Day 15 Nov 14 - Making the most of our last day

Despite our best intentions, we had a later start than planned this morning.  We all seem to be running out of energy.

After breakfast we made our way over to Osaka Castle.  We were greeted on the approach to the castle by some of the lovely helpful volunteers who gave us pamphlets - the first one in Japanese that was a bit beyond my skills and the second one in English.  Erin also made friends with a little 'kawaii' dog.  As before, we saw a wedding couple (looking gorgeous, of course) as the Castle provides a beautiful setting for wedding photos.

The moat of Osaka Castle

Erin's kawaii new friend



Lovely bride



Osaka Castle

Autumn trees - taken from the Castle

The enormous stone in the wall.  Who carried it there?

As John and I have been to the Castle before, and my feet have had enough, John and Erin went in to the castle, while I sat and rested in the beautiful grounds. 

It was very relaxing sitting in the sunshine watching the cute little kids on excursions and people trying out their archery skills (mostly unsuccessfully!).  I wouldn’t want that lot protecting my castle if it was under threat!  I made a half-hearted attempt to study some kanji characters for my upcoming Japanese Language Proficiency Test and then gave up and got an ice cream from the nearby vending machine instead. 

I had a good browse through the souvenir shop and before I knew it, John and Erin were back and ready for our mammoth shopping trip to round off the holiday.

Interesting option for lunch!

 

We took the subway to Shinsaibashi and started the long process of making our way down Shinsaibashi-Suji going in and out of shops.  This shopping area is 600m long and jam-packed with shops selling shoes, clothes and accessories.  Erin found herself some goodies including a gorgeous cuddly-soft ‘onesie’ which will be perfect for cold winter nights in the Adelaide Hills.

A suggestion for John's next hairstyle

...or maybe this one

Ad for a pachinko parlour

Erin making friends with a passing crab

We eventually wore ourselves out and made our way back to the hotel, via a stop for dinner at Sukiya across the road from the hotel.  We finished off the night with final sorting, packing and weighing of bags and organising boarding passes and documents for tomorrow’s journey home.

Day 14 Nov 13 – Fun in Osaka

As expected, our day started with a very squashy train ride to Shinagawa to catch the Shinkansen back to Osaka.  I’m not sure that our backpacks and suitcases were appreciated by the people who were trying to get to work, but we had to leave early enough to give us some time in the afternoon in Osaka.

This Shinkansen ride was to have been a good opportunity to see Mount Fuji which had been covered in cloud on the way to Tokyo, but somehow we managed to miss it.

Once at the Shin-Osaka station, we went to the Tourist Office to see if they could help us to find a suitable craft activity for Erin.  They suggested the ‘fake food’ option.  Many restaurants and cafes in Japan have replica models of the dishes that they offer, so that customers are able to get an idea of what they will be getting.  They are fabulous for tourists who don’t have Japanese language skills and they can just choose and point when ordering.  We found that there is a shop not far from our hotel which sells and makes these replica items and they also offer the opportunity for visitors to make them.  Erin was very pleased with this idea as it had been one of her suggested ‘wish list’ items.

We took the subway to Namba and dropped the bags at the hotel, then walked to the ‘fake food’ place.  The classes were run on the hour, so we booked into the 3.00pm session, then browsed through the numerous shops selling pottery and ceramic bowls, teapots, chopsticks rests and various bits and pieces.

I would love to have brought this lot home!

 

At 3.00 we returned to the replica food place and Erin made a gorgeous little cream fruit tart which looks so real.  The staff showed us some of the items on display including a very realistic fish.  It not only looked like a real fish, it even felt like one.  Once we’d admired it, the woman in the shop turned it over and we saw that it was only half a fish and was hollow.
 



Fake food - looks good enough to eat!

 



Step one - decorating the fake kiwifruit

Step two - adding cream and sticking fruit into it

 

The finished product - yum!!

Very realistic fish

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Next stop was very high on Erin’s wish list; a visit to a Cat Café.  As many Japanese people live in quite small apartments and sometimes can’t keep pets, the Cat Café is intended to give people the opportunity to relax with a cup of coffee or tea and feed, play with, and pat the cats.  When we first went in, the staff told us that we couldn't take food in - they saw Erin's newly made tart and were convinced it was real.  Unfortunately, I didn't know the word for 'fake' or 'imitation', but after a while, one of the staff suddenly realised what it was and let us take it in.

