Konnichiwa, readers!
I was torn between going to two different countries: New Zealand and Japan. As it turned out, there were no trips to New Zealand that worked with my vacation time, and there was one to Japan that was over $1000 off on a holiday sale. So, I made the correct choice and went to Japan. And what a time I had!
Unlike my previous trips, I spent only a few days by myself, did a TripAdvisor day trip, and then joined up with G Adventures to embark on a bullet train tour to explore the country. Brad Pitt not included.
You've already heard about my food experiences over there, so this time we'll hear about my adventures with this post.
And now, let us dive in!
Tokyo Arrival
Having never been to this side of the world before, I did as much research as possible on how to get around, and studied what options were available. The airport I arrived at, Narita, was several miles outside of Tokyo, and taxis were supremely expensive so I made the choice to take the train to get there. Most of the info I found was about the Skyliner, which would only go halfway to where I needed to go, so I decided to wait until I arrived. I found which station the hostel I booked was nearest to and went forward with that info.
Once I arrived, the first thing the passengers were told was that Japan still had a strict mask mandate. I had packed masks just in case but had hoped I wouldn't need them. After spending about 45 minutes going through immigration, I followed the signs, posted in both Japanese and English, to the trains. I spoke with an agent who helped me purchase a ticket for the correct station, and she told me which station to transfer at.
It was about a 40 minute trip to the Jimbocho station, but once I arrived, the hostel was a mere 2 blocks away, easily found with Google Maps. I checked in, was given an assigned bed, bought a 48-hour subway pass, then purchased a brief snack to act as dinner since I wasn't too hungry and didn't want to risk nausea.
By now it was past 8:00pm, and I was tired and would need to rise early for my day trip tomorrow, but I decided to explore regardless. I walked a few blocks around hostel, seeing few people out but not feeling in any way unsafe. One of the cool places I came across was the Book Hotel where people can rent a room for a few hours to read, and provided books and wine for an additional price. I also found an English Pub that boasted Guinness, so naturally I couldn't resist. Unfortunately, the Guinness was watered down, so I finished it quickly and moved on. By then I was sufficiently tired and ready to retire.
Hakone
Before I discuss Hakone, let me first tell you that if you're going to come here, it's best to stay a minimum of two days. Not only is this area vast, but there is a Hakone Day Pass that provides you with public transportation and entrance to multiple attractions nearby. I'll fill you in on some of those activities as we go on.
Now, as I researched this area before coming, I found that I could take a train from the Shinjuku Station, a mere 4 stops from Jimbocho, directly to Hakone. It was called the Romancecar. Had I known more about the Day Pass I mentioned and purchased it, I could have just gone to the platform after collecting my ticket. Unfortunately, the research I did wasn't clear about also needing a separate boarding pass, which I hadn't purchased. Thankfully, the representative who was trying to help me had an English speaking agent nearby who helped me understand the process and to buy the right ticket. I made it to the train with 2 minutes to spare!
I specifically reserved a seat in the rear because it had full windows that I could watch the countryside through as we passed. It was about a 90 minute trip, and I arrived early so I wandered around until my tour guide showed up. His name was Yoshi and he was a delightful guy. However, despite the package I had purchased, there had been no fine print about transportation, so Yoshi recommended I buy that day pass. It was about $45 USD, but it still paid for itself for the one day.
Our first stop was at the Lake Ashi Pirate Ship. We sailed on this beautifully restored pirate ship directly across the lake. We continued to the neighboring town of Motohakone to have lunch at a restaurant called Amimoto Oba, where they served freshly caught fish. Yoshi suggested a bento box that he was also having, and boy, did he have good taste! I ate everything in that box. It was so yummy, and filling enough but not to the point of feeling bloated.
We then hopped a bus and continued to the Owakudani Geopark where volcanic activity causes sulfur clouds to billow all over the place. Under normal circumstances, you can also see Mt. Fuji from here, but unfortunately that mountain was mostly hidden by clouds that day.
After checking out the area, we used the Day Pass to use the Hakone Ropeway, which safely transported riders over some of these areas for some incredible views.
Once we reached the bottom, we rode a cable car to our next stop, which brought us to Gora Park. It was a lovely park, but this being before spring, not much was in bloom, so I had to use my imagination. Thankfully, there was also a greenhouse on site with some amazing tropical flowers on display.
We continued from there to my main reason for visiting: The Hakone Open-Air Museum. The museum is home to large grounds filled with sculptures, many of which were quite remarkable. But I was there to see one in particular: the Sfera con Sfera.
