we woke up earlier to finish packing and to check out of our hotel. I’ll miss all the comforts of that hotel room for the rest of our trip. We were spoiled!

7 Yi-Ma met us in the lobby at 10am to bring us to her church for Sunday Service. The church that 7 Yi-Ma goes to is called Osaka Chinese Presbyterian Church. The congregation is 80% Taiwanese people living in Osaka and the rest are mostly Japanese people. The service is an hour and 45 minutes (a lot longer than a Catholic Mass), and is said in Mandarin and Japanese. It’s no wonder the service is long, because everything has to be repeated twice.

When we walked into the church, the greeter asked 7 Yi-Ma to write down our names and where we’re from so they could introduce us to the congregation at the end of the service. Tim was able to understand the majority of the service and translated bits and pieces of it to me on the spot. It was nice to be part of the service, even though I didn’t understand anything, I’m glad 7 Yi-Ma took us to her church. It felt like a very good community to be a part of and I’m glad that she has that in Osaka. We sat beside Tim’s extended relatives, they are 7 Yi-Ma’s oldest brother’s son. I know, a bit confusing, but they’re related to Tim (Tim: my first cousin, once removed, or more specifically, the oldest brother of my paternal grandma’s second son). Tim’s Dad’s side of the family is quite extensive and seem to be all over the globe.

After church we took the subway back to our hotel since we left our bags there. On the way to the restaurant for lunch, I noticed a cookie counter that Tim mentioned he really liked at Takashimaya, called Yoku Moku. I pointed to it to show him. 7 Yi-Ma saw me pointing to it and Tim told her that I recognized the brand because he told me about it yesterday. Then she b-lined it to their counter and bought us a variety of cookies to take with us home and for our train ride. That was very nice of her, but we also felt bad for pointing it out since she’s already been so generous to us during our time in Osaka.

The cookies are really good. I can see why Tim enjoys them. I just googled Yoku Moku and it looks like you can get them at Neiman Marcus and Shirokiya in Hawaii, so I won’t feel too bad if we eat them all before we get home (Tim: because we go to Hawaii all the time?).

For lunch, 7 Yi-Ma treated us to an unagi lunch. We went to the same restaurant as we did the first night we arrived in Osaka since that restaurant specializes in unagi. The unagi here ranged from 1,500 JPY = $17 CAD to 3,100 JPY = $36 CAD. As Tim mentioned before, 7 Yi-Ma takes her unagi seriously and ordered the three of us the 3,100 JPY box. The set was presented in a square box and was delicious. She told us that you don’t have to eat all the rice, but we both did. We liked to pour more unagi sauce over the rice. They could probably tell we weren’t Japanese when we did that. It’s like people pouring soy sauce over their white rice (Tim: nothing wrong with that :P).

After lunch, we took the subway towards Shin-Osaka Station, our Shinkansen (high speed rail) to Tokyo was leaving at 3:16pm. 7 Yi-Ma took the train with us until we had to transfer. I felt sad saying goodbye to her as we waved goodbye from the train. I think having to say goodbye to family on this trip has made me very emotional.

We got to Shin-Osaka with about 45 minutes to spare before our train left for Tokyo. I walked around the station looking at the bento box counter, which serves really good looking train food. Unfortunately, we were really full from lunch and we had cookies to eat so we didn’t get a bento. William had mentioned these specific boxes because there is a set that comes with a ceramic bowl that you can keep.

Our train ride was just under 3 hours because our train made quite a few stops along the way. It went by quickly since I got to watch the Amazing Race and the Mindy Project. Then as usual, I fell asleep until we got to Tokyo Station.

Tokyo Station wasn’t as crazy as I imagined it to be. Maybe my expectations of the crowds here are very high so when we got there it was manageable, and I suppose it was a Sunday, and not a weekday. We transferred to the Chuo Line to get to Shinjuku Station. We booked an apartment on Airbnb that is about a 7 minute walk from Shinjuku Station. We followed the host’s instructions and didn’t have any problems finding the place. It’s amazing that you can go from an area with thousands of people to an area where it’s clearly more residential and is very quiet within a couple of blocks.

When we got into the apartment, everything was exactly like the pictures and it is very clean. The location is really central considering we are only paying $85 CAD/night (before taxes and fees, the list price seems to be around $110 CAD/night normally, but we booked last minute and the room was still available so the price probably dropped). Most hotels in central Tokyo are closer to $200/night. The apartment also has a washing machine, which is great. We won’t have to hand wash while we’re here. The host also provided a portable cellular wif hotspot, which we can bring around with us while in Tokyo. (Tim: Speeds aren’t so great though).

We settled in and I looked up some sushi restaurants in the Shinjuku area. Since coming to Japan, we haven’t really had much sushi since there’s so many other options. I felt like having sushi today and wanted to try a conveyor belt restaurant. Unlike North American conveyor belt sushi restaurants, the ones in Japan seem very popular amongst locals and they serve quality sushi.

We headed out towards the part of Shinjuku where all the action is and searched for Numakuzo. When we found the restaurant, there was a line up (it was around 8:30pm), we waited about 10 minutes before being seated. I actually don’t think I’ve been to a conveyor belt sushi place before. I only remember that Daimatsu (where Ebisu is now) in Richmond used to have one a long time ago.

The restaurant was filled with Japanese people and tourists (I see that it’s been listed in Lonely Planet). When we sat down, there weren’t that many plates going around as I guess we came at a really busy time so the sushi chefs weren’t keeping up. If you don’t see something you like you can order it directly from the sushi chef. After you’re done, the waitress comes and counts the number of plates you have. Overall, I thought the sushi was really good. My favourite was the Bluefin Otoro (fatty tuna) which melted in our mouths. It was our most expensive piece at 520 JPY = $6 CAD. You can get this at some restaurants in Vancouver for about $12-$15 per piece.

We ate more than I expected and it worked out to be about $53 CAD, which isn’t too bad considering we had some pretty special pieces of fish, like the Bluefin Otoro. We walked back towards the apartment and stopped by Lawson’s to buy some yogurt for breakfast tomorrow morning.

