Two Weeks in Japan
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<summary>TOC</summary>
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<ul>
<li><a href="https://roytang.net/2024/12/japan2024/#previously">Previously</a></li>
<li><a href="https://roytang.net/2024/12/japan2024/#this-trip">This Trip</a></li>
<li><a href="https://roytang.net/2024/12/japan2024/#fukuoka">Fukuoka</a><ul>
<li><a href="https://roytang.net/2024/12/japan2024/#team-lab-forest">Team Lab Forest</a></li>
<li><a href="https://roytang.net/2024/12/japan2024/#hakata-canal-city">Hakata Canal City</a></li>
</ul>
</li>
<li><a href="https://roytang.net/2024/12/japan2024/#miyajima">Miyajima</a><ul>
<li><a href="https://roytang.net/2024/12/japan2024/#miyajima-island-and-mount-misen">Miyajima Island and Mount Misen</a></li>
</ul>
</li>
<li><a href="https://roytang.net/2024/12/japan2024/#okayama">Okayama</a><ul>
<li><a href="https://roytang.net/2024/12/japan2024/#okayama-castle">Okayama Castle</a></li>
</ul>
</li>
<li><a href="https://roytang.net/2024/12/japan2024/#osaka">Osaka</a><ul>
<li><a href="https://roytang.net/2024/12/japan2024/#kaiyukan">Kaiyukan</a></li>
<li><a href="https://roytang.net/2024/12/japan2024/#universal-studios-japan-super-nintendo-world">Universal Studios Japan / Super Nintendo World</a></li>
</ul>
</li>
<li><a href="https://roytang.net/2024/12/japan2024/#nagoya">Nagoya</a><ul>
<li><a href="https://roytang.net/2024/12/japan2024/#ghibli-park">Ghibli Park</a></li>
<li><a href="https://roytang.net/2024/12/japan2024/#wandering-around">Wandering Around</a></li>
</ul>
</li>
<li><a href="https://roytang.net/2024/12/japan2024/#chubu">Chubu</a></li>
<li><a href="https://roytang.net/2024/12/japan2024/#final-thoughts">Final Thoughts</a></li>
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<p>I spent the second half of November traveling around Japan with some friends. This very long post is to help future me remember the trip.</p>
<h3 id="previously">Previously</h3>
<p>My first trip to Japan was in <a href="https://roytang.net/tags/japan2015/">November 2015</a> when we visited Tokyo, Hiroshima, Osaka, and Kyoto.</p>
<p>My second trip to Japan was in <a href="https://roytang.net/tags/japan2017/">April 2017</a>, more focused around the Tokyo area, with side trips to Mt Fuji, Hakone and Nikko.</p>
<h3 id="this-trip">This Trip</h3>
<p>This third trip is with the same friend group, more or less. One of us has since sadly passed away, but his sister and his son are new party members for this trip. We also took the opportunity to visit a friend who joined us for some of the days during the second half of the trip.</p>
<p>Since it has been 7 years since the last trip, my Japan visa had already expired and I had to apply for a new one. I was a bit worried since this time I was unemployed and would be unable to submit things like tax returns or proof of income. Turns out I just had to submit a letter of explanation and bank statements and the visa was approved despite my anxiety. It is multiple-entry, so in theory I can do another trip within the next five years.</p>
<p>This trip is busier than the first two: this time we plan to visit five different cities. We bought the JR Sanyo-San'in Area Pass to cover the shinkansen travels for most of the trip.</p>
<h3 id="fukuoka">Fukuoka</h3>
<p>First stop was Fukuoka, the westernmost city on our stop. We would be staying here for 3 nights. Our AirBNB was a tight little house with annoying stairs that had no handrails and had a washer that was outdoors for some reason. I did like that it had a projector in the living room area with Netflix and Youtube.</p>
<p>The AirBNB was a short walk away from Hakata Station and there was a selection of good food places nearby. A pleasant discovery was the bakery <a href="https://dacomecca.com/">Dacomecca</a> near Hakata Station, which we only wanted to try out because we saw people queueing up there even near lunch time.</p>
<h4 id="team-lab-forest">Team Lab Forest</h4>
<p>For our first full day in Fukuoka, we visited the exhibit at Team Lab Forest. The same group had previously visited a Team Lab exhibit <a href="https://roytang.net/2023/03/sgtrip2023/">in Singapore last year</a>. The one in Fukuoka had a large area where you can "collect" animals in a light-projected forest using <a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=art.teamlab.forest">an augmented reality app</a>. I was only able to collect 27/59 out of the possible animals. Using the floor net was hard!</p>
<p>The other parts of the exhibit were challenging especially for older people like me who are not great at balance. There was a room with a bouncy floor and one where we had to hop across some small platforms and a tunnel where I had to duck down very low (the curse of being tall).</p>
<h4 id="hakata-canal-city">Hakata Canal City</h4>
<p>We decided to spend our second full day in Fukuoka just wandering around a nearby mall. There was a Shonen Jump-related shop here and they had a nice fountain display, I think everyone mostly just shopped around. The basement floor of the place was dominated by a large Bandai Namco area with stalls selling toys, crane games, figure exhibits, subareas featuring Demon Slayer and MHA, etc. I kind of wish I had bought some stuff here, maybe some Dragonball thing or perhaps <a href="https://roytang.net/2021/05/going-merry-kit/">another One Piece ship</a>, but the last one was a challenge for me to put together and I didn't want to be carrying around extra stuff so early in the trip. I figured I could buy such stuff later on the trip, but I never did.</p>
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<figcaption>Canal City - I think those pink things are supposed to be explosions, but it just looks like the Gundams are being hit with cotton candy</figcaption>
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<figcaption>Canal City - Mural</figcaption>
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<h3 id="miyajima">Miyajima</h3>
<p>On the third day we traveled to Hiroshima, where we would be staying near Miyajima island for 2 nights. We had previously visited during the 2015 trip. This time instead of booking accomodations on the island, we got an AirBNB on the mainland nearby and we planned to just take the ferry. This was our first big planning mistake: Google Maps told us the AirBNB was a very manageable 900m or so from the nearest train station, but when we actually decided to walk that distance with our luggage in tow, it turns out that it was a comparatively steep uphill climb, going up around 50m in elevation over that 900m. We passed by some schoolchildren heading home on our way up and they must have been wondering about those odd exhausted-looking foreigners with their big luggages making their way uphill. It was a slog. Our navigator said Google Maps claimed the route was "mostly flat", which became a recurring joke for most of the trip.</p>
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<figcaption>Miyajima - the uphill trek to our AirBNB</figcaption>
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<p>When we finally got to the house, the tradeoff was obvious: this was easily the best accomodations for the entire trip. The house was huge and spacious and with multiple rooms and had stuff like a bathtub and a washer/dryer so we could wash clothes and a huge TV with Netflix. We were so exhausted when we got there I just plopped down on the sofa for a couple of hours and we watched Bullet Train (<a href="https://roytang.net/2022/10/bullet-train/">excellent movie</a>) until we eventually just decided to order Domino's for dinner because there were no open food places nearby and noone was up for another trek up and down that hill.</p>
<h4 id="miyajima-island-and-mount-misen">Miyajima Island and Mount Misen</h4>
<p>For our only full day in Miyajima, we took the ferry to Miyajima island in the morning. It feels like there were a lot more people visiting the island compared to our last visit. Still lots of deer on the island, thankfully I did not get assaulted this time. The child in our group kept refering to them as "homework eaters". The first thing we did was walk over to the Tori gate and the nearby shrine. This gave me a chance to touch the sea and renew the ancient oaths, something I haven't been able to do since before the pandemic.</p>
<p>One thing we did not do during our last visit was to climb the ropeway up to Mount Misen, so we did that now. It was another uphill climb to even get to the ropeway station (a bit more forgiving this time since there were multiple resting spots along the way). We had to ride the main ropeway car with a caucasian couple and the child was a bit embarassing because he kept screaming about how we were going to die!</p>
<p>We made it up there eventually and took the 2nd cable car to the observatory near the peak. We were already tired by this point and opted not to take the advertised 30-min walk/hike/climb to the actual peak and were happy to rest and take pictures at the observatory, some 450m above sea level.</p>
<p>We were exhausted by the end of day and wanted to take taxis back to the AirBNB, but we could not find any. We decided to just do the uphill trek again, reasoning that it would not be that hard without our luggage this time. IT WAS STILL EXHAUSTING!</p>
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<figcaption>Miyajima - The deer were friendlier to me this time</figcaption>
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<figcaption>Miyajima - view from 450m above sea level</figcaption>
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<h3 id="okayama">Okayama</h3>
<p>Our next stop was Okayama, where we would be staying for 2 nights. Our Okayama AirBNB was another small, tightly-layouted place, with the first floor little more than a landing with the shower area and the second floor containing the kitchen, living area and bedrooms. Was not a fan of this one: there was a TV but no streaming services provided and not a lot of space to hang out. It was a reasnable distance from Okayama station.</p>
