All posts by Hisashi T Fujinaka

Japan 2023: Day 22

This is mostly a travel day, going home!  I had this grand plan to start out early, get a morning set, pack, do some last-minute shopping for my sister, and then check out. It all worked out but the plan failed. Turns out it’s Labor and Thanksgiving day and a lot of the coffee houses are opening later. I ended up at Starbucks because they’re always open early and actually it wasn’t that bad.

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Packing was easier than expected because things fit nicely into my sister’s REI duffel bag. Going to the store that opened at 10 and checking out by 11 seemed to be pushing it so I just did that in the opposite order. They’ll check your bags and return them on the day you check out so I did just that. Then it was a two hour wait for the taxi.

Oh, check out this long line for SOMETHING at the NEWoMan Food Hall.

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The taxi driver turned out to be a very chatty woman who moved to Japan from Shanghai 30 years ago. She was late because of traffic and I guess a lot of travelers get mad but I gave it some leeway and I was fine. She told me I should move to Japan and get a job in Tokyo as a translator. She was pretty funny and went on and on. Work until you’re 70 and THEN move to the countryside.

Anyway, went to the Delta Lounge and had a mini-bowl of ramen and some other snacky foods. I forgot to take a picture of the mini-ramen because I inhaled it.

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Then it was onto the plane where I watched Blade Runner: 2049, John Wick 4, Shazam Fury of the Gods, and since I didn’t have enough time for another full movie, the rest of Central Intelligence that I started on the way to Japan.

I had a 7 hour layover in Seattle but had it changed to a four hour layover. I guess there aren’t that many Delta flights from Seattle to Portland. Sat in the lounge for the most part. My stomach was feeling weird so I only had a couple of snacks and, of course, clam chowder.

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And that’s pretty much it. The flight from SEA to PDX was on a very small plane. I passed out immediately after sitting down and didn’t wake up until we got close ot Mt St Helens.

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My sister gave me a ride home. Didn’t have Thanksgiving turkey pot pie with her because my stomach was still feeling a bit iffy. It’s fine now but my dinner was a frozen burrito and some Japanese Pringles that they gave me in the lounge. It’s nice to be home.

Japan 2023: Day 21

My last full day in Japan. I thought I’d take it easy today because I really overdid it yesterday and my leg hurt more than usual this morning. But did I succeed? Of course not.

I had breakfast at Hoshino Coffee, my favorite. Unfortunately this year the close one doesn’t open until 9AM! And I also forgot one of the features of the store:

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Yeah, it’s in the basement. No elevator. But they did have Egg Slut back on the menu! Mashed potatoes and a brown sauce with a coddled egg on top. It’s so good. Unfortunately I think I could eat three of them without much trouble. But they’re so good. And they have these weird half-booths for single patrons. There’s a little sign that says something like, “Please only stay for two hours.” Coffee shops are a place to rest and hide. Luckily this one has good coffee and pretty good food.

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And then I limped my fat ass over to the tourist information bureau in the bus terminal and asked if he could recommend a train or a bus I could just ride on for a while. He had to think about it and kept telling me to ask someone else, but finally he said, “Did you think about the Toden tram?” That’s a small tram that I’ve been meaning to ride eventually. It’s the only one left of an extensive tram system that covered Tokyo and goes from Waseda in northern Shinjuku City to Minowabashi in Arakawa City in the middle of goddamn nowhere. Also it was a bus ride from Shinjuku Station to Waseda which not only took a while, it took me 45 minutes to get 50 feet because off all the construction in the old Odakyu department store.

I also found that there are a LOT of old people riding the tram and even though it hurt my leg, I had to give up my seat because the guilt of sitting while little old ladies were standing would’ve killed me. I saw a young woman just pretend to be asleep but I can’t do that.

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Once I got to Minowabashi, I felt like I was back in the middle of the countryside of Japan. There was nothing there. I decided to take a bus back because that sounded more interesting. What didn’t seem interesting was a 20 minute ride to the Akasaka area, so I took the bus the opposite direction on a nice 1 hr 46 minute ride to Nakano station with two transfers. Fortunately there were enough seats on the buses that I didn’t have to give up my seat, but lots of old people riding the bus in the middle of nowhere too. First bus took me from near Minowabashi to Oji station which was much more lively and even had a McDonalds. Then it was on a bus to Koenji but I transfered near Kita-Nogata station to a bus directly for Nakano.

I didn’t do all that much in Nakano (like go to Nakano Broadway) but I did see a Yakiimo festival going on!IMG 0412

Huge lines for some of the food but I got in a shortest one to get just plain yakiimo.

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But they said I could get french fried yakiimo and that was more like a snack.IMG 0413

It was honestly quite good but so starchy and sweet! I couldn’t finish all of it.

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And then it was back to Shinjuku for more frustration. I usually save my shopping until the end because I don’t want to carry a bunch more stuff around with me. I should’ve done more in Osaka. The Muji on the whole other side of the station has split off into two stores. One with stationery and home goods (where they had everything stuffed into one building before) and a new one with clothing. And the big signs are on the side where you can’t get in because it’s just a loading dock. They were out of the pajama color I wanted in my big fat guy size too. At least the guy at the Tax Free counter was funny. He had an accent but he kept using American idioms. Turns out he lived in Utah for ten years!

Then I went to Kinokuniya to buy some calendars. The one I wanted was the only one that sold out, of course. And then I found out that the store wasn’t even Kinokuniya. They’d given up selling calendars and left it, and the dry goods like pens, to someone else. I should’ve done this shopping in Osaka as well. Then it was across the street to the Bic Camera/Uniqlo complex which WAS NO LONGER A UNIQLO. The Uniqlo used to be huge, too. So I resigned myself to trying the one in Takashimaya later in the day.

I went for dinner at Katsukura on the upper restaurant floor of Takashimaya and the line was huge. But it started moving quite quickly. Turns out I mis-ordered and the fancy pork is from Yamagata and the stuff I got was from Chiba. I wondered why it wasn’t as good as last year (not that it was bad). They were out of the Yamagata pork filet anyway. The whole thing was confusing but it’s definitely worth eating there.

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Uniqlo was a couple of floors down and not that large, but they had what I wanted. They were quite nice as well.

And then I got the bright idea to buy another power bank because my iPhone 15 Pro tends to eat battery. I spent about an hour and a half looking for Daisos that weren’t where google said they were and finally gave up and bought one at Bic Camera.

And that’s about it for the day. I didn’t end up packing because I was busy being an idiot and I might’ve walked even more than I did yesterday. Double idiot. We’ll see how that affects my plane ride home and my short SEVEN HOUR layover in Seattle.

Japan 2023: Day 20

Oh boy, I think I overdid it today. I’m OK now though. Better take it in order.

Got up this morning and I got out of my room a little later than I wanted to. Too much cursing at my computer. But my sister and I had been discussing a cafe around the corner from the hotel and I decided to try it out. It turned out to be OK, but not nearly as good as other choices. I think Drip-X-Cafe in Osaka has been the best so far and Tully’s is still a strong standby. I usually just go to Hoshino Coffee when I’m in Shinjuku and I might try that tomorrow. But today was Cafe de Crie.

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The ham and egg sandwich was kind of stale-ish. The toast wasn’t quite crisp. The salad had a dab of mayo and that was the only dressing. And the coffee, while strong, started to taste sour as it cooled. Anyway, I’m being picky. It was fine.

I didn’t know what to do in Tokyo, and I kind of decided today was the day to go to the “east” side. My sister had suggested I get a decent kitchen knife and I’ve been looking. I saw one in Umeda, but I didn’t buy one there. So today I went to Kappabashi, the kitchen supply area. The trip there was a bit of a mess for me. Lots of stairs without escalators or elevators. When I got there I was OK, and by the end of the time my leg had loosened up a little. Anyway, I went to one store with a lot of stock and they wanted to sell me a stainless knife. They said the stainless knives were just as good nowadays.

Then I went to a store that has been around for generations and it was full of foreigners buying knives. According to them the best knives were carbon steel and require a lot of maintenance. Wash them right after use, dry them, and coat them in a layer of oil. No cutting frozen things or bones (I told the guy I had Henkel knives for that and he laughed). I ended up buying a knife for ¥59,800! It was actually less because they gave me a form to get the 10% consumption tax refunded and while I went 4 or 5 blocks away to get that done, they engraved my name into the blade. I’m excited to cut up some onions. That’s all I ever seem to do.

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The Kappabashi kitchen good area is near Asakusa and the Sky Tree.

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As I headed back towards the station (and towards Asakusa) I decided I wanted to try the melon pan (melon-shaped bread). I’ve heard rumors that it was first made in the area, and I’m a big fan of melon pan, so off I went. Google maps told me the second store of Akasaka Kagetsudou was close by, but when I got there I found an empty lot. The woman at the funky clothing store next door told me to try the main store, all the way through the crowds. So off I went.

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So many people.

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When I got there I got in line. I figured if there was a line it was the right place.

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What I got was a very fresh melon pan with matcha soft ice cream inside! Not only was it the best melon pan, it had green tea soft ice cream! It was much bigger than a regular melon pan too.

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I decided to get some of the croquettes I saw on the way and that meant going back through the same crowds to a side street.

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First I got a regular one, beef and potatoes. It was the best.

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I noticed people were all getting one of the options with cheese, so I asked what the most popular one was and got that. It was menchi (minced meat) and cheese. I think I liked the regular one better, but this was good as well.

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It was only about 1pm so I decided to keep going and went to Akihabara to check out the few electronics stores that are left. There were even fewer than last year, and the ones that were left seemed to have less stuff. And as long as I was here, I went to visit the Kanda Myojin shrine like I do every year (it’s also close to a train station that takes me back to the hotel). I suppose it’s a tradition.

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And finally it was back to the hotel.

When I got back to the room around 3pm I realized I had overdone it. When I sat down my leg started cramping up a bit and wouldn’t stop. The pain was pretty bad.I  took a short nap and lay around a while and it calmed down. I decided I’d better stay close by for dinner and just headed over to Shake Shack even though there’s one in my neighborhood in Portland now.

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All at the southern end of Shinjuku station.

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When I got back I picked up some packages that are going to be difficult to get home, but I guess we get them every year. The big box is rice crackers from Niigata, the smaller box is youkan from Toraya, and the bag is something my sister bought and needs me to bring back. The socks are FamiChiki socks that I bought for myself. Family Mart socks are generally pretty comfortable so I’m hoping the FamiChiki ones are as well.

That’s about it for today. Not sure what I’m doing tomorrow but I’m hoping it involves a lot more sitting and a lot less walking around.

 

 

Japan 2023: Day 19

OK sorry I’m late. I was off seeing my old co-worker Suzuki-san and when I got back I was kind of tired. I didn’t sleep well the previous night because of the overeating and my leg is hurting more. Fortunately, after breakfast I just got to sit on the Shinkansen for a few hours (on the Green car!) from Okayama to Tokyo.

Packing got much easier. I brought less clothing on this trip (as my mother always instructed me to do) and since it suddenly dropped in temperature I didn’t have to do laundry as often. Also, I packed all my weird Uniqlo Airism underpants that take up much less space than boxer shorts. And finally I dropped off my second pair of jeans for repair. They had a hole in the crotch so that definitely needed to be fixed before I wore them. I’m not some weird hipster and I’m too old for that kind of fashion. One thing I did pack was a second long-sleeved shirt (my usual Montbell shirt). Good thing too because I’ve been wearing three shirt layers every day since the temperature dropped.

Same Greenberry as the day before.

