Hokkaido was incredible and I want to call out a few highlights that weren’t really mentioned: We ate something called Jingisukan (named after Ghengis Khan), which is lamb meat that you cook on this grill on your table. It was delicious. And yes, we are eating mammal on this trip. It’s too hard to avoid in Asia. The fall colors. They were just starting to appear, but what we did get to see was worth it. Visiting an onsen. Even…
On our second day with the rental car, we visited the Sounkyo Onsen Village, another part of Daisetsuzan National Park, to see what we could find. I apparently didn’t quite know where we were going or what we were doing. Whatever. The village itself was lovely, though we really were interested in getting lost for a while in the nature of Daisetsuzan National Park. We took the gondola (they call it a ropeway) up the hill for some better views….
We’re officially in love with Hokkaido. Everyone should come here, twice. On second thought, one thing we loved was the feeling like we’d gotten off the Gaijin trail. We only saw a few white people in the several days we spent around the parks and onsen villages. So stay away! Most western tourists probably only make it to this island for the famed ski resorts, not for the national parks, like amazing Daisetsuzan. We’ve been using Asahikawa as a base…
On Tuesday, we packed up our things and headed to Tokyo Station to catch the Shinkansen to Hokkaido. The Shinkansen is the infamous Japanese bullet train. Our particular train goes as fast as 320km/hr (that’s 200mph). It was so fast! Service to Hokkaido just began in March, so the trains are new and pretty cushy. We definitely did a lot of “oohing” and “ahhing” over the speed and things flying by through the window. Here’s a video of my husband…
On our first night in Tokyo we ducked into Fuunji, a tiny ramen place near our AirBnB in Shinjuku. I thought it was good, but I wasn’t sure if this was because it was our first meal in Japan, or if we were just really hungry. Amanda, on the other hand, knew we had found something special. It was the dipping noodles (or tsukemen), not the ramen, that blew us away. It was so good, we went back on our…
We decided to get out of Tokyo craziness for a day trip to Kamakura, known for its abundance of temples and big buddha. After the 1-hour JR ride, we arrived to check out Tsurugaoka Hachiman-gū. No trip to Kamakura would be complete without a visit to this big guy, Daibatsu. I’d been once before, but had no memory of going inside. We went inside. With a few hours to spare before heading back to the city, we headed to Enoshima Island,…
Today we did a ton of people watching in Harajuku, Shibuya and Shinjuku. Sometimes we took videos of it. People in Tokyo wear some crazy shoes, which makes no sense because they also do lots of walking. We walked through Tokyu Hands department store in Shibuya. It’s a mix between a Home Depot, Michaels and Walmart. If you can dream of it, they sell it. Actually, not entirely true, since I’m in the market for a (sick person) mask with…
We landed on Tokyo on Thursday afternoon. After customs and the Narita Express into Tokyo, we got to our Airbnb and then went out to find dinner. OMG. We went to this place called Fuunji Ramen. They have tsukemen. HOW HAVE I NEVER HAD THIS BEFORE?! We were so excited and hungry that we forgot to take pictures. The head chef is this J-Rock dude who swings the noodles around. It’s a tiny hole in the wall and you order…
After checking off what seemed like an endless list of TODOs, we got the house AirBnB-ready, said all our goodbyes, packed our bags, and flew to Japan. It’s Amanda’s first time in east Asia (India is a world of its own), so she’s getting in her first impressions. Amanda has been feeling under the weather, so we bought her some cold meds from a friendly lady at the pharmacy, along with a few masks. One of our first activities in Tokyo was…
Here’s the rough agenda for the next few months. Countries in (parentheses) are maybes. October: Japan, Korea November: Taiwan, Vietnam December: Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia January: Australia, New Zealand February: Thailand, (Burma), (China) March: Croatia, Slovenia, Bosnia, Hungary, (Ukraine), Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland April: Germany, UK, Ireland May: South Africa, (Kenya)