Japan Trip 2019

Here’s the condensed version of my trip to Japan.  It’s a general summary of each day.

I’ve wanted to go to Japan for many years and had built a certain degree of expectation I wasn’t sure it could live up to.  I was concerned that the sights are more normal than what pictures and videos show, for the food to taste blander than I’m used to, for Videogames and Animé stuff to be a lot more niche than I thought, and for there to be a lot more cranky or angry people than I expected.  As usual, I hoped for the best and prepared for the worst.

I was with a friend from Los Angeles for the first week in Tokyo and I was going to join up with two other friends from back home for the 2^nd week in Osaka and Kyoto.

Ginza – January 20^th, 2019; Sunday

Landing in Tokyo, my friend and I were already in bad shape.  Both of us only slept for merely 2 hours Friday night and about 1 hour in the airplane between Saturday and Sunday.  Taking care of what we needed at the airport, we head to our hotel to check in and drop off our luggage.  The original plan was to go up Tokyo Tower that day, but taking care of business at the airport took so long that we only went to Tokyo Tower to take a few pictures from a distance before we headed to Ginza.  Walking around the streets of Tokyo, I was already a little disappointed by how normal it looked to a modern day city.  Going down the subway, I hit with a smell that distinctly reminds me of China with its musky stench.  I guess as clean as Japan is, it’s difficult to keep the subways from smelling so bad when all the dust, rain, and air gets trapped down there.

Reaching Ginza, we walk up the stairs of the subway and we’re immediately introduced to a few shopping malls, the Godzilla statue, lights that sparkled on all the trees along the street, and shop signs the lit up the night. “This is what I expected Japan to look like!” I exclaimed.  Ginza is well known for its wealth and class status and it certainly lives up to its reputation.  We were supposed to go to Midori no Sushi as it had a higher rating within the area; however, there was a whole line of people waiting to get in.  So we decide to go to Sushizanmai, a restaurant featured in a video I watched on YouTube.  We’re greeted with a loud and boisterous “irrashaimase” as they welcomed us in and sat us at the bar.  I exchanged a few words with the chef before we placed our order.  It was so exciting to finally get the chance to speak Japanese.  I ordered an assorted platter while my friend ordered a various Tuna platter.  Maybe it was because I wasn’t feeling well already, but the sushi was only a little better than back at home.  The miso soup; however, was way better than I expected.  After finishing everything other than the three tuna maki rolls, we paid for our dinner and headed back to the hotel as I started feeling dizzy and nauseous.

Akihabara – January 21^st, 2019; Monday

This was the place I was most excited for.  Akihabara is well known for Animé, Videogames, and other sub-culture goods.  The electric town once began as a farmer’s market that sold fresh produce back in the samurai days of the Edo period.  Much later, it was a place where electronics such as radio parts were sold and later on computer parts.  It still carries on that tradition, but has long since been taken over by countless stores that sell light novels, manga, licensed goods, figurines, videogames, promotional items and such.

Our first stop was a moé maid café called @home café.  I took interest in going to one as it seemed like such a different and unique experience that doesn’t seem to exist anywhere other than Japan.  My main interest was having the opportunity to speak as much Japanese as I could in a normal conversation.  I succeeded in having such an experience there and had a good time as well.  It was definitely the most Japanese I got to speak throughout the trip and the widest range of vocabulary I brought out.  I got curry rice that looked like a puppy’s face with Ambasa White which tasted like Calpico.  My friend got an omurice with a cat drawn on it with ketchup and a melon soda with a bunny drawn on top with syrup.  The food and drink was okay, but the experience was definitely fun and unique.

We had scheduled to meet up with three other friends from back home as they happened to have come to Japan at the same time.  We got together and wandered around the stores of Akihabara for a while before they decided to head off.  Akihabara is both a magical and terrifying place.  Shops are small with narrow pathways, but filled to the brim with merchandise.  Books, toys, keychains, posters, figurines, and other goods filled the walls and ceiling while audio advertisements are screaming from all corners of the shop.  It was like a mystical jungle of products in every shop we came across.  Some shops are 5 floors high, some that only specialize in retro games, and others that only carry animé figurines.  It was quite the sensory overload.

