Nagoya – Kurashiki – Uno – Naoshima – Teshima – Hiroshima, Japan – 2023 – Day 71-75

04/25/23

Nagoya, Japan

It seems the sun didn’t want to show it’s face. Always on the brink of rain but luckily it held out until evening.

In Nagoya, they have this thing called Morning sets/service or even just morning (モーニングサービス). It’s when you goto specific restaurants and you order a drink and it comes with breakfast for only the price of the drink. In the 1950s, some coffee shops gave hard boiled eggs & peanuts with their coffees. It has evolved since then.

I went to Komeda Coffee コメダ珈琲店. I got the milk tea with red bean (anko) + thick bread with jam & a hard boiled egg all for ¥560 – the price of the drink. Ogura toast is popular (red bean jam) but I have to say red bean in milk tea is nice.

Visited Nagoya Castle & surrounding area ¥500. Unfortunately, Nagoya Castle Main Tower was under renovations and hasn’t been open to the public since 2018. The grounds are large, clean and quiet.  Within what use to be the moat, you can spot wild deer.

Made my way over to Noritake Mall to visit Tsutaya Book Store where I was able find my pens and restock the ink. From there, went to Ben Zai Ten 覚王山フルーツ大福 弁才天 for some delicious fruit daifuku. I got one of the sweet strawberries (there were 4 strawberry options including a white strawberry) ¥680. Presentation and even the little string they provide you with to cut it open are great details. The moment I cut it open, the smell was so intense in a good way of strawberries. Thick yet thin enough mochi outside but the fruit intact and amazing.

Walked to Osu – which is the famous shopping street – Nagoya’s Harajuku. I grabbed a Sakura Uiro sandwich with red bean (DIY) ¥270 from Osu Uiro 大須ういろ 本店. Uiro is a Nagoyan traditional sweet produced since the Edo era made from rice flour, sugar & water which is steamed.

Met up with Bev & Eric who were playing Pachinko slots underground somewhere in Osu. I took them for their 2nd lunch and my 1st lunch Misokatsu Yabaton みそかつ 矢場とん 矢場町本店 (crispy deep-fried panko crusted pork chops drenched in a super savory red miso sauce). I got the miso katsu on a bowl ¥1370. The other 2 options for food that you should try while in Nagoya are Tenmusu (Onigiri style w/shrimp tempura – Senju – Nagoya-Famous Temmusu) & Atsuta Horaiken (grilled eel on rice)

Nagoya is known for its miso especially red miso and that just elevates the dish to another level.

Went to Village Vanguard Nagoya PARCO (better in Shimokitazawa in Tokyo) then walked to Shikemichi & Endoji Shopping Street which have shops and buildings built in the Edo period still standing and in use.

Went to Nagoya station to reserve seats for the next morning and the adventures it holds.

I ate a late dinner at Dondonan Fushimi. I ordered the salt & pepper chicken wings and a small udon with red soup base ¥740.

04/26/23

Nagoya – Okayama – Kurashiki – Uno, Japan

Early morning shinkansen ride (2h18min) to Okayama then to Kurashiki (11mins). We stored our luggage in the lockers at Kurashiki station.

Okayama is known for their fruit scene – muscat grapes, peaches & oranges.

Kurashiki is the birthplace of Japanese denim & washi tape. It also is the Venice of Japan & still has Edo period buildings still intact and running.

A short walk over to Kurashiki Bikan Historical Quarters. A cute little canal in the middle with carp and a Swan. You can also go for canal ride if you’d like.

I grabbed a Okayama peach jelly ¥432 & hassaku (orange) daifuku ¥270 at Koeido.

For lunch, we ate at Kamikura 神くら. I got the Anagomeshi (broiled congee eel on rice) ¥2000.

Walked up to Achi Shrine 阿智神社 and down the back to see the oldest Wisteria tree in Japan. Went through Ivy Square & left with White peach & grape Muscat gummies ¥304.