Erin was delighted with the experience and crawled around on the floor making friends with the various cats.  I tried to count how many there were, but some were snoozing under the TV stand and others were moving around seeking the people who had the little containers of chicken strips that are included in the price.  I think there were about 12 cats and Erin made sure she had a little chat with each of them.  For Erin it was worth every bit of the 1000 yen (about $10-$11).  I’m not sure that I’d make a habit of patting cats for 1000 yen, but it was lovely to see Erin enjoying herself so much, especially as she’d been feeling so rotten a couple of days before.

Chillin' with the cats

One of Erin's new friends

No, you can't bring it home!

 

When our allotted hour was up, we dragged Erin away and went back to the hotel to do a bit of sorting of our baggage and shopping.  After resting for a while, we went by subway to the Umeda station.  Our eventual goal was the Umeda Sky Building, but we first wanted to find the gorgeous little shop which sold Studio Ghibli merchandise which we’d seen at the beginning of our trip.  Erin had fallen for a beautiful soft Totoro blanket which she just had to have.  Finding the shop was easier said than done, but we were saved by another example of Japanese hospitality.  We saw a couple of young men giving out samples of green tea near the station, so I asked one of them where the shop was.  He promptly removed the jacket that he was wearing, which showed the logo of the company he was working for, then he headed off towards the shop and took us all the way there – a several minute walk.  He was such a helpful and friendly guy and after we got someone to take a picture of us, he asked the person to take another picture on his phone.  Thank you, kind Japanese people!

Our helpful guide

We had a good browse in the shop and Erin bought her Totoro blanket.  We then had dinner and went up to the top of the Umeda Sky Building.  I find this experience quite disconcerting in the land of earthquakes, but it’s an amazing view from the top.  The top of the escalators is 173 metres above the ground.  They have glass sides, which I imagine is so that people riding the escalators can see the view but I chose to look at my feet.  At the top, we took some photos and enjoyed the view then made our way back to the hotel.

Scary escalators

 

Erin with imaginary boyfriend

Me with real husband

...and all three of us

View of Osaka

 

Tomorrow is our last day, so we'll need all the energy we can muster for shopping

 

Day 13 Nov 12 – Back to Shinjuku

Much to John’s delight, breakfast this morning consisted of bread and jam and tea.

We said our farewells to the very hospitable hotel staff and took the taxi to the station.  We could see some light objects fluttering from the sky.  They looked like cherry blossoms falling, but we realised that they were snowflakes.  We could see that the tops of the surrounding mountains were covered in snow.

Snow on the mountains

No wonder it's cold!

 

Erin looked a lot better, but has been quite weakened by her sickness, so we’ll be slowing the pace for a while.  She was able to nap on the trains back to Shinjuku.  We passed through some lovely scenery, with small villages and towns and rice paddies with a gorgeous mountain backdrop and sunny sky.

 

Bicycles near a railway station

Once we made our way back to the Toyoko Inn in Shinjuku, we were able to plead our case for a very early check in for Erin to go to bed.

 

We had booked a session to make glass wind chimes this afternoon, but Erin is obviously not going to be well enough to trek over to the other side of the city to do this, so I had the amazing experience of making my first phone call entirely in Japanese.  Much to my delight, the woman at the other end understood what I was telling her and said that it was fine to cancel.  This was a great boost to my confidence!  Although Erin was disappointed in missing the glass-blowing and painting experience, we're going to look for some kind of craft activity once we get back to Osaka.

 

Once Erin was settled and sleeping, we went out for some shopping for a little while.  We took back some plain rice balls for Erin as she’s ready to face food again.

Cool motorbike near the baseball batting practice centre

 

We took our goodies back to the hotel and checked on Erin who is now doing fine, but will be a bit slow-moving for a while.  She said that she’d like to rest for a bit longer, but go out later, so John and I went out and booked the shinkansen tickets for tomorrow and then for dinner at a nice little noodle restaurant (with smokers at the next table –yuck!) followed by another browse in the shops.