After going through a decent amount of shops, we headed up the stairs of a building that had another maid café at the top level.  The Cure Maid Café is known as one of the very first maid cafés to open up in Akihabara and I wanted to go there to specifically to try the demi-glace Omurice on their menu.  My friend got pork cutlet over rice and really enjoyed his meal.  I was still not feeling well at that point where I didn’t have much of an appetite and felt somewhat dizzy.  I liked the demi-glace sauce, but thought it was a tad bit salty.  I also wasn’t fond of the ketchup based rice.  I wish I felt better and the sauce wasn’t as salty so that I could enjoy the meal more.  I was also a bit disappointed there wasn’t more interaction with the maids so that I could speak more Japanese, but was still glad we had visited the café nonetheless.

After we got back to our hotel, we got hungry later on in the night and decided to look for a Soba shop to eat at.  Arriving at the restaurant, I noticed the menu was only in Japanese with no English.  They didn’t have English menus, but their menus had pictures.  I’ve never had hot soba before and decided to try that.  My friend never had soba at all before and decided to try cold soba as I told him it was my favorite.  After trying out my meal, I realized that I wasn’t a big fan of hot soba; however, it made me feel better after eating it.  My friend enjoyed his cold soba and said he wouldn’t mind eating it again sometime during the trip.  This was one of the few rare times where knowing a bit of Japanese really helped as most places we went to in Japan has English as well as employees that speak enough of it for anyone to get by.

Roppongi Hills, Shibuya, Harajuku, Shinjuku – January 22^nd, 2019; Tuesday

The next morning, we got up early to try to avoid the notorious rush hour as I had scheduled to meet up with a friend from college who was a Japanese exchange student at the time at Google’s cafeteria up in the Mori tower of Roppongi Hills.  Unfortunately, we still got caught in rush hour and experienced it first hand.  We met up with my friend, at some breakfast, saw the most spectacular view of Roppongi Hills (and forgot to take pictures), and then headed off to Shibuya to take some pictures.

We took some pictures of Shibuya crossing, the 109 building, and the statue of Hachiko.  Shibuya was a place of significance to me since a lot of videogames takes place in that one area with The World Ends With You being one of the most notable ones.  I drop by the Sanrio store near there before headed off to Harajuku.

In Harajuku, we dropped by a traditional style candy store, shopped at Kiddy Land which had several floors of toys, looked around the Oriental Bazaar, and ate at a shaved ice shop called Ice Monster.  The shaved ice was so fluffy that I couldn’t believe it was once a block of flavored ice.  We then made our way to Takeshita Street that Harajuku is well known for.  Harajuku is known for its colorful and strange fashion.  Unfortunately, I didn’t see any fashion that was particularly weird.  We dropped by Daiso to buy some masks to help with the cold air, pollution, dryness, and such.

We headed to Shinjuku, our last stop for the day.  Getting hungry, we headed towards a Tsukemen (dipped noodles) shop I saw while researching the area.  It was down a quiet street with no other shops around.  Arriving at the shop, we go in to buy our order from the kiosk and headed back outside to stand in line for room to free up inside the small building.  I’ve always been curious about dipped noodles and never see it served at the restaurants back at home.  As I dipped and bit into the noodles, I was surprised by how chewy and solid the noodles were.  It had structure and a coolness to it that made a nice contrast to the hot dip.  The dip was warm and had a nice meaty taste to it.  From what I understand, they use shrimp for the dip.  It was an addicting taste and I couldn’t stop eating until I realized I was too full to eat any more.  The portion they gave for the price I paid was beyond worth it.  That was possibly my favorite meal of the trip. 

We were supposed to check out Golden Gai of Shinjuku where they had a bunch of restaurants and food stalls.  But since we were so full, we decided to head over to the arcades to play for a bit and decide what to do afterwards.  I played on a claw machine and spent 5500 Yen before nabbing a figurine from an animé series I really liked.  I wouldn’t have gotten it either without the help of guy that worked there.  We played some games there for a while before we headed back outside where it was getting dark.  We were still full from the dipped noodles and tired from all the walking we did that day.  I was also still not feeling the best to eat Okonomiyaki, which I had planned that day in Shinjuku.  So we headed back to the hotel and ate a small meal at Yoshinoya later that night.  I’d love a Yoshinoya back at home where I can enjoy a simple beef bowl for a low price (beef bowls cost twice as much back at home).

