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Theme of the day was jet lag hitting so very, very hard. It started when Jordan woke up at 2am. We got a tiny bit of sleep after that, but not significant. This hotel is weirdly shaped, such that we got very lost trying to go next door for breakfast.

After breakfast, we got the airport shuttle to go to the metro station that is at the airport. Unfortunately, there is track maintenance challenging along the way, so we had to get a bus shuttle between some of the station. Stepping out of Smithsonian Station at the National Mall was like going into a hurricane it was so windy. Tried hitting up Dunkin so that Emily could get her latte she wanted, but it was inside a closed federal building (closed because of the holiday today, not because of Dogs and Elon). Finally did find an open Starbucks, but it was a bit of a struggle.

From there, it was a 20 minute walk to the US Capitol Building. We didn’t know it at the time, but there was a big protest scheduled for it. We saw lots of people and lots of signs. We tried to get into the Smithsonian Air and Space museum, but it was so busy that 4pm was the first entry available. Jordan really wanted to go to a museum, so we went next door to the Museum of the American Indian. This turned out to be a welcome reprieve from the busy streets, with easily accessible washrooms and water fountains. Plus, Jordan played tag with some kids in the massive rotunda (she did also get some education about of it, especially learning about the Code Talkers of WW1 and WW2).

We went back to the protest and it was even larger than when we were first there. Took a full lap around the Capital Reflecting Pond to take it in. One person saw Jordan and hid her sign to avoid awkward questions, but Jordan was getting into the protest spirit. She especially liked joining in with the chants of “Hey! Ho! Elon Musk has got to go!”

It was almost 2pm and despite the takeout croissant from Starbucks, we were starting to get hungry. So we found a place that was open and hit the metro to get there. It was called Immigrant Food at the White House, serving a variety of ethnic foods just in front of Trump’s house. The slogan was “Immigrants have made America great again and again and again” which was an extra fun bonus. The food was actually amazing. Tamarind BBQ ribs, Falafel pita wrap and a Bahn Mi sandwich.

The White House itself was still behind a bunch of construction from the inauguration, so we couldn’t get a good look at it. Trump was in Daytona anyways, so between that and the fences, we managed to avoid getting Emily on a list. Then it was metro, shuttle bus, metro and airport shuttle back to the hotel. By this time, Jordan had passed out hard on the shuttle and metro (20,000 steps will do that to a 6 year old) so we had to carry her between some of the modes of transport. We did manage to wake her and get her through to 7pm and then we fell asleep at 8. Hopefully that is enough to kick the jet lag!

Turns out it was not, and we were all up pretty early. Emily and I had to work from our phones before our flight out at 12:50pm. Luckily, both of our bosses were understanding of the situation and we didn’t have to burn another vacation day. We both can do the majority of our jobs from a phone, but it is a little trickier when it is clearing out over a week of vacation backlog! We fortunately made it back home without any further difficulties, with Ryan and Sinead driving to the airport with Egan so that we could get straight home. We paid a guy from Facebook Marketplace to take his snowblower to the driveway in advance of our return, which might just be the best $75 spent by anyone in the history of spending money.

Final day meant a final konbini (convenience store) breakfast. We also finally found a playground that looks like it was constructed after the 1970s, so we stopped there for a few minutes on the way to the train station.

Our flight was taking off at 5pm, so we had most of a day to enjoy in Tokyo. Original plan was to go to Tokyo station to see the Imperial Palace Gardens that we almost did on the Monday that we left Tokyo. But it was closed again! So we called a quick audible on the train and rode two extra stops to Akihabara Electric City.

This is the primary anime area of Tokyo with lots of discount shops and Gacha + Claw Machine places. We got handed some free coupons for claw games, but didn’t win anything (shocker). Given that Jordan’s record on claw machines in the trip was 1 for 1 before this, she was legitimately shocked we didn’t win anything at this one. We did find the coolest retro game shop that had old games and systems set up. We also managed to get a knife and some other souvenirs that had been eluding us. Don Quixote was actually perfect for this.

After our final conveyer belt sushi, it was to the train station to head to the airport. Totally breezed through exit customs and security, but couldn’t get duty free because transiting through the states wouldn’t work for that. We did manage to perfectly drain our SUICA cards by transit and coin lockers, and Emily spent the last 500 Yen of it at 7/11 in the airport for some iced coffees.

The only stress remaining was the impending blizzard that was in the process of hitting Ottawa and dumping over 30 cm of snow on Sunday. Sure enough, we got the news part way through the flight that our connection from Washington DC to Ottawa was cancelled. Luckily, Ryan was standing by in Ottawa to book us a hotel so that we didn’t have to deal with that after landing. The flight itself was otherwise alright, with Jordan sleeping for 7 of the 13 hours. Don’t tell Donald Trump, but United Airlines still refers to Denali as Denali instead of the re-re-named Mount McKinley.

