Tokyo November 2014

Tokyo November 2014

Monday November 17 and Tuesday November 18:

Here we are, waiting for our flight at the Hilo HA lounge.  We checked in via on-line yesterday and got lucky with the Business Class upgrades as there were only two seats left that were together.  As the flight is over nine hours long, I thought that the added cost would be worth it and is somewhat reasonable when booked within 24 hours of the flight.

This trip should really be interesting as we’ve never really spent time in Tokyo.  We were there for two days, waiting for our tour about six years ago.  As that was also our first trip to Japan, everything at that time is a blur as we were like “Tweety Birds” that just hatched.

While planning for this trip, I found that the subway system is very complex, vectoring, circling, and crossing every which way in a confusing matrix.  We always tell people, don’t worry, getting around in Japan is not that difficult.  But as most of our travel has been via Kyoto, which is almost like a second home to us, so of course it’s been easy.  Hope we don’t eat our words.

I am writing this segment on the plane.  I managed to sleep only about 4 hours.  It’s ironic that I never have problems sleeping when we are flying coach.  And here we are in business class and I got only 4 hours sleep!  The choice of movies were horrendous.  Many were old and the newer ones not to my taste.  Thank heaven for audiobooks.

We were offered a choice of either Western or Japanese menu.  I ordered Western and JJ Japanese.  Both of them were “losers”.  JJ couldn’t tell what her dinner was until I read her the menu.  The sauce for my Fillet was “packaged” as I am still “enjoying” it every time I burp.  I tell you, if I were Chef Chai, I wouldn’t put my name on the menu.  Talk about negative advertising!  Embarrassing to the max.

Side bar:  Someone close to me recently sent me a link to Oprah’s meditation program.  JJ and I both tried it but gave up.  They use words like “manifestation” without really explaining what it means.  Then they expect you to be able to meditate while they are talking or playing music.  They have you say a mantra whenever your mind wonders.  How can your mind not wonder when they are talking to you or playing music when you are trying to meditate.  The good thing about this program is that it got me back into Aikido Ki breathing.  I find this much more relaxing and empowering.  Most of the time, with that Oprah thing, I couldn’t even understand what they were saying or trying to say.  Wouldn’t you think that they would try and come down our level to get their message across?

Ah, but I digressed again!  There is a major difference in Business Class when traveling at night versus day.  Nighttime, hardly anyone is around.  On this flight, there is no one who is constantly going around with water or tea.  However, this flight has an attendant who is a native Japanese girl.  It’s hard to explain but what a world of difference from the local staff.  Somehow, her mannerisms and graciousness make such a difference .  HA should hire more Japanese natives on their Japan flights.

They served a pretty good snack just before landing.  It included a spring roll, a muffin and s little custard thing.  JJ didn’t enjoy hers, though.  I also enjoyed a sparkling wine upon boarding, a glass of red with dinner and about 3 or 4 Kirin beer after that.

After landing, it took us less than an hour to clear immigration and customs.  It was fairly easy to catch the train to Shinagawa Station.  However, at the station, we couldn’t find an escalator or elevator to take us down to the street level so we had to carry our bags down the stairs.  Fare from Haneda to Shinagawa was only 410 Y each.  Our hotel, the Prince Shinegawa, is just across the street from the station.

When we were here about 6 or 7 years ago, we thought that the station was huge.  It’s actually a fairly small station.  Talk about a change of perspective.

It’s 5:23 a.m. now back in Hawaii.  I don’t know if I should stay up or take a nap.

I took a nap and woke up at 3:30 a.m., Japan time (8:30 a.m. in Hawaii).  How lucky!!  I guess that at this point, the extra money spent on the upgrade was worth it.

Senior moment of the day:  While packing, my list has an item for “electrical adaptor”.  Well, I did pack the adaptor but it is to adapt a single 3 pronged plug into 3 ea, 3 pronged plug.   Ai yai yah !!  (I need the adapter for my laptop so if emails stop……..)

Wednesday, November 19:

Another thought that crossed my mind.  All of you who have owned a dog or cat.  Why is it that when you catch a flea and squish it, that “pock” sound is so satisfying to hear.  And yet, when you squash a large roach, that same sound but on steroids freaks you out!  How you figguh?  Yes, superior minds think of strange superior things.

I managed to borrow an electrical adapter from the front desk.  They sure took precautions to make sure I returned it when we check out, making sure they got my room number as well as a serial number on the soft case for it!  Desperate people do desperate things!

We went to breakfast at the downstairs buffet that we remember as super, out of this world.  To sum up our recollection, I guess we don’t remember too well.  It’s better than the Hilton Waikoloa and cost only 2200 Y each.  But as we ate, we wondered what made it so good in our minds.

After breakfast, we walked to the post office to mail some stuff to friends in Japan.  We then walked to the temple that has the graves of the 47 Ronin.  We were surprised to find out that when we were last here, we were so close to the temple.  It was only about a 10 minute walk up the street from a temple that we visited on the main street.

The burial site was really serene and tranquil.  It was hard to believe that it is in the middle of a large city.

We then walked back to our hotel to pick up our luggage that we planned on leaving at the Dormey Inn Asakusa (our hotel when we return to Tokyo from Kawaguchiko).  Catching the train and subway was surprisingly easy, even with our bags.  Not that I could picture in my mind where we were as we just followed signs in the train and subway stations.  The station in Asakusa is HUGE.

After dropping off our bags, we then caught the subway to Tsukijii Market. 

Luckily for us, they have English speaking guides at the subway stations.  She directed us to another route that took us right to the market.

