Tokyo, Nikko, and Kamakura, Japan

April 29, 2016 – May 5, 2016

Ahh, Japan…a strange, wonderful and magical land. I arrived at Narita airport on April 29th to be greeted by Andy and Katsumi! It was so, so great to see familiar faces! I worried they might have to wait a while but Japan had the fastest customs process I’ve encountered so far. Japan IS known for efficiency. K&A collected me and then exposed me to the crazy awesome Japanese train system. I think we must have changed 50 trains before we finally got home. I was also introduced to the next most awesome thing in Japan…all the big train stations have giant super markets/whole foods on crack style eateries and several restaurants. Even the smaller ones have one or two. You could never go hungry here…unless of course if you ain’t got no money. That could definitely be a problem in Japan. We decided to stop at a Whole Foods on crack at the Shinjuku station and had some sushi. Made me happy! Oddly, I only remember having sushi one other time in Japan. After dinner, we got back on the trains…we were wiped out by the time a got to their apartment so we settled in and went to sleep. K&A have a traditional bed setup with futons they lay out at night. I later learned that this is common at many of the hostels too. Their place is small but very welcoming and they were so kind to let me crowd them for several days.

I look like a giant next to Katsumi

Mmmm…sushi.

Since I arrived during golden week K&A had time off and had arranged for us to travel a bit. So early the next morning we set off for Nikko. Unfortunately, due to poor signage and nobody at the station knowing where to go, we ended up missing our train (this is the only time this happened to me by the way). Because we missed our train we had some time to kill so we went to the Starbucks nearby…so Japanese of us. Katsumi had to do some finagling but she was able to get our tickets replaced and we finally got on the bazillion trains that would take us to Nikko. The ride out of Tokyo was just buildings at first, then some smaller towns and rice fields and then finally as we got closer to Nikko, beautiful green valley and mountains. We did have some fun at the millions of train stations where we switched trains. When we finally arrived, Andy was overjoyed and just could not contain his happiness!

At the train stations

At the train stations

At this point it was lunch time so K&A began the search for a restaurant that was recommended by a friend of theirs. Nagomi Cha-ya is famous for its yuba. Yuba, for those of you that may not know, is tofu skin and it is absolutely magnificent. We had a 5 course meal with each course featuring yuba. My favorite was the simple rolled yuba with sauce…so good. For my first day in Japan the bar for food was set ridiculously high. Of course, we sat on the floor, shoes were removed and a lot of arigato gozaimas were exchanged. By the way…in Asia…and especially Japan there will be a lot of pictures of food so get ready.

This one was my favorite. Don’t remember what it’s called though.

Those are little baby squid on top…ithey were so cute.

Andy thought long and hard about the baby squid he was eating.

After lunch we walked around to look at some of the sites. Our first stop was the fancy bridge, it was fancy. Then we went to some old temples, two Shinto – Futarasan Shrine and Tōshō-gū and one Buddhist temple – Rinnō-ji. One of them we were not able to go to but I can’t remember which one it was. They were beautiful but very crowded because everyone was on spring break so we didn’t stay too long. In Japan, like in the US, you see a lot of local tourists. Same in NZ actually. Most other places it’s more foreigners it seems.

This structure indicates harvest…from what I was told.

Fancy bridge

Famous monkeys – see no evil, speak no evil, hear no evil

Famous sleeping kitty carving over a doorway

Pretty trees

After the temples, we wandered around Nikko a bit more. Katsumi and Andy bought some cake for her parents and I bought some goofy souvenirs. We then headed to our hotel which was a traditional ryokan complete with an onsen – hot spring/ bath. According to wikipedia…”a ryokan is a type of traditional Japanese inn that originated in the Edo period (1603–1868), when such inns served travelers along Japan’s highways. They typically feature tatami-matted rooms, communal baths, and other public areas where visitors may wear yukata” – a casual summer kimono. I’m so glad we went with Katsumi. We walked in to the room and there was nothing in the room except for a coffee table. I was a bit confused. Turns out that while we’re at dinner, the hotel staff comes by to lays out the beds. After dinner Katsumi and I decided to visit the onsen. There are a lot of customs, traditions and rules that go along with using an onsen. Again, I was so glad that Katsumi was with me. The onsen had multiple pools that had different helpful minerals. The explanations were all in Japanese so I didn’t really know which minerals were where but Katsumi explained that they are good for you. That worked for me…I love onsens. With the cool chill in the air and the hot spring water it was the perfect way to end the evening. Oh and I got to wear a yukata.

