OK, another tough day. I felt a lot better after 9 hours of sleep and went to Yamadera just outside Yamagata city. There’s a 7Eleven right by the hotel and I got the same breakfast there that I got at Mini Stop yesterday and headed to the train station. Google decided it didn’t know how to get me to Yamadera but my small short-term memory remembered I wanted an 8:18 train. I asked the station attendant if memory was correct and he looked at me like I was a moron and told me to go to track 5. It’s only ~55 minutes from Sendai to Yamadera, which is about the time it takes to go from Osaka to Kyoto.

However, here’s proof I’m a moron:

No thunderstorms (I felt ONE drop in the evening) but it was HOT. Plus it’s HUMID. Who the hell goes up 1000 steps to a mountain temple when it’s over 90 degrees? (You probably know that idiot personally since there are only three people reading this blog and I know all three of you.)

I don’t know if you can see it, but about in the very middle of this picture, in the hill, is the temple I wanted to go see. Why, you might ask. I’m not really sure. At least I got a start in the morning.

So off I went. Here’s the start of the 1000 steps.

And here’s the first temple at the bottom:

Fortunately the first part was in the shade. And even more fortunately, I didn’t take pictures of every shrine and temple on the way up. There were a couple of Chinese tourists doing that for me and I’m sure you can find those on-the-line SOMEWHERE.

I was pretty overheated and sweaty by the time I got to the top and here’s a picture of the highest temple (a pair) you can get to. One is older, and one is newer and there’s lots of differences in the statues of deities between the two. I can go on and on, but you should either find me (both of you who read this far in this blog will have the chance) or just google it.

What I really wanted to do is to get to the highest temple, but I was told I’m 50 years too late for that. I just took a selfie at the highest point I could get to, an observation deck of sorts.

Keep in mind I wasn’t thinking clearly and didn’t take all the pictures on the first time up so I had to climb up to the “observation deck” twice.

I made it down and went into a temple I skipped on the way up. I paid ¥200 to go into the temple and luckily it was a bit cooler inside the temple. After that I staggered back to the station after getting a bit lost. I had to ask the locals for directions. I did have a small snack before the train came. A pear soft ice cream is all I could handle at the time.

If you look carefully you’ll note that the t-shirt should be a paler shade of blue but it’s SOAKED in sweat. I bet I lost 10 lbs in water weight. Maybe more.

Two stops back towards Sendai was…

I left out a bit. There was also a “30-minute walk” from the station to the Nikka Miyagiko Distillery that I bet was closer to 50 minutes. In the heat. With no shade.

I took the tour and the distillery was HUGE. Even though they’re taking a break from selling some of the whiskey, it’s probably 5-10 times the size of the Yamazaki distillery.

Look at the stills! That doesn’t include the two Coffey stills!

After the tour they only give you a few tastes, but you can buy a bunch more! Where in the world can you get a short pour of the 21-year-old Taketsuru for ¥500? Or the award winning 17-year-old Taketsuru for ¥400? I asked them to sell me double pours (closer to a shot).

I even had a ¥7000 taste of the limited edition Taketsuru that only had 300 bottles in the production run!

The bartender shift changed and Ross from Adelaide (via Scotland) was suggesting all sorts of interesting things.

You can see rehydrating with whiskey wasn’t helping me take pictures BEFORE I had the taste.

This is one of the three “flavors” of whiskeys they use to make the Taketsuru and was my last taste. Both of you who read this blog know I’m a talker, and when I drink I get even more chatty. A couple of older Japanese gentlemen came to my table and I started talking to them instead of the bartender. They told me they were on a tour and had an extra seat to get back to Sendai. One of the gentlemen offered me a ride back, which meant I didn’t have to walk back to the train station. In the heat. With no shade.

What I didn’t know is that the gentleman making the offer was the president of a company and the rest of the group were other company presidents who were his suppliers. Once a year they all met for an excursion. One last stop before heading to Sendai, they had fried tofu.

On the ride back they also asked if I wanted to join them for dinner though it would be dutch. I had no idea it would be so fancy. Actually I had a slight idea so I went to Uniqlo and bought myself a shirt with a collar (¥500 on the sale rack!) because all I brought were light gym t-shirts.

Dinner was ¥10,000, but it was worth it. Little morsels but so excellent.

The pictures don’t include the beer, wine, and dessert.

They invited me along tomorrow for a tour of Matsushima!

The jet lag I thought I avoided this trip kicked in last night. I woke up several times and 4:45AM, was about as late as I could sleep. I got at least 7 hours, so that was good. I spent some time messing with the janky WiFi again (much better at 4:45AM when no one else is on) and reading email. My goal was to get to the JR Rail Pass office before they opened and get on an early train to Sendai. I took a shower, packed up, and went around the corner to the convenience store (a Mini Stop) and picked up a quick breakfast.

I was the first one in line! I quickly filled out the paperwork so I wouldn’t lose my spot and got my Rail Pass before 8:35!

But the next train out was full and the following train stopped at ever station. The first fast train to Sendai wasn’t scheduled until 10:10AM so I had time to kill. I bought a newspaper and found a coffee shop inside the train gates. Since I was planning on sitting there for over and hour and a half I bought a second breakfast, which was as tasty as the first.

The train ride was uneventful and incredibly fast. The Wi-Fi on the train was less janky than the hotel, but still janky, and I ended up using my cell phone as a hot spot. The trip consisted of me killing the batteries in my laptop and my phone so I could check my email for whatever reason. Got to Sendai around 11:40AM.

I dropped off my bags at the hotel (check in wasn’t until the afternoon) and at noon I was ready to go exploring. I guess there’s only three big things to see in Sendai and you can to them with a one-day bus pass. I got to the bus right as they were leaving so I hopped on without the pass. I missed all the discounts the bus pass would’ve given me.

Sendai was a castle town built by a daimyo, Date Masamune. I don’t have to tell you this because everything in this area is about Date Masamune. The first stop was a 45-year-old re-creation of his mausoleum, which was bombed to bits during WWII. Like most re-creations, it’s not quite as interesting as the real thing.

There’s a whole lot more I didn’t take pictures of because: re-creation.

The second stop is where the castle was, which was also bombed to bits. It’s on top of a hill, as was the mausoleum, which meant there’s a lot of walking up hills here. The bus will drop you off at the bottom of the hill. There was a great view, but the castle is just a bunch of blocks in the ground where the foundation should’ve been.

The third stop I made was the shrine that Masamune Date built. I really like shrines, but this was just a shrine and preparations were being made for a festival that won’t happen until after I leave. I found out the shrine honors the deity of warfare as well. Woof.

I got back to the hotel and my room is very nice. Now this is what a hotel should be like. There’s a big public bath on the second floor and I absolutely love soaking in a giant pool of hot water. For dinner I went out to get a Sendai specialty, Maboyakisoba (which was ok at best), and that food plus the lack of sleep and I’m too tired to leave the room again. It’s all I can do to finish this post.

The “free” dessert (and the one small beer) didn’t help with my sleepiness.

So there you have it. I took a shower in the room instead of hitting the bath, and tomorrow I either have a big day climbing up to Yamadera in Yamagata (the mountain temple) or I’m heading to the seashore of Matsushima. The temperature in the mountains of Yamagata is supposed to be ~85°F (29.5°C) tomorrow, and ~95°F (35°C) the next day, so I probably have to do all the mountain stuff tomorrow or just not do it at all. We’ll see how I feel in the morning.

I scheduled a full day in Tokyo to get my fancy watch serviced,  a particular errand that I’ve been unable to perform for years. The problem with having a multi-thousand-dollar watch is that you’re supposed to pay hundreds every few years to have it “overhauled.” It’s best to have a Grand Seiko overhauled in Japan because they’re supposed to do a better job and Seiko Japan also performs a “complimentary” polish of the scratches on the case and wrist strap that the US repair shop is unable to do. It also takes about a month and you have to hand-deliver and pick up the watch in Tokyo. I’m usually not in Japan for a whole month. Since I’m in Japan for much longer this time, it was time to get the overhaul done. Probably more about watches than you ever wanted to know.

The plane from Portland arrived in Narita early so I was able to drop off the watch in on the day I arrived (yesterday). This gave me a full day to kill in Tokyo with very little planned. First, I went out in search of breakfast. (Actually, first I fought with the janky WiFi in the Green Hotel.) I entered the first coffee shop I saw (just at the corner) and bought a “morning set” and a coffee. They were great, by the way.

Then I went out and ran the only other errand I had: mailing presents to friends rather than hauling them around with me for two months before I saw them. Being Asian I have to bring presents for a lot of the people I’m visiting (especially relatives) and rather than carry them around the trick is to drop them in the Japan Post. You can try the excellent delivery services, but they require you to write the address in Japanese. Japan Post is used to getting international mail so you can just scribble addresses in English. Plus they were trying to sell me curry from APA Hotels at the Post Office.

