I’m rather tired, and for that I blame my sister. Stayed out way too late. We’re in a very nice hotel and I wasn’t even able to take advantage of the giant tub! Check out the view!

It’s a nice brand-new room and even has a Nespresso machine in it. Too fancy for the likes of me, but with the exchange rate it’s only $130/night.

Anyway, this was the day we made it to Nagoya and it was my turn to feel meh in the morning. I’m feeling better now. We just got up and made our way to the Shinkansen, where I was able to nap. Here’s the obligatory picture of Mt Fuji.

No snow! Nov 11, 2022 was another beautiful day and it was 70°F outside in Nagoya!

We stopped here, a place everyone swears is boring as hell, because I’ve seen 4 of the 5 Japanese castles that are deemed to be National Treasures and the fifth was Inuyama Castle about 30 minutes north. Traveling to the Castle reminded me why Nagoya looks boring. While it’s a huge manufacturing center, it looks boring. Its located on the flat Nobi plain with very few large buildings. The castle, however, is near the mountains. and was worth seeing.

We got to the closest train station about 1PM and it looked deserted. We found a tiny retro coffee shop run by an older lady and ordered almost the only things on the menu. Ham & vegetable sandwiches. She split the orders onto two plates for us. It as actually quite tasty and just right.

Then it was off by a very pretty river to the castle.

I was warned it was a small castle, but it was traditional and wood. Usually original construction means there are incredibly steep stairs leading to the top and I wasn’t disappointed. We were behind
some older British tourists and one did not make it all the way up. They were more afraid of coming down than going up.

The view from the top was pretty spectacular. There weren’t too many displays on the way up, but there were some of traditional Japanese armor.

The oddest thing is that there’s a huge IHG hotel next to the castle. My guess is that it’s there for big weddings.

Anyway, I think we were led astray by the guy at the Tourist Information desk. If we would’ve gotten off at the earlier station, we could’ve seen the touristy shopping street on the way to the castle. Actually, it worked out for the best. Nice picturesque walk to the castle and snacking on the way out. I had some Hida beef sushi.

My sister had a warabi-mochi matcha drink, which was like boba but way better. I had to get one as well.

On the way back to the station I saw several shrines with very tall side-buildings. I’m guessing they house the giant portable mikoshi shrines used during festivals.

For dinner my sister and I met one of her online buddies and we went out for Nagoya chicken wings. Just flavored with salt and lots of pepper. (We’ve already started in on the salad at this point.) Lots of interesting stories.

Nagoya’s TV tower.

We met in the nightlife district. Nagoya had the lowest mask compliance of anywhere I’ve been in Japan and the nightlife district was kind of shady. Of course, that’s what I think of Nagoya in general but I’d never been to the nightlife district before and just stuck to boring parts. Every street corner had people just standing around. We didn’t make it back to our rooms until 11PM.

Oh, and did I mention the Christmas decorations go up early here?

Lots of people just standing around the tree at 11PM. It was Friday night after all.

It’s our last day in Tokyo and did we see Shibuya? No. Did I make my usual pilgrimage to Akihabara? No. (Though I did drive through in a taxi.) And I don’t really care. I’ve been to both so many times and I did a lot of the things I wanted to. The worst part is that I’m a little disappointed in the food quality in Tokyo. Well, Tokyo’s disappointed me before so I guess there’s no reason why it should disappoint me again.

We started the day off slowly because my sister wasn’t feeling well. I didn’t care if we couldn’t do much. I’m on VACATION. We went back to Hoshino Coffee and I had the cheese toast morning set. Remember how I said the food was disappointing? Well this actually tasted good but it WASN’T ON TOAST. It was on bread and was floppy and hard to eat. And we didn’t get silverware.

After breakfast we laid low until we left to meet my sister’s friend at Nezu Station. I thought it would be fun to cut through Tokyo University.

I should’ve remembered that not all universities are like the ones in the states. THERE WAS A WALL AROUND THE UNIVERSITY and it was hard to just cut through. We finally made it out and then the neighborhoods up here weren’t on a grid and we had to make our way around to get to Nezu Station.

We met my sister’s friend and we all had tenzaru. There was quite a line when we arrived and it took us a bit to get in.

The tempura was amazing. The soba, well, I was expecting the soba to be the star of the lunch but the tempura was the best part.

The tempura was aesthetically very nice. Beans were in nice bunches and cut, and there was even a tempura grape!

Afterwards we all went to see Yanaka Ginza and my sister’s friend knew of some interesting shops on the side streets.

We were quite full but there was no line at a famous kakigori (shaved ice) shop. I guess usually there’s a long line to get in.

The kakigori was huge! But shaved ice is very airy and I ate the whole thing. That’s whipped cream on top and strawberry jam on the sides.

It was all hand-shaved and I snuck a picture of the ice shaver.

After that we parted ways and my sister and I went back to our hotel. We weren’t that hungry and just bought some snacks at the combini.

And then, since I’m an old man, I just called it a night.

Oh, here’s an extra picture of a butcher shop in a vending machine!