We did have a touchy moment where they stopped accepting landings at Dulles because of some emergency landing that had just happened. We were minutes away from the gas contingencies and getting re directed to Pittsburgh! Luckily, we were able to land successfully despite the crazy wind storm happening. Unfortunately, the unique set up of the Washington Dulles Airport meant that our bags would be a while because they had to get re routed away from the connections area. We decided to just leave them for now and get to the hotel because as fine as the flight was, a 13 hour flight is still a 13 hour flight. Hotel restaurant for a burger and fries (no rice!) and then bed time for Jordan.

I did have to take the shuttle to the airport to get the bags, which resulted in standing in the windstorm for 25 minutes as I had to wait for the next shuttle back. It will be a couple of days in Washington, as the Saturday night flight was also cancelled. This meant that the Monday flights were full already. So we are stuck in Washington until Tuesday and there will be a bonus trip report!

Super early morning for me, having woken up at 4am. Jordan and Emily made it to the alarm at 7 for our scheduled 7:30am breakfast. This breakfast was even less appetizing to Emily than the dinner the prior night. Weird mixture of salad, pickled vegetables, boiled tofu (the worst tofu), fried tofu, soup (with tofu), egg, yogurt and of course, rice. Meanwhile, Jordan got bacon and eggs with a bun, croissant and fruit. Was tasty, but very weird for breakfast.

Then it was onwards to set the record for the most types of transportation taken in a single day. First was a cable car part way up the mountain, a portion of which I hiked up the prior night in search of drinks. Then it was the Rope Way Gondola, which was sadly closed for two of the portions, including the one that includes the possible view of Mount Fuji. We were treated to a very cool view over the valley and mountain, including the mountain that has the Chinese character for “Large” literally burned into it.

Even better was the insane plumes of sulphuric steam that revealed itself after we crossed a ridge line. It was immediately smelly in the gondola. Also got a bit of a Mount Fuji view from here, but it was pretty overcast. The specialty of this station is Black Fried Eggs, which get cooked first in the sulphuric water, then for 15 minutes in regular water. Tastes just like any regular boiled egg, though. From here, it was a bit off the rails, both literally and figuratively.

Because the Rope Way was down for maintenance, we took the replacement bus to Lake Ashi. Instead of amazing views, it was just trees on the side of the road. Then it was on to the Pirate Ship(!) ferry across the lake, but we were unlucky on the timing and had to wait 50 minutes just standing in the boarding pier. We also had the misfortune of ending up sat next to a giant school group which got old pretty fast on the 30 minute ride across the lake. The boat was very, very full and many people had to stand, including on the stairs which didn’t seem super safe.

We got off at the first stop and on to a long bus ride towards Odawara. This was a weird area and it was weird figuring out what the actual routing should be. Luckily, we ended up getting to the train station and made the connection with a few minutes to spare. Convenience store lunch (which is consistently great and inexpensive in Japan), as our lengthy journey meant we had to get something in all of us quickly, lest we descend into the depths of hanger.

We took the long route to Odawara Castle to get the proper entry route through the pretty gates. Odawara Castle is originally from the 15th century, though it was reconstructed a few times due to natural disasters and World War 2. Here, Jordan became a ninja, learning about lots of techniques of the spies that were (allegedly) created by the Lords of this area. Further up the hill was Odawara Castle itself and the Samurai Museum. This was featured in Season 6 of Jet Lag The Game, so it was cool to be in the same place! It was solid value, with only 200 Yen entry into the Samurai museum. Some great information and displays of armor and helmets. Also a very cool projector show that did some neat interplay between the screens and a statue of Samurai.

Downstairs from there was the actual highlight of the trip, which was the Samurai dress up that Jordan did. We all had the biggest smiles on our faces while we traipsed around the courtyard with Jordan threatening us with her newfound sword and armor. She even made a friend with a random Japanese person who wanted Jordan to crash her picture. Only got to do that for about 15 of the 30 minutes we could have, as we had to catch the once-an-hour train to Shibuya (and pull more cash from the ATM to refill our SUICA train cards). This was one of the highlights of the entire trip. I think we had a smile on our face the whole time, except when Jordan was doing her menacing intimidation face.

The plan was to take the 75 minute train and drop our bags at a coin locker at Shibuya station to most easily navigate around the very busy area. This was actually an audible call as we were on the bus towards Odawara, as we had originally plotted a route to our hotel, then Shibuya. Turns out that the lines made it make much more sense to go to Shibuya first. It did mean that we had our bags with us, which we figured would not be a problem. Despite being one of the biggest and busiest stations in Japan, there was not a coin locker to be found! This was probably because of the extensive construction, but we had to go to the conference center next door and go up to the 11th floor. Took quite a while to figure this all out, but it all worked out in the end.