By the time we got there, about 2:30, many places were closed.  It seems that much of the action takes place in the morning.  We even had a hard time finding a place to eat lunch.  We ended up eating a snack of a grilled oyster and beer for me and a grilled scallop and water for JJ.  After that, we each enjoyed a dessert of ice cream at another stand.  After that, we still looked for a place to eat lunch and couldn’t find a place.  The only places open was Sushi restaurants and both JJ and myself are not big fans of sushi.  Our son David and his fiancé Janet could probably spend several days in Tsukijii eating sushi.  Another thing that stopped us from trying one of the places is that usually, JJ will order Unagi sushi.  Everyplace that had something like Unagi described it as “Conger Eel” which I think is the white eel we call Tohei in Hawaii.

The main purpose of visiting Tsukijii was to look for “Iwashi Mentaiko”.  It’s a Sardine stuffed with fish eggs.  We even went to the visitor info office to find out more about it but the lady told us that we should be able to find it at most supermarkets.  Yeah, right!

When we caught the subway back to Shinagawa, another of the “guides” suggested that we catch the subway all the way back to Shinagawa, rather than the subway/train that I planned.  Looking at the map that she gave us, left me wondering if she was mistaken.  She wasn’t as evidently, she put us on the subway that goes to Haneda Airport which was not shown on the map.  Just  when I think I know the system, they throw me a curveball to humble me (not an easy thing).

By the time we got back to Shinagawa, both JJ and I are aching.  Our knees hurt when climbing stairs and my feet feel so tender.  We either have to lose weight or get younger.  We walked around the area near the train station to look for a place to eat.  Many places, that looked like Izakayas, were not opened yet.  We ended up picking up sandwiches from McDonalds for tonight’s pre-dinner .  JJ  will wake me up later if she wants to eat anything.

The weather today was really nice.  The temps feel a bit cold when we are in shady areas but really comfortable in the sunny areas.  At Tsukijii, we couldn’t even see a cloud in the sky.

The fall colors are few.  We hope to see more in the higher elevations of Kawaguchiko.  Being unfamiliar with the area also makes it impossible for us to know the best places to go for viewing the colors.  I guess this will be the first of more trips in the Tokyo area.

Someone replied to my first post and mentioned that she too was disappointed with HA versus JAL or Korean Airlines.  I did a fast check on Google Matrix for airfare comparisons in April 2015 for and 8-10 day trip from Hilo to Kansai.  You get what you pay for. 

• HA:  $845.00
• JAL:  $1042.00
• KA:  $1715.00

Thursday, November 20:

Got up at 3:30 this morning.  We decided to eat breakfast at the same buffet as we did not have enough time or energy to look for a breakfast place.

The plan today is to go to Kawaguchiko.  This will be the third trip there this year, keeping with our quirk of revisiting familiar places.

But come to think about it, the only difference between me and JJ and some of you is that we realize our quirks!  Now admit it, how many of you go to Las Vegas EVERY YEAR?  And some of you, SEVERAL TIMES A YEAR?   Ah, the quirks that we all share!  Isn’t it great that we can all laugh at ourselves and each other?

I was trying to figure out the very direct subway route that the guide recommended to us yesterday.  Well, this morning, I did a comparison of Hyperdia and a picture of the subway system schematic map that I took yesterday.  Conclusion, Hyperdia is not perfect.  All of the subway routes go through Shinagawa and even the map that the guide gave us does not show that.   Lesson learned, if any of you stay in one city for several days, take a picture of the schematic route map to confirm your Hyperdia derived routes.  I will take better pics of the maps at the train station in case any of you would like a print.

The train ride to Kawaguchiko via Otsuki was very difficult and confusing.  There were so many different routes on our Hyperdia printout that unless we stuck with one plan, we were asking for trouble.  Well, you know the story.  Since we were a bit early, we decided to “wing it”.  When we got to the station, we went to the JR office and asked about the best way to Otsuki.  They recommended to go via Osaki, transfer to Shinjuku, then on to Otsuki.  All went well until Shinjuku.  The agent told me to catch the Chuo line.  Unfortunately, there were many Chuo lines.  After asking several agents, one of which gave us wrong info, we got to the correct train.  Things again went well until we caught the train to Kawaguchiko.

After getting our tickets, there were two haole guys behind us, complaining about everything and swearing too.  I tried glaring at them but no reaction.  Finally, I told JJ, “should I whack him to get him out of his misery?”  Surprisingly, no reaction, probably because of my Hawaii accent.  They seemed to speak with a British accent so they could have been from Australia, Britain or Canada.  I was so tempted to just hit the guy or ask him, “you seem to be having a bad time, is there anyway that I could help you?”  JJ later said that they reminded her of the Gaijin’s Gaijin that she read about in a book that told of foreigners who hate the culture of Japan.  I always thought that travel should make us all better people as we get to experience many kindnesses that people show as well as how other cultures resolve common human problems.  Like one of my old coworkers used to tell me, “some people are so miserable that they are better off dead”.  He actually said, “no can pleeze, mo betta hee makay”.

Then I accidentally discovered a great way to get over that negative thinking.  The train was so full that some people were standing.  One of them was this big Chinese girl so I stood up and motioned her to sit down.  After a bit, she reluctantly consented but her body language really showed that she was not comfortable, either because she was sitting next to a stranger (JJ) or accepting a gentleman’s offer to a woman.

But doing something nice for someone quickly made me overcome my anger.  I wish I discovered this secret many years ago!  I can’t wait to try it out again and to share it with my friends and family, especially one of my grandsons who has that famous “Jakahi temper”.  Halfway through the ride,  she told me to sit as I must be tired.  And you know me, never disappoint a lady, so I thankfully sat down.