The next day after a huge buffet breakfast we decided to do a river cruise. It was an old school boat that was very low in the water. We sat on the floor of the boat and got rained on and splashed a bit and it was a beautiful boat ride.

After the boat ride we decided to go check out a sake brewery in the next town over. I don’t remember the name of the town and I can’t read the name of the brewery but we tried some excellent sake and yummy chilli pickle. We also got a tour of the brewery. They still use some of the equipment from back in the day. Very interesting. Also near the sake brewery we found the Japanese Pep Boys!

After the sake tasting, we asked the owner about where to eat and he recommended an excellent soba place near by. This city, that I can’t remember the name of, is known for soba. It was a tiny restaurant and we sat at the bar. They had slats that hang around the bar and that was the menu. I saw these in several other restaurants as well. I had no idea what or how to order so I just followed K&A’s lead and got cold soba noodles. They were so amazing and they came with a bunch of awesome side dishes…like tempura vegetables, more yuba, mushroom salad etc. You dip the cold noodles in the soy based sauce that comes with. Never thought I would like cold noodles! After you’re done with the noodles they give you a kettle full of the water that the noodles were boiled in and you pour that in the sauce and drink it like soup. Japanese food is so awesome!

After lunch, we walked around a bit through a pretty park with fancy trees and water wheels and sculptures.

And then it was time to head back to Tokyo. Once in Tokyo, Andy got me hooked on the TV show Black Sails. We did some serious binge watching while I was there. Katsumi mostly ignored the show but occasionally looked up and asked what was happening. I did this too and we thoroughly annoyed Andy together. Also, while we were in Tokyo they showed me some of the fancy sites around town…like the Tokyo Skytree, the fancy temple near the Tokyo Skytree, the weird Asahi golden poop sculpture, crazy Harajuku area, famous dog Hachi statue and a park.

Tokyo Skytree

Tokyo Skytree

Tokyo Skytree with clouds

View from Tokyo Skytree

View of Tokyo Tower from Tokyo Skytree

K&A&M

Fancy temple and skytree. Andy and I argued about who photographed it better…it was clearly me.

More fancy temple

Pagoda of fancy temple

Skytree from a distance

Temple

Temple guardians

Temple guardians

Temple guardians

Hachi and a sheep?

Fancy Architecture that Andy told us about.

Fancy Architecture that Andy told us about.

Asahi Golden Poop

Tokyo street

Duck udon…drool 🙂

Park with dog in a sweater

Hairdressing contest in the park…why not?

Park lake with funny boads

Cute house on park lake

Harajuku insanity

Crazy busy street crossing

Phones are popular in Japan

Cool entrance to a building…which is better B&W or

Color?

Later that week, K&A took me to Kamakura where we saw my favorite Buddha statue so far…the great Buddha. In case you were wondering, yes I shot every angle of the statue, see below :-). We also saw lots surfers in this beach town, more cool Buddha statues and his slippers and feet. Super fun trip.

On the way to Kamakura and back we also saw some of the festivities that were happening for Golden week. Here are a couple of goofy videos.

My last day with K&A was cinco de mayo and to celebrate, Katsumi made us some awesome nachos with local ingredients. Quite a feat considering Mexican ingredients are a bit limited. We also had some Japanese margaritas!! On my last night with K&A, we went and visited Katsumi’s parents in Saitama city.  K’s mom prepared enough food for 20 people and her dad offered us much sake. I’m so glad I got to meet them and am so thankful that they invited me to dinner.

In a week K&A provided me a great introduction to Japan and now it was time to go off on my own. Armed with the few key phrases I had learned, sumimasen, arigato gozaimas, oishi, butaniko damedes and most importantly otanjobi omedeto, I headed north to Hokkaido the next morning.