Japan June 17-27, 2023
Finally my dream came true and I visited Japan the summer of 2023. I was so lucky that Jenny Hendrix went with me. The following travel entries jump all over the place in verb tense but I don’t feel like correcting that at this time. I love Osaka, Kyoto, and Tokyo so much that I can’t even believe Japan is real.
Saturday, June 17, 2023
I flew direct from Atlanta to Tokyo (Haneda) and sat by a nice couple from Orlando. It was their first time to Tokyo as well but not to Asia. The 14-hour flight was long but not miserable. I will definitely know how to plan my flight the next time. Comfort Plus is better but not entirely comfortable. Customs and immigration was easy because Jenny and I planned ahead and got the QR codes set up with our documentation. Getting a taxi was easy and so was getting to the hotel. My first impressions: It’s warm but not hot - yet. The big city lights are not as sterile as I had feared they might be from TV and movies. On the ground everything is in order. Everything is in order! The traffic, the politeness. Everyone I have interacted with has been understanding. Clearly I am not from here and everyone is kind. For example, the taxi driver asked for 7,500 yen and I gave him 2,000 thinking it was a 20. He politely corrected me. After I checked into the beautiful hotel The Gate Hotel Ginza I tried to figure out the lay of my hotel room. Sliding the door open to the bathroom, figuring out how to flush the toilet, turning the lights on. I’m amazed at how luxurious the toilet is! Warm seat and so many options for using it, like as a bidet in a few different settings and the mysterious setting “massage”.
I drank a lot of water and then walked across the street to a building that had a 7-Eleven and a few little diners and a Starbucks. I bought a pickled plum rice ball, a bonito broth and seaweed ball, a cod roe inigiri and a large bottle of water. Across the corridor at a Chinese diner I got a radish cake and a spicy Sechuan veggie chicken mix. The radish cake, like everything else, tasted amazing. It tasted like seafood, like a soft hashbrown in a rectangle shape with a crab flavor. It was very, very good with the spicy sauce it came with on the side. I came back to the room and gobbled it all up and then a while later Jenny arrived from the airport. It was surreal to see her here in Tokyo. We laughed at the idea of my handing her a Southern Living for her mom. Southern Living in a Tokyo hotel! After we talked for a bit we decided to go to bed. Traveling is exhausting!
Monday, June 19, 2023
Yesterday was an amazing red letter day! I think I had more fun in five hours of this day than I had in March, April and May combined. Jenny and I started the day at breakfast in our hotel which was beautiful seating at the window with a yummy Japanese/European buffet and a choice of French toast, eggs benedict, or croque monsieur. We lounged over delicious fruit, salad, coffee, and conversation. I was wide awake and chatty and totally ready for the day. Afterwards we walked to Starbuck’s where I bought a Starbuck’s mug. We sat and people-watched while we sipped matcha and iced coffee. The style choices of the women here are flowy, neutral, and beautiful. I want to copy everything when I get home.
We went to Skytree first (taking a cab) and zoomed to the top of the tower to take in a 360 degree view of the largest city in the world. We tried to find Mt. Fuji but it was too hazy. We did find the Rilakkuma store and I picked up everything I saw without looking at the prices. So much cuteness! Like any international trip there is inspiration and a new lesson to be learned or reminded of every minute of the walk, of the conversation, of the new food taste. After Skytree we took a cab to Senso-Ji Temple. I had imagined we would snap a picture and walk away from this pretty red temple from the 600’s. But there was SO much to see around it. There were different gates leading up to it, the places to pray, to receive your fortune for 100 yen, to burn incense. There was a carnival feel to the souvenir and snack stands leading up to the main part of the shrine. We felt like we were at a fair. I bought a teal blue souvenir kimono and we found fresh peanut powder dango on tiny sticks with fresh matcha tea over ice. My first dango! And it was delicious. Jenny loved it too. She spotted it first and said, “I think they’re making something really cool over here.” We spent so much time in this happy, festive, welcoming place and then we went to Kappabashi! By then I was running a little lower on energy but I knew I would go back to this neighborhood later in the trip to make final purchase decisions. There were sharp knives, millions of kitchen gadgets, small bowls, and many electric tools for food prep. We started looking for lunch and eventually made our way back to our Ginza neighborhood to sit down at the Chinese noodle diner from the night before. Jenny and I tried at least 8 different types of dumplings that were all REALLY delicious plus the radish cake I’d had the previous night.
After this dinner we went back to our rooms and took a nap. Afterwards we headed to Mariage Frères for tea and French desserts. This was so fun and extra delicious. We had crème brulée, an Earl Grey madeleine, and a rectangular cake with pistachio, almond, and raspberry. Our tea was so filling. I was pooped after this last stop but I still had energy to walk in and out of different shops that we found between Mariage F and our hotel. There was another Mariage F that looked exactly like the one in Le Marais in Paris. There was a shop full of beautiful and precious wrapped gourmet foods to make baskets with. It was the kind of shop that is so perfect with new ideas for hospitality that you can’t believe it’s real. We returned to our hotel and I tried to fall asleep because I was so tired but I kept waking up every hour or two hours to use the bathroom or to simply realize that I was awake and not sleeping the heavy sleep I get at home in my own bed.
Tuesday, June 20, 2023
This morning we started the day with another delicious breakfast buffet and eggs benedict. I have to stress how luxurious our hotel is, how nice the bathrooms are, how clean and quiet. Everyone speaks such wonderful English and I’m slowly picking up more words in Japanese to use. I love the way everyone says, Have a nice day. It seems to be a memorized English phrase that everyone was encouraged to learn before the 2020 Olympics. I’m thinking of other phrases I’ve heard and loved, like “Wait a while I’m going to write down your order.”
Later we walked through Shinjuku but unfortunately missed the beautiful gardens and the giant Godzilla.
We walked up Cat Street toward Omotesando Street. I bought a Psycho Bunny shirt and an actual piece of Comme des Garçons clothing in a high-end used clothing store. It’s a beautiful red skirt.
We went to the famous street in Harajuku and walked up and down it twice. We visited a shiba inu café and fell in love with these dogs. There was an otter cafe, hedgehog cafes and plenty of cat cafes. The outfits that the young women wore did not disappoint. The street has probably become too touristy and “forced” but it was so much fun anyway.
Then we went to Team Lab and took the most amazing pictures of the light installations and each other. This was so much fun. I felt like a child at an amusement park. It was immersion in art. At one point we walked through a room filled with water and the lights made fish swim through the water. When they bounced into a person’s body they burst into flowers.
Wednesday, June 21, 2023
We started the day in Shibuya. We went straight to Shibuya Crossing and instead of going to the Starbuck’s which was incredibly crowded, we spotted a L’Occitane cafe and store. We were able to sit in the beautiful dining room and look out at Shibuya Crossing while eating French desserts and having the most amazing drinks. My lavender berry iced tea was insane. I liked Jenny’s melon soda too. This was one of my favorite experiences of the whole trip. The pictures are some of my favorites too.
Later that day was our guided food tour that we booked in advance. I have been on so many food tours but this one was one of the best. We were taken to ideal photo op places of the Shibuya neighborhood and we had so much food. We were taken to a ramen place, a sushi restaurant where we ate it with our hands, cabbage pancakes ??? where we got to flip them over ourselves and had sake and Japanese beer. We went to an under the train tracks food hall with one million choices. It was so much fun and the family from Philadelphia, PA that went on the tour with us made the tour so much fun. Our tour guide was from Mexico and he was living in Japan trying to make it in the animation industry. He was such an enthusiastic, generous, and kind leader of this tour.
Thursday, June 22, 2023
Jenny and I went to Kyoto on the Shinkansen! We saw Mt. Fuji on the way even though we couldn’t see the top of it. It rained in Kyoto so our bicycling tour was canceled. We decided to hike around the Fushimi Inari shrine instead. Three miles of stairs. The fox statues were so beautiful and the whole area was so peaceful.
Then we went to Nishiki Market where I finally saw a large Tenuki statue. We had fried chicken, mochi with red bean paste and a huge strawberry on top, sea urchin on a bed of marinated eel and rice, hand made rice crackers, and octopus dumplings. It turns out I’m a fan of octopus after all. The rice crackers that we found were so hard that we called them hard tack. They were shaped like flat cookies. It was like nibbling on a piece of wood that tasted like a rich yummy graham cracker. Later, after some research, Jenny found out that they indeed ARE hard tack, a Japanese survival food for hard times. After the Nishiki Market we went to the Golden Pavilion which was gorgeous with its lake and beautiful trees and trails. It was impossible to take a bad picture of it. We had matcha shave ice and matcha dango on a skewer afterwards.
Friday, June 23, 2023
Friday we took a taxi to Tokyo Tower and walked around the grounds looking at the different types of maple trees. We went to the national art center and though the building was so impressive, the art exhibit was not as thrilling as everything else we’d seen in Tokyo. We walked through Roppongi and saw luxury cars displayed in buildings. We went in a grocery store that smelled like roasting sweet potatoes because they’re for sale in every grocery store as snacks. Outside on the street I got to pet a cute dog that went crazy for me and jumped all over me. For lunch we found a conveyor belt sushi restaurant below the street in Shibuya. This place was such a find. We ate fish after fish and I finally got to try natto beans. Before I put them in my mouth Jenny pointed out that the whole diner including the chef was watching me. Natto beans are an unusual texture even for locals. If chickpeas were covered in okra slime this is what you’d get. They weren’t terrible. Then we finally made it to the famous Shibuya Starbucks and even got a seat. We shopped in Uniqlo and both made a pretty serious clothing haul. Later that afternoon we walked around the Imperial Palace grounds and another beautiful park beside our hotel. In this park we saw a small round lawn mower that automatically made its way all over the lawns of the grounds. That night I went for Thai food on my own.
Saturday, June 24, 2023
Saturday morning we walked to the beautiful Tokyo Station to print out our shinkansen tickets and had our only communication hassle/adventure with a sweet lady who could not understand what we wanted to do in the ticket office. We simply wanted to print our tickets for boarding the trains later in the week. We made it to Shinjuku Garden and it was so unbelievably beautiful. I especially loved the arboretum. We ate matcha soft serve and ice noodles in the cafe and then I took a cab back to Kiddyland for final purchases. Jenny stayed to nature bathe longer. Then it was time for our pre-booked Noh Theater performance. This was so special. I’m so thankful we took the time to sit and watch this performance. We saw a comedy called The Stingy Aunt’s Sake and a folktale about an angel who loses her cloak and has to convince a local that he should return it to her. The costumes were so beautiful and the National Noh Theater was so simple, calm, and welcoming like an old Midwestern church. Afterwards we found dinner along the Ginza corridor under the train lines. We ordered meat organ skewers, shrimp balls, edamame, French fries, pork dumplings, and they gave us really delicious ice noodles as an amuse-bouche.
Sunday, June 25, 2023
Osaka! I wish I had written about Osaka at the time of the trip because it’s one of the best places I’ve ever been and as many of my souvenirs say, I Love Osaka! AND it was a city I almost skipped because I couldn’t bear the thought of leaving Tokyo for another day. Instead in my journal for that day I wrote about the amazing breakfast buffet at the hotel, such a true pleasure. Here is the description of breakfast: Every morning at our hotel Jenny would knock on the door at the decided-on hour and we would get on the elevator to go to breakfast in the beautiful dining area of our hotel. We would present our ticket (long stay breakfast) and be shown to a window table. We chose from croque monsieur or eggs benedict or French toast or omelet. Then there was the breakfast buffet. A table of sliced cucumbers, tomato, potato salad, three bean salad, seaweed salad, and salad greens. A table for orange juice (fresh squeezed), small balls of butter, a whole glass case of fresh honeycomb. A table with fruit, yogurt, croissants, and granola topping for yogurt. Heaven! And every bowl had its own spoon that was placed on its own spoon rest. Coffee or tea with constant refills. I loved this hotel breakfast, this hotel, my hotel room SO MUCH!
But Osaka. Osaka was a dream come true. As soon as we got off the shinkansen we took a cab to the Glico sign and from there we walked all over Dotonbori, the stomach of the stomach of Japan. This neighborhood was such a party. Everyone was smiling because they were all standing in line for the best food in Japan and probably the world. Loud music was playing all along the main streets and giant crabs with giant legs were slowly moving back and forth on signs along the main drag. Fresh fruit in cups and on sticks, kind-faced hawkers, thousands of souvenirs, side streets that led to more small restaurants. It was hard to tear myself away from it but I’m so glad we went to the beautiful Osaka temple in a different part of the city. Green and gold and gorgeous. We didn’t have the energy to tour the inside but we had a great time walking the grounds and taking many pictures. I wish we had spent even more time there. I can’t wait to go back someday.
Monday, June 26, 2023
On our own day! After breakfast Jenny took the shinkansen to Kyoto for a day of temples. For me this was the day for buying another suitcase and buying all of my final souvenirs. I started at a grocery store with beautiful produce, the largest daikon I’d ever seen. I bought boxes of matcha and coffee packets. I picked up groceries that I thought could handle the flight back home. Then I walked next door to the Don Quixote Ginza. I bought everything I wanted and then stuffed it into a suitcase that I bought on the spot. I named this suitcase Donkey because in the store the jingle Don Don Don DON KEY, Don Quix-hoh-oh-te kept playing over and over. I loved this store at this early hour. I had it all to myself. I bought so many Kit Kats and one million other souvenirs like Vitamin C facial masks, socks, fans, sakura flavored mochi, Hello Kitty veggie peelers, musical instruments, a Nintendo Switch game for Paul, a kitchen knife, and three Japanese omelet pans. I filled up my cart like it was my last day alive and this was my last chance to ever go shopping. I dropped everything at the hotel and then went in search of more souvenirs in Kappabashi (kitchen town). For lunch I went to the Rox department store for another conveyor belt sushi experience at Kura. Here I finally found something labeled GF. It was the soy sauce on the table. There were carnival games in the restaurant too. I got to play a loop the bottle game and won a miniature game! Two staff members cheered with me when I won. I love Japan so much.
I found the giant chef head statue on top of one of the buildings at the entrance of Kappabashi Dougu street. I bought beautiful wooden spoons and tiny serveware. One merchant even gave me a free wooden spoon and told me to come back to Japan someday. I found soy sauce bowls with images of Mt. Fuji on them. I also finally found fake plastic food, a souvenir that I decided on long before I even booked my trip to Japan.
I walked back to the nearby Senso-Ji Shrine for more kimonos and matcha iced tea. I felt gleeful wearing a 30A tee-shirt in this unlikely place for a Florida tee-shirt.
That night I had dinner one last time at the Thai place across from the hotel and really enjoyed it. Probably too much.
Tuesday, June 27, 2023
The final morning of the trip was a sleepy, sickly morning for me unfortunately. I had a terrible headache and couldn’t go on one last walk around our neighborhood with Jenny. I barely made it through breakfast. The Haneda airport would have been fun too if I’d had the energy to explore it more. I did buy some last minute items with my last bills and still came home with Japanese cash. I sat beside a sweet couple from Charlotte, NC who loved cats.
Goodness, Japan was so amazing. I can’t wait to go back as soon as possible.
Finally my dream came true and I visited Japan the summer of 2023. I was so lucky that Jenny Hendrix went with me. The following travel entries jump all over the place in verb tense but I don’t feel like correcting that at this time. I love Osaka, Kyoto, and Tokyo so much that I can’t even believe Japan is real.
Saturday, June 17, 2023
I flew direct from Atlanta to Tokyo (Haneda) and sat by a nice couple from Orlando. It was their first time to Tokyo as well but not to Asia. The 14-hour flight was long but not miserable. I will definitely know how to plan my flight the next time. Comfort Plus is better but not entirely comfortable. Customs and immigration was easy because Jenny and I planned ahead and got the QR codes set up with our documentation. Getting a taxi was easy and so was getting to the hotel. My first impressions: It’s warm but not hot - yet. The big city lights are not as sterile as I had feared they might be from TV and movies. On the ground everything is in order. Everything is in order! The traffic, the politeness. Everyone I have interacted with has been understanding. Clearly I am not from here and everyone is kind. For example, the taxi driver asked for 7,500 yen and I gave him 2,000 thinking it was a 20. He politely corrected me. After I checked into the beautiful hotel The Gate Hotel Ginza I tried to figure out the lay of my hotel room. Sliding the door open to the bathroom, figuring out how to flush the toilet, turning the lights on. I’m amazed at how luxurious the toilet is! Warm seat and so many options for using it, like as a bidet in a few different settings and the mysterious setting “massage”.
I drank a lot of water and then walked across the street to a building that had a 7-Eleven and a few little diners and a Starbucks. I bought a pickled plum rice ball, a bonito broth and seaweed ball, a cod roe inigiri and a large bottle of water. Across the corridor at a Chinese diner I got a radish cake and a spicy Sechuan veggie chicken mix. The radish cake, like everything else, tasted amazing. It tasted like seafood, like a soft hashbrown in a rectangle shape with a crab flavor. It was very, very good with the spicy sauce it came with on the side. I came back to the room and gobbled it all up and then a while later Jenny arrived from the airport. It was surreal to see her here in Tokyo. We laughed at the idea of my handing her a Southern Living for her mom. Southern Living in a Tokyo hotel! After we talked for a bit we decided to go to bed. Traveling is exhausting!
Monday, June 19, 2023
Yesterday was an amazing red letter day! I think I had more fun in five hours of this day than I had in March, April and May combined. Jenny and I started the day at breakfast in our hotel which was beautiful seating at the window with a yummy Japanese/European buffet and a choice of French toast, eggs benedict, or croque monsieur. We lounged over delicious fruit, salad, coffee, and conversation. I was wide awake and chatty and totally ready for the day. Afterwards we walked to Starbuck’s where I bought a Starbuck’s mug. We sat and people-watched while we sipped matcha and iced coffee. The style choices of the women here are flowy, neutral, and beautiful. I want to copy everything when I get home.
We went to Skytree first (taking a cab) and zoomed to the top of the tower to take in a 360 degree view of the largest city in the world. We tried to find Mt. Fuji but it was too hazy. We did find the Rilakkuma store and I picked up everything I saw without looking at the prices. So much cuteness! Like any international trip there is inspiration and a new lesson to be learned or reminded of every minute of the walk, of the conversation, of the new food taste. After Skytree we took a cab to Senso-Ji Temple. I had imagined we would snap a picture and walk away from this pretty red temple from the 600’s. But there was SO much to see around it. There were different gates leading up to it, the places to pray, to receive your fortune for 100 yen, to burn incense. There was a carnival feel to the souvenir and snack stands leading up to the main part of the shrine. We felt like we were at a fair. I bought a teal blue souvenir kimono and we found fresh peanut powder dango on tiny sticks with fresh matcha tea over ice. My first dango! And it was delicious. Jenny loved it too. She spotted it first and said, “I think they’re making something really cool over here.” We spent so much time in this happy, festive, welcoming place and then we went to Kappabashi! By then I was running a little lower on energy but I knew I would go back to this neighborhood later in the trip to make final purchase decisions. There were sharp knives, millions of kitchen gadgets, small bowls, and many electric tools for food prep. We started looking for lunch and eventually made our way back to our Ginza neighborhood to sit down at the Chinese noodle diner from the night before. Jenny and I tried at least 8 different types of dumplings that were all REALLY delicious plus the radish cake I’d had the previous night.
