Tag: Japan

Japan Day Four: Fukinomori, Tsumago And Magome, 23 October 2018

The centrepiece of our day was a walk from Magome to Tsumago.

First thing in the morning though, before breakfast, what else does one do other than take a quick onsen at a place like Fukinomori? This time I braved the outside onsen as well as the inside one, although only briefly in the morning. I met a nice (Canadian I think) gentleman who was trying to persuade his young son to try the facilities. They braved the outside onsen together once I returned unscathed. Daisy didn’t brave the outside in the morning but had a peaceful time in the ladies onsen.

A very fancy-shmancy breakfast with lots of different nibbles to try and an element of “cook yourself” which seems to be the signature of this place. I’ll let these pictures tell most of the story:

Then we took the 9:50 hotel shuttle into Tsumago, which is designed to link up near-perfectly with the local bus to Magome. That local bus was very crowded and/but helped me to get my bearings a bit for the hike back – not that you need bearings because the hiking trail is incredibly well signposted.

Still, when we got to Magome I wanted to get hold of a better map than the one the hotel issued, which doesn’t actually cover the Magome bit. In any case, Magome looked like a beautiful little old-style village.

Along the way to the tourist office I was foolish enough to be tempted by a sweetmeat vendor’s offering (see pictures) which promised a secret sauce on the rice ball thingies. Daisy and I agreed that the lady is welcome to keep that recipe secret as far as we were concerned.

No, really our culinary mission and reward for hiking all the way to Tsumago was to be the chestnut ice cream, which Tim had promised to be absolutely delicious. Whenever Daisy dawdled a while, I reminded her that all the Tsumago shops tend to run out of chestnut ice cream and or close for several hours in the afternoon.

In the end, Daisy stated that the promised chestnut ice cream was probably not going to be worth the effort, so she dawdled as much as she wanted anyway.

In Magome, we did fancy looking around before hiking, so after successfully getting a map from the tourist office, we both liked the look of the Toson Memorial Museum, just across the way and something a little different. Shimazaki Toson was a famous Japanese writer who was raised in Magome for several of his earlier years. The old family home, which was destroyed by fire over 100 years ago, has been faithfully restored and turned into a museum and library. It was a very good way to learn more about that village, that sort of village life and Shimazaki Toson himself in one easy visit.

We met some nice Japanese gentlemen in the museum who gave us some fruits from a tree, we thought they were kumquats but we latter found out that the bitter, orange-coloured fruit of that region is actually persimmon and that we were probably given those, not kumquats. Both are indigenous to Japan, so who knows?

Then off on our hike. So well signposted, I really didn’t need the map, other than to Identify some of the landmarks along the way. The first part of the walk is predominantly up hill and quite arduous, but the majority of the walk this way around is a rather gentle decline into Tsumago. That I’m sure is the main reason why the recommended leisure hike is in the direction Magome to Tsumago. We encountered a few people walking the other way; not many.

Walking seems to be reasonably popular with Japanese people, though; as we neared Tsumago we encountered several Japanese tour groups walking, although we suspected that they were not doing as long or intensive a walk as ours.

The Magome to Tsumago trail is a small part (7.7 km) of the historic Nakasendo highway, which dates back to the Edo period joining Edo (Tokyo) to Kyoto – one of five such historic Imperial highways in Japan.

But none of that bothered us as we walked. We had three concerns. Firstly, to enjoy the glorious countryside and vistas on this trail.

Secondly, to be on the lookout for Asiatic bears; a rare sight in that forest by all accounts but that hasn’t stopped the authorities from placing bells to frighten off the bears at regular intervals along the trail. People seem to love ringing those bells for some reason and I took pains to try and growl like a bear whenever I heard one of the bells ring.

Is that a bear in them there woods?

Thirdly, our mission to find chestnut ice cream in Tsumago, which, by the time we were getting close to the town, had revived in Daisy’s mind and was most certainly back on the agenda.

Without too much difficulty, we found a chestnut ice cream vendor in the centre of town, together with a nice Dutchman to take our photo for us.

He told us that chestnut ice cream was no big deal to a Dutchman because they can get that in the Netherlands; he and his mates were obsessing about green tea ice cream, which, we explained, is a commonplace in the UK – well, our part of London anyway.

If chestnut ice cream in the Netherlands tastes like this, I’m a Dutchman

Revived by our ice cream but realising that Tsumago is really quite a similar town to Magome, we took a few nice photos and decided to taxi back to the hotel, ahead of those who would prefer to wait another 90 minutes or so for the hotel shuttle.

That way, Daisy cleverly surmised, we’d probably have the onsen to ourselves at one of the nicest parts of the day. She was right and we both took full advantage of the outdoor onsen at that hour, only encountering other people as we were leaving.

I did some early evening blogging and then we took our evening meal – another marathon effort this time served by Mede – a very sweet young Moroccan fellow who had also served our breakfast.

I hope this isn’t one of the ducks we photographed earlier…

I won’t list all the dishes again and we weren’t given the running order this time, but we pretty much enjoyed everything we ate this evening apart from a savoury custard inbetweeny dish that seemed a bit weird to us and apparently pretty much always finds disapproval with the western diners. We settled on one of the sakes from last night which had pleased us the most and stuck with that for a couple of rounds.

Another really lovely day.

All the pictures from Day Four can be seen by clicking the Flickr link here or below:

Japan Day Three: Journey To Tsumago And Fukinomori, 22 October 2018

An early start today, finishing the packing, forwarding our baggage, breakfasting and checking out of the Park Hotel.

Frankly, we allowed far more time than was strictly necessary because the hotel was so incredibly efficient at doing its bits of the above process.

I was pretty efficient at doing my bit, which was to route us through a pretty complicated-sounding journey without mishaps and in good time.

We are now on our railcards so we cannot use automated barriers. This enabled me to use the (apparently non-male) technique of asking an official each time we went through a barrier which platform we needed for our next destination; just saying the name seemed to be enough but pointing to it on my piece of paper always sealed the deal.

Daisy took loads of photos on this journey, including one picture of Mount Fuji as we zoomed past it which I really cannot believe she managed to get that way – especially as she almost missed it and came rushing over to snap the icon at just the right moment.

We took a cab the last leg of the journey (this time aided by Daisy who spotted a tourist information booth at the railway station which I had missed – the lady in there called us a cab which came straight away – I think we might have waited a good few minutes otherwise). They don’t seem to expect tourists to be willing to fork out for cabs in that sort of remote part. They must have told us five times how much it cost (which was also clearly displayed on the taxi rank in English) to cab to Fukinomori – about £35 – which seemed worthwhile to me rather than wait hours for the local bus.

We got to the Fukinomori ryokan ahead of check in  time, although we did blag our way to our room early after a few minutes waiting. There we relaxed, taking advantage of the afternoon sun on our terrace and I spent some time also fiddling about with the photos to make sure they were all backed up in the cloud in the way I want them.

Then, as the sun was setting, we braved the onsen – hot spring bath – located within Fukinomori. A false start as we had not put our yukata on properly, nor had we donned our tabi (socks), so a rather anxious member of staff took us back to our room and showed us what to do.

Ryokans are traditional Japanese inns and all guests are expected to comply with the traditions in these charming, rule-bound places.

Second time lucky in the onsen. I chatted for a while with a lovely older gentleman from Brooklyn, Ron, who was full of interesting stories about his life and eventually suggested that the onsen might make an excellent mikveh.

Ron left before me, but by the time I got out, Mrs Ron was sending out search parties for Ron and Janie was wondering where I had got to. I really enjoyed my long soak and for sure will be back for more.

Then down to dinner soon after that for a fabulous Kaiseki meal:

Superb food, served gracefully by Hideo, who had also been our orienteer when we first arrived. Hideo’s English is not great, but he tries very hard and I was able to understand him. Some of the other residents seemed less patient with him at dinner and kept asking for the waitress, who had better English, to explain the dishes to them.

We saw Ron and Mrs Ron after dinner, who expressed great delight at their meal. They are strictly Kosher and they felt this was the one place that had really taken care not only to adhere to their restrictions but to prepare a well-balanced and delicious meal within their constraints. No horse intestine for those two, then. Tofu instead, perhaps? Even I might have preferred the tofu ahead of the horse and I’m no fan of tofu. We chewed, oh yes, we chewed. Strong meat too, horse intestine. But we absolutely loved all the other dishes.

An early night on our futon mats. I’m not entirely sure I am cut out for those – he says, writing up between 4.00 and 5.00 the next morning!

All the pictures from Day Three can be seen by clicking the Flickr link here or below:

Japan Day Two: Tokyo Art Galleries And A Surprisingly Ill-Served Meal, 21 October 2018

That feeling of jet lag and the realisation that we aren’t quite as young as we used to be hit us this morning. We had done a vast amount the day before and most unusually both slept on to surprise ourselves at around 9:00, at which point we got our skates on for breakfast.

