Japan Part 2

Uncategorized 17 Minutes

HK -> Tokyo

Toyko

Arnob and Solo travel Success

My childhood best friend Arnob from Toronto is also joining the trip along with Marc, Phil and Kyler. Unfortunately, he got sick during his flight and was so kind to spread his sickness to everyone else. Arnob has alway had a fascination for Japanese culture and I was happy to see him live his dream. Also, one of the rules we all agreed upon when we decided to travel together was to let people go to their own excursions, if it didn’t match with your own plan. I’m an absolute believer in this rule for traveling and it made traveling with friends a hell of a lot better. So, when we went to the Pokemon Center and all of us except Arnob wanted to leave, we told him we will meet him at home. At first he was a bit hesitant because it was his first time solo traveling, but when we met him back at home he was happy he wasn’t rushed. I was so proud of him because he started to go on more solo excursions after and he loved it. Case in point, it can be taunting in the beginning but it is so rewarding when you get out of your comfort zone.

Karaoke

One of the first events we planned when we got to Tokyo was to go to Karaoke and clubbing. Renee from Taiwan with her sister will be in Japan as well and it was her idea to go to Karaoke. I figured it would be fun with such a big group and it definitely was a night to remember.

Mass Reunion?

What made Toyko part two even more exciting is that we were able to have a Taiwan Youth hostel reunion because the timing worked out. So, me Clitza, Renne and her sister made plans to get all you can eat Kushikatsu.

After eating Kushikatsu, the boys joined the group and Clitza being our designated tour guide showed us around Shinijuku.

Credits to Marc for taking this awesome picture and credits to Clitza for taking us to spots not known to tourists.
Ghibli Clock
Odaiba is a must go at night and is my favorite area in Tokyo

Picnic and Jazz

Since I had a great time reading at the park in Tokyo part 1, I figured I would do it again before I leave Tokyo. This time I invited everyone else along and it was such an amazing time.

When we were finished at the picnic it was my mission to take them to “Jazz bar intro” because I had such a great time last time

Food

Probably the highlight of my Toyko part 2 trip was going to Ginza steak for the AYCE A5 Wagyu
Ginza Steak. AYCE A5 Wagyu Beef

Osaka

Definitely my favorite city in Japan due to the unique neighborhoods and more open attitude.

Image result for osaka weird buildings
Example of the interesting buildings in Osaka
When you are sick and drunk

Nara

The boys only had a short amount of time in Osaka and we all had different priorities for each day. So, for one of the days me and Marc decided to go to Nara. The ride there was an hour and even though we got lost a few times we eventually made it. Even though I was sick, I had a great time in Nara because the town itself was peaceful and the temperature was perfect for a walk.

Don’t bite me please
Seeing dears literally everywhere was kind of weird and it was a bit iffy seeing people overfeed the dears.

Food

Nara is famous for there kakinoha sushi. They are quite good and worth getting some if you have time.
Definitely get the fresh mochi in town. It was to die for and this is where you see the guys pound the mochi while making weird noises.

Spa world

Honestly, if I were to go back to Japan I would come to Osaka just to go to Spa world. I think the reasons why I absolutely loved Spa world was because it was so cheap and you can stay as long as you want. Also, in the change room they have delicious milk from Hokkaido. Essentially, you pay $1200 ($15 CAD) yen on the weekday and each month the themes of the Onsen change depending on the gender. They have two themes the Asian Zone or the European Zone. The spa portion consists of a cold bath (my favorite), multiple themed hot tub, tea flavor hot tub, sauna, salt sauna, outside hot tub, bar, salt hot tub and if you want to get a massage you can. I only went twice when I was in Osaka and I wish I went more times or had one in Toronto. Do note you need to be naked in the Spa and you get an electric wrist bands to make any purchases throughout the facility.

Solo time and Hostel

After spending two weeks with the bois, I was ready to start my solo excursions again. I decided to do some research on hostels and stayed at Hana Hostel which was supposedly the best hostel in Osaka. To my luck, the common area was always empty when I was there and it was low season in Japan.
Pros
* The staff were nice
* Situated in the Amerikamura (Also called American Village). I guess their vision of America is all meat and rap because that is what that area feels like.
* Washroom was clean (I feel like all the washrooms in Japan were clean)
* There is a Sake bar under the hostel and the bartender is fluent in English
* The upstairs living room area is really comfy
* In the middle of Osaka’s downtown core
Cons
* Empty hostel? (Probably timing)
* No lockers