Eric & Bev bought a bunch of Japanese cotton & denim apparel exclusive only to Japan from Graph Zero, Blue Trick & Kurashiki Kojima. We also visited Kurashiki Craft Work Village クラシキクラフトワークビレッジ, tried to find the Gangukan (Jap Folk toys museum) but found a tatami-beri store called Flat where Bev bought a shark waterbottle holder. Checked out Tane X 612 – washi tape galore. Also passed by Momotaro Karakuri Museum

Before heading back to the train station, Bev grabbed a Hokkaido milk ice cream and I stumbled upon a place called Kudamono Komachi Soft Serve Store 果物小町のソフトクリームパーラー that uses a full fruit’s worth of juice for their ice creams. I asked and got a Peach and Muscat grape mixed ice cream for ¥500. Peach was ok but the Muscat grape oh man it was so good.

Went back to the station and off we went to get to Uno. Okayama to Chayamada Station with a quick transfer to the platform beside to get on the next train with Uno Station as the last on the line (around 50 mins).

I walked the town while Eric & Bev took to the Onsen – Setouchi Onsen Tamanoyu. We met up & had dinner there. I got the Tamanozen (assorted sashimi, tempura, beer simmered peach pork, 3 kinds of side dishes, savoury steamed egg custard, miso soup, Japanese pickles & dessert) ¥2000 & a Setouchi Islander Butterfly Ale ¥900 (was not good).

Booking tickets and ferry for Naoshima Island & Teshima Island

Tickets for Naoshima & Teshima museums become available online the 9th day of the month; 2 months before the allotted reservation date at 10AM JST – Chichi Art Museum and Ginza Art House Project. Everything else – Lee Fan Museum, Benesse House Museum, Ando Museum, Art House Project can be purchased on-site. Choose the 11:00 AM time frame because it gives you sufficient time to walk from Miyanoura Port to ChiChu or time to get rent electric bikes. There is no need to rush to get to Chichi Art Museum if you rent an electric bike so you can look at the sculptures along the way.

For Teshima, You should book online Teshima art museum. Take the 1110AM ferry and book the 1PM time slot – gives you enough time to make your way over to Teshima Art Museum from Leura Port. 425PM ferry back to Uno should work.

Ferry tickets (Naoshima / Teshima) go on sale 30 minutes before each time slot. There are different areas on the port depending on which ferry you are taking over – Passenger ferry or ones that can take cars over.

04/27/23

Naoshima Island, Uno, Japan

We took the ferry over to Naoshima island ¥570 RT. No need to book a time but get there 20-30min earlier then your desired time. We grabbed the 922AM ferry. 20min ride over.

Our route for the day.

When we arrived, our first stop was Yayoi Kusama’s Red Pumpkin. We rented e-bikes from TVC Naoshima Rental for the day ¥1500. I had made reservations for Chichu Art Museum ¥2100 for 11AM. Turns out with riding the e-bikes, the ride there was even shorter than I thought it would be as we arrived at 1015AM. Waited around until 1050AM before we could scan the eTickets for a physical ticket. It was completely sold out for the day so book in advanced.

If you are coming from the port to Chichu first, you will actually pass the entrance of the museum to get to the car/bike park and ticket office.

The day was a Tadao Ando & Yayoi Kusama appreciation day. Chichu was stunning. A shame we can’t take photos inside the building (the main entrance & the stairwell are ok apparently). It’s a partially underground museum designed to not disturb the coastal landscape. The use of concrete, glass, steel and wood yet many spaces are lit naturally.

Walter De Maria’s Underground Space Chapel was hands down my favourite.

We had lunch at the cafe outdoors on the second level terrace – the rice burger w/teriyaki chicken, Naoshima seaweed & mayo ¥780.

Hopped back on our bikes for a short ride down to the street entrance of Lee Ufan Museum & Benesse House. You will have to park your bike and walk from there.

The one regret from today was paying to go inside Lee Ufan to be honest. The art installations outside are great but the inside was very underwhelming to say the least for ¥1050.

Down the street was Benesse Valley Gallery (combo deal w/Benesse House) ¥1300. Kusama’s Narcissus Garden is permanent indoors & outdoors exhibit.

Benesse House Museum’s building is also absolutely stunning. The main cylindrical room was my second favourite thing of the day.

