Eat til you drop in Osaka! (plus a day trip to Nara)

Our last stop in Japan was two nights in Osaka with a day trip to Nara. Osaka is known for having a totally different personality than other big cities like Tokyo, for being louder, flashier, and always in search of good food and a good deal!

OSAKA

Welcome to Osaka!

I read that the motto of Osaka is "kuidaore" ("eat until you drop") - so it only makes sense that most of our activities there revolved around food! The day we got in, we walked around the Dotonbori district, which is like a big, neon amusement park for food. Shops advertise their specialties with larger then life creatures and neon signs. 

It was amusing to walk through, but we wanted to get a slightly more authentic taste of the city, so we booked a tour with Yuki from Inside Osaka. It was a great tour that I'd definitely recommend to anyone who wants a glimpse at local Osaka life. He took us to a few local spots and explained a lot about Osaka culture along the way.

First stop: Osaka specialty Takoyaki: batter filled with octopus. Yuki said that a lot of popular places on the street rush the process and the batter doesn't cook fully. This is a sixth-generation Takoyaki stand where they really take their time to do things right!

Second stop: A local Izakaya (informal standing up bar), where we tried some sake and a few Japanese foods like tofu and roasted peppers. He explained that a common way Japanese people can judge if a place has good food is to taste their dashi (broth)- if that's good, they know what they're doing! He also told us that the bar after work is an important part of bonding with colleagues, and the only place it's acceptable to disagree with your boss!

Third stop: A grocery store which looks more like a video game arcade. It was just as bright and colorful inside, with loud music bumpin'! Yuki told us that in Osaka, everyone likes good food at a good price- this particular chain is known for their 1 yen sales, where every day you can get certain items for only 1 yen!

Last stop: A great chicken restaurant! The best Japanese restaurants specialize in just one thing- if they have many different types of food (like sushi AND ramen) it's not likely to be as good. This place even had....CHICKEN SASHIMI (pictured above). Yes, that's raw chicken. Restaurants can only serve it if the chicken has been killed that day, and it's a mark of a quality restaurant if they have it. I tried it, and it tasted like tuna sashimi. Will not be making this one at home :)

NARA

Nara is about an hour train ride from Osaka, and known for its temples and deer. We were getting a little tired of researching sights at this point, so decided to go on a tour with Nara Walk. Our guide wasn't as good as the others we experienced, but it was nice to have someone showing us where to go and giving us some background info.

First up, we met some of the famous deer, and fed them their favorite food, deer crackers!

Julia's caption for this photo: It's all fun and games until you run out of deer crackers!

We visited a shinto shrine where we prayed to the matchmaking god, saw a beautiful garden, and marveled at the world's largest buddha statue.

Moss covered lanterns leading to the shrine, purchased by wealthy believers to help fund the upkeep of the shrine.

We caught the last of the cherry blossoms in Nara!

This is the Todai-Ji temple that houses the Buddha- I've made some notes to try to communicate just how big the statue is!

It's hard to tell from the photo just how large he is!

After the tour, I had lunch at Maguro Koya, which looks like a hole in the wall, but has the best tuna sashimi I've ever tasted! 

We headed back to Osaka after lunch and a little browsing (including a shop that had a live owl....normal?). They were having a sakura festival, even though most of the cherry blossoms were done blooming. As you'd expect in Osaka, there were tons of food booths selling all types of good eats. We had some of the most amazing dumplings ever, and a weird tostada thing made from tempura bits and covered in mayo. Not that good.

Pass on this one

Banana cuties!

Even though the cherry blossoms were mostly gone, there were tons of blooming plum trees, and a crowded walkway to view them!

v. crowded

We enjoyed a glass of wine outside at the nearby Garden Oriental and then tried to go to a steak place for dinner. Well, we did GO there, but the offerings on the menu started at $150, which was a bit rich for our blood, so Julia called it a night and got some to-go food, and I went to FUKUTARO for some tasty Okonomiyaki.

And with that, our trip was almost at an end! We headed back to Tokyo for one more night before our flight home. I'll add what we did there to my original Tokyo blog post.