The train ride to Kawaguchiko had some really long delays.  They explained in Japanese what was happening but of course, we had no clue as to what they were saying.  In a bit of a mean way, I was gloating a bit knowing that those angry foreigners were getting more angry.  After getting off the train I saw that they were both smoking and surely must have been suffering from nicotine fits.   Heh heh heh.

When we finally got to Kawaguchiko, it was raining and cold.  JJ was surprised as when she checked, the weather was supposed to be clear and sunny.  When we were coming back to the hotel from our dinner, we actually saw snow on a parked car and could see snow mixed in with the rain falling.  After dinner, we picked up some snacks from 7-11 as we don’t think that we would want to venture out again in this weather.

The walk to the restaurant takes us past a Kaki tree.  I took a picture of a baby Kaki in June so I could do a before and after sequence in my slide show.  When we passed the tree, most of it was trimmed down and sadly, there were only a couple of fruits left.

The fall colors, even with our dismal weather, are showing off their brilliant reds, oranges and yellows.  Both of us can’t wait to see them backlit by a bright blue sky.

Lunch at our favorite restaurant, Café Gusto, was nice, almost like returning home.  We were happy when told that we had to sit and wait as for the first time, they were super busy.  We always feared that they may close down as they were never busy in the past.   Our meal was quite interesting, comprised of grilled steak and deep fried shrimp with a daikon-ponzu sauce that went well with both dishes.  They had a great idea for dessert that was a “Banana Sundae”.  JJ said that a Banana Split is usually too big for just one person as there is a whole banana and three scoops of ice cream.  The sundae had pieces of sliced banana with a scoop of semi-bitter dark chocolate ice cream, whipped cream and topped with a spearmint leaf.

I still have not been able to buy an electrical adapter, but I got lucky again as the hotel had one to lend out.  Me without internet would be like ………….UNTHINKABLE!

BTW, remember the story about me having difficulty breathing because I forgot to plug in my CPAP?  JJ said that she could hear me and her thoughts were:

• He must be really tired
• I hope his loud breathing doesn’t keep me up all night

HOW YOU FIGGUH?

BTW, we still have not taken any pics of food.  So far, nothing special until tonight’s dessert.  But we forgot.  And to make it worse, we didn’t take many pics today, as most of our time was spent on the train.  I passed on some photo ops as I didn’t want to get my camera wet.  The pics are of the sun rising this morning as seen from our room in Tokyo.

Hasta lavista, baybeeee!

Friday, November 21:

I got up a little after 3:00.  I went downstairs to read the paper on-line but although I can connect to the wireless network, I cannot connect to the internet.  I don’t understand it as I had a short period of connectivity last night so I’m hoping it is something connected to our train delay (downed cables, etc) which will be temporary.

It is just before daybreak when I looked out of the window and the weather looked foggy and cold.  But at least, it was not raining.

When we started walking toward the restaurant, we could see fog slowly lifting and patches of blue sky could be seen.  Once we got close to the restaurant, we could clearly see Fujiisan, snow glistening on his flanks.  What a grand sight!  Unlike the locals who take the view for granted, we both sat facing him, the view constantly changing with the movement of the clouds.

After breakfast, we walked past our hotel to go to the lake.  We were lucky enough to catch at least part of the morning shadows which really gave the grand mountain depth.

After catching the bus to the other side of the lake, we were treated to a grand display of super brilliant fall colors.  The highlight was visiting the grounds of Kubota Art Museum.  Multicolored leaves were even drifting down around us in the light breeze.  Unfortunately, Fujiisan stayed hidden behind cloud cover the rest of the day. 

Amazingly, although we caught several different busses, we always had the same bus driver.  She was really petite and cute in an unusual way.  As I told JJ, she had that Elon Musk look.  She was really good at announcing at each stop that her bus was a red line bus as everyone expects the scenic bus will be either red or green, depending on the line.  But her bus looked like a regular bus, so as she approached each stop, she would say that this is a red bus and also ask where the riders were going.

JJ said that she was like a bus driver nazi (like the soup nazi) as she kept on reminding the riders to ring the bell if they want to get off.  On the return leg, she would tell potential riders that if they were going to the train station, a direct bus was just behind.  Of course, all this explaining made her even more behind schedule.

I was most impressed with her multitasking abilities.  She would be driving, smoothly operating the clutch, shift a manual transmission and explain things all at the same time.  Wow, I don’t like people even talking to me when I’m driving and making critical decisions.

The way that JJ dressed today really reminds me of a younger version of Pamela Young, even the hairdo.  Check out the pics when I send it.  All pics will have to wait until we get back to Tokyo as the internet connection is really bad.  That’s the one area that an IPAD shines as JJ is always able to connect better than my boutique super laptop.  Maybe I should have sprung for a better LAN card.

It’s ironic that even though we had a wonderful day with the weather and taking pictures, there is little to write about.  Life is full of surprises.

Goodnight, Dudes and Dudettes

Saturday, November 22

We again sat and waited for Fujiisan to show himself to us as we were enjoying breakfast.  About halfway through, ooohhhhh!  Somehow, we never tire of seeing that magnificent mountain.

Our plan today was to go to Lake Yamanakako, then to Oshino Hakkai.  After asking the ladies at the visitor information place directions on catching the bus, I was a little apprehensive as it seemed very confusing.  Turns out, she gave too much information.  I know that you are thinking “I bet Lyman is thinking, “typical woman””.  You are correct!!  Somehow, most women have the gift of making simple things difficult.  But that’s actually good because it enables us guys to solve problems, which is what we enjoy doing!  Everything works out good.

So we get to Lake Yamanakako and get off at the bus terminal.  We look for a visitor information office and can’t see one.  I go into the terminal and ask one of the ladies at the ticket counter where the office is.  She tells me she doesn’t know as they only sell bus tickets there.  She really could work in the U.S. and fit right in.

We start walking toward the lake and while JJ is checking at another place for info, I find a large map on the lakeside, showing everything in the area.  We finally reach the tourist info office and ask for info in the area.  They do have an English map but we really had a hard time communicating with them.  As we are looking at the map and deciding what to do, we realize that this is a pretty large area, very similar to Kawaguchiko.  We see that they have a loop bus but little info on cost of tickets, route, etc.  I tell JJ that I saw a poster of a place that rents Segways.  We go back inside to ask where the place is.  They show us on the map and that is pretty far from where we are.

After seeing how dull the fall colors are and how dirty the lake is, we decide to leave and to on to Oshino Hakkai.  JJ said that her research indicated that it was a hard place to get to and to get back to Kawaguchiko.  But, since we have the time and the guts to try it out, we go for it.

Getting there was easy.  At first, I wondered what is there as we hardly saw anyone while walking in the direction that the bus driver indicated.  After a short walk, we were surprised at the number of people there.  It looked like a mini Tokyo!!

The area had great views of Fujiisan, and boasted water so clear, it almost looked like the fish were swimming in air.  But, it seemed so grossly commercialized.  Judging by the amount of people bearing flags, it seems that this area is a tour’s delight.  The best part of the place, like Lake Yamanakako, other than the fantastic views of Fujiisan, was leaving.

When we got to the bus stop, we decided that we would catch the first bus or taxi that came our way.  We were lucky enough to flag down a taxi and better yet, the driver was very pleasant.  The ride was a bit longer than we expected but still worthwhile rather than waiting 30 to 60 minutes for the next bus.  (the bus stop times and the schedule from the bus terminal showed different times).  Turned out that it was 2700 Yen well spent as when we got to the bus station, we had only a 5 minute wait to catch the bus to Kawaguchiko.

JJ said that when we got back to Kawaguchiko, she wanted to stop by Kawaguchiko Dogs (our son’s favorite hamburger place) to eat a burger.  As we were enjoying the burgers, we looked around and really enjoyed and appreciated the vibrancy of Kawaguchiko.  The fall colors were bright and even the leaves of the Ginko trees were shimmering like mini foil ornaments as the wind blew over them.

Even while waiting at the Kawaguchiko bus terminal for our bus, there was a girl who went out of her way to make sure that anyone needing help with the bus service was attended to.  It’s great to be “back home”.

Tomorrow, we leave to return to Tokyo.  The train ride should be an adventurous learning experience as besides the complexity of the route, JJ bought more omiyage than will fit in our suitcases.

Sunday, November 23:

Addendum to day trip to Lake Yamanakako and Oshino Hakkai

When the bus driver dropped us off at Oshino Hakkai, he dropped us off at the main entrance, I assume as a courtesy, instead of the regular bus stop.  The reason I mention this is when traveling on your own, especially if you are language challenged as we are, it’s really important to look for bus stop signs or area maps for the bus stops.  

After we left the area to catch the bus to the next station, we waited where we were dropped off.  We couldn’t find the bus stop sign (although we could see one o the other side of the street) but found an area map.  The map showed that our bus stop was actually about a ¼ mile further down.  The best part of this was that we got a different view of Fujiisan with a stream in the foreground. 

The uncertainty of the trip really made it both exciting and foreboding.  It’s really hard to explain the great feeling (relief?) when we manage to plan and execute a day trip to a totally new and unknown area.  Gotta keep those brain cells active!

Also got a glimpse of a yellow Lamborghini type car.  It cruised by us with an unmistakable roar of a high performance engine, such sweet music to my ears.  Imagine, sooner than we think, the sound of any internal combustion engine will be gone as we move on to electric vehicles (just like those rough idling high performance v-8 engines that we hardly hear today).

At Oshino Hakkai, there was a Nissan EV, quietly trying to make it’s way through the crowd.  The driver had a hard time as the car was so quiet.  They should have an option of sounds played through a speaker hidden in the front grill area.

• Internal combustion engine
• High performance
• Harley Davidson
• Old Jalopy
• Music
• Rock
• Classical
• Other
• Toilet Flushing
• Doorbell
• Pidgin:  “Try move, try move”

Sunday, November 23:

The trip back to Tokyo was pretty easy.  We followed the Hyperdia plan with the least amount of transfers.  Although we waited in Otsuki for almost 40 minutes to catch that particular train, it was well worth it.  More often than not, the transfers are a problem because it’s often really hard to find an escalator or elevator to make your luggage handling easy, especially in the smaller stations. 

When we first boarded the train in Otsuki, there were lots of seats available.  The closer we got to Tokyo, the more crowded the train became.  The most crowded segment was catching the subway to Asakusa, and even then, our luggage did not pose a problem.   The stations here are huge.  When we reached Ueno to catch the subway to Asakusa, we actually got lost for a while.  But I tell you, carrying one large suitcase, a carryon and my camera and laptop is no picnic.  It’s a good thing that I exercise regularly.  I do get winded but recover really fast.

We followed the normal practice of exiting the JR station and going through the wickets.  But then, we could not find the Ginza subway line.  After a few minutes, we finally found a map of the area that showed we had to cross the street and walk about 300 meters to get to the Ginza station.  Even at the Ginza station, we had a little problem in finding the correct platform.  But all in all, the trip was pretty easy.  But were the stations crowded!

We reached our hotel early so we dropped off our luggage and looked for a place to eat.  We found an Unagi restaurant so we decided to eat there as they had an English menu.

