We went back to Japan. We wanted to go again in part because we had friends who wanted to go, and travel with friends is fun, but more, because we wanted the kids to not just see a place for the pure novelty of it, but “get used to it” a bit, so that they can be in foreign places and have it feel more natural. To make the things that are shocking the first time in a place feel like, “Oh, people live here, this is just a thing.” This time, we started in Tokyo, and stayed in Asakusa, near Senso-ji and Tokyo Skytree.
One of the first things we did was to swing by a Jins glasses shop, and order some progressive glasses. They take a week to make, but relative to the US price, even with insurance, they’re quite inexpensive. They also have an almost totally automated prescription check that’s done by machines, and it’s very good.
Had Monja-yaki for the first time (it was okay). It’s a weird dish. It’s like a mishmash of cabbage and instant noodles in a thin batter? A derivative of an Okonomiyaki, I suppose. Then it cooks on a griddle until it gets cooked – maybe crispy at the edges, but otherwise, it’s the food I’d most consider describing as “slop”. It’s tasty. I’d have it again. It’s a sort of neat social thing. But attractive? Nooooo.
We went to Tokyo Skytree (we didn’t go to the viewing deck, as it was pretty cloudy), saw a random fire show, didn’t buy $60 grapes, did buy some tanghulu (the candied strawberries), walked through Harajuku to Shibuya and ended up at a rooftop garden, which was really nice.
Saw a LaFerrari, which is I think is one of the most $$$ cars I’ve seen in person (maybe a McLaren P1 or a Ferrari F40 beat it, but it’s up there), and then walked through Akihabara, usually super crowded, but we happened to be there on a Sunday, and they close the main street. Walking through what is normally incredibly busy, incredibly crowded areas with the streets closed was GREAT. It felt very 28 Days Later for a bit, and for a place that’s normally utterly packed with people, casually walking down the middle of a huge street was a very disorienting and strange experience.
The next day, we went to Ueno Park, met up with a friend for Unagi Hitsumabushi, which was super delicious. The dish starts out as just eel over rice, with some shiso & seaweed, but it evolves over the course of the meal. You eat 1/4 of it, then add some wasabi & green onion and eat another 1/4, then pour dashi over another 1/4 and eat it like ochazuke, then eat the last 1/4 however you preferred. It was delicious.
We also met up with our friend/ex-housemate Brandon, who had an astonishing story about a trip to French Polynesia, where he met up with a one-eyed pirate on a 65-foot yacht owned by an old Jewish librarian. Great times. He seems to be doing well, and enjoying life. What a wonderful evening.
The next day, we went to the Imperial East Garden (raining, but still very pretty) and then Teamlab Borderless – an astonishing large art installation. On our previous trip to Japan, we went to Teamlab Planets, and it was as eye-opening as the Louvre was, to me. Totally changed how I perceived art, and was the standout highlight of the trip (aside from all the “significant family” stuff). I enjoyed Planets more than Borderless, but Borderless had a few really killer moments. One of the funnier exhibits had you draw fish, and then the fish would be projected on the walls swimming around. The “borderless” part of it is that the art from certain “contained” rooms would bleed out into the rest of the exhibit, so at some point the fish swam out & around the main halls, which was pretty rad. I liked the more linear/structured format of Planets – it lets each exhibit sing on its own, and most of the big projection stuff, while neat for a few moments, didn’t really do much for me. Still, that last pic is neat, because in the one where it looks like the name is written over J & K’s heads, the other view is what it really looks like when you’re not at the exact right angle.
Then we went to a touristy Samurai & Ninja museum, where they talked about the history of samurai & ninja – even though it was a very intro experience, we all learned stuff, and it was fun. Got to throw some shuriken at foam targets, and the next day, we went to go see a statue of Saigo Takamori in Ueno Park (we were there for the Tokyo National Museum, and so we swung by since we’d just heard of him).
Back to Senso-ji at night (very pleasant, very quiet, very beautiful! If you want to see the temple, don’t even bother going during the day, nighttime was where it was at. Then to the museum, then to the statue of Saigo. Then to Kappabashi kitchenware street, where we looked at sample foods, and I bought a knife.
