Did I just pay $155 for a steak dinner?

I started out the day in Fukuyama and I slept about as well as I thought I would. The shinkansen trains started before 6AM and they woke me up a couple of times. The hotel full of doctors was about as quiet as you’d expect, so that wasn’t a problem.

Breakfast was even fancier than I’d expected. As soon as I sat down they asked if I wanted a custom-made omelet (of course I did) and they even had French toast. Here’s what I picked out, though.

Quite worth the whatever-the-heck I said yesterday. Oh, and I did end up hitting the bar. It was a little weird and brightly lit, and they kept wanting to mix different cocktails, but it was fine.

I got on the train for Kobe and went looking for my hotel. Of course I kept running into Chinese tourists who were either blocking my way to the trains (and I missed one because of them) or generally just getting in my way. All the way from Shin-Kobe station, off the subway to Sannomiya, and my hotel ended up being next to Chinatown! That’s some planning on my part.

I ended up doing the whole wandering around thing like I usually do. I went up to the old foreigner’s residences but didn’t go into any of the buildings. I was thinking, “Who cares about a bunch of fake-European houses from the early 20th century where the round-eyes used to live?” I did make it to the tippy-top where there was a shrine.

Oddly enough there was a classical choral concert going on as well.The view was pretty great.

After some more hilly walks I made it back to Shin-Kobe station (where I arrived earlier in the morning) where the “Takenaka Carpentry Tools Museum” is located. They have recorded explanations in several different languages that they’ll lend you. It started out slow talking about stone vs metal axes in the oooolden days and moved onto talking about the carpentry of temples. I was pretty fascinated and spent a couple of hours there (I have a thing for temples and shrines after all) but I never did make it through all the recordings. The woman at the front desk laughed when I mentioned that. There was a live demonstration of Japanese hand planes (pull planes), with two foreign examples (push planes), and a Japanese spear plane! And after the demo you could try them all yourself!

(Woodworking nerds will understand how cool this all was.)

Then it was back to the hotel, and I’m kind of disappointed. It’s twice as much as the fancy place yesterday and it’s not as fancy. It’s probably trendy and it’s plenty fine, but I usually don’t pay this much for a room so I was expecting something fancier. I suppose I’m just being picky.

I asked the front desk what I should eat and they said, “Kobe beef!” We get all sorts of things called “Kobe beef” back in Portland, and it certainly isn’t. In fact, there’s almost no beef allowed into the US from Japan. In any case, I had to do it. And I paid $155 for the privilege.

The fat in Kobe beef melts at a lower temperature, so it feels like it melts in your mouth. It lacks the crunchy outside of properly grilled Matsuzaka beef so it’s still just my second-favorite.

The chef was excellent. Look at the care he takes in frying the garlic to go with the steak.

When I asked him if it was OK to take pictures, he asked me if I wanted him to take a picture of me! Why not? I don’t have any other pictures of me on the trip.

So I’d definitely recommend Moriya. I was told that the Chinese tourists love it there too and you have to get reservations on the weekend or for lunch. Tuesday dinner wasn’t that big a deal but boy it was tasty.

So onto my last two stops. Four days in Osaka and four days in Tokyo. The shopping for my mom and my sister starts soon!

I left Kokura and the semi-creepy hotel to get to Fukuyama and a hotel that’s creepy for a completely different reason. The Ail Inn (I mean really, that started things off weird) was just weird because it was dark. And there were no phones in the rooms, probably because no one was ever using them. When I finally realized it was a BUSINESS HOTEL, it all clicked and the place wasn’t that creepy any longer.

HOWEVER, my new hotel is creepy because I don’t think I belong. The place is crawling with what I expect are rich doctors. There are EXPENSIVE kimono and flower shops and a wedding chapel here. It’s fancy and bright and only cost me ¥6,400 for a night but dinner here would’ve cost me ¥3,000 minimum (I saw some options at ¥8,500) and breakfast is ¥1,600! In rough dollar conversion that means the HUGE CLEAN ROOM WITH TWO DOUBLE BEDS AND THREE CHAIRS was only $53.07 but dinner would’ve started at $24.88 and gone up to $70.48 and breakfast is $13.27.

Oh, huh. The weak yen is making things look a lot better when I convert them. In any case I went out to dinner and paid ¥1,490 at the station.

And I got dessert and an English language newspaper.

