Legit Travel Blog Part Tres Leches

Just kidding. There is no leche. They don't understand dairy here. 

Tuesday – Stay Hiroshima

Mister Donut with card - get points, and people-watch. Take pictures of hello Kitty donuts (Mom did, not me - sorry no pictures). Check out of hotel. Head to Shin-Osaka and buy bullet train tickets to Hiroshima. 

Ride on Bullet train. 

Hit Hiroshima station and check luggage into lockers.   Taxi to Shekkeian garden. Rue bad timing and lack of tea ceremony viewing options.

Follow young brides getting pictures taken and attempt covert and stylish photo of bride with red kimono and red parasol. Fail. 

Convenience store lunch at Hiroshima Castle and Park – discuss misplaced victimhood of Japanese people in general and the perpetuated myth of the entirely innocent victim from WWII. 

Walk to Hiroshima Peace Memorial and Park. See Genbaku Dome.

 Wander park and bridges and river. Very beautiful and surprisingly European in ambiance. Back to JR station  and on to Miyajimaguchi Station. Ferry to Miyajima Island. Mother insists on riding on open top floor of ferry. Freeze. Irreparaly displace hair. Reach traditional ryokan and enjoy check-in process, including conversation in Japanese with frightened front-desk clerk and not frightened front-desk manager. Take mom to beach. Discourage mom from picking up trash. Go to bath. Very hot, but nice. Go to room. Enjoy strange dinner of unnameable dishes. Truly. And I eat Japanese food every day. 

Clams caught five minutes ago and all seasonal and local produce. Tasty, but difficult to describe. Eat. Drink. Sleep.

Detour

Excuse me while I whip this out:

How you know you live in Japan:

“Chunky” and “smooth” are not choices for peanut butter, but options for red bean paste.

You carry an extra bag on all of your trips, because you’re going ot have four boxes of omiyage for your coworkers and neighbors.

Every ramen restaurant has the potential to be the next GREAT ramen restaurant. And even if it isn’t the next GREAT one, it will by no means be anything less than good.

You are fully aware that if you can’t open a package with ease, it is due to user error.

You eat convenience store food on a regular basis, insist it’s relatively healthy, and can rank the major chains in order of the appetizingness of their menus.

How you know you live in RURAL Japan:

You appreciate the Gaijin barrier between you and the other commuters on the local train during rush-hour.

Riding your bicycle fifteen kilometers one way for an onsen and lunch trip? Challenge accepted.

You go to the next town (at least) to purchase alcohol, which you then hide at the bottom of the grocery bag or in your backpack for the trip home. You would never consider buying cigarettes, condoms, tampons, or any other personal and/or potentially hazardous product while you are on your home island, on the very probable chance that someone will see you, recognize you, look in your bag, and tell their mom, dad, sister, brother, neighbors, and dog about your purchases.

The word “gutter” no longer brings to mind gentle sloping divots in the concrete that end in a grate where the dog’s tennis ball is occasionally and unfortunately wedged. It now conjors up images of giant trenches, deep and wide enough to house a French platoon in WW1 and pouring out rice-paddy drainage at every corner.

You are invited to parties, events, clubs, and private family dinners – and *gasp* they expect you to show up. 

More travel journal later. 

Legit Travel Blog Kyoto

Day Two

Head over to Kyoto. Stop for breakfast at Pastry shop in Osaka Station city (not to be confused with any other of the massive department store/shopping complexes around Osaka Station and Umeda [which is a neighborhood and a station]). Cherry, tangerine custard things, almond croissant, coffee. 

Head to kyoto, on the ladies’ car on the damn local line. 

In Kyoto, taxi to Fushimi Inari Taisha and the thousand tori gates. Walk around and curse other tourists attempting same experience at simultaneous moment. Stop at little tourist shop and discover that deeper in lies beautiful hand-made pottery, “the best in Japan”. Truly gorgeous. Buy several pieces. Engage Okasan and Otosan in conversation about pieces bought and take picture with them. Secure business card for future purchases. Walk for a bit to get exercise and ice cream (soy, sake, and vanilla, respectively). Catch taxi to Ginkakuji (Silver Pavilion). Reiterate and emphasize “GINkakuji” and not “KINkakuji” for cabby (his request). Walk around Silver Pavilion and grounds. Curse tourists attempting same experience at simultaneous moment. Take picture of ladies on tourist trip – good deed for day, check. Walk down philosopher’s path and enjoy cherry blossoms. Thank God for not knocking all cherry blossoms down during typhoon-like weather of preceeding weekend. Taxi to Kinkakuji (Golden Pavilion). Emphasize “KINkakuji” and not “GINkakuji” for cabby. Fall asleep in taxi cab due to exhaustion. Wake up and wander around Golden Pavilion grounds. Very amazing in real life. Almost too like the picture to be true. Extraordinary. Head back to station. Get coffee at Starbucks. Pick up Kyoto Starbucks giftcards. Clever girl behind the counter observes that we will not be using them completely in Japan. Puts our drinks and macaroon on our giftcards. Smart.

