Like most of my actual time, I spent none of today in Japan. Our flight arrived back in Sydney ahead of schedule by about 30 minutes which was nice, and there is a weird new check in system for Australian residents at the airport which made the process go pretty quickly. We were also selected to skip the customs queue which saved a good deal of time as well.
So now I’m back home, having picked up Pippi from the cattery (her meow seems to have changed – is that normal? Maybe she’s like one of those tourists who goes to America or London for a couple of weeks and comes back with a foreign accent – what a poser).
Anyway, I thought I may as well do a bit of a recap/debrief of this trip. I imagine the blog will be quiet for a while until I work out precisely what to do with it. I will likely use it to blog about any other trips (even if they’re just local) and some of my interests. Who knows?
This trip was a bit lesser in the way of buying heaps of souvenirs or goods for ourselves (though we still got a fair bit), which is only natural after having been to Japan less than a year ago on our last trip. I didn’t take a picture of all of our purchases, just some of the things we got for me, and a few of the jigsaw puzzles we picked up as well. By far my favourite is the jigsaw which has a variety of famous artworks that have replaced the subjects with cats. It’s truly incredible (we got that from the Hakone Open Air Museum).
So I’ll try to run down some of the highlights of the trip. For the sake of some pitiful attempt at balance I’ll start with the lowlights.
Worst Day/s: First and Last Day in Japan
The worst parts of the trips were the bookends of the trip. This is in large part due to the fact that neither I nor my wife are particularly good flyers, so the first day was not great due to having had to fly in to Japan and my wife feeling pretty off from it. The last day wasn’t too bad but it was one of those days where, because you know you need to get somewhere, it’s hard to settle into any fun activity (lunch was cool though) because you know you need to get to the airport and go through the travel motions. The experience at Narita and by Qantas was fairly seemless, but even the best flights aren’t fun.
Honourable Mention: The weather.
To be fair, the weather didn’t end up being all that bad on the trip. The only truly horrid day was our day in Hiroshima, and this actually ended up having a couple of impacts. Firstly it did alter how much we were able to take in at places such as the Hiroshima Peace Park, meant we were sodden going to the Castle and missed the Shukkien Gardens. Also it was on this day that we’d learnt about Super Typhoon Neoguri and made the decision to move our trip away from Takayama and cancel our trip there. Missing Takayama was disappointing, but the decision to go back to Tokyo was still the right one and we had some really good experiences at Yokohama, Nihon-Minkaean and Ikebukuro. The other end of the spectrum was the truly oppressive heat on the last couple of days, coupled with the surprise of the earthquake on the second last day. Despite all of this, the weather wasn’t too bad. If it had been as hot as it was the last few days for the entire trip, that probably would have made things pretty awfule.
Most surprisingly fun/interesting place:Kita-Kamakura
I’m not sure if I’m swayed because it was early on in the trip, but going to Kita-Kamakura and the temples there before going to Kamakura proper was a great way to do that day trip. Kita-Kamakura wasn’t even a certainty as I had considered trying to fit Enoshima into the day somewhere, probably in lieu of the temples at Kita-Kamakura. I’m glad I didn’t do that, it was just lovely and peaceful and not at all what I expected. Definitely worthwhile.
Honourable mention: Miyajima
Best experience:Hozugawa River Cruise
There were so many things to choose from in terms of best experience, I was actually planning on writing about the onsen baths in Miyajima for this section. However after reflecting, the cruise down the Hozugawa River in Arashiyama was spectacular. It was so beautiful and serene, calm yet exhilarating. The constant chatter and jokes from the crew (despite the fact that I understood none of it – except for when one of the rowers missed his mark with the pole he was using) added to the atmosphere and made it a day I’ll remember for a long time to come.
Honourable mentions: Onsen in Miyajima, Night Boat tour, Eating Black Eggs at Owakudani, Monkey Park
Best Museum/Site: Hiroshima Peace Park
I’ll include temples and other sites in this category. As I mentioned earlier, Kita-Kamakura and it’s temples were stunning, so too were some that we saw in Kyoto again and in Miyajima also. Overall though, the Hiroshima Peace Park and it’s Museum is so well curated that I had to list it as the best. Even with the weather, it is clear that everything in the Peace Park treats the subject with the dignity it deserves and serves the message of nuclear disarmament clearly. From all the signage being multi-lingual, to the layout of the Museum and its exhibitions, the whole thing was awe inspiring. It was so effective that I, who took over 1500 photos on the trip (and still feel like I didn’t get enough of particular things) felt quite uncomfortable taking any at the Museum and didn’t feel regretful that I ‘missed’ some photo opportunities. The Peace Park alone is worth a day trip down to Hiroshima if you’re staying somewhere like Kyoto or Osaka.
Honourable mentions: Nihon-Minkaean, Itsukushima Shrine, Meigetsuin Temple
Best night out: Baseball at Tokyo Dome
It’s difficult for me to write too much more on this because it is so recent and I feel like I’ve covered it in detail already. Again though, this is an experience where, if you can possibly do it, even if you don’t love sports, I highly recommend it (so too the Sumo tournaments which we saw last time). In large part, the enthusiasm of the Hanshin Tigers crowd (who are based of Osaka and aren’t the home team of the Tokyo Dome) and the craziness of the Tokyo Dome itself made the entire night worthwhile.
Honourable mentions: Capcom Bar, Watching Origin at Paddy’s Junction in Shinjuku
Best Meal: Soba in Shinjuku
Meals made up a large part of our trip and were probably the biggest hit to our budget. This is because of us and the way we approach meals, rather than Japan being overly expensive. At times I felt a bit of regret, stress and guilt at having some of our more expensive meals, because in knew we could do it a bit cheaper. However, we enjoyed pretty much every meal and again, retrospectively, I have no regrets about any of them. Amusingly though, I think that our best meal was also our cheapest, working out to something like 1300 yen. This was from the little Soba place around the corner from Citadines Shinjuku. We ordered the food from the vending machine at the front, took it to the counter and got our delicious meal.
Honourable mentions: Ninja Restaurant (for the experience), French at Fujiya (so expensive, so delicious), Cook your own in Pontocho, Sushi in Kyoto.
And with that food category, I’ll finish it there. I could write about a lot more but I’m tired and have already spent too much time doing this already. Also the iPad is playing up and the cat is threatening to eat it’s charging cable and, in being unable to do so, is contenting herself by malting everywhere. Thanks to everyone for following this trip. Please keep on, I’m sure I’ll write more at some point. The trip was great and I really enjoyed writing this to provide some context for the thousands of pictures I take. It has been a blast.
Cheers
Moshi Moshi! Daniel Desu. 