Sake tasting under Hana hostel with Daniel

Walking tour

I really wanted to attend more Meetups on meetup.com so I noticed there was an interesting night tour where they bring you to the more gritter parts of Japan. The tour was 50% off if you book it through Meetup.com and they only promote it when they need to fill space. Our tour guide Andy was a local in Japan and you can tell he has a passion for what he does. He was very informative and I really like how flexible the tour was. The tour itself brings you to homeless area of Osaka, which is considered the most “dangerous” area in Japan but danger is Japan is like walking in the middle of the day in downtown Toronto. We also visited a secret red light district in Osaka and it was surreal because the street was very nice. There were shops that had a girl in the middle with a grandma beside them and there were three streets filled with shops like these. Andy told us the streets were categorize by age and most of the girls there are working with consent because they charge a lot for their services. Whereas, in the other parts of Japan it is usually human trafficking. The most interesting aspect of this tour is most of the sites Andy brings you to are underrated and will see no other tourist there. At the end of our tour, we you have the option of joining the tour group for okonomiyaki and I highly recommend it because the food is great but also Andy will handle all the translations for everything. If you are going to Osaka I HIGHLY HIGHLY recommend this tour! https://backstreetosakatours.com/ (Look into the event on Meetup.com first).

Andy recommended us get some Japansese ume liquor from the vending machine.

New People

Dexter – I met Dexter while attending the backstreet tour in Osaka. Dexter was a former PM at Dropbox in Silicon Valley and was traveling the world for the year after being burned out from work. I was excited to see another backpacker after being with my friends for two weeks and was fascinated with his trip. We clicked during the tour and we decided to meet up for some food the following day. We went to a really good curry place in the homeless area of Osaka and I had a great time talking about what we learned while solo traveling. While talking to Dexter I also learned some different perspectives that I wanted to apply to my life. For example, when I get invited to go out to hang out with people I will usually self examine my emotional state and if it is emotional drained then I will instead stay in. In my opinion, there is no point of going out if you are not 100%. I highly recommend people read his blog because it is very inspirational and honestly really well written http://dexterzhuang.com. Also, he is a career couch so if you need some career advice check out his website for more information.

Curry Yakumido. Even though there wasn’t much meat in the curry the curry itself was perfect and the owner was entertaining to talk to

Daniel – I met Daniel while waiting for my beloved Gyukaku with the bois in Osaka. He noticed we had a Canadian accent (ayy) and came up to us to ask if we were Canadian. We invited him to eat with us because he was traveling alone and he was cool to talk to. Daniel is from Edmonton, Canada (there is nothing to do there) and was solo traveling in Japan and Korea. After, we finished eating at Gyukaku I decided to get his contact because I will be solo traveling in Osaka after the bois leave. We met up one night for a sake tasting under my hostel (great sake bar) and drinking a shit ton of Strong afterwards. While, talking to Daniel I noticed he likes to talk to random people and when we were intoxicated on Strong he randomly started talking to a random Japanese guy in the skate park. All I remember after that is he brought us to the most popular club in Osaka and Daniel paid for his club entrance (that was nice?). That was definitely a wild night and deserves a hang over Spa World visit the next day. I’m excited to go on another drinking adventure with him again if he ever moves to Toronto.

Food

I highly recommend going to Gyozaoh in Osaka because the staff is really friendly and there Apple highball was AMAZING
Red Rock Amemura. This beautiful meat bowl was actually pretty good but not worth lining up for
Simba Curry. They play reggae music here so I approve

Okayama Day Trip

I picked Okayama because it was close to Osaka and I had plans in the evening. There was only one attraction in Okayama and it was the garden.

Kind of looks like Hobbiton
Jasmine tea and Mochi
Japanese Cranes
Japanese Sushi
Kobe beef burger with peach juice

Hiroshima

I highly recommend anyone going to Japan to visit Hiroshima and visit the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum. The museum does an amazing job describing the horrors of nuclear war and the devastation it leaves. There were a lot of kids while I was visiting and many were crying while walking around the musuem. After walking around the bomb site I also recommend visiting the island of Itsukushima after Hiroshioma because it is so close. You will need to take a ferry to the island and it should be free if you have a JR rail pass. If you want to see the Japanese deers and skip Nara then Itsukushima actually has a lot of public deers roaming around.

Atomic Bomb Dome. Only structure left near the bomb’s hypocenter
Children’s Peace Monument
The famous shrine in the water on Itsukushima island
Miyajima Brewery on Itsukushima island. There oysters were delicious and they have an oyster beer too!
The view of Miyajima Brewery

Hakone

K’s House Hakone

Personally my favorite hostel in Japan (Thanks Clitza for the recommendation!) and one of my favorite regions for nature in the Southern region of Japan. I regret not staying in the Mt.Fuji area for longer because the town where Hakone-Yumoto station was so peaceful and you are surrounded by nature. The K’s House hostel was the only hostel in Japan that I felt had such a great environment for meeting new people (Common area design!!). Unfortunately, I met most of them the night before I had to leave but the hostel design was perfect and very cosy. I highly recommend this hostel to anyone coming to Japan because it is so cheap and it has a private ONSEN too!