Shibuya as an area is absolutely crazy. Most notably the Scramble crossing, where everyone crosses in all directions at the same time in a wild mass of people. Somehow, we made it across in one piece and headed towards a tepanyaki restaurant Emily had found in her searches. It was a total hole in the wall with maybe 15 total seats, but it was seriously excellent (and inexpensive compared to other places we had found). Highlight was the Wagyu steak, avocado-kimchi-creamcheese bites and sashimi (with the good wasabi again).

It wouldn’t be a day in Tokyo without hitting up the Pokemon Center, so it was a short walk over there. Jordan drained the last dregs of her souvenir budget (77 Yen left of 7,000 Yen). This one had a very cold Mewtwo display, but it was otherwise similar to the others we visited. I also hit up the Nintendo Store right across the hall. We also drained (nearly) the last of our cash to hit up the exclusive Nintendo Gacha Machine with some cool prizes of game controller buttons from. Nintendo’s history. Stopped for dessert on the way back to the train station (cheesecake bites for Emily and I, fruit custard for Jordan).

Two more metros and a short walk and we finally got to call it a night in the hotel. Broke the record for latest night for Jordan, as we arrived at 9:20pm and she was messing about until she finally fell asleep at 10. Luckily, this hotel has a comparatively late checkout of 11am, so hopefully we can get some rest before the flight at 5pm tomorrow.

A bit of a lie in at the hotel in Osaka, with Jordan and Emily waking up only at 8:30. Left the hotel at 10 to get breakfast at the weirdest cafe experience ever. We ordered our drinks and light breakfast and then everything came out at different times in a bizarre order. For instance, my hard boiled eggs came out first, before our drinks. Emily’s curry and cheese on toast (which was excellent) came next, followed by the buttered toast Jordan and I both got. All before our drinks. And then Jordan’s orange juice came after our coffees and the yogurt was last. Just truly unusual.

From there, we walked to the best store in the world. No, not a Pokemon Center! We actually managed to go to a city which has a Pokemon Center and not go there, though I’m not sure Jordan realizes this. Please no one inform her of this.The actual shop we went to was Kingram Liquor, which was just a tiny room filled wall to wall with every conceivable Scotch and Japanese Whisky. Sorry Liam, but I don’t think I saw any Irish. Including a bottle that was 600,000 Yen ($6,000 CAD). I contented myself with a 4,400 Yen ($44 CAD) small bottle and a Sample shot (which they pour into a little plastic bottle) of a higher end bottle.

Then it was to the metro to get to Shin-Osaka Station (which is different than regular Osaka Station we were at the prior day) to head to Hakone. A very odd thing about Japan is that lots of different companies manage the railways and metros, even having competing metros in the same area; trying to find the right line that would take us to Shin-Osaka was difficult, as the signage was not very useful. At least the payment systems are all unified and all transit except for the Shinkansens happened with our SUICA Cards. First train was a bullet train, and we got the coolest bento box ever. Just put it on the table, pull the yellow string, wait 7 minutes and it is steaming hot. And it was a tasty beef and rice too! The other one was pork, chicken and rice, but was only okay.

Second of three trains to get to Hakone was boring, being just a short hop from Odawara to Hakone-Yumoto. But the third train to get us to Gora Station was crazy. Despite the as-the-crow-flies distance being just 5.3 kilometres, it took 40 minutes at a max speed of 30 km/h with most of it at 20 km/h. Most interesting was the fact that it was going up a mountain, so there were 3 switchbacks where the train started going the other direction!  It also went through 13 tunnels, each of which were constructed 100 years ago. Unfortunately, there were not a ton of great viewpoints from the train due to the trees; makes sense, as the trees were probably there to avoid soil erosion.

Our hotel, Tensui Saryo, was just a one minute walk from Gora Station. The hotel looked even nicer in person than in the pictures from their website. It was a big room, though some oddities with the layout, especially the closets with multiple extra mattresses. The living/dining room with very soft tatami mats was separated from the bedroom and with sliding doors to the small area with the TV. Most importantly, it has a spring-fed Onsen tub on the balcony with a beautiful view of the mountains. We went to the other private spa on the top floor before dinner, complete in our kimonos and lounge wear. The water was legitimately very hot, even confirmed by Emily who loves a very hot hot tub.

Dinner itself was quite the affair with so very many courses (and a plate of kids food for Jordan that would make Elayne blush). Jordan did also dip her elbow in the ketchup, so off went the cardigan lol. Some of the food was… Not up Emily’s alley. For instance, the appetizer included liver. It was all quite delicious, though we have definitely had nicer food elsewhere on the trip.