Where we stayed in Osaka: Mitsui Garden Hotel. We liked it a lot, though it was in more of a business district so not a lot to see in the immediate area.

A change of pace in Hiroshima and Miyajima

After four days packing in the sights in Kyoto, we were ready to slow things down just a little bit. We headed west to spend two nights between Hiroshima and Miyajima.

Of course, when most people think of Hiroshima, they think of the atomic bomb, and the city has some beautiful memorials to remember that tragic event during WWII.

Today, Hiroshima is a lively city like any other, and we found it to be refreshingly un-crowded compared to Kyoto and Tokyo. After finding our hotel, we started out at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial museum for some more history and context. The museum seemed to be the one place in Hiroshima that was super crowded, which detracted a bit from the overall experience. I thought the most moving parts were video footage of survivors of the bombing who described what it was like that day, and a room with stories, and articles of clothing from children who died in the bombing or from the after-effects of radiation. 

We spent some time reflecting while walking around the peace park, which is alongside the “A-bomb dome” - the only (I think) structure that remains from the bombing, whose skeleton and rubble serve as a reminder of events from the past.

The A Bomb dome

The park also has a peace flame, and children’s memorial, where school groups from around the world have left thousands of folded paper cranes.

A few of the thousands of paper cranes

For lunch, we tried to go to a Mediterranean restaurant near the museum, but it happened to be closed, so we went across the street to a super random French bistro called La Vague where we were the only customers. It only had a menu in Japanese so we had no idea what we ordered, but it turned out to be a delicious 4-course meal!

After our visit to the memorial site, we didn't have any particular agenda. We wandered around the gardens of Hiroshima Castle and made our way to the surprisingly lovely Shukkeiein Garden for a relaxing stroll.

Shukkeien Garden

Isn't portrait mode the coolest?

For dinner, we wanted to try some okonomiyaki, a speciality of Hiroshima made by layering lots of ingredients on top of each other (a thin rice pancake, cabbage, egg, pork, noodles, etc). We found a place online called Lopez, which is run by a Guatemelan expat and his Japanese wife. Maybe not the most traditional option, but delicious nonetheless.  

NOM

Miyajima

The island of Miyajima is an easy day trip from Hiroshima, and home to the famous orange Torii gate on the water, many deer, some shrines, and very delicious sweets in the shape of a maple leaf. We decided to stay overnight so we could check out a ryokan experience (more on that later)

During the day, we hiked to the top of Mt. Misen- an hour and a half of stairs, whew! The views at the top were great, though not as un-crowded as you’d expect because you can also take a cable car up there! We decided to take it down to spare our legs. 

At the starting point, the Daisho-in temple, all the statues had tiny knitted hats to protect them from rain, wind and snow.

Views from the top

After the hike, we caught some of the sunset at the Torii gate, which is supposed to be one of the most spectacular times to see it (I believe that after witnessing it!)

After snapping some photos, we headed back to our ryokan, called Iwaso. A ryokan is a traditional Japanese inn/B&B, with tatami mat rooms, communal baths and delicious meals. Our place was super nice, and HUGE compared to the hotels and AirBnbs that we’d been staying in, plus we had our own hostess who was the sweetest thing ever. I didn't sleep very well on the futon beds, but it's all part of the experience I guess!

Our little paradise in the woods.

Dinner time! (in our traditional clothes to match the setting)

Welcome tea and a local sweet (maple leaf shaped cake filled with red bean paste)

Overall we really loved Miyajima, it ended up being our overall favorite experience of the trip. While many do it in a day trip, I'd definitely recommend staying overnight to anyone visiting Japan!

Temples, geisha and rain in Kyoto

We just wrapped up four cold, wet, packed days in Kyoto! There’s a lot of history and both man-made and natural beauty to take in. I think we were both surprised by how big and crowded Kyoto was, and the 50-degree, rainy weather made it a little harder to enjoy being outside soaking in the sites. 

This sums up our visit to Kyoto pretty well.

