Tag: japan-travel

Narita

On By rrainefioreIn TravelLeave a comment

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

On By rrainefioreIn TravelLeave a comment

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.”

Takayama Day 2

On By rrainefioreIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

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.

Hirayu Onsen

On By rrainefioreIn TravelLeave a comment

When I was looking at Takayama as a possible place to visit, I looked up things to do.  One of the recommendations was to go to the Okahida area where there were a lot of hot springs resorts.  Why not stay a couple nights at a hot springs resort on the way to Takayama instead of doing a day tour from Takayama?  A little more research and I booked a room for two nights in Hirayu Onsen. 

Hirayu Onsen is a small village full of tourist accommodations, an unfriendly visitors center, a decent sized bus station, a couple restaurants and a lot of hot water.  I use the word hotel in this blog, but they are ryokans (guest houses).  There is water running under every street. Sometimes it’s in an open concrete ditch beside the street or in a ditch under the street with grates or pavers over it, and sometimes both.  You can hear it running everywhere, rushing, falling, trickling.  The town has three free foot baths sitting in different parks.  They are shallow pools with hot water to dip your feet in.  I’m sure every hotel has it’s own onsen bath. Most businesses seemed to have a small water feature out front too.

The hotel I wanted to stay at only had family sized rooms available for over $300 a night.  So I booked one in a less fancy hotel that was a little over $100 a night including breakfast and dinner.  My room was huge and overlooked a duck/koi pond.  It definitely wasn’t the high end hotel, but it would be good enough.  The hotel next to mine seemed to span quite an area including buildings on both sides of the street.  Every time I would go to or leave my hotel, there would be people from that hotel just milling around the street in their robes.

The day I arrived, I walked around town.  I went to the visitors center.  The guy at the desk never looked up once even when I stood right in front of him.  I picked up some maps and pamphlets and headed back out.  I found the town nature walk.  After about 15 minutes I decided I could check that of my list of things to do. I went to a gift shop and found the first foot bath.

The cost of my hotel room included dinner and breakfast. All the tables were the traditional tables where you sit on a mat on the floor. There were two dining rooms. In mine there were three single tables and a table for six. Most of the food was already laid out. A guy came over and lit a burner under the plate with beef and a burner under a dish with a white milky substance. He also brought me two different soups. The rest of the food was already on the table. The milky substance was tofu and it thickened as it cooked and then you put it in this delicious sauce. I tried everything except the river fish. Most of it was delicious. Most of it, I wasn’t sure what it was. One guy at the six person table came in, ate and left. Another came in, grabbed something he wanted to eat and left the room with it. The others came in and ate so fast they were done in under two minutes. The other single table guys came in after me and left before me. How did they eat so fast?

After dinner I went to the public bath at my hotel. In my room was a robe and towel for each day. There was also a pajama type top. I put on my robe and slippers to go down to the bath. When I was coming back I saw people in their robes with the pajama type top on top of the robe. Was that what I was supposed to do? I can’t decide if I like public baths or not. I’m thinking I’m not a huge fan.

Did you know that ducks wake up at 4:30am and start quacking loudly? I know that now. Breakfast was a similar experience to dinner in that the food was all laid out and most of it was mysterious. There was a goo on a leaf and a lady lit the burner below that plate. When the goo started to bubble because it was so hot, I took it and the burnt leaf off the plate. No, I was not supposed to do that. The lady shook her head and indicated that it was to remain on the burner. The leaf burnt to a crisp and the goo was stuck completely to it. I don’t get it. I think one of the first things I’m going to do when I get home is get an American breakfast. Although, I’m not completely against miso soup with breakfast.

On the map I got at the tourism place, there was a thing listed that had something to do with turtles. When I googled it I got one hit that Japanese make some product from soft shelled turtles (suppon). I got another hit that showed pink flowering trees. The translation was turtle nursery. So my first adventure for the day was to find out if this was a place where they raised turtles, sold products made from turtles or had a tree nursery somehow named after the soft shelled turtle. I was hoping for trees. It was trees! A grove of white and pink flowering trees. This is what I imagine it looked like all over Japan during cherry blossom season (which I just missed). I’m not sure why these were in full bloom, but they were a sight to see. The shades of pink ranged from white to baby pale pink to a slightly darker shade of pink. And when the breeze picked up, tiny petals fluttered on the breeze. They slowly drifted down to the ground, so graceful and soft. It was like some fairy tale movie. The building next to the trees had a tiny store in the front of a huge building. Inside were products I couldn’t identify. I didn’t stay long to look. Suppon is supposed to be very healthy and is used in stew for cancer patients as well as a supplement in Chinese medicine. I didn’t see any actual turtles.

