our honeymoon

As I type this (in Microsoft word, as we are so deep in the mountain no wireless or even a LAN line is to be found)…Kobayashi-san is wiping down our table preparing to set our place setting for a meal that I am sure will be absolutely mind blowing.

We arrived in Hakone after a few different train trips into this beautiful resort town. Hakone is known for two things……wood-working and hot springs. There are enormous hot springs everywhere and ryokans and resorts are built around these locations. Hakone is also located in a more mountainous area of Japan, requiring the trains to use switchback routes to carve their way up the hills.

After exiting our train in Miyanoshita - (a 40 minute body against body sweaty, stuffy, train ride from Hakone-Yumoto Station) we walk down a very steep hill to get to the main area of this part of town (Hakone is separated into multiple stops and our stop was right in the middle of the train line). Our downtown area consists of about 5 woodworking shops, a convenience store and one coffee shop that appears to be playing the TLC Crazy Sexy Cool CD. I love the music in this country. Ha.

We see a sign for Hotel Taisekan (our Ryokan) and make our way over. In order to get into the facility, we actually have to board a 4 seat tram that goes deep into a ravine and only services our ryokan. A dedicated tram just for this place. Awesome!

We are set right into nature. Trees everywhere. A roaring river running right through the middle of the forest and our little Ryokan smack dab in the middle. It’s one of the most beautiful places we’ve ever been.

Hotel Taisekan has a main house that holds a number of rooms in addition to 5 cabins that line the river. We’re staying in the largest of the 5 cabins and our room actually consists of a full bathroom, bedroom, living room, hallway, sitting area, deck and private 2 person hot spring (that can really fit 6). Pimp time…..

first...the room:

now...the view:

finally...our own private outdoor hotspring!!!

We settle into our rooms and get to reading up on ryokan etiquette. Knowing that there’s nowhere to go in town (nor do we WANT to go anywhere), we unpack a few things and take a dip in the hot springs. It’s the perfect temperature and we’ve got the sounds and sights of both a river AND a waterfall right in front of us. Paradise.

Aaron hit his head multiple times.

We also take a stroll through the ryokan and over to the public onsen which is the largest natural hot tub I’ve ever seen consisting of both an indoor and outdoor area that can probably hold 80 people or more.

When we get back to our room, we’re ready for another traditional dinner served in our sitting area. Sashimi, seaweed, soups, a plum drink, grilled fish, a large bowl of rock lobsters, tofu and…………a LIVE Abalone. Live. Moving. “Dancing” as the staff calls it. This thing is insane. It’s sitting on a plate with a pat of butter right in the middle. We watch this thing for quite a while before our server lights a sterno flame and covers the lid on the plate. We are supposed to eat this as soon as the sterno goes out on it’s own. When the flame is lit, it actually tries to pry the lid off of the plate on it’s own……..the video is the only way you’ll really understand what’s happening here.

Tastes like a Portobello mushroom, only it was wriggling on our plates only moments ago. After eating this, everything else isn’t even worth mentioning...but worth looking at:

the abalone heart:

We finish this enormous and memorable dinner and head back into the hot springs. It’s so calm and relaxing that we decide to call it a night at 9pm (we’re old farts). BEST SLEEP WE’VE EVER HAD. River and waterfall in the background. Complete silence other than that. Nice and cool and these futons are amazing. Epic night once again.

Tomorrow we rise early and head back to Tokyo for our last five nights...but not before ANOTHER delicious breakfast of fish, fish...and a little more fish (add tofu).

Another early morning with lots ahead of us today. Start off with a couple more bullet coffees from the vending machine and stroll along the canal to see the A-Bomb Dome. When the bomb was dropped over Hiroshima, they aimed for a central part of the city based on a bridge that’s T-shaped as a target. When the bomb went off, there was one domed building directly beneath the blast radius (the bomb didn’t explode when it hit the ground……it exploded in air). This was one of the only surviving structures in the immediate area and came to represent survival after the bomb blast.