OK, I’m clearly not that awake because I was just trying to figure out if it was really day 11. It was. This is the next morning because I was out having dinner with my friend Suzuki-san. We went back and forth about the venue but more on that at the end.

We had to go across Tokyo this morning because my sister got us tickets for TeamLab Planets. We saw the old big venue and this is a smaller one which is about to end its run as well. I’d try to make it if you can. BE FOREWARNED: you will be wading in almost knee-high water. They will loan you shorts but you’re barefoot through most of the displays.

Anyway, we headed out especially early to get breakfast and we usually avoid the morning rush hour. Not so lucky today. However, I think a lot of people are telecommuting because nothing is as crowded as it used to be.

We went to a musubi place that my sister knew and here’s the breakfast set. No coffee! It was good but nothing special.

Then it was off to Shin-Toyosu station. Two subway trains and one monorail ride later, we were at the venue which mostly just looks like a warehouse from the outside.

The first thing you do after you make it in is take off your shoes and socks and roll up your pants. Then it’s up a sloped hallway where water is cascading down!

Then it’s into a room with strings of lights & mirrors. This is similar to something we saw in the other TeamLabs Planets. You can download an app and control the effects.

Then it’s a hallway and room of knee-deep water. The room has a projected light show onto the water’s surface.

If the projected koi get near you, they split into the leaves. After that it was the vertigo room. It was a dome with a mirrored floor with flowers projected onto the ceiling. It looked best if you lay down on the floor. Walking through it, though, made me a little dizzy.

After that, there were two gardens. One was orchids suspended from the ceiling that would move up and down over a mirrored floor.

The second was mirrored sculptures.

They lend you slippers. Somehow my sister picked big ones and I picked little ones and we had to swap.

It was a nice day so my sister and I walked along the seashore to Lalaport.

I always thought Lalaport was a little trashy but that’s because I ate in the food court and not in the “other building”. We went to a Hawaiian restaurant that Shinichi from the TabiEats YouTube channel likes. We both had the weekly special, a chicken katsu in demiglace sauce.

I figured it would be more fun to take the monorail back. Of course I got us off a station early, as always, and we walked to Ginza where we stopped at TokyoSando’s parents’ restaurant to say hello. Then we went to Harbs for some cake!

It’s hard to show the scale, but that’s a large fork next to my cake. It’s a large piece even by US standards, but very fluffy and not dense.

Then it was back to the subway to head back to the hotel. Check out this weird underpass. There’s a lot going on underground in Japan and I guess this is as large as they could make it. The right-hand side has stairs going down to a dip to avoid the dip in the ceiling.

My sister stayed in and I went to Kichijoji to meet my old co-worker. They start the Xmas decorations right after Halloween here.

We went back and forth about where to eat. We usually go to a steak restaurant but the place is tiny and Suzuki-san wasn’t sure about the ventilation. But they have a huge hood to get rid of the grill smoke so it’s probably fine. The place only seats six at the counter, and there’s three tables, two 4-tops and one 2-top. Tiny Japanese tables. It didn’t seem all that crowded and after a five-minute wait we were able to sit at a 4-top.

As always, the steak was excellent.

And that’s about it for the day. I think I only hit 15,000 steps today, unlike the 30,000 yesterday.

I think this is the first day that I’m not stuffing myself silly at breakfast. My sister picked a spot that was really good but had smaller breakfast sets. The store was also quite tiny and we shoehorned ourselves in. The cup of coffee was the tiniest I’ve had on this trip.

We went to the post office to mail some gifts and rather than the two-and-a-half hour ordeal I had, they just took the packages with the addresses written in English and sent us on our way. I guess they must get a lot more foreigners in this post office.

We went to Sugamo Jizo-dori, which is also known as Harajuku for grannies. It was pretty fun. Most of the clothes were for someone a bit older than us (and we’re not young) but it was fun to see all the shops that kind of reminded us of how the area around our grandma’s town used to be.

There are also two big temples here, one with a giant Jizo statue.

And the other with a healing goddess of mercy statue where you rub a tissue on the part of the body you want healed.

It’s also chrysanthemum season, so there were award-winning flower displays a the temples.

After that we went back to Shinjuku to a manjyu/dango shop where we had lunch. It was all fairly sweet and was like having dessert for lunch.

We just wandered around Shinjuku because it was my sister’s first day here. All shopping though I’m not sure we bought anything and I even saw a Rolls Royce parked at Isetan Department Store (which does tend to be a bit fancy).

For dinner we went to a tonkatsu chain restaurant but within the chain this is the only one that serves Yamagata pork. I guess all the rest use Australian pork. Oh boy that was good. We also noticed that the miso soup was exceptionally good and found out they use high-grade miso from Kyoto.

Anyway, that’s about it for today. Time to watch some more Spy x Family on Netflix.

Today is the last day of my Tohoku speed run. After this I meet up with my sister and we have four days in Tokyo and four days in Osaka before we go off to visit a cousin in the sticks and her friend in Okayama. I guess there’s a night in Nagoya too so I can go see the last castle on the original five that I haven’t seen: Inuyama Castle. I guess it’s the only one that’s still standing in its original form and also one of the smallest.