A bit of downhill bike action to make it to Kusama’s Yellow Pumpkin. Back on the bike to Ando Museum  ¥520. Here you can see the inner workings of Tadao Ando and the thought behind some of the designs he had created in Naoshima.

We ended up skipping the Art House Project (Artists take empty homes in residential areas and turn them the spaces themselves into works of art). We also skipped Miyanoura Gallery 6 and I forgot about Naoshima Public Bath I Love Yu.

Bev & Eric grabbed ice cream and we hopped on the ferry back. We caught the 4PM ferry and arrived in time to get shaved ice from Tamano Omachidō. I got the Murasaki Purple Sweet potato paste w/milk syrup ¥780.

Final stop for the night – dinner at Osakaya Shokudo. We all got the fried pork with kimchi set ¥950.

04/28/23

Teshima Island, Uno, Japan

Another beautiful day hovering between 15-19°C.

Breakfast courtesy of the grocery store – Onigiris, electrolytes and a milk tea drink ¥325.

Hopped on the 1110AM ferry to Teshima Island ¥780 each way (35mins).

Rented e-bikes from Setouchi Karen for the day ¥1800. From there, it was suppose to take about 25mins to get to our first destination but it felt like it took us 15mins. First stop was the art installation – No One Wins – multi baskets. Built up a bit of sweat then back on the bikes.

Made our way up the road to the main attraction for the day – Teshima Art Museum ¥1570. If you had a normal bike, it would have been a bit more difficult as its an uphill incline. The museum resembles a water droplet at the moment of landing located in the corner of a rice terrace. Designed by Rei Naito & Ryue Nishizawa, It is a concrete shell coving over a 40×60 meter space w/ 2 openings to allow nature and architecture to meet. Water droplets form from the ground and interact with one another to create puddles. Unfortunately no photos allowed inside.

We were able to take photos inside the cafe/shop though. Same domed effect in a smaller form. The cafe menu features snacks made from locally grown rice and drinks blended w/local fruit. I got the kumquat rice muffin ¥390 while Eric got the olive oil rice and Bev the purple sweet potato ice cream.

Continued on bike up the road to a few closed locations unfortunately. At this point, it was around 2-230PM so we had miss the lunch hours. We did see Art Installation – Particles in the Air.

Went to Teshima no Mado Cafe. I got the potato curry bun ¥300 & lotus root focaccia ¥280. Eric & Bev got the mince pork bowl set + variety of baked goods.

Just down the street was Teshima Yokoo House ¥520 – a privately owned home turned art museum. Photos can only be taken in the garden and toilet area.

Dropped off our bike rentals and got on the ferry for 425PM ¥780.

Places we missed: Shima Kitchen 島キッチン, Cafe Amaka & Shokudou 101 食堂101号室 for food. Needle Factory & Danyama 檀山 for attractions.

The sun was absolutely amazing – not too hot but felt good. We walked to the mall to look for toothpaste.

Dinner at Mampuku-ken 萬福軒 for a Ramen dinner. I got the Manfuku Chinese Noodles & Kirin beer ¥1330. The broth was delicious.

04/29/23

Uno – Hiroshima, Japan

We took the train from Uno to Hiroshima. For the ride, I got the Momotaro Specialty Ekiben box ¥1000. Ekiben are box meals you can eat on the shinkansen. They are great as they are usually made with local ingredients highlighting each region.

Got to Hiroshima Station and stored our luggage in lockers at the station and off we went. Unfortunately, the rain started up and continued the entire day. It made the day somber which was actually quite fitting with where we were visiting that day.

First stop – Hiroshima Castle ¥370. 5 floors including an observation platform.

Our next stop was the The Hiroshima Peace Memorial (Genbaku Dome). It is the last standing structure left standing in an area where the first atomic bomb exploded on August 6th, 1945. It has been preserved to be a stark reminder of the past but also as a lesson. It expressed the hope for world peace and the ultimate elimination of all nuclear weapons.

We walked across the bridge to Peace Memorial Museum & Park as well as the Children’s Peace monument. Here you will find many origami cranes made.

