Vending Machines

A big objective of the trip was to see what kind of crazy vending machines they had to eat and drink out of vending machines as much as possible.

This was wild. What are "teeth wipes"?

These was the only really healthy drink machine. I got the kiwi/chia drink:

Apple slices!

T-shirts!

You have to be over 18 for this one. 

Pokemon cards:

Gunpla cards:

These next machines were photo-printing kiosks. There were a LOT of these. Leo tried it out:

This is a coffee machine:

A LOT of folks had bought these love locks and locked them onto the top of the building:

Hokkaido

A big part of the trip was riding the trains. I'm guessing no Japanese person in their right mind would have taken three trains over 12 hours when they could have easily flown from Kyoto to Hokkaido, but we rode a couple Shinkhansen bullet trains and then the slower train in Hokkaido. The Shinkhansen goes 176 mph! The tunnel to Hokkaido is some 40km long.

We went to Noboribetsu and stayed at the Dai-Ichi Takimotokan Hotel. In 1991 when I was a student in Japan, I went up to Noboribetsu and got a day pass to use the Dai-Ichi's onsen, which are quite incredible. Over a dozen hot spring pools of different minerals, indoor and outdoor. And that's just the women's side. This was our major splurge for the trip and it was still only some $250/night. Two nights and as much time in the hot springs as we wanted. This was our room, and it was pretty similar to the Wayfarer with the futons on the tatami mats.

The view out the window was of Hell Valley:

They have kaiseki dinners that you can eat in your rooms but I didn't get them because they were expensive and we weren't sure we'd get there in time to eat dinner the first night. I was bummed because they had a hairy crab kaiseki which would have been tasty. Instead we went to the live seafood restaurant Onsen Ichiba and ate live shrimp and clams. The live shrimp were much larger than the live shrimp I'd previously eaten. You couldn't rip their heads off with your fingers. It was pretty hard to eat.

The rest of the meal:

The incredible never-ending breakfast buffet of Japanese, Asian, and western food. The boys are wearing the hotel yukatas. People wore these all over the hotel but also in the town.

We had a nice walk up Hell Valley.  You can see the steam coming from the vents. Would have been fun to cook eggs over them.

There was a great footbridge where you can soak your feet in the hot spring water. It was so civilized. They have mats hanging from a hook that you can sit on.

I had read about KaniTaro, an old disheveled restaurant run by an old man turned hoarder. We had to go get our 500Y hairy crab bento lunch so we walked a few miles to get there (bus service being scarce in this area). The amount of kani was miniscule but it was only 500Y. Later when we paid for an actual hairy crab, did we understand what a bargain we were getting here. The owner was absolutely delightful - a really sweet old man. We wished we could have paid him more. (You can't tip in Japan - in fact people will think you made a mistake and run after you with the money)

We went to Sapporo, the biggest city in Hokkaido. We spent a whole day at Moerenuma Park which was designed by the artist Noguchi. We loved it, so aesthetic and fun. The kiddie playgrounds are dangerous though! Clearly designed by an architect, not a playground designer!

This fountain is on a schedule. Go see it when it's doing a show. It's impressive!

We stayed at the Vessel Inn (nothing particularly noteworthy about it) in Susukino, the "entertainment" district of Sapporo. That meant we were near the red light district:

This "depato" (department stores are a big thing here) is called Mega-Donkey! Depatos usually have grocery stores in the basement and can have really good food (like the sushi in the Daimaru in Kyoto) but Mega-Donkey was pretty disappointing. 

There are nearby ski resorts in teh hills surrounding Sapporo. We took a ropeway and then mini cable car up Mt Moiwa. It was a nice view:

Sapporo has a fish market called the Curb market that had all kinds of crab including hairy crab. The hairy crab is pretty expensive ($40). The market was closed by the time we got there at 3:30p but there was one open restaurant and I had a magnificent crab, uni, scallop donburi:

Leo and I also had a great time playing the taiko drum game. We saw some real experts playing this game. Super fun. Wish I had one at home!

Japan!