I got up early, as I do, and had to walk several blocks to get breakfast. I guess the restaurant in the hotel has limited seating and since I checked in so late I couldn’t eat early enough to make my train. The option was to send me off to a local restaurant. They warned me it would be busy because there was an outdoor market going on. Sure enough, they were setting up when I arrived.

The restaurant seems to be in a trailer. A lot of the buildings in the tsunami zone are prefabricated, probably because of the small population and the lack of funding.

There were several other buildings also in the area.

I arrived before opening and there were already people waiting.

Luckily the family of three and I had breakfast ticket so we didn’t have to buy tickets from the machine. We were the first to be served. I think when I counted there were fourteen people inside of the trailer. 

The trailer was pretty packed for good reason, the food was great. The breakfast was huge. The chunks of simmered fish cheeks in the top-middle bowl were quite large and tasted like pork. Absolutely delicious.

I decided to get a cab back to the train station for a couple of reasons. Speed and also I wanted to see the town from a car that wasn’t just going town the BRT route. The driver also told me about some parts of the town. It’s very remote in Kesennuma and for some reason I’ve found several people from Portland who have made their way down there. In fact, one person told me to try an izakaya that I never made it to. I’m really glad I went.

It was back onto the train from Kesennuma to Ichinoseki, then a Shinkansen that stopped at every station to Sendai, then an express Shinkansen to Oyama, and then the Shin-Kiba rapid train to Shinjuku. All of the trains were rather crowded, especially the last leg that was SRO.

I dropped off my bags and then took the airport bus to meet my sister. I got there early so I could explore it a bit. Haneda is much closer to town than Narita, but it’s also much less interesting. Also, a few of the shops are still closed. I don’t think the airports realize how many tourists are coming but then again the bazillions of Chinese tourists aren’t allowed to travel yet.

Then it was a taxi ride back to the hotel, and off to find some dinner. We went to a curry restaurant and I forgot how mid the food in Tokyo can be. It’s pretty good but compared to other parts of Japan it’s really kind of meh. Who am I kidding? I’d eat it any day but compared to the fish I just had in Kesennuma it was nothing.

We went to a curry restaurant because my sister didn’t want fried food after her long flight. She had vegetable curry and I had a kind of expensive meal of several courses starting with a small seafood salad.

Then a small bread bowl of cream stew. The bread was stale, but tasted great. I think there was about a tablespoon of stew in the bread bowl.

And then the beef curry omelette. Basically a beef curry with egg in it for some reason.

And then disappointing panna cotta. The chocolate syrup tasted cheap and the gelato had ice crystals in it.

See what a great food photographer I am? I was already eating dessert before I remembered to take a picture. Oh well, it’s not like I’m any sort of influencer. I’m putting pictures on my own blog which means I’m paying to have no one see these posts. Like self-publishing a bad book. Maybe that should be my next venture.

 

 

 

 

 

Well today (yesterday actually, I got sleepy and went to bed early) was the earliest and weirdest day planned on the trip. I promised James at Black Tide Brewing that I’d come see him and I did. It’s a weird little trip off to a very rural coastal town in Japan that was hit by the tsunami. It’s also where Watanabe Ken has a coffee shop, but I never made it there. I was also told (as is everyone who comes here, I think, that I “just” missed him.)

Anyway, the day started off with a breakfast buffet and it was pretty good.

This is my view at breakfast, by the way.

I forgot to take a picture from my room, but it’s basically this picture but seven floors higher. It was a great view of the river.

I took a Shinkansen to Ichinoseki (where I’d been before because that’s where Sekinoichi brewing is) and then it was off on a tiny 2-car diesel train for the coast.

Kesennuma itself is much larger than I expected. They have a bus/train hybrid called the BRT. I wonder if it used to be a train. In any case, there is a long one-lane road, fenced off from regular traffic, that the bus runs down. I took the bus to the stop by the hotel and, oddly enough, I was in an industrial area. I think this is the lower area of town that was wiped out by the tsunami.

The hotel is the big building towards the right. The entrance is slightly below ground level and I thought that was odd. A later taxi driver told me that it was because of all the dirt that was brought in by the tsunami.

I dropped off my bags and walked the 15 minutes to black tie brewing, which is a stand in the marketplace. Behind the stand is their brewery which is a production brewing facility.

A picture from inside the market.

And inside.

I think James was glad to have someone to talk English to for a while and we talked for 3 ½ or 4 hours. I didn’t get to see much more of Kessennuma, but that was OK. I was mostly there because I said I’d come see him. The beers were well made and as I expected he said he has to make them palatable to the Japanese taste and they were a little on the sweet side with very little bitterness. That just made them taste like hazies to me. I was happy to find they had a taster tray! Maybe the Japanese breweries have figured out that people like taster trays or maybe it’s just James.

I let him get on with his day after monopolizing so much of his time. It was time to find dinner and James suggested the seafood store across the way. I had a glass of local sake which was very good, and they dropped off the “starter” that also just adds a seat charge to the meal. The octopus was incredibly fresh.

Don’t ask me what I had. I just pretty much asked what they suggested.