We stayed at an AirBnb about a 10-minute walk to Kyoto station. Being near the station was convenient because all trains and busses start and eventually end up there, however, almost all the activities we wanted to do were at least 45 minutes away. So we got to know the Kyoto bus system really well :)

Day 1:

We departed Lake Kawaguchiko in the morning and bus > train > walked and finally arrived to Kyoto in the afternoon. We headed over to Nishiki food market, which is sort of like the Ferry Building on steroids- tons of foods, ingredients, and souvenirs to browse.

Scenes from Nishiki market

We toasted to our first day in Kyoto at a small sake brain the market and then strolled around the Gion neighborhood a bit.

Thumbs up to sake!

Gion is probably what you picture when you think of Kyoto- has very traditional wooden buildings, narrow streets, and discrete restaurants. It’s known for Geisha sightings, but we only saw people dressed up in costume taking photos (apparently a popular pastime for Japanese tourists). We had dinner at a small place that I’d describe as a Japanese pub, called Beer Komachi and as usual, called it an early night!

A restaurant in Gion

Along the riverside (canalside?) in Gion

The next day, we woke up bright and early for our bike tour. We met up with the group only to discover that we'd actually booked for the following day! So we went into the tourist information office to quickly cobble together a backup plan. We decided to hit up some of the major tourist attractions (and, predictably, so did every other tourist in Kyoto...the crowds were intense!)

I'm not sure anyone cares too much about the details, so here is a brief look at what we saw!

1. Nijo Castle: The most interesting parts are inside, where they don't let you take photos. No photos is an excellent policy for keeping people moving along. Most interesting thing I learned here: Japanese people used to believe that cheetahs were female tigers.

2. Golden Pavilion: The most famous temple in Kyoto! Beautiful, loads of people, and where it started raining and didn't stop!

LUNCH BREAK! Even though it's on Google Maps, Fuka felt like a lovely hidden gem. Run by a really cute old man and his wife.

3. Ginkaku-ji temple: Beautiful gardens - very lush and green, plus a cool sand garden thing.

4. Kiyomizu-dera temple: So wet. So crowded. Must. Keep. Sightseeing. We were getting a little grumpy at this point in the day.

We were so tired we didn't even get a good picture of this temple. This is the best we got.

BONUS: Julia in a cool store with a bunch of rabbit-themed items.

Even though it may seem like we saw a lot, it was actually still fairly early in the day by the time we were all worn out. So we headed back to Gion for an early dinner (and well-deserved bottle of wine) at Gion Manzara which was a cozy-yet elegant restaurant with lots of good small plates to share, 

DAY 3

The day of our actual bike tour! Our bike tour took us for a lovely, and chilly ride along the Kamo river, and to three other interesting sights around the city:

Heian-Jingu Shrine: This is a shinto shrine, where they seem to have a lot of interest in luck and fortunes. You can pay to get a fortune, and if it's bad, you can tie it onto a post for ritual burning, or you can write a wish and leave it at the temple. They had a wall of bad luck years (which are different for men and women) and wouldn't you know it, age 33 is the worst age right now for women! Sorry to all my fellow 33-year olds.

Ritual cleansing fountain at the shrine. Don't drink out of those ladles!

Next, we made our way to the Nanzen-ji temple, which is a Zen-Buddhist temple (fun fact: the way you can tell the difference between shinto and Buddhist temples is that Buddhist temples have human statues in them). It also has a functioning and very photogenic aqueduct- random! 

Nanzen-ji temple

After a lovely ride along the Philosopher's Path (so-named for the philosophy professor who supposedly walked the path daily pondering existentialism and the like), we returned to the station and warmed up with a hot bowl of ramen from Ippudo. Ippudo is an international but very delicious ramen chain- there's one in the "Porta" section of the Kyoto station which was not very crowded!

Philosopher's Path- are you sick of spring flower photos yet?

Warmed up from the ramen we were ready to head out again- and hopped on the train over to Fushimi-Inari-Taisya shrine, known for its 10,000 vermillion torii gates. At first it was miserably crowded, like we could barely walk through the gates it was so crowded, but the further along we went, the fewer people there were. 