<h4 id="okayama-castle">Okayama Castle</h4>
<p>For our one full day in Okayama, we didn't actually have anything specific planned. One of us wanted to go on a separate denim-related excursion, so we just decided to go our separate ways and do our own thing for this day. Some opted to mostly rest since the first few days of the trip were exhausting. I opted to take a 20-minute walk over to Okayama Castle and be a tourist by myself. </p>
<p>The castle itself is fine, though it's smaller than Osaka castle (my only other point of reference) and seems much easier to invade. There is a small fee to enter the castle itself, and I was happy to note that there was an elevator servicing 4/6 floors; I remember getting tired climbing up the stairs in Osaka castle! There were some nice exhibits mostly in Japanese; they had English translations that I had to access online so I mostly didn't bother. The most interesting thing for me was the details of the historical figures related to Okayama castle and how they participated in the battle of Sekigahara. There was even a short 10-minute film talking about this in detail, thankfully with English subs.</p>
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<figcaption>Okayama Castle - Armor Set</figcaption>
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<figcaption>Okayama Castle - What is this, a castle for ants?!?</figcaption>
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<h3 id="osaka">Osaka</h3>
<p>Our next stop was Osaka, and this time we had an actual hotel in the lively downtown area, which was nice. Lots of food options nearby and the hotel was right beside a 24-hour supermarket. Later when we were checking out they would even help us get large taxis for all our luggage.</p>
<h4 id="kaiyukan">Kaiyukan</h4>
<p>For our first full day in Osaka, we decided to visit the Kaiyukan, billed as the world's largest aquarium. One of us had been there before and highly recommended it. Our friend who was in staying in Japan for a PHD also joined us for this day.</p>
<p>Long story short, the aquarium was great. Lots of interesting sea life (and some creepy ones!) and we took so many photos and videos and there were otters! There was a bit of drama later on when the child dropped his IC card somewhere and it took them a while to find it, but we spent that time just sitting in front of the gigantic central tank making up stories about all the different fish and what they were doing there.</p>
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<figcaption>Aquarium - Look at Me</figcaption>
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<p>After the aquarium visit, we had lunch at the nearby mall and spent the afternoon there wandering around and spending money before heading back to our hotel.</p>
<h4 id="universal-studios-japan-super-nintendo-world">Universal Studios Japan / Super Nintendo World</h4>
<p>On our second full day of Osaka, we had tickets for Universal Studios Japan. I'm not big on theme parks; I'm not good on stuff like roller coasters and I think theme parks are only really worth it if you're going with at least a couple of kids, the younger the better. This time we only had a 12 year old with us. But I was here mostly because I'm a big <a href="https://roytang.net/tags/mario/">Mario</a> fan and was looking forward to Super Nintendo World.</p>
<p>Didn't end up doing too many rides; some of us guys were too big for a couple of the rides the others wanted to try. In fact I only ended up doing the Mario Kart-themed AR rail shooter; I only scored 111 points during the ride.</p>
<p>Despite only doing one ride, I was amazed as I walked into Super Nintendo World itself. Just all the animated Mario-themed characters and animatronics and backdrops were great and I kept staring at them whenever we paused to rest. I do wish I had the option to walk through them like a ride and fight those goombas and such, but I have no idea how that would work. </p>
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<p>Super Nintendo World wasn't very large; I think there was only one other ride other than the Mario Kart one. There was a Donkey Kong Country section that wouldn't open til next year. I guess it will take a while before they can add other Nintendo properties. I would have enjoyed a Zelda-themed area! SNW was also much more crowded than the rest of the park.</p>
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<figcaption>Super Nintendo World - entrance</figcaption>
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<figcaption>Super Nintendo World - there was a long queue to pose with Mario and Luigi</figcaption>
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<figcaption>Super Nintendo World - the cap with AR lens holder used for the Mario Kart ride</figcaption>
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<figcaption>Super Nintendo World - Mario Kart cup</figcaption>
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<p>We had lunch at a Jaws-themed place outside of Super Nintendo World, but we had little interest in the rest of the park. We ended up watching this 4D Detective Conan show mostly because we had to wait for the tax-free counters to open. The show was actually pretty good with some fun surprises, despite none of us having actually watched any Detective Conan before! </p>
<p>We left USJ by mid-afternoon, spending much less time there than I thought we would.</p>
<h3 id="nagoya">Nagoya</h3>
<p>Our last three nights would be in Nagoya. Our final AirBNB was a short walk from the central Nagoya station, which gave us easy access to a bunch of malls and such. The AirBNB was a small, three-story affair, and I quickly volunteered to just sleep on the sofa downstairs so I wouldn't have to go up and down the stairs; I did not regret this decision.</p>
<p>On our first night in Nagoya we finally had dinner at Denny's, which we had been talking about since the start of the trip. We love Denny's in Japan because there's such a big selection of food. We also managed to look around some anime-themed and CCG-themed shops. Later we spent some time back at the AirBNB hanging out and watching local TV shows (no streaming service was available) and generally being dumb and giggling stupidly over some of our inside jokes. We will never be able to take Detective Conan seriously.</p>
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<figcaption>Dennys</figcaption>
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<h4 id="ghibli-park">Ghibli Park</h4>
<p>Our one planned expedition was to Ghibli Park. We headed out there early and met up again with our PHD friend who was joining us for the day. We went inside and queued at the entrance to the Grand Warehouse. We had lunch first at the canteen there before going through the place. The Grand Warehouse had a lot of recreations of scenes from various Ghibli movies for photo opportunities, exhibits of things like food featured in the movies, the catbus. There was also a small theatre where you could watch one of the Ghibli shorts. We saw one without subtitles that we somehow still understood more or less and later found out the title was <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoshi_o_Katta_Hi">"Hoshi o Katta Hi" ("The Day I Bought a Star")</a>.</p>
<p>After the Grand Warehouse, we wandered over to some of the other areas in the park which were a short walk away. Our tickets didn't allow us entrance to some of the buildings like in the Hill of Youth and the Valley of Witches, though we could look around those areas. Some of our group wanted to go up to Dondoko Forest, but me and two others opted out because we didn't want to do the uphill walk. We rested for a while at the temple area and waited for the others.</p>
<p>Eventually everyone decided to meet up at Mononoke Village, so the three of us walked the short distance to get there. There is a bus service provided that can take you around the park, but it was taking too long and the walking distance wasn't too bad. We got there ahead of the others and let the child wander around the free playground while we waited. The others arrived via a "CatBus" and we headed into the village. There were some recreations of the forest creatures featured in the film and the village itself had a number of houses but nothing in particular that interested me. Actually the main reason we were here was they were selling a Princess Mononoke-themed costume hat that one of our group wanted to buy, so we mostly headed straight to the gift shop.</p>
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<figcaption>Ghibli Park - Grand Warehouse</figcaption>
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<img data-pb-captionlink="View full album[/collections/albums/japan2024/]" src="https://roytang.net/collections/albums/japan2024/ghibli2_hu2257376093156107423.jpg" title="Ghibli Park - Grand Warehouse"/>
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<figcaption>Ghibli Park - Grand Warehouse</figcaption>
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<figcaption>Ghibli Park - Grand Warehouse</figcaption>
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<img data-pb-captionlink="View full album[/collections/albums/japan2024/]" src="https://roytang.net/collections/albums/japan2024/ghibli_map_hu15248312393414039061.jpg" title="Ghibli Park Map"/>
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<figcaption>Ghibli Park Map</figcaption>
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<p>Overall the park was a fun experience, but also reminded me there are still a lot of Ghibli films I have yet to see.</p>
<h4 id="wandering-around">Wandering Around</h4>
