The evening of my last post I headed out with some new friends for dinner at an izakaya. These types of restaurants seem to be a good choice for me since there are many little dishes and I can usually find something veggie, while my friends can enjoy their meat. I was introduced to a type of sake called umeshu and have been onto it ever since. Afterwards, we wandered not far down the street and hopped into a karaoke establishment. The way you do karaoke in Japan is to hire out private rooms by the hour and you can get a flat rate with drinks included. Some even have food to order as well. Needless to say - drinks help lubricate everyone's sense of pride and by the end we were all shouting over each other really. It can deteriorate quickly - haha! But it was heaps of fun!!
Next day I headed off to Nikko for 2 nights. What an amazing little place. One of the highlights for me for sure! I stayed at a lodge run by some monks (not a temple though) and had a traditional Japanese vegetarian meal there that night, which was fantastic. No, there isn't a lot of vegetarianism in Japan outside of monasteries, so it was a struggle for me in many places. But more on that later. In Nikko there are a bunch of temples and shrines which have been listed under UNESCO's world heritage sites and they are well worth a visit - crowds or not. Here I got to see the surprisingly small, but original carving of the "hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil" monkeys. I got lost a few times leaving the lodge and around the temple area, adding to my km's walked (about 20K that day - ouch!). My second night there I met a nice Finnish girl named Eeva and the next morning before I headed back to Tokyo the two of us headed out for another walk to an area near the river where there are two rows of Buddhas, which according to legend, if you count them in one direction, turn around and count in the other you will never get the same number. There were far too many of them to count so we didn't attempt it. I added at least another 8 km to my walking total that day and was happy to hop on the train and chill out for a couple of hours back to the big city.
Upon my return to Tokyo I reconnected with the friends I'd met before I left for Nikko and we had dinner at an okonomiyaki restaurant near the hostel after we'd sufficiently relaxed at a public bath house - my first onsen experience. The next day Dan arrived and together with a bunch of the other folks we met at the hostel we took in more of the city sights. Unfortunately it rained a fair bit, but we made the best of it. More izakaya dining and temples and bright neon lights and one big night out... Eeva had come to Tokyo later the same day as myself and she had met a friend of a friend earlier in her travels who lives here - a Japanese local, named Yu. He organized us all to go out on the town on the Saturday night with a couple of his friends, some more folks we'd met at the hostel, and some more from the hostel Eeva was staying at down the road from ours. We met up in Shibuya and ate at an izakaya on the 10th floor of a building which overlooked the famous intersection there. On a side note: the Japanese football (soccer) team was playing that night and they had it on at the izakaya - they won and qualified for the world cup! That was fun to experience. We took a free shuttle bus from Shibuya to another ward near Tokyo's Disney and spent the rest of the night and morning at a massive club called Ageha. Multiple floors and rooms with differing music and bars and even a little food area outside. The trains stop at midnight in Tokyo, so if you stay out you have to be within walking distance of your accommodation (highly unlikely), pay a small fortune on a cab ride (in the hundreds of dollars), or just stay out until the first morning train. We chose the latter and left the club at 5:30 AM. We literally danced the night away - had sore feet the next day!! Yu was such a great host! He took care of us all and got us into the restaurant and club and sorted everything out! It was a real treat to be shown around by a local!
Got back to the hostel, slept for 2 hours (sort of - was kinda difficult), and then spent the rest of Sunday in Harajuku taking in the sights. That's the day to go there and see Harajuku girls and the like. Quite the scene. That night we stayed at a capsule hotel, another random, interesting Japanese experience. My room looked just like the ones in the photos on the link I've provided. Wonder if it's the same one? Then we got up early Monday morning and caught the shinkansen to Fukuoka.
Traveling by train is the only way to travel in Japan, in my humble opinion. It is fantastic!!! It is exactly on time - to the second. It is comfortable, and clean, and FAST!!! Fukuoka was a nice enough city, but there wasn't a whole lot to do there. We got to eat at a traditional street-side stall called a yatai - which was cool. The one we ended up eating at had won some awards and the lady who ran it was really cool and made a special dish just for Dan. We sat with an older gentleman who chatted with us all evening, practicing his broken English and us with our phrase book trying our best. It was really fun! Some more ladies came and sat down at the end of the stall and offered for us to try some of their dishes and knew a bit of English so helped out when we stumbled with words.
The following day we headed off to Beppu - an onsen town. Here we stayed at a ryokan - a traditional Japanese inn. There is a lot of formality involved with a stay at an inn. When you arrive they have tea waiting for you (at this place it was in the room) on a table on tatami mats and cushions to sit around. Since this is an onsen town you can don your yukata (available in your room for you) and head out to the various hot springs. We went over to the famous Takegawara Onsen and I had a sand bath. Later, when we returned, the table was moved to the side of the room and the bed (called a futon) was all set out, along with water beside the tea service, which was cleaned up from earlier, to rehydrate after the onsen. The ryokan we stayed at had their own private onsens, so we booked our own time slots to enjoy two of the three they offered. One hour before dinner, and another just before heading off to bed. Three onsens in one day - whew! I was wiped out - slept like a baby!! We had dinner that night at an izakaya (obviously was becoming one of our favourite styles of Japanese cuisine) and started chatting with two men at the table next to ours. Again there were limited English and Japanese skills involved, but so much fun and they bought us some beer! Most people here are just so very friendly and welcoming. It has really made the experience!! We had opted not to have the traditional Japanese dinner at the ryokan due to the cost, but the following morning Dan was courageous enough to try a traditional Japanese breakfast - kudos to him... rice, fish, pickled things, tofu, miso soup, and many things that we did not recognize as food.
We left Beppu (in Kyushu) to head to the Kansai region to take in the sights of Hiroshima, Kyoto, Osaka, Nara, etc... I will post on that tomorrow.
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