 

Back at the hotel, Erin felt ready to take on some shopping.  I walked back up to the shopping area to walk off my noodles, but John took Erin in a taxi so she still had some energy left to walk around the shops.  We visited a number of shops, but particularly enjoyed the 100 yen shops which gave us a few laughs as well as the chance to buy a few quirky little things to remind us of our trip.

 

Girls Bar in Shinjuku

 

Yummy tentacles for only 128 yen

 

Trying on shoes in Shinjuku - a good way to recover from an upset stomach

We walked back to the hotel and hit the sack as we’ve got another early start tomorrow – this time starting in peak hour at Shinjuku Station!

Day 12 Nov 11 – Nikko

Our nice dinner in Shibuya last night turned out to be not so good after all.  Erin ate something that disagreed with her and was sick in the night.  We had to drag her off to the station as we had to get to Nikko.  She soldiered on very bravely through the walk to the station and the crowded train to Tokyo Station.  From Tokyo we went by Shinkansen to Utsunomiya, so we were able to make her comfortable along the way.  At Utsunomiya we transferred to the local train to Nikko.  Fortunately this train was not crowded, so Erin was able to nap until we reached Nikko.

 

It was very cold and cloudy in Nikko, which is not very surprising as it is in the mountains.  The hotel staff could not have been more helpful.  When we explained that Erin was ill, they sat us in the lounge area, quickly arranged to have our room cleaned and prepared and let us check in early.  We spread a futon on the floor for Erin and she snuggled in for a sleep.  John and I rested and had tea.  It was a good opportunity for us to stop and relax after a very full schedule.

 

Once we were confident that Erin was OK, John and I left her to rest while we went for a walk to Toshugu Shrine.  My little umbrella came in handy after all as it was raining as we left the hotel.

Toshugu Shrine was amazing.  It is the burial place of the Shogun Ieyasu Tokugawa.  The autumn colours along the way and in the surrounds of the Shrine were gorgeous – vibrant reds, glowing golds and all shades in between.  There are a number of buildings in the shrine area with beautiful carved decorations along the walls.

Bridge on the way to the Toshogu Shrine




Beautiful Nikko

Autumn colours everywhere! 



Golden autumn trees

 



At the Toshogu Shrine

We went in to visit the main shrine.  Visitors were admitted in groups, who then sat on the floor (ouch!) while the priest gave a descriptive talk about the shrine.  We didn’t understand any of it, but when everyone looked at the feature he was pointing out, we looked that way and nodded wisely as if we knew what was going on.

Good advice

After the shrine, we went up to visit the grave (describe decorations).  By that time it had stopped raining so we were able to amble back through the autumn leaves to the hotel.

 

Back at the hotel, Erin felt well enough to go out for a short walk to see the beautiful red bridge and the autumn trees that were not too far away from the hotel.  They found a shop to buy some plain food (bread, rice crackers and fruit) for when she makes a full comeback.  We whiled away the afternoon napping and reading then John and I went out to a Chinese restaurant for dinner.  As we were leaving the hotel to go into the freezing cold evening air, a young couple came into the hotel. The woman was wearing a mini skirt with over-the-knee stockings and bare legs in between!  The lovely guy in the hotel gave her a warm blanket to wrap around her legs.

 

The guy in the Chinese restaurant was very funny.  He spoke good English and had quite a chat with us.  He taught us a simple Japanese game which will come in handy if we need to fill in some time.  He asked us to write a message in his message book.  I wrote the first part in English and the second part in Japanese.  He was very surprised and suitably impressed!
We enjoyed being in a Chinese Restaurant in Japan listening to hits of the 60s (Mamas and Papas, Beatles etc.)

 

Our friendly Chinese Restaurant guy

Back at the hotel, we arranged a taxi to take us to the station in the morning, had a lovely soak in the bath and snuggled into our futons.

 

Day 11 Nov 10 – Harajuku and Shibuya

This morning Japan offered us another of its traditions – a 5.5 magnitude earthquake.  I was just about to step out of the bathroom and suddenly found that the floor wasn’t quite in the right place.  The rocking and rolling was quite brief, and certainly not as strong as the one I experienced in April in Wakayama.  It spooked Erin a bit, but gave her another experience to record in her journal.

