Thursday, May 10, 2007
April 16, ‘O’ cities.
Well we slept in this morning, all the way to 9:00! Which, by the way, is 4 in the afternoon back home. Yeesh. Got out of the hostel and took a streetcar back to the rail station, thus completing the list of every kind of public transportation known to man.
We had some time before our train left so we walked around Hiroshima station and found a supermarket. I got some rice…things. Seaweed wrapped triangles of rice with stuff in the middle. I really liked the one with fish. Yummers. Unfortunately, I can’t read the label, so the stuff in the middle is always a surprise.
The plan for the day was to make our way slowly up to Osaka, stopping at whatever little place we felt like. Our first stop was Okayama.
Okayama’s main attractions are a castle and nearby gardens. The castle exterior was very nice, but we had our backpacks on and didn’t feel like marching all over, up and down floors, having to take off our highly complicated hiking boots.
We saw this cat on the way up to the castle. It was really friendly and was super-pleased to let Jess pet him. Then, right when we left, another Japanese family tried to go up and pet him. Cat wanted nothing to do with them. Jess has super-cat-powers.
The garden, on the other hand, was gorgeous, huge, and well worth the effort it took to lug our bags around. There were all types of different section with different plant types. We just caught the end of the cherry blossom bloom so the ground was all carpeted with pedals. There were also immaculately groomed bushes, trees, islands and the like. Really pretty.
We stopped to eat lunch under a branch by the lake, which was really picturesque and nice until a swarm of pigeons descended upon us. We kept them away, though.
There was a larger building with lots of arts & crafts inside, huge lake and waterfalls, and even a tea house with a river running through the middle. That was my favorite, I think. I want a river running through my house.
We went back to the station and decided that little stop-offs weren’t quite worth the effort, what with backpack-lugging and figuring out public transportation at every little different city, so we just made our way up to Osaka. Jess, adorable again, fell asleep on my chest.
We found our way to the JR local lines and took the main loop to our hostel. A businessman chatted with us about our travels (in English) which was pretty nice. Jess gave him one of the little American keychain trinket things we brought to give away to people. Jess is getting pretty good at handing those out to helpful people.
The hostel was pretty acceptable, but the beds felt like they were just boxsprings.
We went out to look for dinner and passed a bunch of cheap business hotels, stand-up udon eateries…pachinko parlors…transient-looking types…a homeless shelter… Suddenly I’m quite glad that Jess and I are together. I wasn’t really expecting anything dangerous, Japan being what it is, but the safety in numbers felt nice. I imagine we would have felt a lot better if I could speak the language. Imagine a dirty-looking old Japanese man comes up to us and starts jabbering at us in Japanese. “Aaah! Help! We’re being robbed…I think!” Meanwhile:
Eventually we found an eatery, even thought the menu was all in Japanese. I’ll just eat anything, so I asked for a recommendation and the guy pointed at something at the menu. Sure! I’ll eat that. Jess got some rice and vegetables and the recommendation turned out to be Kobe beef! The place was what I would normally think of as a ‘Korean BBQ’ in America where there is a grill in the table and you cook your own food. In Japan, though, who knows what they call it? Anyway, we grilled our beef and tried it out, and it was some really good beef! We ordered a second set. Yum!
Then on the way home we stopped at a ‘mart’ for some desert. Came back to the hostel, took a nice, hot, long, Japanese bath (and sauna) and then fell asleep.
Tomorrow…fish! Live ones, though!
-N
Well we slept in this morning, all the way to 9:00! Which, by the way, is 4 in the afternoon back home. Yeesh. Got out of the hostel and took a streetcar back to the rail station, thus completing the list of every kind of public transportation known to man.
We had some time before our train left so we walked around Hiroshima station and found a supermarket. I got some rice…things. Seaweed wrapped triangles of rice with stuff in the middle. I really liked the one with fish. Yummers. Unfortunately, I can’t read the label, so the stuff in the middle is always a surprise.
The plan for the day was to make our way slowly up to Osaka, stopping at whatever little place we felt like. Our first stop was Okayama.
Okayama’s main attractions are a castle and nearby gardens. The castle exterior was very nice, but we had our backpacks on and didn’t feel like marching all over, up and down floors, having to take off our highly complicated hiking boots.
We saw this cat on the way up to the castle. It was really friendly and was super-pleased to let Jess pet him. Then, right when we left, another Japanese family tried to go up and pet him. Cat wanted nothing to do with them. Jess has super-cat-powers.
