Life as J

Today was our victory lap - the last hurrah before getting back on the plane that would take us back to reality. We had done all the things we wanted to do, and eaten all the things we wanted to eat. Not wanting to venture too far, we decided to explore the Marunouchi neighborhood. Knowing that Tokyo station and the surrounding underground network is massive is one thing. Actually walking through it and trying to find your way around is another. We first tried to poke around at street level, but the rain was coming down pretty hard, and our umbrellas could only protect us so much against swirling winds.  In our search for pastries as breakfast, we came across Échiré - a specialty store named after the region of France that it represents and the esteemed butter it produces. As we walked around the area, the only people on the street braving the rains all gravitated towards this store, so we joined them in line and ogled the pastries and buttery goodies visible from the window. When ...

We picked 2 areas to explore today: Akihabara and Kinshicho. Trying to maximize our JR pass, we transferred through Akihabara twice today - once for a treat at Mister Donut, then to end our day with dinner on the way back to our hotel. It's very different, catching the train during rush hour versus not. During rush hour, the volume of people swells to fill the capacity of all the trains and it seems the stations are full of students and workers hurrying in a very organized fashion up and down escalators and stairs to get to their destinations. Only a few are dangerously late and sprint around orderly lines to hopefully avoid any consequences. Outside rush hour, the stations have plenty of space, and it's not too difficult to get a seat on the train.  Akihabara during the day is quite busy with tourists, browsing stores for electronics and anime, but other stores and the arcades are mostly empty. When we popped into Mister Donut, we were able to get seats and donuts without any ...

Today was years in the making - after 3 tries of coming to Tokyo, it was an unrelenting desire to secure tickets to the Ghibli Museum that led to the events that transpired today. Before this trip, we managed to buy two of the tickets sold online to foreigners - by madly clicking and trying to get our website requests through the very antiquated server/service used by the museum.  Getting up a bit earlier to make sure we were at the museum on time was nothing, compared to the 5am wake-up call for Super Nintendo World. We were well-prepared with drinks and onigiri, so the queueing process flew by quickly once we walked from the train station to the Ghibli Museum - apparently lots of people read the instructions on their tickets to show up early! They have tons of staff on hand to help guide people through getting into the museum, and then through the various exhibits at whatever pace you choose. You are allowed to take photos outside the museum, but not inside. I was pretty excited ...

It was surprisingly straightforward making our way around Tokyo using the JR pass - we started and ended in Ginza, exploring Shibuya and Harajuku during the day. Our first stop was Ginza Kimuraya, a bakery specializing in buns and breads. We headed upstairs to the cafe and ordered a bun set and a sandwich set. Both were delicious and a solid start to the day! There were lots of people out and about, so everywhere we went was busy, including the flagship Uniqlo store in Ginza.  Shibuya was an area we hadn't spent a lot of time in on previous trips, so that became our destination for the rest of the afternoon. Little did we know that there would be huge crowds in Shibuya, either because that's just how it is on Sundays, or because there was a pride parade today. It just meant the level of energy and busyness in the neighbourhood was pretty high, with plenty to see anywhere you turned. I think some highlights from walking around were the craziness of the crosswalks - not just the...

We finally made it back to Tokyo!  The Shinkansen trip from Kanazawa was pretty smooth - the seats were a bit newer than other trains, with more hooks to hang things, adjustable head rests, and plenty of space to recline even if the seat behind you is occupied. Of course, in preparation for the journey, we bought bento boxes - this time, I chose a two-tiered box, featuring specialities from Toyama. It was a lot fancier than I expected for less than $15 - coming in a cloth-like wrapper (like a home-made bento), with an illustrated map of Toyama, and even a printed menu of all the items included! There were so many different foods that it took me awhile to finish, as I tried my best to savour the flavour of each bite. When we reached Tokyo, we settled into our APA hotel with a sense of returning to familiarity. I forgot one more thing in my earlier comparison with Via Inn - APA provides a couple of water bottles when you check in. Tiny differences in the grand scheme of things, but t...

Our second and last day in Kanazawa was spent mostly shopping and exploring the Naga-machi District - another preserved area of the city, where there are former samurai homes. First on the list was to visit one of the local shopping malls, specifically to spend a bit more time perusing the Kanazawa Tokyu Hands. Not being rushed to catch a train this time allowed us to find cool stationery, browse kitchenware, look through books and board games, and even check out healthcare products. With so much globalization, there weren't too many items that I didn't recognize from stores in North America - I guess that's a good thing? Some of the uniquely Japanese products were niche items like tamagoyaki pans, tiny stationery supplies, and incense-related items. After we got our fill of indoor shopping, we headed over to the samurai area, Naga-machi District. Similar to Higashi Chaya District, we found lots of signage around the area, and buildings looked like they had been preserved o...

Sunshine greeted us to start our first full day in Kanazawa. It was the best way to wake up after a weird sleep, interrupted with train station noises and musical chimes - I guess there is a price to pay for convenience! Our first destination was Omicho Market - quieter before lunch, so we could actually browse the many food vendors in relative peace. There were lots of things to see - fresh fruit and vegetables, a few meat shops, some cooked food, and plenty of seafood. We also found a coffee shop, souvenir stores, and, of course, restaurants. Since Kanazawa is very close to the sea (the shore is within a 30-minute drive), seafood is really fresh and we were ready for one of their local specialties: a seafood bowl (think of a really upgraded chirashi don). Based on recommendations, we picked Omicho Yamasan - and their bowl was incredible, almost overflowing with seafood and sprinkled with a few pieces of Kanazawa gold leaf. It was almost like having omakase in bowl form - including cr...

Fully rested after a night on our tatami mats, we started the day with a fancy traditional Japanese breakfast at the onsen. It was a beautifully set table that greeted us as soon as we walked down to the eating area - featuring soup, juice, tea, salad, and a variety of delicious items to eat with our rice and miso soup. We were able to leisurely enjoy our food, then pack up our things to check out and make our way to Kanazawa. The front desk was immediately ready to chauffeur us back to the tourist information center, which was very considerate. From there, we bought our bus tickets back to Sannomiya station, and marvelled at the long tunnels along the highway as we were driven back to Kobe. When we made our train reservations to Kanazawa, the suggested starting point was Osaka station, so we hopped on an express train to Osaka once we reached Sannomiya. With a bit of time to kill, we were able to choose our bento boxes for lunch carefully, selecting very fresh boxes filled with crab f...

We had a wonderfully lazy day today - starting with checking out of Osaka, arranging luggage forwarding, and grabbing a few pieces of manju from Hanshin before hopping on the train to Kobe. The ride between Shin-Osaka and Shin-Kobe by Shinkansen is a mere 15 minutes, then getting to Sannomiya Station was one stop away on the local subway. With lots of time to spare, we opted to check out a coffee shop since Kobe is a bit more coffee-oriented than other Japanese cities. Kobe Coffee Story turned out to be a great spot to relax - we ordered ourselves high tea/coffee and chilled out until it was time to catch our bus to Arima Onsen. From Sannomiya, you have to look for the Mint Kobe building to get tickets for the JR express bus to Arima Onsen. Conveniently, the ticket counter is at street level, and the bus loop is right next to it. This bus is not included in the JR pass, so we purchased the tickets outright (around $15 for two one-way tickets). As with all the trains, the bus was right ...

Today was dedicated in its entirety to Universal Studios Japan, and it was pretty dang awesome. Let's rewind a bit to set some context. Back at home, I was monitoring tickets for awhile and noticed that from late March, when tourists started flooding Japan, tickets for USJ were selling out every day. Because of the high demand, advance tickets started selling out, including express passes, and prices started increasing. As soon as I noticed this, I bought our tickets online, but by that time (weeks in advance) all the express passes were sold out. From reading articles and hearing from others about the popularity of Super Nintendo World, I knew there would only be 2 ways we could get in without express passes: be the first to sign up for timed entry through the USJ app at 5am the morning of the visit, or be one of the first visitors to the park on the morning of the visit. Therefore, I obediently woke up just before 5am and tried my hardest to register for timed entry on the USJ ap...

Luckily the sun came out in the morning, which made it an easy decision to visit Himeji today! There are multiple ways to get to Himeji via train - you can take the local trains which stop many times along the way, or you can take the Shinkansen which cuts the travel time in half. If you have the JR pass, you get access to all the Shinkansen trains between Osaka and Himeji - so all that's needed is finding the right track to catch the train. I also found out that it's pretty difficult to make a last-minute reservation using the ticket kiosks (be prepared to enter your passport number, and there's no indication of how many reserved seats are available until after you enter all your information), so I ran for the non-reserved seats. If you pay attention to the announcements when the train is arriving at the station, they will tell you which cars are for non-reserved seats. To figure out where the cars will be along the platform, you can check the floor for stickers - they sho...

Today was definitely less exploratory than yesterday - since we wanted to rest a bit, time was spent either in the hotel or walking around the Umeda neighborhood.  For our first meal, to be a bit healthier, we headed to the department stores to check out what bento boxes were available. Turns out the Hanshin building has a huge selection of vendors offering every possible combination of bento you could think of. Even if what you wanted wasn't there, you could buy enough small plates to make your own unique combo! I found a place that specializes in tamagoyaki and then supplemented the bento with a small container of pickles veggies.  I'm not sure if we were just lucky, but the floor above the bento boxes was also dedicated to a special food event, which brought in vendors from all over Osaka. One of the vendors had snacks from other regions of Japan! Of course, I bought some sakura-themed snacks and drinks, in addition to others that seemed interesting (e.g. premium coffee jel...

Our first full day in Osaka was filled with a lot of activity!  As mentioned in previous posts, we tried the luggage forwarding service to send our suitcases from Tokyo to Osaka. To track our bags, we used an Apple airtag, and thus discovered that for Yamato, they didn't pick up the items from our hotel until late afternoon/early evening. I guess traffic at night is much more conducive to long-distance package transport, so our bags ended up in Osaka sometime between midnight and 3am. By the time we made our way to the front desk in the morning, our bags were ready for us!  After reassuring ourselves that our belongings were intact, we headed to the Nakazakicho neighborhood to explore the local coffee culture. It was interesting to pass through the nighttime attractions in the bright daylight - completely quiet and unassuming with no one around, and no neon lights. Due to some construction blocking a few side streets, we ended up at a shop named Marrone, which caught our eye b...

Our mission today was to take the bullet train to Osaka, stopping in Hamamatsu along the way for some fresh unagi. We started out early from our hotel because we wanted to make sure our luggage forwarding was all in order before checking out (apparently sending your luggage from Tokyo to the Kansai region for same-day delivery is not possible). After settling everything, we made it back to Tokyo station in time to grab a couple of bento boxes before heading to the Shinkansen tracks. Without our luggages, the long walk through the massive train stations was so much more pleasant - I had completely forgotten about the vastness of the underground network connecting stations and buildings in Japan. The insane volume of walkways and shops in all different directions, on multiple underground levels, makes our North American equivalents seem woefully primitive. Comfortable footwear is a must! Once we were on the train, we tucked into our bento boxes - each filled with a different combination ...

What a journey! We took advantage of a flight deal to get us to Japan via a seemingly slight detour through Singapore. No big deal, right?  We were very happy to be flying with ANA again - note that being part of a global traveller program (e.g. Nexus) may grant you additional privileges like online check-in. The flight to Singapore was through Japan, and the first leg was pretty uneventful. A few observations on our first post-covid overseas trip: not as many mask wearers as we were expecting in the airports or on the plane, movie selection wasn't as good as before for our ANA flight, soup is still available on ANA flights but you may have to wait as they make it on demand. The first layover was in Haneda, which was alright, but due to the arrival after regular business hours, there weren't as many stores/restaurants open. We fought to stay awake until the next flight, but found it pretty challenging to keep ourselves alert for the entire 6 hours. The plus side: we were pretty...