Asakusa / Tokyo Skytree – January 23^rd,  2019; Wednesday

I woke up feeling a bit better that morning and wondered if my body had finally gotten a bit more used to the weather and environment.  Excited for the day of things we were going to eat that day, we set off to Asakusa.  Asakusa is home to a Buddhist temple, entertainment, and tons of shops.  Arriving at Kaminarimon (Thunder Gate), we’re surrounded by tons of tourists.  What I realized at that point, from the previous days and at that moment, was that there were a ton of Chinese people in Japan.  I think I heard Mandarin 65%-70% of the time I was in Japan.  Walking past Kaminarimon was Nakamise Shopping Street.  This street was full of shops and food stalls.  Down this street, we ate some dango covered in Kinako powder, green tea ice cream between something that looks like a pancake, strawberry in a daifuku mochi, rice crackers, ningyo-yaki (baked doll cakes), curry bread, and Melonpan.  In the shops, there were stuff like wooden dolls, sword umbrellas, weapons and replicas, kimonos, souvenirs, and such.  We walked further into the temple to look at the different monuments and buildings.  We eventually hit the end of the temple and head over to a gelato shop called Suzukien that is said to serve the strongest matcha gelato in the world.  There are seven levels of matcha you can choose from and I was too chicken to try the strongest.  I got a level 5 and really liked it, though I probably could’ve handled level 7 after tasting level 5.  We walk back down the temple on the other side to make our way back to the subway to get to Tokyo Skytree.

The original plan was to go up Tokyo Tower Sunday night and only take some pictures of Tokyo Skytree from the outside and do some shopping inside the mall below the structure.  But because we missed out on going up Tokyo Tower and we were doing so well on time that entire week after, we decided to go up Tokyo Skytree.  The elevator that took us up was quick, smooth, and large.  The view from the windows was a sight to behold.  I was overwhelmed with the view and got somewhat emotional.  It’s such a beautiful view of Tokyo and I couldn’t stop thinking about it or talking about it that entire day.  Before heading back down the tower, I took a picture on the glass floor.  It wasn’t as scary as I thought it’d because of all the bars that went across it, but it was still pretty cool to see.  Back on ground floor, I tell my friend “the city must look beautiful at night.  I think I’ll come back to Tokyo Skytree again at night the next time I come to Tokyo.”

We went back to Asakusa in order to try Ichiran Ramen, a shop I definitely didn’t want to miss out on.  We went down the small and narrow stairs that led to a small room that was already full of people eating.  We order our meals from our kiosk, got seated after a while, and then picked out all the settings we wanted for our meal such as richness of broth and toughness of noodles.  We each took a sip of our broth and were blown away by the complexity of its taste that was simultaneously really easy to put down.  I’ve never tasted ramen broth that was so strong in flavor, yet was nowhere close to overwhelming.  The noodles were thinner than I thought it’d be, but it had structure and held up in the hot broth.  I’ve heard before that Ichiran Ramen is overrated, but it was the best ramen I had in Japan.  It’s definitely one of the things I miss most about Japan other than tsukemen.

Ikebukuro / Tokyo Tower – January 24^th,  2019; Thursday

Ikebukuro is full of malls, shops, theatres, entertainment and the like.  The major reason for coming to Ikebukuro was to check out the Pokémon Center there as it’s known to be the biggest one in Tokyo.  We checked out a Sanrio store before we went into a Taito Game Station arcade to play some games together.  We saw a Luigi’s Mansion arcade cabinet noticed it was two-player co-op.  We decided to play it and it lasted for quite a while before getting a Game Over.  My friend convinced me to finally try out a Fate Grand Order Arcade cabinet, and so I bought a progression card played for a bit.  It’s pretty cool because any cards you get in the game can be printed out in real life for a physical version of it.  You can then use the physical cards to be read from the machine and used back in the game whenever you come back to any of the cabinets.  We also played Mario Kart and Taiko no Tatsujin.

Wanting to take a break from being indoors, we head towards a local park that was essentially just a fountain in the middle of the city.  Unfortunately, we were greeted with a wall of white barriers for construction as everything that was there before was no more.  We headed back the way we came to go to Sunshine City Mall where the Pokémon Center was.  As we were getting hungry, we went down the halls of the mall to see what kind of food they had.  One particular café had some interesting Western style cuisine and we decided to eat there.  We sat down at Kenny’s House Café Izukogen and were given a small dish of salad with the meal we ordered.  I ordered a rice dish with white sauce that had asparagus, mushrooms and sausages while my friend order an Omurice dish that was a piece of art.  That Omurice was swirled up like a soft serve in a pool of curry sauce and the rice was fried rice that wasn’t ketchup based.  I only took one bite of the omurice, but I can tell that it was the best omurice we’ve gotten from the trip so far.  My meal was just as good with a wedge of lemon given to squeeze into my rice which was a nice contrast to the rich, creamy sauce.  It was probably my favorite non-Japanese meal from the trip.

After our meal, we walked around the mall for a bit before heading towards the Pokémon Center where I bought a bunch of plushies.  We got some crepes afterwards, went across the mall to Animate to check out some of the stores around there, and checked out the Gamers store on our way back to Round 1.  We dropped by Round 1 for a while to play at the arcade.  It was music rhythm heaven on one of the floors as each part of the room had Dance Rush, Sound Voltex, ONGEKI, and many other cabinets there.  I decided to finally try out ONGEKI, a music rhythm game that has you dodge bullets while matching up the beats with button presses on the cabinet as well as the sides of it.  It was an interesting experience and it also has the physical card mechanic that the FGO Arcade cabinet had.

After we left Round 1, we headed back to our hotel to drop off all the things I bought that day so that I didn’t need to carry it around to where we were headed next.  After hearing how happy I was with our trip up Tokyo Skytree the previous day, my friend suggested that we go up Tokyo Tower at night since I wanted to see the city at night time.  Seeing how good we were doing with time that day, I took up my friend’s suggestion and we headed over to Tokyo Tower once more.  Thankfully, there wasn’t a long line of people waiting for the tour and we got to get in fairly quickly.  The tower was built in 1958 and so the elevators for it are really small.  Because of that, the process to get people up and down the top deck is somewhat of an exhausting task for them everyday.  We got in line to get our audio tour guides in the form of a smart phone, waited in a room for a while, had a small introductory lesson on how the tower was built in the next room, took an elevator up to the middle deck, took another elevator to a higher deck to take a picture, and then we were brought to the top deck where we got to see the full view of the city at night.  It was beautiful and totally worth it.  I couldn’t believe I almost missed out on it.

By the time we got back to the hotel, it was so late that all the restaurants around us were closed.  My friend was thinking about picking up some food from 7-Eleven to eat, but I saw a menu from the restaurant right next to it and asked him if he wanted to eat there instead.  It turned out to be an izakaya (bar and pub where people drink, smoke ‘in some places’, and eat late night) and had the smell of cigarettes linger in the air.  Despite that, I enjoyed the dinner we had there with the seafood Okonomiyaki and fried fish we ordered.

Nakano – January 25^th,  2019; Friday

Nakano is supposedly “the place to be” for sub-culture fans.  When I asked another friend of mine whether Akihabara was their favorite place, they said “no, Nakano has the good stuff.  I buy all my stuff there.”  I had planned to go to Nakano from the start and was curious as to what made it so great since I found very little information on it.  I take my friend to a local park to get some fresh air as we were going to spend the rest of the day indoors.  The park was small, deserted, and not particularly special, but it was an interesting experience walking around what seemed like a semi-rural part of Tokyo.

We head back to the shopping district and got some Takoyaki.  I’m glad we had stopped for Takoyaki there as it was the best one I had in Japan out of the three times I had it.  Going down Sun Mall, I grabbed a croquette, bought an old strategy guide for Phantasy Star Universe from a gaming shop, and we ate at McDonald’s.  Advised by my younger cousins who went to Japan a few years ago, I got an Ebi Filet-O (Shrimp Sandwich) and my friend got one with a Melon Soda Float (my cousins recommended Strawberry Soda Float, but they didn’t have it).  I’ve wanted to try croquette for many years, and it lived up to what I’ve always dreamed it would taste like: crispy on the outside; soft and flavorful on the inside.  The Melon Soda Float was okay (I think I would’ve like the strawberry version), but the Ebi Filet-O was great!  That crispy outer layer with the tender pieces of shrimp inside the soft and juicy patty was a much better version of the Fish Filet Sandwich.  Not to mention that the bun was extremely soft.  McDonald’s might be an American franchise, but it’s certainly better everywhere else other than America (at least from my experience eating at the ones from China and Japan).

We head into Nakano Broadway and went through 3-4 floors of countless shops that that figurines, posters, toys, and another goods related to Western comics, videogames, animé, and the like.  We shopped a bit and hung out at the arcades for a while before continuing our shopping spree.  Not only did the stores have a lot of great items, they were also at really low prices.  There were rare items as well.  Now I realize why my friend liked coming here.  I had a lot of fun shopping there and got a lot of great items to bring back home.  And the reason why I couldn’t find much information on the place was the fact that there were “no pictures allowed” posted in every shop.