<p>Although we would have two full days in Nagoya, we only planned for one day, with the second day being "free time" for us to do whatever wandering and last minute shopping for souveniers and such before going home. I went out early and wandered through some malls buying snacks and small toys to bring home to the <em>pamangkins</em>, nothing too fancy. Later in the evening we all met up again at Denny's for one final dinner together.</p>
<h3 id="chubu">Chubu</h3>
<p>We flew home from Chubu airport in Nagoya, a name whose mere mention makes us giggle. Annoyingly, our terminal did not have any gacha machines, where I was planning to spend all the coins I had accumulated. Two of us were in terminal 2 for Cebu Pacific while the others were in terminal 1 and apparently their side had much better accomodations AND had gacha machines!! We thus dubbed terminal 2 the "poor person terminal".</p>
<h3 id="final-thoughts">Final Thoughts</h3>
<p>The things I will miss most about Japan:</p>
<ul>
<li>Excellent and reliable public transportation</li>
<li>A wide selection of food items and reheatable meals from convenience stores. Our own convenience stores over here are getting better, but still a far cry from Japan. Then again, what country really comes close to Japan's <em>konbini</em>?</li>
<li>Japanese bidets</li>
</ul>
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<figcaption>Miyajima - some kid drawings we saw on the way to our AirBNB</figcaption>
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<a href="https://roytang.net/collections/albums/japan2024/signs_extremelysorry.jpg">
<img data-pb-captionlink="View full album[/collections/albums/japan2024/]" src="https://roytang.net/collections/albums/japan2024/signs_extremelysorry_hu13159776866405962153.jpg" title='"We are extremely sorry for your english"'/>
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<figcaption>"We are extremely sorry for your english"</figcaption>
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<a href="https://roytang.net/collections/albums/japan2024/signs_flush.jpg">
<img data-pb-captionlink="View full album[/collections/albums/japan2024/]" src="https://roytang.net/collections/albums/japan2024/signs_flush_hu3154544319909302793.jpg" title='"FLUSH!"'/>
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<figcaption>"FLUSH!"</figcaption>
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<a href="https://roytang.net/collections/albums/japan2024/signs_ghibli.jpg">
<img data-pb-captionlink="View full album[/collections/albums/japan2024/]" src="https://roytang.net/collections/albums/japan2024/signs_ghibli_hu15263172443202919896.jpg" title="Ghibli Park signs at the station"/>
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<figcaption>Ghibli Park signs at the station</figcaption>
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<a href="https://roytang.net/collections/albums/japan2024/bidet.jpg">
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<figcaption>Bidet controls</figcaption>
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<img data-pb-captionlink="View full album[/collections/albums/japan2024/]" src="https://roytang.net/collections/albums/japan2024/bidet_lady_hu9032467390832250866.jpg" title="This bidet is a lady"/>
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<figcaption>This bidet is a lady</figcaption>
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<p>Things that have changed since the last visit:</p>
<ul>
<li>I think since the pandemic the ability to use credit cards and/or IC cards to pay for things especially at restaurants has vastly improved. There were very few places where I needed to use cash. I had only converted 50% of the cash I was initially planning to convert for the trip (because the airport exchange rate wasn't great) and still ended up with way too much yen by the end of the trip, having to spend most of it the last couple of days.</li>
</ul>
<p>Lessons learned:</p>
<ul>
<li>"One thing per day". It turns out we are old enough ("My knees!" was a thing I said multiple times) that we mostly only had the energy to do only one planned thing per day. That doesn't necessarily mean we only do one thing per day; there were many adhoc side trips and distractions (mostly shopping-related), but planning to do multiple things per day didn't really work out. This means our trips aren't as "tightly packed" as they could be and some people might even say we're not making the most of the trip, but life isn't meant to be optimized, and I like a chill, laid-back trip.</li>
<li>Check the elevation of your accomodations! Even if they are a short walk from the train station, it might be an uphill climb!</li>
<li>Do not overpack clothes even if your friend keeps trying to scare you about how the weather will be. My regular light jacket was fine for most of the trip!</li>
</ul>
<p>Overall the trip was fun and the company was good and I would love to visit Japan again, though traveling is of course very expensive and inconvenient. Honestly when I was prepping for the trip I was thinking this might be my last trip to Japan but now, who knows!</p>
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