Peace memorial park was beautiful and filled with school kids and tourists checking out sights like an enormous bell with an atom symbol on it, the flame that Hiroshima keeps lit until the world is rid of nuclear weapons and the Peace Memorial Museum.

After our visit to the Peace Memorial Park, we boarded a trolley to head out to Miyajima. Miyajima is reachable by a short ferry ride and is home to the floating shrine.

Arriving at Miyajima, you’re greeted by a HUGE gate standing in the middle of the water. You are also greeted by a sign that says there are deer all over the island that mingle with all of the visitors and you are not to feed them or pet the male deer in breeding season. You can pet the female deer though. These suckers walk all along the island right next to the tourists. Right on the sidewalk. They even try to eat people’s scarves……We watched one guy feed one and a pack of deer (no idea what a group of deer is really called) followed him for blocks trying to eat his pockets.

The shrine was again beautiful, but to be honest, we are totally shrined out. After posing in front of the world's largest rice paddle, we instead decide to eat Miyajima’s most famous dish. Oysters. They shuck them, grill them, then hand them to you on a plate with a slice of lemon. That’s it. D-E-L-I-C-I-O-U-S. After our oysters...we had a pretty standard lunch...curry rice and a "hamburg"...or hamburger without the bun.

We also stopped by a stand right on the water that was selling grilled seafood. Di wanted to get an Octopus tentacle. This thing was pretty big. Check it out. How sweet.

After wandering all over the downtown area of Hiroshima on day one and night one, then visiting the parks and Miyajima, we’ve really covered all of Hiroshima that we care to see. We won’t bore you with details on night two, because it was almost EXACTLY the same as night one. We just traded Okonomyaki for a cheap Ramen joint.

Tomorrow we head to resort land of the hot springs. Hakone…..

Here are the shriney pictures:

Here we are in Hiroshima! After a 2-hour bullet train ride from Kyoto…we find ourselves in a perfectly located hotel, just down the canal from the Peace Memorial Park and A-Bomb Dome. We have one night and another full day/night to follow. Night one was spent doing two things: 1) wandering the streets for some FOOD, and 2) laundry!!

Just like any other area we have visited, Hiroshima has it’s own nightlife/entertainment district. We started by strolling down Hon-dori avenue, which is a covered street (no cars allowed to pass through after a certain hour in the evening) that is lined with shop after shop after restaurant after restaurant. Once we found ourselves many blocks down from where we started…the covered walkway no longer exists and instead tiny streets and alleys with lights screaming at us and blinking in every direction. Judging by the looks of the ladies and the many drunk businessmen, we are now in the entertainment district and we’re not going to find a place to eat. We would have no problem hiring an escort, though.

I read in the Lonely Planet guide that there is an Okonomiyaki Village near hon-dori so we set off to find it. It was a building – with all the Okonomiyaki stalls occupying floors 2-4. These aren’t nice little restaurants with doors and tables…as I mentioned, they are literally stalls of which the cooktop goes all the way around and you sit on tiny little stools. Okonomiyaki is a traditional dish that basically includes the kitchen sink from a Japanese household. Think of what you’d make if you had a fridge full of various take out food and decided to fry it ALL up at the same time. It’s a pancake of sorts that has a tortilla like bottom, fried noodles on top, then green onion, then little rice krispy like things, then some mushrooms, then calamari, then an egg or two, then some sauce and then some more spices. It all fries together and you cut this pancake up into slices and eat them. The perfect drunk food.

We’re kinda beat after eating this food, so we’re trekking back to the hotel to get some sleep before visiting the Peace Memorial Park, A-Bomb Dome and Miyajima!

Here are the highlights of our first meal in Hiroshima:

As a first time Ryokan visitor, Di briefed me on a couple of things to expect before arriving at Watazen Ryokan in Kyoto. First - don't expect much out of the room other than a tatami mat floor and four walls. Second - expect amazing hospitality. Third - Plan on being seen naked by a bunch of other older Japanese men. Lovely. Naturally, this third item causes me some concern, but that's ok. When in Rome.