It was still fairly early when we got back to the hotel.  We had planned on eating a French dip sandwich at the sandwich shop right outside our hotel, but the dip machine was broken and they were going to fix it over the weekend.  We ended up going to the udon shop next door called Hanamaru Udon.  I wasn’t too fond of udon from the many times I ate it back at home; however, this place changed my mind that night.  Back at home, udon is slimy, mushy, and was often in the same broth as ramen but didn’t taste nearly as good as ramen.  Because of this, I thought I’d try out cold udon.  Much like the dipped noodles I had earlier in the week, the udon had structure and chewiness to it.  The dip used for cold udon is the same one used for cold soba, and it was really good.  My friend got a regular bowl of udon with a large piece of fried tofu in it.  We both also got a croquette to add to our meal.  Both of us really enjoyed the udon and decided to come back a few hours later once we got hungry again.  The second time, I got a regular bowl of udon with beef while my friend tried the cold udon I got.  It was great and the noodles were still good inside the hot broth that tasted a bit like miso soup.  From making cold soba noodles at home, I realized at that point why udon didn’t taste as good back at home: a lot of restaurants back home skip the very last step of washing the noodles in ice cold water.  Doing so washes off the starch from the outside of the noodles and shocks the noodles so that it stops cooking further and forms that structure.  So the only way I could really enjoy udon back at home is look for an authentic Japanese restaurant or make it myself.

Ueno – January 26^th,  2019; Saturday

For our last day, we were going to walk around Ueno Onshi Park and eat along the streets of Ameyayokocho.  Ueno Onshi Park is large with tons of nature, historic buildings and monuments, exhibits and zoos, fairs and performances, and other attractions.  After walking around the park for a bit, we went to Ameyayokocho to start our food adventure.  Down that street, we ate a Chinese meat sandwich, Sheng Jian Bao, Menchi-katsu, Beef meatballs, Kebab, soft serve, and Xiao Long Bao.  We were stuffed and couldn’t eat anymore.  We returned to the park and wandered around a bit longer until it started to rain a bit.  We decided to call it a day and headed back to the hotel.

I had planned to eat Tonkatsu that night, but that restaurant was unfortunately closed that night for whatever reason.  My friend and I ended up going to an Izakaya and ate seared duck, cold soba, grilled chicken and grilled beef.  The seared duck in particular was really good.  Thinking back on it, we probably could’ve eaten more and should’ve ordered more.  It was a good meal, nonetheless.

Tokyo to Osaka Bullet Train – January 27^th,  2019; Sunday

We were thinking of hanging out for a few hours before my friend and I headed on our separate ways.  He had a flight at 7PM back to Los Angeles and I had to take a bullet train to Osaka anytime I wanted.  Not knowing what to do for a few hours and worried I’d run into trouble finding my way to the Airbnb at Osaka, we decided to part ways shortly after checking out of our hotel at 10AM.  I walked with my friend to the subway and parted ways there.  I continued to walk down the street to get to the main train station that had bullet trains going towards Osaka.  Halfway through the train ride, I thought I might’ve made a mistake with my train ticket purchase as I only asked to get to Shin-Osaka and still had two more stops after that.  After I straightened out the fact that I could still use my ticket to transfer to those last two places, I got to the stop closest to my Airbnb.

Unfortunately for me, there was a marathon going on that day.  So instead of walking across the street to get to my destination, I had to walk around, go up a bridge (with my heavy luggage) and back down the bridge to get back on the path for the house.  Having not read the instructions clearly on how to get to the Airbnb, I was lost and couldn’t figure out where it was.  I stopped an old lady riding her bike and she tried to make sense of the map.  She asked the man tending the garden shop near us and he pointed us across the street.  We walk up and down the street three times until another elderly man on his bike asked what we were looking for.  The two stayed with me close to an hour until the old man found the building inside an alleyway and pointed it out to me.  After thanking them profusely for their help, I dropped down my things, rested for a bit and went downstairs to eat ramen at the shop right next door.  The ramen wasn’t bad, but it was rather plain despite how hungry I was at that point (ate breakfast at 9AM, was eating lunch at 4PM).

I waited for quite a few hours for my friends to arrive, but eventually got a text message from them that they were stuck at the train station because the taxi wouldn’t drive them to the house.  I walked over to the train station and helped carry their luggage while they carried their baby daughter and stroller back to the house.  Dropping off everything, we let my friend’s wife and daughter sleep while we went back out for dinner.  We went to a ramen shop close by to eat tsukemen.  It was pretty good, but not nearly as good as the one I had in Tokyo at Shinjuku.