Stunning view from our room at The Park

Daisy in particular went into slow-down mode, so we didn’t get out until 11:30/11:45. Still, we had planned a more modest itinerary for today, not least because we knew we’d need some evening time to get our luggage sorted out ahead of tomorrow’s sojourn to Tsumago while our main luggage will go to Takayama.

Daisy had been obsessing the last few days about Yayoi Kusama who has had a new museum dedicated to her work open in Tokyo recently, but which seems to be an utter sell out. We tried, the concierge tried, we knew that some of Daisy’s high-falutin’ clients had tried and failed…

My suggestion was that we go to the MOMAT (Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo), not least in search of Yayoi Kusama but in any case to see the modern art more generally. (Spoiler alert – we found one Yayoi Kusama art work there plus an excellent book about her).

Actually the MOMAT was well worth seeing generally – spanning the early modern period to the present day and showing the work of some Western artists who had influenced or been influenced by Japanese artists, as well as mostly Japanese work.

Too many dicks, not enough Yayoi Kusamas (just this one)

After MOMAT, we strolled along the top of the Imperial Palace Gardens for 15 minutes or so to avoid changing metro lines and to see some Tokyo Sunday life.

That neighbourhood was jogger central on a Sunday – some sort of organised thing from what we could gather. The first batch that whizzed past us were running space cadet style. The ones Daisy eventually photographed were less than special joggers who did not look as though they were enjoying themselves.

Then on to the Nezu Museum, in an up-market looking neighbourhood. If Ginza is Piccadilly, then that area, Minato, is perhaps Sloane-Chelsea.

The Nezu Museum has a beautiful garden…

…and we were really in luck regarding the displays, as a fascinating exhibition about tea paraphernalia had opened the previous day; Momoyama Tea Utensils: A New View. Perhaps for that reason, there were a great many women dressed in traditional costume at the Museum that day. Daisy discreetly photographed them, although didn’t quite capture the strange sight of these traditional-look people taking selfies and consulting iPads.

The Nezu Cafe was a delight in terms of its look and the charming service. Lovely tea (ironically green tea not available – also sold out of most cakes!) but a truly stylish cafe with sweet staff.

Then back to Ginza. While we were taking tea, Daisy had an inspired idea to make it a one meal late afternoon/early evening day, so we’d get home in good time to pack and enjoy a quiet evening.

We chose Gonpachi; one of the recommended restaurants in our Audley pack. We fancied trying the grills – we hadn’t really tried those yet. Finding the place allowed us to see a bit more of Ginza – it really is a huge shopping district.

A big eatery although not very full at 17:00 on a Sunday – Gonpachi certainly had a buzz about it but my goodness we had terrible service.  OK food – if or when it arrived – but truly poor service. Our first disappointment was to spot Kukuni – slow cooked belly pork – on the menu, only to be told that it was off today. Fair enough – we’ll search high and low for Kukuni for the next couple of weeks doubtless.

Yes, we have no Kukuni

We ordered a stack of other things, seemingly well advised by a waiter who told us the recommended sequence for serving our dishes, But when our order came, some of our grills (the chicken skin ones) came they not. Nor did they tempura come, which had been promised before the grills. When we raised this point, we were told that the chicken skins were off today (but they had taken that as part of our order) and that the tempura would be five more minutes. Eventually it came. Then we waited for our soba noodles…and waited and waited. Eventually we asked and were told it would be five minutes.

Eventually…

No apologies or attempts to put matters right for us in any other way. Gonpachi – remember the name. The place must have gone down hill since Tim or James from Audley recommended it.

No real harm done, though, we went home to pack and relax ahead of tomorrow’s journey. We’d had a great day.

All the pictures from Day Two can be seen by clicking the Flickr link  here or below:

 

Japan Day One: Tokyo, 20 October 2018

We did a pretty good job of sleeping at appropriate hours, given the time difference, assisted by a very large, comfortable bed.

We both took a relatively light breakfast – we’d had a pretty substantial meal the evening before – see day Zero report – click here or below:

Japan Day Zero: Journey To Tokyo And Our First Evening There, 18 to 19 October 2018

I had croissants, yoghurt and fruit. Daisy had egg and toast.

Then we met our guide for the morning, Keiko. First up, she wanted to check all the tickets I had already been issued, then sort out with us getting the rail card authorised and seat reservations made for those elements that couldn’t be arranged for us in advance. In amongst all that, she was to explain how the PASMO card worked and how we might get around and eventually away from Tokyo.