Pros
* Balcony area overlooking the forest
* Clean washroom
* I slept in the deluxe room which is a little bigger and I had a great sleep
* Common area is huge and always had someone I can meet in the evening
* Clean private Onsen (Outside and Inside)
* Cheap
* It is huge and has space for so many people
Cons
* Hard to get too once in the town because you either have to take a bus that doesn’t run that frequently or walk up steep hills. There is a convenient store near the hostel but it isn’t open often, so you most likely have to walk back into town to get food.
* Mosquitoes in the common area

Balcony view

New People I met at K’s House Hakone

Christina, Sebastian and Matthias – There was a huge group of people in the common area and we were all talking about our travels in Japan. I mentioned I was going to Sapporo and Christina with her boyfriend Matthias and Sebastian was going to be there too. They are from Vienna and this is their second time traveling to Japan. They wanted to change the pacing of this vacation because the first time they went they rushed everything (That was exactly my mantra for this trip too). I met them the night before I left to Sapporo so I didn’t get to hang out with them in Hakone but we made plans to meet up in Sapporo.

Caroline – I met Caroline in my room and she was my roommate with another unknown person (We found out it was an elderly women from Quebec that was traveling alone). She is from France and was backpacking around Asia. Sadly, I also met her the evening before I left but it was nice to have a roommate I can talk too.

Solo Hike
I’ve never hiked alone and I only had one full day in Hakone to explore so the hostel recommend I take the hiking path to lake Ashi. You can take the bus straight to the lake but it was such a beautiful day I decided to walk.

Amazake-chaya Tea House. Tea house that was founded 400 years ago and is famous for theire amazke (sweet rice wine). Funny enough the waiter surprisingly knows fluent English so there wasn’t a language barrier
Mochi set with the Amazke
Used to be a famous historical walkway in the past
It was so quiet I thought I was lost
Lake Ashi
There is a line up for a picture…
Top of Komagatake Ropeway Top Station
The top of the peak

Food

Haikara Chinese Nisshintei. This restaurant serves Japanese and Chinese fusion food. I got the sweet and sour ramen and the sweet and sour omelette rice with gyozas. This restaurant was unbelievably good and it is on my top 5 restaurants in Japan. I tried going to the famous Soba restaurant in the town but it was always closed so my hostel recommended I go here and so I went here twice. I was hungry both times so I order two mains and homemade gyozas. The waiter looked at my funny and told me “Are you sure you can finish?”. I did finish in the end and they remembered me the second time I came (I ordered the same amount).

Sapporo

Note to self, to not take a bullet train from Hakone to Sapporo or bring a lot of food because the whole ride was 10 hours and the last portion of the train ride had no food in the train. I suggest flying but I wanted to make use of my bullet train pass. GET A CAR IF YOU COME TO SAPPORO because you will be wasting a lot of time waiting for the bus/train and they come quite infrequently.

Finally got the Hokkaido
Finally made it Sapporo after 10 hours

Time out

I was so burned out from sleeping in hostels and being around people I took two days and literally just stayed in my hotel. I stayed in Dormy Inn Sapporo ANNEX and it was nice because the hotel had a private hot spring, sauna, cold tub and was right beside a 7-eleven. Also, the hotel was in the middle of the the downtown core. I was so happy to have my own bed with my own private washroom. My whole day consisted of 7-eleven food -> blogging -> sauna -> sleep. It was a glorious time off from traveling and will definitely incorporate this practice more often when I travel.

So there is regular Sapporo in Japan and then there is Classic Sapporo only sold in Hokkaido. It tasted pretty good but nothing to be excited about

New people

Matti

I met Matti when I arrived into the Sappolodge and he was just sitting in the common area alone (Note this common area is probably the worst designed area I’ve seen yet). I asked him if there were any other people in this hostel and he mentioned only a few and it was pretty dead. I asked him what his plans were and he was thinking of going hiking to the top at one of the mountains that overlook Sapporo. I suggested we should together and we embarked on our hike. The weather was amazing in Sapporo (20 degrees) and it made the hike a whole of a hell easier. There was absolutely no one on the trails because most people take the cable cart up. We talked a lot about our life back home. Matti is from Finland and was doing a few week trip in Japan. He was solo traveling for the first on Sapporo and meeting up with a friend later. I was fascinated about the life over in Finland and I learned quite a bit about the country (*There are a lot of social services given). Like how you have to join the army in Finland but it is easy to make up an excuse. I was jealous how he gets to see the Northern lights like it was a normal to them but at least we have a shit ton of taco bells (the first taco bell was opened a few years ago in Helsinki and there was a line up). I had a great time traveling with Matti in Sapporo and would love to visit Helsinki to meet up again.

