Japan

Chapters

1. Tokyo
2. Kamakura, Hakone
3. Kyoto
4. Nara
5. Osaka
6. Mino
7. Kobe
8. Conclusion

Tokyo

Our hotel for the Tokyo leg of the trip was in Shin-Okubo. We were surprised to see a lot of Southeast Asian and Middle Eastern shops. Google claims that the place is actually known more for its Korean community, but maybe because I didn’t explore Shin-Okubo itself as much, I wasn’t aware until I wrote this paragraph. I also just learned that Shin Kyuk-ho, the founder of Lotte, had a factory here back in 1950. With this much history, it’s a little weird how I never came across any Korean signage.

Our second but first proper day in Tokyo started up early with a trip to Teamlabs borderless. Although it was an interesting experience, I’m not sure if I really understood the “point” of it. While art typically carries a deeper meaning, the pieces here mostly felt like eye-candy, a visual spectacle without a clear message.

The rest of the afternoon was spent on Cat Street. A bumbling and hip haven for youth fashion and culture. While urban culture was prevalent, I found that it mostly consisted of Japanese urban streetwear crossed with some gothic elements - not particularly my style. Oddly they were busy building a giant kimchi store. I’m not sure if they chose the right location/audience to sell kimchi (young people concerned about fashion and tourists), but maybe their research said something very compelling.

For dinner we were planning on hitting a particular restaurant (I forget what it was), but they were closed so we decided at the last minute to go to a hotpot place. It wasn’t particularly cheap, but it was certainly a tasty time. Imagine my surprise when we walked into the store to a wall of autographs and lo and behold, Le Sserafim’s Sakura was here in 2019? I spent the rest of the night out drinking with a friend of mine who our travel group met up with. Through all the drinking I totally forgot that the subways stop service at midnight, so a very expensive Uber was called to take me back to the hotel.

Our last day in Tokyo was spent wandering Tokyo once more, but more in the Ginza side of the city. While half of our group spent time shopping for small knick knacks, I took a stroll down to the Hamarikyu Gardens. I was hoping to relax a bit at the gardens on the northern shore of Tokyo Bay, but I realized it was a paid entry park. We finished off the day by visiting the famous Your Name stairs, eating gyu-katsu, and of course some nama biru.

Kamakura
Hakone

Kamakura is located on the southern shore of the greater Tokyo area. The town is a popular destination for tourists, who visit for a famous railroad crossing featured in the anime Slam Dunk. I haven’t really watched it myself, but I did know that the crossing is quite pretty and also why not visit the beach in Japan? There were a lot of tourists but because of Golden Week (April 29 - May 6) many of the shops and cafes were closed.

We got a great view of Mt. Fuji from the beach; clear skies and no clouds around the peaks of the mountain. While my friends spent more time down by the shore, I decided to take a walk through the village that sits above the rails. I remember coming across an old man just sitting outside his house with a sign: “Kamakura is not tourist area!”. Which I mean I suppose the village itself isn’t, but I understand his point of view when people are walking into the narrow streets right in front of their homes to talk and take pictures.

We soon left Kamakura and journeyed towards the Hakone area. Hakone (Gora to be exact), is pretty far into the mountains being about 550 meters above sea level. The train that took us up from the base of the mountain literally zig-zagged as it switched operating direction every few minutes.

We dropped off our luggage at the outdoor-onsen hotel and headed to Mt. Ashigara. We took a taxi to Mt. Ashigara and it was quite a while away. As we passed by Kintoki shrine we faced a treacherous path upwards. The original plan was to hit the peak of Mt. Ashigara, which only takes about an hour. There were some major miscommunications though: when I heard the word “hike”, I imagined a walk in the woods. My friend was thinking about climbing up a mountain. Because of this I ended up going in baggy jeans, a heavy jacket, no water and on an empty stomach. I thought I would be able to make it to the top, but having dressed inappropriately and without food and water made it incredibly hard.

While I may have been able to push through to the top, we also made another critical mistake - the sun was setting. We only had about an hour until dark and when going up the mountain itself takes an hour, we had to rush. Ultimately I ran out of energy and around the 80% mark a friend and I called it quits. We split off from the other two and made our way down. Incidentally, I managed to take a beautiful photo of Mt. Hakone which is south of Mt. Ashigara.

By the time we were halfway down, there was no sunlight to be enjoyed. Maybe some, but the canopy above blocked it all out. We did have our phone flashlights to help us see, but the lack of signage made it impossible to be sure of where we were headed. The only thing that helped us down was a decently visible path that previous climbers had left behind. As we reached the base I realised that Google Maps has a handy GPS feature which we used to take right at a fork towards civilization. We stopped by a 7/11 and got some food while we waited for our other friends.

Gora is a very small town. The largest building is in the town center at only two stories tall. Remember how we took a taxi to the mountain? At only 7:30pm it was already late enough that taxis were almost non-existent. Maybe around Gora Station, but we weren’t even in Gora at this point. Our taxi apps gave us nothing even after 10+ minutes of searching. My friend decided to ask someone in the 7/11 to see if they could call a taxi for us, but an ojii-san working there came out to tell us that if we walked down the road about 200 meters we could catch the last bus of the day going towards Gora Station.

After waiting 15 minutes the light of god appeared from the distance as two round bulbs. We hopped on the bus only to find out that this bus doesn’t actually go to Gora station but instead goes near it. My hopes were quickly lifted as Gora is a little more populated and so we could actually grab a taxi to reach our hotel. What was a huge help was again the 7/11 ojii-san. While we were trying out taxi apps, he told us about an app that worked in Gora where no others did. As a side note: this app is called GO. DiDi and Uber do not work well in Hakone.

When we reached our hotel, we took a long bath in the onsen. I was skeptical about the outdoor onsen, worried it would be too cold or that mosquitos would be a problem. But I was wrong; the water was the perfect temperature, and there were no bugs to annoy us.

Our Shinkansen ride to Kyoto was in the morning hours, so we woke up early to take a quick dip in the onsen once more, and packed our bags.

Kyoto

Despite having been to Kyoto last year, this second trip felt wholly different. The two main reasons for this were the kimono experience and the food. Our friends wanted to do a kimono wearing "tour" where you get to choose your garb (mostly just color options as well as a little accessory that goes around the waist) and go out back to take some photos in the Japanese-style garden. With a backdrop of bamboo groves, bonsai-like trees, and a traditional house, it felt like we were there for a traditional Japanese wedding. I think the experience is a little more geared towards women as their choices for accessories are not only greater but they also get their hair done in a nice bun.

The experience also came with a matcha ceremony trial where we learned the ways of serving tea and also receiving it. The last little bit was an afternoon or so of free-time where we could wander the streets to be gawked at.

The next thing that made my experience different was the food. When it comes to local dishes, Kyoto is known for unagi-don (grilled eel on rice). I’ve had my fair share of eel in my life: at nicer sushi joints as sushi, in Korea where they served bbq Korean river eel, but what I had was far superior to anything I'd ever tasted before. Even last year when I had unagi-don in Kyoto I thought it was tasty but not particularly outstanding. The meat’s texture was perfectly soft, moist and tender. The char was just right and you could just tell this was some seriously fresh stuff. Now I will say, we did pay a pretty penny for this at about 4500 yen (~45 cad ish, but remember tax is included and there’s no tip).

The next food highlight was Kichi Kichi Omurice. This is the spot run by the high-energy old man who makes Japanese omurice. This is another moment where I wasn’t sure what I was expecting, but it definitely wasn’t a super high energy performance. My man was jumping around, making noises, and presenting your food like some kind of lootbox opening. Overall the food was good and the energy was high throughout, so I left satisfied.

Looking back now, I think I left Kyoto with no regrets. I accomplished what I wanted to do and more. Our trip towards Osaka begins the next day, but in Uji and Nara first.

Nara

Before going to Nara we quickly dropped by Uji for some matcha. Unfortunately, there seemed to be a matcha shortage; stores that normally carried it were out of stock, and those that had it limited purchases to two. I ended up buying a bag of Kuki Hojicha; a type of green tea made from the roasted stems and twigs of the tea plant, rather than the leaves. It’s a very savoury kind of drink reminiscent of toasted bread and nuts, with a hint of matcha.

Nara was just like how I remembered it from my first trip to Japan more than 10 years ago. The routine was just as I remembered it: buy some treats, feed the deer, and take a walk through the park. I wish I had taken some more photos of the surrounding area and the shops but I got too busy eating strawberry daifuku.

Osaka

While our “base of operations” was in the heart of Osaka, most of our time in the area was spent in the nearby attractions like Mino park and Kobe city. It was also around the time our group was falling sick to what seemed to be a common cold. While we did stay on top of our medication, I soon realized that I hadn't eaten many proper greens in a while. Sure there’s a handful of vegetables thrown into dishes that might use it as decoration, but overall not many vegetables that show up as the main dish. Let’s go over some Japanese food and count the veggies in them.

• Sushi: none.
• Ramen: basically zero.
• Katsu: maybe a small salad on the side.
• Konbini food: nada.
• Okonomiyaki: I’ll give them points for this one since the base is cabbage.
• donburi: nai.
• Omurice: nope.

This isn't to say there's absolutely no veggie-focused dishes. Nabe and health-focused dishes do exist, but these tend to be harder to find, and also more expensive.

When I came to this realization, I decided to overdose on vitamins for the rest of the Japan trip. Across the country, konbinis stock these little vitamin jelly packs called In Jelly. Every time I saw this thing (and I still do even now while writing this), I was reminded of the LinkedIn logo. See for yourselves:

We actually skipped over a large portion of Dotonbori this time around because the bustle was too hot to handle while sick. Despite better judgement I still drank a lot of nama biru because how could I let go of the chance that was laid in front of me?

Mino

A day-trip to Mino park, a valley on the outskirts of Osaka. Located north of Osaka, it’s surprising that such a nature reserve is only 30 minutes from Dotonbori. The main attraction here is a walk through the woods towards the Mino waterfall. Along the way there is Ryuanji Temple which apparently opened around 1400 years ago in 658 AD.

Kobe

Kobe was another day-trip location. Turns out I came here during my first Japan trip, but for some reason I thought I went to Nagasaki for half my life. Coming across the rubble and plaque describing the 1995 disaster made me rethink that whole Japan trip. Whatever, in any case this gives me a good reason to visit Nagasaki one day to see what they actually have in store.

Our group split into two for a friendly battle over which team can score the most bingos. We thought it might be a fun idea to explore the city by giving ourselves some side quests. The 5x5 card included things like: a store selling kobe beef, trash can (but not in a konbini), non bird/dog animal, ferris wheel, an interesting boat, and a bunch more.

This would mark the last night of our trip in Japan. The next morning was booked off for a flight to Korea for which I have another blog coming up, so stay tuned for not only part 2 of the group trip, but also things I did during the other 25 or so days while I stayed behind in Korea to see family and friends.