Our Ryokan is located just 1.5 block away from that incredible market, Nishiki. The lobby is nothing exciting and neither is the facade of the building. It's all about location, location, location. The staff that greet us are exceptionally friendly and personally escort us to our room where we are told to remove our shoes before entering the tatami room (our bedroom/living room). There is a small bathroom (toilet and sink only) right when you walk in on the right and then the large tatami room in front. It's quite a large room compared to other places we've stayed (this is probably 15x15).

We get a private tea service in our room right when we check in with some great tea, Kyoto mochi cookies and a little light conversation. The house mother, called an Okami (each Ryokan has a house mother in charge of the inn) stops by, slides open the door to our tatami room and greets us. She's so cute.

We are shown where our robes (yukata) are kept and left to our own devices until our chosen dinnertime of 7:00pm. We decide that we should get some time in the onsen to relax before dinner. An onsen is a Japanese communal bath. This is where naked Japanese men are about to see my junk. (di note: and really, really old japanese women to see mine. i will forever be scarred from what my eyes have now seen) Let me take you through the experience so you can understand what a first timer sees......you start in your room by stripping down and putting on your robe.

Once suited up, put on your sandals from the front of your room and march down to the basement level to the onsen. They are seperated for men and women because everyone is totally naked. If they combined both rooms, Japan's population base would explode and these tiny islands can't hold that many people, even if they are small. You enter your respective onsen, slip off your sandals and enter a changing room. This room has various cubbies to put your clothes (meaning your robe and towel). You remove your robe and keep your towel in your cubby until you are done with your onsen experience. After removing said items it's time to enter the main room of the onsen....butt naked. It's basically a large shower room with an enormous hot tub that has no jets in it (probably 15 feet by 8 feet). Surrounding the tub are little stations that consist of a faucet, a shower head about 3 feet off the floor, a mirror and a plastic bucket. The plan is as follows:

1. Enter onsen
2. Sit down on a footstool at one of these little stations
3. Rinse yourself with water (do NOT stand up to do this. You must rinse sitting down on a footstool)
4. Enter hot tub time machine
5. Exit and go back to little station
6. Use soap and bathe yourself this time (di note: japanese soap/shampoo is THE BEST!!)
7. Rinse
8. Re-enter hot tub time machine
9. Exit and dry off

It's all actually incredibly relaxing. This is probably because for my first visit there was no one else in the room. I had it all to myself. The second time I went down, there was a small naked Asian man trying to swim laps in the hot tub. There are no bubbles. The water is clear. His junk is flopping to and fro. I'm outta here. I'll come back in the AM when showering is a necessity.

Time to head back to the room for dinner. We both put some clothes back on, layer the robe on top of that and then put on a small outer robe to complete our outfit for the evening. We sit on the floor at our 1 foot tall table and wait for the service to begin. This is a 14-course meal served in our room. Bad. Ass. The most adorable little Japanese woman comes in to serve us wave after wave of food. Starts off with a box of assorted small bites that look like they took hours to put together. This is turn comes with a little cup of plum sake. We get a little serving of tofu with sea urchin and some delicious sauce as well as a side dish of soy sauce for future use with sashimi (coming soon).

After eating each delicious bite, our friend returns to bring us some new goodies. She places a sort of hot plate in front of each of us with a ceramic burner and sterno-like flame. There is a gold basket that she places in the middle of the burner that contains a whole large shrimp, daikon, mushrooms and a milky broth. Looks amazing. We're also given some sashimi that is as fresh as we've ever had (most of these ingredients must come from that market down the street).