Katsuo since it’s katsuo season. I don’t know how to describe fish that tastes like it was caught that day. It’s wonderful.

And I guess I didn’t order that many dishes but this sushi was so spectacular that I got it twice.

I think the one on the right is blowfish? It’s a little crunchy and looks seared. The other two just melted in my mouth.

After that I went to the 7Eleven for some snacks and back to the brewery buy a can of beer. I asked them to call me a cab because I did not dress for the northern temperatures. It’s 38°F this morning! Tomorrow it’s off to Tokyo to meet up with my sister, another big travel day.

I am going to try to make this quick (ha) but I had a day today. Probably the worst day of my trip. Mostly my own fault, I know.

At least I slept well. I was sleepy most of the day. Probably from the change in weather. Here’s the view from my room. It was darker than this in real life.

The hotel I stayed in was the first issue. It was designed by some hipster asshat. The room looked big because they shrunk down the bathroom. The toilet was set at a diagonal and I don’t think a tall person could sit on the toilet. The bathtub was an odd shape and only 14 ½ inches wide at one end. That was the end you had to stand in to take a shower. Oh and the temperature regulation of the water was awful. It went from scalding to cool over and over so it took me twice as long since I was always fiddling with the knobs. It had a hot knob and a cold knob and the cold knob turned the opposite direction of the hot knob.

There were wooden knobs on the wall for the clothes hangers and they were placed at different levels and some were bigger around than others. The round table was next to an uncomfortable built-in bench and I hit the hanging lamp with my head every time I got up.

Breakfast was another buffet and I was cranky enough without any coffee. I bought what I thought were drip coffee packs but I just bought a big bag of ground coffee. I was thinking people were going the wrong way and I think they were. I got miso soup and the bowl they had out was cracked. I wondered how I spilled soup all over my hand. The rice was lukewarm. Well I felt better after a couple of cups of coffee. So much coffee (not).

It didn’t help that it was raining.

This was the day of my trip to Morioka. It went OK and I fell asleep for the first part. The rain stopped as soon as we got out of town and it was sunny most of the way. Morioka is quite far north and it’s going to be 34°F tonight. Anyway, I got there around 1PM and I had some Jyajya men. It was bland and, well, probably an acquired taste. This is what it looks like after you mix it all up. It’s incredibly bland.

When you’re close to finishing you can crack an egg into the bowl and ask for some broth to be added to make soup.

The soup wasn’t really any less bland.

Then it was time to explore the town. They suggested I take the bus to the bus terminal and walk to the shrine and then walk back towards the castle ruins. I could walk back after that.

Anyway, I got off the bus and then hit some sidewalk construction where I completely ate shit and hit my knee on the ground. I continued limping to the shrine, which wasn’t bad as far as shrines go.

I limped back towards the castle ground and found a TOTEM POLE! And I could tell this was the real thing. Morioka’s sister city is Victoria, B.C.

And the fall colors were very nice at the castle grounds, even though I had to limp quite a ways uphill to see them.

I didn’t take any pictures of the foundations or walls because, well, they looked like any other foundations or walls of Japanese castles. I walked back through town and it looked like a nice place to live. I know a couple of YouTubers used to live here including Sharla (Sharla in Japan -> Sharmeleon). I made it back, got my train tickets for the next couple of days, and got my hotel room.

Then it was time for dinner. I guess the famous dish in Morioka is reimen (cold ramen) and I really didn’t want that. But after walking around for a good half-hour trying to decide what to eat I picked a store, and the store really only had reimen. It was actually pretty good. They gave me some kimchi to put in it so it ended up looking like a red mess. But it tasted good unlike lunch.

I also had that local Baeren beer. I was wary because I’ve never heard of it so I figured it might not be too good. It was not. Too sweet for me.

Oh and I wasn’t full so I got a tiny skewer of Yonezawa beef. It was the same price as everything else, but it was tasty.

On my way home I thought I was buying some drip coffee using the picture my sister sent me but I screwed up and looked at the picture I sent my sister after I screwed up and bought THE EXACT SAME bag of ground coffee. I threw it directly into the trash. I hope the hotels don’t talk to each other because leaving bags of unused coffee grounds in the trash does not look good.

I’ve been in three Daiwa Roynet hotels and each one is nicer than the last. This one has a huge bathroom (thank goodness) with a separate glassed in area for the shower and bath. I’m going to take a bath to try to keep my knee from locking up.

So that’s it. i’m hoping this is my worst day and they get better. Wish me luck

Right now it’s not too late and there’s a fireworks show going on. The first one in Niigata in three years. This is at the same time that there are still a lot of ‘rona cases and, really, I don’t know where to go that wouldn’t be crowded so I’m avoiding it. I’m so boring. To be honest, I’m even more lazy than I am boring.

I had all these crazy travel plans and it turns out that it’s a lot easier to get places if you don’t use JR all the time. Having Niigata not be on the Tohoku pass actually sped things up. Aizu-Wakamatsu to Niigata was less than 2 hours and ¥2100 ($14.16US today). The bus driver was super nice and now I see why there are only two buses per day right now. I got my ticket for tomorrow’s trip to Morioka (which is really far away, actually) and rather than taking a direct trip up the coast to Akita to take the Akita Shinkansen, I’m basically going almost back to Tokyo (Omiya Station) and then going back up to Morioka and that saves me almost 2 hours at a cost of ¥5480 ($36.93US today). Tell me when you can buy 2 hours back for $37.

