Here we are again. My favorite place for breakfast in Tokyo, Hoshino Coffee, doesn’t open until 9am so we went to Berg, a tiny little store we’ve been to before. The food is good, the owner is quite liberal (judging by the signs promoting peace in Palestine and allowing women a quiet place to have a beer) and it’s pretty good. It’s also quite cheap, less than ¥700 for either of these plates and coffee.

Sorry to disturb you but here’s a ridiculous picture of me.

We met my sister’s friend Jen for lunch and it was such a nice day that we walked around Tokyo for a while to get there. We visited my favorite shrine in Tokyo, Kanda Myojin, which turns out is near where Jen works. We met near Tokyo station, though.

We had kushiyaki but very fancy kushiyaki. The fried shrimp wrapped in shiso, negi with chicken, and I think green peppers were only the start of nine or so skewers. I didn’t  take a picture of the soup or the dessert nor do I remember exactly what they were but it was excellent.

After lunch we wandered around central Tokyo for a while and here’s another picture of us in windy (and chilly) Tokyo.

We met another old friend for dinner and we went back to Keio Department store to a tofu restaurant. My dinner doesn’t show my yudofu because I already ate it and it’s kind of boring visually. It was in hot water, in a hot kettle, on that wooden plate.

My sister’s tofu was simmered in soy milk and was probably as bland as mine was. The skewers were good, tofu topped with yuzu miso and black miso.

We got back around 9, and that’s why the comments are short. It’s bedtime now! (It takes me a while to upload and post these pictures.)

We had the breakfast at the hotel which had quite the smorgasbord (they call it “Viking” in Japan because who can be bothered to say “smorgasbord”?) There were even more options like curry, an omelette bar, and the local rice dish but this is what I got. Sadly I couldn’t finish it all and left the soft-boiled egg.

And now it’s off to take a bullet train to Tokyo! I passed out for a while.

Google says it’s quicker to take the rapid express for the last bit, so we did.

For lunch we went to the Keio Department store restaurant floor where Mariko and I were about 20 years too young. Since we had giant breakfasts we thought we’d get a sandwich and thought we were just getting Croque Monsieur but we got gratin as well. Which is good because the gratin was way better than the Croque Monsieur.

Mariko forced me to eat dessert (I was stuffed).

I opted for something with a lot of fruit.

As payback I made her go with me to look at wristwatches. Instead of taking the train a couple of stops, we decided to make it an adventure by taking the bus. What I realized is that Rolexes are ridiculously expensive and I have not won more than $5 in the lottery. what I thought was $5000 looked like more like $50,000. There were too many zeroes to really comprehend what the price was.

And after the news of the evening, we decided to head out and wander for a bit. We found a candy store nearby and went to Mos Burger.

As usual, I was still hungry and went up to get a hot dog and ended up with the seasonal focaccia sandwich instead. The hot dog I wanted curled around barbecue sauce with an egg on top (signifying the moon, since it was moon viewing season in September, right? That’s not a holiday I keep up with.)

We had breakfast at a German Bakery (called German Bakery, if I recall correctly). It wasn’t as good as the coffee shop but we wanted to give it a try. Hot dog and hash brown set. (My hot dog is not deformed, I took a bite before remembering to take a picture.)

One last meeting with the eldest “kid” at one of Japan’s most picturesque Starbucks.

And then it was off on the long ride to Kanazawa (almost 30 minutes on the Shinkansen!)

Blah blah picturesque scenery.

We went to a famous daifuku shop. I had Shine Muscat and Mariko had strawberry. I like strawberry but I got the “limited edition”.

Kanazawa isn’t as big as they think it is. Here are the famous long stairs leading from the shrine to the Higashi Chayamachi geisha district. I guess men would say they were going to the shrine before sneaking off to see the geishas.

We went to the famous shotengai where I swore I’d eat street food but we both just had Kanazawa curry. I got the traditional pork cutlet and Mariko had the grilled veggies. I also got the “medium” which was so filling that I had a hard time eating dinner.

We still had time to kill and ended up at a shrine with quite a unique gateway entrance.

For dinner we went to a restaurant floor and had rice balls. And in typical iPhone fashion, I am missing the picture of my dinner. Here’s Marikos. Mine had karaage insted of the ankake and it was a LOT of chicken.

And then it was back to the Dormy Inn where I had a horrible time sleeping. It’s the season where they like to overheat the rooms and also give you the winter futon comforter which just means it’s too hot for me to sleep. Ugh.

My sister and I insisted we weren’t going to take any more baths in the onsen, but we did anyway. and then it was time for breakfast which was quite good.

We stopped at Anadan Spring (Holy Water) on the way back to Toyama. The youngest “kid”, also Dr. Kawasaki, drinks this water twice a day. You walk down a path and down some stairs, rinse out your jugs, fill them from faucets that go directly to the spring (one of the cleanest in Japan according to something I read). I also read it had radium in it so I took the bottle I filled up and ended up pouring it down the sink.

Also near the spring was a busy temple and they had hot and cold somen there. (I had hot, Mariko had cold.)

Also since the weather cleared up we went up to a viewpoint to see the northern Japanese alps on the way to buying groceries for dinner.

Dinner was at the senior Kawasaki residence and I didn’t bother them by taking pictures. Sorry!

We went to Toyama to see family friends and with that came lots of changes in plans. They lived in Portland when we were younger and we would often visit with our mother. She was friends with the parents, Dr and Mrs. Kawasaki. There were three kids and two of them are the same age as my sister and me. We thought we’d stay for three days and see the city (we usually end up at the home of Dr & Mrs Kawasaki and chatting) but what happened was we stayed the first night, went to an Onsen with the “kids”, and then went to dinner at Dr & Mrs. Kawasaki’s.

Anyway, here’s a view from the hotel room. It was nice, not rainy!

That mosaic building towards the right had an interesting coffee shop with breakfast options. My sister had the Japanese option.

I knew we’d have plenty of Japanese food at the Onsen so I opted for the western version.

We made a stop at Dr. and Mrs. Kawasaki’s for lunch and we decided to go on an adventure to the local Costco instead of cooking. I’ve mentioned Japanese Costco’s before and how they’re almost like US Costco’s but even more ridiculous at times. They have most of the things from the US but the pies are 11” (my sister says standard pies are 9”)!

I forgot to measure these pizzas but I don’t know anyone other than a restaurant that has an oven that can fit these (they’d barely fit in my oven back in Oregon.)

Would you like a little sushi?

We got sandwiches, a different (smaller) pack of sushi, and more croissants than anyone needs.

After lunch it was off to the Onsen, Hotel Ogawa. Here are the pictures from dinner (I missed one course).

The appetizer.

A mochi covered in something.

Pork and tofu cooking.

Salted grilled trout full of eggs.

Tempura.

And finally the rice and soup.

No picture of the dessert either. I remember it being good.

I guess I made no mention of the onsen. There was the main bath with a big bath and a wooden bath outside. There’s also another smaller bath down a long hallway that is also outside and closer to the rapids with no amenities (only four baskets to put your clothes in, no lock boxes, no place to wash yourself) so you need to wash yourself at the main bath first. There’s also other outdoor baths down a trail and I was told it was far and the water wasn’t too warm so I guess I’m happy I skipped that.

OK, more pictures, less snark. Comments will be added later.

OK, it’s later now. Off to Japan again which means getting up at 4am for the 7am flight to Seattle. The reason I fly Delta and pay almost $700 per year for a special AMEX card is so I can have access to the lounge. The waffle was “vegetarian” which means it was made of cardboard and I couldn’t eat it. The rest was fine. Sausage, fruit, eggs, potato, and coffee.

I figured Seattle would be rainy and it didn’t disappoint.

Watched several bad movies (and a good one) on the 11-or-so hours to Japan. Dune 2, The Fall Guy, Bad Boys: Ride or Die, Monkey Man, and because of a glitch I only was able to watch part of Hocus Pocus. Hocus Pocus was darker than I expected.

After we arrived and got our bags, we shipped gift packages from Haneda Airport to our friends so we wouldn’t have to carry them around with us. I never hand-write anything anymore and I was having a heck of a time writing kanji and then I found out that Yamato changed their rules and they now let people write addresses in English. Not only that but you can just enter in the addresses at a tablet at the counter. We had seven (?) packages so filling out the forms beforehand was better. My sister stood in line and I filled out forms and by the time I was done she was finally at the front of the line.

I also found out I could just drop off my luggage at the ANA counter next to the Yamato counter so we didn’t have to carry all the luggage on the shuttle bus from Terminal 3 (int’l) -> Terminal 1 (most domestic plus the post office I usually use) -> Terminal 2 (ANA). And unlike the past few times I rode the bus, it wasn’t packed.

We went to check out the restaurants but ended up at the coffee shop I like. It’s out of the way and usually not crowded. I got Japanese Napolitan spaghetti and my sister had the carbonara. By this time I’d been up for over 24 hours so here’s a picture of when I remembered to take it (after I’d already eaten most of it). It’s not what the Italians would call proper spaghetti (or Americans, either) but I like it.

It was raining so hard that flights were delayed throughout Japan. I guess even the Shinkansen had service halted. I fell asleep waiting, and I fell asleep as soon as I got on the plane. I woke up an hour later and thought I must’ve slept through the flight but we were still taxiing! I only woke up long enough to get my free small cup of juice (they often offer juice or tea). The flight to Toyama was under an hour.

I’m not sure why, but there’s always ads on the conveyor belt and in Toyama there were giant sushi!

Our friend met us and drove us to our hotel by Toyama station. And that’s the trip to Japan!

This was a long short day, if you know what I mean. It’s was a travel day and it’s now 30 hours since I got up.

We kinda packed and took it easy until the car came to take us to the airport, but we did go to Hoshino Coffee where I remembered to take a picture of the pancakes this time.

While I was packing, I took a picture of the stain on my jeans. My sister asked if I went to the sushi restaurant like that, and I said I’d been like that the whole day. I think it felt like 

[Next day]

Well, my brain wasn’t working well enough to finish that post. I guess it happens. In any case…

I think I saw something on the subway seat on the way to sumo in the morning, so I think the stain in my jeans was there that WHOLE DAY.

Once again, the start of the travel day was absolutely beautiful out and I got a big picture of the Godzilla head.

But really I wanted to take a zoomed in picture of the billboard below him. I’m not sure what that is. A boy band?

Also, some pictures in the lobby.

Then it was a slightly shaky flight from Haneda to SeaTac. Norm from TokyoLens was on the flight! Made notes on what I watched this time. Of course I picked dumb movies because they’re the best for me on these flights: The Dead Don’t Die, The Equalizer 3, The Take, and Dune. Dune on a small screen wasn’t bad, especially since I’ve read most of the books and I love the old David Lynch movie.

I said my third goal was to get Kevin home and I accomplished that. It was a great trip!

P.S. I had this bag of 7Eleven Cheese Rings that I carried all the way back from Tokyo. I bought them on my last night in Tokyo and didn’t eat them and didn’t want them to go to waste. Two bags, a backpack, and this bag of chips. I finally opened them and they’re quite good. Like puffy cheese doodles but round. And I bet they were cheaper because they were 7Eleven brand. (And, unlike American chips, they were all intact rings!)

This was our last full day in Japan and I did a lot without doing a lot. First we went to see morning sumo practice! It was pretty intense watching low level sumo players practice. They went HARD. And when the oyakata showed up they went even harder. It’s hard to describe the power in sumo and how awesome it was to see them in person! I think the oyakata was Hokutoumi, who was huge when I as in Japan.

We even got pictures with one of the guys who was in the practice! (Sorry for the tiny picture, I’ll have to get a better one later.)

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After that we were off to see Zoe’s dorm room Koudoukan happened to be on the way and I got to see part of a nage-no-waza seminar. Like most seminars like that, there were way too many details and we just saw one throw. There was a large contingent from France who were participating in the seminar and so many kohaku belts (above 5-dan).

We just had a 7Eleven lunch at Zoe’s dorm and headed back to the hotel. Did some shopping at Don Quixote on the way back. I went down to the lobby to see if the concierge could make us reservations at a fancy sushi restaurant at Takashimaya, and I noticed they were having an event in the lobby. Part of it was a hanga artist making prints live. It was pretty cool and I watched for two hours.

The artist was very friendly and answered my silly questions and after it was done, the staff asked if I wanted to get my picture taken with him! I’m holding one of his finished prints and he’s holding the press he used against his face. He would rub it on his face so it would glide on the paper.

We went to Otaru Masazushi on the 14th floor of Takashimaya for dinner. It was excellent! We all did the ~$100 omakase course and it was some of the best sushi I’ve had. I’m not sure I got pictures of everything because we were so busy eating.

Ika somen. Somen is a noodle dish but instead of noodles they had thinly sliced squid. And uni was on the leaf and mixed into the somen broth.

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Of course we had to get takoyaki (finally) and we should’ve had it in Osaka. Kevin was being a weirdo about it the whole trip so we didn’t get it until the last minute.

And that’s about it for today. I have another story about finding stains on the seat of my jeans (sat in something probably on the subway) and running into two guys having a bit too much fun in the public restroom near the sushi restaurant, but you know.

Well, it looks like I forgot to take many pictures today. Again. I guess I’m not to be trusted.

Kevin went to aikido practice again so it was a late start to the day. Instead of another trip to Tully’s, we went to Hoshino Coffee. The bigger breakfasts they had for the weekend appear to be available during the week now. I had two fluffy pancakes (not jiggly though) with sausages, an egg, a salad, and a miniscule portion of yogurt. Oh, and of course very good coffee.

PRETEND THERE’S A PICTURE HERE OF MY BREAKFAST

Kevin was going to spend some father/daughter time with Zoe so Bill and I went off to Ueno to see part of the park and the Tokyo National Museum. Of course, we had to visit the statue of Saigo Takamori.

We saw pottery from the hundreds, coins from the hundreds, and a bunch of swords and armor from the 1300’s. After that we went to Ameyoko to get some street food. I would recommend avoiding it. They said the rice bowl would take a while and it took a half hour of me just sitting on a rickety stool waiting for it. The karaage tasted like low-quality frozen chicken nuggets. At least the fried oysters were good and the yakitori was ok.

The sushi bowl wasn’t bad but after waiting so long I just ate it before I remembered to take a picture.

That was about it until dinner. We went to Tonchinkan which was tiny, crowded, busy, cheap, and pretty good. There’s really no comparison to Katsukura, but that’s also about 3x the price. We even had to make our selection before they’d seat us.

That’s about it for today. Oh, I did buy a ridiculous Godzilla tissue paper holder that probably won’t take US-sized tissue paper, but come on, I had to get this.

Unfortunately our sushi dinner last night didn’t agree with one of the group and Bill was having troubles from 2am-4am. It was also Kevin’s big day to have pictures taken with the Doshu at the Aikido Hombudojo (basically, the big cheese). I suggested we take it easy and head out of central Tokyo to the Tonogayato Teien in Kokubunji. It’s a beautiful little garden I’ve been to before and only cost ¥140 to enter. Bill wanted to see a bamboo grove as well, and this garden has one.

At times there were only four of us in the park but for a lot of it we were the only ones there. It was a welcome change from being in Tokyo. For lunch we just went into a soba store on the street and while it wasn’t the best soba I’ve had (I’m spoiled by a restaurant I went to in rural Okayama last year) it was very tasty.

On the way back we went to Nakano Broadway where Kevin actually bought some figurines. They’re for gifts, but I would’ve never thought he would buy something like that.

We got back to the hotel and rested. Bill and I went to Don Quijote to buy candy and the one in Shinjuku was packed with tourists and were out of most of the Kit Kats. I knew there was one on the other side of the hotel in Okubo so we tried that one. It was nearly empty of people (comparatively) and of course everything was fully stocked.

Kevin was meeting a business associate for dinner and we were to head for Omoide Yokocho (Memory Lane) which is more coarsely called Shomben Yokocho (Piss Alley). I’ve had enough of crowds and I no longer drink because it bothers my stomach so I didn’t go with them. I decided to walk across Shinjuku to see the Projection on the Tokyo Metropolitan Building. I had to ask someone where to go because I am bad at researching this sort of thing but I made it! Tokyo is supposed to be a place no one talks to you but I’m a chatty idiot so I talked to a German, Italian kids, and three little old ladies from Tokyo. The show at 7pm lasted about 15 minutes and the show at 7:30pm lasted about 10 minutes.