We ate at Hassei where we got to try Hiroshima style of Okonomiyaki. I got the half size Hassei Special ¥1050 and half size was more than enough.

Our final stop for the day before we checked in was Hondori Street. It is a covered shopping area and a much needed break from the rain.

Kyoto – Osaka, Japan 2017 – Day 12

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We took a cab to Kyoto station to meet Cassie at Kyoto Station. Such a large station with multiple JR offices to book tickets but we eventually found Cassie. We got there in time to reserve seats for the shinkansen bullet train to Osaka. It literally took 14 minutes for us to get to Osaka from Kyoto. Local JR would take about 30-60 minutes – so insane. It was so fast that the ekiben that I purchased I had to inhale and almost didn’t finish in time to get off the train. We arrived in Osaka rather early to meet our Airbnb host at 1130AM so we put our bags in the lockers and went shopping at Tokyu Hands. Turns out our 20 minute limit turned into an hour. I purchased about 114,000y but what sucks is that at the tax free counter, i only got 633y back because my purchased items didn’t qualify for a tax exemption. By this point of seeing Osaka, everyone had talked ourselves out from leaving for Nagoya the following day to leave a little bit more time in Osaka.

We left Tokyu Hands and walked through Shinsaibashi street to America-mura where we would meet our Airbnb host Yuta and be staying. Cute apartment in a nice building with a coffee shop at the bottom. Yuta let us check in early and leave our stuff but the apartment still needed cleaning. He recommended a place to eat in Shinsaibashi called Daruma (1-6-4 Dotonbori, Chuo-ku, Osaka). Daruma is a kakushikatsu which basically means everything is fried. There was also a train the food would come on after ordering on the ipad/computer and a person would come around and place it on the heated plate for us. There is a sauce we can use to dip our skewers in but only dip once.

If you haven’t joined and booked with Airbnb yet, follow the link and get credits for your first booking. www.airbnb.ca/c/ruu

I had to meet my friend Kayo at a Namba station but my maps brought me to the JR Namba line instead of the local trains so Kayo met me on a corner while my friends were in Loft. Loft is a design store and a dangerous store in terms of wanting to purchase everything there. After Loft, we went to the Daiso store which is also filled with things we don’t need but fun to look at.

When we came out of the Daiso store, Kayo pulled out these little brown bags from her bag – she got us gifts! We opened it up to reveal that she gave us personalized (she personalized it herself) key chains with our names on it from her workplace – Business Leather Factory. So sweet of her! We told her we wanted to see her store so she took us to the Namba station branch of the store as she works at Umeda Station location. Cassie bought a wallet and Mike & Manwai purchased passport cases and Kayo was so sweet to give us 5% friends & family discount + tax free savings. I would’ve bought a new wallet but I am very particular about the things I want from a wallet. On our way to the store, we were eyeing Mister Donut and she stepped out and bought a box for us – she is way too sweet!

We walked from there through Shinsaibashi street to the Glico man sign and we went a little further down the river to find so benches to enjoy the donuts. Along the way, we also stopped and grabbed ourselves Croissant Taiyaki – croiyaki? 1000y for 5. There was azuki red bean, custard and sweet potato filling – the sweet potato was delicious! We hung out on under the bridge and on ate then walked back to our area of America-mura – it is very hip and so many colourful characters especially in clothing style. Very much American influence on clothing style but more so the 90’s wears and hip hop influence. Since they were cleaning the apartment when we dropped off our bags, we went back to the apartment to hang for a bit and saw the sunset from the balcony. There was a giant bowling pin just outside our building and we decided to go bowling at Shinsaibashi Sun Bowl 心斎橋サンボウル. It was 950y/pp for shoe rental and 1 game. Kayo put our names in kanji and off we went. My first bowl was a strike! Kayo was pretty precise in her bowling. In the end, Manwai, Kayo and myself were part of the strike club while Cassie and Mike were in the spare club. We even bowled with the bowling pin costumes at one point. I won!

