Travel
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駅弁, railway bento ↩︎
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About £11 ↩︎
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Beef skewers ↩︎
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Fish shaped waffles filled with sweet red beans, custard, chocolate or a mixture of these sorts of things. ↩︎
✈️ Japan Diaries : Day 9 Hiroshima
We woke up to news reports of the incoming Typhoon Lan on the news and rumours of disruption to public transport. The Japan Rail website was being updated through the day so we were keeping an eye on the weather. For now however, blue skies and heat was persisting as we made our way to the train station to get to Hiroshima.
Day Trip : London - Battersea Power Station
It’s been a while since we last went to London as a family. Our last attempt scuppered by the industrial action hitting the railways in the UK.
Battersea is a Grade II listed beautiful industrial building that was a coal-fired power station until it was decommissioned in the 70’s.
You might be aware of it if you’re a Pink Floyd Fan 🐖
A day in Lyme Regis
Half Term is done with and the kids are back at school today, but I’d taken a long weekend off from work and myself and my wife went to Lyme Regis to do some fossil digging, roaming and eating. We didn’t find anything breathtaking, just some small partial ammonite’s and sea glass, but it was fun to roam around the beach. there’s a beautiful desolation to this beach with its slowly crumbling Jurassic rock, rusted remains of random machinery and sea water.
✈️ Japan Diaries : Day 8 Fushimi Inari Taisha
We had a relaxed start to the morning in the hotel room. I took the chance as my family prepaired for the day to shoot what my wife affectionately calls “arty farty photos”. 😆 I think they came out rather nice 🤷♂️
✈️ Japan Diaries : Day 7 Osaka
Osaka is only a brief 30 minute train ride away from Kyoto, so it was always on the books that we’d day trip out there and take full advantage of our JRPass.
Osaka is known for its street food, especially Takoyaki [^1] and its party atmosphere. Residents are apparently known for their friendliness and relaxed attidudes, more so than residents of Kyoto and Tokyo apparently!
It’s also got a really great shopping street renowned for its kitchen supplies and even a special store that sells the plastic food re-creations you’ll see on the front of so many restaurants.
This was our mission. Full bellies and kitchen goods. Let’s go!
Japan Diaries - Day 6 Arashiyama Bamboo Grove & Higashiyama
Our plan today was to visit the Arashiyama Bamboo Grove using the Randen Tram line in the morning. In the afternoon we were going to explore the old town area Higashiyama some more.
We wanted today to be more relaxed. We’d had a later one last night exploring and had been running around pretty much non-stop. Today was all about slowing it down.
Breakfast at Smart Coffee
We spotted Smart Coffee when we were wandering the Shotengai around our hotel and had seen people queuing to get in. We’d made a mental note to try it out, and what’s more relaxing than a luxurious breakfast?
After a short queue we were shown to our seats and this place was fancy 🧐.
Myself and my boys had Iced coffee’s with my wife going for tea. We ordered Hot Cakes[^1] and French toast both served with a generous cup of maple syrup.
The service and presentation at this place was high class. The only thing I could really compare it to in the UK would be Betty’s Tea Rooms
I was looking at what other tables had ordered, and their egg sandwiches and purin[^2] also looked world class.
Japan Diaries : Day 5 All Over Kyoto
Today was our “Get around and see stuff” day, with our priority being the Imperial Palace. We’d seen a little bakery around the corner we decided to hit up for Breakfast first.
Breakfast
We went to Sizyua which was just around the corner from our hotel. A local bakery which has been going since 1948 and is named after the founders wife.
We had the curious breakfast combo of toast and a hard boiled egg. I had white bread where my family had the fruit bread.
Whilst to us being foreigners, the combo was slightly odd but still delicious. Thick well toasted and beautifully buttered bread, and a nice hard boiled egg! What’s not to like!?
Japan Diaries : Day 4 Shinkansen to Kyoto & Nishiki Market
Shinkansen to Kyoto
Our first Shinkansen ride! How exciting! We’d heard all about the Bullet Trains and with tickets booked we made our way to Tokyo Station. You’ll see more on the exterior of Tokyo Station in subsequent blogs, but for today’s purposes, know that is is big and it is bustling. Not only is it a train station, but a shopping mall, a place to buy gifts and so much more.
With our JRPasses, we’d pre-booked all our Shinkansen journey’s and seats, meaning all we had to do was turn up. I know the cost of JRPass is going up excessively near the end of this year, but the ability to get all our bookings done online ahead of time was fantastic piece of mind for me and my worrying brain.
For breakfast we got fruit sandwiches from Be! Fruits Sandwich. Mine was grape. I’m not entirely sold on this concept I’m afraid 🤣 The quality of fruit in Japan is exceptional. Indeed, the price reflects this, but it’s just white bread and whipped cream. I’m glad I had the experience, but I am not a convert.
I also acquired an Ekiben 1 which was much more up my alley. Pre-boxed meals specifically for the trains that come with a variety of meats, seafoods and styles. You can get fancy with these, but I settled for a middle of the road one that was around ¥20002 containing a beef hamburger and some thin steak, alongside rice and a mixture of pickled vegetables. It was delicious.
Apparently early morning day drinking is acceptable as well, but I didn’t indulge in that 😜
The trains themselves are extremely impressive, and unlike anything you’d see in the UK. Efficient, clean, spacious, thoughtful. Every Shinkansen journey we had was wonderful.
For oversized baggage there are special seats you can book (5 per carriage). We couldn’t get them for this journey and were a bit nervous of our luggage. It turned out to be a non-issue. Our bags fit on the overheads and even in the space between our seats with room to spare. You’d have to have an absolutely ginormous bag to get yourself into trouble.
This was our first look at the Japanese countryside as well. Luscious and green spaces with little villages, towns and businesses. Scenery gazing was such fun!
Kyoto 1st impressions & Hotel
We stayed at the Hotel Gran Ms Kyoto in one of their Japanese Style rooms with small garden. This space was beautiful and really fun. I absolutely loved it. We got unpacked, freshened up and went to explore the local area.
Nishiki Market
The hotel street connected us directly to Teramachi Senmontenkai Shotengai, and we wandered through that and the other Teramchi Shgotengai’s browsing the independent stores until we arrived at the legendary Nishiki market. Nicknamed “Kyoto’s kitchen” it now is the place to buy local produce from 100+ different stores, but has been in place as a fish market since 782.
Historically, it was setup due to the cold groundwater at the site that allowed fish and meats to be kept fresh for sale.
Exploring the market we sampled various tempura, Wagyu kushiyaki 3 and even the local delicacy of baby octopus with a quail egg in its head.
Our favourite was a store that was a mini-market in of itself. With wooden barrel tables and a setup of tiny stalls selling a variety of foods and drinks, we rested our aching feet and sampled a few rounds of different street foods. This place had a great atmosphere. Being able to get Tempura, sushi, beef means there was something for everyone.
Wandering the rest of the market we had a dessert of strawberry mochi’s and Taiyaki 4
On the way home we walked into the B-Side Label shop, a Japanese artist collective that sells stickers of various styles. We couldn’t resist picking a few up. The staff were really friendly and asked where we were from. They threw some extra stickers in our bag!
Kyoto has a different vibe than Tokyo. It feels more compact and discoverable, but still has a huge amount on offer. The mixture of the traditional and the modern, the independent and the large corporation was all on show and extremely intriguing. Just walking the shopping streets around the hotel had give us a laundry list of cafe’s and businesses we wanted to visit.
With full bellies and even the excitement of what what Kyoto has to offer, we drifted off to sleep. Tomorrow, The Imperial Palace & more!
Japan Diaries : Day 3 Shibuya,Shinjuku & Kabukichō
Today’s plan was to hit a lot of the more famous central locations within Tokyo.
Shibuya, Shinjuku and a quick roam around the natourious Kabukicho.
Shibuya
Of course, where else do you start apart from at the famous Shibuya Crossing! I once heard Chris Broad say it’s just a crossing and he doesn’t understand the hype, and I can absolutely see what he means 🤣
It’s a lot smaller in person than I expected. It was cool to see and walk across, and see some of the other local legendary spots like 109, but Yeh… I wonder if tourists to the UK feel the same way about Piccadilly Circus
I remember Times Square truly taking my breath away the first time I joined onto it… Maybe I’m just mor of an old grumpy jaded bastard now. 🤪
Japan Diaries : Day 2 - Senso-ji Temple & Akihabara
Asakusa & Senso-Ji Temple
We set off to Asakusa around 10:30 and it was already extremely busy. The heat was intense but bearable. Navigating the Tokyo metro was amazingly easy and we soon found ourselves walking down Nakamise shopping street towards the temple entrance.
We posed for some photo’s at the entrance and took in the sight. A sweet older Japanese gentleman came up to my eldest son and asked if he could practice his English. They had a short conversation about where we were from and how long we were staying in Japan.
We saw the Jokoro, a large incense burner. People gather around this and wave the smoke over themselves as it’s believed to have a healing effect.
We drew Omikuji. Fortunes you gather by turning a box filled with sticks then looking at the writing to match up with a particular drawer containing your fortune.
Japan Diaries - Day 1 - Flight out and arriving in Akasaka
I’ve always wanted to visit Japan. For your typical reasons of being into games, anime, extremely salty food 😜. Being British we also share the Japanese passion for queues and excessively saying sorry…
Visiting Japan with my best friend Chris was something we always talked about in my 20’s. I wish we could have made it happen before he sadly passed away. I did finally make it on my 43rd birthday with my wife and my two boys (13 & 16).
My family wasn’t as hot on visiting Japan as I’d always been. It just wasn’t really a place that was massively on their radar outside of Wagamama and Sushi. During the great COVID lockdown whilst stuck in our house and working from home we decided to watch a huge pile of travel content YouTube. From webcams across the world to more curated content old and new.
Of course, a portion of these were people based in Japan. From Abroad in Japan, Only in Japan, Sharmeleon, Rion Ishida, Tabieats, Tokyo Creative,Junk Food Japan, Tokidoki Traveller and Seerasan my family started to get as interested as I was in what Japan had to offer.
With my eldest son reaching 16 and finishing his GCSE’s my wife Jen proposed we have a big blast family holiday and she said she’d like us to go to Japan! The planning then began and we’ve just got back from two week trip! I’m going to post about our experienceson the journey as well as some of my favourite pictures on the trip. So here we go!
Travelling out
We flew out with British Airways on my birthday. The flight was scheduled to be twelve and a half hours but ended up being closer to fourteen and a half as there was a faulty chair stuck in recline which kept us on the tarmac as engineers hacked away at it.
I’m aware unless you are willing to pay in the mid thousands of pounds the golden days of air travel are over, but boy I was shocked at just how dated and worn out the interior was. Torn/dirty trim visible and my in flight entertainment headphone socket would only work if I kept my hand on it to position it correctly. I can’t believe other carriers are this poor. Last time I flew was to Florida in 2017 with Virgin and that felt more modern than this flight. My family was a little more forgiving than me, but I would actively avoid flying BA in future given the choice…
They did however have their own BA/Brewdog collab beer on the flight! Delicious! 🍻
Finally we did touchdown in the afternoon Japan time, got our JR Pass,the essential Suica Cards and made our way on the Monorail to our first hotel!
Hotel 1 - Mimaru / Area - Akasaka Tokyo
Our first hotel Mimaru was a great experience! We’d booked their more traditional Japanese style room vs their more western offering, which comes complete with a small kitchenette and (as seems to be standard in Japan) a refrigerator.
Comfortable, clean and surprisingly spacious, with friendly staff and an incredible roof terrace to relax on. We got some food from the konbini over the street, spent some time on the roof terrace taking in the incredible views, sneaking our first peek at Tokyo Tower!
And who doesn’t love a GUNDAM
Some Tokyo Station shots from “Kitte” (Japanese for stamp, as it’s a mall that was/is a post office as well) skygarden
This was such an incredible mix of the old and the new at work. Stunning views.
More Japan photos coming soon. Had to come back to Tokyo from Hiroshima as all Shinkansen are being cancelled due to the typhoon and we wanted to make sure we were back in Tokyo for our flight in a few days.
I have made a friend though, and discovered “Whisky sour” in a can! 😊
Shinjuku vibes… from☀️ to ☔️ and back again, all in a manner of minutes.
2 days so far in Japan and it’s been so exciting! 😊
From the food, to the people and the adventuring it’s fabulous!
Japanese summer however is no joke 🥵