Japan

Travelling isn’t just about seeing all the famous places that many people have pictures with. It’s about the whole experience; about walking down the normal streets and seeing people and getting to know their cultures, finding all those cute little alleys that google won’t be able to tell you about on your own, and creating your own personal experiences. 

I didn’t capture the highlights of the trip at the time, but I will talk about the things I remember. 🙂

A- The most exciting and non conventional Cafes and “restaurants”

Owl Cafe, Rabbit/Snake/Hedgehog Cafe where you get to be with and pet the actual exotic animals! “Robot Restaurant” was in fact a very confusing show in a very fun and again, confusing setting. Not sure why it was called a restaurant as they didn’t really offer food but drinks and snacks only. The show was basically a combination of robots, dragons, ninjas, blue-haired dancers, drums, and a whole lot of neon lights.

B- Food

Food is definitely a big reason for my future visits to Japan! The food was so unbelievably good…a lot of places are specialized in one thing only which made it hard to decide at first (i.e him wanting Ramen which I do not like and me not being sure what I want or wanting exotic food which he doesn’t like (typical cases)), but would leave you extremely satisfied at the end as their focus on that one type or the small selection of food would result in great taste and quality! Most places were small and bar seating (while watching the chef and the process of making food) was very common. Some places didn’t allow non Japanese people or people with tattoos in (You couldn’t see inside either, which made it a lot more exciting!). We were given warm towels at almost all food places. There were so many food places outside on streets and always full of people, making us hungry all the time. Some of our highlights are:

-Kobe and Wagyu beef: Kobe beef is Wagyu beef from the Tajima strain of Japanese Black cattle, raised in Japan’s Hyōgo Prefecture and famous for its delicacy, flavor, tenderness, and fatty, well-marbled texture. We tried kobe and wagyu at 2 places, both fairly expensive but well worth it! the best meat I have had in my entire life. The one that I liked in particular was a really small place in a back alley (that MM found through some serious research) which provided bar seating for 5-6 people at most and a selection of meat in 5 different grades: A1 to A5 with different qualities and prices. We tried chef’s selection of various grades which were basically small and thin slices of meat that we would make on the small grills in front of us at the bar. The meat would just melt in your mouth and leave a great after taste. That day, I did not envy vegetarians!

-Serving rice and grilled fish as part of breakfast!

-Sushi belts: Such a great thing that I wish existed in Vancouver! We found a really good one in Osaka which we would go to every night regardless of whether we had had dinner or not! The way it works is the sushi pieces (mostly Nigiri) are placed on a plate on a turning belt with a sign next to them. People are seated along the belt and can grab as many plates off the belt as they want. At the end you end up with a tower of plates in different colors, which indicate the prices of the plates. The place we went to to was called Daiki-Suisan and played a very patriotic music (about the place) outside the store for the people waiting in line. They had occasional big tuna displays for people to watch the chef as he cut the tuna. MM loved this place so much that he would sing along as we waited outside and would go above and beyond to make sure we got there in time for dinner. It was the first time I got to see his foody side!

-Street food: The street food was amazing. The places I remember in particular are a strictly Beer and Gyoza place as well as many takoyaki places in Osaka. The takoyaki places were small food stands with glass fronts that let people see the process of making them.

-Fish Market: Tokyo’s Tsukiji fish market is the largest wholesale fish market in Japan and famous for its tuna auctions that are held before the sunrise on most morning (the blue fin tunas can sell for up to a couple million dollars!) It had many vendors selling all kinds of fun an crazy seafood. I was a little more adventurous than MM when it came to trying new food (that didn’t necessarily look appetizing) and had some nice raw treats too such as exotic oysters and clams that literally felt and tasted like the bottom of the ocean (which MM couldn’t eat). The only thing that I wasn’t fully sure of was little red octopuses that seemed to be dried out. MM talked me out of trying those.

-Okonomiyaki: A savory version of Japanese pancake and a must try! We tried this one in a very artistic neighborhood in Tokyo and a very cool restaurant.

-Unusual vending machines and 7-11 Stores: Vending machines can be seen all over the town, including residential streets, back alleys and metro stations. They contain anything from cold (and hot) liquids to food to cooking condiments, fresh fruits, completely random items and even mystery items where you don’t know what the content is until you tear it apart! We mostly used them for hot canned coffee on our daily adventures which disappointed us a few times until we found the right color/types of the cans that were in fact hot! (cold coffee on a chilly morning doesn’t exactly feel right). 7-11 stores are nothing like ours in Canada! they serve numerous cool items and full meals and desserts and alcohol!

-Sweets and Pastries: Sooo many good bakeries and French pastry shops! I had some of the best desserts in Tokyo! I remember on the very first day we arrived to Tokyo, we went out to browse the streets really early in the morning and I smelled croissant in the making! I followed the smell like a pointer dog looking for birds and managed to find the source a few streets away!

C- Tours

We booked a tour online to visit a bonsai garden and a few other places which we thought would be a cool adventure. On the day we went to the main location where we would line up at the kiosk for that tour and then get on a van with the rest of our tourmates. We found out as we were waiting in the line that this may not have been the best choice; the other kiosks were so full of people and there were very few people at ours and they were mostly middle-aged tourists and the elderly who seemed bored. A happy energetic couple joined our line and we were relieved for a bit but soon they found out they were in the wrong line and so we had a good laugh about it! 😀 That being said, it turned out to be a pretty good tour! The bonsai garden was very nice and we got to see the making of matcha tea the traditional way and visited a few nice buildings, parks and a market.

E- Random stories

-Bathrooms: Right from the beginning i.e the airport, it was evident that the modern Japanese bathrooms were much more complicated than one would think! So many buttons with the writings in Japanese! I pulled a possibly emergency string on the first day at the airport which created a whole lot of crazy sounds and music and I had to run out of the bathroom as quickly as I could cause I wasn’t sure what had just happened! Ever since, I was very careful to not explore any of the buttons and really just try and focus on the flush! 😀

-Sushi Kebab: There was a sign for Sushi Kabab which to us seemed like a weird combo. It seemed that they were creating a promotional video the day we walked by it as there was a whole filming crew with someone talking to the microphone. Meanwhile, MM was loudly and dramatically expressing his disapproval of the whole idea as we walked by the microphone…. hopefully that didn’t get recorded! 😀

-Complicated subway system: The subway system was huge and seemed very complicated at first to us Vancouverites with a small population and only a few skytrain lines, a seabus, and a West Coast express. Soon we got used to the maps and the system and ended up using it on a daily basis. Towards the end, we didn’t even have to pay as much attention as we knew what we were doing. Also, the transportation system is never delayed and if so, they apologize like a million times for it! Another interesting fact is that the whole system is adhered to the needs of the blind people! There were yellow textured lines that they could follow to get to the trains. *thumps up*

-Cleanliness: The streets and public places were super clean, which came as a surprise given the high population. The cleanliness could be a combination of people respecting their neighborhood and the strict rules regarding no food on the street policy.

-Ordering Challenges: We were really shocked the first day we went out for lunch. We went to a small restaurant which had a machine for ordering food outside with the menu in Japanese. This was a pretty common pattern where you would see 3D models of some of the menu items outside as well as an ATM like machine where you would order your food (all in Japanese) and pay for it and then go inside and take the receipt with you to be served. As we were enjoying the first interaction with this machine and going back and forth between Google translate and trying to match some of the writings to the writings of the 3D food models, an elderly man who had just entered the line got a little impatient and came closer to the machine trying to insert his own cash right in the middle of our transaction. We had already chosen our food and put in some money in the machine and tried to explain it to him (who was also trying to explain things to us in Japanese), but due to language barriers we wouldn’t understand each other. He ended up pushing us aside and inserting his own money and it all got really confusing. Nevertheless, we ended up finishing the transaction and somehow got our food. 😀

-Fliers everywhere: There is always people giving out fliers for anything from food to touristy places to “love hotel” and other taboo places. Problem is I have a thing with taking/accepting/picking up and holding on to fliers. I also find it rude to ignore people handing me the fliers. As a result, I was constantly walking with 150 different fliers in my hands which I couldn’t even read! :-p MM tried to distract me every time by talking or guiding me to the other side of street as we got closer to the flier people, but there were just too many.

F-Arashiyama

Last but not least, the bamboo forest of Arashiyama was the main reason I went to Japan. I had a dream about this place a long time ago and when I woke up, I really wanted to know where that was. In my dream I was walking on a narrow dirt road that was fenced off with some dried plants and on each side, there were really tall trees going up to the sky. I don’t remember the details of the dream but the scenery really stuck to me and when I came across a picture later on with the same road, fence, and tress and the location listed underneath, I was determined to go. I knew it was a popular place in Kyoto and usually full of people, making it hard to fully experience, so we aimed to leave our place which was a few hours away when it was still dark out and make it to the forest just after the sunrise. It was truly a magical experience! The peace, the aroma of the bamboo and the sound of the wind through the leaves just made it surreal! We came back later that day after checking out the western outskirt of Kyoto and it was so full of people and not quite the same. We were both so happy to have made an arrangement to be there so early and experience the real thing.