Osaka Castle – January 28^th,  2019; Monday

When we got to Osaka Castle, the first thing we did was get a takoyaki and an Oubanyaki (a kind of pancake with custard inside).  The takoyaki wasn’t very good, unfortunately.  The octopus in particular was mushy.  The pancake was also kind of boring.  Went further in, took some pictures, and eventually decided to purchase entry into the castle to check it out.  The castle was full of dioramas, videos, and all sorts of medium to tell the history and significance of the people involved with the castle.  It was a bit more interesting to me than to my friends since it was related to the wars during the sengoku era of which I learned from playing Samurai Warriors and from watching my father play Nobunaga’s Ambition all those years ago.  We go to one of the nearby buildings where they had restaurants and gift shops. We ate fried pork, nikuman, oden, and matcha ice cream.  After a bit of shopping, we went to a shopping mall where my friends wanted to check out the Pokémon Center.  We ate dinner at the mall where I got my tonkatsu on top of curry udon.  The tonkatsu was so crispy and flaky on the outside, but so juicy and soft on the inside.  I could never eat tonkatsu back at home without feeling disappointed.  When we got back to our Airbnb house, we bought some dessert from the grocery store across the street and relaxed for the rest of the night.

Dōtonbori / Den Den Town – January 29^th,  2019; Tuesday

Dōtonbori is a place in Osaka known for the plethora of food stalls and restaurant there.  During our day there, we ate crab shell and crab legs, Takoyaki (which was better than Osaka Castle, but not as good as the one I had at Nakano when I was in Tokyo), deep fried vegetables, yakisoba, okonomiyaki, coffee, iced coffee, cake and cookies, Taiyaki, and a latte.  After the wandering, shopping and eating at Dōtonbori, we walk further down the street to Den Den Town.  Den Den Town is like a mini Akihabara in Osaka where they have a lot of the same products: cards, figurines, toys; the usual merchandise.  I ended up buying three figurines despite the limited amount of space I had left in my luggage.  I was really considering my friends’ suggestion of buying another suitcase.  As it got later, we started getting hungry again and dropped by a café.  I got a chili dog while my friends got a crepe layered cake.  I was a bit worried about my order as the chili came from a plastic bag.  Surprisingly, it was delicious!  We went back to the mall with the train station near our Airbnb and ate at Muji’s.  I got a mapo tofu and one of my friends got a croquette.  Everything else they got was kind of a mystery to me, but they were good.  After grabbing all our belongings, we headed off to Kyoto.

Mt. Inari / Inari Shrine – January 30^th,  2019; Wednesday

Near the foot of Mt. Inari were a bunch of food stalls.  I finally got to try yakitori, but it wasn’t cooked on top of hot coals and was cooked on a teppan.  Still, it was delicious as the meat was soft and juicy.  We then began our hike up Mt. Inari, taking pictures and videos as we ascended the steps and passed through the large torii gates.  We eventually passed by a small shack that served udon, green tea and dessert in a tatami room.  Unfortunately, the food was mediocre and the dessert was a packaged item they just served on a dish that they didn’t even bother taking out of the wrapper.  My friend and I felt ripped off, but his wife felt satisfied since we got some good pictures out of it.  After a certain point, my friends asked if we should head back down.  Keep in mind they’re both carry backpacks full of baby items as well as carry the baby themselves.  I asked if we could go up one more flight of stairs because I had a good feeling about the view.  We go up and it was indeed a great view of the city below with the mountains in the background.  We take a few pictures and videos before we started heading back down the stairs.  We come across a stand selling croquette and so I buy one to eat.  I love croquette.  Further down, we come across a small shop that advertised something unusual: Seared Ice Lolly.  My friends were curious and wanted to try it.  It was kind of like a popsicle that was partly made of mochi seared on the outside with a torch.  It was interesting, but not delicious enough that I would recommend it.  When we reached the food stalls at the foot of the mountain again, I grabbed a large sausage at one of the stalls.  Just as I imagined, it was juicy and full of flavor.

We went to Gion after we left Mt. Inari and ate at McDonald’s.  I got another Ebi Filet-O, a chicken sandwich for my friend, and a strawberry soft serve.  The bun wasn’t as soft as the one I had in Tokyo, but I think the patty might have been even better.  Walking down the streets of Gion, we did some light shopping and came across a Melonpan shop.  We got a vanilla ice-cream melonpan at first, but we enjoyed it so much that we got a second one with match ice-cream.  We came across a shop that sold small donuts made with soy.  It was okay and not particularly special.  We go into a Sanrio store and I’m really hoping I don’t see anything else I want because I wasn’t even sure if I could carry all the stuff back home.  Then I see a Cinnamoroll in a cat outfit that I just couldn’t ignore.  It was a little goofy looking and it made it that much cuter.  I couldn’t help it and bought it.