Leo graduated from high school and is heading off to Northeastern University. For his graduation gift we were going to take him scuba diving, but the ear issues were risky so the boys decided Japan would be the destination of choice. Paul and I used to travel very cheaply as young adults and we thought we'd show Leo how to do it in the modern age.

Logistics

Japan is inexpensive, contrary to what most people think. And the US has seen such incredible inflation over the last couple years - Japan doesn't seem to have suffered as badly. We had a $50/night hotel in Kyoto that suited our needs. We got $3 breakfasts at the 24-hour restaurants since we were waking up so early anyway.

It was really hot and humid. Hokkaido wasn't so bad, but Tokyo is pretty miserable in July. Suggest going in the spring or fall if you can.

We started in Kyoto, took 3 trains up to Hokkaido, and then ended in Tokyo. We got JR
rail passes because Paul wanted to ride the trains ($1140 for 3 of us). You can pick up the rail pass at the Osaka airport. We should have reserved the shinkhansen bullet train seats a month in advance when the reservations open up on the website, because by the time we did reserve seats, a lot were already taken.

Verizon's travel pass would have enabled us to use our cell phones for $10/day each which is pretty pricey. Instead we rented a pocket wifi hotspot for $80 from the same website as the JR railpass. It was mailed to our hotel directly and the day we left, we mailed it back at the airport.

You need cash for the fish markets, little shops and artisan places, fancy restaurants. The ubiquitous 7-11's have ATMs. You spend a lot of time managing change because you need coins for the vending machines. Buses and subways will take bills and give you change.

Japan opened up to foreigners in April, I believe, and the place was CRAWLING with foreigners, especially Chinese. 

Kyoto

Here's our Wayfarer Hotel room ($50). We slept on futons on tatami mats. You have to fold them up to have room to do other stuff during the day. Japanese style. We had a small balcony. We were in a quiet neighborhood southwest of Shijo station. 

Here's one of those $3-5 breakfasts at a 24-hour chain. Leo wanted to try ALL the chains. You order at a kiosk (most have English and pictures now), get a ticket, and exchange the ticket for food.

We visited my grad school friend Alfred in Kobe which was great since I hadn't seen Alfred since the early 90's. He's been in Japan for 25 years building a couple beam lines at the synchrotron. We spent the day at a pottery village, Tamba Sasayama. 

There's a little park where they display each potter's work (about 3 dozen artists). Then you can walk to each potter's store and buy from them. There is a special clay in the area. The gorgeous pottery art below is Alfred's favorite potter.

We saw one of the climbing kilns - they're very long and on a steep part of the hillside. We guessed that this architecture allowed for different temperatures in different parts of the kiln.

We had a kaiseki lunch at Bishoku Daidokoro Miyama which was very fancy and a great experience for the boys. It's 4000Y for a set course of like 10 small dishes. Usually focuses on what is in season at the time and it had some meat, some fish, some veggies, some soups. The meat (which I don't think was Wagyu or Kobe or anything like that) was amazingly good. The soup was divine.

Paul wanted to see the famous Fushimi Inari Shrine. I had sent pictures back from my visit there this spring. We did the shrine hike and it was hot. The torii gates are so photogenic. 

A wacky building

We went to the fish market, the first of many. Leo and I ate fresh uni which was delightful, and fresh abalone which would have been better grilled, I think. We also had fried fugu (pufferfish, the one that can be toxic if you don't cut it correctly). We didn't die.

I thought their adverts for crab were hilarious:

Ah this was a positively disgusting breakfast. I ordered spicy raw tuna over rice at one of those chains. It's a tuna paste. It's inedible, even with a raw egg on top.

I noticed minimum wage at the chain restaurant was similar to what kids make here.

I had wanted to eat at Nishi-shin sushi in the spring but they close on Wednesdays, so this time we made sure to get there. Dinner is likely $100pp but lunch was relatively cheap. In retrospect, it's worth saving the sushi meals for the fish markets in Hokkaido and Tokyo, which are a much better value. But it was fun, super tasty, and cool to sit at the counter and watch.

I couldn't get the boys to figure out what they wanted to do so I started dragging them to the famous temples. Here's Kinkakuji:

And the famous rock garden at Ryoanji: