I noticed when a bunch of Japanese are sharing stories and a good part comes, they all react in unison. It goes from one person talking to the entire group reacting with “oooooh”, the volume rising and the sound behind drawn out. I imagined them all saying “wow” in unison, but long like “woooow”. Then sometimes the reaction is “eeeeh?” with the sound of “are you kidding”? or “eeeeeh” with disapproval. I almost laugh out loud each time this happens. They become so animated and excited. And how wonderful it might be to be the story teller and know everyone is so engaged in what you are saying.
I asked some of my Japanese friends about this and they didn’t know they reacted in unison. “Oooooh” does mean like “wow” or “amazing”. “Eeeeh” is used to mean different things and the tone changes based on the conversation. It can be “What”?, “No way” or any other number of things. It is used to convey surprise, shock, or disbelief.
Here’s a couple funny videos of some different ways to use Eeeeeh.
My train arrived, people got off and then it was announced that we had to wait while the train was cleaned. Through the window, I saw the seats spin around slowly. It looked like they were doing ballet, pirouetting around. I saw no people. I wondered if Japan had self cleaning trains. Or were there tiny roombas zipping around the train that I could not see? It was complete quickly and we were allowed to board the train.
The second time I had to wait for a train to be cleaned, I did see a human walk through the train. But, the seats did appear to dance and spin again on their own without help from the human.
So I did some googling and found these fun facts about Shinkansen cleaning:
It takes 7 minutes to clean the train – 1.5 minutes for trash collection, 30 seconds for seat rotation, 4 minutes for sweeping and wiping tables/windows, and 1 minute for a final check.
A single staff member is responsible for one carriage (up to 100 seats).
They use specialized equipment, such as a retractable broom and thermosensors to check for spills.
Unfortunately I didn’t get any photos or videos of the train being cleaned, but here is a train video and picture that I took for fun.
I didn’t sleep well for my first few nights in Japan. Sometimes I have no problem when I travel, sometimes I am restless or wake up at weird times. My watch records my sleep and when I get up I can see how I did. The night on the plane I got a sleep score of 41. Last night it was a 58, not much better. I don’t really know how it calculates the score, but I’m obviously failing Sleep. Then I look at my energy score and it’s in the low 80’s. Huh? Watch Math makes no sense. I’m failing Watch Math too.
Failing Sleep was not great preparation for all the stairs. My hotel was near a smaller train station with no escalators. And if there were elevators, I missed them. I saw the entrance to the station (all stairs) and went down to find my train on platform 2. All I saw was platform 1 and no way around the tracks to the other side. I walked around and it seemed the only solution was going to be going back up to ground level and finding another entrance. Or I could get on the train going the wrong way for one stop and hope switching tracks would be easier at the next station. I decided to go with Plan B, the possible no stair option. The train pulled up to Platform 1. I laughed out loud as the doors opened to a wall of people. There was no way I was shoving myself, my big backpack and suitcase into that mess just to avoid stairs. So I hobbled up a lot of stairs back to ground level. As I looked around, I could see there were 4 entrances to the station, one on each corner of the street intersection. I only knew the one I came up was wrong – I had a 2/3 chance of picking the right one. If I was wrong, it would be another down and up of stairs. Carrying my suitcase down was just as hard as up. I crossed the street and went down again. Success! Platform 2! The train was practically empty which was great too.
Even though my next station was bigger, there were still so many stairs. I was getting more of an upper body workout than I expected. I got near my next train early and sat at a coffee shop to cool down and enjoy an iced coffee.
This train was a shinkansen and wasn’t very crowded so I could relax before any more stairs might appear.
My last train was a small local train. I heard it coming before it arrived. I love the way the rails start to sing long before a train arrives. A high pitched ringing, ping ping., the sound moving in tight waves along the rails toward you. Then as it got closer, a cute, happy song played in the station to mark the arrival of the train. It sounds like we might be in grade school, being invited to the playground. The train is brightly colored and even has grade school drawings hanging up inside.
The sounds don’t stop there. The train sings the whole way to the town of Bessho Onsen. As the train changes speed, the pitch of its song changes too. There are many rural stops along the way with old wooden platforms and small stations. It helps paint the picture that you are in the countryside. As the train slows or sits at a station it sighs, moans and makes cooing sounds. I’ve never heard anything like it. After I looked it up, I learned it was from the air suspension system that balances the load of the train and its passengers. It sounded like the train was talking to me.
I arrived in Bessho Onsen around lunch time, already exhausted, but happy to meet up with my friends.
I didn’t sleep well last night. I was awake at 2:00am, 4:00am and gave up at 5:00am. It’s making me question how good the expensive jet lag protocol I bought is working. Hopefully that will set me up for some good sleep tonight. I had emptied my suitcases last night in hopes to do a more logical packing job in the morning and getting some of the things out of my backpack that are making it so heavy. Now I had lots of time for that.
I found out Wendy is feeling sick and the girls asked me to find cold medicine. I asked Google if 7-11s in Japan carried cold medicine and it said they did. Great – there is a 7-11 two blocks from my hotel. And I have time for that! I found some vitamin C, but no cold medicine. I asked the clerk and he told me, no. He gave me the location of the nearest pharmacy. It wasn’t open and wouldn’t be before I had to be on my way to meet the girls in Bessho Onsen.
I re-packed and decided to check out of the hotel and make my way to the Shinkansen station. I could find a coffee shop there and enjoy a latte while I waited. I left the hotel around 7:15 and got a text.
I was supposed to have a session with an ATP client at 7:00am, but I forgot. My client texted me to tell me he was on the call. Oh no, I felt so bad. I could have done it from my room if I hadn’t just checked out. I jumped on the call from my phone and apologized. I was on a busy street with a ton of loud traffic. So, I ducked into the first alley I came to. There was a small ledge running along one of the buildings about 1 foot tall off the ground. The ledge was clean and not quite wide enough to sit on. I squatted down and squished my butt on the ledge and propped my phone up on my suitcase in front of me.
The alley was clean and quiet. Everything in Japan is clean. I can’t imagine squatting in an alley for a meeting in any other country. A few people walked by, but the didn’t act like anything was amiss. Just a foreigner doing a video call in the alley.
ATP is Awakening To Presence. It is coaching how to live in presence. Living in presence helps to let go of the stress and false stories most of us live from.
I found the train office in Tokyo and tried to get my future tickets printed. For two of the tickets they told me they couldn’t print them and I could get them in Kyoto. I wrote “get in Kyoto” across the receipt so I wouldn’t forget later when I got to Kyoto. For the other one, the guy kept telling me I needed the QR code, but I never received the QR code and didn’t know how I was going to pull off getting one. I stepped out of line to see if I could figure it out on my phone.
I did! I found the QR code on the website I had ordered from. I got back in line to get my tickets. Then I was told I use the QR code to get on the train. That was lost in translation before. My trip from Akihabara Station to Tokyo Station, therefore, was completely not necessary, but I did feel slightly more prepared for those upcoming days.
Next order of business was to find dinner. I walked out of the train station and then did a search for restaurants. There was a brew pub near by. At this point I had been up for 21 hours and was out of bandwidth to walk far, make decisions or eat strange things. A brew pub sounded good. Maybe I could get something easy and head back to my hotel.
I turned left and walked around the corner. Oh, I went the wrong way. I turned around and went the other way. Very quickly I was going the wrong way again. How did I miss it? How was I so turned around? Then I looked up – there was a set of stairs and some lights on the second floor. The brew pub was on the second floor right above where I had come out of the station. It was a tiny place with maybe room for 15 people. The menu was very small, mostly snack items that were cold. I was done and decided this wasn’t real Japanese food, but it was going to be just perfect because I was there and not extremely hungry. I ordered the ham plate. It had four types of ham and I washed it down with a ginger ale. The formula for this is 21 Awake Hours + 12 hour flight + 3 Train Rides + 17 Train Tickets = Ham Plate.
It’s Sunday April twenty sixth, and I am sitting at the airport waiting for my flight to take off. I’m headed to Japan again. The last couple times I was in Japan, I wrote in the blog, and I think I will again. I have three friends that left a few days ago and are already there. It will be fun to meet up with them and travel with them.
I bought new travel clothes before this trip. I’ve never had “travel clothes” before. Usually I just wear jeans, a t-shirt and a hoodie. I think a well fitting pair of jeans are comfortable, a t-shirt is comfortable if it’s too warm and the hoodie is essential if it’s cool. But I bought a matching pair of pants, tank top and long sleeve duster. It doesn’t hide the belly as much as I’d like, but it’s supposed to be wrinkle proof and it’s fairly comfortable.
For this trip, I am also trying a supplement kit and a tens unit that are both supposed to combat jet lag. The supplement kit comes with supplements to fight inflammation and to help reset your circadian rhythm. It also comes with blue light glasses and an app that tells you when to do what. We went to Denver last night because there was talk of possible snow and if you have a morning flight, it is often easier to go down the night before and get a hotel than to mess with getting up 5 hours early and hoping traffic or weather doesn’t mess up your plans. The jet lag app told me to go to sleep at 11:00, but I was tired at 9:00. I forced myself to stay up, watching tv shows I didn’t really want to watch on the hotel room tv. I spent a large portion of the night awake as I often do when not in my own bed. Why do hotel rooms have so many lights? People are here to sleep.
I got up at 7:35am as my app told me to do. I looked at my sleep data that my watch recorded. I got a sleep score of 72. That seems decent, but it didn’t feel decent. It looked like I was awake most of the night from about 2:00am to 4:30am. How is that not a lower sleep score? Oh well, nothing to do about it now.
I put on my orange glasses that block out the blue light. I don’t quite understand that science. I took my morning supplements and we headed out for breakfast. When I got my coffee, I looked at the array of sugars and was instantly disappointed that there were no yellow packets. I mentioned this and Richard looked at me like I was dumb. They are right there. Oh, yea, yellow glasses made the packets look white. Then when I got my over medium eggs, I cut into the yolks and watched this off-white liquid run out. Something’s wrong with my eggs. That is not the color of eggs. It had only been about 5 minutes since I couldn’t find the yellow sugar, but I had already forgotten about the glasses. I took off my glasses and noticed the liquid was yellow.
After breakfast, Richard dropped me at the airport. Have I mentioned before that I have a wonderful husband? He didn’t have to take all this time to take me to the airport. I took up half his day yesterday and will take up half of his day today.
I found a bag tag kiosk and tried to print my bag tags. It told me to go to the light blue area. I didn’t know what that meant and because of the glasses everything was red. Nothing was blue. I saw a different kiosk area and just decided to try that. It was the right one. Bags tagged and put on the belt in less than 5 minutes.
The pre-check line was longer than the other lines as usual – it kind of defeats the point of pre-check. But, the lines moved fast – never stood still once. While in line, I got 2 compliments on my cool glasses. Huh, didn’t know being color blind with clip on orange glasses was fashionable. The new-ish bag scanning equipment DIA has is slick and quick. While I was waiting for my carry-ons to come out, the woman behind me commented that she loved my look, especially my outfit. We chatted about where I was going. She lived in Japan for a few years and was jealous I was going there. She had loved living there.
I arrived at my gate at 9:30am which was my goal time to get to the airport to begin with. I got two more comments on my glasses in that short amount of time. There was no line at the gate attendant so I went up and checked if there were any seats I could upgrade to. There was and I could use miles to reduce the price. I tried that yesterday and the website would only let me use money or miles, not both. Great! Now I look like I’m special and I will be sitting like I am special. I also can go wait in the United lounge. Even though the lounge is nothing spectacular, I think I am officially winning the airport!
The travel day from Takayama to Narita was a long day. It was a rainy day so I had to walk to the train station in the rain. I’m glad I brought an umbrella so I was dry, but my suitcase and backpack were not. If it’s going to rain, I’d rather it be on a travel day.
The first train took me through stunning mountain forests. It was hard to believe, but the train ride was more beautiful than the bus ride five days before. I felt much safer than I did on that bus ride also. The train was a hybrid train. When the message board wasn’t telling us what the next stop was, it was telling us if the battery or engine was being used.
Then it was back to the bustle of city life. The train station was busy. It was a bit jarring to my system and I felt lost in the mix for a while even though I wasn’t lost.
The next train was another shinkensen. I looked it up on maps while I was on the train. By car, it would have been a 4.5 hour ride. By train it was 1.5 hours. The train would go somewhere between 127 and 186 miles per hour at its fastest.
Then I’m back in Tokyo and I needed to find my way to my hotel near the airport. I didn’t have a dedicated ticket for this train so I went back to my prepaid city card. I was wondering when it would run out. It had run out. I wasn’t sure how much to add to it so I found a ticket booth with a person instead of a machine hoping I could load it with just enough, but not too much.
I got to the platform where I thought the train would be. There was a train there that wasn’t marked and mine wasn’t due to leave yet so I made the decision that it probably wasn’t a good idea to get on that train. Two more came that had destinations on them that I didn’t recognize so I decided to not get on them either. A fourth train showed up, also unmarked. I asked someone “Narita?” and they nodded. So I got on that train. I sat down and happened to sit in someone’s ticketed seat. I moved to another car and once again chose a ticketed seat. After changing several times I suspected I might have gotten on an express train and not the local. I probably needed to pay more for the ticket. So I stood in the area between cars hoping no one official busted me. I mapped a few things and paid attention to the variable message signs about upcoming stops. Oh crap, I was on an express train going to the Narita Airport with no stops in the town of Narita. There was one stop before the airport so I scooted off there and started my navigation over. This time it was more obvious that I was headed to the town of Narita. Whew – possible crisis averted!
Walking to my hotel I rejoiced in the fact that I was almost done with walking all over Japan on uneven sidewalks with my suitcase. I was bummed that shipping my suitcase never worked once when I was hoping it would work each time
After checking into my last tiny hotel, I headed out for dinner. I found one close by that looked good – they were full and not serving anyone new. This happened three more times before I found a place that would feed me. This is a country with restaurants EVERYWHERE. How do I find so many that won’t serve me? Do I look menacing? Are they really that full? Nothing like having trouble finding food to make you want to go home.
I walked around the shopping street that I had read was a must-see if in Narita. Most things were closed, but my flight wasn’t until early evening the next day so I knew I’d come back.
After breakfast (last breakfast miso soup), I checked out of the hotel and had them hold my suitcase. I was too early for the shops, but there was a temple that was supposed to have beautiful gardens so I headed there.
I passed several restaurants with very long lines outside. Also outside was an assembly line of cooks, cutting something, skinning it, grilling it and then serving it to-go to the next hungry person in line. I think this might be eel breakfast for business men? Like the Japanese version of a breakfast burrito stand. How do you eat eel on the go? Later I searched online and found out that Narita is the place to go for grilled eel.
I spent the rest of the morning wandering around the gardens at the temple, trying not to die from humidity poisoning. Ok, so that’s not a real thing, but it felt like it was. The temple and gardens were great. The shopping street was fun when shops opened. I bought some souvenirs. I avoided eating eel, but later thought maybe I should have tried it. For a girl that doesn’t like fish, there was a 90% chance I would not like it, but I could have been wrong……
Overall, a great trip to Japan, but always happy to go home. I must still live in the right place!
Shirakawago is a farm village where they decided to preserve the heritage of the area and allow tourists to visit and learn. Our guide told us that about 500 people still live there. Some businesses had turned to tourism, but some were still farming.
I had so much trouble booking this tour. Most tours of this area left from cities other than Takayama. Most of the ones from Takayama were a full day including a tour of Takayama. There were two half days that I found. One didn’t seem bookable and then this one. I had to book for two people. So after I booked it through Get-your-guide I informed the tour company that I was just one person. They said it was ok to only pay for one so I contacted Get-your-guide to get refunded for one person. After several calls and on-line chats, Get-your-guide cancelled both my reservations and said “Sorry, computer glitch, there’s nothing we can do. You can book a different tour”. I tried to book this one again, but it was still for 2 people. I went directly to the tour company and booked (for 2 people). They said if more people joined the trip, they would refund one. That seemed fair. The day before, I wondered with all that back and forth, where am I supposed to go to start the tour? My paperwork said the tour started in Shirakawago which was an hour away. I thought I had a conversation about being picked up at my hotel. I watched my nervous system ramp up with the uncertainty. I sent them a Whatsapp message and an email. I tried to calm down. Trust, just trust. Stop making drama where it doesn’t need to be. Of course, I got a response later in the day that they would pick me up at my hotel and there were other people so I would be refunded for one person. I know better than to worry about stuff like this.
