Food, castles, exploring.

June 8, 2013

This morning again we were lazy and didn’t leave the house until almost 10am. But we did book our accommodations for the rest of our trip. We decided to spend 3 nights in Hiroshima and our last 2 nights in Hakone, which is a little town at the base of Mt. Fuji. Since we missed seeing Mt. Fuji on our way out of Tokyo and because our train passes expire on June 14 and we aren’t flying home until June 16, we wanted to make sure we were close enough to Tokyo so the train wouldn’t cost a fortune and also we didn’t want to come all the way to Japan and miss seeing Mt. Fuji. So it will be an nice relaxing 2 days to finish our vacation.

Again, we didn’t have much planned for the day other than visiting Nagoya Castle and maybe going to a car parts store (which we never made it to). We decided to follow Google Maps directions to the castle and they ended up sending us to a train station on the side of the castle opposite to where the gates are, so we had a nice walk through the park surrounding the castle. 

We found a random windmill which Ben was excited about due to his Dutch-ness. We also came across a man feeding bread to the koi in a stream. At first he just threw a whole slice of bread into the water and one fish inhaled the entire thing! Then he threw in some more bread but he tore it into bite-sized pieces first and the fish were fighting over it. Ben and I were wondering what the fish were eating to get so big, because in ever pond or stream we have seen koi and they are all the size of a medium salmon. Now we know, they eat large slices of bread.

When we go into the castle grounds there was a show going on with a bunch of guys dressed up and fighting; it was pretty neat to see but I’m sure they were super hot in their costumes, I was hot just standing and watching. We decided to leave before the show was over so we didn’t have to battle the crowd to get to the castle itself. It was pretty busy in general because it’s Saturday.

The castle itself was pretty neat and we could go inside, but unfortunately it is only a reconstruction as the original building was destroyed during an air raid during the war in 1945. Now the building is a museum with lots of interesting displays and an observation deck on the top floor. Restoration work is also being done on the adjoining palace which was also destroyed.

After we finished wandering around the castle, we jumped on the subway which had a station very conveniently located right next to the main gate and went back to Kanayama station, which is the one close to Jen’s house. It was super busy at the station and there was a magic/entertainment show going on in the main square of the station. The guy had a tall unicycle and he put on a big show of getting on. When he finally did get up his song of choice was “It’s Raining Men”, which I thought was an interesting/inappropriate choice. We decided to have lunch at the station at the Aloha Café which had pretty tasty avocado burgers. 

After lunch we came back to Jen’s and Ben pretty much fell asleep immediately. Apparently he woke up at 4am and couldn’t fall back asleep.

Ben and I have been searching since we arrived in Japan for different flavours of Kit Kat and we have failed miserably. We have going into every grocery store that we come across that the only flavours we have found are regular and dark chocolate. Then we get to Nagoya and Jen and Naoya are finding flavours for us in every store they go into. So far we have Green Tea, Strawberry, Cookies & Cream, and Passionfruit.

Ben and I both ended up having a nap this afternoon while we waited for Jen and Naoya to get home from Jen’s Tai Kwon Do test. After the got home we all headed out to Osu which has lots of little shops and restaurants. We got there a little late so the shops weren’t open for long, but we ended up finding some really cute stuff to bring home and Jen bought a coin bank from the 100 yen store that looks like poop; she was actually really excited about it. We also saw the Osu Kannon Temple.

By this time everyone was hungry and so we all agreed to go out for takoyaki, which is a deep fried ball filled with octopus. It was really yummy (but very hot) and the cook was excited to see foreigners because he went to school in Texas and was happy to practice his English. 

With our bellies full of octopus we were ready to walk back to Kanayama. Along the way we stopped at a used book store called Book Off where you can buy, sell and trade books, CDs, DVDs, and video games. The English book section was pretty pathetic so Jen didn’t end up buying anything, but she did tell us that there is a similar store that sells other used things like small appliances and other household goods called Hard Off.

When we got back to Kanayama we were ready for our main course so we went for okonomiyaki, which is a Japanese savory pancake. Ben and I both ordered the potato, cheese, bacon (ham), and corn pancake. 

The base of the pancake is a cabbage and egg patty with your chosen toppings and sauce on top. It was super yummy and filling. We were all pretty tired with our full bellies so we headed home to relax and get ready for busy day tomorrow in Kyoto.