Got up a little early to hit the onsen again and then got breakfast from the buffet. It was quite good. In the upper left was scrambled eggs and ketchup rice. My friend’s daughter told us that it’s deconstructed omurice. I skipped the curry because everything else was quite a lot.

Since we were back in the sticks, I took a diesel train, transferred to an electric train, then transferred to the shinkansen which took me to Tokyo station. I was hoping to take a bus to the airport but since it’s Golden Week the roads are packed and they recommended the monorail. So i took the Yamanote line train to the Tokyo Monorail and then the Monorail to Haneda Airport. I was expecting the trains to be a mess but they were fine.

I wasn’t really that hungry at Haneda airport so I got a couple snacks at the Delta lounge. (I went to the Centurion Lounge but it was smaller and much, much darker.) This is a special dessert made for Children’s Day. I guess there’s supposed to be a koi in there (not a real one).

Then it was time to get on the plane from HND to SEA.

The food on the plane wasn’t bad, and I watched Mercy (pretty bad), the rest of No Other Choice (which turned into a black comedy after all), Shutter Island, the rest of the available episodes of High Potential, and most of Point Break. Why didn’t anyone tell me how awful Point Break is?

Had a pretty uneventful wait in the Seattle Delta lounge (still not hungry and I had a mislabeled Coke – I think it was Diet) and the quick flight down to Portland. 32 ½ hours after getting up, I was back in my own bed. The woman sitting next to me on the plane said she missed her flight the night before and spent the night in the airport. She took much longer getting home than I did!

And that’s it for my trip!

I stayed at a hotel that I was told was “okay”. It’s usually only about $50 US per night but for Golden Week it was closer to $130. The rooms were tiny, the walls were on the thin side, and the big bath in the basement wasn’t that big. But it was fine. The breakfast was pretty good.

There was an automatic pancake maker. Wave your hand over the switch and two small pancakes came out. The pancakes were pretty good.

After that I just mainly put on my white-ish shirt, my new black Uniqlo pants, and what I thought were black socks from FamilyMart that turned out to be dark blue. Then I went to the memorial service for the elder Dr. Kawasaki (the dad of the other two Drs Kawasaki) and I was the only non-family-member there. I was also surprised that the one-year memorial is where they place the cremains into the headstone.

After that we went to an onsen. This wasn’t everything. We still had more fish dishes and the silver lid is hiding a very tasty pork dish.

Then we took a dip in the onsen which was very sulphury and then just hung out in the lobby eating snacks and drinking a bit from the free drink bar. It was a a lot of fun and quite relaxing.

Not many pictures today. I packed and got a morning set at Doutor, where I should’ve gone the past two days.

Then we drove to the JA Store to look for some gummy candies my sister wanted. Last night we checked the intarwebs and Google said we can get them anywhere but we found them nowhere else. I think there’s one from every prefecture (there’s 47 prefectures) but they only had six so I bought one of each one they had.

Then we went to eat a ton of sushi. The first branch we went to had at least 100 people in line 30 minutes before opening. We went to another branch in the local shopping center and we only had to wait a half hour. They were quick serving the sushi so we were done in a half hour. And we ate a lot.

After that we drove to the eldest Kawasaki sibling’s house in Tsubame-Sanjo. Then it was on to Niigata city. I guess I ate a tasty soft ice cream cone at a rest area but I never took a picture. Oh well.

Anyway, I’m on my own in Niigata for a bit but it’s raining. On the recommendation of the elder Dr. Kawasaki I got tare katsu at Tonkatsu Tarou at the station. It was another thin (but not that thin) katsu but with tare rather than Worcestershire sauce like I had in Fukui. It was pretty good but I think I like the sauce version better. I’ll eat either. The Tonkatsu Tarou store was kind of a mess, though. It was tiny and the cash register was out in the mall hallway. No one knew where to line up and I stood in front of the cash register for a long time before they told me to line up to the side and made a guy pre-pay for his family’s food. By the time they were ready to take my money, a line had formed in front of the cash register (I was to the side.)

I made it back to the hotel, borrowed a weird cordless iron and realized there’s a big bath in the basement that they didn’t tell me about when I checked in. I took a bath and ate a strawberry dessert I bought at the convenience store that’s connected to the hotel. It was the best combini dessert I had on the trip but I forgot to take a picture.

It’s late-ish. Time to hit the hay.

This was the day I was planning to head for Tokyo, but I’m hanging out with old family friends instead.

I started out looking for a morning set and was striking out. One place my sister and I went said on Instagram that they open at 7am but I guess they changed to 10am now. I ended up at Choco cro and had a small ham end egg thing. It was good and they even heated it up for me. This was my third cup of coffee since there’s a Nespresso machine in my fancy hotel room!

I had some time to kill since my friend was driving his EV minvan down from Niigata to Toyama. I went to a park that was surprisingly near the station. There’s a big walkway around the river and this is a pedestrian bridge in the park. You can go up both of the towers and get a good view of the area.

Here’s the view of the Northern Japan Alps and “the most beautiful Starbucks in the world” (someone may have stuffed the ballot box). But it is nice and the area is pretty.

I met with my friend around 10:40 and we went to his mom’s. We used to visit here all the time when we came to Japan with my mom. The three of us went out for ramen. I made even more mistakes. I got the chashu ramen with extra spring onions because the picture on the menu of the normal ramen seemed to have neither. But it had both! I didn’t need the extra onions nor did I need the extra pork. (This picture is sure to horrify my sister who hates all things onion.)

We had to go to a fast charger to charge my friend’s EV. They do have a small charger at his mom’s but it would take days to charge his car enough to drive back to Niigata. We also went to three different stores to look for some JA (the agricultural collective) gummy candies my sister wanted but we struck out. Two grocery stores didn’t have anything and the JA store closed at 4pm, shortly before we arrived.

We ended up buying too much food at the grocery store for the three of us but we ate most of it (like almost all of it.) It doesn’t show the five korokke that we also got.

Right now I am kind of mad because I’ve ordered the same pen twice from Amazon and it was canceled both times. Now it says the shipping will take so long that there’s no way I’m getting it. I think I can get it in the US for only a little more so I’ll give it a try there. Wish me luck.

Mistakes were made.

Kanazawa station doesn’t have many options for breakfast. I was counting on going to Tully’s and getting a breakfast hot dog but it turns out they don’t open until 10am. My train was at 9:07am. I just went to the 7Eleven and grabbed a coffee and a melon pan. My sister said, “I bet it wasn’t as good as the one in Juso.” Ha.

Oh, I downed the coffee while standing in line waiting for the train because the whole trip is only 18 minutes. I really didn’t need to rush. 18 minutes is plenty to enjoy a melon pan and coffee.

Arriving so early meant I could actually get a morning set in Toyama. I went to a litlle bakery hoping to get some toast. THEY WERE OUT OF TOAST. (Turns out they just weren’t doing the toast during Golden Week.) I got a cold hot dog and cold hash browns. I could’ve gone to Mickey D’s. I even asked two businessmen who both had McCafe coffees about how the coffee was at a Japanese Mickey D’s and they said it was good. The bakery coffee was not as good as the coffee I get at my local Mickey D’s in Portland

The weather forecast called for thunderstorms but I headed out anyway. Went to the Loft to ask about the pen I’m looking for. I already found one silver Uniball Zento Signature for my sister but I kind of want the brass one but I’m probably going to have to order it online for twice the price. I’m OK with that. I keep looking for it because it’s kind of a fun quest.

Anyway, it was off to the castle (a reproduction of course). There’s a history museum inside the castle and lots of SE Asians inside (about a third of the patrons). A couple of Filipino families and a couple of Chinese-speaking families.

I also went to the art museum on the castle grounds which were a private collection that is now shown to the public. It had some very nice scrolls and screens.

I wish I could post the live photo of this. It was really coming down and it was also quite blustery.

I decided to walk the 15 minutes to the Glass Art museum and on the way there was a Daiei department store where I went to look for my pen. Of course, no dice. Everyone is pretty nice about it, though. They were also having a Hokkaido food fair and I looked through that as well.

I spent a couple of hours making my way through the Glass Art museum. It was pretty cool. I was kind of weirded out when the first exhibit was all by Dale Chihuly. I thought, I know that name. Born in Taco Town, I mean, Tacoma and got his MFA at RISD. Quit famous and did some interetsing work. Unfortunately I did see some signs requesting that you not post pictures online. I only took one photo anyway. Here’s one of the museum from the top floor though.

The next floor down was an exhibit by Jiri Suchi, an instructor from the Czech Republic who was about to move back to Europe. I kept seeing a guy standing around and thought, is he the guy or am I just being that Asian guy who thinks all white guys look alike? I finally asked him and it was him! He answered all my dumb questions about his art and I even got a selfie. I do not know why my eyes are closed and I was talking during the picture. I guess I never take selfies and I was a little nervous talking to an artist at his exhibition.

After seeing four floors of glass art, I was feeling a liitle off. I realized I hadn’t eaten any lunch and it was 2pm! I decided just to get a snack at the art museum. Brewing a cup of coffee and cutting a piece of cheesecake (who am I kidding, the pieces are pre-sliced) took them over 20 minutes. I think they just forgot about me.

Would anyone with any sense go across town to the beach on a day with thunderstorms and high wind warnings? Second question: do I have a lot of common sense?

There are fishing boats near the beach and I asked a guy walking around if anyone goes fishing in this weather and he looked at me like I was nuts.

Norm from Tokyo Lens has shamisen lessons and there’s a shop around here where he gets the shamisen he sells online. I decided to go take a look and walked 20 minutes in the wind and rain. My Wirecutter-recommended folding umbrella held up incredibly well. I guess you shouldn’t just walk to a store during Golden Week and expect much (I wasn’t expecting much, just messing around.) It was closed. That’s OK. I had to get my steps in (though I didn’t hit 15k today).

I got on the tram to head back to the station. The tram station was weird. The old station was a community space and the new waiting area just looked like a covered bus stop.

I’m embarrassed to say that when we got to the main train station I pushed my way through the people who seemed to be standing around thinking they weren’t getting off. I didn’t look back but they were probably all getting off but were being incredibly patient. I’m not sure.

I got my local EkiTag (an electronic stamp-collecting game) and headed to the hotel.

I had to juggle hotels at the last minute to see friends and I switched from an APA hotel to the JAL Hotel for two nights. I guess I splurged because it’s $283.91USD for two nights and I’m on the top floor. I think the APA hotel was going to be almost as expensive so I decided to just get a nice room. I’m sharing a wall with the elevator and I hear nothing, which means excellent construction. I have a Nespresso machine in my room and they gave me barley tea and two rice crackers.

I was busy writing this nonsense until I realized I’d better go get dinner. I told the guy at the front desk I wanted to try Zetteria (a local fast-food hamburger chain) and he said BUT YOU’RE IN TOYAMA so have some of our great fish!. I went to his suggestged spot, Toyama Sushi. There’s two next to each other and one has sushi on a track. I picked the non-track restaurant and waited in line for what felt like a long time because it was cold outside. It was worth it. Once again I thought I was spending a ton of money but dinner was only $35 USD!

I didn’t get much breakfast and had no real lunch so I ate two pieces of the sushi before I remembered to take a picture. Same with the white shrimp tempura. (So good.)

As I was leaving I asked the lady next to me if I could take a picture of hers since she got the same thing I ordered. She was taking pictures with her phone and I gook a quick pic. Then she got out her DSLR and said she had to get a good picture. Hahaha.

I was still hungry and I thought about BK and Zetteria. There were way more people at Burger King when I went by and almost nobody at the Zetteria but instead I went and bought sweets. Not one but TWO. A cake from Fujiya (and a ¥5 fork) and a financier from the German Bakery.

They packed the cake with a mini cold pack!

The cake wasn’t too sweet. The financier was a financier.

And oh boy, I forgot to look for something my sister said she wanted. I still have time.

Slept like a log at Onyado Nono. I think I complained about the other one but slept very well there as well. I’m sure I’ll stay in another Onyado Nono in the future.

Breakfast at the Onyado Nono Fukui was pretty fancy. I thought the chirashidon was a nighttime thing on the restaurant board, but it’s what’s for breakfast! (Upper middle.) It was another buffet. I missed the miso soup because I wasn’t expecting it to be a white miso soup with clams. The salad bar also had pastrami so I tried a piece. It was serious pastrami which I never expected to be in Japan. There were also soba bowls but I was full already.

Next stop was Kanazawa, a place I’d been many times. I was hemming and hawing about what to see, especially since I’m pretty tired from all the walking I’ve already done on this trip. The woman at the tourist information desk said, why not the Noto Peninsula? Probably not a lot less walking but I knew I’d have a nice train ride where I could sit for a while. I got a little confused and looked at the schedule backwards so it turned out I had a little time to kill. Of course I went to a couple of stores looking for the pen I’m searching for. I was pretty much told, “Not a chance.” (They weren’t that rude but I got the idea.)

Interestingly there were artworks on the pillars of the station and I don’t think many people stop and look at. I only found them because I had a lot of time to wait for the train.

It was a nice 1 hour and 26 minute ride through the countryside.

I got to Nanao and there wasn’t a whole lot going on. There’s going to be a big festival in a few days where they roll three huge 12m (~40 ft) tall, 20 ton (probably metric ton) floats through the tiny streets. I saw them preparing the floats in various spots during the day. The first was by the fish market.

The second was on the shopping street.

The third was at the shrine where the floats all head to.

You can Google Nanao Dekayama to see the completed floats.

I also saw a small paving truck. I took a picture because I’m used to seeing the big ones back in the US.

Two other things are the fish market and the old shopping street. The fish market looked like a normal retail fish market and at the back there was a food court.

I got a small tuna rice bowl because the woman recommended it as it’s locally caught tuna. I thought I was just getting a tuna bowl (upper left) and so I added the thing I’m not going to mention on the upper right, but I was also given a giant bowl of miso soup with a large piece of chewy, bony, white fish in it. It was all fresh and excellent.

I got the small bowl because it was a late lunch but with the soup it ended up being quite a bit of food. I paid by credit card because I thought it was going to be expensive. My phone gave me an alert of the foreign transaction and it end up being only $16.90 USD.

I went to the main shopping street and it looked like some of it was under construction.

Several historic buildings wrapped in construction cloth. When I read the signs it said they were culturally significant and damaged in the Noto earthquake of 2023. Repairs are expected to be done in 2027.

I also saw a couple of prefab buildings being used for restaurants, similar to the ones I saw in Kesennuma post-tsunami.

I was able to find a tasty cake and cup of coffee at a cafe on the shopping street.

The trip back was to Kanazawa was an express train. It cost more, but it only took 57 minutes.

I checked into the Via Inn that’s inside the station. It’s far from the tracks so the noise I hear is mostly from the hallway.

I went to find some food and I was pretty seafooded out. There were two pasta restaurants next to each other and the brightly lit one was full of schoolgirls so I picked the fancier-looking one. I knew it wasn’t all that fancy when I saw the food delivery robot and ordering on iPads.

The craft ginger ale wasn’t bad.

I asked where they got the salmon for the salmon pasta and confirmed it was from overseas. Salmon is hard to fish for in Japan. Since the salmon wasn’t local, I felt OK getting a Napolitan spaghetti instead of the salmon pasta. I got a seafood salad (I know, I’m an idiot, I’m not really good at avoiding seafood) which had more tuna and salmon sashimi than most mains I’ve had. But it the fish seemed rubbery compared to the buttery smooth fresh-caught fish I had at lunch. It was fine, I was just spoiled at lunchtime. It seemed expensive at ¥3025 but again that’s only $19.00. Less than what I pay for a burger and fries at a lot of places in Portland.