Anyway, I slept pretty well last night. I’m not sure what everyone else did in their rooms but I spent a bunch of time playing on my computer. Breakfast was pretty good too.

Then it was time to screw around on my computer even more. I decided to walk to the station. The bus station was across the parking lot. They were busy and the TVs were showing the news of the moment: North Korea decided to fire missiles over Japan to the Pacific Ocean. They even stopped some of the trains as a precaution. I heard they never made it that far and fell into the Sea of Japan.

After standing around outside for a bit I found a seat at the “cafe”. The cheapest way to sit there was to buy a cup of coffee. To drink it in the cafe cost an extra ¥30 for a total of ¥290. It was worth it. There was an older gentleman at the table and he argued about the seat for 20 minutes before he finally bought a coffee.

Yeah, that’s a tiny cup of coffee. When I finally decided to get back in line, I noticed there were 14 people in front of me! I was afraid that would be a bad thing but honestly most of the bus was empty. I think I fell asleep almost immediately.

I got to Niigata around noon and was met by two of the Kawasaki “kids” (we’re all around 60). The youngest Dr. Kawasaki got the ‘rona at work (he’s a pathologist) and missed the gathering. The eldest had her husband with her and we got some bakery goods and ate lunch on the banks of the river. It turned out to be a nice day with just a little rain around 5pm which let up before the fireworks in the evening (which I mentioned earlier). I might as well include this picture of Niigata.

Here’s a picture of the Japanese garden a rich businessman made back 150-ish years ago. Everyone else was taking pictures of the garden from the house; I decided to be a contrarian and took the picture in the opposite direction.

Mostly it was hanging out and catching up. I went to check into the hotel and it was crowded.

I suppose it was a holiday.

I should mention that I got my train tickets at a renewed Niigata station. The station was looking a little rough when I was here three years ago and it’s still under construction right now. I was told all the street-level trains are now on elevated tracks.

We dropped off the elder Dr. Kawasaki (he’s the middle one and an ENT) and went out to dinner. Sho and her husband Atsushi live in rural Niigata so they don’t know where to eat. They called their daughter and we found the store she suggested, a salmon restaurant. Here’s a picture of me looking a little tired.

It was actually not that expensive and very tasty. I think mine worked out to be about $13.50USD? I can’t even get a hamburger at a restaurant for that price any more.

And then it was back to my hotel. There’s a big bath in the basement but like I said it seemed crowded and I’m going to stick to the oddly small shower in my room.

Honestly, the Global View in Niigata is new and fairly nice but what hipster asshat designed this place? The hooks for the hangers are knobs randomly placed up and down the wall. The seat in the room is an uncomfortable bench. The table is round (an odd shape choice) and while there is an Ethernet port it’s across the room from the table. The TV is one of the smaller LCDs I’ve seen. Oh, and the bathroom is cheap and tiny. The worst part is that it sounds like someone is playing basketball in the floor above me. Or maybe the whine coming out of the AC. I had to turn it off.

Anyway, that’s about it. I have a bunch of email I should probably read. It’s mostly ads, but that pretty much describes the postal mail I receive as well. I’ll do that right after I hit POST on this.

AARGH. It helps if I hit the POST button.

Kind of a cranky day at first but what do you expect? I was trying to get across Japan when I’m used to taking the trains that go up and down. And it started out so well, with the breakfast at the hotel. The staff was unusually chatty and you didn’t have to do anything: they just asked you which of the four options you wanted and they just brought it to you. And like my first day, not that many people were there when the restaurant first opened.

But then I tried to schedule my next days of travel. Today was fine. But tomorrow sounded bad and the next day was even worse. I was also reminded that Niigata isn’t valid on my Tohoku rail pass because I should’ve gotten a JR East Tohoku pass if I wanted to do go there. Ugh. In any case I think my best option is to take a bus from where I am today, Aizu-Wakamatsu, to Niigata and then I have to find out if I can wrangle the five hour trip to Morioka the next day. Yeah, I did this to myself. And I’m still saving money on train fares because of the trip I’m taking on Sunday (I hope).

Oh, and the view from my hotel room isn’t quite as good, but it’s fine.

I’m sure I’ll have an example of a horrible view soon enough.

I got a reserved seat on the Shinkansen but I hopped on an earlier train. I forgot to check to make sure the one I got on arrived sooner than the one I was supposed to be on and fortunately I was fine. Then I got on a local train that was full of elderly people. By elderly I mean older than me. And I was taking a chance on my accommodations tonight. More on that later.

Aizu-Wakamatsu station was pretty darn small and I knew my accommodations were not as full-service as a hotel. I had to stash my bag in a coin locker and kill time until the 4PM check-in time. I got an all-day bus pass which worked out if I made 3 or more bus trips and with three stops I made four. The tourist bureau told me to go to the Japanese gardens because the leaves were changing in the area, but I headed straight for the castle. Sure enough, the leaves were changing.

The castle looked like another reproduction, so while I did walk around for a bit, I never went in.

I did get really hungry on the bus and the map mentioned “sauce katsudon” and I noticed one of the tourist-trap-ish restaurants at the entrance to the castle had it so I went in and tried it. I’ve found those restaurants are usually pretty good, even if you’re just grabbing soft ice cream to go.

The sauce was a bit much but it was all pretty good. Then it was time to decide whether I was going to the garden. I went not expecting much. It turned out to be a smaller garden with an attached medicinal herb garden and the fall colors were even better there.

I missed my next bus (they only came once every 30 minutes) because I was eating and drinking this

While looking at this

It was worth it. The next stop was to see something I saw on YouTube before, a Buddhist tower designed as a double-helix so you can go up and come down without ever passing anyone else. But first you had to climb the stairs or take the escalator:

It’s ¥250 for the escalator. You can get on partway up for ¥100. Like a bug dummy, I took the stairs. It was brutal. Then I kept going up and it was where the Byakkotai committed ritual suicide with monuments celebrating their loyalty from Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany. I just kept going.

I finally found the Sazaedo DOWN the hill a ways and paid to go in. It was a bit of a disappointment, only 1 ½ turns so you were in and out in no time and I spent most of my time trying to stay out of the way of some dude filming it on his GoPro. I was pretty done with the whole area and I’ve give it a pass. It is a unique feat of geometry but even the woman selling tickets seemed to be over it.

I took the bus back to the station and then took a taxi to the inn. I was 40 minute early and stood around for a while.

The facilities were (are) underwhelming. The building is old, I can currently hear the staff running around and doors slamming. I was hoping it was an onsen of sorts (I did minimal research). The whole building needs to be redone. I got one of the rooms that includes an in-room bathroom (and I don’t think there are many). The staff also seemed to be a little harried and wanted me to eat at the earliest time slot (6PM) and the same for breakfast (I can’t remember if that was 6AM or 7AM). Oh, and they wanted me to take a bath right away as well. It’s a giant tub and looks like it was made for three people at a time but you get to use it all on your own. I ended up taking a bath at 4:15PM.

Well the real reason you stay here isn’t for any of those reasons. The real reason is the food. It was all spectacular. We started out with raw horse, reconstituted dried sea fish (which is much better than you’d think), corn tofu, and lots of other things from the local area. The bones of the fish were all edible and the corn tofu tasted like cake.

I also had a sake sampler from the area.

There was also a salted grilled fish. They had you pull off the dorsal and ventral fins, set it “right” and then press down until the skin split. You then poured in mild vinegar and ate it whole.

Next course was tempura mostly of local ingredients.

With more hiding underneath. The round mushroom-looking thing was actually a sweet manjyu (bean paste cake).

A roasted potato and cheese dengaku, covered in miso sauce. I’m not sure what it was but it was tasty.

I got a meat plate that the two boys next to me didn’t get.

Of all the courses, this looked the best but wasn’t. Oh and I wasn’t happy about being next to two guys in their early 20’s but they turned out to be hearing impaired and so no one was talking at all.

The food finished off with rice and miso soup with miso paste to put on the rice. The rice was from the recent harvest. So good.

And dessert was some fruit. The apples had been soaked in lemon juice.

And that’s about it. I’ve been listening to loud thumps all night (it’s only 9:20pm) and have to keep reminding myself that they’re most likely still serving dinner. Oh well. The things I do for food adventures.

At least this ticks off 45 prefectures. Two more and I’ll have all 47.

LATE ADDITION:

The room was fine after the staff quit rushing around so I got a nice peaceful night of sleep.

I slept a little better but towards the end I felt like I was just lying there awake. I think I got up at 4:30AM? Then I spent wasted a bunch of time screwing around on my computer, which is also what I’m doing right now. I started out by paying bills which happens twice a month on paydays. And I made it down to breakfast when the restaurant opened, at 6:30am. Unlike the restaurant in Tokyo, people were there early. I’m guessing it’s partially a country thing, and its partially because there were older people (older than me!), and mostly because there were lots of people on business trips.

Like dinner, they sprayed my hands with alcohol when I went in and they gave me some clown gloves as an added measure that my filthy, filthy hands didn’t touch the food.

I grabbed just about one of everything from the buffet and I ate it all. I am not losing any weight not this trip. In my defense, it was all very good. As I expected, the natto was much better since it wasn’t frozen for a long time like the stuff we get in the US, but everything else was good as well.

I looked up the train schedule and I had several local trains to catch for a two hour trip to Utsunomiya but it didn’t leave until 10am. That meant more time to waste in my room.

And then I was off. Utsunomiya is a lot bigger than I expected and it looked like there was a lot going on in the train station. Several of the shops were ones I’ve seen in Tokyo and that left an interesting first impression. I took my bags to the hotel, which was several blocks from the station, and had the tourist information person confirm that I should go see the mines that initially made Utsunomiya so famous (or so says one of the travel pages). She told me the bus stop was behind and to go to stop #6. Well, turns out there are TWO stop #6 and she meant behind ME and not behind HER. I was on the wrong side of the station and missed the bus. Fortunately there was one a half-hour later, so I shoved a Lotteria shrimp burger set in my pie hole. It was the most popular burger according to the woman behind the counter and I have to admit it was pretty tasty.

Then it was a nervous trip out into the countryside where I could barely read the signs and the directions were given to me in Japanese, of course. I should’ve gotten out at the same stop that everyone else did but my instructions seemed to indicate that I needed to go one stop further. One stop further was the middle of nowhere, but it also wasn’t too far from the previous one. This was because several of the tourist attractions were close together and so were the stops.

I made my way to the quarry and a guy asked me if I was cold wearing just my t-shirt. Actually it felt pretty good coming from Oregon. I like it on the cooler side but it’s still warmer here than back home. I had to put on my jacket for the quarry though. I took a bunch of pictures but I’ll just post a couple. Keep in mind these aren’t natural formations, but quarries on the surface.

And down into one of the cave-like quarries which is the “museum”.

It was quite a way down and not only were the caverns huge but they went on and on.

I guess there are hundreds of sites in the area and some are still being used as natural refrigerators. I think this one is used for movies and art installations and they were setting something up. During WWII they used some of the caves to manufacture airplane parts.

The next attraction was a temple with a goddess carved into the mountain. It’s inside of the temple and you’re not supposed to take photographs. In the past the carving was covered with clay and gold but that all wore off.

Next to the temple were ancient relics and pottery shards and explanations all in difficult scholarly Japanese so I didn’t read those. And next to the display of treasures were something like a garden. I’m not quite sure, but it was peaceful and pretty.

Just outside of the temple and around the corner was a giant stone goddess of mercy.

If you look carefully you can see stairs that go up behind her and I did go up those stairs. I didn’t see all that much from up there but it was a nice view.

That’s about it for the afternoon. I headed to the bus stop and finally realized I hadn’t had nearly enough coffee the day before, so I stopped in the Rock Island Roastery. I was afraid I’d miss the bus because they were so careful in preparing my drink.

It was also quite good. I met a couple of Israelis at the bus stop and found out that Utsunomiya is only about 2 hours from Tokyo on the “regular” express train that currently costs less than $15. They were headed back right after their visit to the quarry.

On the other hand, I was staying overnight and I needed to get some dinner. I checked into the hotel (same chain as last night) and it’s a newer, nicer, and not-as-quiet hotel (the doors sound very thin). Utsunomiya is known for gyoza and the front desk just suggested I go to the new dining area of the building almost next door. I looked there and I looked in the station and the places I looked at the gyoza just looked like gyoza. So I got out the coin flipping app and decided to go to the fancier place. Turns out it’s a tapas bar so that ended up costing me a bit of money. I also got a “local” craft beer.

Don’t let the shape of the glass fool you: that’s maybe a 12oz bottle (maybe 10oz?) and that glass is just bigger than a juice glass.

The started boded well for the rest.

The crostini were tiny but excellent.

The bbq skewers were small and sold one at a time but good as well.

I was still hungry so I also ordered a guacamole burger (I think it said wacamole on the menu). They gave me cream cheese for the fries.

I also had a very small shot of Yamazaki whiskey for the road.

And then I knew I needed to stop at 7Eleven for some reason but I forgot what that reason was and only got some pumpkin pudding to take back to the hotel for dessert.

And that’s about it. It’s now 10pm and I’m not falling asleep at my computer. Hooray for the right amount of coffee!

Today did not start out that well for me. I slept OK but I woke up several times with cramps and each time they got worse. Twice in one foot and once in the other plus both thighs. Each was a separate incident and each woke me up. The thigh cramps were the worst. I still felt OK when I got up.

Breakfast wasn’t so bad. It was at the coffee shop downstairs and we got to pick one of the morning sets. I got there before they opened and waited. I think one of the people was fairly new. I got the scrambled eggs and it came with salad, toast, and coffee.

I’m not sure if I saved any money paying for it with the hotel but the cost wasn’t very different.

After that it was off to Tokyo station to get my East Tohoku Area pass. It’s pretty cheap for five days of travel in Tohoku. Because of the pandemic, most of the travel offices don’t open until 10AM and the one in Tokyo Station is the only one I found that opens earlier, at 8AM.

Actually, that early the trains weren’t that crowded. I think everyone gets to the office around 9AM.

The next stop was the post office to mail the seven packages my sister gave me. The post office at Narita used to be the easiest to deal with. They were familiar with foreign tourists and would take all sorts of nonsense in the to and from address fields. I had to go to a regular post office and hoped they’d be just as forgiving but no such luck. I had to deal with Japanese bureaucracy.

The first step was to try to sign up for the Japanese app so I could fill the addresses in by copying and pasting. That took an HOUR with all sorts of complicated Japanese and none of the fields would let me copy them into Google Translate. After I finally signed up we found out that they only took Japanese credit cards and my usual workaround, to use American Express, didn’t work because they didn’t take American Express at all. So it was back to filling out the forms by hand. Then I realized that my eyesight has gotten so bad that I can’t see all the strokes in the tiny kanji characters on my iPhone, and I also couldn’t figure out how to get the magnifier setting to work. Since I haven’t had to write any kanji since I left Japan in 1991, I can’t remember how to write hardly any of them. I finally got them to let me write it all in hiragana, which is phonetic. I’m sure my cousin is going to let me have it about that. Anyway, that took another hour and a half. So that’s two and half hours I’ll never get back. Good thing the woman at the travel bureau convinced me not to buy the ticket until I got out of the post office.

Anyway, I planned to take the 10AM train but ended up on the 12PM train to Mito. I knew lunch could be difficult that late (a lot of restaurants close between lunch and dinner here) so I got an ekiben. Not only that, but I got one of the “limited edition” ekiben which was Japanese fried chicken. It helped a bit with my headache.

I got to Mito around 1PM and was confused about how to get to my hotel. Then I realized it was part of the huge building that was the train station.

I dropped off my bags and headed for the tourist information center and then went on the walk they suggested. First was down the river to the lake.

And then it was up a hill to the famous garden. I am my father’s son after all.

There was a cedar forest and a bunch of cherry trees (way out of season for cherry blossoms). Then I headed for a big main street for a different route back to the station. The first thing I headed towards was the art tower and I’m not sure of its purpose.

I also saw quite a few interesting stores, including a vacuum tube radio store for audio snobs and a giant department store. I also noticed there’s a lot of kids around. Later in the day the crowds at the station were pretty big, but even thought its Monday I guess it’s Halloween. Less than a quarter of the kids were wearing costumes and there were a LOT of kids out.

I did head out for dinner and the guy at the front desk told me I should have ankou (monkfish). The other specialty of the area is natto. I went to an izakaya which is dangerous because I never make it out of one for less than ¥5000. I guess I was just under today. That used to be $50 but with the weak yen it’s more like $32.

I even had a coupon for a free beer.

Then I had tempura of natto wrapped in shiso leaves. Actually I had it twice because it was so good.

Then I ordered the ankou, which is a monkfish hot pot.

I googled monkfish and people call it poor man’s lobster. I found it rubbery like poorly prepared lobster. It’s also quite bony.

So for round two I got the second order of the tempura and also anko karaage because I wondered if some of the rubberiness was because I overcooked it in the hot pot.

It was still a little rubbery at times but much better. You can tell I liked it because I’ve already eaten 4 of 6 before I remembered to take this picture.

I made my way through the crowd of kids and got back to the hotel. And now I’m about to pass out. At least it’s closer to 9:30pm, a normal-ish time to go to bed. Tomorrow I’m off to Utsunomiya. I wonder what I’ll find there. I also wonder how loud it will be tonight. I hear a lot of hooting along with trains and loud exhausts.

Well, I made it Japan for the first time in three years. They finally opened the borders for non-Japanese travelers. Unfortunately, some of the conveniences aren’t back and I had to travel through Seattle instead of getting a direct flight from Portland. That meant I had to get up at 4AM and right now I’ve been up for 23½ hours after a restless night of sleep.

It took me a bit to get going and to find an Uber at 4:30AM (the only one available was in Vancouver), but I made it with plenty of time to spare. The weird thing is that the TSA PreCheck line only had 13 people ahead of me while the regular checkin line looked like it had at least 300 people in it. It wound around two separate rooms. When I got in, I went to the Delta SkyClub and had some breakfast.

Then it was a quick flight to Seattle and we arrived so early that we had to sit on an active taxiway for a while. I had hours to wait in Seattle, so I signed up for Clear and checked out two different lounges, Delta’s and the Priority Plus lounge. Then it was a ten hour flight on an Airbus. The movies seemed older, but I found a few I hadn’t seen yet. Spiderman: No Way Home, Everything Everywhere All at Once, Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore, and Ghostbusters: Afterlife. The flight was pretty uneventful, but I made the mistake of drinking lots of coffee to stay awake and it kind of bothered my stomach. I felt a little queasy on landing, and then the crazy taxi ride to my hotel made me feel a little carsick. Oh, the airport post offices used to be open on the weekends but now they’re only open regular post office hours (M-F 9-5). I found that out after taking a bus between terminals and hauling my suitcase and a heavy duffel bag full of presents around. Oh even after walking what seemed like a mile, I breezed through immigrations and had to wait for a long time for my bags.

Anyway, I made it my hotel and sat around for a bit.

Then it was dinnertime. My stomach still didn’t feel great, and I didn’t feel like a 40 minute trip to my favorite brewery, so I asked the front desk where to go. They suggested Ameyoko which looked far on the map but turned out just to be around the corner.

I kind of did what I thought I’d do, which is walking around for an hour and then just eating at the cafe on the first floor of the hotel. I asked what was good and I got the katsu curry with extra rice. It wasn’t big but it was tasty. I sure missed eating Japanese food in Japan.

I wanted something fizzy to drink so I had a nice lemon squash and it was tasty as well.

In any case, I’m trying to stay up because going bed at 7PM would mean I wake up ridiculously early and who needs that?