The garden, on the other hand, was gorgeous, huge, and well worth the effort it took to lug our bags around. There were all types of different section with different plant types. We just caught the end of the cherry blossom bloom so the ground was all carpeted with pedals. There were also immaculately groomed bushes, trees, islands and the like. Really pretty.
We stopped to eat lunch under a branch by the lake, which was really picturesque and nice until a swarm of pigeons descended upon us. We kept them away, though.
There was a larger building with lots of arts & crafts inside, huge lake and waterfalls, and even a tea house with a river running through the middle. That was my favorite, I think. I want a river running through my house.
We went back to the station and decided that little stop-offs weren’t quite worth the effort, what with backpack-lugging and figuring out public transportation at every little different city, so we just made our way up to Osaka. Jess, adorable again, fell asleep on my chest.
We found our way to the JR local lines and took the main loop to our hostel. A businessman chatted with us about our travels (in English) which was pretty nice. Jess gave him one of the little American keychain trinket things we brought to give away to people. Jess is getting pretty good at handing those out to helpful people.
The hostel was pretty acceptable, but the beds felt like they were just boxsprings.
We went out to look for dinner and passed a bunch of cheap business hotels, stand-up udon eateries…pachinko parlors…transient-looking types…a homeless shelter… Suddenly I’m quite glad that Jess and I are together. I wasn’t really expecting anything dangerous, Japan being what it is, but the safety in numbers felt nice. I imagine we would have felt a lot better if I could speak the language. Imagine a dirty-looking old Japanese man comes up to us and starts jabbering at us in Japanese. “Aaah! Help! We’re being robbed…I think!” Meanwhile:
Eventually we found an eatery, even thought the menu was all in Japanese. I’ll just eat anything, so I asked for a recommendation and the guy pointed at something at the menu. Sure! I’ll eat that. Jess got some rice and vegetables and the recommendation turned out to be Kobe beef! The place was what I would normally think of as a ‘Korean BBQ’ in America where there is a grill in the table and you cook your own food. In Japan, though, who knows what they call it? Anyway, we grilled our beef and tried it out, and it was some really good beef! We ordered a second set. Yum!
Then on the way home we stopped at a ‘mart’ for some desert. Came back to the hostel, took a nice, hot, long, Japanese bath (and sauna) and then fell asleep.
Tomorrow…fish! Live ones, though!
-N
Labels: Castle, Garden, Japan, Kobe Beef, Okayama, Shopping
Thursday, May 03, 2007
April 14, the Kobe vegetarian tour.
Here’s a quote from my journal:
“Okay, let’s get this out of the way. I didn’t try kobe beef. I’m sure it’s spectacular and all, but I didn’t get around to doing it. Why?
1) Couldn’t find a restaurant near the Hostel.
2) It’s just beef, I doubt I’d *appreciate* it.
3) If I really wanted to, I’m sure I could get some elsewhere in Japan, or even LA
4) It’s expensive
5) Of course I’d like it! I like eating! You’ll slow down and taste anything if it’s supposed to be ‘great’.
Sure I would have tried it, but it’s relatively low on my list of things to do in Japan.”
I did get some eventually, but that’s a later entry.
So we woke up at the stupid, uncomfortable, awful hostel and rearranged my joints back into proper working order. Then it was off to the station and then to Kobe.
Our first order of business was to lock up our enormous backpacks in coin lockers (we did this a lot, really nice to get rid of all that weight). After that, we hiked up behind the station and into the undeveloped mountains behind Kobe in search of, reportedly, waterfalls.
Boy did we find them! There were four of them within 20 minutes of the station, and some of them were fantastically pretty. Let me tell you, though, that was a seriously steep 20 minutes. It’s rather intimidating to look up at this enormous, huge, tall waterfall, then do some walking and later discover that you are higher than that waterfall was. That burns right in the quadriceps, let me tell you.
But yeah, waterfalls and nature. This was Jessie’s favorite stop of the trip.
And while we were hiking, what did we find? Could it be another gondola right, right next to the rail station? It is! We shuffled over there and got ourselves some tickets, taking a fantastic gondola ride up the mountain. There wasn’t anything like the first one, with that huge span over the volcanic valley floor, but it was still nice to get a view of the city and a ride up the mountain. We also got to see the very waterfall we had hiked past mere minutes before.
The top of the gondola ride was just a neat little place with some things to see, but we only bothered to walk through the ‘fragrance museum’, which was neat because they had lots of different smells to smell. I’m sure if we could have read the text that the history of perfume would have been gripping, but, you know, Japan.