Well I spazzed on the drinks picture. That’s OK. I didn’t get any Wilkinson this time. I’m not entirely sure why I keep posting pictures of Wilkinson for my sister. I am drinking the Pocari Sweat hoping it staves off any leg cramps. So far so good.

I finally made it Fukui! I wanted to stay here when I made my long trip south from Hokkaido to Kagoshima during my sabbatical vacation but there were no hotels available. Even the taxi driver in the next town over knew about the lack of hotel rooms that trip and had no idea why. It turned out OK since that was how I made it to Sabae and the Lacquerware town where I wandered around and met some interesting people.

I started my day in Osaka at the same breakfast spot again. Why mess with what works? I got a egg sando today.

You have to be kind of foolish to visit Japan during Golden Week. Today is the start of Golden Week and I am kind of foolish. The train announcement said the train was full but there were a few empty seats but it was busier than usual.

This has nothing to do with anything but here’s a picture of a building that looks like a chocolate bar near Osaka.

Fukui wasn’t that bad. I had no idea what to do and one of the several tourist information desks said maybe I should just stay in town since I was getting a “late” start around noon. I dropped off my bags at my hotel and went to the Loft on the way back to the station because of my crazy Zento Signature pen search and bought some scissors. I don’t think I’ll need them unless I go shopping for more clothes but I couldnt find my tiny travel scissors so I bought another pair.

When I got back to the station a different tourist information guy said, “Yeah, you can make it to Eiheiji Temple but you just missed the bus.” I decided to get a light lunch and then head to Eiheiji. I don’t know much about Eiheiji other than Steve Jobs wanted to become a monk there. I’d even forgotten it was an important Zen temple.

I did say light lunch, right? I overdid it.

The woman at the hotel suggested taking a train and then a bus but there is a single bus that goes straight from the station to Eiheiji that leaves about once an hour. Once I got to the area there was a busy tourist trap until you got closer to the temple grounds.

I have a few pictures but I’m sure there are lots more good pictures of Eiheiji online. If you do go, I would highly recommend going during a cooler time. The temple is built on a hill and is HUGE. I couldn’t believe how many stairs I went up to get to the main temple. There were Zen monks going to afternoon prayers or meditation. It was all very surreal to me. I think my maternal grandfather might’ve been a Zen Buddhist but I’m not.

It’s hard to see but there’s a monk ringing that giant bell once every few minutes (also hard to see the bell).

I tried to go to the waterfall but on the way I saw a sign that looked like it said “stop” and “not working”. I used Google Translate that told me there’s construction and the water has been diverted from the waterfall.

I got out my timetable and I ALMOST MISSED THE NEXT BUS BACK. Honestly, I’m not very religious and I also didn’t want to hang out in a tourist trap cafe so I walked fast to the bus.

Turns out Eiheiji is one of the main Zen temples in Japan and where monks go for their training.

Fukui is also known for dinosaurs, but the main “park” and museum are out past Eiheiji. The train station has animatronic models out front with informational plaques which were cooler than I expected.

Next I went to the castle ruins. There’s reproductions of parts of the castle like the bridge over the moat.

And a caste gate.

And I’m guessing the walls are reproductions too. The middle, where the castle buildings were, is the prefectural office and the police station. Why waste the space?

Then I went to the history museum and the Yoyokan gardens next to it. The gardens and a building were the villa of someone important. Nevertheless it was nice. The only picture I have is of some flowers because I was trying to get my phone to tell me what they were. Rhododendrons was what the phone said. That was my second guess after azaleas.

Oh and there were some ducks hanging out on the street. My phone was no help identifying them.

Two different women at the front desk told me I needed to try sauce katsu so I decided to give it a go. I think I picked the right place because there was a line.

It wasn’t even crowded inside. I guess they didn’t want to overwhelm the kitchen. It’s thin pork cutlets (still thicker than the paper thin crap the Korean pretend-Japanese restaurants in Portland have) covered in Worcestershire sauce. It was even better than I expected. The rest was a little mid. The miso soup was watery and the salad need tons more dressing (there was a lot of cabbage). Even the takuan wasn’t the best. Would I go again? Heck yeah.

So time to eat my bribe (I got it everywhere and it’s kind of sticky) and here’s my obligatory Wilkinson picture. I’m in a double so there’s two bribes along with two bottles of water. I am NOT drinking all that. I’m having to get up to use the bathroom enough times in the middle of the night without drinking all that.

Honestly I think I’d rather drink the water but I can’t count on the hotel having free bottles of water so I buy Wilkinson. Oh and I got my MacBook Air charger back. I had the Onyado Nono in Matsue ship it to this one (I figured I wouldn’t need to tell them the address of another hotel in the same chain) and it cost me a whole ¥710 for shipping. Sure beats buying a new one for ¥6800. Oddly enough I found out that you can’t buy the 35w one-hole charger (the one that comes with the laptop) in the US. They sell it in Japan though.

I think I spent a lot of the day shopping for things that weren’t available. For most of the trip I’ve been getting up before the alarm but this morning the alarm woke me up. I stayed up a bit late since I was having dinner at my cousin’s and there were stupid things I needed to do like post my awful pictures to this blog and play the NYT crossword puzzle.