 

After breakfast we made our way to Harajuku, the place for young people to be on Sundays.  We went over to the bridge to see if we could spot any cosplay folk, but we were a bit early for them.  What we did see was a number of beautiful little girls dressed in all their finery for ‘shichi-go-san’, which is a ceremony for 7, 5 and 3 year olds.  They get beautifully done up and visit a shrine with their families for a special ceremony.  They were posing for photos in front of the shrine’s torii gate, so we had some great photo opportunities.

Visiting the shrine for Shichi-Go-San



...and another one

...and this one with ugg boots

 

We decided to run the gauntlet of Takeshita Street, which is full of shops selling clothes, shoes, accessories etc., as well as the crepe shop which was my sole purpose for being there.  Whoever thought of putting chunks of cheesecake in a crepe deserves a medal!  I did buy myself some cute socks, partly as a souvenir and partly as a practical item that I’ll use.

No losing weight on this holiday!

I'm sure this shop name meant something to someone!

 



After our shopping trip, we made our way back to the bridge and found a beautiful cosplay girl in pink.  She didn’t look very Japanese to us, but I guess there are no rules about who can dress up in Harajuku.  I’m now struggling with the word Harajuku.  I’ve always pronounced it as Hara-joo-koo, but on the announcement on the train, it sounded like Ha-raj-koo.  I think it might have to remain Hara-joo-koo in my mind.

 

Erin with lovely pink girl

We went looking for something to eat in the local shopping centre and found the most beautiful pizza restaurant.  As is very common at mealtimes, we needed to queue for a table, but it didn’t take long.  We had a bit of a misunderstanding when ordering.  We thought we were getting a serve of pizza, a cup of tea and a salad.  What we actually received was a whole pizza each!  We managed fine as the pizza crust and the toppings were both very light.  The meal was delicious and we were pleased that we’d found this little gem.

 

We headed off to the station, went through the gates and made it to the platform when Erin suddenly realised that she didn’t have her Ha-raj-koo shopping bag!  I explained to the station attendants and we made our way back to the pizza restaurant, to find that they had put the shopping safely behind their counter.  Not remotely surprising in Japan.

 

We retraced our steps to the station and made our way to the dance studio.  After seeing Erin safely inside and arranging to meet in 2 hours, John and I went for a stroll through the park.  We saw a young man dressed up doing Michael Jackson moves, including a very skilled moonwalk, kids zooming around on skateboards, families on bikes and some people who seemed to be rehearsing a play. Eventually we found ourselves a comfortable place to sit and rest, with the bonus features of a vending machine and toilets nearby.  As it started to become dark and the temperature dropped, some people arrived with packages of clothes blankets which they distributed to the homeless people.  We didn’t wanted to gawk too much, but they also seemed to set up a soup kitchen.

 

Relaxing in Shinjuku Park

Another thing to do in Shinjuku Park

  

And someone practicing his Michael Jackson moves

 
 

We made our way back to the dance studio and only had to wait a few minutes before Erin came out.  She really enjoyed watching the contest and managed to make friends with a young Japanese lady who has added Erin as a Facebook friend.  Her friend later posted on Facebook that she met a ‘beautiful alien’, but that was just the Google Translate version.  What she actually said was that she met a ‘beautiful foreigner’.

 

From the dance studio, we made our way to Shibuya for some more shop trawling and to take the obligatory picture of Erin with the Hachiko statue.  We went to a small noodle bar for dinner and I had the most fantastic fried noodle dish.  Due to another misunderstanding, Erin and John got more food than they bargained for again, but it was a good feed at a good price.

 

Erin with Hachiko

We were pretty worn out by then, so made our way back to the station to catch the train back to Shinjuku.  As we approached the gate, the station staff directed us away from the gate, explaining that the Yamanote Line was closed due to an accident..  That wasn’t what we really wanted to hear, but there was another option to get to Shinjuku, but this meant quite a trek through the station to catch a train on a different line.  The platform was so crowded that the staff had to stop people going down the escalators.  We only had to wait through one arrival and departure to squeeze onto a train, and we were very grateful that we were only going a couple of stops.  How nice it was to get back to the hotel!

The 'Getting on the Train When it's Already Full' technique

 

We’re off to Nikko in the countryside tomorrow and have a very early start.