Brave or Foolhardy

We have drifted sideways into Tokyo for our last night. We left Osaka this morning on the Nozomi Shinkansen which cut 30 mins of normal Shinkansen journeys. It did feel faster even though the train was still an N700. I was hoping for the green Nozomi in the film bullet train but you can’t win them all.

I am sitting here writing this on the window seat in our 30th floor room at the Park Hotel. Another amazing choice I would say. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and the view is stunning.

We have the train station to our left and the monorail and traffic intersection on the right. The kids got a double aspect panoramic view which is currently being photographed for a time lapse over night. Fingers crossed for that. We went out for tea and having Ezra, Luke and Susie choose the restaurant was fab. They picked a good one. We had to wait outside for a while as it was super busy but truly worth the wait. The restaurant was based around skewers and you order 20 or so at a time with drinks. Simple food, meat and vegetables plus fries, some food lightly fried, others with teriyaki style sauces. Yum!

This holiday has been different in that it is not until halfway through at least that we felt truly relaxed. Partly this was due to having to be “on it” learning the right way to do things. Manners is so much part of the culture and that strikes a chord with me so I want to get it right. I want to be respectful. I hope wee didn’t tread too heavily on our interaction with the lovely folk we have come across. Almost everyone has gone out of their way, some literally, to help us feel welcome. For our part I think the prep made all the difference and I cannot imagine arriving without a full plan of where to stay and how to get around.

The general feeling is that we would love to come back and see more of the North parts, maybe in a Springtime period. However we have higher priority places in the world now we would explore first that we have no experience of.

Tomorrow we take the local train back to Narita airport and begin the double whammy flight home. We need to stay up late, get up reasonably, have coffee in the morning then try and sleep on the flights. We will obviously be incommunicado for a while after tomorrow morning so assume all is well.

We will summarise when we get back and add some retrospective photos and links to videos but for now this is Phil signing off. Sayonara!

The second and last full day in Osaka was very cool. For multiple reasons.

We ventured out first thing to the Cup Noodle museum on this cool refurbished old train. Yes you read that correctly, a cup noodle museum. From the early 70’s the pot noodle style dish has been manufactured by Nissin and there is a museum where you can see the history and you get to make a custom pot noodle with your selection of ingredients and sauce. They then package it around the cup you designed and shrink wrap it just like you would get at home. It was jolly good fun and while the queue was long, it was so worth it. Here is what we made.

We dashed back to rest at the condo before heading out late afternoon. The destination was Osaka castle with an onward look at the neon lights around Dotonbori. The blessing was that a huge stripe of low cloud had come over which brought wind and shade! Oh the delight! So we mooched around the castle grounds much more relaxed and without hunting shady routes before grabbing a cross town metro to Namba and Dotonbori. The food stop we made looked better from a decor point of view than the ultimate food belied. We all wanted to “hot foot” it out of there ASAP. My issue was I didn’t read the menu correctly but several of the family didn’t enjoy theirs as much either. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. Anyway the lights were fantastic as were the street performers. Top marks went to three chaps who had teamed up to do basketball tricks with a beatboxer introducing each “play”

Today was mostly a travelling day but the distances were short so there was time to fit some cool stuff in. We dived back on the limited express train to Osaka which was alright once we had found the right train to match our reservations. I thought we were on Shinkansen but that was false. When we got to Osaka the walk was blistering and tricky as there were lots of of town planners dreams in play at once. Overhead walkways, traditional roads with complex crossings and two levels of subterranean walking options. Google maps does not handle more than one vertical level well.

We found the condo we were scheduled in for and left our bags in a container at the back locked with cycle locks. This left us with day packs and a hunger for lunch. Noticing the big ferris wheel we couldn’t resist a view of the city that starts on the 7th floor. The views were incredible! After that we stumbled across, under the railway arches, a Korean restaurant and Jenni ordered Italian from the menu. It was not the best 🙂 however the rest of the food tasted alright and it was an air conditioned break. We found our next pursuit right outside. Big Echo is a chain of karaoke were you can hire a room for a couple of hours and sing your heart out. This was very much on “the list” and I might have got a bit carried away. Sorry to the folk in the surrounding cabins 🙂

This evening was one of the highlights we had been looking forward to and the reason there was no blog last night. We didn’t get home until 11:00 and I was mashed.

The fireworks and boat festival sees nearly 1.3m people descend on Osaka for an event of gargantuan proportions. The river is lined up on both sides for about 1.5km with food stalls and just about everyone in Japan it feels like. You can get noodles, toffee apples, shaved ice, dumplings, drinks and then watch the boats and floating floats process up the river banging drums and shouting/dancing etc. This is the end of the mid-summer festivals and we happened across a seating area that was filling up for the fireworks. The compromise was that you couldn’t see the river but the fireworks view was spot on. Since we had seen some of the boats and the were perambulatory we thought this was right. It was a good call – the fireworks were great and so many. Eventually we were exhausted and tried to start back but the roads and bridges were closed to even pedestrians as the festival was still in full flow.

We ventured back into the crowd to get more food and I fell/tripped over a giant rock in the near dark. What a dummy. Never mind. As I said at the beginning we got back really late but we also felt very much part of it all.