Last but not least was a trip to the foot bath bar to get our free champagne (apple juice for Jordan). Emily is now of the opinion that all bars need this and it is hard to disagree. Ultimately, the day was a bit train heavy but an otherwise lovely Valentine’s day. Definitely our lowest step count day by far. I only broke 9,000 when I hiked up a hill to get sake and fruit mixer while Jordan got ready for bed.

Slow start to the day, as we departed Kyoto for Osaka, starting with a 1km walk to Kyoto Station. Slight hiccup on the train, as we ended up on the Thunderbird, which is the train a step down from the Shinkansen bullet train. Sadly, needed an extra ticket purchase which we only knew about approximately one minute before getting on. Probably could/should have just gone to another one, but took the risk. Had to pay for the extra ticket on board when the guy came around. Only 1000 Yen each for Emily and I, but could have been avoided. Oh well. It split the difference nicely between the more expensive but fast Shinkansen and cheap but slow local line.

Arrived in Osaka and went right to Osaka Castle. Conveniently, there are cheap storage lockers at the train station, and because of our small-in-comparison bag compared to the average traveller, we can fit both our bags into the medium locker. Hiked up to the castle, but decided against going in while we were in line since we had gone to Kyoto Castle just the day before. They had a cool little souvenir area. Most notably, Emily and I threw actual (though fairly blunt) ninja stars. So that was a ton of fun. Some pretty good views as we hiked back down towards the station also. Stopped at a cafe to get their triple layer souffle pancake, the bottom one of which had an entire egg embedded in it. This paired very oddly with the ones above that had fruit + whipped cream and chocolate.

Dropped the bags at the hotel (which was on a little square with some sort of monument and a sumo statue) and went to a Japanese Tea Ceremony. We learned about the history of it, which started in Osaka (though there is apparently controversy about this and both Kyoto and Osaka claim to be the true origin). We got served mochi sweets and tea, which was very good. Macha tea is quite bitter, so fit right in for me but less so with Emily and Jordan. Jordan did try hers, and was very respectful about her dislike of it. Then we got to make our own, which was very cool. It is quite the procedure, and unchanged in the 400+ years since the creator perfected it after 40 years of iterations.

After a couple hours chill at our very tiny hotel room, we headed out to the Dotonbori market. Tons and tons of food stalls, restaurants, shops and entertainment areas. I got some takoyaki (Octopus balls with mayo) and a fried squid skewer. Shockingly, neither Emily nor Jordan decided to partake in that. Emily got an incredibly good chicken skewer that Jordan stole a significant amount of. Meanwhile, Jordan had a candied fruit skewer. The wagyu beef skewer was a bit overcooked, but Emily’s Gyoza pork dumplings were great. Also of note is the fact that the streets of Dotonbori have tons of neon signs along with crazy sculptures and signage. Animatronic crabs, giant faces, dragons, chickens and wild faces. Bowling alleys, karaoke bars, slots and pachinko halls were all over the place. One had a one hour All-you-can-dart-throw and all-you-can-drink special for 2,000 Yen (about $20 CAD). I really want to sick Mark and his friends on them, as the establishment wouldn’t know what hit them. Most famous of the lot is the Running Man, in front of which hordes of people were getting pictures mimicking the pose. So of course we had to get Jordan in on the fun.

Many of the child-friendly entertainment options were limited to gacha machine rooms and claw machines. Jordan wanted to do… All of them. We eventually relented to let her do a PokeBall claw machine, ready to say “I told you so” when she would inevitably lose. But she didn’t. She got a Master Ball, which is the rarest ball of all. So much for that lesson, but ultimately a good grab for just 100 Yen. Jordan was still hungry, so we hit up the conveyor belt sushi restaurant since the street sushi was wildly more expensive.

Last food stall was the Strawberry Mania stand which certainly lived up to its name. Jordan had a strawberry smoothie with strawberry and milk ice cream on top. First time in the whole trip she proactively and willingly put her gloves on without us having to cajole her into it. Emily got a strawberry and chocolate crepe while mine was a creme brulee crepe. Both were served in a cone, and mine got blowtorched on top. It was a little heavy after all of the street food, but reasonably tasty.

Highlight of the night for sure was the Freedom Bar. A bar that serves no cocktails, no beer and no sake. Only Japanese Whisky. It is an Omakase place, where you put the full trust in the bartender (the owner conveniently speaks perfect English as he has lived in Canada before). I told him that my favourite Japanese Whisky was the Nikka Yoichi and that I like peaty scotch and he designed a custom flight of four pours for me. He also gave a history lesson about Japanese Whisky, which you now get some highlights of.

