Rudasaki Do Japan 2016
July 7, 2016
Day 5: We were awoken by Fujisan Hotel staff at 2:30am, to allow us 30 minutes to get ready to hike, and 90 minutes to make it to the summit in time for sunrise. Rafal and I had woken a few times during the night, mainly because we weren’t used to 7 hours of sleep. We surprisingly slept very well considering the situation (I would argue maybe even better than at home as my neck and lower back werent even sore despite hiking all day yesterday).
We packed up, dressed in warm layers and made our way out the hotel!
The good thing about hiking higher the day before meant we didn’t have a long way to go the next morning. It also meant we were able to avoid being stuck behind gaggles of other hikers making the trek. It was hard to get a good photo but we were basically lined up for a good 30 minutes of the hike until people started to slow down.
The sun began making its appearance around 3:20am:
And continued to brighten the sky
We kept hiking, and made it to the top around 4:22am
We set ourselves up to catch the sunrise with our Nikon, GoPro and iphone:
We hiked around back towards the crater, where we hiked higher up one of the little peaks. The wind was whipping us around and the air was crisp and chilly.
We were even graced with a beautiful rainbow, right in the crater where some rainclouds settled
We would have loved to stay up at the summit longer, but it was too cold. The hut was also closed, so I did not get a stamp at the top on my hiking stick! Boo! So we packed up and made our way down the mountain
A fun sign at the bathroom:
We stopped to eat our mystery breakfast… it tasted like preserved teriyaki tuna packets with rice and pickled veggies
The hike down took us just about 3 hours.
If you look closely, you can see all the stations from the bottom. Hard to believe we just went up and down that beast:
We made it back to our starting point!
As a reward for our efforts, we paid for overpriced ramen in the visitor center area
Next, we had to navigate our way to our Air BnB home in Oiso. We had planned on staying there so that we could visit the onsen in Hakone. We were about 3 hours away by local bus.
We were met at the train station by Masami, one of our hosts. He pulled up in a van to pick us up and immediately began sharing with us the highlights of Oiso. He drove us past the beach, and we pulled up to his home, which on the bottom floor is an art/music/cafe area, and the bedrooms are upstairs. We met Ikuko, Masami’s wife, and they immediately welcomed us in, shared green tea while Rafal and I showered, because we were stinky.
We headed to the local fish market to buy things for dinner, Ikuko and Masami were nice enough to make dinner for us, and two Japanese style breakfasts were also included. Our Air BnB experience was more like a couchsurfing experience (not like our Air BnB exchanges in the states where our guests do their own thing).
We then needed a light snack to hold us over until dinner, so we went to Family Mart (similar to 7–11) got food and sat in their cafe eating our treats until dinner. We were too tired to explore.
The house we stayed in is very popular among the locals as well as famous people, we later discovered!
We stayed in the attic loft
And had a wonderful dinner prepared for us!
We had tofu, fresh seaweed which was actually pretty good, tuna sashimi, salmon sashimi, dried and fresh tako, fried aji, this odd fish-egg cake, sake and beer! Oishikata!!
We headed to bed exhausted after a long day but the experience we were having with Masami and Ikuko was what we had been hoping for. Also, a breath of fresh air from everything we were reading going on in the states. Le sigh.
Do we have to go home??
Oyasumi!
Rudasaki Do Japan 2016
July 17, 2016
Day 15: We are ready to travel back into time! We left for Shiinamachi station for the last time, three bags and one walking stick from Fujisan. We made our connection to Ikebukuro, got on the Narita Express train for the hour and a half ride to the airport. We checked into our flight and dropped off three bags and was told to send the walking stick through as checked luggage.
We stopped in at a little food shop where I ordered a miso ramen for the last time, and got some tempura before leaving. For airport food, it was pretty decent.
Rafal got a nigiri plate and some soba.
We got through security, and onto our plane, perfect! We hear the announcement that we have strange headwinds on the route we were taking, so we would be arriving 30–40 min later than expected. We thought ok, that sucks… I hope we make our flight.