After this dinner we went back to our rooms and took a nap. Afterwards we headed to Mariage Frères for tea and French desserts. This was so fun and extra delicious. We had crème brulée, an Earl Grey madeleine, and a rectangular cake with pistachio, almond, and raspberry. Our tea was so filling. I was pooped after this last stop but I still had energy to walk in and out of different shops that we found between Mariage F and our hotel. There was another Mariage F that looked exactly like the one in Le Marais in Paris. There was a shop full of beautiful and precious wrapped gourmet foods to make baskets with. It was the kind of shop that is so perfect with new ideas for hospitality that you can’t believe it’s real. We returned to our hotel and I tried to fall asleep because I was so tired but I kept waking up every hour or two hours to use the bathroom or to simply realize that I was awake and not sleeping the heavy sleep I get at home in my own bed.
Tuesday, June 20, 2023
This morning we started the day with another delicious breakfast buffet and eggs benedict. I have to stress how luxurious our hotel is, how nice the bathrooms are, how clean and quiet. Everyone speaks such wonderful English and I’m slowly picking up more words in Japanese to use. I love the way everyone says, Have a nice day. It seems to be a memorized English phrase that everyone was encouraged to learn before the 2020 Olympics. I’m thinking of other phrases I’ve heard and loved, like “Wait a while I’m going to write down your order.”
Later we walked through Shinjuku but unfortunately missed the beautiful gardens and the giant Godzilla.
We walked up Cat Street toward Omotesando Street. I bought a Psycho Bunny shirt and an actual piece of Comme des Garçons clothing in a high-end used clothing store. It’s a beautiful red skirt.
We went to the famous street in Harajuku and walked up and down it twice. We visited a shiba inu café and fell in love with these dogs. There was an otter cafe, hedgehog cafes and plenty of cat cafes. The outfits that the young women wore did not disappoint. The street has probably become too touristy and “forced” but it was so much fun anyway.
Then we went to Team Lab and took the most amazing pictures of the light installations and each other. This was so much fun. I felt like a child at an amusement park. It was immersion in art. At one point we walked through a room filled with water and the lights made fish swim through the water. When they bounced into a person’s body they burst into flowers.
Wednesday, June 21, 2023
We started the day in Shibuya. We went straight to Shibuya Crossing and instead of going to the Starbuck’s which was incredibly crowded, we spotted a L’Occitane cafe and store. We were able to sit in the beautiful dining room and look out at Shibuya Crossing while eating French desserts and having the most amazing drinks. My lavender berry iced tea was insane. I liked Jenny’s melon soda too. This was one of my favorite experiences of the whole trip. The pictures are some of my favorites too.
Later that day was our guided food tour that we booked in advance. I have been on so many food tours but this one was one of the best. We were taken to ideal photo op places of the Shibuya neighborhood and we had so much food. We were taken to a ramen place, a sushi restaurant where we ate it with our hands, cabbage pancakes ??? where we got to flip them over ourselves and had sake and Japanese beer. We went to an under the train tracks food hall with one million choices. It was so much fun and the family from Philadelphia, PA that went on the tour with us made the tour so much fun. Our tour guide was from Mexico and he was living in Japan trying to make it in the animation industry. He was such an enthusiastic, generous, and kind leader of this tour.
Thursday, June 22, 2023
Jenny and I went to Kyoto on the Shinkansen! We saw Mt. Fuji on the way even though we couldn’t see the top of it. It rained in Kyoto so our bicycling tour was canceled. We decided to hike around the Fushimi Inari shrine instead. Three miles of stairs. The fox statues were so beautiful and the whole area was so peaceful.
Then we went to Nishiki Market where I finally saw a large Tenuki statue. We had fried chicken, mochi with red bean paste and a huge strawberry on top, sea urchin on a bed of marinated eel and rice, hand made rice crackers, and octopus dumplings. It turns out I’m a fan of octopus after all. The rice crackers that we found were so hard that we called them hard tack. They were shaped like flat cookies. It was like nibbling on a piece of wood that tasted like a rich yummy graham cracker. Later, after some research, Jenny found out that they indeed ARE hard tack, a Japanese survival food for hard times. After the Nishiki Market we went to the Golden Pavilion which was gorgeous with its lake and beautiful trees and trails. It was impossible to take a bad picture of it. We had matcha shave ice and matcha dango on a skewer afterwards.
Friday, June 23, 2023
Friday we took a taxi to Tokyo Tower and walked around the grounds looking at the different types of maple trees. We went to the national art center and though the building was so impressive, the art exhibit was not as thrilling as everything else we’d seen in Tokyo. We walked through Roppongi and saw luxury cars displayed in buildings. We went in a grocery store that smelled like roasting sweet potatoes because they’re for sale in every grocery store as snacks. Outside on the street I got to pet a cute dog that went crazy for me and jumped all over me. For lunch we found a conveyor belt sushi restaurant below the street in Shibuya. This place was such a find. We ate fish after fish and I finally got to try natto beans. Before I put them in my mouth Jenny pointed out that the whole diner including the chef was watching me. Natto beans are an unusual texture even for locals. If chickpeas were covered in okra slime this is what you’d get. They weren’t terrible. Then we finally made it to the famous Shibuya Starbucks and even got a seat. We shopped in Uniqlo and both made a pretty serious clothing haul. Later that afternoon we walked around the Imperial Palace grounds and another beautiful park beside our hotel. In this park we saw a small round lawn mower that automatically made its way all over the lawns of the grounds. That night I went for Thai food on my own.
Saturday, June 24, 2023
Saturday morning we walked to the beautiful Tokyo Station to print out our shinkansen tickets and had our only communication hassle/adventure with a sweet lady who could not understand what we wanted to do in the ticket office. We simply wanted to print our tickets for boarding the trains later in the week. We made it to Shinjuku Garden and it was so unbelievably beautiful. I especially loved the arboretum. We ate matcha soft serve and ice noodles in the cafe and then I took a cab back to Kiddyland for final purchases. Jenny stayed to nature bathe longer. Then it was time for our pre-booked Noh Theater performance. This was so special. I’m so thankful we took the time to sit and watch this performance. We saw a comedy called The Stingy Aunt’s Sake and a folktale about an angel who loses her cloak and has to convince a local that he should return it to her. The costumes were so beautiful and the National Noh Theater was so simple, calm, and welcoming like an old Midwestern church. Afterwards we found dinner along the Ginza corridor under the train lines. We ordered meat organ skewers, shrimp balls, edamame, French fries, pork dumplings, and they gave us really delicious ice noodles as an amuse-bouche.
Sunday, June 25, 2023
Osaka! I wish I had written about Osaka at the time of the trip because it’s one of the best places I’ve ever been and as many of my souvenirs say, I Love Osaka! AND it was a city I almost skipped because I couldn’t bear the thought of leaving Tokyo for another day. Instead in my journal for that day I wrote about the amazing breakfast buffet at the hotel, such a true pleasure. Here is the description of breakfast: Every morning at our hotel Jenny would knock on the door at the decided-on hour and we would get on the elevator to go to breakfast in the beautiful dining area of our hotel. We would present our ticket (long stay breakfast) and be shown to a window table. We chose from croque monsieur or eggs benedict or French toast or omelet. Then there was the breakfast buffet. A table of sliced cucumbers, tomato, potato salad, three bean salad, seaweed salad, and salad greens. A table for orange juice (fresh squeezed), small balls of butter, a whole glass case of fresh honeycomb. A table with fruit, yogurt, croissants, and granola topping for yogurt. Heaven! And every bowl had its own spoon that was placed on its own spoon rest. Coffee or tea with constant refills. I loved this hotel breakfast, this hotel, my hotel room SO MUCH!
But Osaka. Osaka was a dream come true. As soon as we got off the shinkansen we took a cab to the Glico sign and from there we walked all over Dotonbori, the stomach of the stomach of Japan. This neighborhood was such a party. Everyone was smiling because they were all standing in line for the best food in Japan and probably the world. Loud music was playing all along the main streets and giant crabs with giant legs were slowly moving back and forth on signs along the main drag. Fresh fruit in cups and on sticks, kind-faced hawkers, thousands of souvenirs, side streets that led to more small restaurants. It was hard to tear myself away from it but I’m so glad we went to the beautiful Osaka temple in a different part of the city. Green and gold and gorgeous. We didn’t have the energy to tour the inside but we had a great time walking the grounds and taking many pictures. I wish we had spent even more time there. I can’t wait to go back someday.
Monday, June 26, 2023
On our own day! After breakfast Jenny took the shinkansen to Kyoto for a day of temples. For me this was the day for buying another suitcase and buying all of my final souvenirs. I started at a grocery store with beautiful produce, the largest daikon I’d ever seen. I bought boxes of matcha and coffee packets. I picked up groceries that I thought could handle the flight back home. Then I walked next door to the Don Quixote Ginza. I bought everything I wanted and then stuffed it into a suitcase that I bought on the spot. I named this suitcase Donkey because in the store the jingle Don Don Don DON KEY, Don Quix-hoh-oh-te kept playing over and over. I loved this store at this early hour. I had it all to myself. I bought so many Kit Kats and one million other souvenirs like Vitamin C facial masks, socks, fans, sakura flavored mochi, Hello Kitty veggie peelers, musical instruments, a Nintendo Switch game for Paul, a kitchen knife, and three Japanese omelet pans. I filled up my cart like it was my last day alive and this was my last chance to ever go shopping. I dropped everything at the hotel and then went in search of more souvenirs in Kappabashi (kitchen town). For lunch I went to the Rox department store for another conveyor belt sushi experience at Kura. Here I finally found something labeled GF. It was the soy sauce on the table. There were carnival games in the restaurant too. I got to play a loop the bottle game and won a miniature game! Two staff members cheered with me when I won. I love Japan so much.
I found the giant chef head statue on top of one of the buildings at the entrance of Kappabashi Dougu street. I bought beautiful wooden spoons and tiny serveware. One merchant even gave me a free wooden spoon and told me to come back to Japan someday. I found soy sauce bowls with images of Mt. Fuji on them. I also finally found fake plastic food, a souvenir that I decided on long before I even booked my trip to Japan.
I walked back to the nearby Senso-Ji Shrine for more kimonos and matcha iced tea. I felt gleeful wearing a 30A tee-shirt in this unlikely place for a Florida tee-shirt.
That night I had dinner one last time at the Thai place across from the hotel and really enjoyed it. Probably too much.
Tuesday, June 27, 2023
The final morning of the trip was a sleepy, sickly morning for me unfortunately. I had a terrible headache and couldn’t go on one last walk around our neighborhood with Jenny. I barely made it through breakfast. The Haneda airport would have been fun too if I’d had the energy to explore it more. I did buy some last minute items with my last bills and still came home with Japanese cash. I sat beside a sweet couple from Charlotte, NC who loved cats.
Goodness, Japan was so amazing. I can’t wait to go back as soon as possible.