We met up with Andrew at our hotel. Andrew suggested that for our first meal in Tokyo we try something we've never had before, monjayaki, which he described as a kind of savory pancake thing with meat and vegetables. So off we went to get the best monjayaki area Tsukishima Island.
Monja Street!
Stirring and building the shape. On the right you see the "before" cooking version.
On Monday, we tried but failed to get into sumo wrestling, then we visited Sensō-ji Temple and Asakusa Shrine. Then we went to explore Ueno Park.
Kevin and Andrew in front of Sensō-ji's Thunder Gate
Ueno Park's Hanazono Inari Shrine
Monday afternoon, we decided we should go to Akihabara in the daytime. Andrew had kabobs, we went to a Maid Cafe, and then we got crazy Japanese photobooth photos.
It's appropriate that Andrew's favorite kabob stand is under a big maid cafe sign.
Monday evening we had tickets for a show at the Robot Restaurant (which isn't really a restaurant) in Shinjuku's Kabukicho district. The show had several parts of total weirdness. The first part was a sort of kabuki mixed with neon and robots. The second part was some sort of Avatar rip off where the robot machines battled the happy neon inhabitants of an alien planet. They mostly lost the battle to the alien machines but (SPOILER ALERT) the sea creatures won the war in the end.
Andrew and Japanese showgirls.
After the show on Monday, we went to dinner in Shinjuku. Kevin had looked up some ramen recommendations so we went to Fuunji. Then we met up with Chow and Marci at a little hidden fancy bar called Ben Fiddich. It was a cool bar and it was really fun to chat with them for awhile. Everybody ordered delicious whiskeys.
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Kevin and me in Shinjuku
Fuunji Restaurant
Discussing whiskey choices
Then the room started shaking. I asked tentatively if we were having an earthquake. No one seemed worried except me. I was very worried. Then everyone's cellphones started beeping with an earthquake alert. Um, too late. We were on the 9th floor and the buildings are built to bend and not break so it felt very real. It was a 5.6 on the Richter Scale. So that happened.
We ended the night in Shibuya and even walked across the famous Shibuya Crossing. Shibuya is like Shinjuku in that it's a really fun area at night full of bars and bright lights. We went to Tasuichi combines a Japanese-style standing bar with an American sports bar. After that, we went to a pub.
We ended the night in Shibuya and even walked across the famous Shibuya Crossing. Shibuya is like Shinjuku in that it's a really fun area at night full of bars and bright lights. We went to Tasuichi combines a Japanese-style standing bar with an American sports bar. After that, we went to a pub.
Crossing at the crossing- the excitement!
Kevin and Andrew at Tasuichi in Tokyo
We spent Tuesday morning at the Tokyo National Museum. Then we spent some time in Harajuku, before leaving Tokyo.
Selfie in the rain in front of Tokyo National Museum
Andrew, Kevin, and I took the Shinkansen from Shinagawa in Tokyo to Shizuoka, and then took a local JR train to Numazu. Numazu is a city in the Shizuoka Prefecture of Japan where Andrew has been teaching for the last year. He'll be there at least another year.
Near the Numazu train station and near Andrew's job
We headed for Andrew's Japanese apartment to drop off our stuff. Then we went back out. We walked around the Nakamise covered marketplace area.
Emperor of his castle
Nakamise-selfie
The chef cooks in front of you
With our HUGE ramens. Kevin got the spicy fat dragon.
We wanted to see more of the town so we went for a romantic walk along the waterfront and beach. Finally, the part we had been looking forward to the most! We met Andrew's friends and coworkers for Izakaya. It was like a pub. We sat in sunken benches at a table close to floor level and the waitress brought many little Japanese plates of food and never-ending beer. Heading home, we passed Blanky's Bar and felt an irresistible pull inside. Why would we want to resist?
Mitsu and Yumiko deciding which little plates to get
Ayumi making the peace sign and Shigeyuki
Andrew and Mitsu at Blanky's Bar
Wednesday morning, Andrew had work in a nearby town for a training. We delivered him almost all the way to the town and then Kevin and I went on to Kyoto. Goodbye, Andrew-san!
Andrew off to work, Mt. Fuji in the background
Kevin, me, Mt. Fuji
Arashiyama district
Selfie at the Fushimi Inari Taisha Shrine
Toyokuni Shrine
When we arrived in Kyoto on Wednesday afternoon, we dropped our bags off and then went straight to Arashiyama district to see the Sagano Bamboo Grove and Tenryu-ji Buddhist Temple.
Arashiyama district
Kevin and I in the Bamboo Grove
Kevin at the Tenryu-ji Buddhist Temple
The Tenryu-ji Buddhist Temple garden
In Kyoto, we stayed at a ryokan, which is basically a traditional Japanese inn The rooms are with tatami-covered. Baths are "communal" though how communal varies depending on the ryokan. The baths are a big draw in ryokans. We had semi-private ones in our ryokan. So a typical bath would be public and separated by gender. At our ryokan, there were five sets of guests and three private baths. So we changed into our yukata and shuffled downstairs to the baths in our slippers.
