HIstoric Takayama, and more rain

Hoping to see sun today, we were once again disappointed. Maybe tomorrow...We get fed a substantial breakfast then it's off to the local markets. Lots of local veggies and fruit, mainly huge apples. I buy beautiful red flowers like velvet for our room and put them in the only container I can find, somebody's empty red beer can.
  There are some fascinating things to eat at the market, maybe we'll try them tomorrow when we won't have the big hotel breakfast. Little octopus stuffed There is lots of tourist kitsch here and later we see bus loads of tourists around town but nothing to stop us enjoying the ambiance of the whole place.
  It's a historic region with several National Historic site designations so we trot around in the rain, ho hum, visiting the nearest Buddhist temple, the Jinta - the oldest city administrative complex, beautifully restored to its 17th century simple architectural style - Kusudama sake factory, and the beautiful Museum of History and Art, practically deserted.
  Ted has read about the Ebisu buckwheat soba noodle maker, in business since 1898, so we find the place and order huge bowls of noodles. That's it for eating for the day. Mine is pretty dull as I don't want to try the spicy mix you add for taste, but Ted enjoys his. Been there, done that.

Cook your own - hibachi style

Our first dinner in Takayama is in a nice little restaurant up the road where you cook on personal hibachis and gas powered stoves. It's pretty hot in there with all those people each with their own hot plate!
  The speciality this time of year is teeny baby pickled eggplants the size of your middle finger. You eat them with sake, delivered in a huge glass, there are many sake makers here in this town. Ted's dish is mountain vegetables piled on a huge mulberry leaf on sweet miso paste. It includes several exotic mushrooms and fresh veggies. Mine is a bowl of stock/soup with all the veggies piled on top then very thin slices of pork. You get it boiling, stir it up and dig in. Served with miso soup and rice, and small dishes of pickles and salad, this is a satisfying meal all right.
  But the star of this show up here is the Hida beef. It is reared with tons of fat marbled through it. Everyone comes here to sample it. We have yet to try it. I don't think we had better say we come from Alberta, with the best beef in the world...

Takayama, mountain paradise when not raining...

Sunday we take off in plenty of time to walk to the Sunjuku railway station, the largest in the world apparently. We had Sussex out some of the lines so used our rail pass for the first trip to Tokyo station. Changing there to the JR national line, we have a comfortable 3 seat row and keep our bags with us. Later we realize you drop them at the back of the train car, which is better when you only have two seat and can't load your bags overhead, too heavy by far. Igt's very light load on both JR trains today. But we have the added challenge of changing trains in Nagoya. But we have about 15 minutes to do so.
  It is all very efficient, trains leave on the dot. The train inspector bows before he leaves your carriage, still lots of bowing and scraping here. You are told to switch your phone to silent and not make calls. What a heaven of peace to travel this way. The 1.5 hour then 2.5 hour train rides pass easily enough, the second route taking us up a beautiful River valley into the mountains, which are not as impressive as the Rockies but we get a tiny glance of Mr.Fuji on the first leg of the trip, above the clouds, which dog us completely here. Lovely rural landscapes fly past the window, rice fields and small crops that we look forward to eating soon.
  Fighting our way out of the station through a throng of people waiting to get on to return to Nagoya - this is the end of the line - we find a friendly taxi driver, no English but we have the hotel name printed out so a 5 minute ride gets us there.
  Into the pleasant little Rickshaw Inn run, surpringly, by a Brit, Nick from Yorkshire. It's more like a glorified hostel but comfortable enough with our own tiny bathroom and a 15 sq.ft room, which is the norm I guess.

Isetan Department store, Harrods on steroids

Ted has read about this amazing dept store so we wend our way in the rain up there. WE have one umbrella and in the deluge, pick up another one for $5, but it's huge so we are on the lookout for a cheap portable one from China! We hop into a tiny sushi bar and get a really good lunch  with beers for $50.
  Into Isetan, we first checked out the lower food floor, which is huge and incredibly impressive, and busy. Senior Tokyo ladies get their groceries here, but everyone seems able to pick up a treat or two. We venture up the other 10 or so floors and find kimonos at $3,000, and that's just the basic wraps. You still need the obi, slippers, hair adornment, small purse, etc. Some beautiful fabrics and tapestry type designs too.
  That night we returned to the sushi restaurant we visited our first night, but had to wait 30. minutes for a table on Saturday night.
  The rain eased off tonight, I am out of sleeping pills now so I hope we are tired enough of schepping around in the rain to sleep through the night on day 4. Almost packed, we are ready to venture further afield tomorrow.