I've mentioned this sculpture in previous posts, and I fully intend to do a post on these international sculptures in the future. The Sfera isn't accessible to visitors since it is artwork here, but as you can see, I was still able to take a picture with it. Afterwards, Yoshi and I continued walking the grounds and visited the Picasso Art Exhibit, which did not allow for pictures. I also took a picture in the Sun Tower made of stained glass. That one was a cool one!
Our tour ended from there, though it was still about an hour's trip back taking a local train to the Tozan Train. I learned that Tozan rail was built in cooperation with Switzerland, which was a fun piece of trivia to learn. We reached the station and I bid Yoshi goodbye, then stuck around Hakone to explore the shopping area and pick up some food while I waited for my train departure time. I rode back on the Romancecar but this time without needing to purchase the boarding pass.
Tokyo on My Own
I had expected my Hakone tour to last till about 8:00pm, but it wound up ending at 5:00pm. I arrived back in Tokyo around 7:30pm and decided to explore the areas with more night life going on. I went first to my usual stop: The Hard Rock Cafe. After picking up my shot glasses, I went to a nearby Irish pub. Honestly, there wasn't anything too special about this pub, but I also made an interesting observation after having had visited an English pub the night before: these European pubs are where the white people meet.
I didn't stay long and moved on to a bar in the Ginza District called The 300 Bar that boasted ¥300 drinks on their business card. When I arrived, I did find that they were honest, but you had to buy tickets for each individual drink and/or appetizer of the same cost, and you needed to purchase a minimum of 3 tickets. I bought the minimum and picked up an appetizer and 2 drinks but didn't stay long. The bar had a good mix of international patrons, but I'm not much of a bar person and it was too busy for me to enjoy thoroughly. So I went back to the hostel and called it a night.
I got up at a reasonable hour and snagged some breakfast, then went to one of the places that Yoshi suggested I see in Tokyo: The Imperial Palace East Gardens, only about a mile from my hostel. It was a cool experience, but as with the gardens at Gora Park, many of the flowers and trees weren't in bloom yet. The gardens were still a fun experience, and with it being on a Saturday, admission was free.
Afterwards, I zipped back to the hostel and gathered my things so I could check out on time. Then I hopped the subway and took a train to the station closest to the hostel where I would be meeting my group with G Adventures. I dropped off my luggage in the lobby and went right back to the station, heading for my next item on my agenda: Shibuya Crossing.
Shibuya Crossing is essentially the Times Square of Tokyo. There were hundreds of people waiting at the crosswalks every time the light turned green! I happened to need to cross anyways because I was trying to go to one of the observation decks in the area. I went to the Shibuya Scramble Square Tower, a skyscraper in the area, to go to the Shibuya Sky, but as soon as I reached the lobby there was a sign saying they were sold out for the day.
From there, I went up each individual level to the 14th floor. Each level had shops, some focusing on clothing and furniture only, others with different types of goods to browse. I went all the way to the top where the restaurants were, as well as the entrance to the Shibuya Sky. They were still sold out, but I was high enough to take some amazing pictures of the Crossing. The best place to take those pictures was in the free art gallery where anime art was being displayed. There was also a free exhibition called NHK that allowed guests to interact with state-of-the-art technology. It was definitely worth checking out!
I then ventured to the Tokyo Tower, Japan's popular communications tower, and one of two major towers in Tokyo, the other being the Skytree. I purchased my ticket to the main observation level and got some amazing views of the city from up there. When I was ready to leave, there was a crazy long line to for the elevators, so I opted to take the stairs down. That may have been exhausting, but it was well worth it.
It was time to meet with my group by then, so I returned to the hostel, recovered my luggage and went to my room to freshen up. My group slowly came together, we met our tour guide and he went over the itinerary and other things of note for the trip. Then he took us on a trip through the side streets of Shinjuku, which went pretty quickly into the Red Light District. He pointed out the host cafes, the bars that had cover charges, hotels without windows, and the areas that looked like a Japanese version of Las Vegas.
And Godzilla.
He brought us through several narrow restaurant areas including the Omoide Yokocho before bringing us to dinner at a chain restaurant that offered very yummy food. I had walked about 16 miles by that point so we returned to the hostel and I went straight to bed after that.
In the morning, we went to the Asakusa Shrine. The Tokyo Marathon was happening this weekend, so some of our routes were blocked, but it was fun to cheer on the runners. We went through the Nakamise-Dori Street Market to reach the shrine and our guide gave our group a breakdown of how the shrines work with lighting incense, offerings, and the process of receiving fortunes without being scammed.
We passed through the neighboring Shin Nakamise Market quickly, but not before I took note of the various weapons I wanted to buy. Afterwards, the group began to split up, and several of us went on with our guide through the Akihabara area, back to Shibuya Square to see the statue of the loyal Hachi, and ending in Harajuku. Akihabara is the geek area where there are anime and video game shops galore, and Harajuku is an indie-type neighborhood that is fun to check out for its niche shops and subculture.
After this tour, I and several others went to the teamLab Planets experience where the visitors interact with and become parts of the exhibits! We all had to go barefoot and wear shorts there because several exhibitions took place in water-filled rooms, but the shorts and slippers were provided for everyone. This was easily one of the coolest things I've ever experienced and recommend everyone who comes to Tokyo to check it out.
Takayama
We were up bright and early the next morning to take our first bullet train! Our destination was Takayama, a small city just outside of the Hida Mountains, better known as the Japanese Alps. Once we reached Osaka, we hopped another train to bring us to our destination, and guess what we saw there? SNOW.
The weather reports I'd looked at had reported that it would be 60s and 70s degrees throughout most of my trip, but I hadn't checked Takayama. It was cold out there! Thankfully, I'd packed enough clothing to keep me warm enough, but that lesson was hard learned.
We stowed our luggage first and then went to Hida no Sato Folk Village, an almost perfectly intact village from pre-modern times. With the snowmelt, it was very wet and muddy out there, but it was an incredibly cool area to check out. After that, we were taken to the Old Private Houses area where we went down the streets to the sake breweries. I sampled probably a dozen different types of sake and was no worse for the wear. Definitely worth it!
After picking up our luggage, we then trekked to our lodging for the night, a hostel converted from a minka! Minkas are the Japanese homes where you sleep on the floor, and this one in particular had an onsen. I must say that while staying at a minka was an interesting experience, I don't sleep well on floors. It is still an experience I would recommend to every traveler.
Our dinner was at an amazing restaurant where we had Hida beef, and we had a beautiful albeit freezing walk along the river back to the hostel. Our morning began with a walk through the city center seeing the local shrine, then going through the Miyagawa Morning Market, picking up street food for our pre-breakfast, then found a local bakery for the main meal. We hopped the train back to Osaka and then transferred to our next and longest stop:
Kyoto
We arrived in the early afternoon and checked in to our hostel, then were taken through the amazing Nishiki Market! Amazing smells, cool artwork, and incredible looking food were everywhere. We could only stop briefly though, so I grabbed a taiyaki before we continued to the subway for our next destination, the Fushimi Ishihari Shrine of 1000 Gates. It was getting late and there were plenty of people here, so we could only go so far within the area.
I maybe cleared 400-500 gates before reaching on of the mid-tier sections with tiny shrines all over the place, but to clear all of the gates would take about 2 hours. Our guide told me that it's best to do it first thing in the morning before all the tourists came through. After returning to the main grounds, I walked through the small market nearby and caught some amazing pictures.
Before stopping for dinner, we were led past the theater district where a Kabuki production was being performed, but unfortunately there weren't any times available for me to see it. We were then led through Gion, the geisha district, and given a brief history of tea-houses and geishas. Most pictures were banned in this area, but there were a few places where I could sneak one or two!
The next day was full of more tours of historical sites. It began with a trip to Arashiyama to go through the Bamboo Forest. The forest was beautiful, but in my opinion, a little underwhelming. Near the center of the forest was a shrine devoted to matchmaking, and hilariously, nobody in our group felt the need to check it out. We continued with a small hike through the outer areas to take some amazing pictures by the river. There was a monkey trail nearby, which we unfortunately skipped because we were warned that the monkeys could become aggressive.
We stopped for a quick lunch and hopped the trains to Kinkakuji, the Golden Pavilion. This is the site of a temple that has a pavilion with the top two levels coated in gold, as the name states. The beautiful area where it is built almost looks like a painting from several hundred years ago. Outside of the site is a soft-serve ice cream parlor, which our guide told us was customary to purchase after visiting the pavilion. Hey, if it's a local custom, who am I to argue???
Another subway trip later and we made the next item on our itinerary: Nijo Castle. This intact castle features two castles, though only the Ninomaru-goten Palace was accessible due to the other, the Honmaru Palace, being repaired. In order to enter the main palace, guests must remove their shoes and wear special slippers, and taking pictures is not allowed.
There were two things of note to this palace: the first being the Nightingale Floor. I once read a book called Across the Nightingale Floor, which featured a plot point about this very thing as the main character would have to make his way across without it making a sound. A Nightingale Floor is called that as it is not attached to the rest of the floor, but is held in place by taut cables a few inches above the ground. Walking over it, no matter how softly you tread, makes noise, hence the name.
The next thing of note were the paintings. Since I couldn't take pictures I will do my best to describe what it was I saw: silly tiger paintings. At the time that this palace had been built, the artisans doing the inner murals were tasked with painting tigers, which are not indigenous to Japan. Our guide told us that he believes that the artists were told that it was an orange cat with black stripes and the face of a man. I don't know if you can imagine that, but while the rest of the body was pretty on point for artists who had never seen tigers before, those faces were pretty creepy. But what a fun story!
At this point, we returned to the hostel for a few hours, and I went in search of dinner. There the Irish Pub Field just outside of the Nishiki Market, so I dropped by there first for a Guinness. I struck up a conversation with the proprietor, a very sweet guy named Hikaru, since there was only one other person there, and he was looking at his phone. Hikaru told me that on the weekends the pub was bustling because they would have live Irish music there, despite his never being to Ireland. I sadly informed him that I wouldn't be there over the weekend but next time I'm in town I'll see what I can do. He also gave me a suggestion for a local coffee house to visit.
We had covered a lot of ground that day, so I didn't want to go far to get dinner, leading me to the Italian restaurant next door for some pizza. The restaurant definitely captured an authentic Italian feel, and the food was delicious. I met up with my group afterwards and we went for the one thing I had been dying to do since we got here: karaoke!
There are karaoke joints on nearly every corner in the major cities, and of our group, about 8 of us went. We got some drinks and sang for about an hour and a half and had a great time!
The next day was all on our own with the exception of an optional activity, which I will get to later. I plotted out my plan for the day and set off at a decent hour. My first stop was at the Kyoto Imperial Palace where the emperor once maintained his residence. The grounds were vast and had several points of interest to check out, but the main palace only had 2 open times for tours, and they didn't fit into my schedule. So I toured the outer regions of the palace and some of the smaller areas. I was there was a good long while before I moved on and found the coffee shop that Hikaru had referred me to.
The shop was kind of hidden, but it was situated next to the Nashinoki Shrine and appeared to have been converted from a tea shop. I had a nice respite there before continuing to the next item on my list: The Manga Museum. I've never been too much of a Manga fan, but as an avid reader and supporter of the arts, I wanted to look into this as it is very much a part of Japanese pop culture.
I learned plenty of fun facts about Manga history, particularly that this story form goes back several hundreds of years to medieval times. And there was rows and rows of modern Manga with people reading absolutely everywhere! As a reader, this place was cool enough just by existing, but seeing the locals there being accommodated just to indulge in their favorite medium was inspiring. I loved it.
When I left, it was finally time for me to thoroughly check out the Nishiki Market! I went through just about every available shop and stall, looking for foods to try. It was tough! It was when I found small cups (not shot glasses, these were bigger!) of sake for ¥100 that I started forcing myself to make a decision. I snacked on multiple servings of street food, though I passed up the Fugu, or Puffer Fish, despite my wanting to try it.
Now that I was full, I continued on to the last item on my list, one that had been personally recommended to me from a friend of mine: the Kiyomizu-Dera Temple. I walked because it would take roughly the same amount of time to take a subway or bus, and they would only drop off at the street below the temple. It was when I reached that street that I realized why: there were thousands of people all going to the same area!
The going was all uphill, and there was barely any room between people. It took a while to make it, and once there, I was able to see Kyoto city from one of the best vantage points. After taking a few pictures, I paid my admission to check out the temple grounds and went in. The temple is amazing; it is built from wood yet gilded in gold along the eaves. People from all over the world were there to bring offerings and worship.
There were several paths and trails throughout the grounds, and one led the Seikan-Ji Temple and Kanameishi altar in a short hike. I checked that one out briefly before returning to the main grounds for a final look around. I captured some shots I'm proud of and then went back to the main street down, checking out a few of the shops along the way and picking up a snack.
I had completed all of my own adventures at this point, and now was the time to reunite with my group for our activity together: samurai school!
Yes, we got to dress up and handle katanas in a legit class! I have trained with a katana in the past but it's been over 10 years, so it felt particularly satisfying to pick up the sword again and learn from true masters. One of the interesting parts I learned wasn't in the actual swordplay, but in utilizing the sheath. The sword is returned to its sheath in a particular manner that I was unaware of and will be using to this day when I pick up the weapon again. We returned to the hostel after that and finished out the night with sushi.
Part 2, Coming Soon!
That was a lot in just about a week! So, where did we go next?
Find out in my next post!
All pictures were taken by me or my device and not to be used without permission. Gifs courtesy of Giphy.com
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