There are 154 distilleries doing whisky in Japan, but only 40 or so who have an offering currently. Most of them are sake (fermented rice wine) and shoju (distilled barley and/or sweet potato, similar to vodka) that are expanding. Also, because of the big environmental differences in Japan between the north, central and south, the characteristics are massively influenced by the ranges of temperatures and humidities that impact the amount of whisky that gets lost. Each of the four drinks were absolutely amazing, and he suggested a few shops where it is possible to find some (perhaps the Nikka Yoichi 10 year edition). Most of the whisky from the distilleries that are not one of the top two (Suntory and Nikka) are for domestic consumption because of the competitive pressure from the big ones. Two of the bottles were 50%, so I was feeling pretty great afterwards. Absolutely amazing experience, down to the soundproofing of the bar from the party outside and the great decor. And that’s before he slides the cabinets open to show the rows and rows of bottles to evaluate drinks for the flight.

Legitimately could have stayed there all night, but it was back to the hotel. Jordan down for bed at 9:30, which is the latest of the trip. Despite protests of just getting a few pages of her book, she fell asleep hard and fast because it was another day of over 20,000 steps.

Low key morning after the 29,000 step day Tuesday. Emily woke up in pain, unsurprisingly. Jordan was not feeling anything and I was great. I was dispatched to find food and coffee. I took a detour to the Hogashi Hongan-ji near our Airbnb that closed as we arrived on Monday to see if it would be worth bringing the gang later. Verdict: Very nice, but nothing special compared to some of the others we have on the itinerary. I did catch them with the inner sanctum open, which was very good.

One quirk about Japan is the availability of hot drinks in vending machines and convenience stores. Coffee and tea can be obtained, hot, in plastic bottles, black or pre-mixed with milk. It is supremely weird drinking a hot drink from a plastic bottle. It is much better poured into a mug, which is what Emily did when I brought it back. Bottled iced coffee is also available, and it is excellent (and 500ml for 150 Yen, so quite reasonable compared to Tim’s or such). In the konbinis, it is stored in an open cabinet like cold drinks are except… it’s hot.

At 11, we headed out to the Nijo Castle constructed in 1603 by Tokugowa Ieyasu, who was the first Shogun of the Edo Period. He is also the guy who the Shogun TV show is based on, which is a supremely excellent show. In fact, I overheard some American sounding 20 year old telling his buddy that this was the castle of the bad guys from the show. Which is not true for at least two reasons. One, that castle is explicitly in Osaka. Two, all of the plaques that he had just read repeatedly stated that the protagonist of the show is the one who built it after he was victorious in the war. Oh media literacy. I also helped them out because he wondered if it was filmed there (it was not. It was shot in Vancouver, because Vancouver can simultaneously be modern New York City and 17th century Japan). Emily was mildly (read: massively) rolling her eyes at me the whole time, but it could not be left unsaid!

Nijo castle itself was lovely, but freezing. We had to walk through the inside with no shoes and it was somehow more cold there than it was outside. They had one of the rooms set up with mannequins of what a meeting with the Shogun would be. Lots of duplication of rooms for different types of visits, even though they are all the same. Very cool murals of tigers, leopards, trees, birds and such on the walls. Fun fact: they used to think that tigers and leopards were the same species, and that every third cub of a tiger was a leopard. Couldn’t get any pictures inside, as they were forbidden (and we heard someone else getting told off for trying some sneaky pictures), but got a few of the grounds. This would be spectacular in the spring with the cherry blossoms, but was all a little brown for us in February.

We walked to a tiny little udon, soba and sushi shop that was staffed by two very old ladies. Had some great soup for the rainy and miserable day and Jordan expanded her sushi horizons to tuna rolls. Fresh wasabi made another appearance and it was excellent again. Going back to the faux wasabi paste is going to suck the next time I have it.

From there, it was off to take a 45 minute train and bus to the Karuma Onsen in the mountains. Probably the prettiest bus ride I have been on, as it followed the river up the mountain pass. Kyoto mountains are very pretty blanketed in cloud/fog, and the forest floor still had some snow.

The Onsen experience itself was pretty good, and amazing value. An outdoor hot spring bath, indoor hot spring bath, cold plunge pool and sauna, though the outdoor bath was very separated from the rest of it. It was the best bath individually, set in the tranquil, snowy forest, but there was not a cold plunge out there. Very small compared to something like Nordik Spa in Gatineau, but hot spring bath and sauna is exactly what we all needed for the rainy day after our very many steps the day before.

Jordan’s clothes were hilariously oversized, but she greatly enjoyed her first spa day. Japanese spas are separated by gender and are mandatory to be done nude, so I had some alone time while Emily had the pleasure of dealing with Jordan. She was actually very well behaved and enjoyed the experience. I was able to relieve Emily to do a proper thermal cycle to help with her back and legs. I made some friends with a Belgian firefighting crew who said that they invented the concept of Firefighter competitions and are now visiting Japan to participate in one next week. Very friendly group. They enjoyed practising their English and I tried to respond in French.

