Author: keith

Posted on

Best thing/Worst thing

To finish, here’s each of our best and worst things about the trip:

Best things…

Keith – Best thing is easy, the Shinkansen (bullet) trains. Just incredible.

Jo – Best thing was the opportunity to meet loads of different and interesting people. I had forgotten how much I love travelling. I spent hours just staring out of the window of the train.

Danny – The best thing was easily the chicken wings we had in Kanazawa. The restaurant was recommended by Audley and it was awesome.

Amelia – I just have to have two best things: sleeping, and the Onsen in Fujioto Ryokan.

Worst things…

Keith – Worst thing was our return journey, being driven by a taxi driver who was too tired to be at the wheel, who kept using his phone or iPad whilst driving, and was clearly lost, then to arrive at the airport to find our flight was delayed meaning our connection in Amsterdam (smoke and a pancake) was changed giving us a generous 5 hours in the airport and a total 25 hour journey….bah.

Jo – Worst thing was missing my bed!

Danny – Worst thing was the food in the temple at Mount Koya . Vegetables, tofu, and more vegetables that were entirely unrecognisable. The pears were salty, the grapes had very thick and bitter skins, and the broccoli tasted of fish. Case closed.

Amelia – The temperature in Tokyo.

Posted on

Accommodation Review – Gracery Hotel, Tokyo

So, final accommodation. Another western hotel, though very nice indeed. The hotel has a massive Godzilla head statue of the terrace of the 8th floor (shameless cash in?) and is generally pretty huge.

Service for the short time we were there was good, rooms seem big by Japanese standards, and beds comfortable. Views were incredible from our rooms on the 19th and 24th floors.

We left too early to sample breakfast, so there’s not a lot more to add!

Posted on

Accommodation Review – Ekoin, Mount Koya

Up a mountain. Check. Near a big cemetery in a forest where the trees are between 200 and 600 years old. Check. The most sacred place in Japan. Check. Living with monks. Check. Eating vegan food. Check. Being woke up for a 6.30am morning service followed by much burning of sticks and banging of drums. Check.

You visit Koyasan to experience all these things, and it doesn’t disappoint. Our accommodation, in the guest quarters of the Ekoin Temple, was simple – just a room (two in our case) and a toilet, shared shower and baths. However, it’s been well kept and is probably one of the tidiest traditional locations we’ve stayed in.

Food is interesting. Actually, it’s not. Sorry, but it really is very plain and uninspiring, unless you’re into pickles, unidentifiable vegetables and rice. And there’s not enough. It’s just not to western tastes I guess.

But that doesn’t mean it wasn’t an amazing place to stay. It was, and we knew what we might be expecting. There’s a convenience store the other end of town, a brilliant local restaurant selling amazing katsu on the main crossroads, another local place selling udon dishes nearby and a little cafe directly opposite Ekoin. Use these to supplement meagre monk rations and it’s all good!!

The monks were incredibly friendly, though rubbish timekeepers. To say they have a set routine every day is a bit of an exaggeration…. It’s tough timings, meaning one day we were taken to breakfast 50 minutes late. That’s more than 2 hours after being woken for morning service. Oh well!

Posted on

Accommodation Review – Mystays Dojima, Osaka

A brief stay on Osaka required little more than beds, lucky as that’s all we got! The Mystays Dojima was pretty much identical to our previous Mystays visit, even the Wi-Fi password was the same!

Rooms were functional – beds were comfortable, memory foam pillows again, the bathroom was a single unit and breakfast was normal and dull – though the restaurant was in a windowless room, seating no more than 30 people and was attended to by an old chap who was quite friendly.

Little more to add!

Posted on

8:15am, 6th August

This morning at 8:15am sirens sounded across Japan. We were asked by our hosts to put our names on origami cranes, which will be taken to Peace Park in Hiroshima.

The first atomic bomb was dropped 73 years ago today, killing an estimated 140,000 people between the 6th August and the end of 1945.