Tokyo, a happening place

We take our time coming to in the morning, enjoy the wide variety of breakfast food, Japanese and Western at the hotel buffet and decide we'll do that every day here, rather than search for other breakfast options before our day begins. Having booked through an agency, breakfat was not included.
  Later we find the Japan Rail booking office and after very little waiting or delay, leave with a bundle of train tickets and seat bookings for the 3 week duration of the pass. $1600 gets us two regular price tickets as Ted doesn't think we need the first class ones. I had printed out the schedules before we left Canada so it was easy to check it all fit together.
  Times Square is a huge shopping complex so we strolled around, and checked out the top 3 floors of restaurants. After a wash and nap back at the hotel we smarten up a bit for the first time and enjoy dinner at a nicer busy sushi restaurant, with dinner including one beer for $70. On the way out, we stop at the French style patisserie for chocolate mousse, decadent.
  We have a big bathtub in our room, which I love, so I soak every night and hope it helps me sleep and get over jetlag which is still there for us both.WE also get one CNN news channel and a Japanese version of NY Times in English so are getting world news, if depressing.

About sake...

Sake is the national drink, there are some 300,000 producers apparently. But on the way home after dinner, we hit a sake festival. Pay 500 yen ($6) and you get to choose 3 of the 10 or 12 producers to sample. This is just off the main railway station, people heading home, kids around, no qualms about alcohol here. A lovely young hostess corralled us, maybe she sensed Ted was just the guy to evaluate their sakes...Along with a bag of teeny dried fish (great accompaniment) and nuts, you trekked around the stalls sampling dry or sweet, cold or hot. You could have got blind drunk on $18...in fact some ladies seemed to be getting there rather fast.

  Ted filled in his evaluation sheet and off we stumbled back to our hotel. Now if we can only remember the name of the 3 he liked...they are often packed in lovely woven casks (like Italian Chiantis used to be) maybe we will bring some home. 

  We have good wifi here in the hotel so we are hearing about all the culinary and drinking delights of Barcelona, Córdoba and now Seville from the young Elders who are touring there right now. But they are doing it far cheaper than here in Japan. 

  Uhoh. After the beers, the sake and now we find cheap beer in the vending machine down the hall, Ted has passed out twice already at 9pm so it's off to bed tonight and hope we can sleep through.

About the toilets...

Of course, the first thing I spied when I hopped into the toilet after arriving at the airport was a squat. But there were also plenty of other western toilets. Seems ladies here still like their squats, tho what you do when you have bad knees I don't know. I have my ShePee device along just in case..

  First, on the Dreamliner, I should note the toilets have a window that I guess guys can look out when they pee. Gals can look out after. It was quite a nice touch. The main windows are touch screen. I don't know how it works but you dial down on the nob under the window and it darkens, no screen covers to pull down. Very effective and nice ambient light at the tough of your finger.

  Here in the hotel we have Cadillac toilets. The minute you sit on it, the water heats up. You have a choice of bidet or spray with soothing warm water. Why can't we put these in all our toilets I ask...I haven't heard it talking to me yet, but we will wait and see what else it does...hahaha

Sep 21: Jumping in

After half an hour of wrangling, we upgrade our teeny room to something bigger and having joined the Sunroute travel club, got a free upgrade again and will get 10% off our future bookings in October. As we hadn't unpacked much, it was an easy move down a level, overlooking a garden at the 3rd floor. Not quite the tropical paradise in Hue, we are still staring at more buildings, but a much larger more comfortable room (they quote you sq.ft. on the Internet booking site and it's hard to imagine the 15 sq.ft of the original room til you see it.

  Here in the business/tourist end of town (Prada and Coach abound)) Ted steered me to the shopping and restaurant area. There are hundreds of restaurants but strangely not a lot simply Japanese. It's very affluent, lots of families, like Singapore, it appears they don't eat at home. Lots of groups of young women, I guess the men are all at the bar together...