Anyway, same breakfast place as before since the food and coffee are pretty good. This time I had the ham & cheese toast and I think that’s a winner.

Then after some more dilly-dallying I went looking for another Zento Signature pen. I already found one and I think that was pure dumb luck. I’m going to try in Fukui as well and if I can’t find it there I might just give up. I went to three different Loft locations. One told me they weren’t getting any more in at all. Another the girl told me she saw a ton of them in Sannomiya which is all the way out in Kobe. The other just said, meh, they’re hard to get. They’re on Amazon for 2x or 3x the list price and I might just do that instead.

Anyway, I went to Namba and yeesh. The lady at Bic Camera said I hadn’t registered my point card. Actually, I’m not sure what the hell she said because SHE SPOKE TO ME IN CHINESE. I said, Japanese or English. (I almost said a little German too and I could try Spanish but I only know a few words. Actually I think what I know is a very litle bit of Mexican Spanish.)

After that it was the fruitless Zento Signature search. Namba is a complete maze like Ikea. Once you’re in a building it’s hard to get out.

I finally found the Mitsutoyo digital caliper I’ve been searching for since the last time I was in Japan!  I know it’s probably just as cheap in the US off of Amazon but the web reviews say half of the ones on Amazon US are fakes. My sister suggested Factory Gear Namba (which AMEX has as Factory Geer Namba). They sell Milwaukie, Snap-On, Wiha, and all sorts of high-end tools.

My sister also reminded me that a bakery cafe we went to was nearby. I think it was only 20% or 30% Japanese. Lots of other nationalities represented. The loudest table seemed to be young Americans but a table of young Korean girls would randomly start singing. It was weird. The carbonara was good and the bread with it was even better. It is a bakery cafe after all.

I started walking badk towards Umeda (where my hotel is). I accidentally ended up in what I call China: Shinsaibashi. It’s usually full of Chinese people doing their retail tourism. Lots of high-end stores amongst more common touristy stores. The whoever-it-is-that-sells-Labubu store, Disney Stores, discount Rolex stores, etc. The Labubu store even had a security guard posted outside.

Anyway, I cut over to Midosuji, the wider street for cars that runs parallel to the shopping street. I didn’t line up to go in the Rolex or Omega stores (though I do like Omega watches) but I did peek in the Grand Seiko store. Every other high-end brand you can think of had big stores. The only one I can think of that I’ve never seen before is Fendi and I only know that name from rappers. Is it high-end women’s undergarments?

There is a Daimaru and inside is a counter where my mom used to go to every time she came so she could get a special traditional “instant” soup. The lady we would always talk to transferred to this branch years ago. She may have retired. I thought about seeing if she was there but thinking about my mom got me a little emotional so I avoided it.

As I went up the street further, I saw a Porsche store (for pikers) and also Ferrari, Lamborghini, and McLaren stores. I used to bemoan the fact that I couldn’t ever afford one of those cars but I can barely keep my Camry from scraping on curbs. Instead of a supercar, I think I need a smaller car like another Civic.

At some point I made a mad dash back to my hotel room because carbonara always seems to speed my digestive system. Made it in time. Then it was time to go out and get my traditional Osaka snack.

I always have to go to Toki and have the matcha shiratama. Matcha flavored sweet azuki bean paste with mochi balls.

Then I went and got a massage. Actually, the sign said, “Reserve online, the next available appointment is 17:30.” It was only 4pm so I went back to my room and found out that I had an account set up. Signed up for an 80-minute massage. I felt kind of bad because I’m all knotted up but luckily I got the sturdiest looking woman there. Come to think of it, I’ve had tiny women at that shop beat the hell out of me too.

After my massage I  went to Mos Burger for dinner. Standard Mos Burger, mixed fries & onion rings, and melon soda.

I wasn’t completely full so I added a chili dog.

None of it tastes like what you’re used to in the US but I love it. Oh and I might as well give you a give you a Wilkinson picture. I already drank the Pocari Sweat. And you probably noticed there was a bite taken out of the chili dog before I took the picture. PROFESSIONAL FOOD BLOGGER. PLEASE HIRE ME.

Today was the day I was meeting my cousins and it wasn’t going to be until 3pm so I just wandered around Nishinomiya. But first I went to a coffee shop my sister recommended for breakfast.

Ham and egg toast with ketchup. I dunno, it was good.

The view was fine as well.

I guess they expect people to set up shop because there’s a two hour time limit. Japanese houses are small so people often use coffee shops to sit around and read or work.

I hung out in the hotel for a bit and then headed to Nishinomiya. My first stop was Nishinomiya Jinja, the main shrine for Ebisu, one of the seven gods of fortune. Actually, I think I really wanted to go to Hirota Jinja but its hard to get to. They’re both important Nishinomiya jinjas. Next time maybe.

The grounds were pretty impressive.

And lots of sub-shrines as well.

From there I walked towards a home improvement store but before I got there I ran into a shopping center near JR Nishinomiya station called “Frente”. I saw a Mr Donut and that’s my usual safe spot to sit for a bit but next door there was a small restaurant with people waiting outside and a sign that said they had handmade tartar sauce for their Chicken Nanban. I had to go in and try it. It was a lot of food.

I also had a cup of coffee. It looks light tan but that’s the crema.

I kept going to the home improvement store because it contained an Astro which seemed like the Japanese version of Harbor Freight. I didn’t really see anything I wanted so went back to the “regular” section and asked about Mitsutoyo calipers. I’ve been looking for them for a couple of years since I heard the ones on Amazon US can be fakes. I guess it’s a specialty item and they only suggested I go to SE Osaka (an hour away) to look for them.

I still had time to kill so I headed towards Hankyu Nishinomiya-kitaguchi station and the Nishinomiya Gardens shopping mall. This time a Hankyu train station was right in front of me so I just got on for one stop.

After shopping around “Gardens” and finding a Zento Signature pen(!) I headed towards my cousin’s. Or so I thought. I was going in the wrong direction and found a Hard-Off/Hobby-Off. I was still early so I checked out the used stuff. I like older computers so it was fun poking around. They have lots of other stuff too: cameras, musical instruments, anime figurines, etc. I also used their bathroom and it had a Washlet that was better than most of the hotels I’ve stayed in.

I finally made it to my cousin’s and saw three of the four who live in the area. One is slightly further away so he wasn’t there. I had dinner with my eldest cousin and she made lots of veggie-based dishes, knowing that I’m mostly eating out and not getting enough veggies. Sorry, no pictures.

I finally made it back to Osaka station and bought a couple things at Yodobashi Camera. Pretty boring, mostly a nicer USB cable than the ¥200 one I bought a few years ago at CanDo. I bought several that year and they’re pretty iffy.

I also bought a double cream puff because you are what you eat. No drinks picture today.

I should’ve known better. The cream puff custard was fine but the pastry was soggy. Oh well. What do you expect from a combini dessert?

I started off the day with a pretty good breakfast at the hotel. I like Wakayama. It’s really a suburb of Osaka but it’s a country suburb. The water (for fishing) is much cleaner and my buddy Moriwaki said it has the cheapest gas prices in Japan. Good thing, since you kind of need a car here.

I also got some more because, well, why not. I told myself the yogurt was good for me. The coffee was just OK.

The view at breakfast wasn’t bad either. No more miscreants over by the Lawson. (Sorry, it wasn’t a Family Mart like I said the day before.)

I discovered something else odd about the hotel. The sixth floor lobby looked much newer and when I left if I found out it’s a capsule hotel. I saw a picture and the beds in the photos looked really nice but capsule hotels are capsule hotels.

The fastest train takes less than an hour to Osaka Station and every seat is reserved. I’ve found that the slow trains really aren’t that much slower but then you have to stop at every station and maybe even sit sideways like in a subway. This is much easier.

After dropping my bags off I decided to head out and explore Nakatsu, which someone on the intarwebs said was interesting. The first thing I saw was a long line at Diamond Biriyani. Then I asked one of the locals who was cleaning his store if there was a shopping street. He actually stopped and walked me around the corner to point out where to go.

It kind of looked like an abandoned building. I saw one bread shop, a used record store that was just cardboard boxes at the side of the alley, and I think one coffee shop. I did meet some nice guys from Utah on the other end of the street. They rented some bicycles and were just stopping to buy some drinks from the vending machine.

I decided to go to Juso, which is either one stop on the Hankyu line, or a long walk across a bridge.

I couldn’t figure out how to get to the station (I had to cross all those lanes of traffic and then find the station entrance) so I just walked.

The first shopping street I found was the wrong one. You probably can’t zoom in and see it but it was seedy. All girls bars and “virgin” this and “sexy” that. When I worked in the suburbs of Osaka, the one thing people went to Juso for was the only topless bar we knew of. I never went.

Anyway, the next street over was the normal shopping street.

The TabiEats guys came here (you should watch their YouTube videos if you haven’t been watching them already) and I ate some of the things they did. First a custard malasada. One of the best doughnuts I’ve had in Japan or in the US.

Then some nice big pieces of karaage chicken from a stand that just sold chicken.

And then melon pan, one of my favorites. (That’s pan like the Portuguese word for bread.) They said the popular ones were the plain and the almond but they were out of the almond. They also had some of the plain straight out of the oven! I think this compares to the melon pan I got in Tokyo from the store next to Sensoji where they say they invented melon pan.

Then I asked Google where to get coffee. I went to a shop with a good rating and I thought it was odd that there were so many Southeast Asian customers. When I saw the menu I realized it was a Vietnamese coffee shop! Their new drink was a French Lemon Coffee and it was great.

I headed back to Umeda and killed a bit of time looking at Grand Seiko watches and cheap pens before checking into the hotel.

I didn’t realize Marriott had purchased the Sheraton chain. This place creeps me out a little because of that. I remember reading all the complaints about how the Bonvoy points were going to be useless too. When I checked for an Ethernet cable in the room, I found a New Testament and a Book of Mormon. When I used the toilet, the bathroom door was so close that I hit my head on the handle. Other than that it’s clean and maybe quieter than the older Hankyu Annex we usually stay in. It just kinda gives me weird vibes. Oh, and many hotels in Japan have cardkey access to use the elevator but here the card key selects your floor for you. No visiting friends on other floors or going to the ice machine, vending machine, or laundry room on other floors. They probably don’t even have those things. Like I said, weird vibes.