Posted on

Accommodation Review – Watanabe Ryokan, Miyajima

For our next Ryokan we travelled to Miyajima island, just off the coast of mainland Japan near to Hiroshima. A multi-part journey from Kyoto (taxi, Shinkansen, local train, ferry and car was needed, but it was well worth the effort. The Watanabe Ryokan was billed as being the highest quality accommodation – it is certainly of a very high standard. Catering for only 3 room (6 guests) it felt a lot more family-run than previous lodgings.

Rooms are huge, with en-suite facilities, each with a cypress bath, and a balcony with seating.

On arrival we were collected from the port by our hosts, and as our paperwork was filled in we were served cold green tea, a cold/frozen wet flannel and a snack.

The food was excellent. Kiseiki meals which weren’t too extreme, slightly different courses for the kids where the adult option was challenging (fish head or caviar, for example) and service in a personal dining room.

Location was excellent, found just outside the village centre and away from the majority of tourists, and very close to the beautiful Daishoin temple complex. And with generous lifts being provided to and from the port, there was little concern for the 15 minute walk!

All in all, a fantastic Ryokan, with amazing English-speaking hosts, where guests are very well catered for.

Posted on

Why the hell does the broccoli taste of fish?

Fruit and vegetables are very expensive in Japan. Chemists must make a fortune on digestive remedies. That’s all I have to say about that.

We had booked a taxi for 7.30am to get us to Kyoto station in time to catch our next Shinkansen. It all went swimmingly and we even had time to buy breakfast and train snacks before we boarded.

Keith’s face every time he sees the front of a Shinkansen is worth every penny we spent on this holiday. Pure little boy bliss!

Even I would agree that they are a marvel of engineering and less vomit inducing than British tilting trains.

The views were not as spectacular on this leg… lots of tunnel… flashes of paddy fields and towns… and then lots more tunnel.

We changed to a very busy, boring, local train for the section of the journey between Hiroshima and Miyojima and then onto a RORO ferry across to the island. It tickled me greatly that we were directed a different (step free) way onto the ferry as we had big wheeled suitcases with us. Our way was straight into an air conditioned lounge… with a door on the other side labelled “Miyojima” so we got to use the ferry exactly as it was designed!

The second part of today’s journey was absolutely heaving with tourists. We particularly liked the gaggle of 4 girls and one boy in Armani shoes, Rolex watches, fake boobs and over-painted lipstick to make their bottom lip look enormous. My Dad would NOT have let me out of the house in any of their outfits and it made a marked contrast to the four principles of the tea ceremony from yesterday: harmony, respect, purity and tranquility. Hmmm. The older Japanese people on the train did not know where to look and there was one older lady pursing her lips on disapproval at the 6 inch high wedges they were in danger of falling off when the train moved.

As planned, the tourist office called our Ryokan when we arrived and they were kind enough to pop down to collect us. The hostess has excellent English and navigated the extremely narrow streets with great competency. I am glad I wasn’t driving.

The rooms weren’t quite ready for us, so after drinking our cold green tea and eating a local biscuit delicacy, we went back out to brave the heat. We started with Okonmiyaki, recommended by our lovely hostess before heading off to the Itsukushima Temple. It is built on stilts over the beach so that at high tide there is water all around. There are multiple buildings and platform connected by walkways.

It is a shame that the water was full of floating detritis. It was mostly organic matter but contained quite a bit of polystyrene. There were workmen on the beach trying to clean it up, so I wondered if it was a symptom of the recent tropical storm.

Anyway, the wildlife didn’t seem to mind. We saw crabs, little fish, hermit crabs, water snails and a stork managing to catch and eat one of the little fish.

Mila got another page completed in her stamp book and then we set off to our next appointment for the afternoon. I had discovered that the trek Tim and Keith thought was a good idea took more than three hours and was reportedly very steep. Using ninja-like transport skills, I found a free shuttle bus that took us right up to the first cable car. We bought some shaved ice on the way to wait for it and that cooled us down a bit.

The first cable car took us up to the next and then we were at the top. The views were spectacular but they both felt a bit rickety. Danny did not like it at all and didn’t really feel the benefit of the view.

