Winter trip around western Honshu and Kyushu
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January 15, 2014 - Winter trip around western Honshu and Kyushu
We had briefly visited Tokyo 10 years ago when returning from a year living in New Zealand. We both loved it and wanted to return so planned a two week trip for Christmas and New Year. We took advantage of the JR pass by travelling to a new place every two days.
We started by getting the train from Narita to Kanazawa. In Kanazawa we used to loop bus to visit the Higashi teahouse area with beautiful traditional architecture where we enjoyed some matcha and sweets at the Shima teahouse museum. Then we got back on the bus and visited the Kenrokuen gardens where they were preparing for the snow by tying up the trees with 'yukitsuri'. The gardens were beautiful but I think would have been even more spectacular in the snow.
We also saw a fantastic calligraphy exhibition of Koji Kakinuma's work at the 21st Century Art Museum. Finally we visited a Noh museum where we both got dressed up as the Noh actors by an really helpful and charming museum guide.
We stayed at the Dormy Inn which had a great open air bath on the room that was open all night which was useful for getting over my jetlag at 4am!
The first place we ate in Kanazawa was a 'kaiten' conveyor belt Sushi place in the Forus department store opposite our hotel - it was delicious, fresh and very reasonably priced - and you could order anything you wanted from a screen with English translations which arrived on a shinkansen model train as soon as the chef had made it.
We had lunch the next day at a ramen place called Ippudo just off the main shopping streets.
For dinner on the second night we went to Daiba, a great izakaya restaurant near to the station that served us lots of different dishes with the duck stew being particularly delicious. The staff were very fast and polite while also dealing with a big office party who were all very drunk and kept trying to impress us with their English - "see ya" was their favourite phrase!
After Kanazawa we got the train to Hiroshima. The station at Kanazawa is worth a visit on it's own and after it gets the shinkansen this year it will be even easier to get there.
In Hiroshima we spent a day in the peace park and the atom bomb museum and memorial hall. We also visited the peace pagoda on the hill behind the station and found an Inari shrine in the woods just beyond it.
We ate okonomiyaki in Hiroshima in a place within a department store near the (big and slightly confusing) main station. These pancakes are cooked in front of you on open grills - we tried one with noodles and one without - they were both really filling.
The second night in Hiroshima we went to Tenko Honten an amazing tempura restaurant where we sat at a counter with six other people as the chef placed dish after dish of incredibly skilfully cooked tempura in front of us. We had a selection of dips including curry salt and lemon juice and the chef instructed us on which tempura went with which sauce. The highlights were the prawn legs, some outstanding white fish (I couldn't translate the type) and tempura ginko nuts.
The next day we got the local train and JR ferry to Miyajima where we met Miki from Hiroshima Optional Tours who took us on a great half day tour of the island. Miki showed us lots of hidden spots, explaining the island's history and life. She took us to the shrine, showing us how to cleanse ourselves and how to pray, as well as up to Daisho-in temple and the treasure hall. It really helped us understand shrines and temples and get more out of our visits to them later. We ended the tour with some delicious Momiji manju sweets and tea.
After a few oysters and dumplings for lunch we got the ropeway up Mount Misen to see the temple buildings and views over Hiroshima.
We then got the train to Nagasaki, we were intending to go to Fukuoka but couldn't find any hotels with free rooms - it was a public holiday for the Emperor's birthday so maybe that was why. It could also be that it's just harder to book hotels from the UK than when you're in Japan.
In Nagasaki we visited Dejima - the island where the Portuguese lived and traded from while Japan was sealed off from the rest of the work. I'd been really interested in it since I read The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet by David Mitchell.
We also visited Gunkanjima island with the Gunkanjima Concierge tour company who provided a useful headset with English commentary on the island. Gunkanjima is an abandoned island that used to have a coal mine and a whole community of people living on it until the 1970s - the island in Skyfall is based on it. The tour took all morning, we got the boat out and circled the island then got to land (which isn't always possible in rough weather) and walk about in a safe area on one corner.
In Nagasaki on the first night we ate in Yossou which did great chawanmushi - steamed egg custard - in a popular and busy restaurant.
On the second night we found Ginnabe, a really great restaurant near the hotel we were staying (another Dormy Inn). They did delicious sashimi, sushi and some grilled fish with lots of different accompaniments. We got to sit on the floor as well after a little persuasion and my 'gochisoosama deshita' went down very well here!
We got the train to Kumamoto the next day and then picked up a rental car to drive to Mount Aso and on to Kurokawa Onsen for Christmas. We drove all the way up to the Mount Aso crater but there was a ropeway up for the last section as well.
On the drive from Mount Aso to Kurakawa we stopped off at Kongoho-ji Temple which was very beautiful in the snow.
We arrived at Okunoyu ryoken in Kurakawa during the afternoon and were warmly greeted and taken to our room for some tea. We then spent an hour or two trying the different baths in the ryoken including a riverside, a cave and a cedar wood bath. We were then served a fantastic kaiseki feast and after drinking plenty of shochu retired to our futon beds.
The next day was Christmas and we spent it wandering around Kurakawa in our yukatas despite being told by every Japanese person we met that it was far too cold! They've obviously never lived in the North of England as we thought it was quite mild!
We visited three different ryoken's baths with our wooden tokens: Kurokawaso (a recommendation from someone on Japan Guide - thanks!) with a huge outdoor bath and an attractive and steamy indoor one, Ikoi with a view of the river from the bath and the isolated and beautiful Kiyashiki with a really hot shared outdoor bath that felt as if you were in the middle of nowhere.
We also had really delicious sweet dumplings with sesame and bean paste dips with some tea for lunch at the sweet shop in town. On the way home were wished a very enthusiastic Happy Christmas by some children heading into town.
For Christmas dinner Oku-no-yu's chef prepared a fantastic feast with a delicious beef steak sizzling on a hot plate as well as the horse sashimi that the region is famous for, some great fish and endless other dishes. We were served and entertained by the fantastic Yoko throughout our stay. It was the most relaxing and fun Christmas day I've had in a long time.
On Boxing Day we left Kurakawa and went back to Kumamoto to drop the car off. We stopped and had a look at the castle and the palace there which had some spectacular tatami rooms and painted screens.
We had a quick lunch of curry rice at the station and then got on the train to Kagoshima where I had a second lunch of an inari bento! Tofu skin wrapped around rice, delicious. We spent one night in Kagoshima and got to go on the ferris wheel and eat the traditional 'Karukan' sweet (It has a very subtle flavour!) we'd seen in the film 'I Wish' from last year.
We then returned all the way to Tokyo where we had our 15th anniversary. We spent the night in Daigo, a traditional temple cuisine restaurant. We had a beautiful room to ourselves, with a private view of a garden, and ate course after course of fantastic vegetarian food from a custom, seasonal menu all served by two very attentive waitresses - one of whom told us to move to Japan as we were leaving - very tempting.
We spent our last few nights in Kyoto where we were taken on a Sake tasting tour of Fushimi by Jason from JDKai.com tours. We learnt about the different milling levels of the rice and how it affects the flavour and got to try several different styles as well as having fun watching some people pound mochi to make sweets and trying takoyaki octopus balls. We bought a couple of bottles of really nice sake which we brought back with us but didn't last long so now we have to find somewhere in London to buy more!
We also visited a much bigger Inari shrine than the one in the woods in Hiroshima with thousands of the red torii gates, it was crazily busy in advance of New Year.
In Kyoto we ate omurice omelettes at Kichikichi - they're omelettes cooked with rice that are perfectly cooked on the outside but still fluffy inside and spill open when the chef cuts them on the plate - look them up on YouTube if you haven't seen them.
Our last stop was an airport hotel near Narita. It was New Year's Eve and we were flying out early the next morning but we still got the bus to Naritasan temple to see in the New Year. We drank amazake and had some great snacks before while queueing outside the temple before watching people ringing the bells for the 108 sins of Buddhism, buying a Daruma doll (I still have to set a goal and colour in one eye) and wishing everyone Happy New Year in Japanese and English. Akemashite omedetou gozaimasu!
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2014/01/15 - Winter trip around western Honshu and Kyushu |