Coming back, we made a stop at… Wanna guess? Pokemon Center Kyoto! Mostly as a reward for Jordan being so well behaved at the spa, even though she had originally been hesitant about it. Also for the copious amount of public transportation taken on the trip so far. She opted to drain nearly the last of her budget to buy a Mewtwo stuffy to go with her Eevee one. Nana and Grandad gave her a bonus on the next call we had and topped up her budget by another 2,000 Yen that would carry her through the rest of the trip. This Pokemon Center probably had Emily’s favourite statue with Pikachu in a kimono, and I think she regretted getting the Sleeping Pikachu from Tokyo instead of a Kimono Pikachu from Kyoto.

We got some dinner at a Gyoza Dumpling place at the mall which was very tasty. I got an appetizer of octopus in wasabi which was legitimately delightful. Shockingly, Jordan and Emily declined to share that, so I got it all to myself. Huzzah. We ordered some fried chicken (very common in Japan for some reason, and it is boneless like a chicken wing), pork dumplings, chicken dumplings and perilla dumplings. What is perilla? Not sure! Emily’s google showed it is related to antacid and/or star anise, but she ate it despite her aversion to antacid flavoured things. We then stopped at the bakery for some chocolate tart and strawberry cake.

Back to the Airbnb it was. Picked up some whisky, strawberry plus peach drinks for Emily and breakfast stuff from the full-on grocery store in the subway station. The whisky is only okay, but the price was right at just 2,200 yen (about $22 CAD) for a full bottle. It says it is the smoky edition, and it is definitely more smoky than the classic Japanese whisky, but not far along the smoky scale.

All told, it was a great day. Onsen spa was a very good thing to relax during the otherwise very busy days we have had. Got super lucky with the connections which minimized standing in the rain.

Early start to the day, as Jordan woke up at 5:30am. Set her up with Pokemon at 6am and tried to grab a bit more sleep, but this is something that Emily is much better at than I am.

Then it was 8am out the door to get the first of many busses to Ariyashama Monkey Park. That opened at 9 and we were the 3rd group though the door. And there was snow! 1 degrees and windy (but I did persist with shorts, which was still fine, but I did regret it very slightly at one point).That was a 20 minute hike up a bunch of steps and muddy slopes to 1600m above sea level. Up there, there was a playground with a Zipline! And more importantly, a herd of 120 monkeys. We fed some and had a great view of Kyoto. Several of them were fighting and chasing each other around, which we definitely felt was reminiscent of Egan, Athena and Nova charging around in Ormond. A few of them also were getting rather… Amorous… That aside, it was definitely with the 2000 Yen entry fee (total for all of us). So back down the hill it was. Jordan was messing quite a lot. This resulted in her skipping a few times and getting her pants quite muddy.

We took a sketchy side path to a cute Buddhist temple that is dedicated to their version of a patron saint for Radio and Electrical workers. Very randomly had a goat statue with a pink bib. Also a cow and tiger, but they were bib-less. We then walked to Ariyashama proper. Very cute area with street food (we got a great potato and beef hash brown thing and three fried shrimps) and shops. Also there is a bamboo forest path with another shrine. This one is where the imperial family would send their unwed daughters. If I overheard a random tour guide correctly, it is also where newlyweds pray for healthy fertility.

From there, it was another two busses to get to Kinkaku-ji, the golden temple. Another 2000 Yen here, and worth it again. The whole temple is covered in gold leaf. It was a gorgeous area, with lakes, rocks and waterfalls. It actually reminded me a bit of Sudbury, with lots of rocks, trees and water (cue the song!). Yet another bus and a subway to get back to the Airbnb for some well deserved chill time. We made a tactical mistake here of not getting the day-pass for the bus and train system.

We ventured out for dinner at 5:30, and our goal was to find a less dead area of the city, and we definitely did. First stop was the Nishiki Market, which was mostly a food market. Very, very busy here, and it smelled amazing. I got some fried octopus on a stick which was rather tasty if slightly overpriced, but Emily and Jordan declined to try. Jordan did get some freshly squeezed orange juice from a vending machine that had a cool squeezing mechanism. Great energy in the whole area.

We had been struggling to research a place to get our Wagyu beef dinner. All of the places were either super low end with reviews of bad quality or amazing looking places that were all crazy expensive. We resolved to walk around and look for something and stumbled on the perfect place! Jordan was messing a bit again, which was quite annoying after several reminders are the various temples to not run and such. Food itself was great bordering on incredible. Got a beef plate, Korean rice and three pieces of Wagyu Sushi. It was served with what I believe was real Wasabi, which is one of the best things I have ever tasted. For the beef itself, we were given scissors to cut it and grill it on the bbq in the middle of our table. Some of it was only okay, but the cuts that were good were amazing. Jordan ate it all up as well. Unsurprisingly, cutting beef with scissors is not the most convenient way to slice meat, but the whole meal was only 9,780 Yen ($97.80 CAD).