The tour group was me, our guide and a family of 5 from Australia. We left Takayama at 7:30 and got to Shirakawago at about 8:30. We toured the village and went into a home that had been turned into a museum so you could see what the homes were like. It was a big home warmed by a central fire that was also used for cooking. Smaller ceramic containers could be filled with coals to warm other rooms. The family would live on the bottom floor, the staff would sleep on the second floor in low roofed rooms only big enough to sit upright, but not stand. The top three floors would be for work. The top three floors were now used to display farming tools, tools used to make the things they needed, clothing, snow shoes, kitchen wares, and tools used in the silk worm business. Even standing there looking at it, it was so difficult to imagine that life.
They have modern amenities now such as electricity, running water, and modern farm tools, but much of the village buildings are the same on the outside as they always were. I also assume it is no longer the situation where forty people live and work in one house.
The thatched roofs are a special feature of the village. The guide showed us pictures of the whole village working on thatching a roof. The roof takes a full day to thatch and needs to be re-done every 30 years. They also have a village fire suppression system where a siren will go off before the ‘sprinklers’ start. The fire suppression system will shoot large jets of water into the sky, covering the whole village in water. There were pictures to see this as a demonstration would not be a good idea.
We ended by walking up to a village overlook. By the time we walked down, the village was completely covered in tourists. We were so grateful to have arrived early when there were hardly any people.
After going back to Takayama, I wandered around town some more and went back to the same restaurant for dinner again. This time there was no line, but the staff was the same and the celebration of dinner was the same. This time I got the beef you grill yourself over a hibachi grill. It was worth it just for the staff’s description of how to cook. “Ssshhhh 2 minute, flip, ssshhhh 2 minute, dip, eat, mmmmmm, ssshhhh, ssshhhh, dip, mmmmm.”
I wanted to do a nighttime food tour, but found none online. I did find a daytime food tour that went to the morning market and the old town. I arrived at the train station meeting point early. Hanging out in the hotel room sounded less fun than wasting a half hour exploring the train station.
I saw a guy sitting on a bench with an official looking badge on so I asked if he was the guide for the food tour. He asked if I was Rraine. “How did you know?”. I was the only one on the tour. I like tours because you get to meet new people. I guess I get to meet one new person today. Later I learned I was the first person to ever take this food tour. The tour company has done history and walking tours for years, but just decided to add a food tour for the first time.
The first stop was a vendor at the morning market. He sold espresso in tiny cookie cups. The inside of the cup was lightly frosted so the frosting would melt into your espresso. When done, you ate the cup. Brilliant.
We went to a samurai museum where you could see what the castle in this town would have looked like. Also displayed were clothing, tools, swords and other artifacts from the samurai times.
I ate grilled beef on a stick, raw beef sashimi, ramen and finished up the food portion with pudding.
There was also sake testing. In one of the sake sellers, you can put money in a gumball machine and out pops a sake cup and a token. At another machine, you can get additional tokens. Then you take the tokens to a bank of pour machines. Each token pours a sample of sake. This way you can sample sake to help decide which one you want to buy. Again, brilliant!
We also went to a memorabilia museum with items from the Showa period (1926 – 1989). It was like entering an Americana museum from the 1950s and 1960’s, but with a slight Japanese flavor. It was fun and something I never would have chosen on my own.
After the tour, I decided to go see the samurai castle ruins. This was not the best decision of the day. Of course, the castle was at the top of a huge hill. There were several ruins locations at the top of the hill. None of the Google maps names matched the park arrow signs. So I had no idea which trail I wanted to pick to see ruins. I picked one and hiked up to the false summit at which point I had seen no ruins. My feet hurt, my back hurt and seeing ruins no longer seemed worth it. Was I going to continue up just to say I did? No. I admitted defeat and headed back down. At least it was a pretty forest hike except for the very loud heavily perfumed French group of 6 that followed me down.