   We had lunch at a French Crepe Bretagne place - fish soup (like lobster bisque, excellent), pea soup and Bretagne cider. Must go back for crepes. $40 Cdn.

  Later to a pizza place, so efficient, lineups everywhere esp just after people get out of the offices at 5pm. You line up and they bring the menu on the street. Pull in customers as fast as they can serve, not necessarily to fill restaurant then keep you waiting. Good philosophy. Pick your base (green: pesto) then choose from a huge selection arrayed in front of you (prosciutto, sun dried tomatoes, exotic looking mushrooms) into the wood burning stove for 5 minutes max and away you go. Washed down by their own tasty brew of beer. Again $40.

  As Ted says there were 8 greeting customers ad making/serving pizza and service is amazing here.

  In the reception they have a robot named Pepper. I need to go talk to it tomorrow. See how it compares to all the lovely young people looking after us here.

  

Welcome to Tokyo, London weather style...

It was cold and overcast when we took off from Calgary with the prospect of nothing over mid teens all week. And it was overcast and soggy when we arrived in Tokyo - but at least the temp was 20.

  We had the decided advantage of riding the new Boeing Dreamliner. What a nice way to spend 11 hours on a plane. 

 We were surprised at our route. Japan looks opposite San Fran and LA on a map, but we hugged the BC coast to Sitka, over the Aleutians (couldn't see a thing all day!) along south of  the Russian coast and down to Japan. 

  Yeah, the Dreamliner was something else. Some neat gizmos (esp the Windows), very comfortable seats, half empty plane, OK food, and quiet as a mouse in front of the engine. Watched two lousy movies en route, had about 3 hours sorta sleep, and pleasantly surprised that Narita airport wasn't a zoo like Heathrow. Very well organized. Had to wait an hour for the express bus right to hotel, and promptly left my down vest on bus! Not found today! Oh well, at least I have a down jacket for the mountain bit of trip.

  The 1.5 hour drive took us past grey, dull buildings, not til central Tokyo do you see some interesting buildings. 

  We went out exploring briefly, but I was too pooped to take in any amount of it, so we bought me a Quiche Lorraine (as good as anything in Paris) and yogurt and I came home, ate in room, soaked in bath (nearly fell asleep!) found CNN newson TV, then bed at 10:30pm, Slept well for a while then fitfully til 8:30 so not bad. 

  Ted went back out last night, found  a Mexican place he thinks he ate at with Tony 6 years ago! Quesadilla and beer and check out some other places for later. We are here 4 days so have to get out and arrange all our train tickets before long.

  Now it's pissing out there, just like being in England. Our view from hotel window, more windows and walls.

  Our room is tiny, a real challenge to take anything out of the two reasonable-sized suitcases. Two people can't pass in the hallway. Not a cupboard or drawer in sight.

  Everything so well organized and orderly here, not like China at all! Even a line on the bath telling me where to run water to! they are very economical here, not so bad.

   Great buffet breakfast of both Japanese and Western food, more pain au choc and croissants like in France. Yeah. So I guess we won't be wandering out to find better breakfast anywhere else. When we come back 2 more times, it is included, but at $12 they didn't make any $$$ out of Ted today....
  I started my log last night so will now try to start on the blog, just copy what I write.

  I see it is shitty weather in Calgary too. Sorry about

My eyes were already drooping, it's nearly noon, midnight in Calgary, but I am going to resist napping today...Ted Is doing well as usual, once he has found the cheapest beer near the hotel, he is all set...

Sep 20 2016: off to Japan for a month

Since Air Canada has a direct link from Calgary to Tokyo, it will be an easy flight for 10.5 hours (9.5 hours on the way back) beginning at 1pm and arriving at 2:30pm. Although Ted ah visited for a week a few year back, it is my first visit and I'm really looking forward to this different culture.
 Working from info from various friends (mainly Jana and Paul from 6 weeks in Fall 2015) I have put together a schedule the sees us in Tokyo 3 different times, with 3-8 day visits to other prominent cities. Kyoto ha so much to do and see we will spend 8 nights there.
  We will also do something new, travel by train everywhere. So I'm busy trying to pack one manageable suitcase for the trip!