At this point we're already getting full, but our server kicks the meal into overtime. Plate and bowl after plate after bowl keep arriving until there is NO ROOM left on our table. We've got fish balls in some sort of gelatinous broth, tempura maple leafs (yes. a real maple leaf deep fried), another bowl of some sort of fish ball, a delicious plate of broiled teriyaki salmon, various pickled goodness and the list goes on and on. We'll let the pictures do the talking because we are STUFFED.

so full!!

di note: of all the traditional japanese offerings...THIS is the one thing i couldn't handle...made me gag...it was like eating a latex rubber glove. i couldn't do it. and either could aaron. below is an image of his face just after he put it in his mouth

dessert:

After dinner, they come to our room to lay out our futons for the night. With a meal like that sitting in our bellies, you can only imagine how much we need sleep. That, and we also have to rest for our breakfast in the morning. The futons are really comfortable, the room is quiet and we're going to bed.

Alarm goes off at 7am because we've got an 8am breakfast time reserved. A quick trip to the onsen to shower sitting down, sit in a tub with naked men and it's breakfast time! We had the choice of a western reakfast or a traditional breakfast. We had to choose traditional for obvious reasons. Check out what we were eating at 8am. Tofu, Tamago, fish, seaweed, rice, tea, more pickles and some miso. Luckily for me, after a week in Tokyo, my stomach can handle all of this. It's a far cry from that first time I met Di's mother and she served me fried fish, broccoli and rice for breakfast. I could hardly stomach it that long ago, but now it's all just so tasty. Not a bad way to both start our day and finish our first Ryokan experience. Off to Hiroshima!

one last parting shot with the Okami...unfortunately the random dude we asked to take a picture had the shakes:

It came time to bid Hotel Kinki farewell. After spending two nights in Osaka and eating our heart's content...we had booked one night at a Ryokan (traditional Japanese guest house...similar to a bed & breakfast) in Kyoto. After getting totally lost from Shijo Station (which is 2 stops by subway from Kyoto station) we finally found Watazen Ryokan where we were checking in for the night. At this point it is only noon and check in is 4pm. We dropped off our (TOO BIG & HEAVY) bags and ventured back to the subway to find our way to Fushimi Inari Shrine.

(di note: )
upon entering the temple...you cleanse your hands and rinse your mouth with water. why? i have no idea. all of the explanations were in japanese.

i followed the directions and filled my mouth with water from my hand...

aaron seems to have missed the memo!

This is best known for it's many Torii Gates. There are said to be more than 1000 of these red gates. Yet again.....another breathtaking site. The focus here, rather than the shrines themselves or the scenery surrounding them are the gates. You walk under hundreds of these, progressively getting larger each time you enter a new set of gates. There's writing on the sides of each of them, though we obviously have NO idea what they say.

We were lucky enough to catch a japanese photo shoot taking place during our walk as well. A woman was dressed up in a full kimono robe and we snapped a shot of her in the background of one of our photos.

After leaving Fushimi Inari (it started raining fairly heavily again), we headed back to town to walk towards our Ryokan.

Needed some food, we stopped into a basement restaurant for some amazing Sukiyaki and a beer (of course we're having another beer!).

What awaited us after lunch was incredible. Lucky lucky us. Di had been talking about wanting to visit Nishiki market, a covered street filled with food vendors and assorted shops.

This is where many of Kyoto's restaurants get their ingredients for cooking. This place was wall to wall people and looked like the ferry building in San Francisco on steroids. Stall after stall of delicious food and everyone was sampling something. Pickled daikon, radishes, freshly made mochi, fresh scallops and oysters, squid on a stick, a stall dedicated to nothing but various seaweeds and an incredible Japanese candy store. Di's eyes lit up the minute we entered this candy shop and she told me all about the kinds of goodies she ate as a kid. You could tell she wanted to buy one of everything, but we made it through the entire place without buying any more than a fresh mochi! We had to save room in our stomachs for the upcoming Ryokan 14 course dinner, served in our rooms. We'll be back tomorrow anyway!

here's our little photo dedication to nishiki market...we'll miss you, market. you were our favorite shopping yet!