Japan, Day Twelve: Back to Tokyo

We set out early from Nara headed back to Tokyo. The bullet train runs right past Mt Fuji - fortunately it was a clear day so we got to see it this time!

We dropped our bags at our hotel, near Tokyo Station this time as we were only there for one night before heading to the airport. I'd hoped to get to Tokyo in time to go back to the fish market for lunch but the guy at the hotel said it was closed already. I'm not completely sure he understood the question but it seemed like a long way to walk if we weren't sure.

Someone in my company's Tokyo office had emailed me the day before asking to FedEx me a document for signature. I told him I was in Japan and would just pop in and get it. He wrote back,
"Dear Molly-san,
Surprising!"

The office was around 20 minutes walk. We stopped for curry noodles on the way.

Look! I have FedExed so many things to this place.

This turned out to be a lot of fun. I knew the Asia CEO already and was anxious to meet his assistant, since I talk to her all the time. They were also excited to meet Ben, so we all sat in a conference room and talked about our trip and they told us things about Japan's history and how they celebrate Halloween and all sorts of other stuff.

After this, we dropped the documents at the hotel and walked over to the Imperial Palace, but it was closed. We really should do a better job of checking this stuff out before walking halfway across Tokyo.

Oh, did you want to see some more details about the toilets!? This is the standard setup. Only the very most basic places didn't have at least these options.

We hadn't yet been over to Shibuya, a busy entertainment and shopping area and "a center for youth culture," as the guidebooks say.

We didn't have much of a plan so we walked around aimlessly for a while, trying to find some good Japanese sneakers to buy (nevermind that the absolute last thing either of us need is more sneakers), when I remembered about cat cafes. There was one only a few blocks away! On the way to the cat cafe, we passed the "love hotel" district, where you can rent hotels by the hour during the day.

The cat cafe was much classier than I expected. Almost all the cats were long-haired, with gorgeously cared for coats. You could tell they spend a lot of time taking care of these guys.

The cats were neither friendly or unfriendly. They did not care about us.

That's why the cafe sells you treats to feed them. When they realized we had chicken lollipops, they all wanted to be our friends.

Look at this little weirdo's ears!

So much fluff.

The cafe was on the 8th & 9th floor.

This was a really interesting experience not in the least because it made us realize our cats do, in fact, love us. Or at least like us. These cats completely ignored all the patrons, but when this girl came upstairs to clip claws and groom, this fluffy guy jumped right into her lap.

After she left he completely ignored us. He's pretty though.

Shibuya is great. This was like the neighborhood in Osaka times twenty.

Lee is a quite popular brand in Japan.

Shibuya Crossing is a famous Tokyo intersection where thousands of people cross at once. There were many tourists taking video - my coworker Endo-san had said to us earlier in the day regarding Shibuya, "We see the people taking pictures and don't know what they're looking at." It's truly amazing, though, all those thousands of people crossing at once in perfect order. In New York this would be insane chaos.

For dinner - our last dinner in Japan - we went to another conveyor belt sushi place. At this one you don't even have to talk to anyone. You can take from the conveyor belt or order from a tablet and have your items delivered to you via bullet train.

Goodbye, sushi!

Japan exceeded all expectations. I've never wanted to go home less than I did at the end of this trip. Despite its fundamental foreignness, it was easier to get around and felt safer than anyplace I've ever been. Across the board, the people were so nice and helpful while also being polite and reserved. Nobody was ever annoying! And all the food is amazing. Everyone should go to Japan!

Japan, Day Eleven: Koyasan to Nara

In Koyasan's Buddhist lodgings, guests are invited to participate in the morning ceremonies starting at 6:00 am. First we went into the main temple building where there was much chanting and drumming. We were invited to come up to the front individually as well and offer some ashes but I'm not exactly sure what it was all about.

Next we went to a second temple area for the fire ceremony. Here we were invited to write our wishes or blessings on wooden sticks and then burn them in the fire (accompanied by more chanting and drumming). We didn't burn anything up. We did have a good seat, though.

After this we had another meal prepared by the monks. It was the same idea as in Magome,  deconstructed sushi rolls with little pieces of seaweed, but everything was vegan.

After breakfast we headed back down the mountain to Nara, Japan's first permanent capital city (from the 700s). Our hotel was across from the main train station. Staying near train stations is the best overall decision I made in planning this trip - it made everything so easy. In Europe train stations are often not in great neighborhoods but we didn't find that to be the case in Japan.

While we were in Kyoto I discovered somehow that most hotels in Japan will forward your luggage to your next hotel for a small fee. We had our suitcases delivered directly from Kyoto to Nara, so we didn't have to drag everything up to Koyasan. It was terrific! They were waiting for us in our room when we checked in.

We picked a random ramen restaurant for lunch.

The Google Translate app was often a life-saver, but only sporadically. Sometimes it was puzzling.

Mmmm, ramen.

Then we set out to walk down the main street to Nara Park, where most of the big sights are located.

Here's some more complicated toilet instructions.

One of the things Nara is famous for is its herd of tame deer. They were everywhere, and they couldn't have cared less about people swarming around, likely because tourists feed them. We didn't, though. Only pets.

Look at this little guy! What's he doing?

They're pretty aggressive toward people who have food! Just like Doki.

It had started to rain.

The other big sight in Nara is the Great Buddha, slightly bigger than the one at Kamakura, which sits inside the largest wooden building in the world. We had seen many, many temples by this point, most of which were huge and old and beautiful, but both of us audibly gasped as we came around the corner and saw this one. There has been a temple here since 752. This one was built in the 1690s.

The Buddha was, you know, big.

It was really raining hard by this point. We had an umbrella but had left it in the hotel, so we bought one for ~$4.

As we walked back to the hotel the rain let up a bit. We saw some deer hanging out by an office building.

We'd been seeing these melonpan shops for a few days and wanted to try it. Melonpan is a sweet bread that's crusty on the outside and soft on the inside.

This place served it with ICE CREAM. This is the only gluttonous dessert we had the entire time in Japan. It's hard to eat poorly there.

!!!

For dinner, we headed over to the main street and picked the first place that looked acceptable from the outside. They gave us a cozy little table and some menus, which had no English on them whatsoever.

The google translate app was not very helpful, either. We did manage to piece together that this was more or less a Japanese tapas restaurant, with lots of different small plates. We ended up pointing at some of the pictured items, and then picking some other ones that seemed like they'd be good. Everything was great - this was one of the best meals in Japan.

Tempura:

Wagyu beef:

This was three types of yakitori but we ate one of them before the picture.

Some kind of sushi roll made with rice paper.

And steamed dumplings. Thumbs up to this place, whatever it's called!

Our hotel in Nara didn't allow shoes inside, and considerately provided lockers just off the reception area so you could lock your shoes up.

We bought a lot of candy in Japan. Every time we were at a store buying anything else, I always picked up a bunch of candy too. By this point we had quite a selection.