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: