Category Archives: Japan

The Start of a 3 Week Adventure

April 5, 2014Japan, Traveling, TripJapan, Kanazawa, Kyoto, Okayama, Shodoshimachew

Day 1 – on our way to Shodoshima

We hopped on the local train heading for Kanazawa station.

From there we jumped onto the Thunderbird express bound for Kyoto Station

Then onto the Bullet train/Shinkansen for Okayama Station

We hopped on a bus that took about 30 minutes to get from Okayama station to Shin-Okayama Harbor. By the time we got there, it has already been a long day. I was pretty hungry, so we ordered Chicken Karaage. It costs 600 Yen, which was about $6. To our surprise, it was quite a bit of food, and it was good too. We had to eat quickly, however, since our ferry was leaving soon.

Then we hopped on a ferry bound for Shodoshima!

We walked around the ship for a bit and I found out that the boat was called the “Olympia Dream”. Pretty amusing since the capital of Washington state is Olympia. To come all the way to Japan, in a rather remote part of it as well, to hop on a boat with a name similar to where you are from. Interesting/Omoshiroi.

Pretty much the best part of the boat was the warm foot bath you could take while enjoying the scenery. I would have partaken, however there was no towel in site, and putting wet feet into dry socked didn’t sound fun at all….

I did notice however that the water was very calm. There was pretty much no waves, and relatively little wind on the ride. I’m wondering if we picked the perfect day, or if this is the norm.

Once we arrived, we walked around a bit. The lady at the ferry information desk was extremely helpful. She gave us a few maps and talked to us for quite a while about everything on the island. While my wife wanted to head straight to the hotel, I wanted to walk around for a bit to get a feel for this place. Looking at the map, it didn’t seem like it would take us very long to walk to “downtown” Tonosho. After a 20-30 minute walk with heavy bags, it became apparently every map on this island is not to scale. Roads that looked short on the map were very long, and roads that were long were very short…. After the 30 minutes of me saying our destination should be right around the corner “based on the map”, I could hear the frustration on my wife’s voice.

At any rate, we made it to the world’s narrowest straight, “Dofuchi Straight”. Who knew it was on Shodoshima… http://www.town.tonosho.kagawa.jp/kanko/tnks/info34.html

According to their website, you could receive a certificate saying you crossed over it at the town hall, but we were in a hurry to get to our hotel before dark, so we skipped the formality.

We hopped on the local bus, and there was a sign that my wife told me said be careful of this spider… I can’t read Japanese, but that picture looks like a Black Widow. So ya, that is going to haunt me while I sleep… and every time I get an itch I going to swat at it like its a deadly spider…

We hopped off the local bus in Ikeda. The hotel had a shuttle bus that drove down and picked us up for the rest of the trip to the hotel. We settled into our hotel room, and enjoyed our boxed lunch/dinner/snacks we picked up earlier.

The hotel had a bit of “locally made snacks” the majority of which were olive themed as olives were what the island was known for. My wife wanted to go see what they had and maybe pick out some snacks. There was no restaurant or convenience store near the hotel. It was a bit remote. When my wife bought some snacks, the guy working at the hotel was a little worried that we didn’t have any food for dinner, and that the snacks she bought was going to be our dinner. So he handed us some free snacks that tasted like rice crispy treats.

It was a pretty long day, so we got some sleep and prepared for the adventures to come.

*an additional thought from the trip, the ferry was pretty empty… there was like 10 people on the boat and 1 car. I bet summer time is much more busy, but I wonder how they can cover the costs of the ferry with so little passengers. I’m curious if the government is helping subsidize any of it.

Dinner in Kanazawa

April 3, 2014Food, Japangrilled food, Japan, Kanazawachew

While staying at the machiya, my wife’s uncle recommended a restaurant that we should try out. He even called and made a reservation for us.

It was a restaurant in Kanazawa called Chokichi which served kushiyaki.

We arrived apparently as soon as they opened.

We were told to get the chef’s recommendation, so we did. We relaxed a bit while the chef prepared the kitchen. We sat around and noticed some of the other patrons were rather chatty with the chef. It appeared as though maybe they were regulars or knew the chef personally.

After a short wait, the chef started bringing us plate after plate of delicious food on sticks. Ever since I was little my family always called these types of things shish kebabs. Apparently, its not a term that is really used in Japan. Wiki says shish kebab is a middle eastern term. I wonder if most Americans would call these shish kebabs or if it is just my family… Let me know what you would call them in the comments!

In America, I usually get foods I like and I tend to stick with them. But being some place pretty foreign to me I thought I should branch out a bit.

A bit of beef tongue. Pretty good actually.

Some stomach, ok I’ll try… it was a little squishy, crunchy, and fatty at the same time… After 1 bite, I decided to pass.

We saw some liver coming out and we told the chef no thanks. Maybe I would have tried it if it didn’t follow the stomach.

At this restaurant, the chef continues to bring you more kushiyaki until you say stop. Not really knowing this, we got pretty full.

About mid way through dinner, my wife’s uncle and his wife showed up. We didn’t know they were going to show up,but it was pretty fun. They showed me some more foods I’ve never seen before. Like this giant bean, which tasted like a giant Edamame, and in the background, ginko nuts/seeds.

After saying stop, they brought out some soup with a grilled rice ball in it.

After dinner, we headed to a bar for a couple drinks. At home in Seattle, I usually get a Rum and Coke when I can’t find a menu, or think of anything more exotic. But being in Japan, I thought I should get some sort of Japanese cocktail. We asked the bartender what would a Japanese-ish equivalent be for a Rum and Coke. Like a common Japanese mixed drink. The bartender thought a bit, but couldn’t think of anything. He said in Japan, their main drink is beer and Sake. I’m not a huge fan of beer, and I didn’t feel like Sake at the moment, so I went with a couple drinks I’m familiar with at home.

The bar was hiding in a small alley, so I’m not sure how people would find it that easily, but it was pretty busy nonetheless.

The second night, I went with my wife’s family to a Korean BBQ place called Midouen.

It was delicious/oishii as well. They brought out a few plates of raw marinated meats and vegetables on a plate.

You would then pick them up and grill them yourself. I had a bite of shrimp, but mostly played the rest of the night safe with beef and pork.

Both places were delicious, and I would definitely recommend them.

Traditional Japanese House

March 27, 2014Food, Hotel, JapanGeisha, Hotel, Japan, Kanazawachew

We stayed two nights at a traditional Japanese House!

The house was located in the old Kazue-machi district.

From the Kanazawa Tourism site, “Kazue-machi is an old geisha district located along the river between Asanogawa Ohashi Bridge and Naka-no Hashi Bridge”

Walking down a cute/kawaii small alley, we found the house where we were going to stay.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Machiya

http://www.machiya-kanazawa.jp/english/

Stepping inside there was a small room where you could remove your shoes before entering the house.

Once fully inside, the first thing I noticed was that back in the day, Japanese people were short… I had to duck when moving from room to room since the ceiling was low. I don’t consider myself super tall either, I’m about 6’/182cm.

The kitchen was pretty nice, and clean. Everything was labeled in Japanese and English. I would assume they must get quite a few English-speaking guests.

The bathroom was extremely nice. The sink/toilet/bathroom were all sparkly, as if they were new. I can’t imagine the toilet with its 20 different buttons was very common in the old days, but honestly there are some old-time experiences I don’t feel the need to have. The bathroom being one of them.

No house would be complete without B-chan. The house goldfish, just don’t feed him. I wonder what happens if you did feed him….

I’d like to think that if you did feed him, he would grow to be an enormous giant monster/Kaiju where he would fight in a battle with Godzilla in an attempt to destroy the Earth. But being a good citizen however, I’ll do my part to protect the earth, and let poor B-chan starve.

Previous image from Wiki

We had a little garden to look at through the window. It was nice and pretty relaxing for the brief time I was looking.

While this was mostly decorative, the houses from long ago sometimes came with a tea room, where you would have guests and have a formal tea ceremony.

The floors are made of weaved rice straw/tatami and are pretty comfortable to walk on. I wonder if tatami floors are very delicate, because everywhere we’ve been that have tatami we have had to put our luggage in special areas where the tatami is covered up and we can’t roll bags on it etc.

This would be a place where a geisha could come and entertain with music and dancing.

We setup Futons to sleep on. In one of the closets, there was thick Futon pads that we opened up on the floor, along with sheets, and a comforter.

Early the next morning, the lady that checked us into the hotel stopped by to make us a traditional breakfast. It started with Green Tea flavored rice.

Then there was mushroom soup, potatoes, fu (ya, I had to google it too. Apparently it’s some sort of wheat gluten. I would equate the taste to be similar to soggy bread.), radish, and oranges soggy from being soaked in honey.

I’m guessing mainly for tourists, but yes, they had rickshaws.

Akari zaka – “The light slope”

Kuragari zaka – “The dark slope”

I had to do a little bit of research to understand the significance of these two staircases. This led me to this blog which shed some light:

“If there is something special, I think that should be the narrow sloping streets, Kuragari zaka (暗がり坂) and Akari zaka (あかり坂), that might remind you of geisha’s daily life in this area.

Kuragari zaka (暗がり坂), which means the path in the dark, is a short, narrow slope around the shrine “久保市乙剣宮”.

It’s said that the famous writer in Kanazawa usually went to school via this slope.

As for Akari zaka (あかり坂, 明かり坂), it has an opposite meaning of Kuragari zaka that means the path in the light.

This narrow street was originally nameless but named by the writer Itsuki hiroyuki in his novel.

These narrow streets were the paths for geisha in the past that indicate the social status of geisha.”

Higashi Chaya

While walking a neighboring street which is famous in Kanazawa, Higashi Chaya, we even saw a newly wed couple dressed in traditional clothes. I’m sure they will live happy to know that they will forever be immortalized on this blog. Nevertheless, it was fun seeing the clothes and how they dress.

Bus Tour to Nagoya

March 24, 2014Food, Japan, Sightseeing, TripJapan, Nagoyachew

We started the day pretty early. My wife’s parents dropped us off at Kanazawa station at around 7:30AM. We hopped on the bus with a few other people, and we were off.

http://www.kitanippon-kanko.co.jp/

They even gave us a points card that would give us a discount if we rode on more tours. Not sure if I will go on another tour, but I will take pride in knowing that I am or at least was a member.

We made a couple other stops along the way to pick up more people. Most of those stops were along the highway at rest stops. Rest stops in Japan, however, feel a lot more like rest stops I experienced in Europe and a lot less like American rest stops. American rest stops are usually no more than a bathroom, maybe a little bit of grass, and a place for semi-truck drivers to sleep. Japanese rest areas a much more deluxe. The couple we stopped at had the obvious bathroom, but they also had small stores for snacks and drinks as well as a couple places to get warm cooked food. The last one we went to had a small food court with a few restaurants. I’m curious if these types of places are fancier than usual, or if all of the rest stops in Japan are similar to this.

As we drove, in late March, it started snowing. I don’t believe the altitude was very high where we were driving, it was just cold outside…

As we drove, I saw out the window a Canon factory! I’d like to think that the Camera I was using was made there, but who knows. Maybe I will have to look it up later.

The road signs in Japan are very bright. This one was incredibly large, and would hopefully inform you of the potential hazards of the corners ahead…

I wasn’t quick enough on the trigger to take a picture of one of the coolest road signs I’ve ever seen, but I did find a picture of it online:

http://www.pinterest.com/pin/461900505503860894/

Yes, that’s a picture of a Raccoon/Tanuki crossing… I will probably talk about cars in another blog, but I wonder if raccoon’s are more larger here or can cause more damage to the cars.

I also didn’t get a picture of some of the traffic signs, but they were pretty cool too! They even showed a little icon of the weather ahead. Rain showed a small umbrella with rain drops. Snow was a little snowman. Why don’t we show weather on traffic signs in America. Or at least we don’t do that in Seattle. I don’t remember seeing anything like that in other cities in America either though.

Taga-taisha

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taga-taisha

The first stop we visited. There was quite a bit of traffic, so we only had 20 minutes to run to this shrine, and take a quick look.

My wife showed me how to use this scoop to wash your hands and lips before visiting the shrine.

I purchased a fortune. We ran out of time, so my wife couldn’t translate it for me right then, but basically it was good luck. After seeing your fortune, you can tie it up here and the monks will dispose of it for you. There is probably some other meaning that I’m unaware of… I’m sure someone reading this will see just how ignorant I am with Shrines/Temples and their associated religions. I’ll have to research more about them so I can have a better understanding and appreciation for places like these.

Wikipedia says one of the things this Shrine is known for is successful marriages. I wonder if that is why my mother-in-law picked out this bus tour. 🙂

Shabu-shabu

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shabu-shabu

After visiting the Shrine, we went to a cafeteria looking building to have Shabu-Shabu. Basically, it’s a little pot with a candle underneath it. There is water in the pot and you get to boil your own food before you eat it! It was pretty fun.

Despite getting a good luck fortune from the Shrine only minutes before, I was the only one whose candle the waitress forgot to light. So my water took a while to heat up before boiling, while everyone else started eating. My wife told me that the fortune was overall good luck and not something small and immediate like this lit candle. Let’s hope she is right.

I felt a little bad for the people next to me though. I would say I’m decent with Chopsticks/Hashi, but some foods are still difficult for me to pick up. Udon/Thick noodles being one of them. Trying to pick them up and raise them pretty high before placing them in the boiling water wasn’t easy, and I might have splashed a bit…

Afterwards, we were shuffled to the obligatory gift shop where they sold local foods and snacks. Apparently, the prefecture has a little mascot and they sold quite a few gifts with him on it.

Kiyosu Castle

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiyosu_Castle

The next stop was this castle where a famous samurai lived long ago. Since the tour was all in Japanese, and most of the signs explaining things in the castle were also only in Japanese, I didn’t understand much of the history or details. I’ll have to research more about this place later.

They did have a pretty cool room where you could try on a samurai outfit! and yes, I did try one on. Fake sword/Katana, helmet, body armor, the works.

Atsuta Shrine

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atsuta_Shrine

https://atsutajingu.or.jp/en/intro/

Many popular Shrines sell amulets and other small things that can bring help with a number of things such as, helping to find a job, helping to conceive a baby, bringing overall good luck, having a successful marriage, healing after car accidents, overall good health, good luck on a test, keeping your pet safe, etc. I’m considering buying one of every kind they sell so that I will become literally invincible/unstoppable in life.

Supposedly this pond can dispel all your bad luck if you use a scoop to splash water the same amount of times as your age. i.e. if you are 70, you have to stand their and splash water 70 times… 30 took long enough. I guess that is another reason getting old isn’t fun.

I’ve seen my fair share of bathrooms, but even in this popular tourist spot you think men could get a little more privacy than that…

Nabana no Sato

http://www.nagashima-onsen.co.jp/nabana/illumination/index.html/

As our tour guide stated, here is the “main evento”, the Illumination. Supposedly, it was a large flower garden that wanted to increase revenue. In doing so they decided to include a light show in the evening.

During the day you can walk around and view all of their flowers, and their plum blossoms were blooming.

They had multiple rooms filled with large walls of Begonias. It was actually very pretty.

I was surprised to see a vending machine with actual film in it still. I would imagine the people that are still diehards about old school film would probably have the forethought to bring lots of film with them… but who knows.

As it started to get darker, every started “lining up” or rather “cramming together”… to see the light show. The head of the line was actually pretty far away from here.

Once we got through a bit of the line, we started to see the light show. It began with a long white-ish tunnel. When people have a near death experience, they mention a long white tunnel. I asked my wife if this was the end… being crammed in a tunnel with a ton of people?

After a while, it was actually quite amusing. The sheer number of people, all wanting to see the lights. The worst however, were the old ladies/obasans. With their sharp elbows they would push their way to the front. Japanese people so far have been extremely polite, but maybe when x-mas lights are involved, all bets are off.

Even people lined up on the balconies to see the lights.

During the wait to get a closer up view of the lights and Mt Fuji, I was wondering, would this be as popular in America? I’m not so sure. During X-mas time, all of the houses in neighborhoods with holiday spirit are all lit up, and I imagine that seeing that would probably be good enough for most people. Since they don’t really do X-mas lights in Japan, maybe that’s why seeing light shows like this is more popular. Granted that this is a ton of lights, and still impressive, I think most Americans would probably come to see the garden, and avoid the crowd that we saw.

I should note however, that the crowd may have been larger than normal since it was a 3 day weekend, and it was also one of the last weekends to see the Mt. Fuji light show, they were going to put something else up at the end of March.

The lights would rotate though and even show a rainbow on the mountain.

Occasionally, it would turn red which reminded me of lava pouring down the volcano. I’m not sure what the significance of red was, but it seemed like an odd choice from the rest of the colors they picked.

Trip stops:

Flight to Japan

March 19, 2014Food, Japan, TripJapan, Planechew

Traveling to Japan from Seattle was quite the experience. If you are going to fly to Japan, ANA Business class is something I would highly recommend. ANA is outfitted with the new Boeing 787 Dreamliner. Upon boarding the plane, we were greeted with friendly stewardesses asking us if we would like Champagne or Orange Juice. Knowing that this is probably a once in a lifetime opportunity, I decided to live it up.

Champagne of course.

The seats alternate between rows (i.e. Row 1 A might be a seat and Row 1B would be a table, while in Row 2 A it would be a table and Row 2 B would be a seat) This way your feet would be underneath the table in the row in front of you. This was extremely nice because you could stretch out with your feet and lay down perfectly flat if desired. (The seats actually leaned back farther than 180 degrees, but that position seemed like it would be uncomfortable, so I’m not sure who would enjoy that…)

One difficulty with this whole arrangement was talking to my wife. The middle section of the plane (normally 3 seat locations) had a wall divider separating the 2 outside seats. Nice for privacy, difficult to have a conversation with the misses. For our flight, my seat was right behind my wife’s. Trying to get her attention was difficult as I couldn’t reach her with the seat belt on, and the noise cancelling headphones ANA gave out made calling her name useless.

The headphones were nice for the 4 movies I was able to plow through. Watching them on a 17 inch TV screen was also nice. When I got on the plane, my seat had a comforter, a sleeping pad, a pillow, a small bag with lotion and a toothbrush, and slippers. The stewardesses would walk by frequently, always ready to refresh your drink.

The first meal was deluxe. You have your choice of Japanese or an International meal. Knowing that I wouldn’t be having American food for a while I stuck with the International meal. It came with an appetizer of prosciutto and fruit, as well as some sort of seafood dish (I’m not particularly fond of seafood…) For the main course, I had a steak, and dessert was a Chocolate Mousse cake. The Japanese meal came with quite a bit of seafood… again not quite fond of seafood… Later in the flight, a second meal came around, again the options of Japanese or International. International was a gourmet lasagna. It wasn’t the best lasagna I’ve eaten, and actually I prefer Stouffer’s, but maybe that’s just me. They also had “Light” meals that you could request anytime during the flight. My wife had Ramen. After tasting the lasagna, I’m wishing I would have gotten the Bacon CheeseBurger.

For each meal, they setup a new table cloth. I did feel as though I was dining like a king.

The plane flew on a path north near Alaska. Looking out the window, I was trying to determine if I was seeing some strange currents, or if there were layers of ice on the water.

It would be funny if the company I just left made the seats for this airplane. If so, I will say they did a pretty good job.

I’ve never been on a Dreamliner before. So it was my first time to see the magical windows. They are actually pretty cool the first time you see them. Clicking a button with magically make the window darker. No window shade or anything.

This website explains a little bit about how they work http://gizmodo.com/5829395/how-boeings-magical-787-dreamliner-windows-work

I’m sure as I fly more planes in the future that have this ability, the wow factor will wear off and most likely kids in the future will ask “Mom, what’s a window shade”… At any rate, it seemed cool.

The customs process was rather painful….. We got in a line that took a long time, probably about 45 minutes to 1 hour. Once we got to the front of the line a lady directed us to lane 11. We waited in that lane for about 15 minutes until we finally got to talk to the Customs agent. She had a look at my passport and found that I had a Japanese Visa. She yelled for the lady who was directing people at the first line, and we were swiftly redirected to the back of lane 13… It took another 20 minutes or so to get to the front of than lane, but finally I was issued a residence card and allowed through customs.

We must have been the last passengers through customs. There was no carousel moving with bags from our flight, but we found them on a cart with an agent in the back of baggage claim.

Our next flight was almost 3 hours later. Since we flew business class, we were able to sit in the lounge area for ANA. It was rather busy, and not as luxurious as I was imagining, but the seats were more comfy than normal airport seats, and they had free drinks and snacks.

We flew on a small Bombardier plane the last leg to Kanazawa. It was a quick flight, 45 minutes or so, but they still threw some juice at us really quick which was nice.

Finally, we arrived in Kanazawa where my wife’s parents picked us up at the airport. The drive to their home was another 45 minutes away, but I managed to stay awake for the ride. We talked for a few minutes at their home, and then I went upstairs and passed out around 9PM I think. I believe I was awake for nearly 24 hours.

Starting Off

March 18, 2014Japan, TripJapan, Packingchew

I should probably start out by saying, I’m not a writer… I don’t really enjoy it…. But I’m going on a lengthy trip and I thought it might be good to keep a journal of it, so that in 30-40 years when I’m old and bed ridden, I will be able to remember the good old days when I’m able to go on adventures like this. So ya, hopefully this isn’t the first and only post and I can continue to write some of these memories down.

To fill in the back story, I’ve left my job as a Systems Analyst at an Aerospace company so that I can travel around Japan and get to know my wife’s family and culture better. We are going to be here for approximately 4 months, and after that I’ll head back to my native Seattle and look for new work.

The weeks/months leading up to this adventure were busy… packing, applying for a Japanese Spouse Visa, prepping everything to ensure we had all we needed for our adventure and that everything back home would be taken care of. I think our to-do list ended up being about 70 items long. But we managed to take care of everything or at least I hope we did… We will probably find out later on if there is something we forgot to do.

The morning we left, I woke up at 4:30 AM. Not because I had things to pack, or stuff to get ready, but because I had one of those moments where you half wake up in the middle of the night and in a nonsensical panic remember something and you immediately wake up fully, then you can’t fall back asleep. I remember it being something like “omg I’m leaving for Japan today”, or “I might miss my plane” or something to that affect. Our plane was leaving at 1PM, and we were planning on heading to the airport around 10AM. So I definitely had a few more hours I could have spent sleeping.

After sitting in bed thinking about my pack list for a few hours I got up, got ready, and finished zipping up my suitcases. My family took us to the airport and we were off to begin our adventures.

ChewVader

My Own Brand of Ramblings