I was finally hungry on the way back, and I had decided to go to Royal Host. It’s more Japanese western food and I don’t think I’ve been to a Royal Host in 35 years! (No, I did not go to the Sizzler, and it’s closed all of 2024 through the spring of 2025).

I got the “set” which included unlimited drinks (I had two) and a salad,

French Onion soup,

And a “cosmopolitan” doria which had shrimp and chestnuts.

I also had the strawberry matcha parfait for dessert.

And that’s about it for today!

It’s odd how I can sleep but not feel rested. I guess I’m woken up by all the noise here. Last night it sounded like there was a big fire and I heard ambulances every couple of hours.

We went to a Tully’s for breakfast and had to walk for a bit to find one open at 7am. On the way back I discovered another mystery, if this is the #2 Ass building, where’s the #1 Ass building?

Our big morning outing was to see the Samurai Ninja museum, which was kind of cool with swords and armor and also very good descriptions of Japanese history. Unfortunately, that was just the samurai part and the ninja part was a bit cheesy. There was a 13YO boy in the group and it was perfect for him. The last part of the tour was throwing these rubber stars at some styrofoam boards.

But the museum did place us near Kappabashi and I was able to buy a knife for my sister.

Kevin had to leave to see his daughter so Bill and I were left on our own.

Kappabashi is also near Sensoji Temple and it was very crowded but not as bad as I expected for a nice Sunday.

OK, this bit was really crowded

It wouldn’t be a complete trip to Sensoji without some street food like these cheese and meat balls.

Also the freshly baked melon pan with the green tea soft ice cream.

And I thought there was a store with pork katsu sandos but I was wrong. We ended up just grabbing a chicken katsu sando at 7Eleven.

And finally, a view of the golden poop. Some poor artist worked hard on this but everyone just calls it the golden poop.

I think that’s it for the pictures. Kevin isn’t the electronics geek Bill and I are so we went to Akihabara to see what’s left of the electronics shops of DenDen Town.

After that we all met up to try to look for some sushi. The first try at Takashimaya was a 2 hour wait so we went back to the touristy one on the first floor of the hotel. It wasn’t that bad but it was crowded and you have to have the Line app to order with a QR code.

And that’s it for today.

I have some pictures from yesterday that Kevin sent me.

Outside of Sumiyoshi Taisha.

Here’s what we were doing on the ledge of Abeno Harukas.

And while I took a picture of my omukatsu, Kevin took this picture.

Disclaimer: we’re on vacation, plus the drinking age in Japan is 20.

Kevin got up early and went to Aikido practice again. I got up early in case he needed something but he made it there and back with no issues. We went to a flea market at the Oi Horse racing track and it was kind of fun. But the sun was blazing down and it was in the mid -70s which can be HOT for Japan. It’s especially hot for a Portlander who hasn’t acclimated to good weather yet. There was lots of junk that looked just like stuff I had that is going into the garbage soon. I figure I’m improving the rarity of the products by making them rarer. The only things I wanted were old railway signs and while everything was pretty cheap, the railway signs were more around $100US.

After that we went to Sengakuji Temple, where the graves of Daimyo Asano Naganori and the 47 Ronin are buried. Last time I went I waltzed in and our without much fanfare, but now there’s an entrance fee of ¥300 which pays for 50+ sticks of incense that are placed at the graves of the Lord and the ronin. It was hot, and the smell of incense is pretty powerful.

We were a bit tired from the heat but we went to Noa, an izakaya in Ginza for lunch around 2pm. It’s run by the parents of Taiki, the guy who runs Tokyo Sando. I’ve been there before and the food is excellent. Kevin & Bill had two giant beers and we also ate potato salad, potato wedges, karaage, tebasaki, curry korokke, and dashimaki. The picture is after we’d already eaten most of it.

(There’s a Coke there because I had two Cokes instead of two beers.) We went back to the hotel and I think Kevin and Bill passed out. I was busy watching YouTube videos, eating a snack.

They didn’t want to get dinner at first so I went on my own to Acacia, a youshoku restaurant (Japanese western food). They’re famous for their cabbage rolls. I’m more used to cabbage rolls in soup but they had it in a lightly seasoned cream sauce which I found to be a bit bland. Not awful, just kinda Tokyo-like. Probably better for me with the lower sodium.

I think the best part was the music. They were playing Aretha Franklin!