What a palaver that turned out to be.

Before we met Keiko, I thought I understood most of it and also thought that the nice lady at the airport had explained the tricky bits of it to me. Then Keiko got going. Daisy took some photographs of this process which probably tell the story far better than words.

Hunched shoulders suggest the onset of tension

Jacket removal is also a worrying sign
Special pleading?
“In which case, what the blithering **** is this one?”
“We locals find it complicated too”, pleads Keiko.

Eventually we were ready to set off for Tokyo station, where we could get our rail passes authorised and seat reservations made and start out orientation tour of Tokyo.

Keiko showed us the subterranean world underneath our hotel and much of the surrounding area; not that you need to use the subterranean part quite so much but she was very keen to show us the route we need to follow the day we leave Tokyo, which did sort of make sense.

It was our good fortune that, while we woke to a rather cloudy looking day, by the time we emerged at Tokyo station the sun had come out, Even more so when we emerged again from Tokyo station with our rail passes and reservations – another minor palaver not least because the official seemed very keen for me to fill in the forms while standing, using only a flimsy plastic clip board for support. My handwriting is bad enough at the best of times and I insisted, in a rather inappropriately forceful, Western style I imagine, on having something more substantial to lean upon.

Bureaucracy satisfied, Keiko suggested that we look at the gardens around the Imperial Palace area, which was in easy walking distance from Tokyo station. Given the now glorious weather, that seemed a very sensible next move.

The outer gardens are rather charming sculpted fountains and the like. Then we went to the Eastern Garden, which is more like a London park in size and density of foliage. Very different look of course.

Keiko tried to explain the history of the place, the Edo period etc., together with the symbolism of many of the gates and carvings around the place. Janie found that a bit dense for a stroll in the park and spent much of the time, when not looking at the glorious greenery, plotting the next stage of our Tokyo day – which mostly involved seeing some trendy neighbourhoods recommended by her/our good friend Anthea.

Keiko was happy to sponsor (and indeed took great pains to tell us that she had a budget for) a taxi ride to our chosen location and some refreshments once we got there. So we taxi-rode to Harajuku, where we landed at Tokyo Plaza and went up to the Starbucks roof garden, to enjoy our traditional western-style drinks in a youthful environment.

By this stage of the proceedings, I was flying with my wireless internet connection and Mr Google, so we really felt that Keiko had completed her assignment – which was just as well because four hours had pretty much gone by. She stuck around with us, enjoying the drinks I think, before we said goodbye to her as I was making a bee-line for one of two ramen places that Mr Goggle told me were hot in the alleys nearby.

Oreryu was my top pick and it turned out to be a very good one. You choose your main ingredients on a machine which takes your money and vends only tickets. Janie chose roast pork ramen, I chose ramen with fried chicken.

Then a hostess/waitress takes your tickets and asks you several questions regarding the style of noodle-cooking (we chose medium), type of stock (we chose chicken) and in my case garnish (spinach). We queued on benches outside, then were stewarded to share a table with other noodle-slurpers.

Apart from a tiny mishap with my chicken pieces…

…which came so soon after my request (with much apology) they must have already been prepared for me, just not delivered, the meal was a resounding success in terms of flavour and service. Rather more than we intended to eat for lunch, but a superb meal.

Refreshed, we went in search of Brahms Path, which Anthea had recommended as an antidote to the heaving neighbourhoods that are Harajuku and Shibuya-Ku.

Indeed, once we strayed onto the main strip, Takeshita Street, we realised why Anthea recommended for us the maze of alleyways – with second-hand shops and other Portobello/Camden Lock-like treasures. All was worth seeing of course, including the heaving crowds on the main stretches.

Then we strolled back through the alleyways (ignoring Mr Google for once, who was keen for us to take the main strip) to find Shibuya Crossing, said to be the most crowded, shambolic crossing of all – although the one by Tokyo Plaza seemed, to us, perhaps a tad more manic. Judge for yourselves from the photos. Daisy was in her element here, clicking away.

Then the train to Ginza, to see the contrast with up-market shops. We checked out Matsuya, one of the better-known department stores.

“Pedestrianised” usually means “for walkers”, but in Ginza it also attracts “sitters”.

Then strolled with purpose in the direction of Ginza Six. I had read about the roof garden views and guessed that Ginza Six might also be a suitable place for some much needed (in my case) refreshment.

Like the mighty hunter that I am, I spotted my quarry and started to make a bee-line for Ginza Six.  “Oh look, Uniqlo”, said Daisy, thwarting my plans for imminent views and refreshment.