But I left out where I started. I had another big breakfast at the Ail Inn. That’s not even everything they have there. There’s miso soup, and curry, and fish I forgot to get. The toaster is an industrial strength track job so you can put cheese and onions and tomato sauce and ham on your bread and make pizza toast. And there’s cereal. It’s one of the best spreads I’ve seen.

Then it was off from Kokura to Fukuyama. I was looking at the wrong ticket and could’ve missed my train but I got bored and decided to take a non-reserved seat on what I thought was an earlier train. Basically, I got a non-reserved seat on the train I was supposed to be on in the first place.

I got to the fancy pants Fukuyama New Castle Hotel, left my bags (that they delivered to my room) and went exploring. The first stop was Fukuyama Castle, which I’ve seen for years from the shinkansen.

If you get a chance, go see Kumamoto Castle instead. Kumamoto has multilingual signs, better displays, NEWER displays, and the chance to go into three turrets as well as the main castle. And Kumamoto Castle (like Hikone castle) is made of wood inside so it feels realer. Fukuyama Castle is a ferroconcrete reproduction with faded displays in Japanese only, but you do get a good view at the top.

Next I was off to historic Tomonoura, which is an old town with a few things to look at. Old is right. The place is full of temples and graveyards but no shrines. For some reason I’m pretty much over the temples this trip. I wandered around town looking at the outside of a lot of old houses that could’ve been anything and finally stopped at a café for lunch. The pasta wasn’t the best (I should’ve tried the “oil-based” sauce).

But check out the view!

Those legs to the right were an old dude who I thought was just bored but knew a lot of stuff about the town. He sent me on a trip up the mountain (like I said, I’m pretty much over the temples) that he said would take me 30 minutes. Well, I had another disagreement with the map but I made it back in 45 minutes, I think. Everyone else was dressed for winter, and I was down to my t-shirt because of the humid trek through the woods. But the view was worth it.

My last stop in town was at the green spot on that peninsula (if I can even call it that) in the middle of the picture. Here’s the view back towards the hill.

After that it was back to the fancy hotel and trying to find dinner, etc. I think this will be the first night with no beer even though I have a discount ticket to the bar downstairs. This is one of the louder places I’ve been so far. Here’s the view from my room and I can hear the trains loud and clear.

I started out the day at the castle, taking the picture that disappeared off my phone yesterday.

To be honest, I started out the day eating breakfast and not taking a picture for my sister. Fortunately, I’m here for another night.

I took the train to Mojiko, and  was half a bust. Don’t trust the people who hand out the maps. I got on the “Town Discovery Course” and promptly got lost. The scale is all weird and I overshot the railway museum. I finally figured out and backtracked and the museum was worth it, small but definitely cool.

That’s one of the old sleeper trains that no longer runs. We took that when I was a kid. I’m guessing it was cheaper than the shinkansen back then. There’s some exhibits and a fun train driving simulator inside (¥100). Like I said, small but worth it.

Then I got lost again. I ended up where I was before I backtracked and saw lots of flags for a shrine. I have a thing for shrines so I headed up the slope. And up. And up.

It was a tiny shrine and they were cleaning it up. I guess they were having their yearly “festival” and one lady told me that it’s the only time anyone’s there. She gave me some gifts and I was on my way.

Honestly, after than, I shouldn’t complain about the rest of the mess. In order of the places the map led me to next:

The Sakaemachi Gintengai Shopping arcade was mostly closed. The Showa Retro Gallery no longer existed. The Ohara Market was closed on Sundays. The Central Market and Omatsu Shopping Center were the same. The Matsunaga Library had moved. The untitled “cultural asset of the city” is also kind of an eyesore.

I finally decided to heck with following the route and went to the Koso Hachiman Shrine.

From there I went back to the Moji Telecommunications Museum (lots of cool old phones!) and then went off the track completely. There were lots of people on the “Aruku-ing” walk and I decided to follow their path, albeit much later than they were. I went all the way to the Mekari Shrine (from 700AD and the northernmost shrine in Kyushu).

From there I decided to walk in the underground tunnel to Shimonoseki, under the Tsushima strait, mainly because I could. There’s an elevator that takes you down to the tunnel, and it’s about a 15 minute walk one way.

 

Here’s the view from the Kyushu side,

 

And here’s a view from the Yamaguchi-ken side.

I walked all the way back into town and went up the “Mojiko Retro Observation Room”, 31 stories up. Here’s picture of the bridge that’s over the tunnel I just went under.