We awoke to another beautiful day in Kyoto. The house is proving to be a hit and allows a modicum of normality in an otherwise busy travel agenda. We have got stuff washed, had time to refresh without having to make a special trip. So after a little breakfast we ventured out towards the bamboo forest. We took the train and walked through to to the part of the district containing the shrines and bamboo forest. It is strange because the city just stops and there you are in the forest. The only thing separating the two are a line of souvenir shops.

The shrine with the sand gardens had a fantastic overlooking temple where you can sit and contemplate. Other than that the sand gardens were not even close to those we saw yesterday at the silver temple.

Here is a view nonetheless.

After the temple was the bamboo forest itself which was amazing, not quite as green as in the guidebooks and tourist shop views but awe inspiring.

We walked back to the centre and then out again to the monkey sanctuary which involved a significant climb up to the crest of a hill. The monkeys were pretty cool although having been warned off them earlier in the holiday I was less keen to be so close up. I guess I was also remembering a time on a previous trip where a monkey became aggressive with us. It was fab though and they were swimming to keep cool. It was real play jumping in and dunking each other. The stand out bonus for me was the panorama of the city that you can see from the top. Oh my goodness it was amazing. See for yourself…

We hustled back after a cherry blossom ice cream for me and strawberry or granita options for the family. The feeling of relief after the heat was the most poignant I had felt.

After some respite we headed out to find the action around the summer festivals and the Gion area where the Geisha prepare and walk through the streets. It was a long walk but totally worth it to see the parade floats starting off. We finished the night off by grabbing some ramen in a restaurant and taking a breath. Tomorrow we head out for Osaka and the firework festival which marks the general end of festivities centred around mid-summer. We have been very lucky in the timing of everything. Luck didn’t really play as much a part in it at all, as we have an amazing coordinator, who is also Jenni, who is also mum.

We had two main items on the agenda today. A walking tour around the Sakyo ward of Kyoto including the silver temple and a cooking class.

We had huge fun *sarcasm* getting around by bus today. This is easy if you are in the know and another steep learning curve if you don’t. You need the right money or an IC contactless card. We haven’t charged ours up so we were using cash today. It had to be exactly 230 Yen but we used all our exact money yesterday. So you have to get on boldly and when the bus isn’t moving, but before you are due to get off you have to move past everyone and use a change machine under the fare machine next to the driver. It gives you two sets of adult fare per 500 yen coin so you need to change 3 per trip when there are 5 of you. Handfuls of change distributed, we continued our 19 stop journey.

The philosopher’s path was worth the wait though and when we did trek up to the silver temple the groomed zen sand gardens and bonsai and moss woods were breathtaking. I took loads of photos on the big camera and will pop some here. Really sweltering though today, super humid.

The afternoon was spent cooking at Sun Cooking school. What a lovely bunch that run the classes. The ladies were so friendly, helpful and informative. They were genuinely interested in where we have been and what food we had tried. We learned how to make dashi and teriyaki, how to make minced chicken meatballs, marinated cucumber, pumpkin soup and soy sweet sorbet among other things. The food was fab, the explanation clear and concise, and the ambiance just a lot more relaxing than I was bargaining for. My hot head melted into the experience and I could have stayed there all day even without the Sake! This would be on my top 5 things to do in Japan.

It is officially half way through our holiday – hump day. It is all down hill but not from a fun standpoint. Loads more to do! Today we moved out of Hiroshima and caught the Shinkansen to Shin-Osaka and then a local express from Osaka to Kyoto.
Here is a view of the sunset over the peace memorial from the rooftop bar in Hiroshima. We also did a Timelapse capture but I am not sure whether I have the room to render 4000+ images on this iPad so that might be uploaded in future.

What made the Shinkansen fab was that we were travelling over lunch time, so we were able to get our Ekiben thing going on. Ekiben is a pre-packaged bento box of food to eat on Shinkansen and sold at most large city stations. As always the choice (once we found the right shop) was immense and we honestly had no idea what we might get inside. We are learning that looks and taste can be completely unrelated. I plumped for the Chicken Yakitori which was a fairly safe bet of chicken skewers in rice. Others were more brave, Susie thought hers was also chicken but it turned out to be eel! Luke nearly had a nosebleed into his and had to dash off. Anyway the opportunity to eat at 200kph plus was exhilarating. When we arrived at the changeover station we got on a local express also covered by our rail passes. The train had an almost completely glass front like a rail-car observation carriage in the UK.

We arrived hot and bothered into the capital of global climate action. We were 10 mins too early for the check in so we had to amuse ourselves down the road while we left the luggage at the villa. The only answer that made sense was a snow-cone or shaved ice snack. These are better than they sound and the choice of flavour really affects the outcome. We went for strawberry or melon and both were fab.

We were finally able to check in and as this is a whole house booking. So we have a kitchen and a washing machine. Yay! The bed was comfy but the duvet only half size so it was tug of war overnight.

In the evening before retiring we sought out a Gyoza restaurant as this was on the must do list for Kyoto. Wow is all I can say. We ordered seconds! They are very more-ish.