After bowling, we returned to Shinsaibashi to see the Glico Man sign at night then went to Aburiya Dotonborimidosuji あぶりや 道頓堀御堂筋店 for Yakiniku – all you can eat 4380y with option for all you can drink for 980y. We ate so well in the 2 hour time limit plus we all get 1 dessert included. We of course treated Kayo. It was such a good night. We did stop and get takoyaki beside the large Don Quijote near the Glico man sign while we waited for our reservation for Aburiya.

Kanazawa – Takayama, Japan 2017 – Day 7

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Woke up and took the train back to Kanazawa station to reserve our bullet train tickets for the next 2 days.

Morning reservations for the express trains were completely full so we had to take the local train which was an hour longer ride with 1 more transfer point than the express. We ended up roaming the mall beside the station for a bit before our train was departing. The ride was pretty smooth but broken up into 1 hour, 1 hour 1.5 hours. We purchased ekibens – I got this square one with 9 little samplers for 1000y but decided not to eat it right off the spot but regretted it because only our first train was a bullet train and had a tray to eat on but the other 2 local trains were just seats like a normal train but we were rebels and ate on it. The train went through the mountain side.

The Takayama station is absolutely stunning. Takayama is known for their furniture (high quality of timber), hida beef and sake as well as their well known mascot Sarubobo – Monkey Baby. The mothers and grandmothers would make these dolls for their child out of scrap materials and made them faceless. They are amulets bringing protection and happiness and in the future luck in marriage, fertility and childbirth.

The weather was significantly warmer than our pervious day in Kanazawa so we decided a 30 minute walk to our Hotel would be no problem. We didn’t realize our hotel – Takayama Kankou aka Hagi  (Japan, 〒506-0852 Gifu Prefecture, Takayama, 八幡町280) is actually on the side of a mountain/hillside. The windy angular roads led to the perfect lookout point over the city. We took the route google maps had provided which was actually the longer way up that hugged the corner of the mountain. We got checked in and we had booked a 5 person room. Our entrance has a sliding wooden gate then you open the door and find yourself stepping on these tiles with pebbles between then leading you into the room. Its a tatami covered floor room with a little seating area and sliding doors everywhere to configure the room to what is necessary for the time.

The best part of this room – the view. Mind you, there are trees in the way for a clean view, the city behind it with its sun setting is absolutely stunning. The hotel provides a turn down service around 6PM where they come in and transform one of the rooms into a sleeping area with the futons and also provide you with yukatas to wear indoors, to the onsen, to dinner or wherever else you would like to go. BUT remember, the slippers and your shoes are not to touch the tatami mats.

We were waiting for Glenn & John to arrived but in the meantime we had to figure out dinner plans. There is an option for room service however they were sold out by the time we called and because we had reserved the room so long ago and thought nothing of it that we didn’t know we needed to make reservations for the dining hall and had to fend for ourselves. The man at front desk recommended this one cafe just down the street from us but it was closed so we had to venture down the hill to the main part of town to find food. Apparently stores and restaurants for the main part close incredibly early leaving those hungry needing to look for the flashing lights outside the stores to beckon them in their direction. It got extremely cold as temperatures dropped once the sun went down. Cold enough to see our breathes.

We made it back to Takayama station as there were a few stores open there. We have also been told that we need to try pasta at least once while we are here so that settled things. We arrived at Salute (サルーテ) for Italian and it was a nice change of pace from ramen. We ordered a hida cow pizza, a margarita and tomato crab pasta. Manwai kept eyeing the giant half wheel of cheese that was sitting under its own heat lamp ready to be scraped off onto the next order or broccoli, fries or pasta.

Back up the hillside we went to await Glenn and John. We tried to wait it out but they missed one of their connecting trains and we had to wait longer. We went to front desk to see if we could leave our key with them but the 2 men there didn’t speak english but with the help of our phones and translator, we were able to communicate. The onsen was nice but after visiting Oedo Onsen in Tokyo, this was just ok. The rooftop onsen is only available for the women in the afternoon to night while the morning is reserved for the males. We went to the rooftop one but it is just 1 giant tub. I think if we had gone earlier when we could’ve seen the scenery outside, it would’ve made it more worthwhile. We ended up transferring down to the main onsen but because it was so late at night, Manwai and myself had it all to ourselves. One giant tub inside with a nice rocky open air one outside.