After that it was time to wander around the touristy parts of Mojiko. One of the first things I found was a “ji-biru” brewery (local brewery). Of course I had to try a bunch of them. The beers, while tasty, were oddly odorless and not living up to the bitterness that was promised. I suppose that’s just the Portland influence.

I also ate the odd Mojiko specialty: yaki kare. Japanese curry rice, on a hot skillet, with cheese and an egg inside.

I spent another couple of hours going through the tourist traps and remaining couple of museums. I got back to Kokura and hit Mr. Donut for a cup of coffee.

I was about to skip dinner but then I thought, why? I’m on vacation. So I went to Bikkuri Donkey and had a hamburg steak! (and some more beer) This hamburg steak is hiding cheese and potato salad inside!

 

Really? Only day 4? I’m already slowing down. I should’ve slept better last night because the hotel was about as quiet as you can get but I’m still having stomachaches at night. It’s odd being that close to the train station and hearing almost nothing.

I went walking around the train station trying to kill an hour and a half and I ended up just hopping on a shinkansen’s non-reserved seating car just to get the heck out of dodge. I wasn’t expecting that much from Kokura but it’s a hopping little town.

I got to the hotel early to drop off my bags and the place was a little creepy and dark. I guess it’s just a business hotel and there’s no one there during the middle of the day. It was much better later. I left and went walking to the one thing they told me to go see – Kokura castle. I took a picture but my phone deleted it somehow. Oh well. It wasn’t as impressive as Kumamoto castle. Here’s a picture of the shrine next to the castle.

I also went to the market street, Tanga market, but it wasn’t that different than things I’ve seen in other towns. I guess the market streets are dying out.

The shotengai was hopping though.

I didn’t know what to eat and was almost about to go to Mos Burger when I saw a bakery that looked good. I bought a ham roll, a ham roll with egg, and a kare pan (curry bread). I was craving a katsu sando but I’ll have to wait for that.

The wind was chilly today so I went looking for a Uniqlo. It was a fifteen minute walk on the opposite side of the station. I almost bought a down vest but I couldn’t find one I liked. I settled on a sweater and then headed back towards the station and realized I should probably just have a hat. It wasn’t even 3PM (check-in time) and I was already tired and I went back to the hotel to use the bathroom. Fortunately, my room was ready and I took it easy and read a book on my Kindle. I only really headed out to try the green tea snacks close by.

I wasn’t completely useless – I did my laundry like I’d been planning to do. That’s the best part about business hotels. Coin laundry facilities.

I did get bundled up and headed out for dinner.

I was going to go to Bikkuri Donkey, a Japanese chain of “hamburg steak” restaurants, but I asked the guy at the front desk what traditional Kita-Kyushu food I should try. He said yakiudon, something fish, and something else fish. So I went to the place he suggested, Yamato-ya (the kanji for the place is crazy) and no, it’s not the place upstairs. It’s no place I could’ve gone with my sister because people were smorking inside. But the fish was spectacular (way better than my $99 steak).

Something raw fish (buri?)

Nukadaki on the left.

And of course, yakiudon.

And that’s it for the evening. I was going to go into Fukuoka tomorrow but I think I’m going to head to Mojiko instead. It’s a “Romantic Retro Town” and the place I think my mom was talking about when she originally told me to check out Kokura. Andiamo.

You know there’s something odd when the tourist guide says, “eat the famous Higa beef!” and you can’t find a restaurant with any Higa beef. I just spent $99 eating dinner. But first things first.

There’s good news and bad news about last night. The good news is that I finally powered through my 4AM wakefulness and didn’t get up until my 6AM alarm! The bad news is that I had a stomachache during the night (maybe I shouldn’t have had that saké at dinner) and I woke up with a headache. I’m guessing the headache was from my allergies and all the smorkiness from the wood fire they had to heat up the cooling room (what a contradiction). There’s usually a spot in an onsen where you can rest and rehydrate and Yamashinobu had theirs outside with a traditional Japanese wood fire. A smoldering wood fire at that. But it didn’t stop me from eating breakfast.

Advil took care of the headache and I headed back down the mountain to Kumamoto. The bus service didn’t have my reservation (which I looked at online and had printed out) and the bus was packed.

By the time we got to Aso I figured I had no reason to stay on the bus and decided to take the train the rest of the way. It was a quaint two car train and one of the most interesting things was that there was a switchback where the driver stopped the train and had to walk to the other end to reverse direction, and did the same again at Tateno station.