After dinner, we went for a walk through the Gion area in search, at least partially, for some ice cream. We ended up walking to Yasaka Shrine to knock off our fourth temple of the day. It was very cool lit up at night with these hanging things with Japanese writing on them. No plaques though, so not sure what the significance was. As we were leaving, Jordan found a little plastic figurine in her coat pocket that smuggled itself from Ottawa. Yes, this is foreshadowing.

We walked back to the the place we saw an ice cream and got some to eat by the river. They were almost like ice cream sandwiches, but the buns were closer to cone wafers. Mine was green tea, while Jordan and Emily got sweet cream. From there, we went down the incredibly picturesque Pontocho street to Pontocho Park where Jordan did some late night swinging and sliding. This was a cool area full of bars and restaurants with a party energy, even though it was a Tuesday night. We also passed some exotic dancing establishments that Jordan fortunately did not recognize to require additional explanations.

2.5 km walk later, we were back at the Airbnb when disaster struck. Jordan had lost the tiny figurine at some point and had a meltdown. I went out unsuccessfully to find it while Emily calmed her down. All told, Jordan did 29,000 (no typo!) steps and was mostly a champ through it. Though I did find out that the couple of times I had her on my shoulders, she was getting credit for those steps and I was maybe getting short changed because I was holding her ankles. Oh well, still a bucket load of steps. Emily is still hurting from her tailbone hit at Winterlude, so pretty painful for her after all that waking. And the bath in our Airbnb is a lie, where the water only gets up to your ankles and has faulty seal, so was draining nearly as fast as it was filling.

Jordan not listening shenanigans, missing figurine meltdown and many step pain aside, great day. Very glad we found a place of town a bit more energetic than ours haha.

A day of several swings and misses, but still good overall. First, we tried to get souffle pancakes at a cafe, but they only did them for lunch. Like why?! Anyways, Emily boycotted food in retaliation and just had a “large” latte which was certainly not large. The French Toast I got was pretty mediocre, and this would mark one of the few misses for food that we had in the whole trip. We checked out of the hotel (and we got a shout out from the guy at the desk for our compact packing effort, which I was particularly proud of) and got on the subway bound for Tokyo station. Though that dropped us 400 meters from there, so it was a short walk to get where we needed to go.

Dropped the bags in a locker which are plentiful, inexpensive and very easy to use with the SUICA Card. Luckily, because of our bag packing efforts, we were consistently able to fit everything into a single Medium Locker. This saved us tens of dollars over the course of our trip, and we saw more than one person be unable to fit their massive bag into a locker or not have a locker of suitable size available. We saw many others struggle with their bags going up and down the numerous staircases to and from metro stations. I’ll probably do a whole post at the end of this with our packing strategy, as it worked out for several aspects of the trip.

We started walking towards the Imperial Palace Gardens, but realized half way there that they are closed on Mondays! So we changed paths to go to Pokemon Center DX nearby and Jordan spent some of her budget on a very nice (and very reasonably priced) Eevee stuffy. Jordan was properly in her element here and loved looked at everything. The concept of Jordan’s budget probably also deserves its own wrap-up post at the end of this. Then it was back to Tokyo station to navigate our way through the crazy maze of character street, though we did manage to avoid the extra Pokemon store there. Failed at getting food, so ended up with onigiri from the convenience store to stave of the hanger. It was a while before we figured out the proper way to open up the onigiri packages, so these ones came apart a little bit. We luckily avoided making a mess though, so mission accomplished in that regard.

Next was to make our way to the Skinkansen (Bullet Train) area and get our tickets. The computer kiosk didn’t charge us correctly so we had an annoying failure at the entry gate and had to go to the ticket counter. Not sure if we ended up paying the right amount, but it was close to what we were expecting overall, so whatever. Grabbed a few bento boxes (salmon and sides, bbq beef and rice) and got on the Limited Express Shinkansen bound for Kyoto. The Limited Express trains are more expensive, but have fewer stops and therefore hit the highest speeds. Despite the high speeds, it is extremely smooth even when you are pulling into or out of a station. Unfortunately, we didn’t win the seat lottery and were on the wrong side to see the pretty mountains, most notably Mount Fuji. We were able to get a few reasonable views from across the aisle, but it would have been nice to have the good window seat.