After that we took some metro lines to near where our hostel was supposed to be. Then I got us hiking the *wrong way* to our hostel. Nice. Jessie got me back on track. Glad to have her along.
We got out and walked around near the hostel, but none of the recommended sights were near, which was okay by me because none of them seemed particularly gripping. (Chinatown? We have one of those back home. America town? Now you’re just being silly.)
Instead, it turns out that our hostel was near Sake breweries. Very neat. We got to try some sake, see the tools used to make sake, both in the past and today, and then walk through a tour to see how sake is made. Unfortunately, we walked through the tour backwards, so as near as I can tell; sake is taken out of bottles then allowed to ferment until it is steamed rice. Then they soak it until dry, polish it until the outer husk is back on, and then plant it in the ground. I don’t know where the alcohol comes from.
Our tour through…whatever neighborhood of Kobe we were in finished up with some local flavor. We saw some sort of Japanese percussion orchestra practicing, then a bunch of people playing baseball in a park, a guy walking some cute puppy-dogs and a supermarket, where we bought dinner. We took our meal back to the hostel and ate it in the main room while we watched some Anime with the other guests and the host. Then sleep.
-N
Here’s a quote from my journal:
“Okay, let’s get this out of the way. I didn’t try kobe beef. I’m sure it’s spectacular and all, but I didn’t get around to doing it. Why?
1) Couldn’t find a restaurant near the Hostel.
2) It’s just beef, I doubt I’d *appreciate* it.
3) If I really wanted to, I’m sure I could get some elsewhere in Japan, or even LA
4) It’s expensive
5) Of course I’d like it! I like eating! You’ll slow down and taste anything if it’s supposed to be ‘great’.
Sure I would have tried it, but it’s relatively low on my list of things to do in Japan.”
I did get some eventually, but that’s a later entry.
So we woke up at the stupid, uncomfortable, awful hostel and rearranged my joints back into proper working order. Then it was off to the station and then to Kobe.
Our first order of business was to lock up our enormous backpacks in coin lockers (we did this a lot, really nice to get rid of all that weight). After that, we hiked up behind the station and into the undeveloped mountains behind Kobe in search of, reportedly, waterfalls.
Boy did we find them! There were four of them within 20 minutes of the station, and some of them were fantastically pretty. Let me tell you, though, that was a seriously steep 20 minutes. It’s rather intimidating to look up at this enormous, huge, tall waterfall, then do some walking and later discover that you are higher than that waterfall was. That burns right in the quadriceps, let me tell you.
But yeah, waterfalls and nature. This was Jessie’s favorite stop of the trip.
And while we were hiking, what did we find? Could it be another gondola right, right next to the rail station? It is! We shuffled over there and got ourselves some tickets, taking a fantastic gondola ride up the mountain. There wasn’t anything like the first one, with that huge span over the volcanic valley floor, but it was still nice to get a view of the city and a ride up the mountain. We also got to see the very waterfall we had hiked past mere minutes before.
The top of the gondola ride was just a neat little place with some things to see, but we only bothered to walk through the ‘fragrance museum’, which was neat because they had lots of different smells to smell. I’m sure if we could have read the text that the history of perfume would have been gripping, but, you know, Japan.
After that we took some metro lines to near where our hostel was supposed to be. Then I got us hiking the *wrong way* to our hostel. Nice. Jessie got me back on track. Glad to have her along.
We got out and walked around near the hostel, but none of the recommended sights were near, which was okay by me because none of them seemed particularly gripping. (Chinatown? We have one of those back home. America town? Now you’re just being silly.)
Instead, it turns out that our hostel was near Sake breweries. Very neat. We got to try some sake, see the tools used to make sake, both in the past and today, and then walk through a tour to see how sake is made. Unfortunately, we walked through the tour backwards, so as near as I can tell; sake is taken out of bottles then allowed to ferment until it is steamed rice. Then they soak it until dry, polish it until the outer husk is back on, and then plant it in the ground. I don’t know where the alcohol comes from.
Our tour through…whatever neighborhood of Kobe we were in finished up with some local flavor. We saw some sort of Japanese percussion orchestra practicing, then a bunch of people playing baseball in a park, a guy walking some cute puppy-dogs and a supermarket, where we bought dinner. We took our meal back to the hostel and ate it in the main room while we watched some Anime with the other guests and the host. Then sleep.
-N
Labels: Japan, Kobe, Kobe Beef, Sake, Waterfalls