When I got to Kumamoto I got to the JR Kyushu Hotel Kumamoto, a brand new clean hotel with FAST INTARWEBS. I had to call home and then the credit card company to see why it kept getting declined and was on the phone FOREVER without much resolution. They’re sending a new card to the hotel in Osaka.

In any case, I went to see Kumamoto Castle which is one of the most impressive I’ve seen. Lots of levels and turrets and stairs. Lots and lots of stairs which made for a great view from the top.

I got back after walking through the shopping arcade and wanted to try the Higa beef since that’s one of the things highlighted in the tourist guide. The front desk had suggestions but further research didn’t seem to recommend those places. The only thing I could find is a restaurant nearby, in the New Otani Hotel which was expensive. But what the heck, if the steak was as good as the Matsuzaka beef I’ve had in the past, it would be worth it.

Dinner started out promising (the flattened shrimp head is hiding the tail meat).

 

The chef was fun to watch and did a great job.

But in the end the meat was great but it wasn’t life-changing like the matsuzaka beef tends to be. I was also promised the best garlic rice in Japan, and it needed salt.

In the end it was an excellent, though slightly disappointing, dinner with a surprise end. One of the wait staff knew a lot about Nikka whiskey and I had a drink of the Single Malt Yoichi (which is no longer being produced) at the adjoining bar and it was quite tasty.

Today was another day of sitting. Sitting on the shinkansen, sitting on a bus, and finally getting to Kurosawa Onsen.

I made it to Kurosawa Onsen and the place I’m staying didn’t send a van to pick up my baggage. Everyone else was wandering around until the “set Japanese onsen opening time” of 3PM and I was the only clown wheeling around his suitcase. That didn’t stop me from eating some nice Japanese treats.

I also had a cream puff because the place was so highly rated on tripadvisor.

Turns out the place I’m staying isn’t even in Kurosawa Onsen, but somewhere nearby in Oguni. They have two men’s baths (one exposed to the outside), one women’s bath, and three separate “family baths” where you lock the door and you don’t have to expose yourself to the masses. It’s quite different than any other onsen I’ve been to in the past, and the dinner, while quite tasty, wasn’t the festival of gluttony I usually experience. The portions were small and that’s probably for the best.

In any case, my jet lag is getting to me again. I wasn’t able to sleep much past 4AM (started reading a book at 4:30AM) and now I’m trying to keep my eyes open. And now I see I forgot to take a picture of the raw horse meat, the specialty of the area!

I have a couple of crazy travel days (not counting the ones where I travel between countries) and this is one of them. Look at how I started the day off. I had to cross this THREE TIMES, once to get to the shinkansen way too early and twice to go and return from the Starbucks.

I’m visiting my cousin to see the new grandkid (my third cousin twice removed?) and to see my aunt.

My aunt has lost her sight but fortunately she hears just fine. My mom can see OK but she can’t hear much. Weird how that works.

My cousin’s place is not that far from a shinkansen stop but it’s one of the little-used stops. Since the rail pass I got limits the kind of shinkansen I can ride, the scheduled stops are less than ideal. I had an OK trip from Shinagawa to Shin-Osaka, but from there I was on a train that stops at every station. Not only that but I only had six minutes to change trains.

I got to the second train (without much spare time) but I was counting on getting a passable bento from someone selling them on the train. As soon as we left Shin-Osaka, they announced no “wagon” service (nobody selling food from a cart going up and down the aisles.) Looking carefully at the train diagram, I also found out that there were no vending machines on the train! I asked the conductor if there was a good stop to buy a bento. Nishi-Akashi had a six-minute stop but no bento stand. The only chance I had was a three minute stop in Himeji. I made it!

I got to my cousin’s without much more trouble but I found that I’m using 300MB of data per day on my phone. That’s going to cost me.

It’s about 5:35AM in Portland right now, which isn’t too terribly early but I’ve been up since 7AM yesterday. It’s only about 9:35PM in Shinagawa and I’m about to fall over. I’m here alone this year and I had a bunch of “errands” to run when I got to Tokyo. Some I always go – pick up my rail pass, get SIM card for my phone, etc. But I also had to pick up a SIM card that I had delivered to a convenience store (something you can do in Japan), get all my train tickets since I was traveling a lot on the front end of the trip, and mail some gift packages so I didn’t have to lug them around the whole trip.

The trip started out weird too. A Nike guy I know was on my flight and so was my old high school classmate Jim Skinner. And I gave up my aisle seat so a girl could sit with her mom – they were on their way back to Guam and of course they knew Ric Blas the judoka!

So I better call this quits before I stay up way too late. I have to get up early and get the heck out of Dodge (to see my cousin and her new granddaughter!)

Rickety creaky thing. The allergy shot I got on Monday (a shot full of allergens) gave me quite a reaction. A bit of wheezing and lots of itching. As soon as I started feeling off I took two Benadryl and took it easy, watching for any actual difficulty breathing. Fortunately, the Benadryl worked and there was no need to go to the Emergency Room, unless I wanted to go in and tell them, “I’m having an allergic reaction and my ass itches.” Stupid hives are the last thing to clear up.

I did call the allergist and I was supposed to take two more Benadryl before I went to sleep.

I’ve also noticed that I have some weird bumps that I thought were ingrown hairs that itch like crazy when I exercise. Maybe they’re connected to sweat glands. They got annoying enough that I went to the doctor to ask about them. You know what hurts a hell of a lot? A doctor poking a needle into what he called a “cyst” to inject it with something.

So the combination of all this is my excuse to do very little beyond sitting at home watching TV this week instead of going to the gym. If only it was already football season…

I’m finally back at the gym and I feel like I’m just limping around the place, but it is getting better. Being a geek who likes measuring things, I bought a Fit Bit Charge HR and it was fun for a week. Unfortunately I should’ve heeded the poor online ratings and known that if someone could have an allergic reaction to using it, I would have that reaction.

I had to make a trip to REI to return it. I also wandered around the store figuring that might distract me from the itching. Well, it worked for a while and the itching around my wrist is going away. Unfortunately the allergy desensitization shots I’m getting are still incredibly itchy. I sure hope they’re going to actually reduce my allergies and aren’t just pure hokum. Maybe they’re just crushed up mosquitoes. How would I know the difference?

There are several minor annoyances that are, well, annoying me right now. What with the fatigue of going to the gym and my long work Wednesday (7AM meeting to start) and I’m not exactly in the best of moods. The big boss at work also said a bunch of things that made a lot of us uneasy and implied he didn’t really care about people, just numbers. Pretty much what a big boss is supposed to do. Onto the annoyances.

First, I entered all my gas and mileage records for my Prius into a spreadsheet. I confirmed that the MPG measurement in my Prius is an absolute fiction. Even worse, it gets a lot worse mileage than the gauge indicates. It only does about 44MPG. My old Civic Hybrid cost about half of what the Prius did and it got better than 40MPG.

Second, the house that’s adding a second story down the street is blocking part of my view. It’s not much of a view, but I won’t be able to see if traffic is bad or not.

Third, I found out that there’s schmutz on my digital camera’s image sensor. Trying to clean it off just made things worse. I think I’m going to throw away the camera before it drives me crazy.

I know, not really problems, just small annoyances. I’m glad that’s all there is.

I just started going back to the gym again, so pardon the excessive rambling. I’m going to blame it on Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness and the fog of fatigue.

I actually went to San Diego Comic-Con, twenty-nine years after I gave up comic books cold turkey. It was an expensive addiction and I’m fairly happy to have given it up. I’ve lapsed, but mostly with graphic novels. In Japan I followed the series F and Tsurumoku Dokushin Ryo and that wasn’t cheap (dozens of books) but I’ve stayed pretty clean since. But Comic-Con isn’t about comics any more: it’s a media event.

I didn’t really go to Comic-con. I was just there for an ancillary event – Aisha Tyler’s (Podcast) Listener Appreciation Event. I also checked out the open events around the con like NerdHQ and just walked around checking out the costumes. I came to a realization in the multitudes — I’m happy that I only dislike crowds and they don’t make me anxious. After that I wasn’t nearly as bothered.

I only took three pictures which, really, shows you what my goals were for my (kind of expensive) trip. It was $750-ish for the flight and a hotel.

An In-N-Out Double-double animal style with animal style fries:

A Triple IPA at Stone Brewing Taproom:

And meeting Aisha Tyler!

Guess which geek was the first in line to get a signature and also to get a seat to her podcast recording? She’s a pretty in person as on TV and a great actress: you can’t see her thinking, “Who is this weird Asian dude?”

That’s my latest adventure. I hope I can have some more soon as well.