Train it back to Osaka (still carrying pottery purchases in fancy green paper bag). Subway it to Namba. Head up to Dotonbori. Pray for good restaurant with gyoza for sister who is craving gyoza. Experience vision from God. (seriously.) Enjoy famous gyoza, famous shumai, and famous pork buns. Also beer. Head back to hotel.

Legit Travel Blog

Even though my brother hates that word "legit" (and I am inclined to agree with him as to the utter absurdity of shortening words in order to sound "hip" or "totes coolz"), that is the best way to describe this next short series of entries.

My mother and sister came to visit me in Japan, and per japan-guide and travel spots in Japan, I took them round the usual line-up of famous places and an infinite sea of faces. These were all places I had also wanted to see (including the Sky Building in Osaka, which I had tried to find twice previously and only finally encountered on this trip). So everybody's happy, albeit somewhat jet-lagged.

Diary entries as follows for first two days...
Apologize in advance for funny fonts chosen at random by website program.

Begin Friday

Enjoy ride in car to Osaka with Moralistic Fictionalist philosopher (I think that's what he said). Recall that for only about 5000 yen more, I could have taken the train and assumed mask of anonymity among other unknowns with nothing to say about atheism, ethics, and evolution. (At one point, break into hysterical giggles and voice previous revelation to driver. Endure brief backlash including obscenity.) Ride uneventful and mostly lovely. Enjoy last remnants of a very early spring, but rejoice in prolonged cherry blossoms on Honshu proper.

Saturday Morning

Run recon in Osaka. Scope out Umeda Sky Building and ascertain from which tower one can most easily access Sky Garden. Have coffee downstairs and perplex salary man who clearly can't figure out what I'm doing there. Head back out. Curse weather as it perpetually drizzles. Buy soon-to-be-doomed umbrella. Enjoy last meal of sushi and frozen sake before non-raw-fish-eating family members make their Asian debut. Head to airport on train.

Frozen sake!!!

.

Arrive Saturday

Pick up mother and sister. Cancel plans to visit Sky Building at night since quite possibly it will blow down in the TYPHOON-like weather. Dinner at izakaya. Udon tonkatsu, katsu set, tempura, karage (fried chicken). Beer. Bewilder and entertain locals who are surprised at blond and blue-eyed foreigners. (Not me. Those genes skipped me...)

Sunday – Stay Osaka

Light rain in the morning – breakfast at travel café. Yogurt, salad, french toast, coffee. Head over to Osaka Aquarium, with all the kids. Potter around. Stop at little café for coffee. Head up to Osaka station. Walk to Umeda Sky Building. Lunch at little basement ramen joint. Tonkatsu ramen. Head upstairs to the floating observatory. Take elevator up obscene distance, then transfer to horrid skinny escalator of death. Contemplate life as not fully-lived while on spindly suspended moving staircase. Get to top. Windy! Freeze to death and irreparably displace hair. Get a fresh view of Osaka and become mesmerized by size and scope of urban environment. Head back down. Make it over to Osaka castle. Wander grounds and see cherry blossoms. Buy little pancake things. Eat little pancake things. Talk to nice woman with miniature Schnauzer. Show her picture of our miniature schnauzer. 

Hers is much better behaved. 

See castle. 

Go up to the top. See all the fancy exhibit things. Reflect on great fortune at birth and life during comparatively more civilized era (especially re: soap, toilets, and lack of feudal wars). Head back home. Dinner at california wine place: pizza, salad, pasta, wine. Head back to hotel and up to bath. Irritate lone Japanese lady bather who clearly wanted bath to herself. Heartlessly enjoy ourselves as she soggily stalks off.