After some more shopping in Gion, my friend had another friend that was visiting in Kyoto as well and wanted to meet up.  We met up at a café, got some food and drinks and chatted for a while.  My friends got roll cakes, coffee, and pancakes.  I got a yuzu soda which was just yuzu syrup with real yuzu mixed into club soda.  It was so good that I was eating the yuzu skin peel at the bottom of the cup.  It was getting late and we were hungry after we parted ways with my friend’s friend and decided we were all going to meet up the next day at Uji.  After walking down an entire street of food, my friends decided on eating sukiyaki.  I was little worried about cost, but was so hungry that I didn’t care anymore.  Our dinner came with Unagi over rice, a few pieces of sashimi, some small vegetables, and some raw eggs with our order of meat.  Putting in the vegetables, onions, tofu, noodles and meat along with the sauce, the sukiyaki had a lot less liquid in it than I thought.  It was not the usual hotpot I normally see in videogames and animé.  Satisfied with our dinner, we headed back to our Airbnb to prepare for the next day.

Uji – January 31^st,  2019; Thursday

The next morning, we headed over to Gion for a very special breakfast.  We were going to eat what was known as a “maiko meal”.  A “maiko” is a “geisha” in training and a “geisha” is a traditional female hostess who is a professional at entertaining guests with conversation, music, and poetry.  We’re brought to our own private room and order two small orders and one large one.  Each order has 5 parts to it.  The small meal gets three dishes of small appetizers while the large meal gets 12 dishes.  These appetizers consist of small or single bites of vegetables, seafood, and the like.  The 2^nd part is a soup.  I have no idea what the soup is.  The 3^rd part the small meals get tempura vegetables while the large meal gets cooked fish.  The 4^th part is the main course with 13 different bite sized sushi with one slice of (beet?  I’m not sure what it was) and some ginger.  Each bite was a different experience with strong flavor and various textures.  It was the most interesting meal I had during the trip that was definitely more of an experience than a necessity of filling the stomach.  The meal ends with a mochi as the 5^th part.

As planned from the previous day, we head over to Uji to meet with my friend’s friend.  We go into a small shop that sold matcha goods as well as serving food as a small restaurant.  Uji is known for its matcha green tea leaves and so everything in that area is matcha based.  We get a matcha crepe, hot matcha soba, and matcha ice cream.  Had I known we weren’t going to eat much at that time, I would’ve gotten a donburi at that time.  We finished our meal and headed towards another similar shop that sold various green teas and had a section to sit and dine.  We all ordered various sweets to compliment the matcha green tea that we got.  I was finally curious enough about houjicha that I looked it up online and realized that it’s naturally decaffeinated.  I don’t take caffeine very well, so it was perfect for me.  I did try a sip of the highest grade matcha as I was curious about its taste.  It was viscous and had a deep color; however, it was not as bitter as I thought it’d be.  It had a strong matcha taste that wasn’t as overwhelming as I thought it’d be.  I tried out my houjicha and instantly became a fan.  It has a nice roasted taste to it that’s light and subtle.  After enjoying our tea, I bought a bunch of items as gifts since my mom loved matcha.  We eventually went into one other shop and I bought some more matcha based sweets such as chocolate and kit-kats before we left and headed off to Gion.

I have a friend that lived in Kyoto for 5 years now and asked if he was able to meet up with us and hang out.  We met at the Pokémon Center in Gion where I ended up buying more plushies as I realized, after buying a ton of stuff at Uji, that there was no way I could bring everything back home without buying another luggage.  My friend recommended a ramen shop for dinner and it was great!  The broth had a nice milky texture that made it rich and creamy.  A lot of the ingredients felt a bit different from the usual method of cooking which made for a unique experience.  I miss eating ramen in Japan.  We headed back to our Airbnb and picked up some dessert at the Family Mart before returning home to enjoy it.