Top of Mt. Moiwa
View of Mt. Moiwa at night. Bring a jacket up here because it was insanely cold at night
Lake Shikotsu. There is honestly nothing to see here, unless you want to go on the duck boats
Ice cream is here everywhere around Hokkaido because they are known for their milk here. I don’t like sweets and I loved the sweets in Hokkaido.
Matti recommended we go to Hanamaru sushi and even though the line up was pretty long it was one of the best sushi places I’ve been to in my life. I’ve been to a few high end places in Toronto and this conveyor belt sushi place had the freshest pieces of sushi I’ve ever had.

Sappolodge Hostel

I’m not sure why I keep making this mistake but I booked my stay at the Sappolodge hostel for a week and made sure it was the best hostel in Sapporo. It was completely empty and if it wasn’t for Matti I would have been doing solo excursions the whole time. The hostel itself was nice in terms of the cottage feeling because everything was wood but there were a few cons I have to list.

Pros
* The chef at the downstairs restaurant was nice and they had ice cold beer
* Clean washrooms
* Relatively close to the subway
Cons
* Lockers are tiny
* One of the staff never smiled and seem like she hated her job
* Common area to meet people is non-existent, unless you count two couches
* Very quite hostel and most of the people that sleep there aren’t English speakers
* Restaurant downstairs is super loud and you can smell the smoking fumes when you leave your dorm room
* Everything is made out of wood so there isn’t any sound proofing. So, at 6am I was always woken up by someone’s alarm or someone packing up.

Christina, Sebastian and Matthias
Luckily I was still able to meet up with Christina and the gang and we made plans to go to Otaru and the Nikka distillery. It was really nice seeing them again and sharing our travel experiences. I would love to see them again in Vienna or in Canada whenever I go.

Famous canal in Otaru. It looks a lot better in the winter time and there isn’t much to do in the town.
The Nikka factory itself is located in Yoichi and is a worth a visit for the tasting and just walking around the ground.
Free whiskey tasting in the morning without any food. Recipe for disaster

Nobody
It actually got quite lonely while in Sapporo because the hostel was dead and everyone I knew has left. Also there wasn’t any meetups during the time I was there so I couldn’t even meet new people. I made the best of it by going to all the breweries in Sapporo

Sapporo Factory. I was so excited to try the Kaitaksuhi beer in the Sapporo factory because it was the original recipe and it really refreshing (second time getting ID’d in Japan).
Asashi Brewery. In my opinion the best brewery in Sapporo because they give a free guided tour of the brewery (unfortunately the factory wasn’t operational that day but we were still able to just walk around) and the beer tasting was very generous for being free.
Moerenuma Park. Beautiful empty park with some weird structures scattered around. It was also the only time in my life I was going to piss myself.
Random Louvre replica in the Moerenuma Park and it was almost empty inside and outside. Very eerie feeling while walking alone

Food
Personally I felt the food in Sapporo is the best in Japan because everything is so fresh and the soup curry is god tier.

Rojiura Curry SAMURAI. This place is a must come when visiting Sapporo because it changed my life after eating this. The ingredients were so fresh and premium and when you mix it with the life changing curry it was a mix in heaven. The chicken feel off the bone and was perfectly crispy. Note there is a huge line up even before it opened so come prepared.
Uni rice bowl at the Nijo fish Market. It was really expensive and it didn’t taste amazing but I’m also not an expert in Uni so I’m not sure how fresh it is.
Chaos Heaven Soup curry Sapporo. Milker version of the soup curry I had in Rojiura Curry SAMURAI but I personally liked the curry more here because of the smokey flavor it had.

I don’t have any pictures but honorable mention to the conveyor belt sushi place called 活一鮮 南3条店 (it doesn’t have an English name) because it was slightly better than Hanamaru and the amount of mouth orgasms I had there was plentiful.

Toyko

My last day

I figured I come back to Tokyo for a day before I leave Japan and on my last day I met up with Shin, Clitza and Matt.

Went to an Nomihoudai (All you can drink) with Matt, Yuuka (Matt’s friend) and her friend
Uhhhhhhhh so Matt send me this picture when I left and Yuuka send him this.
I don’t know what to say
Japan is weird

Conclusion

I went to Japan last year and I honestly didn’t have an amazing time because of the people I went with but this time around it totally changed my perspective. I had some ridiculous good food there and met so many amazing people during my time. I learned to travel solo more and even though it had its low moments, it was just part of the experience of solo traveling. Even now while writing this I want to go back to Japan to meeting everyone and EAT. I will be back to Japan in soon time and would love to explore Hokkaido with a car this time.

Until next time Japan ✌️✌️
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