JJ ordered her Unagi and I ordered a large beer with two sticks of grilled Tomato with a Pork wrap.  Both of us completely enjoyed our meal.  After we were done, we realized that I forgot to take a picture of my meal.  So I ordered another stick and a small beer.  Ah, the sacrifices I make for the sake of sharing.

When we got to our room, the first impression was “it’s really small”.  This is even by what is “normal” in Japan.  But then we saw the view.  From our balcony, we can see the Sumida River, Tokyo Skytree and the Asahi Building.  Wow, we can hear, see and feel the vibrancy of the city.  This may be my new favorite destination in Japan!

After a short nap, JJ woke me up to enjoy our fav Ramen.  We were the first two customers.  It was a bit different and could have been a bit hotter but it was still SUPER!!  Perfect way to end the day.

Being a travel day, not too much to write about so that’s it for now. 

Monday, November 24:

Wow, this is day 8 into our trip.  It’s really hard to believe we left just a week ago.  Which reminds me, when we arrived at the Hilo airport last week, one of our friends who works for the U.S.D.A. helped us with our bags.  People who saw us must have thought we were V.I.P.s (or the godfather) having a uniformed and badged employee helping us, and even smiling!  I think even the Hawn Air employees were impressed.  Good to have friends in high places.  J

I was just going over our charge card purchases this morning and was pleasantly surprised at the exchange rate (about 117 Yen to the dollar).  For instance, our Dormy Inn room is 70,460 Yen but only $591.65.  Great, huh?  I remember one trip when the exchange rate was 78 Yen to the dollar.  The same room would have cost us about $900.00 at that low exchange rate.  This is a great time to visit Japan.

The plan today is to go to the Rikugien Garden and Korakuen Garden.  Since becoming a bit more familiar with the train/subway system, rather than following my old routing, I’m going to re-do it for a more direct connection.  It will be interesting to see how this new plan pans out.

The Skytree is not that impressive as it is a cement gray color by day and minimally colored by lights at night.  The Asahi building, on the other hand, has a beautiful bronze mirrored finish topped with a sculpted, crystal appearing shape, also mirrored but in silver.  It also has this weird potato like sculpture that JJ said is supposed to be a horn.  Never saw a horn that looked like that in my life.

Did a little research and the building I just described is only a part of the Asahi building.  It is said to resemble a beer jug with a frothy foam head.  The building on the right is known as the Super Dry Hall.  It is also known as one of the five unfortunately sculpted skyscrapers in the world and is also called the “Golden Turd” or the “Poo” building!

Our room is so small, we have one of our larger, empty suitcases out on the balcony.  It’s hidden from view so I don’t think that anyone will make an issue of it.  There’s an extra bathroom sink made of stainless steel so it really looks stark and sterile.  The faucet that we use in the bathroom also doubles as the faucet for the bathtub.  There is a heated Toto toilet which is nice.  Breakfast is also included in the price so this place is a true bargain.  We have to decide that day before is we want Japanese or Western style for the buffet.  As the dining room is really small, it will be interesting to see how they lay it out.

I’ve been lucky so far as all three hotels that we have stayed in had electrical adapters to lend out.  This Dormy Inn has a pretty good broadband service, although not as fast as the hotels we’ve stayed at in Kyoto.  The only thing that I don’t like about the Oike Hotel in Kawaguchiko is the poor internet connection.  I forgot to mention, we brought some Big Island calendars to the manager of the Oike Hotel to share with his staff.  When we left, he gave us a small gift in return.  Kinda made us feel bad as they are all so nice, we really wanted to share something from Hawaii with them, without any expectations.

Breakfast at the Dormy Inn, while not spectacular, was really good.  After we were seated, they served us the main food, both of ours being Japanese.  There were a lot of different flavors and textures so we pretty much enjoyed everything.  Those that we don’t particularly enjoy, for instance sweet eggs for me or mild flavored shoyu pork for JJ, we swapped.  The also had self serve tables for drinks and salads and fruits.

The main dishes were shoyu pork with exotic veggies, salmon, a dish that had the texture of Namako, miso soup, sweet scrambled eggs and different types of pickled veggies including ume and of course rice too.  All in all, a very satisfying meal.

Our revised transportation plan worked out well.  The trips were much shorter than originally planned, although we did run into some minor problems.

We visited two gardens, Rikugien Garden and Koishikawa Korakuen Garden.  Both gardens are fairly close to each other and both are so similar, in our minds, it’s hard to remember one from the other.

We were a bit too early in the season for the peak of the fall colors.  There were great colors here and there but not as grand in scale as Kawaguchiko.  The lack of a crowd made the visits tranquil.  For both gardens, other then skyscrapers being visible, it was hard to believe that they were in the middle of a large city.  It must be nice, if you live here, to be able to escape from the hustle and bustle of Tokyo.

Speaking of which, I don’t know if Tokyo is a city by itself or the area that encompasses several cities.  Because even the small little places that we went to today, Komagome and Iidabashi, are very large cities (at least what we saw). 

It just came to me that the reason Japan is so enjoyable is because of what it doesn’t have.  In Hawaii, we have to cope with people talking loudly on their cell phones, honking their horns impatiently at other drivers or clerks who don’t care about service, etc.  Here in Japan, it’s unusual to have such bad experiences (unless you visit Yamanakako).

Koishikawa Korakuen Garden, in Iidabashi, was really hard to find.  I don’t know if I misread the info map outside of the station or if the map orientation was off but we ended up taking a long walk to get to the garden.  It was also a little hard to find the JR station to get back to Asakusa where our hotel is.  We were fortunate to find people who could help us.

We couldn’t find a place to eat lunch at Iidabashi so we decided to look for a place in Asakusa.  We were lucky to find a hybrid Izakaya restaurant.  They served Tapas style dishes, but, we had to order what we wanted before sitting down.  The food, although very reasonably priced, was not to typical Japan standards.  JJ’s deep fried shrimp was good but my sashimi was, well, let’s just say that I’ve eaten better sashimi in Hilo (that JJ handpicked) and the deep fried bacon tasted more like ham.  The beer however, was excellent.

JJ is at the onsen now and I’ll be soon be getting ready to sleep, then get up for our ramen snack.  Tomorrow, our plan is to go to Mount Takao.  Being a higher elevation, we hopefully look forward to seeing more fall foliage.

Tuesday, November 25:

I completely re-did our train routing to go to Mt. Takao.  Using the major train stations rather than the first station (which is a subway station) somehow gives us better routings with less transfers.  As much as I’ve used Hyperdia, I still don’t fully understand it’s algorithms or the actual JR routing.  There were routings with more transfers that cost more and yet, some with more transfers that cost the same as our single transfer preference.  There even was a routing that was almost the same but one took a couple of minutes longer.  How you figguh? 

We prefer the minimum amount of transfers primarily to avoid having to negotiate stairs and/or having to look for or wait for elevators or escalators.  JJ really has a problem going down stairways.

At this Dormy Inn, they don’t call the ramen “singing noodles”.  It is referred to as “Shoyu Ramen”.

During breakfast, we saw on the tv that it is raining over most of Honshu.  So instead of going to Mt. Takao, we will look for s supermarket to buy our food stuff, mainly Kaki for JJ and Iwashi Mentaiko for me.  We’ve looked to the Iwashi Mentaiko at Nishiki Market in Kyoto, Tsukijii Market in Tokyo without success.  We were told that we could find it at a supermarket so that’s we’re going to do.  Basically, it’s a Sardine that is stuffed with Pollock Roe.  One of our friends in Hilo brought some over and it is really tasty.   It is so hard to find that it is almost a miracle that they shared it with us.  We’ll also try and squeeze in a visit to the shopping street in Asakusa and perhaps also go to the skytree.

Our plan on returning to Haneda was to catch a cab to the Skytree then the shuttle bus from the Skytree to Haneda, so we spent the first part of the day to check it out.

It was was easy enough to get to Skytree City, but trying to find the bus station was pretty hard.  But, we pretty much now know the area so if we decide to catch the shuttle bus, it should be fairly easy.  A BIG problem is our luggage as we will have two large suitcases, two matching carry on, a large duffle bag, plus our personal bags.  More than likely, we will forward at least two of our larger bags via Yamato Transport and probably catch the  subway to Haneda.

We then went to Tokyo Station to take a few pics and to look for a supermarket to buy our dried Kaki and Iwashi Mentaiko.  Upon arriving at the station, we went out and wow, the station building is really long.  We took a chance and went right.  We passed the station hotel and continued on.  We went back into the station and started looking for a map or visitor information.  We even asked a uniformed lady about a supermarket but she said that there weren’t any in the station.  In fact, there were almost no shops at all.  We couldn’t believe it as in Kyoto, there are a lot of shops in the train station.

We walked blindly along, hoping for the best.  Then JJ spotted a Daimaru Store on the map, on the other side of the tracks.  We walked, and walked, and walked some more.  We finally got to the Daimaru Store but all they sold was prepped food.  JJ then spotted a map that said “groceries on floor b-1”.  We finally found the elevator but while waiting for it, we thought we might be on floor b-1.  When the elevator doors opened, we confirmed that we were indeed on floor b-1.  So, we started looking again.

Aha, the grocery store was across the walkway!  We found the dried Kaki but no Iwashi Mentaiko.  But what was really surprising was that we boarded the train back to Ueno, it was just a short walk from Daimaru.  Don’t ask me how or why but all I can say is, “how you figguh?”

We ate lunch at the same Unagi restaurant as the first day in Tokyo.  Again, it was a great meal.  Interesting thing about Unagi restaurants, they seem to serve a clear soup with some kind of organ in it.  JJ had the same soup in Mishima.

 We spent the rest of the day across the street at the Tobu Railway building.  JJ found more dried Kaki and frozen Iwashi Mentaiko.  If it were cooked, we would have bought it but unfortunately, it wasn’t.

So today ended up being an easy day, except for all the walking.  Whew, tired and ready to nap until “Ramen Time”.

Getting around Tokyo is almost becoming easy.  What bothers me is that I cannot “see” where we are and we are just following signs to get to where we want to get to.  It drives me CRAZY!  I just have this need to see where we are in my mind’s eye, to be happy.

Wednesday, November 26:

Just checked the weather for Mt. Takao and it’s still raining so I guess we’ll try plan B, which is to go to Yanaka and Ameyokocho.  Both are shopping areas with diverse products.  Yanaka is also pretty close to a neighborhood that generally likes cats.  The train we were on yesterday had small cat sweaters hanging inside, a video of cats in that neighborhood and pictures of cats on the outside of the train.  I would have taken a picture but we both were carrying a lot of extra gear such as umbrellas and a big bag of dried Kaki.

BTW, that Unagi Restaurant is really cleverly operated.  For those of you who were not in the food business, the key to making a profit is to eliminate waste.  Anything that goes into the garbage is lost profit.

Well, that restaurant sells everything of the eel, including heads, fins, backbones and even innards.  These are all grilled on a stick.  I think the organ in JJ’s soup may be the eel’s heart or stomach.

The grilled pork and tomato is usually perfectly seasoned and somehow, the velvety flavor and feel of the pork belly really complements and acidity of the tomato.  Pure genius!

So far, getting around on the subway and train systems has been good, the only problem being the immensity of the stations and my inability to know where we are spatially and directionally.  The system runs with really short times so wait times are generally short.

When we were at Tokyo Station yesterday, the escalator also doubled as an entertainment unit by employing living, real time optical illusions.  The escalators featured a relatively low, tunnel like ceiling.  The sides had lines of them that I think ran perpendicular to the railings.  As we were going up, the people going down appeared to be really leaning backward.  When we were going down, the people going up appeared to be really leaning forward.  It was a pretty neat experience.  It was also an exceptionally long escalator and JJ made a comment that the bottom of her feet was feeling ticklish from her anxiety with heights .

Back to today.  The Tokugawa family has their plot at Yanaka.  We did not see it but we did see beautiful Ginko tree that looked vibrant even in the rain.

We stopped at couple of shops to eat mochi and pastries.  Both were pretty good although I thought my lemon pie was a bit tart.  My chocolate covered mochi was wonderful, although I would have like it better if they used dark chocolate to counter the sweetness of the mochi and filling.

We visited more shops and there was a nice mix of businesses.  Saw some interesting places and took a few pics, including one at a Turkish Specialty store that had a beautiful assortment of colored hanging lamps.  All in all, it was a nice shopping area but I don’t have a need to revisit the area.  Didn’t see any of the cats that the area is famous for.

We then caught the bus to Ameyokocho.  This place was like Yanaka Ginza or Nishiki Market on steroids, triple strength.  Wow.  We could a whole day here, maybe more.  The only thing we couldn’t find was a tea store, but then again, we did not have enough time or good weather to cover everything.  This place, I would love to revisit.

We ate lunch at a ramen shop before catching the train back.  At first, the flavor of the dashi was really good.  But after a while, the boldness of the flavor started to overwhelm my taste buds.  JJ ordered a spicy ramen and couldn’t finish hers, mostly because there were so many toppings in it.

We came back to our hotel, cold and wet like a couple of stray cats.  After a quick beer, I told JJ we had to go shopping again to find her dried Kaki as we have to get most of our bags packed and ready to forward to Haneda before tomorrow morning.

So off we went again in the cold, rainy, windy and dark day.  We found more of her treasure at two more stores.  Would you believe that the Kaki she bought at Daimaru near Tokyo station was twice as expensive?  Location, location, location.  Tru fac.  After she told me she had enough, I convinced her to buy more to make the overall average price less.  She didn’t take much convincing as she loves that Kaki.

It was so rainy today, we are trying to dry our shoes with a hair dryer.  If we don’t succeed, there are many shoe stores near our hotel so we are not too concerned.   Almost ready for my nap.

It’s been getting harder for me to wake up for the ramen.  I guess old age and the general stress of being in an unfamiliar place is wearing me down.  Tomorrow is supposed to be a clear and sunny day, HOORAY!!  I don’t think that they celebrate Thanksgiving in Japan.

Thursday, November 27:

Forgot to mention, the rain yesterday was cold and driving and caused the bottom of my trousers to get pretty soaked.  However, because I was wearing thermal bottoms, I didn’t even notice it until we got back into our room.

Every morning, although we always specify the Japanese breakfast, the basic menu changes with is really good as we never get tired of the same ole, same ole.

Before breakfast, we took three of our bags to the front desk to forward them to Haneda.  The two clerks were having problems so I suggested that we leave our bags and then they can call Yamato to answer their questions.

So after breakfast, we go back and they call Yamato on their IPAD.  I think they used an actual video conferencing app as I could hear the dialing.  They let me talk to the Yamato rep and he tells me that they require 2 days to deliver the luggage.  I explain that we are leaving tomorrow night and that their web site said to allow 1 day for delivery.  To make a long story short, they will not forward our bags.  So we are back to our original plan of catching a cab to Skytree, then catching Shuttle Bus to Haneda.  With the amount of luggage we have, it will be a bit of a problem but not un-doable.  FYI, we have two large suitcases, two carry on matching cases, a medium duffle, my camera case with camera, strobe and 2 lenses, my computer bag, JJ’s handbag and her large shopping bag.  Ai yai yah!  But at least we can pack everything the way we want before we go to the airport.  If you want info on how to travel lightly, don’t ask us for advice!

Our trip to Mt. Takao was flawless.  Everything just went purrfectly.  I am really getting to understand the train system better.

When we first got there, after walking to the main staging area for the cable car and chair lift, we stood in line along with everyone else.  But when we got close to the end, I noticed that most of the people were standing in line for the cable car, not tickets.  So JJ went to check and found out that she could just buy the tickets and we could go on to the chair lift.  Happy as a clam until we got to the Disney like line.  But, things went pretty fast and I think that we were in line for less than 20 minutes.

Unlike other chair lifts that we rode, this one was a bit more complicated.  Each person had to step on a moving treadmill, then the seat would come up from behind, then you sit down.  Easy enough to write about but in practice, a little spooky.  Both of us had fairly large bags on our shoulders so when we tried to sit down, it was a tight squeeze.  Getting off was even harder as we had to step off the chair onto the moving treadmill, then step to the left to get on the sidewalk area.

Mt. Takao was a great place to visit.  Again, we were a bit early for the full fall colors but there was enough to satisfy us.  In spite of the large crowds that we saw while standing in line, the area is so large that wherever we went, we felt that we had enough “space”.

After we got off the chair lift, we took a short walk and proceeded to take a long break, just soaking up the peaceful and tranquil surroundings.  It was really nice, just sitting, having our snack and just enjoy the “mana” of Takao in the cool mountain air, while basking in the warmth of the sun.  People watching was fun too!  BTW, I noticed that most of the Chinese tourists favor Cannon over Nikon.