The Airbnb in Kyoto is a 4th floor walkup, which is pretty fun. Jordan walks down stairs very slowly (and sometimes stops at the bottom) so it always a struggle to not boot her. This is especially difficult as she always wants to be in front. It is a nice place though, with two bedrooms and a living room with kitchenette. Dining table is on the floor though on a soft tatami mat area. Conveniently, there was also a washing machine that we would use over the course of the next few nights.

We headed out immediately to hit the nearby temple that was closing shortly. We walked around a bit, but they actually closed the good parts earlier than the posted time. So another swing and a miss. Walked around back towards Kyoto station, but even at 5pm, it was a total ghost town! We did finally get the souffle pancakes at a cafe, though, so that was a win. On the way back to the Airbnb, we stopped at the Liquor Museum Bar which is not a museum at all but a whisky and cocktail bar. Jordan enjoyed her (not Tequila) Sunrise, Emily got some sweet blue thing and I got a whisky which was all very good. The guy had so many bottles and I had to content myself with the $14 pour instead of the $40 one. I did sniff that bottle and it smelled amazing, but mine was also very nice.

We picked up snacks and pizzas and ate at our low dining table. A pretty standard deluxe one and then a very non-standard teriyaki chicken pizza with a sauce base of… Mayonnaise. I liked it, but I was the only one who felt that way(the leftovers in the toaster oven actually improved it a bit). We also got some sake at the convenience store, but Emily doesn’t seem to like it much, so I may be getting most of the bottle. I also picked up a tiny bottle of standard-issue whisky, since the selection at the store was terrible. We will have to find a better place to get some actual whisky. All in all, definitely a bit of an odd day, but the weirdest day of travelling beats nearly every day in the office, so I’ll take it.

As anticipated, falling asleep at 7:30 the night before led to some very weird wake up patterns. I was up at 2:30am and only succeeded at fits of sleep after that. Jordan was up around 4 or so, which meant we were all up. A lot of “behavioural coaching” for Jordan that we were in a hotel and she could not stomp or raise her voice. Crappy sleep made her rather cranky, though this would get better throughout the day.

We went to the Senso-ji temple first thing in the morning to beat the crowd. Coming back towards the hotel, the market street began to open, so we were able to take our time and explore the stalls on the way back. As we left the temple, a old Japanese man grabbed my hand to ask where I was from. He said he wanted to practice his English. Anywhere else, this would be a scam to have his buddy pickpocket you, but he was a genuinely nice guy. He named all the provinces of Canada and even tried a bit of French.

We had planned to meet up with Mai, a friend from high school in Brussels, for lunch. We stopped at a playground on the way, which was a lovely break in the sun. Don Quixote is a department store that appears like it should be cheap, but it was more expensive for most of the things we saw compared to other shops we visited. Emily needed some new sunglasses though, so we got some; unfortunately, the signage on the rack was confusing and Emily ended up getting more expensive glasses than anticipated.

Sushi at Jura Sushi Flagship was great. It is a conveyor belt restaurant, where you can pick up plates as the go by. But you can also order different kinds from the tablet. Jordan was very big about picking stuff off the lower belt, so we ended up with a few unnecessary plates. The table had a built in hot water dispenser for tea and a slot to replace the plates. Every five plates you returned, a little video played on the tablet and triggered a possible prize from the Gacha Machine; We only won once in our 7 attempts, but it certainly added a bit of excitement to the proceedings and served its psychological purpose of getting us to get one more plate when we were otherwise finished so that we could trigger another attempt. We ate to our hearts content (35 plates of sushi!) and it was great to catch up with Mai. Quality was great, even though Kura is known as a lower end chain. The price was 5300 Yen for all of us so very cheap. 

From there, it was back to the hotel for some quick rest, where Jordan once again refused to be still and quiet. But then it was a train and bus to go to TeamLabs Planets. That place was actually crazy. Totally immersive art installation. In the first portion, we had to take our shoes off and wear shorts as we would walk through water, which happened in two of the pieces. Much of the art was happening from projectors and the plaques said it was not pre-programmed, but was responding to people in the environment and therefore each formation was unique to your experience and would never be experienced again.

Probably craziest was the mirror and light string room. And you could control the colour for everyone with an app. Another was water up to your knees where projectors had virtual Koi swimming around and reacting to where people were. Another projector based one was the constant flow of leaves through the seasons projected on go a black dome where you lay down to see it. Getting up was an attack on balance. Almost as much as the black hole and forest sections, which had very squishy and wonky sloped floors. The “catch and release” was probably the worst given the bad implementation of the app that was not very responsive for the capturing portion. 

Got some great ramen on the way back to the hotel. Jordan didn’t want to eat it though. Could have used more of the delicious duck meat, but the broth and noodles were top notch. We ran in to a group of people doing real-life Mario Kart in the Tokyo streets, but no sign of any green or red shells Emily and I managed to stay up later that night, so hopefully setting up for a better lie in (which worked!).