Not so photogenic....

There's one section with two sets of gates parallel to each other, and people only walk on one side, so this lady was taking some photos in the other set of gates. It looks deceptively uncrowded!

Further up, without many tourists!

After our visit, it started raining again, hooray. We escaped the weather with drinks at the super cute Bar Rocking Chair, 

Relaxing near Mt. Fuji

We decided to give a full day and night to a visit to Mt. Fuji. We left Tokyo at 8:30 for a pleasant hour train ride to a packed station where every other tourist in Japan was also trying to get to Mt. Fuji (less pleasant). We figured out how to buy tickets, and then crammed into the next train which was so full we didn't have seats (which seems to be unusual on long train rides here). 

Finally we arrived to Lake Kawaguchiko, dropped our things off at the hotel and got our first great views of Mt. Fuji! I'd read that it can be hit or miss- that if it's cloudy out you might never see Fuji, so I think we got pretty lucky. The sky was a bit hazy, but we still loved the views and the cherry blossoms made it all the more beautiful

Our hotel receptionist said that this tree right outside the building is the prettiest one in town!

Then we got back on another train to visit the Chureito Pagoda, where you can climb 400 stairs (easier than it sounds) for breathtaking views.

The rest of the day we spent relaxing at our hotel's onsen, a traditional communal bath, with a view of the mountain. Julia did some yoga, but I've been sitting here working on my blog! Now off to dinner and then tomorrow: Kyoto!

Sisters take Tokyo

My sister Julia and I have both been wanting to visit Japan and decided to finally make it happen! We chose to visit during April to catch some of the famous cherry blossoms in season. First stop: Tokyo. 

Day 1 in Tokyo:
Getting to Tokyo takes a looooong time!  After a flight delay due to a problem with the bathroom, and 12 hours in the air, we arrived in Tokyo, waited in a long line to get our JR pass, took an hour and a half train ride into the city, found our apartment and had finally arrived! Even though we were deliriously tired, we went out to Tempura Tsunahachi, a restaurant specializing in tempura, where we enjoyed a tasty meal and then promptly went to bed.

Our 'hood for the first few days

Day 2
We managed to sleep pretty well and were up by 8 to get to sight-seeing. We walked to Shinkjuku Gyoen National Garden park to witness the cherry blossoms in full bloom. We took lots of photos and walked around to different areas of the garden. While we were relaxing and discussing where to go next, someone overheard us and said we should check out Ueno park if we wanted to see more cherry blossoms. 

Getting our first full day off to a great start!

This is what we came for!

Before moving on to the next park, we made a stop at Yabu Soba for handmade soba. It was tasty but a little plain for me, but we got our own little tatami room which was cute (and uncomfortable).

Soba!

Bellies full of noodles, we headed to the park, which reminded me of the Dolores Park of Japan. There were tons of people picnicking, drinking, and having a great time. Another area had lots of food vendors selling everything from octopus to cotton candy.

It was fun to see, but the crowds were a little overwhelming, so we decided to head out of there and check out Yanaka, a historic neighborhood nearby. It was much more calm, with a few cute shops and cafes along the way to a main street with a bunch of food vendors and restaurants.  After a bit of a nap at home, we wandered around our neighborhood a bit, grabbing some cocktails at a jazz bar called Dug (not very Japanese!), and then dinner at a Yakitori restaurant whose name we've already forgotten.

Day 3:
On our third day in Tokyo, we started out at the Meiji Shrine, which is nestled in a beautiful wooded park. We wandered around a bit, and paid a few dollars to walk through the empress’s former private tea house and garden area it was a beautiful and peaceful escape from Tokyo madness. 

There's a huge wall of sake bottles at the shrine- great photo spot :)

The Harijuku neighborhood is super close to the shrine, so we headed there next- what a contrast! The main street, Takeshita Dori was wall to wall with people. Plenty of tourists but also lots of young Japanese girls...I kept wondering why they weren't in school! We followed our curiosity down some stairs and found ourselves in a photo-booth arcade (that's the best description I can come up with). Basically you go in one of dozens of different photo booths, take a bunch of pictures, and then edit them to add stickers, change your eye color, and more.  It's probably easier to understand by just looking at the results:

We've never looked better.