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And then it was off to the station. The Green car was fairly empty and I fell asleep around the Kyoto stop. But after Nagoya I was just watching the builidngs go by. When I reached Fujieda I was afraid I missed Mt Fuji! Fortunately, I hadn’t. It was a fairly clear view today.

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I got to Tokyo and I was in a bad mood. Wondered why I even bothered coming. But it didn’t take long to realize I was just hangry. I looked around for lunch and even went into the new Kabukicho tower.

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After wandering for an hour I decided to make my third trip to Mos Burger. It’s comfort food for me.

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Checked into the hotel and they were fairly insistent that I use the machine to check in. I think it was almost ten years ago when we found out that the “search by name” function wanted the EXACT spelling and the EXACT NAME ORDER or something and we wasted a bunch of time trying to check in with the machine. I’m not sure how booking.com gives them the details but it’s a bit odd. I just went to the desk.

I guess this is the one hotel that I didn’t pre-pay. I like pre-paying so I don’t have to think about how much I’m paying for the hotels. ¥70,643 for three nights! It’s $163 per night and since I never stay in hotels in the US that’s expensive to me! But they did put me on the top floor and here’s my view.

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Now I can hit the top button on the elevator and think, “peasants” on the way up. Really, the room seems smaller than I remember so it’s not a big deal. At least I slept fairly well.

Oh, and I did head out to meet my old co-worker Suzuki-san. We went to a fish restaurant and had sushi and tempura. He’s still doing his “not leaving the apartment” thing and said he hadn’t left for 21 days! He buys enough groceries for three weeks at a time. And that means when I see him, he ends up eating things that he’s not used to and gets a stomach ache. It happened again. But we did get to talk for quite some time before we called it quits and I didn’t get back to my room until after 9:30pm.

That’s about it for that day. Now to decide what to do today…

Japan 2023: Day 18

Oh boy, I ate too much. But that’s at the end of the day.

Today I met my friend Yumi and since she knew about my back she suggested going to an onsen. I had no idea she’d drive so far. But first, I had breakfast at the Greenberry’s just down the street from the hotel. The yogurt even had granola in it! Quite tasty.

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Then Yumi came to get me for the hour-and-a-half drive up to Yubaru Onsen. On the way we stopped at a soba shop that’s only open on the weekends and is quite popular.

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We arrive just before opening so we got in right away but the lines formed soon after. The lady kept saying their tempura was said to be tasty and she totally undersold it. It was better than the tempura-only shops I’ve been to. And it was “shin-soba” made from recently harvested buckwheat just two days ago!

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Picture from Yumi of some old guy with his soba.

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Then it was on to Yubaru Onsen. There’s even a free open-air onsen there which was full of naked dudes including one who was just standing around smoking. If you zoom in (and I don’t suggest it) you can see him when he was being more modest, holding a towel in front of him. But when he grabbed his cigarette he threw the towel over his shoulder. There was a woman there too but she was wearing something close to a bathing suit from the olden times.

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Yumi’s picture that shows the bathing suit which looks like a green blob in the lower middle. Haha.

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Yumi’s picture of some old guy after getting out of the onsen and having some strawberry-flavored water.

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So on the way back we stopped at a city with a famous sake brewery and it was an old town with castle ruins. They were having a sake festival and I had some kuromoji ice cream. I think kuromoji is a kind of wood. Too lazy too google it right now.

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It was a quaint old town and since we were both sleepy after the onsen, we stopped at a random coffee shop. At first we thought it wasn’t really open, even though there was a sign outside, because it was full of records and knick knacks. I had a great peach soda and Yumi said the coffee was surprisingly good. He even brought us tea and rice crackers and the whole thing only cost ¥1000!

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And then it was back to Okayama, where we went for yakiniku. I overate, but even worse I proved to myself that I shouldn’t EVER eat garlic. Woo, the gas. The meat was awesome and the restaurant has a Showa theme. Or it sort of did. It’s been around that long!

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We even went for dessert (where my guts started to complain) and luckily Yumi gave me a taste of her creme brulee.

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And that’s it for the night. Fortunately my stomach feels much better now!

Japan 2023: Day 17

Not many pictures today. Slept OK, I’d probably give it a B-. In any case, I got up, ate some breakfast at Tully’s again, and realized I was very early for my train ticket that I bought yesterday.

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I went to try adjusting it to an hour earlier and they pointed at this sign:

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I did not read it but they said the Marine Liner is stopped. That’s the one that goes across the Seto Ohashi to Okayama, and it’s stopped due to heavy winds. I think it also says the Uzushio from Tokushima to Matsuyama is stopped as well. I asked if they had any other trains and they said not at the moment. I asked if my fare went poof and they said no, they’d refund the whole thing. That was about 9AM. OK, so time to figure out what else to do.

I went to the bus terminal and asked about buses to Okayama and they sent me to the local bus terminal. I guess there’s two buses each day, one around 8AM and one around 5PM. No other options. So back to the highway bus terminal with me to find another way off of Shikoku. I found two companies side-by-side. The first one told me the 10AM bus was full and the next one was 11AM. I saw there was a 10:30AM on the other side and they were nice and told me to try that first. Open seats were available but only sitting in the middle (a weird seat that blocks the aisle). Nope, back to the first counter and now I have a couple of hours to kill.

There are some good parts to taking a bus. I wondered what going across the bridges to Awaji Island were like and almost drove across the southern bridge yesterday. It’s better to ride the bus since it let me look out to see if there were any whirlpools (there were not). And the northern bridge was just a bridge. Nothing really special.

Since I didn’t trust my online sources (one said the Shinkansen was delayed as well), I stood in line at the Shin-Kobe ticket to ask at the ticket counter. And I figured I could buy my Okayama to Tokyo ticket at the same time. Met a guy in line who owns a packaging company up in Seattle and he was a hoot to talk to. He’s married to a Japanese woman from Kobe. Then I got my short ticket to Okayama (30 minutes) and my long ticket from Okayama to Tokyo (more like 4 hours). I also bought an ekiben because I was hungry. I hoped I’d have space to eat it and the train wouldn’t be packed.