My first impression of Tokyo is that the city is huge – taller buildings, bright lights, super wide cross walks and lots of people. I feel very insignificant in a city like this. Even though Shinjuku was very busy (around the few streets that we walked through), it didn’t bother me as much as I thought. I think it’s because it’s like an organized chaos and there’s no one pushing you out of the way to get past you (like in Hong Kong). We’ll see how I feel tomorrow, maybe we’ll see more tour groups.

Steps today: 10,500

Kobe (Day 46): Kobe Beef and an Earthquake

April 15, 2016

For our last day trip out of Osaka, we decided to go to Kobe. I’ve always wanted to try Kobe beef in Kobe and to be honest, that’s basically all I associated with the city (I know, I’m an ignorant North American). The only thing I did some research on (half an hour before we left) was where we should have lunch so we could try Kobe beef. Once I found some options and Tim starred their locations on Google maps, we headed for Osaka Station.

The train ride to Sannomiya Station took about 30 minutes from Osaka Station. We arrived perfectly around lunch time and decided to go to the Kobe beef restaurant called, Ishidaya. The restaurant was located about 5 minutes by foot from the station, but we had a bit of trouble finding it, so it took a bit longer. The restaurant is tucked away from the main road and on the second floor of a narrow building. It was good that we decided to try it at lunch as many restaurants offer much more reasonable pricing than during dinner service.

When we walked up the stairs a woman opened the door expecting our arrival. We later figured out that every time someone opens the door downstairs there’s a subtle chime that goes off, so the waitress is prepared to greet diners. Ishida prepares their Kobe beef teppanyaki style, which was perfect because Tim and I have always talked about going to a teppanyaki place together. Tim used to go more frequently while on business with his American coworkers (Tim: Whatever you’re imagining right now about teppanyaki places in the States is probably accurate). But something told me this experience would be a different one than an American teppanyaki restaurant (mostly we wouldn’t be seeing any cheesy flat top tricks) (Tim: to be fair though, those tricks can be fun :P).

After looking at the menu, we decided we would try two different Kobe beef sets. One of them was sirloin (150g for 5,800 JPY = $68 CAD) and the other was a round steak cut (130g for 3,300 JPY = $39 CAD). Each of the lunch sets came with salad, grilled vegetables, rice (we upgraded to fried rice for 500 JPY = $6 CAD, miso soup, pickled vegetables, dessert and coffee/tea. The whole meal was delicious and eating the sirloin Kobe beef was amazing. It definitely did melt in your mouth as a lot of people say. The round cut Kobe beef was still very tender but it was a lot more lean than the sirloin, so it didn’t melt in our mouths as much…

After we were done, we left extremely satisfied. Our plan for the day in Kobe was to just walk around and explore a bit. Kobe has a different feel compared to other cities we’ve been to in Japan. We noticed there were a lot more ethnically diverse restaurants in the city and some of their street had a European feel to them.

We walked towards the Kitano area of Kobe, which is a historical area set up on a hill. The Kitano area is full of former foreign residences and is a quaint little area to walk around. About 5 minutes up the hill is an observatory area where you can get nice views of the city and the Port of Kobe.

Along our way towards Kitano, we found that the city is not only diverse in its buildings and restaurants, it also has various places of worship besides Buddhist or Shinto shrines. Most notably we passed by Kobe Mosque and a Synagogue. Being one of Japan’s major ports to the west, it makes sense that there is much more diversity here than the rest of Japan.

We made our way down the hill back to the more central area of Kobe. Our next stop was to walk through Chinatown, which is only one of three designated Chinatowns in Japan. I was craving Chinese BBQ meats (duck, cha-su, and roasted pork) on rice, so I was hoping to see some on our way through. Granted we only walked through one of the main streets within Chinatown (Tim: there really was only 1 main street), we only saw the same peking duck wraps and steamed buns over and over again (none looked very appetizing).

After walking through Chinatown, we continued to head towards the Port of Kobe. At the port, there is a memorial for the earthquake that happened in Kobe in 1995, which was one of Japan’s worst earthquakes in the 20th century (magnitude of 6.9). Walking around the port was really nice since it was a sunny and clear day. We just sat close to the water and chilled out for a while.

We eventually headed back towards Sannomiya Station, but this time we decided to walk below the train tracks as I read there are a lot of restaurants and stores there. In particular, there was a gyoza only restaurant, called Hyotan, that is supposed to be quite good, so we wanted to go there before heading back to Osaka.

Before finding the gyoza place, we stopped by a bakery called, Pablo, which specializes in cheese tarts. We’ve seen this place around Japan as well as in Taipei and they almost always have a huge line up. I wanted to try one and this location only had about 5 people in line, so we decided to buy a tart to share. Compared to everyone else in line, who were buying dozens or them or cakes, we had the smallest order. The tart was very well done and the cheese is like a fluffy Japanese cheesecake, I can see why people would line up for them. But at the same time, I think Asian tourists go crazy for any dairy product in Japan because they don’t have many dairy based desserts or products in Hong Kong, for example.

We finally found the gyoza place. There was no big sign that says “Hyotan” so it was a bit difficult to find. It’s a very casual looking restaurant, full of Japanese businessmen (there were no other female diners) having a beer with a plate of gyozas after work.

The gyozas were hot and juicy. We read after that they are known for their red miso paste for dipping. Luckily, I wanted to try it in my sauce, Tim on the other hand didn’t use any (oh well). The waitress did not speak English and was trying to tell us that the minimum order was one per person in Japanese (although there are signs on the wall in English, we didn’t see them). Tim’s Mandarin came in handy when she first said no English, then she started to speak Mandarin to him. It was an interesting experience to eat with a bunch of businessmen after work. Tim always asks if I feel okay going into a place like that when it’s all men. I think he feels more uncomfortable on my behalf than I actually do.

We took the train back to Osaka Station and headed straight to Dotonburi (via JR Namba Station) to meet William at around 8pm for a late dinner (snack for us).

Last night, we were watching Anthony Bourdain’s episode in Osaka and wanted to try kushikatsu (deep fried skewers). We learned they are unique to Osaka, and it just so happened that William said he wanted to try them too before we even suggested it. We found a place in Dotonburi that was pretty busy (seems like a good place to start). Tim and I shared a combo of skewers and ordered a different ones to try. They give you a plate of cabbage that you can dip in the tonkatsu-like sauce. At these restaurants, there are communal dipping sauces at each table and there is no double dipping allowed since they don’t change the dip after each customer.

The majority of skewers are 120 JPY = $1.40 CAD and could go up to 360 JPY = $4.25 CAD for more speciality items. My favourite kushikatsu were the quail eggs. It was a good experience and I was happy we got to try it in Osaka. However, this would not be a very healthy thing to eat every day after work.

After a heavy dinner, we went to the melonpan ice cream bun truck. We had told William about it last time we met in Kyoto and he wanted to try. We got one and he agreed, it was very delicious. This dessert makes Tim very happy.

We said our goodbyes and said we’d meet up again in Tokyo. William was leaving for Tokyo tomorrow and we’ll be there a day after him. I like hanging out with William because he knows a lot about what restaurants to go to or what kind of food to eat in each city as he’s been to Japan quite a few times.

We walked back to our hotel and relaxed for the rest of the night. I wasn’t able to finish my blog post for tonight because I was getting a bit tired. While I was sitting at the desk, I heard a slight banging noise and felt a bit of movement. I asked Tim if he felt that and if it was an earthquake. He said he didn’t feel anything (while laying in bed) and it was probably nothing. So I thought I was just imagining things since there was a large earthquake in Kumamoto the day before with a magnitude of 6.4. (Tim: It might of been a pre-tremor that hit the area just before midnight.)

At about 1:25am, I got into bed and we turned off the lights to sleep. Then all of a sudden, everything started to shake really hard and you can feel the building swaying and hear the structure of the building making large creaking noises. Since we have two double beds, I stayed in my bed for a little bit thinking the shaking would stop soon. But then after it continued to shake even harder, I went to Tim and hugged him until it stopped. The shaking seemed to have lasted for about 30 seconds (Tim: possibly felt longer because the building continued to sway for a bit). It was the longest earthquake I had experienced, and being on the 18th floor, the amount of sway in the building was unsettling. (Tim: This was the first earthquake where I think felt the 2 distinct waves you learn about in elementary school. One big shake, followed by lighter shaking and swaying in the building, followed by another bigger shake that made the building sway for a while.)

We turned on the Japanese news and tried to go online for more information about what just happened. We found out there was a 7.3 magnitude earthquake again in Kumamoto (which is about 700 km south of Osaka). The fact that we felt such a strong tremor was crazy since the epicenter was so far away. We are lucky that we left Kyushu (island where Kumamoto is) last week. Fukuoka and Beppu are both on Kyushu island and Beppu, specifically, is in an area more affected by the earthquake. Since the big earthquake on Thursday (which they now know was a pre-tremor for the earthquake last night), there has been over 100 earthquakes of 3-5 magnitude in the Kumamoto region, many higher than what we have experienced in Vancouver.

As we’re heading east in the next couple of days, hopefully we won’t experience any more tremors or earthquakes while we’re here. I was scared and a bit shaken up last night. Thankfully, Tim and I had already left the area most affected last week, and are okay.

Steps today: 24,500

Osaka/Nara (Day 45): Sakura and Deer

April 14, 2016

After such a rainy night, we woke up to blue and sunny skies. Our plan for today was to visit Nara, a small city that is about 30 minutes away from Osaka. After Kyoto, Nara has the most historical sights (temples and shrines) in Japan. But more importantly (for me), Nara is home to a lot of wild (but very tame) deer that roam around the parks. I had been waiting to go to Nara for a while and was quite excited to see the deer after getting a small taste of it while in Miyajima.

While we were getting ready to head out, I received an email from an old manager of mine from EY. He had just gotten back from Japan (Kansai region, where we are now) and told me about a cherry blossom festival hosted by the Japan Mint (in Osaka) that should be in full bloom right now. It sounded interesting because the Japan Mint has over 100 different breeds of cherry blossom (and over 300 trees overall) that line the river walkway. We looked online and saw that the last day of the festival was today, so we decided to check it out before heading to Nara.

When we arrived at the train station closest to the Japan Mint, there were police all over directing traffic. We thought there was a police incident since they weren’t letting pedestrians through on one side of the bridge. We later discovered that the reason why there was crowd control and so many police officers around was because of the cherry blossom festival.

When we made it to the grounds, it was quite crowded (but not too crazy). The cherry blossoms had fully bloomed and some already had quite a bit of green to them. They all looked so beautiful and I liked how the walkway was one way so you could walk in sync with everyone else down the 500m cherry blossom walkway. We spent a lot of time stopping and taking pictures of the beautiful blossoms and looking at all the different types that we haven’t seen before. We each took a lot of pictures (Tim took over 100 pictures!).

We’re lucky that we happen to be in Japan for their sakura season as many people purposely plan to come to Japan specifically for their blossoms. Japan during April just fit into our trip planning perfectly so that’s why we’re here.

We’re happy that we got to catch the last day of the festival and lucky that my old manager emailed me this morning to let us know or else we wouldn’t have even known it was going on in Osaka (we didn’t do much research).

We had a few hours to go to Nara before we had to come back to Osaka to meet Tim’s Great Aunt for dinner. We took the JR train to Nara Station and walked towards Nara Park to see the deer and also some historical sights. My first impression of Nara is that it’s a very laid back town. I think because when we got to the station and walked out, I didn’t see a sea of people like in Kyoto. Even the main walking street to Nara Park didn’t have that many people walking along it, which was nice and relaxing.

When we made it to Nara Park, there were a lot of deer around. I kept wanting to stop and take pictures and pet them, but Tim kept saying there will be more as we go on so we don’t have to stop at each spot. He wanted to go to Todai-ji, a wooden temple that until 1998 was the largest wooden building in the world (Tim: pretty impressive for something built in 1709).

On our way to Todai-ji, there were crowds of deer, just roaming the park, resting in the shade, or chasing down people who would feed them. Around the park, there are vendors who sell deer food (stacks of round crackers) for 150 JPY = $1.75 CAD. My observation of the deer is that they’re very calm, until they see you have food and then they will follow you around and sometimes even tug at you if you don’t give them the crackers. Some people start to run away from the deer, which make the deer chase them… We saw a lot of Asian tourists hold the crackers and walk around with them holding them up high (teasing them), which made the deer more annoyed and more aggressive.

After walking around for a bit, I decided I wanted to try to feed the deer. I was a bit hesitant since I saw other people who fed them being a bit harassed by some deer in the process. I also figured they were teasing the deer so that’s why they were being aggressive. We bought a stack of crackers and the plan was to just hold on to the stack as we made our way back and we could feed deer along the way. Well, that plan didn’t last long as the deer knew I had them in my hands and followed us down a path. As soon as I turned around and tried to get the paper off that wrapped around the stack, they became aggressive and started to nibble at my shirt and backpack. I was panicking a bit and tried hard to get the crackers out as quickly as possible. One of the crackers got stuck to my shirt on my stomach and a bunch of deer tried to bite it off. Tim was taking a video of me the whole time.

Tim also decided he wanted to feed the deer. The deer seemed to have more respect for Tim and weren’t so aggressive with him while he was feeding them. We have videos of both our feedings, it’s quite a drastic difference.

Despite that semi-traumatizing experience of feeding the deer, I had a lot of fun in Nara. I enjoyed the peacefulness of the area and the deer were pretty cool. On our way back to the train station, we stopped by a takoyaki stand and shared an order of six.

We got back to into Osaka just in time to go back to our room to change (needed to change shirts after mine had deer saliva all over it). We met 7 Yi-Ma in our lobby downstairs and went for dinner in the department store top floor again, but this time to a traditional Kyoto style restaurant.

The restaurant is called Minokichi and is one of the oldest and historical restaurants (opened in 1716) in Kyoto (with a branch in Osaka). 7 Yi-Ma treated us to a very delicious and unique seven course meal. Everything was so beautifully put together and unique in flavours. We haven’t had such a traditional Japanese meal before, so it was a nice change from what we’re used to eating as Japanese food.

Second course was a special (Tim: white miso) miso soup that I forgot to take a picture of.

It was a wonderful meal and we’re so thankful for 7 Yi-Ma for taking us there and for being such a gracious host to us while we’re in Osaka. We’ll see her again on Sunday, before we leave for Tokyo.

After we finished dinner, we bought some yogurt from Family Mart for our breakfast tomorrow and just relaxed for the rest of the night.

Steps for today: 21, 500

Kyoto (Day 44): Bamboo, Inari and Izakaya

April 13, 2016

Today’s plan was to go to Kyoto for the day to do a bit of sightseeing and meet up with one of Tim’s friends from Vancouver, William, who is also visiting Japan and has been in Kyoto for about two weeks.

Out of everywhere we’ve been to in Japan so far, Kyoto has the most tourist attractions (mostly temples and shrines). You could easily spend weeks there going to each sight at a leisurely pace. While doing a bit of research on what to see in Kyoto, I really only wanted to see two sights: Arashiyama Bamboo Forest and Fushimi-Inari-Taisha.

We took the JR train from Osaka Station to Kyoto Station, which took about 20 minutes. I didn’t realize Kyoto and Osaka were that close, it’s like taking the skytrain to Burnaby. Kyoto Station is large and bustling with hundreds of tourists. We decided to grab lunch before heading to Arashiyama. After looking through all the restaurants on the basement level of the station, we decided to just get something quick and easy at Lotteria. We thought that we could have a cheaper lunch since we would likely have a bigger dinner when meeting up with William.

After lunch we took another JR local train to Arashiyama to visit the Bamboo Forest. I’ve always seen pictures of it online and thought it looked so mystical. When we arrived, it was very crowded in the main area and it was hard to get a good picture of just the bamboo or a pathway with no one around, which obviously detracted from the mystical nature of the forest. We were able to get some better shots around the pathway, but it was less dense in that area. I was a bit underwhelmed by the forest overall as I think I had it hyped up in my head. Don’t get me wrong, the forest is very nice but I think my expectations were very high. While walking through the pathways, you could see the bamboo starting to sway in the wind, which was neat. The signs around the forest said to be quiet so you could hear the bamboo sway in the wind, but it was hard to hear with so many Mainlanders around.

After spending some time in the forest we walked back towards the Arashiyama train station and headed back to Kyoto Station. The two sights I wanted to see happen to be on opposite ends of town. This was okay though because we were able to go back to Kyoto Station and try a green tea soft serve that was highly recommended by William.

When we got back to Kyoto Station, we went straight to the ice cream place. We shared a twist cone (vanilla and green tea) and it came with sweet red bean and mochi balls. This was totally worth our trip back to Kyoto Station.

After our delicious waffle cone, we caught another JR train towards Fushimi-Inari-Taisha. This the number one sight in Kyoto, according to Trip Advisor, and one of the most photographed places. When we arrived at the entrance, like many other tourist sights in Japan, it was packed with tour groups. I read on Conde Naste Traveler that Japan wants to double the number of tourists from 20 million a year to 40 million by 2020. I already think it’s too crazy in the tourist areas.

We started along the pathway under all the red torii gates and aimed to make it to the top of Mount Inari. As soon as we began to walk, about every few seconds people in front of us would stop to take pictures, which made the walk a bit annoying. Like the Bamboo Forest, it was hard to get a picture without anyone in the background (Tim: but we’re sharing pictures without anyone in the background anyways). Since we planned to walk up to the top, Tim was right in thinking that if we walked even about 10 minutes from the entrance there will be less tourists (Tim: especially since it’s uphill). I think most people, especially those on a tour bus, only have time to go to the first section of the torii gates, take their pictures and turn around. I’m glad we walked up the whole mountain to get some peace and quiet and to see some nice views of Kyoto.

We spent about an hour and half at Fushimi Inari enjoying the peace and quiet (and very fresh air). It rained a bit while we walked up (quite hard at some points) so we had to wear our rain jackets and luckily we brought our umbrella or else we would have gotten drenched (Tim: lucky in the sense that we looked at the weather forecast and planned accordingly). But since we were walking up hill for about 45 minutes, we were both really warm/sweaty.

We made our way back to the train station to catch the subway to the Gion area to meet William for dinner. We ended up getting there a bit early so we walked around Nishiki Market. Since we got there around 6pm and the market is mainly food, more than half the stalls were closed for the day (Tim: We had similar issues in Korea, where we really got used to “Markets” being “Night Markets” in Taiwan, and had to get used to the fact that typical markets are actually early in the morning or day time affairs).

When we met William, we decided to go for an izakaya type place. It was more casual and the type of izakaya we were hoping to have with Mable and Keith in Osaka the day before (not a fancy place). William mentioned the izakaya was a chain from Nagoya and are most known for their pepper fried chicken wings. Knowing us, you know we both love fried chicken, so he didn’t need to convince us any more.

The izakaya is called Yamachan and is in a basement on one of the major shopping streets in Kyoto. I’m happy we met William for dinner, as he knew where to go and showed us places that we would have likely passed by. We got a table in the non-smoking section of the restaurant. Being from Vancouver, where you can’t even smoke a few feet away from any building entrance, it’s a bit foreign to me (still) that you can smoke inside restaurants in Japan (Tim: the key to a long life?).

This was probably one of my favourite and most satisfying meals in Japan. The food was good, prices were very attractive and the atmosphere of the izakaya was casual and friendly. We ordered 14 dishes, 4 orders of wings and 4 drinks (2 of them alcoholic) for 8,866 JPY = $104 CAD ($35 CAD per person). This is about the same price I would expect to pay per person at Guu in Vancouver (an izakaya restaurant) but we got probably double the amount of food I would expect to get back at home. The food came as it was cooked, so it was hard to get pictures of everything since it would often come one at a time. That and I think I was too hungry to care about taking photos of every dish.

After dinner, we decided to walk around the Gion area, which is Kyoto’s most famous geisha district. When we got out of the restaurant, the rain was coming down really hard. Luckily, along the shopping area in Kyoto, you can walk undercover all the way until you get to an intersection. The awnings cover the entire sidewalk, which was perfect for a night like tonight.

It was around 9pm and most of the stores leading up to Gion were closed. When we go to the Gion area, we saw five different geisha being dropped off by taxis and rushing into restaurants to meet their clients. I felt like a paparazzi trying to get photos of them as they hurried down the street with their umbrellas. Considering they are wearing traditional Japanese wooden sandals, they walk really quickly. A common western misconception is that geishas are escorts/prostitutes. But a traditional geisha is just hired to accompany male clients to dinner, serve them food and entertain them in some way (singing and/or dancing). I know, it sounds a bit weird.

It was getting late and raining harder, so we decided to head back to Osaka. We said our goodbyes to William and said we’d probably see him again either in Osaka (if he ends up coming down on Friday) or Tokyo (as we have overlap with him there as well).

We made our back to our hotel after a relatively long day out and about. I always fall asleep on trains, which is good, it makes the train rides go really quickly. I think I was just really tired from the day, so it felt heavenly washing up and getting into a nice cozy bed.

Steps for today: 32,000

Osaka (Day 43): Osaka Castle and Bright Lights

April 12, 2016

Today was another sunny day in Osaka. The temperatures looked a bit better than yesterday which made for a perfect opportunity to go to Osaka Castle and hang out at the park in afternoon. Our only other plan for the day was to meet up with my friend, Mable, and her boyfriend, Keith, for dinner in Dotonburi.

Since it was such a nice day, we decided to have a picnic in the park around Osaka Castle. I’ve noticed that there are so many take out options at restaurants with nice bentos that look so pretty and tasty. Below the department store beside our hotel is a basement full of food options. we decided to go there to see if anything caught our eye. After making a quick loop at our options, we decided to go for battera sushi, which Osaka specializes in.

After getting our sushi, we took the subway to Osaka Castle. We also wanted to get some other food, possibly a salad, from a convenience store. We thought we would find one closer to the castle since convenience stores are everywhere in Japan. But when we got out of the station, we couldn’t find one at all. We walked for about 10 minutes or so down another street and we finally found a Family Mart… There were actually two within a block of each other.

At Family Mart, we got a salad, Glico pudding, and a hot chicken cutlet (Tim: and a grape soda). We headed to the Osaka Castle park area with our picnic food in tow. We were really excited to eat our lovely spread outside on a nice spring day. We found a nice bench under a tree and unpacked our lunch. Tim’s sushi was very pretty, some people even took a picture of our lunch.

After our nice and relaxing lunch, we made our way past the walls toward Osaka Castle. The grounds were quite busy and we noticed there were many tours heading into the castle (lots of cruisers). The castle costs 600 JPY ($7.10 CAD) per person (Tim: or adults) to go in. Each floor has an exhibit and there’s a viewing deck at the top which has views of the city from all sides.

We walked up to the top of the viewing deck and made our way down through each floor (which is their recommended route). Osaka Castle is the nicest castle I’ve seen on our trip so far. Fukuoka’s Castle is basically ruins and Hiroshima’s wasn’t as grand looking. Like many of the other cities, Osaka’s Castle is not the original building. It was rebuilt during the 1930’s to match the original and was funded by citizens of Osaka.

IMG_20160412_152801 — Infront of one of the largest rocks (Tim: I think it’s the largest rock) used to build the original wall.

After we were done with the castle we walked towards Dotonburi, where we were meeting Mable and Keith. We took a leisurely stroll along the Tosaborigawa River and walked along the walkway, which I enjoyed a lot. The city outside of Dotonburi is so calm. It’s not that I don’t like big cities (referring to my post yesterday), I just don’t like huge crowds, they make me really upset.

Eventually we made it back to Shinsaebashi, where we visited a few shops again before meeting Mable and Keith in Dontonburi. There are a lot of shops that sell just Japanese snacks. These shops make me so happy.

We met Mable and Keith infront of the Forever 21. Lucky we picked a store to meet in front of because if we had just said the bridge near the Glico sign, then we would be in trouble as there were so many people.

We headed to an izakaya place called Kitazo, which was more of a local restaurant than a tourist joint. The food was good but a little pricey for an izakaya considering we didn’t order a whole lot. But it was okay since we planned on going out after to try some street foods that are a lot easier to share amongst four people instead of just two.

After dinner we went across the bridge to check out the Glico sign. It was the first time we had been in Dotonburi at night, which looks nicer at night than in the daytime (in my opinion). The neon lights everywhere gave the area so much life!

After taking multiple pictures on the bridge, we headed to a store called Don Quijote. This is a Japanese department store (Tim:ish) that literally sells everything. You wouldn’t think so, but the top floor has high end luxury goods! This location had 6 floors of food, cosmetics, electronics, clothing… everything! The busiest part of the store was probably the first floor full of Japanese snacks and treats. Mable and Keith are in Japan for a total of 3 weeks, and heading home next week, so they were able to buy a lot of stuff. When I saw them loading up their basket for gifts to bring home, I was a bit jealous. She said she has one dedicated suitcase full of food! In some ways, I was able to live through Mable telling her what I would buy to bring home, and she would end up putting it in her basket.

After the takoyaki and gyozas, we had the best thing for dessert, a warm melon bun filled with vanilla ice cream. A melon bun is basically like a Chinese pineapple bun (bolo bao), but the Japanese version of it. Tim and I ordered one to share and it was very good. Tim says it’s one of his favourite things he’s eaten all trip. The melon bun was freshly baked, which was a nice surprise.

This part of Dontonburi had stalls/food trucks around with a seating area. We sat down and ate our ice cream and then ended up getting some drinks (beers for them and a peach Canada Dry for me) and sat around to chat for a bit. It’s great to hear about their adventures in Japan as we’ll be going to some of the cities they’ve already been and vice versa. They liked Sapporo the best and made their food sound amazing. I can’t wait to go visit ourselves!

I know I’ve always said it’s nice to see familiar faces while you’re away, but it’s even better to see good friends. Mable and I agreed that as nice as it is to travel with your significant other, it’s great to be able to see friends, as you can try more food with them, they can take pictures for you (instead of asking randoms (Tim: with questionable photography skills…)), and you can talk to someone else besides your significant other in a country that doesn’t speak English. I’m glad we were able to meet while we were both in Japan.

Today was a fun day. It also turned out to be a longer day since we didn’t come back to the hotel at all. We’re thinking of heading to Kyoto tomorrow for the day, it only takes about 15 minutes on the Shinkasen from Osaka. It’ll take us longer to get to Osaka Station than it will to get to Kyoto.

Steps today: 25, 200

Osaka (Day 42): Overwhelmed in Dotonburi

April 11, 2016

It was our first morning in Osaka and the sun was shining. We didn’t have any plans for today, which was nice. We took our time getting ready and did a bit of planning for the upcoming legs of our trip. The hotel has a pretty large desk that both Tim and I could work on (perfect set up). We decided to just walk around the city and head towards the popular Dotonburi area for lunch.

When we walked outside, the sun was shining but it was very windy and there was a cold breeze that we haven’t felt since leaving Vancouver at the end of February. We walked briskly and made sure we were on the sunny side of the sidewalk to stay warm. It was about a 10 minute walk to the Dotonburi area, not 25 minutes according to Google Maps.

Once we got to Dotonburi, I was feeling very overwhelmed with all the craziness and frenzy of the area. There were so many tourists and people in general that it made trying to decide where to eat difficult. The prices around that area are a lot more inflated than what we saw on the way to Dotonburi (obviously). There were a lot of takoyaki street stalls, which Osaka is famous for, that we’ll save for another night. We walked up and down the streets and couldn’t decide or find something that we thought looked like good value. We decided to walk one block out of the craziness and ended up going to a ten don restaurant (tempura restaurant).

The restaurant is called “Tenya”, it’s a casual Japanese restaurant that serves assorted tempuras over rice. It’s a Japanese chain that is based out of Tokyo. Inside the restaurant were a lot of locals having their lunch breaks (I guess they know not to even go into the main part of Dotonburi for lunch).

The food came quickly and it was tasty. I think we were both very hungry as we ate pretty fast. After we finished lunch, we continued to walk around the shopping area, hoping to make it to the Yodo River. We ended up in an area called, Shinsaibashi, which is Osaka’s main shopping district.

We went into a Uniqlo and stayed there for about an hour. We’ve been into multiple Uniqlos in Taiwan, Seoul and now Japan, but this is the first one I’ve been in where I actually tried on some clothes. I had a basket full of clothes to try on and went to the fitting room. When the sales associate lead me to the room, I walked in and she politely told me I needed to take my shoes off. Now I know that you have to take your shoes off while trying clothes on in Japan. I’m a North American small or sometimes medium, but here, I’m a medium or large(!!). At first my basket was full of items that were good deals but not practical for the trip, so after some thinking, I ended up buying practical items that I would need on this trip. These were mainly their Airism tank tops (light fabric that’s anti-odor and anti-bacterial) and a HeatTech long-sleeve (that I feel like I’ll need for here and for Sapporo). Airism tank tops and HeatTech were all 990 JPY = $11.80 CAD). Tim ~~was~~ [is] very patient with me ~~at Uniqlo~~ (Tim: fixed that for you), he found WiFi and sat on the bench and waited for me.

It’s too bad that for Tax Free shopping in Japan, you need to buy a minimum of 10,000 JPY = $119 CAD at one store in order to get 8% tax back. In Korea, you only needed to spend around $30 CAD. A small annoyance about Japan is that they charge tax on top of the marked price (just like North America) (Tim: Not universally, some places include tax, some places don’t). This is uncommon in Asia, as all the others countries I’ve been to have tax included in their prices.

We walked a bit more through Shinsaibashi and went into a couple more stores to browse. There was a 3 level Sanrio Store, which got me excited. My Mom used to own a Sanrio Store in Vancouver when I was young and I have always loved Sanrio stuff. I went to each floor and looked at everything, the one big difference between the Japanese Sanrio store and ones they had North America (do they even have any stores left?) is that they don’t have a candy section. I was looking forward to getting some cool gum or suckers.

After a fairly draining afternoon in Dotonburi and Shinsaibashi, we went back to the hotel to rest and do some work before we went back out at night. I ended up watching two episodes of the Amazing Race while I unpacked and repacked everything in my suitcase, did some laundry and took inventory of my Korean socks and face masks. Tim worked on his blog post about our final spending summary for Korea (which will be posted later today). Before we knew it, it was already 8:30pm when we went back out for dinner. We thought we would just stay close to the hotel and not go back out to Dotonburi as originally planned since we were likely going to end up there tomorrow night with my friend Mable and her boyfriend, Keith (who are also in Osaka for the next few days).

We went back to the top floor of the department store beside the hotel, where they have a bunch of restaurants. When we went outside for the short period of time to cross the street, it was really cold out. I think it was about 5 degrees Celsius, so it was good we stayed in tonight as we weren’t dressed appropriately.

We ended up picking a restaurant that had an assortment of udon and rice dishes. Tim got an Oyako Udon and I got a beef an egg donburi. Our dinner was very simple and quick. The food was good, but a tad overpriced compared to donburis outside of a department store.

Tomorrow we’ll be going to Osaka Castle and then meeting up with Mable and Keith for dinner around Dotonburi. We’re thinking of going to an izakaya since we’ll have more people so we can order and try more items. Looking forward to meeting up with friends from back home.

Today was a good, restful, and productive day. Osaka is a sprawling city and we’ve only ventured into a very narrow part of it. I’m looking forward to going to the Castle tomorrow and walking through the parks, away from the crowds for a nice afternoon stroll. I think I’m a mid-sized city kind of girl (if that’s even a thing). In terms of liveability, I can see myself living in some of the cities we’ve visited but it’s hard for me to picture living in a city as big as Seoul or Osaka. I enjoy big cities but I think large sprawling metropolitan areas intimidate me.

Steps Today: 14, 500

Miyajima/Hiroshima/Osaka (Day 41): Oh Deer!

April 10, 2016

We woke up later than we planned on but the bed was really comfortable. Tim researched that high tide in Miyajima was around 11:00am so we were still good on time. We checked out of the hotel and left our bags there around 9:30am. We decided to just walk to Hiroshima Station since we just missed one of the street cars and didn’t see any other one in the near distance. The walk was actually really nice and refreshing.

We made it to Hiroshima Station with a bit of time to spare as the next train leaving for Miyajima was at 10:13am. I bought a tuna onigiri (110 JPY = $1.30 CAD) and grape juice (100 JPY = $1.20 CAD) from 7-Eleven for breakfast on the train. The train ride to Miyajima was only about 20 minutes (Tim: we caught an express train that only made a few stops), so it was a quick ride there. Once we arrived, we had to take a short ferry across to Itsukushima, where the famous O-torii Gate is in the water.

When we got off the ferry and walked a short distance through town towards the shrine and O-torii Gate, we were greeted by some friendly Japanese deer.

After we finished walking through the shrine and temple area. We walked around the streets of vendors, which mostly sold a Miyajima specialty called, “Momiji Manju”, which are pancake like cakes shaped in a maple leaf. Another popular local dish are oysters prepared all ways: fried, grilled, or raw.

We had to keep a close eye on the time since we had to return to Hiroshima, grab our bags from the hotel, and be back at the train station by 4:17pm to head to Osaka. Surprisingly, we didn’t feel as rushed as I thought we would, we were ahead of schedule by about an hour so I felt a lot more relaxed than I did yesterday thinking about today (Tim: just thinking about the possibility of not being on time can stress Kait out).

We made our way back to Hiroshima Station to have lunch. Since we failed at eating tsukemen last night, Tim found that there was a Bakudanya at the train station! Considering we were only in Hiroshima for 24 hours, we were able to eat two dishes that they’re “most known for”: okonomiyaki and tsukemen.

The final consensus was that Tim’s cold tsukemen was better. I can imagine eating it on a hot summer’s day, it would be really refreshing. I like how they give you paper bibs since there is a lot of splashing when you dip your noodles into the soup. (Tim: You can also choose the level of spiciness, with the (sane) range going from 1-20. I chose 3 and felt like it was a reasonable level of spice. You can go extreme and get levels up to the 100s though… I shudder to think.)

After lunch, we walked back to the hotel. We were really full from lunch so it was good to walk it off. The sun started coming out so it was actually really warm walking back. We had to switch to the shadier side of the street. We got back to the hotel and picked up our bags and caught the street car back to Hiroshima Station. I was happy that we were able to walk to and from the station and only took the street car back when we had our heavy backpacks (saved ourselves 640 JPY = $7.70 CAD) (Tim: and more importantly, got to take in the sights and sounds of the streets as a pedestrian).

We got back to Hiroshima with a half hour to spare before boarding our train to Osaka. It was important we didn’t miss this train because we were meeting Tim’s Great-Aunt (7th Aunt on my Dad’s Mom’s side) on the platform at the station. She knew our train number and which car we were in and said she would be waiting on the platform for us (she also does not have a cell phone). Once we arrived at Shin-Osaka station (after a 1.5hr ride from Hiroshima on the high-speed rail), she was there waiting for us!

Tim’s Great-Aunt has been living in Osaka since she was 26 after finishing her medical degree there. She came to our wedding (we just realized it’s our 6 month anniversary already), so it was nice to be able to see her again this year. Tim doesn’t know her exact age, but she’s still working 4 days at week at the hospital (very impressive).

We took the subway to the hotel she booked for us for a week to drop off our bags before dinner. Osaka definitely feels like a huge city compared to Hiroshima and Fukuoka. I could only imagine what it would be like when we get to Tokyo. Tim says it’s good I eased my way into Japan, so I wouldn’t be so shocked going to Tokyo.

Tim’s Great-Aunt is very kind and hospitable and booked us at the Sheraton Miyako Osaka for a week when she found out we were coming to Osaka. This hotel is the nicest hotel we have/will stay at on our trip (Tim’s scared I’m going to get spoiled now). When we walked into the lobby with our huge backpacks and our hoodies, it felt like we didn’t really belong. Our room is on a the 18th floor so it has great views of the city. It is a normal North American sized room, which feels huge compared to the Japanese sized rooms we’ve been staying at the last few days. We’re both really happy to be able to just settled down here for a week.

Once we dropped our bags off, Tim’s 7-Yi Ma (Great-Aunt) took us for dinner at a restaurant in the mall that’s connected to the hotel. The restaurant was on the top floor of the mall and specialized in unagi. Tim mentioned that last time he was here with Jessica, his Great Aunt always took them out for unagi so he predicted we would have that for dinner as well, and he was right. She ordered dinner sets for us as well as an appetizer of tamago (egg) with unagi inside and a skewer of unagi innards.