Arashiyama Bamboo Grove – February 1^st,  2019; Friday

This was the one and only time we saw it snowing in Japan, as light of a shower as it could be.  Walking towards the Bamboo Grove, we made many stops along the way to shop and eat at food stalls.  We ate chicken skin, some meat sausage thing, sweet egg, more croquette, fried pork sausage, gourmet cotton candy (the best cotton candy I’ve ever had), strawberry in a daifuku mochi (my friends wanted to try it), warabi mochi (probably my favorite sweet I tried in Japan), wagashi, sweet potato, deep-fried gyoza, and fish cake with the likeness of a crab leg.  Yes, it took us quite a while before we managed to get to the grove.

The Bamboo Grove was an interesting place with its mystifying walkways through the numerous, tall vegetation.  It was almost otherworldly looking up at them.  We eventually get to the foot of Mt. Arashi and paid our 1000 yen entrance that also included a free green tea and sweet at the tea house.  The roadways, vegetation, and mountainsides were beautiful and seemed somewhat surreal.  Walking up the mountain was kind of like a mini-adventure.  One of my favorite moments was getting up to the top villa and looking out towards the horizon with Mt. Hiei-zan in the background.  After appreciating the sights up in the mountain, we walked back down to the tea house to enjoy our complimentary tea and sweets.  Afterwards, we made our way towards a tofu house where we had a large, fancy tofu dinner.  After our dinner, we ran out of things to do and headed back to Gion where my friend and I hung out at Round 1 and played some arcade games before we headed back home to prepare for the last day in Kyoto.

Gion – February 2^nd,  2019; Saturday

My friend living in Kyoto had a little bit of time to hang out once more, and so I left the house early to meet up with him in Gion.  We went to a nearby café called Hoshino Coffee (I think it had a different name in Japanese) after I saw that they had the Soufflé Style Pancake.  As much as I wanted to try the pancake, I ended up getting a normal Vanilla Soufflé.  My friend saw an item on the menu called the “Eggslut Set” and ordered that because it amused him.  I looked up that name online and found that there was a restaurant in Las Vegas with the same name and the same dish.  So it is possible that it’s a direct menu item from that restaurant that somehow made its way to this café in Kyoto, Japan.  My soufflé was soft, not too sweet, and left a really good impression (I think it was my first time eating a soufflé).  My friend enjoyed the Eggslut Set which was a sunnyside egg on top of Salisbury sauce of some kind with mashed potato underneath, possibly all used to put on the slice of toast that came with the meal.  Thinking about what to do, my friend mentions book-off and that there were animé goods there.  Thinking on the fact that I was going to buy a luggage anyways, I asked him to take me there where I ended up buying around 4-5 more figurines.

I met up with my other friends in a small café after saying my farewells to my friend living in Kyoto (he doesn’t plan on coming back to the States if he can help it).  We eat some more Japanese desserts (I have no idea what we ate) and then headed off to a kimono rental shop.  My friends wanted to rent some kimono and walk around the old streets of Gion to take some pictures.  We spent the rest of the day walking around and taking pictures.  Eventually, we got hungry and started buying food from stalls and vendors.  We got kobe-beef menchi-katsu, triple-cheese menchi-katsu, curry croquette, matcha ice-cream, fried rice cake, black sesame ice cream, and grilled dango.  Still, it wasn’t enough and we ended up feeling hungry all throughout the evening while we were shopping.

Eventually, we went to a Yakiniku restaurant (Japanese BBQ) where we had 2 hours to eat as much as we wanted.  Seeing that they had vegetables, we ordered a bunch since I was craving vegetables all trip long.  The overall experience eating there was pretty good, and it ended with us getting two orders of yuzu sorbet.  As we headed back to our airbnb, I picked up a Viennetta ice-cream cake from Family Mart and shared it with my friends that night as they no longer carry that item back at home (I used to eat them as a child).  I spent the rest of the night packing up as we prepared to go our separate ways the next day (I was going back home while my friends were continuing their trip in China).

It was a wonderful and magical trip that kept surprising me each day.  Both the sights of traditional and modern Japan were beautiful, a majority of the food were incredible and a lot cheaper than I expected, animé and videogames were quite prevalent throughout the cities which gave me a lot of places to shop and be entertained, and people were generally pretty nice, but there definitely was some cranky people (which should be normal as all parts of the world will have all sorts of people in them).  As an ending note, I’d like to say that you should definitely take a trip to Japan if you have any interest because knowing Japanese isn’t necessary (at least in most of Tokyo) and it’s foreigner-friendly in most places.  If there’s anything you should do to prepare for the trip, it’s building up stamina in both cardio and leg muscles so that you can travel further and longer each day and make the most of your trip.

じゃあ、またね!