Okonomiyaki – Where to, Gumshoe?

Osaka (Day 47): Shopping & Okonomiyaki

April 16, 2016

Today was our last day in Osaka and we didn’t have any day trips planned. We decided to take it easy, go shopping, and have okonomiyaki (since we tried Hiroshima’s style already) for dinner. The morning started off with us watching the news about the effects of the 7.3 magnitude earthquake in Kumamoto. They showed the area on the map where the active fault is and it stretched north to Beppu, where we were last week. We’re very lucky!

We headed out and went for a casual lunch at a restaurant that I had seen around other cities, called Nakau. There was one right across the street from our hotel. It was a casual and inexpensive restaurant that serves rice and noodle dishes. Similar to a lot of other casual restaurants in Japan, you have to order and pay at the kiosk and print your ticket out to give to the waitress when you sit down. The food was good. I would go back to Nakau again. While eating, we were talking about how eating in Japan can be very inexpensive if you go to places like this. No wonder there were so many school aged boys here. It’s cheaper than eating at McDonald’s.

After our lunch, we stumbled upon Kuromon Ichiba Market, which is fairly close to Namba Station. This market is mainly a food market full of fresh seafood and fruit stalls. Since we just ate lunch, we just browsed and observed some of the prices for sushi and gawked at the crazy prices of fruit. Although I really like Japanese food, I don’t know if I could live in Japan and not have access to cheaper fresh fruit. We have been in normal grocery stores (vs. just the high end department stores) and their apples are still about $2.50 CAD each and bananas are around $1.50 CAD each (those were the cheapest prices I saw).

After going through the market, we started to make our way towards Shinsaibashi. On our way there, we came across a large department store near Namba Station called, Takashimaya. The exterior of the building looked very nice so we decided to go inside.

Before leaving the hotel, I was looking online to see if there were any Osaka specific items to buy. I found out that Glico (the company that makes Pocky (Tim: and delicious curry)) has a high end line of Pocky sticks called, Baton d’or (which means “Golden Stick” in French, but obviously it sounds fancier if it’s said in French). They are only sold in two department stores in Osaka. (I later found out they have a location in Kyoto and Fukuoka now… at least they don’t have any in Tokyo (Tim: why is that a good thing?)). I wasn’t going to actively go out of my way to search for them but when we came across Takashimaya, I remembered they sold them there so I wanted to check it out.

I love B1 (Basement floor) in every train station and department store in Japan because it’s full of delicious food. They always have a great selection of take out food as well as perfect looking desserts and goodies. If I were going home from Japan this trip, I think I would buy a lot of my souvenirs from here. But since that’s not the case, we just browsed. While we browsed, we found Baton d’or! There was a line up of mostly Japanese customers buying basket full of them. When we got closer, we saw that each box of 20 sticks were 500 JPY = $5.90 CAD. For the price of a normal box of Pocky here (which is usually around 100-120 JPY), it’s about 5 times the price.

Being a Pocky enthusiast, I felt like it was my duty to try at least one box. We lined up at a good time since the line up only continued to snake around the corner after we got in the line. We (I) decided to try three flavours: Strawberry, Uji matcha and Sicilian lemon. So why are they so special? Apparently the ingredients they use to make these pocky are all fresh ingredients (as they have a fairly short expiry, about a month) and they use real butter. Oh, and their flavours are seasonal and location specific (Asians love exclusivity, and I guess I’m a sucker for it as well).

We walked around and shopped for the next couple of hours before dinner time. We went into a store called, Tokyu Hands, which is a store that I’ve seen throughout Japan and even in Taipei. The Osaka location had 7 levels and we went to each floor to check things out. They have a full range of items, from fancy backpacks to home hardware tools to stationery.

Before finding the restaurant, we walked past the arcade to see if there were any men dancing on the Dance Evolution machine. William showed us a video of a man (who appeared to be in his 50’s) dancing really well and even doing the moves while facing the opposite way (so obviously he had them memorized). We didn’t have any luck seeing any dancers yesterday, but today there were about 3-4 men lined up to dance. These men had backpacks and towels with them. It was sort of like they just danced there to get a workout. We went back a couple of times and watched different guys. The guy who could do the moves without looking at the screen was sitting waiting for his turn, but we must have missed him because when we went back after dinner he was gone. Tim took some videos of them, they were all really good. I guess you have to be dancing in “master mode” if you want to dance in front of a crowd (there’s circle of people watching outside).

William recommended a place tucked away in one of the side streets in the area, which was a good suggestion because so many restaurants on the main drag had long line ups (Saturday night!). After admiring the dancers, we found the okonomiyaki restaurant. We got a seat right away and ordered two okonomiyakis – pork and octopus (800 JPY each = $9.45 CAD). They were smaller than the ones in Hiroshima which is why we felt like we could each have our own this time.

I enjoyed this okonomiyaki more than I did in Hiroshima. There’s less frills to this one and I liked how everything is mixed in and not separate layers. But perhaps I’m just used to eating more Osaka style okonomiyakis since that’s what they would make in Vancouver at Japanese restaurants that serve okonomiyaki.

After dinner, we had one last look at the arcade to watch the dancers and we made our way back to the hotel. We had to pack tonight as we’re heading to Tokyo tomorrow. It was nice being able to stay in one (very comfortable) place for 7 nights. Hopefully our Airbnb is a good one. It should be based on the reviews (*fingers crossed*).

I packed up my backpack and it’s looking pretty full. We’ll have to come back to Japan on another trip so I can bring home all the yummy snacks and skin care products (Tim: or buy them at home/order them online). My cousin, who is living in Melbourne (who knows her cosmetics), asked me to look for a Biore UV sunscreen (it won a cosmetic award in Japan in 2014). Ever since Taiwan, I’ve been looking at the product to compare prices every where we went (I didn’t see it in Seoul). Since this particular cream is made in Japan, it’s slightly cheaper here than in Taiwan. Basically, every time we went shopping I’ve stared at their line of sun screen products and analyzed how much I should buy for myself and if I could fit it in my bag. I think Tim officially hates this product (but is also an expert in the whole product line) because of how many time I’ve gone into a drugstore to look for it (Tim: easily 20+). Having bought all the requested products and a few for myself and my sister, I will (try to) stop looking at them and comparing prices (seems to fluctuate a lot).

Steps today: 16,600

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