After a delicious meal, 7-Yi Ma brought us downstairs to the grocery store and bought us fruit. I was joking to Tim that she probably looked at us and thought we needed to eat more fresh fruit. She bought us strawberries and oranges. Japanese fruits are all so perfect looking. We just finished eating the strawberries, they were all very sweet.

We decided to just relax in the hotel and catch up on the blog and roughly plan out our week. Looking forward to spending time in one place (with a couple of day trips close by). I think if we had to move out of a hotel room each night, I would burn out very quickly.

As always it’s so nice to have family around, and 7-Yi Ma has been so sweet to us. I know we are extremely lucky to be surrounded by such loving families.

Our total steps today: 22,000

Hiroshima (Day 40): Peaceful Day

April 9, 2016

Today we left Fukuoka at 9:45am and took the Shinkansen (high-speed rail) to Hiroshima. We planned on spending one night in Hiroshima on our way to Osaka, where we’ll be spending a week. Our plan was also to use Hiroshima as a base to check out Miyajima tomorrow.

The Shinkansen train to Hiroshima, which is about 285km from Fukuoka, only took an hour. If only all trains were bullet trains. Once we arrived at Hiroshima Station, we lined up for the street cars to take us close to our hotel. My first impression of Hiroshima when we got off the train was that there are a lot of non-Asian tourists. There were a lot of Americans and Europeans all around the station, I don’t think I’ve seen so many non-Asians in one place since leaving Vancouver.

The street car ride was a bit of a painful ride down, it took about half an hour to get close to our hotel (the same amount of time Google says it would take us to walk). For some reason we were stuck at a stop for about 8 minutes. The subway card (IC card) we got in Fukuoka was not compatible with Hiroshima’s transit system (one of the only major cities in Japan that doesn’t make its card compatible with others) so we had to use coins to pay for our fare, which was 160 JPY = $1.92 CAD each.

We finally made it to Hotel Sunroute around noon. Check in time was supposed to be at 2pm, but when we checked in they had a room ready for us. We settled down and planned to go for lunch and then go to the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum. The room was nice and clean and it had the exact same layout as the hotel in Fukuoka. I showed a picture to my Mom and she said it’s the same layout as my parent’s hotel in Tokyo. I guess most Japanese hotel rooms are the same (Tim: based on Kait’s sample size of 3).

While looking up lunch options on Trip Advisor, it was mainly okonomiyaki restaurants and the number one ranked location was called “Nagata-ya”. Okonomiyaki is a savoury Japanese “pancake” and is mainly associated with Hiroshima and Osaka, although the two cities’ versions of okonomiyaki are quite different. The Osaka version is more popular outside of Japan, and if you have Okonomiyaki in Vancouver, it’s probably Osaka style.

We walked down the river towards the restaurant while passing by the Memorial Peace Park. The river and bridges around the memorial are quite nice and remind me a bit of a European city (Tim: I think Kaitlyn associates any city with bridges over rivers/canals as being “European-like”, or if there are taller buildings around, “Chicago-like”). The area was busy with tourists but at the same time, it felt very peaceful and calm.

When we got to Nagata-ya, there was a long line up. We decided to just stick it out and line up. The line up was mainly tourists, as expected given the location of the restaurant and how many foreign tourists we saw walking around the area. We waited about half an hour before being seated at the counter.

The okonomiyaki was good, but it was different because all elements were layered instead of being mixed together (which is what I’m more used to). The okonomiyaki was pretty big, so half way through, I think we both regretted not sharing one instead (at least I did). But I think having waited in line for a while, it made us feel like we should just order our own (rookie mistake). Overall it was good, but I’m sure we could’ve gone to any place and it would’ve been good too and we wouldn’t have to wait.

After lunch we walked to the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum. The cost per person is 200 JPY = $2.40 CAD. Apparently the prices have gone up since April 1st as it used to be only 50 JPY. Part of the museum is closed for renovations so it was basically just the Main Hall that was available for viewing. When we entered the exhibit, the place was packed, so going through each item and reading the plaques took a while.

The museum wasn’t as extensive as I thought it would be, which is a bit of a shame. Tim says the exhibit that was closed explained more about Hiroshima pre-atomic bomb, which would have been interesting (Tim: There was also a lot more about Hiroshima’s ongoing global role in promoting the nonproliferation of nuclear weapons). It’s always a bit depressing to go to any museum of this sort. It’s been 70 years since the atomic bomb was dropped, the city has gone from rumbles to a beautiful one that represents a plea for world peace.

(Tim: It’s too bad that half the museum was being renovated, but I have no doubt it’ll be great when they’re finished. I hope they find opportunity to showcase more individual survivor stories as I find those most compelling. At the end of the museum, they have a row of video monitors where you can queue up videos of survivors giving their first hand accounts of the day. They reminded me of John Hersey’s New Yorker article, “Hiroshima“, which I highly recommend reading in its entirety if you haven’t read it before.)

We spent the rest of the afternoon walking around Hiroshima castle, where we stumbled upon a ceremony taking place outside one of the shrines. The park looked like it used to have cherry blossoms all around, but now the majority of them are gone.

As we were still really full from lunch, we went back to the hotel and caught up with some writing and rested a bit before going out for a late dinner. Tim did a bit of research on what else Hiroshima is known for, food wise, and he found that tsukemen ramen is from here. Tsukemen is where you dip the noodles and other ingredients into a small bowl of soup/sauce. At around 8:30pm we headed out to find the restaurant, but when we got to the location, it was closed! They had a sign saying they relocated, but we couldn’t read it or understand the map.

We decided to go back to the main area close to us, Hondori, where we saw a lot of shops and restaurants. There was a CoCo Curry (Tim’s favourite) so we ended up going there for dinner. The last time we had CoCo Curry was in Bangkok, when we were craving something other than Thai food. Tim ordered chicken cutlet curry and I had the hamburger steak. It was pretty tasty and hit the spot for both of us.

We walked back to the hotel with full stomachs and prepared for tomorrow morning’s activities in Miyajima. We also FaceTimed my nephew, Nate, who was dancing the hokey pokey for us!

Hiroshima is a beautiful city with a very sad history. While standing on the bridge on such a beautiful day, you can’t help but imagine the horrors of that day (being right around the hypocenter of the A-bomb) on August 6, 1945. We can only pray that an attack like that will never happen again.

Steps today: 19,500