I headed off to find dinner and went to the Hankyu underground right nearby. I picked an older kushiyaki/yakitori restaurant and got the kushiyaki teishoku. Other than the chicken liver (which I ate) it was great. I’m not a big liver fan.

Then it was across the street to the Uniqlo. On the way I saw an idol group. Or a bunch of dudes dressed up like an idol group. I have no idea. Earlier I saw “train idols” signing train things at the bookstore. Japan is weird sometimes.

Anyway, after buying a couple of pairs of stretchy slacks and spending ¥15,000 in various stores, I was given four tokens to try to win a keychain. I ended up with a single hard candy. This is why I don’t gamble. I can’t even find it to take a picture.

So the final picture is of the obligatory Wilkinson/Pocari Sweat combo. 

Oh and my sister sent me on a quest for a FamilyMart striped shirt. I went to a dozen FamilyMarts before I finally found one! And the FamilyMart by the hotel has them too! (As well as several different flavors of Wilkinson, Grape, Grapefruit, Lemon, and plain.)

I guess I’m about halfway through my trip.

Let’s see if this picture from my window works any better. I stitched together several images using the “DoubleTake” app by Henrik Dalgaard. I haven’t used it in years. Looks a bit, uh, grey.

This was another adventure day, mostly because Google maps isn’t good with Japanese ferry lines. I hoped I was going to make it from the train to the bus to the ferry with no problems (and I did). First was getting out a little early to get a morning set on the way to the train. I misread the options and Komeda Coffee didn’t have that much on the menu but it’s all I had time for. It’s just coffee and toast or a roll with a very small side. I added a salad.

I got a reserved seat on the train which I really didn’t need to do. I think there were three of us who were in the reserved seats. Not too bad but they did say once we left the Takamatsu area the Suica/IC card wouldn’t work on the train.

I got to Tokushima station, which I recognized and got my EkiTag checkin. I forgot to do it in Takamatsu. Oh well. It was hard to find and I had to ask two different people.

I’ve been to Tokushima station a couple of times before so I had an idea of which bus to take. I don’t think I’ve ever taken it in this direction before and while the announcement on the train said the trains didn’t take the train company IC card, the buses did.

I made it to the ferry in plenty of time and I had gotten a reserved seat, another reserved seat I didn’t really need. There’s no view from the reserved seat and there’s a much better first-come, first-served office spot but at least the chair was comfy. I ate my mini-omusubi with a mini-Coke and fell asleep for a bit.

I don’t have any pictures of the ferry because it’s really pretty utilitarian and hard to get a good angle of the ship. I guess before the Awajishima bridge was built this was the only way to get from the Osaka area to Shikoku and now it’s not used as often and is a bit beat up. I got off in the wrong direction too. My old work buddy Moriwaki and his wife were waiting for me.

First he took me to the ramen place that the locals go to. He said the guide books all tell you to go to another place but I’d actually been to this ramen restaurant. In Wakayama athey call it chukasoba, which is the old way of referring to ramen. I also had the sushi that’s just sitting on the counter. It’s pickled mackerel so it doesn’t spoil. Yes, I forgot to take a picture before I started eating. If you look a few years back you can probably see the same bowl of ramen. I may have even forgotten to take a picture last time as well.

Then they took me to a seaside area with some interesting geological features. (See how I’m avoiding trying to name the features? I don’t know what they’re called. Wait, I looked it up and it says “limestone cliffs” and “crystal blue waters”.)

Then we went to Yuasa to see where Japanese soy sauce originated. (Yeah, there’s a bit of an argument about where Japanese soy sauce originated but this is in Kansai so I’m sticking with this story.) We got to tour some museums and had some soy sauce flavored gelato.

We had some more time before dinnertime so they took me to their fishing spot. There were lots of little fish in the water that people were catching. Other guys were casting out much further for bigger fish. This is my fantasy, moving to Japan and fishing.

Dinner was at a nearby fried shrimp restaurant. The perspective isn’t really off, the shrimp were huge and tasty.

That’s about it. I’m staying at the sort-of-fancy Granvia Hotel. The lobby is great. The rug in my room needs cleaning, some of the letters on the wall upstairs are falling off, and the walls are as thin as I remember in every Granvia hotel. There was an outdoor lounge illumination (mainly just an outdoor lounge) which was nice. Oh, and check out this display in the lobby.

I got some more Pocari Sweat and Wilkinson Lemon so I don’t need to take another picture of it. The area around the FamilyMart was full of young miscreants (it is Saturday night after all) and I couldn’t understand the guy behind the register through his thick South Asian accent, but it was fine. The miscreants here weren’t all that scary. That’s it for today.

For the life of me I can’t keep the name of this place straight. Takamatsu. The other side of the island of Shikoku is Matsuyama. The ferry terminal is in Tokushima. The stop I met my cousin for lunch is Tokuyama.

The train noises last night were successfully masked by my Bose Earbuds. The thing I was most afraid of was the clattering of the wheels on the rails and they didn’t bother me at all. Phew.

Breakfast at the hotel was also pretty good. Surprisingly strong coffee out of the coffee machine too.

The view from my seat at breakfast was also pretty nice. I didn’t get a paroramic picture so here’s two shots.

I walked around a bit and checked out the old and dying shopping street we usually stay near. The only surprise was the newer spot I found for breakfast, a Greenberry chain restaurant, was gone!