I walked by the local ski resort. It looked to be about two runs in size. It was on the way to a waterfall. The waterfall was pretty, but the hike up to it was not in the shade so I was very hot when I got there. There was no cooling off in the waterfall as it was not accessible for close up inspection and the river below it was unfriendly. Another sightseeing stop in the general area was Big Tree, Onezuko. I found where I think the path went to get to Onezuko and it was straight up a narrow side sloping trail that could have used stairs. I did not want to come back down that. I was still hot from the waterfall walk so up didn’t look fabulous either. There would be no big tree for me.

Dinner was in a different area of the hotel tonight. I had a room to myself with a tall table and regular sized chair. It was a different assortment of mysteries. It was a different type of tofu still cooked over a flame. The beef tonight was cooked on the same leaf as I had for breakfast. I hope you are not supposed to eat the leaf. There was no way that was happening. All I could think of was “You’ve heard of Elf on a Shelf, now there’s Beef on a Leaf.” There was a different river fish tonight. It was the same “no way” from me, though.

After dinner I went to the public bath at the hotel I had wanted to stay at, but couldn’t justify the price. There were seven or eight outdoor pools and they were so clean. It felt like you were out in the forest instead out under the awning of the roof. I enjoyed this onsen much more than the one at my hotel. I was real glad I paid $8 to enjoy a new onsen.  Public baths were back on the thumbs up list.

Planets and Towers

On By rrainefioreIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

The last time I was in Tokyo, I went to a light exhibit by TeamLabs.  I don’t even know how to describe it, but it blew my mind.  Digital light effects, computer generated, interactive, magical,…..  Since then I have gone to everything like it including one in Singapore by TeamLabs.  None came close to comparing.  So first order of business for the day was to go to their second installation in Tokyo, Planets.

Planets did not disappoint.  There were three exhibits that included water.  One was wading in a koi pond.  The water was up to my mid calf.  The koi were digital light images on the water.  They interacted with you as you walked through the pond.  Some swam around you, others skittered off when you approached.  When they ran into each other, they turned into flowers that floated off.  Pure magic.

I could explain more of the exhibits, but I couldn’t do them justice.  The pictures and videos below are just an approximation also, but enjoy.

After, I went to the small cafe outside.  They had a “bar” where you could sit with the orchids from one of the exhibits and get a sake or a tea.  I got a tea.  I sat in a dark room with a couple while the vases the orchids were in lit up on a slow neon fade. My tea cup also lit up. It was an odd, not quite satisfying experience.  It also came with a free orchid (no flower, just the plant).  More odd.  Now I’m toting a rather large green thing around that I can’t take home with me.  I hope my friend that I will see later in the trip or the retreat center I am going to will like it.

After stashing my orchid in my hotel room, I decided to head off to a park near the Tokyo tower. I walked from the train station toward the tower and saw a shrine along the way. I stopped in a cafe for lunch. The tower was close so I decided to take some pictures around there before heading to the park. I went in and saw that tickets to the observation deck were not very expensive. I bought a ticket for entry to the top observation deck. I had an hour to kill before my ticket entry time. So, I went up to the mid observation deck and walked around about ten times. I got a coffee, snapped some pictures and watched a movie about the war and the building of the tower. The park I was aiming to go to didn’t look too impressive from way up high. In every direction I looked, there was just city as far as the eye could see. No end to Tokyo in any direction. Then I went up to the top deck in a very crowded elevator. The views from the top deck looked a lot like the views from the mid deck so I did a couple laps around and headed back down.

All of this took the better part of a day. It was so nice to have a planned activity followed by wandering. I decided to wander to a different part of the city in search of ramen for dinner.