When I say the cable car took you to the top, that is not strictly true. There were signs for a 30 minute hike to the summit. Right next to the sign that warned about venomous snakes in the area.

Deer: fine;

bears the size of dogs: ok;

boars: take care;

hornets: take great care;

venomous snakes: no.

So we took pictures from where we were and then went back down. The breeze at the top was very pleasant but I was very pleased that the children are independently mobile. There was an Italian family at the top with a nearly naked sweaty baby and very hot toddler. They both wanted carrying and it looked exhausting.

On the way back, Mila had a bit of excitement with a large wasp that wanted to get on the bus with her, but then we were back at sea level.

Air conditioning and showers were calling, so we returned to the Ryokan and got ready for dinner.

We were presented with another epic feast. The adults got more courses than the children got this time and the two winners were fish head cooked in soy sauce and sugar and the cloudy sake which was delicious.

Danny’s quote of the day (see title of post) was inspired by a lovely plain looking course of beef and vegetables. There was even broccoli which was recognisable, but sadly incorrectly flavoured!

After dinner we walked back down to the beach for the low tide. At this point the red gate was completely exposed by the low tide and you could walk out to it over the sand (we told the children it was sand but it was clearly a shifting mass of shelled creatures: wriggle…).

Having missed the fireworks in Kanazawa, I was very happy to see some fireworks over Hiroshima while we were on the beach. They were a long way away and clearly quite a lot were on the ground but the ones we could see were good. They also sparked a conversation about the difference between the speed of light and the speed of sound.

I made the mistake of turning the torch on my phone on and Mila immediately started screaming and put her flip-flops back on. The number of little hermit crabs was like a scene from Indiana Jones!

When we went out a bit further there were some small depressions in the ground. I put on my convincing voice and told the rest of the family they were the homes of the wiggly snake fish we had seen in the Tokyo Aquarium. You never know- it might be true. Anyway, it made them both hop about trying not to stand on them which was funny!

I was the only one with bare feet by this point and was getting a good pedicure from the rough and stony ground. I did have to stop and put my sandals back on once we got the path though as it was worse than Screw Road (Dorling family reference). When we did stop, we noticed that you could see bats flying in and out of the massive spot lights trained on the gate. This creeped Mila out even more so we walked at some speed back to the ryokan.

It is very disconcerting being so hot when it is so dark. More than 30 degrees and pitch black. It doesn’t do that in Yorkshire.

As we walked back up the road, Keith saw a little crab walking sideways across the road. I presume it had come up from the drain as it must have been more than 300m from the beach.

Our last encounter for the evening (who knew there would be so much wildlife on our walk!) was with a little lizard sitting on the door frame of our Ryokan eating insects buzzing around the light.

That was enough excitement for one day so we washed our feet again and went to bed.

(I thought it was raining when we got to our room, but actually it was a waterfall outside the ryokan. I hadn’t heard it before AS THE BLOODY CICADAS MAKE SO MUCH NOISE ALL DAY!!)

Washed feet and went to bed.

Posted on

Accommodation Review – Seiji-an Machiya, Kyoto

For four nights in the Gion district of Kyoto we stayed in a Machiya (town house). Basically a little house, it was nice to be out of a hotel or Ryokan and have a space to ourselves for a change.

The Machiya is located down a tiny alleyway, alongside another similarly modest property occupied by a man who seemed to spend all his time outside his front door smoking and coughing up his lungs. He needs to stop.

Inside it’s a tiny maze of rooms, some hidden (ninja-style). The main room is 6 tatami mats big (6-jo). The tatami mat is the way the Japanese measure room size, and it’s literally a flooring mat 1.653 square metres made from rush and cloth – think a smooth wicker surface.

Furnished only with a table and 4 floor chairs, a pair of futons were the adults’ sleeping arrangement each night. Sadly the mattress was nowhere near as comfortable as others we’d experienced so we had to call for help and a second mattress. To be honest it was still inadequate – they need to invest in far better futon mattresses!!

Off the main room are the kitchen, a large store cupboard and the main bathroom – all hidden behind 4 huge moving screens. Very clever.

Upstairs is a western-style bedroom (real beds for the kids) and a toilet, with another toilet downstairs for the adults. There is also a 2-jo secret room – we used it to store luggage!

The property also had a tiny garden – enclosed in a courtyard, which can be seen from the bath!

Location was ideal, being very close to an underground station, a little shop, the tourist area of Gion and huge numbers of restaurants – however not so close it was noisy.

Overall, a really nice property – the futon mattresses were truly rubbish though, and the owners need to speak to the futon suppliers at the Fujioto Ryokan in Tsumago.

Posted on

Accommodation Review – MyStays Kanazawa Castle, Kanazawa

Back to another Western-style hotel that wouldn’t look out of place anywhere in the world. Into a cool, pristine lobby where Guest Operatives (or Receptionists in old money) spoke reasonable English (better than our Japanese, of course) and invited us after checking in to raid the toiletries store – we duly obliged and nicked some body sponge cloth thingies.

Rooms are tiny – so small we had to dump 2 of our cases in the kids’ room, there was so little space. The en-suite bathrooms were miniscule, I couldn’t stand up inside, making showering a challenge. We thought they were very much like those used on cruise ships, pre-fabricated and fitted out before being hoisted into place the building/ship constructed around them.

Breakfast was had twice, both days causing some amusement – ranging from Coco Pops in tiny bowls you might put kids jelly into (I found much bigger bowls at the other side of the restaurant to carry a greater load of chocolatey puffed rice and WHOLE milk) to what looked like something you’d find in your Chinese takeaway. Funnily enough we opted for familiar things. Not an amazing food selection though.

The beds were comfortable, with no bean bag pillows – instead a choice between a feather filled pillow or a proper memory foam option. Voted accommodation with best pillows so far!

Location was excellent, being only 500m from Kanazawa station and the start/end of the bus loop line.

Otherwise a non-descript hotel, just somewhere to sleep and clean!

Posted on

All the gear….

In the planning for this trip something to be considered was how to record the journey, bearing in mind we would be sending luggage ahead and living out of only what we could carry in rucksacks. We also didn’t want to take only one camera, in the event of a breakage, but couldn’t take more than a few lenses. Lenses could also not really be swapped once outside due to the humidity, meaning what you picked for the day was the body/lens choice for that day! Add to this the need for something to photo-edit whilst on trains and in the evening to keep on top of the hundreds (now thousands) of pictures being taken by everyone. So, we settled on the following:

Equipment list as follows:

  • Canon 6d Mk2 body (full frame, so lenses zoom as indicated on the lens body) – a heavy but high quality camera.
  • Canon 200d body (crop sensor, so lenses zoom 1.6x indicated on the lens body) – a light and reasonable quality camera, mostly taken as a backup.
  • Canon 17-40mm L f4 zoom lens – a wide-angle lens, but also relatively lightweight. On the 200d it is effectively 27-64mm, so a good general use lens; on the 6d it’s a brilliant wide-angle lens.
  • Canon 24-70mm L f2.8 zoom lens – a superb general use lens with wide aperture meaning great low-light performance, and on the 200d this is almost a decent medium distance zoom as it’s effectively 38-112mm. It’s really heavy though, at just under 1 kg….
  • Canon 50mm f1.4 prime lens – really lightweight, general use and great for portraits. Coupled with the 200d the whole camera weighs very little and it’s great in low light.
  • Panasonic Lumix compact camera – great quality compact, and very light. Good for when you can’t be bothered carrying the SLR around! For this trip, it was Danny’s to use.
  • Sony compact camera – Amelia’s camera, point and click!
  • Microsoft Surface Book 2 laptop – to edit photos at the end of the day, an amazing laptop with detachable screen making it a tablet. Not too heavy at 1.5 kg but the screen is incredible quality. Photo editing is done using a mixture of Lightroom and GIMP, with this blog running on WordPress.
  • Samsung Galaxy S8 – Jo and I both have one, amazing camera and a lot of the blog drafts are done using the WordPress app for ease.
  • Pocket WiFi – wouldn’t it be nice to have 187 Mbps with unlimited use for 3 weeks…..well we have it! Good job, as after a week we’d downloaded 19 GB and uploaded 7 GB of data!