Uniqlo in Ginza is a massive store which apparently sells stuff that Daisy likes. Several agonising floors, heaving with people and stewards trying to get people in, to their chosen floor and our again, later, Daisy had achieved her purpose. Along the way, several trial and errors in search of the desired garments, then I ended up a fair wad (although a much smaller wad than would have been the case in London) lighter. We emerged again, heads spinning, just in time to get to Ginza Six and see the rooftop garden at dusk. Well worth seeing – we got several good shots of Uniqlo across the way, ironically.

Refreshments tasted that much better for the extra wait. Then we headed back to the Park Hotel by foot, just as it started to drizzle with rain.

Mr Weather-app told us that the drizzle might turn to proper wet rain later, so we chose to stay in the hotel that evening (we weren’t that hungry) and snack on small bites in the Art Cafe in our hotel.

The lovely Ieva looked after us again, as did a funky waiter who helped us to enjoy some Japanese wine – a very unusual but subtle Chardonnay – Golch from  Koshu and a Cabernet Sauvignon Tatikarao from Miyazaki, which includes some wild indigenous grapes that makes that blackberry-like flavour of Cabernet Sauvignon really shine through.

A truly super day.

All the pictures from Days Zero and One can be seen by clicking the Flickr link  here or below:

 

Japan Day Zero: Journey To Tokyo And Our First Evening There, 18 to 19 October 2018

18 October 2018

We set off from Noddyland late afternoon. Daisy’s packing for this holiday was epic; the case was so heavy we couldn’t even weigh it to conclude that it was overweight until we had removed enormous quantities of extraneous lotions and potions.

At one point Daisy decided that she was never, ever, ever going to travel again, while I decided that I would never, ever, ever travel again with her.

Yet somehow we got the weight down (partly by balancing between her iron-clad case and my feather-light bag), so off we set – perhaps not for the very last time.

An event free journey, really. ANA was a very luxurious way to fly – the evening meal in particular was superb…

Amuse:

  • Cherry tomato caprese style;
  • Crab meat salad stuffed baby paprika;
  • Tandoori chicken with sour cream

We both chose Japanese Cuisine – Washoku

Zensai (A selection of morsels)

  • Grilled scallop with egg yolk;
  • Marinated thinly-sliced salmon head cartilage in bonito-vinegar sauce;
  • Chinese yam rolled with smoked salmon
  • Grilled welsh onion rolled with duck

Kobachi (Tasty titbits)

  • Dressed vegetables with tofu paste

Nimono (Simmered plate)

  • Simmered taro and eggplant in soy-based sauce
Top notch airplane grub

Shusai

  • Simmered sea bream in soy-based sauce

Steamed rice, miso soup, and Japanese pickles

Deserts, Cheese, Fruits

19 October 2018

The breakfast/lunch meal was a bit of a bland let-down after the feast that was dinner – a Kobachi of simmered brown algae in soy-based sauce and a Shusai of Japanese sake-lees grilled salmon with steamed rice, miso soup & Japanese pickles.

We arrived in the afternoon Tokyo time feeling quite travel weary.

Daisy’s running joke for the journey had been a rather greedy, small man sitting next to us who kept asking for two portions of everything  When we got off the plane he even had two items of hand luggage. We got our main baggage before his had arrived, but no doubt he had at least two big bags, perhaps more?

We were met at the airport by a rather nice lady who talked me through all the passes, vouchers and rail tickets that had been pre-booked for us and explained that tomorrow’s guide would sort out the rest of them. What seemed like several hours later, we were whisked away to our hotel, the Park, which, being in the South-Eastern hotel district, was a mercifully short ride from the airport.

We showered and I slept for a couple of hours before we built up the courage to brave the Hanasanshou Japanese restaurant located inside our hotel. We tried the chef’s recommended dinner which is an excellent tour d’horizon of Japanese food. The quality was high and the service charming too. When Daisy came and sat beside me for a few minutes while we awaited our food, they decided we wanted to sit next to each other and moved another table across so we could do so. Very sweet, we thought.

The excellent Chef’s Recommended Meal can be seen on this link.

The waiter is obviously a sake-sommelier in training. He recommended a couple of really nice sakes which accompanied the food really well.

The excellent sakes were Kirabi (from Toyama – went well with the fish courses) and Abukuma (from Kukishima – went well with the meats).

At the end of the meal we chatted for a while with Ieva, a charming young woman from Lithuania who is the food and beverage front of house at the Park Hotel.

We’d arrived.