Didn’t get a Japanese kitchen knife last time we were here. While the “traditional” thing to do would be to get something carbon steel, which holds a very sharp edge but is prone to rusting, I went with a stainless, because frankly, we’re not great at high-maintenance stuff. This is a blade made of powdered high speed steel, which (after looking it up) is a super bizarre way of making very, very strong steel that’ll hold an edge for years.
But because it’s incredibly hard, it also takes really long to sharpen when you need to sharpen it, and I’d be loathe to sharpen this thing on the knife sharpener we have, which is good enough for the knives that we have but probably not good enough for this.
I haven’t cut anything significant with it yet, but I did cut open a plastic bag, and even that was like, “wait, did I miss the bag?” because it just didn’t feel like … anything. I wanted something different than we have, and so this is a different form factor (a bunka, which is like a santoku but where you have a very sharp pointed tip), and with a different steel (ZDP-189, I think most of the other knives we have are VG-10).
The next day, we left Tokyo and hopped on the shinkansen for Kyoto. Grabbed an ekiben (train station bento), which was shockingly delicious. That evening, we walked around town a bit on a scenic street (Sannenzaka) with a gajillion tourists. Kyoto is legitimately overrun in parts with tourists, and I felt bad at times contributing to the problem. I have no idea how you’d deal with it, but it feels unsustainable, and the Louvre closing this morning due to understaffing & overcrowding leading to an employee strike… it feels like there’s gonna be a lot more of that coming.
Tourism is clearly one way for Japan to economically survive its degrowth, but at the same time, it’s made certain parts of Kyoto basically uninhabitable for locals, which is nuts. I suppose folks have said the same kinds of things about Venice for years, but this is the first time I’ve experienced it, where I look around and think, “Wow, this is actually really destructive.” Nishiki Market, Fushimi-Inari – the popular places were … too much. Yeah, we were here, too, and we were part of the problem. I hope we acted respectfully enough, but it is what it is.
The next morning, we had a private tour of Nishi Hongan-ji temple. Our friends go to the SF branch of this particular Buddhist sect, and through some personal connections, one of the folks here said they’d give them (and us) a tour. It was AMAZING.
I think in large part because this space is so restricted, there are things in it (such as that gold room) that are original from the 1600s that still belong in the context they’ve always been in. We got to walk around some of the interior gardens, and there was no one else there. It was pretty wild. Particularly given the overcrowding everywhere else.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nishi_Hongan-ji
So, yeah. Totally amazing. Saw things few people ever get to see with a guide explaining the history of it all, and how it’s been used for hundreds of years. Pretty strange to have walked, apparently, where Tokugawa Ieyasu walked. Got to take some incredible photos of historic stuff, but they asked us not to post them, so I’m not posting them. If you want to see them after the trip, I’ll have them in a photo book we get printed after we get back.
I think the kids are at the age where this doesn’t feel super significant to them, but they’ll definitely remember it, and maybe in a few dozen years, it’ll sink in how privileged a moment it was. 😀
Then we went to Nishiki market, which was jam-packed, and ate lunch. Walked around some more – went to a guitar store because I wanted to check out what Japanese-made guitars are like (nothing really leapt out at me as something I’d be willing to endure the slog to bring home, but there were a lot of cool things), then we walked back along the river to our hotel in Gion.
The following (very rainy) day, we went to Fushimi-Inari. I assumed that the rain would make it less crowded, and sure, it probably was, but the base area near the “start” was jam-packed, and very slow going. We ended up bypassing the entire lower 1/4 of it, which was excellent, because we got past all the influencer ding dongs stopping the flow of traffic to get their photos, and just got to walk up the path at a reasonable pace.
…and the last day, we went to the Kyoto Imperial Garden – underwhelming, since all the buildings are private, and wandered around. Walked around some of the shopping streets, went to the Kyoto Nintendo store (no Switch 2’s, but I got a set of hanafuda cards), got some delicious abura-soba (which I dropped my glasses into, and then the noodles I was slurping fell out of my mouth in shock, and I *buried* my glasses in greasy noodles. Fantastic.), and some pretty excellent frites.
Next morning, we packed up, hopped on to the express to Kansai airport, had a final meal there, and off to Seoul!
Man, I love CC Lemon.