So there you have it, that’s what we’ve brought to bring you what you’re seeing here!

Posted on

Accommodation Review – Fujioto Ryokan, Tsumago

Our second Ryokan was a very different experience to the first. A proper guest house with paper walls, shared wash facilities and a very welcoming owner, found in a town which looked (from the main street) as it would have done when travellers hundreds of years ago used the Nakasendo Highway, a trail stretching from Tokyo (or Edo as it would have been known as then) to Kyoto.

The rooms again were very simple with tatami mat floors, futons (which even I would admit are incredibly comfortable) and bean bag pillows (which are noisy when you move your head so less comfortable!) The restaurant again had dividing curtains between tables, and of course all shoes to be left at the door! They found me some enormous woollen slippers – much better than the normal ones that just don’t fit!

Dinner and breakfast were amazing. Even the kids ate the majority of each 8 course affair. The owner and waitress took time to explain the food, all locally sourced. Best was the little chicken dumpling in an otherwise mildly tasting soup. The beef was pretty good too!

Our favourite accommodation so far, the only negative for me was the height of the ceilings – not really something our Japanese hosts would be troubled by!!

Posted on

Accommodation review – Fukinomori Ryokan, Tsumago

Set in a beautiful and seemingly remote location outside the postal town of Tsumago, this Ryokan was, I think, the posh end of the scale. Rooms had ensuite facilities, it was more like a boutique hotel than a guest house. On arrival our host asked our plans, talked us through the hike we were undertaking the next day, then took us for a tour of the Ryokan walking backwards (him, not us) the whole way! The same host served our meals. Service was excellent.

A proper hot spring onsen – actually two, one for each gender – was the highlight alongside the food which was extraordinary.

Both dinner and breakfast were traditional affairs – multi-course with what we are now realising is either tourist torture or is genuinely local cuisine. Horse meat – enough said. The Wagu need was amazing, as was the Sushimi.

The only downside was the general decor. It was very dated and a bit scruffy. If only I’d had my wood polishing kit with me….

Posted on

Accommodation review – Citadines Central Shinjuku, Tokyo

Given we’re staying in so many different places, I thought it would be good to review each – mostly so our agent, Tim, can see what we thought!!

First then, the Citadines Central Shinjuku in Tokyo. We had 4 nights in a pretty soulless but otherwise pleasant hotel located in the Shinjuku area of Tokyo. Shinjuku reminded us of the Leicester Square/Soho area of London – neon lights, strip-joints, seedy restaurants, bars, and lots of tourists! It felt pretty safe – though the walk back to the hotel late one evening was different as some of the “gentleman’s clubs” (which were labelled ‘Tourist Information Centres’) now had bouncers of an African origin sat outside.

The hotel itself was of a typically Western style, rooms very small but functional, very clean, beds comfortable – though who designs pillows that have a bean bag on one side? Just weird. We had two rooms – our double was tiny, with a pretty rubbish bath/shower affair; the kids’ twin room was bigger and had a wetroom – so we all used that! The view out of the windows was of a huge and sprawling bar area – hundreds of tiny bars that demand an entry fee – and a large red shrine!

The staff were exceptionally helpful, their English was amazing and nothing was too much trouble for them. Breakfast was the only meal we had, it was a mixture of bacon, eggs, fish, toast, limited cereals, and pork dumplings.

The nearest Metro station was a couple of blocks, 5 minutes, away by foot. Aim for the Tiffany’s store and it’s right outside!

Overall – 4/5 – a great base from which to explore Tokyo and start the adventure.

Posted on

All packed….

Today has been our last day at home before our epic adventure to Japan. Tomorrow we catch a plane to Amsterdam and then on to Tokyo. Then we get to see if the time we have spent learning Japanese over the last twelve months was worthwhile. I am going to spend the flight practicing saying “my son is allergic to prawns”.

Let the adventure begin…