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It was pretty good. Probably not “kobe beef” good but meh. I’ve been suckered by tourist stuff this whole trip. I didn’t need to worry, I got an aisle seat and the window seat was not taken.

I got to Okayama just after 2pm, about two hours late. It was freezing. I checked in since this hotel starts checkin at 2pm and sat in the room for a bit. I did walk around the neighborhood and took my expensive Momotaro jeans in for repair again, just like last year. And the Mister Donut is back! Not sure why they closed but it seems to be in the same spot. I bought a silly donut and it wasn’t great (wasn’t expecting it to be) but it also wasn’t awful.

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And the I wandered around the station underground and the coin flip app told me to get the same ramen I had last year.

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The broth I tried this year has a flying fish base, I think, and it was a little on the light side. I like it a bit more salty. The fatty pork char siu was great and I even got a rice bowl with seasoned char siu on the side. Next time I’m probably back to the one soy sauce flavored broth that is flavored with fish, pork, and chicken.

And that’s about it. I’m meeting our friend Yumi tomorrow and we’re going to hit some onsen. I’m having dinner with her brother and his family too. Should be fun!

Japan 2023: Day 16

More mistakes were made.

I decided it was time to sleep in. Being an old man, I usually am in bed by 10 and get up at 6, but with my spotty sleep I’ve been pretty tired when the alarm goes off. I set the alarm for 7 but of course I first woke up around 5:45. It was pretty nice except that my room is 26.5°C according to the A/C and that’s 80°F. I woke up in a sweat and got the worst cramp in my inner thigh. I’m so lucky I have that massage gun. It took some doing to get that worked out, but I was able to get back to sleep. I also found some Ca/Mg/Zn “with BioPerine” today so I’m going to take some of that as well.

But first, breakfast at Tully’s. It’s no Drip-X-Cafe but it’s also not that bad. It’s a sad tiny eggamuffin but I think they used Camembert cheese which is very flavorful. And the coffee is large and at least not completely weak.

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Another reason to sleep in was the tourist information office didn’t open until 10am. I thought I gave it enough time but they weren’t open when I first got there so I went to buy a train ticket for tomorrow. Then back to ask how to get to Isanagi-jingu Shrine, which kind of looks a little overdeveloped for the middle of Awaji Island. I also thought I could hit the amusement park but the weather forecast was iffy and the tourist bureau guy told me I should probably just head to Iya Gorge and the scary vine bridge that Chris Broad had on YouTube. It’s about time for the fall colors.

So then I started walking for an HOUR looking for a car to rent. JR Station Rent-a-car looked so tiny and iffy that I just kept walking. The paper map I was given wasn’t that great and it took forever to find Nippon Rent-a-car who said they were all booked out. Yeah, I’m still flying by the seat of my pants and didn’t even call ahead. They told me Toyota Rent-a-car had the most stock and modified the map for me crossing out places that no longer existed. Off I went. Toyota was the least friendly and just sent me on to Orix. Orix said they were pretty booked out but they might have a car if I waited. I got a kei car, which has a 550cc engine, I think, and once I found out that it could drive on the expressway I took it. Not that I had any other options.

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When I looked in my wallet my AMEX card was missing! I thought about taking a taxi back to the station because the only place I used it was the JR ticket counter. But they completed the transaction with my Apple credit card and convinced me to drive to the station, a rather busy part of the city. Adventure!

Luckily traffic wasn’t all that bad and the parking lot was mostly empty. And my AMEX card was at the ticket counter! Phew. Even better, I was there such a short time that I wasn’t charged for parking.

Off I went through town to the expressway.

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It’s about an hour and a half on the expressway and a lot of it looked like this. One lane in each direction and a truck in front of me. Which is good because the speed limit was 70kph (45mph!) or 50kph in the construction zone (31mph!). Yeah, I got it up to 100kph a couple of times which is still only 62mph.

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There were passing lanes and it did widen to two lanes for a while. Of course there were speedsters but I was in a kei car. I tried to keep it at about 85kph (53mph). I’m not Moriwaki, who said he got his Jag up to 300kph once. No way around it, that sounds sketchy.

So an hour and a half on the expressway and another 50 minutes or so on country roads. The navigation system kept telling me to watch my speed and I wanted to tell it YEAH, I’M SPEEDING BUT I’M TRYING TO KEEP UP WITH TRAFFIC.

Holy hell I was in the middle of nowhere. But I kind of knew it was a tourist area because the one rest stop I found had a Lawson and a Montbell shop!

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Nothing else for miles! Or I should say for kilometers! Not even a vending machine.

I wasn’t that hungry so lunch was from Lawson. I would recommend a hard pass on the snow cheese chicken.

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The GPS took me to a railway station that wasn’t close to where the rope bridge was, but I used my phone with Google Maps and also the signs on the road that told me which way to go. And when I got there I saw ¥400 parking and I kind of knew it was a tourist trap. Well, I’m a tourist so whatever. There was a giant hall which looked like a US grocery store but was a Japanese gift store. Then it was off to the bridge.

The Abroad in Japan YouTube channel showed a scary vine bridge that looked like it could fall at any moment and Chris Broad acted frightened to cross it.

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In reality it costs ¥550 to cross and there was a bus full of elderly Chinese tourists ahead of me crossing the bridge.

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And it’s pretty obvious that there’s vinyl-covered steel cables holding up the bridge with decorative vines wrapped around them.

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I talked to a Japanese couple who crossed at the same time and we had a chuckle. Here’s a view from the middle of the bridge.

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The worst part is that I came up to see the fall colors and there’s a chance that they aren’t happening this year. I saw lots of trees with brown leaves and the parking lot attendant told me that most of the leaves just turned brown and fell off this year because the temperature just suddenly dropped. I did find one single tree with red leaves.

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Then I drove back through the rain and it was starting to get dark at 3:30pm. But when I got back to Tokushima the weather was pretty nice. The only hard part was the minimal rush-hour traffic and the GPS driving me around in circles. Oh, and then trying to find a gas station.

I got back and I still wasn’t hungry. I decided just to give Lotteria a go and DON’T TRY THE BACON CHEESEBURGER unless you want a ham cheeseburger. And a tiny ham cheeseburger at that. It was, um, bad? Well, not bad, but not good. Mos Burger is still at the top of my list.

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The fries were surprisingly good, though they were over-salted. And I got a melon soda because that’s not a typical thing in the US.

I went up to the bath early and I kept thinking I smelled like shit. Then I thought it must be the onsen water. Then I looked at the drain and found a present someone had left for me. Ugh. Well, I reported it on the way out but yeesh. And yes, sometimes onsen water does kind of smell like that.

So, there’s Tokushima for you. Pluses and minuses and dumbass me not planning ahead making things harder. And the food, in general, was underwhelming. And my weird Japanese skills are getting weirder and weirder. The guy at the tourist trap parking lot asked me if I was from Yamaguchi. Hahaha. And here I thought I had my Kansai-ben down.

Japan 2023: Day 15

Mistakes were made.

I started out the day with breakfast! I didn’t sleep as well as last night because early on I was getting up a lot to go to the bathroom. (TMI section: why is it that when I wake up at night I actually have to go to the bathroom, but during the day it seems like I want to go but there’s no volume?) I thought back and realized I tried not to drink anything after dinner, but I did get sobayu after I finished eating and drink all of the soba tsuyu. (You can google that if you want, it’s not TMI.) Oh, and as I packed up i noticed this by my garbage:

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No wonder I was getting up all the time.

Anyway, the Daiwa Roynet buffet was fantastic, in a huge room, and had an omelet bar! You can see from the selection that I am Japanese-American. I kind of loaded up because I kind of knew I wouldn’t get lunch.

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It was another beautiful day and the first thing I did was got a taxi to the ferry. Then an hour wait for a two-and-a-half hour ferry ride that was hot and quite boring. Once I looked out and thought, hey, I know some of those landmarks, we’re almost there but my watch showed we had another hour to go. The only excitement was during my hour-long wait to get onto the ferry. One of the workers was wearing Hanshin gear. I wondered if he is a megafan or if he lost a bet.

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Once I got off the ferry it was a long bus ride to the train station and the Hotel Sunroute Tokushima. I dropped off my bag and limped myself over to the tourist information bureau to ask about seeing the whirlpools at Naruto where the ocean meets the inland sea. They told me to get on the bus right away so I could get on one of the last boats out to the whirlpools. I had to get a all-day ticket, and the bus took AN HOUR. Remember when I said it was a long bus ride to the train station? That was only about 15 minutes.

I asked the driver about where to get off for the boat ride into the whirlpools and the guy told me about the two boats from one dock but didn’t really say which stop it was. Then after I sat back down the bus made several English announcements telling me to get off at the Otsuka Museum of Art. When I got off I saw a big sign for cars that said THIS WAY TO THE BOAT RIDE. Well, it said something in Japanese but it translated to something similar to that. So I started walking. And walking. It was another 20 minutes, often down a narrow (and sometimes busy) Japanese road. And then I hit construction! One of the flaggers had to walk me through the construction area where they were repaving the road. Once I saw the boats I jogged over to the ticketing area because it looked like they were getting ready to leave.

At the ticketing booth they told me the small boat was about to leave and the big boat would leave later, but I was about an hour late for the peak whirlpools and sooner was better than later.

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I was one of the last ones on board, but there were only about five other people on board. We had to sit to leave port, then we walked around while we motored quite quickly over to the area under the bridge, which is where the whirlpools form. Then they made us go below decks and we watched the whirlpools from below! I don’t have a good picture but here’s looking out while we were under way.

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And then we went back through a couple of times while we were on the upper deck. It was kind of fun to watch the water swirl around.

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You could see the step where the inland sea met the ocean.

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I think it was worth it. After we headed back to port I had nearly an hour to wait for the bus. There’s nothing to do there other than the boat so I had some ice cream out of a machine. I’ve seen this machine at a lot of the ferry terminals and I finally tried it because I was getting hungry.

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It was a tiny freezer ice cream and it wasn’t bad. 

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I looked around the souvenir shop and the boat schedules and realized if I had a choice I would’ve taken the faster, smaller boat (which I did). I really lucked into that one.

Then it was another hour back to the hotel.

When I got to the hotel it was full of women who looked like they were on a pilgrimmage of at least part of the 88 temples of Kyushu. When I checked in and asked the woman at the counter said something like, “I’m not sure they’re that serious.” But I put my stuff in my room and immediately went looking for dinner because I was starving.

OK, so for dinner I made even more mistakes. I went to a restaurant that served the local specialty of chicken. One famous dish is the chicken leg served on a hot plate and cut up with scissors. Well, YOU cut it up with scissors. Anyway, I always spend too much money at these places and never know what to order. I overdid it and one of the things kind of made me queasy.

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In case you’re wondering, it was the chicken namban that made me queasy. Too much sauce. It wasn’t even hot when it came out. Honestly, though, it was all just oversalted chicken that needed pepper or some other seasoning. They should also give up on the local chicken namban and get the recipe from Miyazaki. I’m sure I could get used to it but I think I’d rather make a special trip to Nagoya for roast chicken and Miyazaki for chicken namban.

Oh, and you can’t tell but that chicken leg is giant. I ate way too much. So much chicken grease and salt.

After that it was drizzling out and while I did make a stop at the Can Do for more cables (which they didn’t have) I got back to the hotel and went to the onsen on the floor above me. (I’m on the 20th floor.) The TV kept telling me the men’s bath was full so I did wait in the room for a bit but eventually I just gave up and went. It wasn’t packed but goddamn the old Chinese guys were loud. I was mad until I realized they were OLD KOREAN GUYS. They were of the age that usually hates Japan, but whatever. I gave them a pass, which shows that I am a racist Asian (and don’t any of you other Asians tell me you’re any different.) I just wished they would keep it down a bit in the bath.

Oh, and speaking of which, while I was bored waiting for the bus I asked one of the drivers where the bus was from. He said, this bus? It’s all Taiwanese people. Just got off the plane, then off to see the whirlpools and then onto a five day tour of Shikoku. Sounds like fun. And Taiwan is the one Asian country that seems to really like Japan. They get a pass too. Yes, I am an awful person.

Japan 2023: Day 14

Woo, not a bad night of sleep. What I did was let the A/C heat the room all night even though it makes awful noises and then didn’t use the comforter as much. Through much experimentation I found that even if the room is cold the comforter in the hotel is just too much. Phew. Too bad I figured it out on my last night.

The pain in my ass keeps being a pain in my ass. It changed though. I could not get it to go away, but it wasn’t as intense. So as you’d expect, I overdid it later in the day. I’m on vacation. I can’t just sit inside all day.

I started out at the SAME COFFEE SHOP. Mainly because it’s close and I like it. There’s no coffee cup in the room so I have to rely on outside coffee and Drip-X-Cafe is about as good as it gets.

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Oddly it’s been getting less and less crowded as the week goes on.

Then it was time to make my way to Wakayama. I was going to try to get on an express train but the maze to get across the street to the main station was too much and I had one minute to make it through the gate and onto the train. I decided to go with a later option and found one that was even faster. I had to ask if it was reserved seating and it sure was. Reserved seating only! I made some mistakes buying my ticket and only bought the seat. You also need to buy a transit ticket from point-to-point and I forgot that. The other odd thing is that it’s in the new JR station. It took me forever to get to the gate, and then the cars on the trains kept flip-flopping where car one was on the front for my train but was on the back for the previous train. I got the only seat left on the right-hand side and I was afraid I’d be crammed in next to someone else. Turns out I was in a weird end row where there was only one seat on the right-hand side! And plenty of seats were open so I really can’t understand how the JR reservation system works.

I made it to Wakayama, took the bus to the hotel, dropped off my bag, and then went looking for the ramen restaurant that my friend Moriwaki told me to try. I found out later that Wakayama has their own take on ramen and they call it “chuuka soba”. The line wasn’t that bad. And it can go pretty fast. The whole seating area was tiny and most of the inside was the kitchen.

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I was recommended the normal ramen, but I got the “special” that had more charsiu pork. The eggs and the weird sushi are there for the taking. You just tell them how many you ate as you check out.

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Here’s what the noodles look like.

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Later I added an egg. Turned out to be perfect for hipsters with that bright orange color.

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I wasn’t quite full but I never did find any sweets. Instead I went back to the station for suggestions on what to see. I can’t remember what the old seaside town area is called (probably old seaside town area) but my ass felt OK today. It’s probably because, for some reason, it’s warm again. I even got sunburnt a little.

I took a train to the middle of nowhere and had to walk quite a way to make it to Kimiidera. The woman at the tourist bureau told me I’d be OK because there was a ropeway and elevator at this temple. It had the largest standing wooden statue in Japan(? the world?), but the statue is fairly new and also gilded so I couldn’t tell it was wooden. But back to the ropeway. It was like diagonal elevator, though it cost ¥600 (I think ¥400 was for entrance to the temple). You got on and pushed the “second floor” button or whatever the label was and off you went.

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The temple was quite nice and was #2 on a pilgrimage route. Just like me to start in the middle.

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Here’s the building with the wooden Kannon (Goddess of Mercy) statue.

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And as the tourist center promised, the view was pretty nice (there was a nicer view but I forgot to take a picture from it).

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Then there were miles of walking through semi-industrial Japan to get to a few shrines. My leg hurt a bit, but it wasn’t so bad that I stopped. One of the worst parts is the paths were made of the same odd paving stones that made the surface uneven and that did not help.

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I made it to the last temple on my list, Kishu Toshugu shrine. There are a couple of barriers to entry. First, the stairs. Stairs are what make the pain in my ass worse. If I had any sense, I would’ve skipped this shrine.

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But obviously, I do not have any sense.

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The second barrier to entry is that it costs money to enter. I don’t know of many shrines that make you pay to enter and it made it feel like a tourist trap. It’s modeled after the mausoleum of Tokugawa Ieyasu in Nikko and was commissioned by his son. You can’t take pictures of the artwork and it was also slightly faded and dirty. I guess I was spoiled when I saw a newly restored temple in Gunma that had similar artwork but on a much grander scale.

When I got to the bus stop I found there was only one bus per hour but the bus was leaving in 15 minutes! And boy did my ass hurt!

I’m staying at fancier hotels for my last week. I knew I was rolling the dice for the last few, so I picked a big name brand, Daiwa Roynet, for my stay in Wakayama. I think I also paid for an “upgrade”. I’m on the 19th floor and here’s the view from my window.

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The room is also way bigger than the one in Osaka.

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I could just sit here and look out the window all day.

For dinner I didn’t want to go far because my ass hurt (as I keep mentioning). Google only mentioned the Cantonese restaurant here but there’s also a udon/soba shop. It was pretty good. The shrimp tempura was bigger, I forgot to take a picture until I took a bite out of it. That’s why there looks to be things floating in the soy sauce and tsuyu too. Anyway, this cost a whole ¥1680 (about $11.20 US right now?)

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I got a caramel cream puff at the Family Mart on the way back to the room and I was a little disappointed. I should remember that the puff pastry isn’t going to last long enough to be shipped around, plus the caramel tasted burnt. I still ate the whole thing.

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Tomorrow I take the ferry to Tokushima where I spend a couple of days. I might try renting a car one of those days. We’ll see.

Japan 2023: Day 13

Not much different in my sleep or back pain issues, besides not washing my legs right now made it so I could continue my morning routine without having to lie down after my shower. Walking any distance still hurts, though.

First, breakfast. I keep going to the same place (it’s close and tasty) and I even got the same thing I did yesterday. This time I remembered to take a picture before I ate most of it.

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The most important thing today was visiting my cousins but I had a lot of time to kill beforehand. I decided to get an all-day pass on the Hankyu Railway and just check out a couple of things. First, I took the train from Umeda (Osaka) to Takarazuka. Then back to the Minoo spur. I got out at Minoo and thought about looking around but walking was still painful so I just got back on the train. Then I decided to go to Itami Station, my local station from 1986 to 1991. I got out there and looked for some lunch but Itami station was still the same boring place and I couldn’t find anything. I also tried to go to the ¥100 shop but it was closed today! Then I tried to buy some Mister Donut, but it there was no place to sit and eat. I ended up just getting back on the train and heading to Nishinomiya Kitaguchi which is about 20 minutes from my cousin’s house.

Nishinomiya Gardens is a sorta fancy mall there and my sister wanted me to look for a sweatshirt at the Graniph store. I was dreading it because it’s a bit of a walk to the store and blah blah butt pain. Of course they could get my sister the shirt if I gave them three days and I’m leaving Osaka in the morning. They also said it was “old stuff” and it was just released on Halloween (it’s 11/14 today). I still had a lot of time to kill so I thought I’d get a snack. The closest place was Tokyo Soup Stock, where the menu had absolutely no English on it. Somewhere else I did see some English but I don’t really remember. I got the two soup set with upgraded bread and upgraded black sugar ginger ale. One was a seafood lobster bisque and the other one was something like Vermeer milkmaid soup They were both quite good and the bread was kind of sweet. The restaurant was filled with women and that meant some screaming babies as well. I’d do it again, though.

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I had even more time to kill before I got a taxi for my eldest cousin’s place. Three of my four cousins and one of my cousin’s wives showed up and we all spent the afternoon talking. It was fun. I’m not posting their picture because I just took it to send to my sister.

Then my eldest cousin and I had dinner. She’d been practicing for a piano recital, more than usual, so she said she was too tired to cook and got pressed sushi which is an Osaka delicacy. I found out she didn’t really like raw fish, so this is what we had.

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It was pretty good. I thought about getting a taxi to use the train day pass, but that would mean spending ¥1000 on the cab to save ¥230. I realized that as I limped to the closest train station. It didn’t really hurt until I got there, so I was fine.

In any case, that’s about it for the day.

Japan 2023: Day 12 (updated)

OK, I’m going to do the same thing I did yesterday because I’m meeting my buddy for dinner and I’m not sure how late I’ll be out. Hopefully not too late, since I’m not sleeping very well during this trip.

I got up this morning and I have two things I needed to do. See the rolfer and visit my friend Moriwaki. The rolfer told me I should probably use heat to help my problem and it’s dropped about 20 degrees since the trip started, so that’s kind of rough. I wish I was at an onsen where I could take a nice soak but I’m in Osaka. I’m OK with pushing through the pain to see something really interesting but it’s cold (in the 40’s in the morning!) and rainy so that usually means it’s a day for shopping. And while I’m OK with shopping if I’m with my sister, I really don’t have anything in particular I’m still looking for. Maybe some more USB-C cables, but those are available on Amazon at home. I did make a quick trip through Tokyu Hands and the Minecraft popup and the Nintendo stores, but meh. I’m back in the hotel room. I took a nap and watched some YouTube. The important thing is to get on the train to go see Moriwaki.

For breakfast I went back to the Drip-X Cafe in the Hotel Vischio. I saw the bicyclist from the other day and I joined them and got so busy talking that I forgot to take a picture of my hot dog until they left.

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It was one of the good Japanese sausages with cheese and I really enjoyed it. The coffee is growing on me too. It was CHILLY. I went back to the hotel to grab a pair of gym shorts in case the rolfer wanted me to wear them. In the US they usually just have me stand in my underpants to assess my body misalignment but I wasn’t sure how it worked in Japan.

I started off towards the rolfer and by the time I got to the taxi stand my leg hurt quite a bit. I didn’t think I’d make it in time if I walked with this pain in my leg so I took a taxi. Drivers here are either chatty or silent and I got a silent one today. It took no time at all to get to the apartment tower where the office was and he told me to go to the next tower over. After trying to figure out how to get into the tower, wandering around, it turns out he dropped me off right in front of the building I needed to be in. Sheesh.

The rolfer was great. She’s been doing massage therapy for at least a dozen years (I can’t remember exactly what she said) so I left it in her hands and I felt great afterwards. HOWEVER, I knew that as screwed up as I got it was going to take a bit to fix everything. Sure enough, walking back to the hotel it started to hurt again. Not like in the mornings, but why push it? That’s why I’m back in the hotel.

Oh, on the way home I went underground because it’s CHILLY as I mentioned earlier. I was right near the Daisan building which is full of businessmen and there’s all sorts of restaurants in the basement. I went to an Okinawan restaurant and tried to order goya champuru but they just ran out! I had taco rice instead, which was pretty good. Oh, if you ever do go down there keep in mind a lot of the restaurants allow smoking.

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Sitting in the restaurant my leg started to hurt. I could’ve forced myself to keep shopping or wandering around Umeda, but I wasn’t excited enough to push myself. Anyway, the important thing is to meet Moriwaki tonight. I quite enjoy sitting and watching YouTube or Netflix and there’s no other way to eat all the things I’ve been eating besides coming to Japan so I’m OK with all this. It’s not ideal, but it’s still fun.

Update:

I met up with my old co-worker Moriwaki for dinner. As always it was fun to talk and he’s quite unique. He’s about three years older than me and about to fully retire and move to Beppu. But even now, in his semi-retirement at 62, he bought a second house in Wakayama and goes fishing all the time. Basically, it’s what I aspire to. He went to high school and college in North Carolina and has a unique perspective.

We went to an okonomiyaki place because that’s what I always tell him I want to eat. I don’t know of any decent places in Portland.

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Moriwaki also said eat it only with the spatula – that’s the Osaka way. His was much smaller than my deluxe, so we also got yakisoba. This is after we’ve eaten some of it.

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He drove us to a Starbucks for dessert.

Oh, I forgot to mention, he used to have a two seat Mercedes Benz convertible. I figured as a fisherman he’d have a new car, something more beat up. Well, he has a new car, a two-seat Jaguar with an incredibly aggressive cam that pops when he hits the accelerator. It’s always good to see the guy.

Japan 2023: Day 11 (updated)

UPDATED not that anyone would notice.

I might update this later, but it’s mid-afternoon and I’m chilling in the hotel room. It’s cold and rainy and I’ve done the main thing I wanted to do today: laundry. I also went to Toki, a restaurant I go to at least once a year. But first, I went around the corner to the fancy Hotel Vischio because my sister said they had a coffee shop, and they did! The coffee was strong and the breakfast set was tasty.

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Lots of SE Asians there, or at least they sounded like SE Asians to me. After that, I went back to the hotel and grabbed my laundry bag and headed to the Laundry Robot Lab.

Remember how I said I bought a massage gun and it worked wonders last night? Well, I’m still a huge mess and it took quite some time to walk the 12 minutes to the laundry. It’s worse today, I think, but I just know its kind of bad. But I made it.

The laundromat was clean and there were tables with chairs where you could wait. I think this is a nicer neighborhood. Lots of people were coming in to use the dryer since it was a cold day and I guess rain was in the forecast. Carrot Weather failed me and it’s rainier than they said. You know what makes it a Laundry Robot Lab? Just that there’s a machine where you can pay with credit cards, Suica cards, etc. (It’s the one at the end of the row of washers.) I watched one guy try card after card without much luck. It took him about five minutes to get it right. I didn’t help because he was much younger than me and should know about these things much more than I do. 

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The taller washers were washer/dryer combos and I used the one with the “Attack” detergent. I finally asked a woman what that meant and she just said it was a brand of laundry detergent, probably fancier than the industrial one in the rest of the washers. No one else came in to use the washers but all the dryers were in use. You can see the big dryer to the right of the picture. There were six more stacked dryers. You could use coins but no one did. You just use that blue machine and tell it which washer, washer/dryer, or dryer you want to use and it does the rest.

I made it back to the hotel about noon and they said they’d already cleaned my room. I sat around for about an hour. Then I went looking for food. The lines were long again, but nothing like yesterday. The weather was much nicer earlier in the day yesterday. Somehow I decided it was time to get Famichicki and it was just a breaded cutlet. Tasted like real chicken and was better than one you’d get from the freezer section in the US but it was still just a breaded piece of chicken.

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I also got some karaage and all of it had to be microwaved because the heat lamps didn’t do much. One salt flavored and two soy sauce flavored.

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I also had a milk tea that was ridiculously sweet.

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I handled this all with one hand while I took pictures with the other. I was also holding an umbrella. And everything was kind of slippery. How? Well, the Famichicki comes in a bag that you tear in the middle so you can hold just the bottom part without getting your hands greasy.

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And then it was time to get into the long line at Toki to get the same dessert I get every year. The past few times I’ve gone Toki hasn’t been that busy but this year there’s lines. Good for them. And I got matcha shiratama as I do most years.

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And since I got two big checklist items taken care of and it’s cold and rainy plus since my back hurts, I decided it was time to head back to my tiny hotel room to chill at least until dinner. And dinner might be Wendy’s because for it’s just around the block and for some reason it sounds good. But I might also take another run at Baqet as well. We’ll see.

Oh, and the best news, I finally got ahold of a rolfer and I’m seeing them tomorrow morning! Wish me luck!

UPDATE (just dinner, really).

I think two people read this blog and they should’ve been asleep by the time I posted the first time, so I’m not sure why I mention the update.

Ah indecision. I thought I should go to the steamed veggie place because I ate like crap at lunchtime. Fried chicken and then wagashi is not a complete diet. And whatever horrors I’m putting in my body at home seems to have way more fiber than what I’m eating in Japan, if you catch my drift. But I noticed there was no line at Grill Ron. The last two days at lunch there’s a huge line, and today I asked one of the people working there and they said it’s was on a YouTube video. I kept walking to the steamed veggie place and I ended up back at Grill Ron. At this point all the chairs were taken so I was supposed to stand in line across the way.

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They give you a menu while you’re waiting and take your order before you go in. There’s only three four-tops (Japanese four tops which are pretty small), three two-tops, and three counter seats although I can’t imagine three people could sit at the counter. The menu was pretty simple, several different sets of “mixed fry” and some other things I didn’t really look at (like omurice). I got the “C” set with 100% beef hamburger. Came with some miso soup as well. The order came pretty soon after I sat down inside.

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It was pretty good. Everything was just a little better than expected. The shrimp was prefectly crispy, the burger was good, the cream crab croquette was tasty. Not spectacular, just exactly what you’d want. I guess that and the small seating area are what causes the line. I’d say try it if you can, and honestly if everyone just eats and goes the line moves pretty quickly.

After that I just headed back to the hotel. I got some 7Eleven fizzy water and some more chocolate. Here’s a picture of that.

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I like those chocolates because you can eat a few at a time. They’re really tasty too. This year I’ve been getting the almond with the puffed rice in the chocolate, which I’ve never seen before. I often get them with just macadamia nuts. They’re very tasty. The fizzy water is a cheaper version of WIlkinson which they don’t seem to sell near this hotel. I think Wilkinson is better, but they’re both better than LaCroix.

And that’s it for the day. Here’s hoping that the massage person can help me with my hip pain!