After wandering around looking at lots of cute stuff and photogenic desserts (like a huge cotton candy, and Japan's longest soft-serve) we headed off the main drag to finally have some ramen at Kyushi Jangara, which was recommended to me by someone. 

YUM

Following that we did a little more window shopping on Cat Street (which has mostly international stores so was not that interesting) and made our way to Yoyogi Park, another popular cherry blossom spot where lots of locals were picnicking and enjoying the afternoon. 

We rested our feet for a few, then headed out to Omotesandō, which is a tree-lined avenue with all the major high end stores. Our destination was Anniversaire, which has a lovely outdoor cafe where we enjoyed some wine and sweets.

Not very Japanese, but very delicious.

After our afternoon rest, we headed out to the Park Hyatt bar- famous for its appearance in Lost in Translation. We felt very classy (and underdressed) drinking some expensive drinks, then headed home where we struggled to stay away past 9 PM after our long day of sightseeing!

Views on views from the New York Bar at the Park Hyatt hotel

Day 4
On our last day (for now) in Tokyo, we paid a visit to Senso-Ji, the oldest temple in Tokyo. There are tons of small souvenir and sweets shops leading up to the entrance, so we did some browsing and bought a couple of souvenirs along the way. 

While I can't say we absorbed much of the history of the place, it was beautiful to see, especially with the cherry blossoms in season. 

Next up, we headed over to the Naka-Meguro (aka Nakame), another popular spot to view cherry blossoms. We had a lovely lunch at a French restaurant called Huit, which was a nice little change of pace from Japanese food. We strolled along the river for a while;  towards the end were lots of cute little restaurants selling sparkling rosé to enjoy outdoors.

Along the riverside 

We wrapped up our visit to Tokyo with dinner with some of my Google colleagues, who were in town from SF for work. We ate at Inakaya East, where you sit around the chef and basically point at what you want and he'll cook it for you. It was a bit touristy, but a good time and we had some delicious sea food.

Next we headed off to the famous tourist attraction, the Robot Restaurant (actually more of a show than a restaurant). It's a bit hard to describe- people dressed as robots and other anime-like characters, banging drums, dancing, singing, with plenty of lasers, neon and loud music.

Staying up past 11 was a super late night for us, so we headed right to bed to rest up for our journey to Mt. Fuji the next morning!

FINAL DAY IN TOKYO (post-Osaka)

We returned to Tokyo for one last day before we flew home. This time, we had a hotel in the Ginza area, one of the ritzy shopping areas in Tokyo, great for people watching and window shopping.

We didn't have any more sightseeing plans, but happened to open up Google Maps which now tells you about local festivals and events going on. We saw that there was a wine event going on 15 minutes from our hotel, and that was all we needed to see! 15 minutes later, we found ourselves in a pleasant park at a tasting event for Japanese wineries. For about $20, we got a glass and a bunch of tasting tickets. We weren't sure exactly what varieties we were tasting, but we were sure that none of them were very good! Sorry to any Japanese winemakers who may be reading this (unlikely), but we'll stick to our California grapes for now.

Even though the wine wasn't very good, it was a really fun afternoon trying something different and enjoying relaxing in our last day in Tokyo.

Of course, we had to close out the trip with one last bowl of ramen, this time from Kagari Ramen, inside the Ginza subway station. They make a chicken ramen, which is apparently not common, but it was incredibly delicious!

Unfortunately I spent the night battling food poisoning :( I don't know what caused it, but it wasn't the best way to end my trip! 

Not letting a sore stomach slow us down, we managed to squeeze in a couple more quick activities the next morning. We went to the fish market, but I'm not sure we saw the most interesting parts- we just kind of walked around the tourist area. I think this would be a sight best seen with a tour guide.

Then, we wandered over to the nearby Hama-Rikyu garden to kill a little more time and get some more walking in before the flight

A beautiful oasis surrounded by skyscrapers!