We land in Vancouver, rush to customs, and make it to the security checkpoint but are forced to stop and wait for our bags to be confirmed as we cannot go forward if the bags don’t make it to our flight. One bag… two bags… three bags all confirmed… And one damn walking stick that is not located.
We watch the clock hands move 10:55… 11:00… 11:05… 11:08… Our flight leaves at 11:10. They find our stick, but the barcode is not scannable…. And we miss our flight out of Vancouver at 11:10.
They tell us that they will try to get us out on a later flight and to make our way to gate 77 for an agent to help us. We get there, there’s no agent. We go to every Air Canada counter on the screen, there are no agents. We go to an info desk and ask the lady there where we could find an agent, she said , did you try any of these counters on the screen… 😑😑😑 we said yes, she said well then I don’t know what to tell you… We made the trek to the last two gates we hadn’t tried yet… nothing. So we came back and asked if she could just call an agent. The supervisor comes out and tries to say we didn’t go to the right gate and pass the blame over … No, no, no… he calls and the agent says she is not there at the gate so He apologizes and says to head back to 77 where an agent will be waiting for us but that he was only able to find flights leaving in the morning… All I can think of is that damn stick, that we wanted to take as carry-on… Even at the time of buying it, and leaving Japan, I was worried about having to bring it back. This stick is haunting me!
We find the agent, and fortunately, she was able to get us on a flight to Seattle at 6pm that gets us back to Vegas at 11:30. And a $20 meal voucher. Gee, thanks Air Canada.
I have thoroughly enjoyed traveling, but being so close to being home, I just wanted to be home at 3pm as planned, and not 11:30pm. It’s ok though, just another adventure for us!
We got poutine while we were here killing time in Canada and got a row to ourselves on the flight home. We will need to catch an uber home but I can’t wait to see the fur babies!
A reflective entry to come tomorrow, were about to land and make our way home, sadly.
**Addendum**
No, we’re not about to make it home… we wait at the baggage carousel… no bags. Just one walking stick. How the heck did the stick make it back, and not the bags?!
We waited and nobody is able to locate our bags! We fill out paperwork and the bags, when found will be delivered (since I’m finishing this days later, we did find all three bags, two on Monday and one on Tuesday) when available. We head home at I finally lay my head down at 3am. But what an awesome two weeks! Can’t wait for the next trip back!
Oyasumi!
Rudasaki Do Japan 2016
July 16, 2016
Day 14: We had hoped to wake up early to go to watch the auctions at Tsukiji Fish Market, but you have to start lining up there at 3am, sometimes earlier, and we had gotten to the hotel at 1am, so we decided to sleep in a little and head over around 9am. The shops are open by that time and crowded with visitors! There were so many shops and so much seafood!
We didn’t care where we ate, but we were in search of breakfast and we found a little shop on the front area of the street, that had some seating space so we could escape the bustle of the visitors. It oddly enough had a trip advisor sign so it was at least frequented a lot
We both ordered the maguro bowls (medium fatty tuna) and it was oishikatta! Basically, anywhere you go will likely be good (unlike the Kobe beef and getting lower quality non-kobe meat).
We enjoyed our meal and walked around to an ice cream shop that had a bunch of fun flavors, including wasabi and whale.
The whale was sprinkled on the top of a vanilla ice cream. We didn’t have a chance to try a big piece of whale this trip, ethically and availability-wise, we passed, but we did get the whale ice cream. It wasn’t bad, but didn’t taste like anything obvious or strange either.
After the busy streets of Tsukiji, we made our way back to pack our bags and nap before heading out for our last night in Japan. Cerise, Shun, and Cerise’s friend Nicole joined for yakitori snack, karaoke, and drinks in Roppongi.
We had finally made it to a yakitori place, and it was a good little shop according to Cerise and Nicole’s standards, 👍🏻. We ordered a ton of little appetizer sticks. They basically use every part of the chicken.
We were impressed with this lemon squeezer:
We then headed over to Karaokekan — the building we were at was renovating and we basically spent $10 a person for 3 hours of karaoke, which is unheard of. We also got free snacks and beer glasses. The room had two projector screens (which when we walked in, Shun, Cerise and Nicole were super excited about; turns out it’s usually just a tv so this was a new thing for them).