After that I was lost, so I took my sister’s advice to go see a stationery store called Kakimori. As soon as I found it I went in through the open door and got kicked out because it was 40 minutes before they opened. And I couldn’t even look in the window because they were taking pictures of the front of the store. What I did see looked a little boring and not worth the trouble, but I read up on the store and they have lots of papers and options for you to create your own notebook. Cool for notebook nerds.

Getting there early gave me time to wander. I didn’t mind because I rarely come to this side of the Tokyo loop line and I like wandering around Japan. In fact, I don’t even mind being bored in Japan. I’m not at work and it’s very different than home.

I found the ink store that was part of Kakimori where you can mix your own fountain pen ink. It was a ways from Kakimori, and they also weren’t open until 11AM.

But close to the ink shop was chocolatier who had various varieties of coffee and hot chocolate! The chocolatier was definitely worth the walk, even if I didn’t go to Kakimori.

But I did go back to Kakimori and  then more wandering. No pictures from inside the store but if you’re curious there was a nice blog post about it from the Three Staples blog.

At some point my wanderings led me to a massage shop of the Raffine chain. Japanese massages are odd. You don’t disrobe (though you can change into sweats they provide) and they also drape a towel over you and massage you through the towel and your clothing. I got a 15 minute head and shoulder massage, had lunch, and went back for 40 minutes of leg and 40 minutes of back. The second set of massages was from a tiny woman who was incredibly strong and my legs still feel worked over.

Oh, and I had lunch at Wendy’s, part of my experiment to see if American fast food is better in Japan (mostly yes).

At dinner I broke a silly rule I used to have. The rule is to avoid places where you order by buying a ticket out of a vending machine. You then go in and hand the ticket to the wait staff and they deliver the food. It’s a stupid rule and I ate at a restaurant that I walked by last year. I asked a guy outside how it was and he said, “It’s great, and you can get refills on your rice.” (Of course he said that in Japanese.) It was better than I thought it would be for a ticket restaurant and realized the rule was stupid.

On the way home I stopped into Lawson to get some Japanese craft beer and nearby there was a dimly lit sign for the temple where Jigoro Kano invented/codified Judo! I didn’t take a picture because it was too dark, but now I know where it is!

Well that’s it for Tokyo for a while. I’m off to Sendai tomorrow.

Is blogging even a thing anymore? I think I had another question to write here but even though it’s only 8:30PM in Tokyo, it’s 4:30AM in Portland where I started out the day. I’ve almost been awake 24 hours and I’m fading fast.

But even though I had to put up with company elitism at the airport:

and an uncharacteristically rude Japanese person sitting next to me:

I made it to Japan.

The plane landed an hour early, but the lines at immigration were hideously long. It’s just more practice for standing in lines with lots of Chinese people, as I’m going to do at any touristy site in Japan.

Took the Keisei Liner into Ueno which is zippy and clean. I usually take the Narita Express to Shinjuku, but this trip is a special adventure.

I got into town early and was even able to drop off my watch for service at Seiko’s watch repair center. I had allocated a day in Tokyo to do that, but I had time to do it on my first day. The service center was right next to the National Theatre where they seemed to be having some sort of boy band show. There was a huge line of young women waiting to get in.

Seiko’s watch repair center is near Tokyo Station, and Tokyo Station isn’t too far from the Tokyo Tower. Actually when I think of Tokyo Tower I think of the Rise and Win Taproom and I finally made it in! I met the owner and a couple of his brewers when the came to Japan a few years back and I’m also going to visit the brewery later this trip.

Wow, that only took me two hours to post. WordPress is being a huge pain. And my usual headache that I seem to get after a flight to Japan seems to be kicking in. The saline nasal spray an the Neti pot didn’t seem to help. Oh well.

Just a few notes about the hotel. Ueno was historically a place with lots of hotels. I think I remember reading that the merchants stayed here in their travels through Japan. In any case, booking.com had a listing for the “Green Hotel” (which happens to be Pepto Bismol pink) and it’s rated quite highly. It’s quiet, not too far from Ueno, and clean. It’s also a bit odd. You take your shoes off before you go in (not that big a deal) and my room is on the ground floor, through a door behind the front desk, and through the kitchen.

The room is fine, clean, and pretty cheap. But it doesn’t feel like what I’m used to in a hotel. I’ll probably give it a good rating but it did have everything I needed. A warning though: the bathroom is incredibly tiny, so I wouldn’t suggest it for larger people (I’m only 5’9″ and 185 pounds and it’s tight in there.) Plus it’s the farthest thing from being fancy. Small, budget travelers will be fine here. Larger travelers and people who expect some level of fancy will probably not like it.