Finally down from the mountain, it was time to do the dinner hunt game. First I went to the restaurant my hotel had recommended that was closed last night. There was a sign on the door that said all seats were reserved for the night. I went to a couple other steak places that were more ‘food on the go’ type places. The next place I went to had a line out the door of about 20 people.
I didn’t want to wait, but I also was tired of being told restaurants were closed or needed a reservation. And a line often means good food. So I got in line. Every now and then one of the three wait staff would come out and excitedly call the next person in line like they had won the lottery. It was a celebration each time a new table became available. This made me want to eat here even more. When I got closer to the front one of them came out and put some of our names, party number and where we were from on the list. Whoo! Rraine One USA! A short time later, it was my turn to eat. I was welcomed with cheers. I had a very delicious steak and a lemon sour. It was so fun watching the wait staff interact with the guests. They were so energetic and their joy spread out throughout the room. It was contagious. Thank you, other restaurant, for being fully booked.
On the way back to my hotel, I found a foot bath. Game changer. We need more foot baths in the world. It was warm, relaxing, and clean. I found a coin operated massage chair at my hotel. It wasn’t as great as the foot bath.
I had to take a bus to get from Hirayu Onsen to Takayama. I couldn’t get the ticket ahead of time so I checked out of my hotel after breakfast. I was a little worried that there wouldn’t be room on the bus, but that worry was completely unfounded. Most people at the bus station were passing through going to Kamikochi. As usual, I worried for no reason. I wondered what was so great about Kamikochi and should I be going there. Nah, not with all those people. Anyway, Takayama was a city with a population of about 85,000 people instead of a town of 50 so getting there early would just mean more time to explore. I have no idea what the population of Hirayu Onsen is, but the whole region is less than 3,000.
I got to my hotel hours before I could check in, but I could store my luggage there. I asked if there was a place I could get a massage. The lady at the front desk printed a map for me, apologizing that it was kind of far. It was a 15 minute walk in a non-tourist area, not really that far. I always enjoy seeing non-tourist areas too so this was a nice walk. On my way, I found a coffee shop as there was no coffee with breakfast. The first coffee shop I went to was full and they had no room for me. What wonderful thing were they serving that made them so packed? Less than a block away I found another coffee shop with room for me.
I was able to make an appointment for a massage at 1:00. This meant I had over two hours to kill. I looked at maps and found a couple shrines and a park nearby. It looked like Takayama Sky Park had good views and it was about a half hour walk. It was named sky walk so I expected I was in for a climb. The last ten minutes of the walk, my expectations were fully met and I started to doubt my choice to walk to a park in the sky. At the top was a nice little park and the views were great. The breeze and sitting in the shade helped cool off from the climb up.
I watched an older man and his much older father arrive at the park and go stand at the overlook. The father was all hunched over, but you could tell he was so happy to be at the park. They walked slowly around the entire park. I felt I was watching something sacred.
The rest of the day was dedicated to looking at shrines, massage, a cat cafe, and wandering through shops in the old town. There were a lot of tourists here, but I didn’t hear much English spoken.
Since Takayama is in an area known for it’s beef (Hida Beef), I set out on a mission (again) to find a steak. The first place my hotel recommended was closed. The second one required a reservation. I found a yakiniku place where you could try a variety of different cuts of beef, grilling them yourself. It was delicious and actually cheaper than the two places I couldn’t go to.
I got hotel pajamas again, although much nicer than the last place. My hotel also had a public bath which was not sulphur smelling water, so it was much more relaxing for me.
I learned a couple things today. I learned about sake balls and charred wood.
I kept seeing this ball that looked like it was made of dead plant material. It would be hanging over the door of some business. So, I asked Google about the Japanese dead plant material ball and I actually got an answer. A sake brewery or merchant will hang a green ball made from cedar leaves over their door to announce the arrival of fresh sake. As the ball changes from all green in the spring to all brown in the fall, it is like a clock telling you the age of the sake.
On the bus to Takayama, I saw a clip of people burning wood so I clicked on it. In Japan, they char the surface of the wood before building with it. The process treats the wood making it water repellent and resistant to insects, rot and fire.
Rraine Drops 