Author: bhwilk

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!). 

We had a 3am wake up for leaving Ormond at 4am to get to the airport for our 6am flight to Newark. Ryan was amazing and coordinated with us to avoid paying for parking. The drive itself was terrible, with fresh snow down that was as of yet un-plowed and total whiteout conditions. Made it to the airport safely in the end and breezed through security and customs with plenty of time to make the flight. I was sitting next to an owner of the Senate Tavern Pub downtown who got invited by their beer rep go the super bowl. Flights, accommodations, all access tickets for the low, low price of $10,000. Which is actually low, considering that was the face value of the tickets were $10,000 by themselves. Apparently some bar in Toronto backed out so Senate Tavern guys for a discount. 

Newark was entirely uneventful (we got some New York Bagels), as was our flight to Tokyo itself which is pretty much what you want from a flight. Jordan was not 100% listening the whole time and refused to attempt sleep which was very annoying and would set us up for a tough time zone transition. We all did sleep a bit, but certainly not enough.

Customs on arrival was the weirdest setup ever. There was this massive queue that was a mob to get into. But once you were in, the line was in constant fast movement. So everyone is walking this massive maze of ropes. Until you got sorted into a customs booth, then it was a wait behind three others and it took a while from there, about 5 minutes per person ahead. 

Easy 45 minute subway ride to our hotel in Asakusa. Room was pretty good, with a slightly separated area for Jordan’s bed but not otherwise a lot of room to maneuver. Bed on the floor was unfortunate to begin with, but the quality of mattress was not great. Emily’s injured back especially didn’t like having to get down to the floor. We did get a kimono for each of us to use while we were there, which Jordan particularly liked.

After a quick shower and change, we headed out and walked to Skytree for dinner and exploration.  Ate at a cutlet place which was pretty cool. Had to grind your own sesame seeds and mix the dipping sauce while waiting for your food (which was two kinds of fried pork and the most gigantic fried shrimp I have ever seen). After about 4 bites, Jordan fell asleep in the booth and stayed that way through the rest of dinner. We then had to carry dead weight Jordan through the mall to the subway. This did result in a hilarious Weekend at Bernie’s moment where we got pictures of passed out Jordan in front of the Pokemon Center. 

Of course, after getting to the train station, Jordan woke up and wanted to go back to the Pokemon Center. So back we went through the maze of a mall to go there. Finally, it was back to the hotel for sleep. We all fell asleep at 7:30 or so. Would have hoped to go later to avoid the worst of the jetlag, but we were all quite exhausted.

Welcome to my series of trip reports from Japan. I have a detailed trip report for each day of the trip, along with some selected photos. I also wrote up some closing thoughts as well, since this is one of the best trips I have ever been on.

Day 1: Flight and Arrival

Day 2: Asakusa, Sushi and Team Labs

Day 3: Tokyo Station and Shinkansen to Kyoto

Day 4: Monkeys, Bamboo and Beef, Oh My!

Day 5: Nijo Castle, Onsen and more Pokemon

Day 6: Osaka Castle, Tea Ceremony, Dotonbori and Whisky

Day 7: Valentine’s Day in Hakone

Day 8: Pirate Ship, Odawara and Shibuya Scramble

Day 9: Akihabara Electric City and Flight to Washington DC

Day 10: Jet Lag (not The Game) and Protest Sightseeing

Reflections on the trip as a whole