We then walked to “Monkey Park”.  At first, I was a bit disappointed as at the Monkey Park in Arashiyama, we were in the immediate presence of the Monkeys.  At Takao, they are roaming and we are in the enclosure.  But then, one of the trainers went into the enclosed area and started explaining (in Japanese) about the various Monkeys, who was the “King”, who was the “Bully”, who were siblings, etc.  It was quite interesting, even though we didn’t understand what he was saying.  There was calm and friendly one, that he could pat on the head.  There was another, when he tried, bared his teeth, and yet another who would scamper away.

We then decided to try a walk around the area but quickly changed our minds when we saw that the colors did not justify the exertion of walking uphill and downhill.  That decision turned out to be a blessing as even though we spent a minimal amount of time there, we got back to our hotel at about 5:30 and it was already dark.

After retuning on the chair lift, we slowly made our way back to the train station, looking at the wares of the various vendors.  We tried looking for a place to eat (it was about 2:30) but most of the restaurant featured Somen, which neither of us particularly enjoy.  Finally, at the bottom of the street, there was one more place.  I took a quick look around the corner and couldn’t see any more restaurants, so we decided, what the heck, “chance um”.

Lucky, lucky.  They had more than Somen.  JJ had a Tempura Donbori and I a Sashimi Donbori.  The food was delicious (perhaps a bit bold for me) and filling.  At first, I thought they forgot to bring shoyu and wasabi for my Sashimi, but then I found that they had a special shoyu sauce, poured over it and on the rice.  A little heat would have made it purrfect, though.

The train ride back was again, flawless, until we got to Ueno.  I forgot to stay in the station to get to the subway and we ended up outside the station.  Fortunately, it wasn’t raining so the mistake was not a problem.

All in all, it was a great day and Mt. Takao would be nice to see during the Sakura season.

Tomorrow is our last day.  It’s really been a fantastic trip and I really look forward to coming back to explore Tokyo more.  And now, watching one of our favorite shows, “Tokyo Eye” will be even more pleasurable and meaningful, as we can make the connection to this great city.  I enjoy it’s diversity, it’s vibrancy and more amazingly, the people are friendly and helpful.

The only change I would make is to use Asakusa as “home” and definitely stay at the Dormy Inn.  However, if there is a Dormy Inn in Ueno, the perhaps that might be a better place to stay as it is more of a “hub” than Asakusa.

To those of you who took the time to email us while we were in Japan, a special thank you as we looked forward to reading your emails every day.  For you others who even took the time to read of our adventures, thank you for ‘listening”.  If any of you are considering traveling to Japan on your own, I hope that our experience inspires you to try it.  If you are on a budget, as we are, you can look at the savings two ways:

• Visit twice as often
• Fly first class
• Or if you are independently wealthy, do both!!

Sayonara but my epilogue will follow soon.

Epilogue:

Oops, I meant Soba, not Somen.

It’s strange as today, is Thanksgiving Day back home and Friday here.  And yet, we’ll be back home on Friday.  Almost makes me feel like a time traveler.

The plan today is to do some light shopping, a take some pics of locations around Tokyo that we always hear about or see on television, such as Tokyo Station.

We ended up doing a combination of shopping and research for our next trip back.  What I really wanted to do was make sure that we could catch the train/subway from Haneda to Asakusa without undue hardship the next time we visit Tokyo.

We found that there is no easy way to get from Haneda to Asakusa unless we can have Yamato forward most of our bags to our hotel.  There are just too many steps to climb at Asakusa Station.

The problem with Tokyo is actually Hawaiian Airlines.  They arrive really late and also leave really late.  This really makes the day long.  Perhaps it wouldn’t be too bad if the hotel had a rest area while waiting for our flight (like the Dormy Inn in Kyoto) but here in Tokyo, we ended up leaving for the airport earlier than we like to just because we thought that it would be more comfortable at the airport.  After a bit of discussion, I managed to explain to the front desk people that we needed a taxi.  What’s amazing is that they had a guy who spoke Chinese but no one spoke English.  Anyway, one of the guys finally went out to flag a cab.  When he told me to go in, I asked what about our luggage and he told me that the taxi won’t take luggage.  So I told him that we needed a taxi because of our luggage.  When we went in to get it, the taxi drove off.  I guess he meant that the taxi driver will not go in the hotel to get the luggage.

He finally managed to flag down another taxi but the driver did not know where the shuttle bus stop was.  But at least he didn’t show us any attitude, given the number of bags and the shortness of the ride.   The ride came out to 1300 Yen but we gave him 500 extra and a small box of candy, just because of his great attitude.  The bus cost us only 920 Yen each.  So even with the cab fare, it was a cheap ride to the airport.  At one point, we even looked into catching a cab as in Kyoto, the door to door shuttle costs us about 8000 yen.  However, the desk clerk told me that a taxi would cost us about 13000 Yen.

While at the airport, I got a floor guide and checked around for our next visit.  I found the baggage forwarding counter and also found out the last train that we can catch to Asakusa is just after 11:00.  Otherwise, we will have to transfer at Shinegawa which will not be a problem if we can have our bags forwarded.

At this point, although everything is manageable, the flight times makes Kansai a more attractive option.  However, going to Tokyo and just visiting around the area is a big cost saver as we don’t need a rail pass.   Well, something to think about.

To summarize our trip, it was really great, except for our having to go up and down so many stairs at the subway stations.  That really made our trip tiring.  Me and JJ are the purrfect couple, she has problems going down stairs and I, going upstairs.  HYF?

Also, unless Hawn Air changes their arrival and departure times, I would strongly suggest that any of you fly into or out of Tokyo.  Until our next adventure, Hasta Lavista, Dudes and Dudettes!!