Wearing yukata in our ryokan
Thursday morning we woke up way before breakfast because we were still jet-lagged. Our ryokan served either breakfast or dinner per day you stayed there. We were signed up for breakfast which was really a dinner in the morning. The Japanese don't really do breakfast. This was actually perfect for us because it's hard to get a good breakfast there and since we were kind of on US time- we were actually eating it at what felt like dinner time to us.
Most of these were yummy
We needed fuel because next up- we were hiking up the Fushimi Inari Taisha Shrine! This Shinto shrine is awesome. You start at the base of the Inari mountain with the two-storied gate followed by the main shrine. As you follow the trail up the mountain you go through Torii gates and visit the other smaller shrines until you reach the top of the mountain which is 233 meters (764 feet) above sea level. We were told it would take us about 2 hours to walk up and took almost exactly that amount of time (counting the time it took me to snap hundreds of photos).
Selfie at the Fushimi Inari Taisha Shrine
We rented kimonos to tour the Kiyomizu-dera UNESCO World Heritage site. I really enjoyed this.
At the Kiyomizu-dera Temple site
This is the main temple- it's known for the way it hangs over the edge
The Kodai-ji Zen Temple was nearby in Higashiyama-ku. It is a temple of the Rinzai school of Zen Buddhism and the largest subtemple of the Kennin-ji branch.
Zen garden! I just want to run out there with a rake!
From certain points of the Kodai-ji Zen Temple, you can see the Ryōzen Kannon ( War Memorial commemorating those who died in the Pacific War located in Eastern Kyoto. The statue of the Bodhisattva Kannon. The statue is 80 ft high.
Ryōzen Kannon and War Memorial building
From there we headed back through Maruyama Park, which was gorgeous. The park has a weeping cherry tree, musical entertainment, and what appeared to be a heron trained to pose for pictures.
Park and Weeping Cherry Tree
To get to Gion, we passed through the Yasaka Shrine. Seriously, you can't get from point A to Point B in Kyoto without accidentally walking through a beautiful shrine or temple. In Gion, we walked around some more, did some shopping, and finally headed to the train station for our hotel reservation in Osaka that evening.
Yasaka Shrine
Streets in Gion
Thursday evening we took a train from Kyoto to Osaka. We'd heard that the main place to go at night was Dotonbori. After we checked into our Osaka hotel, we headed over. The area is crazy as you can see from the pictures. We'd heard you were supposed to have octopus balls in Osaka, so we did. They were definitely meatier and more octopus-filled there. I vote in favor of the Kyoto octopus balls though.
It was crazier than it looks even
Buying octopus balls in Dotonbori
After we ate and had some beer, we wandered the side streets. The side streets are also weird. In an awesome way.
Kevin had a drink at Bar Core, a TINY but fancy whisky bar.
On Friday, after having some conveyor belt sushi for lunch, we went to the main site in Osaka, the Osaka Castle and its park. The castle is surrounded by two moats which have been partially but not completely rebuilt after numerous historical misfortunes.
Me and Kevin in front of Osaka Castle
Toyokuni Shrine
We went to a baseball game in evening. This was high on Kevin's to do list, but when we were planning our trip I initially rolled my eyes. We bought tickets to a game at the end of the week though and it ended up being perfect because by the end of the week my feet were just giant agony blisters. Sitting and drinking beer was the best plan ever.
Me and Kevin in Koshien Stadium
Koshien Stadium is home of the Hanshin Tigers, sometimes called the Osaka Tigers. They were playing the Hiroshima Carp, which really doesn't sound like a sufficiently scary mascot. The Hanshin Tigers have this strange tradition that before the 7th inning everyone gets these provocatively shaped balloons in the color of their team - yellow for Hanshin Tigers and red for Hiroshima Carp- and then they release them at the same time.
Getting ready
Release!
Saturday was our last day in Japan, but we decided to go back to Kyoto and sneak in one more temple. The Sanjūsangen-dō Temple is awesome. The temple contains 10000 life-size statues of the Thousand-Armed Kannon, and one huge statue of the Thousand-Armed Kannon. In front of all these are 28 statues of guardian deities. This is such a crazy description that the pictures make more sense.
Kevin and I in front of the main hall.
Gardens at Rengeo-in
The 1000 life-size thousand-armed Kannon statues, and some of the guardian statues
The huge thousand-armed Kannon
Sadly, now it was time to go home! We went from Kyoto to Tokyo and from there to Narita. Our flight left Tokyo at 5:30 PM local time (really 4:30 AM in the US) and arrived in Toronto at 4:20 PM on the same day. Earlier than we left! Haha! After a short layover in Toronto, we arrived in New York on Saturday, 7:45 PM. It was a total of 12.5 hours from Tokyo to NYC, a little shorter than our trip there.
The End!
* This post is a summary of what was originally 20 posts. Maybe I went overboard when I wrote the original ones! Links inside this post.
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