We spent the night singing and ordering overpriced food. The food equivalent at this place was comparable to bowling alley food, but a little worse. Haha so don’t go into these places hungry.
After, a friend from Vegas recommended going to Train Bar, in Roppongi, which is a bar that is literally in a train car. There is standing room only and the bar owners were expecting me to stop in. Roppongi was probably my least favorite area of the city. The bar was neat though, and when I went in to the bar, I was trying to ask the guy in Japanese if he knew my friend, but before I even got the words out of my mouth, he smiled and said ahhhhhh!! It was a fun moment. We found the photos on the wall of him and Kiss (he’s a drum tech for them). Had a drink, then slowly made our way to another bar before going back home.
Roppongi is a much much different area, there are a lot of foreigners there, and a lot of questionable activity going on. I would say you wouldn’t miss out on a whole lot if Roppongi isn’t on your areas of Tokyo to check out. The neat thing was that you take about 4 or 5 very long escalators underground to get to the subway that takes you to Roppongi. It felt like we were traveling into the earths core. It also makes you wonder how it was ever constructed, and how that is a safe place to be during an earthquake… Pretty neat nonetheless!
Below is a spider in Roppongi, and there was a nice view of Tokyo Tower:
We are heading out tomorrow… Sad day.
Oyasumi!
Rudasaki Do Japan 2016
July 15, 2016
Day 13: We left our cute Air BnB in Osaka and made our way to Kobe. We arrived at Shin-Kobe station and stumbled upon signs saying there were four waterfalls 15 minutes away. We locked our bags in the lockers and made our way to the falls!
There wasn’t a lot of English signs around but we managed to make our way to the first of the waterfalls, Mentaki. Hard to believe this is so close to the train station!
I believe the next fall was supposed to be Meotodaki but I don’t think we ever saw it… without signs in English, who knows. We continued hiking onward:
We found mushrooms growing on the sides of the walls, ❤️
And made it to the main waterfall, Nunobiki, which if anyone is at Shin-Kobe and needs time to kill, it only takes about 20 to 30 min to do round trip:
We hiked up further to a lookout area of the city:
Then made our way back down the hill and on our way to the Sake district.
We stumbled on this strange bridge and had some fun taking pictures:
Before we got sake, we needed to eat, so that meant more ramen!! This may have been one of my favorite ramen bowls. Possibly because you could add as much garlic chips as you wanted to the bowl and the soup was pork based. The Nitamago was also cooked just perfectly!
After we got some food in us, we walked towards Nada. Kobe is known for their sake as well as beef. We went to Hakutsuru, a sake brewery that has been around since 1743. They have a cute walk through museum that briefly explains the sake making process and at the end of the process, we got to sample 5 different sake. It was for the most part a self guided tour, and the modern way of making sake is the same as brewing beer, but the process they had back in the 1700s were crazy!
Step 5: Growing Koji spores in the rice is an important part of brewing sake, so they next mixed in the Koji and ferment
After sampling the sake, we got some sake flavored ice cream! It was probably the best ice cream we had there!
After all the food we had been eating, it was time to go find more food… the whole reason for our trip to Kobe… BEEF!!
We found a popular cheaper restaurant that serves Kobe teppanyaki style as we weren’t dressed for the fancy restaurants. Basically, restaurants serving *real* Kobe must have a gold seal displayed at the entrance of the building with documentation that their beef is authentic (they get papers from the farm they get the beef from) and should be able to tell you everything about the source. They did sell non kobe steaks there but it was clearly labeled and a clear price difference.
What more can I say about the Kobe beef. It melted in our mouths. It was an experience like none other. I can’t really say much more, it’s an experience you need to have (and luckily, Las Vegas has three restaurants that sell *REAL* Kobe beef). Apparently, up until like 2012? There were only 6 or 8 restaurants in the US that was allowed to get Kobe beef, so any other restaurants claiming to have Kobe was basically lying.
We got a packaged dinner that comes with soup and salad
Next they cooked the veggies, starting with garlic chips, then they did mushrooms, konyakku, zucchini.
They then brought out the meat!
Look at the beautiful day marbling:
Itadakimasu!
After dinner, we had some time to kill before our Shinkansen left for Tokyo. It just so happens a shrine was right down the road from us! There is a big wreath-like structure that you are supposed to walk in and out of 3 times before walking through to the temple
The children walking through the circle:
While on the Shinkansen back, we found a Capsule hotel that took in women and tattoos (both are typically banned) as they usually have businessmen who are kept out late by their bosses drinking and need a place to sleep, so they’re not very safe for women and tattoos in the past were associated with the yakuza, so like the onsens, most businesses did not want to associate with yakuza.
It was hostel like conditions with community bathroom, shower, onsen and sleeping quarters. For Rafal, the guys floor was busy with many guests. My floor was pretty empty. They had toothbrushes with presqueezed toothpaste on the brushes!
You left your shoes up front and switched out for cute slippahs
We went to a bar after checking in for beer and snacks. The restaurant was three floors high, but each floor only held about 10 people. It’s crazy how innovative the Japanese are to make do with the space they have!
Tomorrow is our last full day in Japan.
Oyasumi!
Rudasaki Do Japan 2016
July 14, 2016
Day 12: We left early in the morning for a day trip to Hiroshima. It was almost 2 hours by Shinkansen, but definitely worth a trip out.
Our first stop was the Atomic Bomb Dome. This building was one of the few buildings to withstand the force of the atomic bomb, being about 160 meters (500ft) from the epicenter of the explosion. It has since been established as a World Heritage site and represents the countries pledge to peace after the devastation of the bomb.
We made our way along the river and stopped at the Memorial Tower for the Mobilized Students — students were used for labor and many children were working at the time of the bombing:
Next on the path was the Children’s Peace Monument. I remember being read the story Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes in elementary school, and always wanted to see the monument in person, so it was an exciting moment, as exciting as something so somber can be:
These are cranes that have been sent from all over the world to be placed on display:
We also visited the Cenotaph for A-bomb Victims (Memorial Monument for Hiroshima, City of Peace) — it has an epitaph that reads: “Rest in Peace, for the error shall not be repeated” — part of their commitment for peace and a world without nuclear war. You can see the flame of peace and the atomic bomb dome through the arch.
We went into the museum and heard stories of horror as we walked through, looking at the items that were donated from survivors of their deceased loved ones, stories and photos of skin sloughing off, skin and nails dripping off bone, eyes falling out of people’s sockets, or skin melting eyes closed. It was a tragic, horrifying thing to imagine, let alone know that that’s what happened. The main hope shared by the people and these monuments is that this never happens again. Both sides had to endure horrible losses.
These were some of Sadako’s cranes on display at the museum:
Encapsulated was President Obamas cranes and message for peace from his recent visit. There were also messages from other world leaders who had visited Hiroshima and pledge their promise for peace.
After the museum and all the walking we had done, we were hungry… so it was our chance to try Hiroshima ramen! We went to a highly popular place, Gaba
This might have been one of my favorites.
We headed home after a busy morning and walked to the electronics district of Osaka, Den Den town, where they had shops and shops of manga, anime, and games. We went to the Taito Station and played some video games. I thought it was interesting to see a lot of businessmen dressed in suits strolling in and out of the building.
Bad picture, but there were a lot of shops with girls dressed like manga characters or maids.. Or anything really, to entice guests to come in. It felt like the strip but not…
We made our way back to Dotonbori area and enjoyed more of the neon lights and food
We we stopped in for dinner at a burger place with beer, Kokopelli. It’s actually a favorite beer place by many, even though we just wanted a brief break from the oodles of noodles.
We got the Minoh on tap, their stout and Hefeweizen, both were really smooth. The Weizen had more fruity notes and the stout was very smooth and easy to drink.
We both got Kobe beef burgers (even though we’re going to Kobe tomorrow and looking back as I write this, it most likely wasn’t real Kobe.. 😑), nonetheless, it was delicious!
We also tried a sweet potato amber beer:
A fun last night in Osaka before working our way back to Tokyo tomorrow. So sad that the trip is almost over, but every day gets a little more exhausting to get through! We’re having a great time in Nippon!
Oyasumi!