Anyway, onto the train. Okayama Station confuses me. Take the wrong stairs or tunnel and you can end up at a dead end. Some of the platforms can have two different numbers, depending on how far you go up or down the same platform. Today I kept looking at the sign above the track where I thought my train was leaving and it had a different train number and Kochi instead of Takamatsu. I think I figured out that it was an arrival sign, which isn’t common, instead of a departure sign.

Oh, and a picture of my hotel from the train platform. You can see how I could hear all the train and platform noises.

I was excited to be in the double-decker car. Unfortunately I was on the lower deck. There are parts of the ride where all I could see was a concrete barrier and I think the upper deck could see over the barrier. I got to see parts of the inland sea during the bridge crossing so it wasn’t all bad. A short uneventful trip.

I got to Takamatsu station before lunch and got recommendations to see the castle grounds and a free observation deck, Also got a recommendation for a close shop for Sanuki udon, something the area is famous for. I got a small bowl of udon with a korokke and tempura chicken. Tempura chicken is not all that common!

Udon was always my favorite as a kid while my sister and my mom preferred ramen. I was quite happy.

After that it was off to see the castle ruins. The main tower is just a hole now.

There is a rebuilt castle turret.

There’s a beautiful garden (I talked to one of the gardeners) but I don’t take pictures of gardens because that’s all my dad would take pictures of. Gardens, trees, and plants. But I did sneak a picture of the nice gardener.

There’s also an old buidling that used to be the government offices for the castle. Lots of signs on the grounds say it’s not open and to do a walkthrough online. But it was open for a multinational art exhibit that’s only FOUR DAYS LONG! Running into something like that is heaven for Mr. I-don’t-plan-anything-in-advance. At the end there was a display from a local shrine and the young kid at the end was the head priest! There’s a festival tomorrow but I’m leaving in the morning, darn it.

So what did I go see next? The 2km long shopping street! The most Japanese government thing to do is to put a glass dome at the start of it.

But before I started down the long walk, I got a very good cup of pourover coffee.

I think there was some training going on so I saw things like pouring a little hot water out to make sure you don’t use less heated water in the spout, wetting the filter, making a divot in the middle of the grounds, spooning out any of the grounds that aren’t quite right, and then pouring the hot water around the outside of the grounds. It was the smoothest coffee I’ve had that was still slightly acidic.

The shopping street was impressive especially since most shopping streets in Japan are dying. I made it almost to the end of the covered arcade part before I started seeing permanently closed shutters. That end of the shopping street definitely needed renewal. The north end near the dome had Louis Vuitton, Rolex, Tiffany, and Coach stores. I wondered if everyone in Takamatsu was loaded. But not far away, the high-end brand name good were in the windows of pawn shops so there’s just a very fancy start to the street.

I got back to the hotel around 3pm and wanted to sit my fat ass down for a bit. When I first got here I remembered the name “Clement” and went to the hotel. It was fancy. Turns out there’s a fancy Clement Hotel, and a Clement Inn for peasants like me right next door. I think I knew that when I booked my hotel because the room charge was more expensive than I expected but when I got my room it was on the top floor, beyond a card-key access hallway door. The big public bath is on the top floor too, but it’s on the other side of the card-key door. I think this is as close to a club floor for peasants as you can get. I probably decided to go for the nicer peasant room rather than a cheaper fancy room when I reserved this one.

Here’s the view out my window. That’s not cropped very well. It’s a panoramic picture. I should stick to taking multiple pictures.

I left to go to the observatory floor mainly because I had forgotten about the recommendation. Very nice for free.

The Seto Inland Sea.

The port area.

Several shots of the town.

The only other time I’d came here I thought it was a small town that was mostly cemeteries. The road on the left side of this picture is the one we came in on. The grey area below the trees is all graveyard. Turns out that’s just a tiny part of the city.

Anyway, off to dinner. I kinda wanted to go to….

but I came to my senses. I talked to the Tourist Info people and they said the famous local dishes were the Sanuki udon and bone-in chicken. There’s hime (young) and oya (old) chicken and I couldn’t find any of the oya at restaurants with bone-in chicken in the station. I had to go to an izakaya where the sign said you had to have one drink. He said oolong tea counted (I forgot it’s a cheat code in Japan for people who don’t drink) and I got that and a giant kaizen (seafood) salad.

I’m pretty sure the salad was meant for more than one. Those are not small shrimp in there.

Guess who ate most of his chicken before taking a picture? Like Tokushima, you cut the chicken off the bone with scissors.

Almost everyone was ordering the “old” chicken and the young guy sitting next to me let me take a picture of his chicken when it came out so I could get a picture of one that hadn’t been half-eaten. It was delicious. Very peppery and cartiliginous but I do like chicken. I didn’t like the local chicken in Tokushima that much (kind of bland) but this was great. You cut it of of the bone using scissors and hope that you’re not clumsy enough to splatter the chicken fat all over yourself.

Anyway, that’s it except for the snack I bought. I get a Bokksu snack box from Japan every month and they often have “financier”s in them. I thought I should get a fresh one when I saw a shop selling them.

And for my sister, an obligatory Wilkinson pic.

The big bath was completely empty when I went. I could’ve seen more stuff but this day wasn’t bad at all.