Four Days, Four Cities: Japan

Japón, Ilbon, Nippon, Japan. A lifelong dream! Finally, we had the opportunity – and some time – to make a trip across the pond (the East Sea, that is) to see the land of the rising sun. With only three days off of work before the weekend, we would have (not quite) four days in Japan, and we were determined to see all that we could see. My dad arrived in Korea at the end of April, five months after his previous visit. But this time, we would travel internationally together. So, a la Hamorsky fashion, the three of us planned a different city for each day. Ready, set, go!

Day 1: Tokyo

After leaving Incheon at 6:30pm (on day 0), we landed in Narita around 9pm and had to validate our JR Pass (tourist transportation pass) and navigate the metro system to arrive at our hostel after midnight. It was Dad’s first time in a hostel, and he was quite unimpressed; it wasn’t the nicest.

In the morning, we headed to the metro from Nippori toward Ueno Park, only two stops away. We grabbed breakfast at a local place – coffee and curry, Japanese style. But I was more interested in the panda omelet and matching panda latte; both were immensely unimpressive, but they looked cute. We walked around the park and watched street performers, bought sweet ice cream cones, meandered through the pathways. We saw some shrines and traditional handwashing stations and enjoyed the sunshine and clean air.

A panda party - breakfast of champions

Next, it was on to Fukuro no Mise in Tsukishima: an owl café! Surprisingly, despite Tony’s ambivalence about the many animal cafés in Seoul, he was stoked for this one. This small coffee shop housed two dozen owls of many sizes and species. Some were as small as guinea pigs and others were quite frighteningly large. The café workers rescued and cared for the birds and taught us how to properly hold and stroke them. They also limited the number of patrons in the venue at a time because of space limitations and as to not frighten the birds. These owls are not nocturnal because they don’t need to be; in the wild, owls are nocturnal because that’s when they hunt. In this home, though, they’re fed (raw meat like their diet in the wild), and therefore have no need to be nocturnal, so their routine matches that of the owners.

Tony took FIFTY ridiculously hilarious selfies like these

Next, we grabbed a lunch of (what I think were) Soba noodles in quite an interesting fashion. During our stay in Japan, we saw a few venues in which you place your order and pay on a vending machine that prints a ticket which you deliver to the cook nearby. The noodles were quite salty but tasty, and we ate some delicious Japanese dumplings as well. After lunch, we visited Harajuku/Shibuya and its Yoyogi forest – a quite sizable forest in the heart of the city that removes all urban sights and sounds from view – and Meiji Shrine, which is dedicated to a former emperor. There, we shopped for souvenirs and enjoyed the juxtaposition of nature and city.

Noodles and the omnipresent local beer - Sapporo

Meiji Shrine in Tokyo

Now, the sun was setting as we were on our way to Shinjuku station, which is famous for its enormous crowds of people at all times. Inside the station are employed “people pushers” whose job it is to literally cram as many riders into the trains so that the doors may close; while we were there, it was quite crowded but not enough to warrant these workers at that particular time. Another reason this congested area is well-known is because just outside the station is a street intersection which is famous for its unending throngs of pedestrians who cross every which way at all hours of the day, every day. After crossing the intersection four times – just for fun – we grabbed some tea, coffee, and cake inside a café overlooking the multitudes.

Throngs of this magnitude pass through the intersection
every time the crosswalk signals turn green, every few minutes.

Last, as night set in, we hurried to Sumida where the second-tallest building (after Dubai’s Burj Khalifa) is located: the Tokyo Skytree. Conscious that tourist hours were until ten, we arrived just at nine, but unfortunately, they had sold their last tickets of the day. We had just missed it! But, we enjoyed seeing the enormous, lit-up tower up-close, and we had a chance to buy some famous Tokyo treats there as well. Finally, we made our way back to our hostel in order to start our next adventure bright and early the next day.

Day 2: Hakone

We left the hostel around 7am and traveled to Shinjuku to catch a bullet train at 8 toward Hakone. This was a leg of the trip I had really been looking forward to, but we had such bad luck. Hakone is a small town in the mountains near Mount Fuji, and it offers gorgeous natural scenes and views of the enormous mountain as well as sparkling lakes and many beautiful blooms. But, because it was a holiday, the destination was extremely crowded and we never even managed to board the cable car. So, instead, we made our way to Kyoto and checked into our Airbnb. In the end, most of this day was lost to train travel, unfortunately, but we did get to enjoy a traditional, high-quality dinner of sushi and tempura before wandering the neighborhood in the evening.

 

All right, maybe the lengthy voyage into this town was worth it for this view...

 

Luckily, although we didn't get to see the majestic Mount Fuji up close, we did manage to catch a glimpse of it out the window of our bullet train as we traveled toward Kyoto. Incredible!

Excellent sashimi (and tempura, not pictured)

Day 3: Kyoto

Our wishlist for Kyoto included three major points of interest: the Fushimi Inari Shrine, the bamboo forest of Arashiyama, and the Golden Pavilion (Kinkakuji). We were able to visit the first two, along with many other sights. First, we toured the most famous tourist destination, Fushimi Inari, which is famous for its tens of thousands of wooden, angular archways (torii) painted a distinctive, bright orange color. This shrine was enormous! We wandered about it for a while, but it would have taken many hours to see it all. We bought some souvenir gifts for family and then made our way to Arashiyama station and ducked into a café to avoid the rain that had just begun. I had matcha pancakes and a matcha latte, because, well, “when in Rome.” The venue had previously been a traditional bathhouse that was converted into a restaurant/café in recent years.

Matcha, matcha, and more matcha

At the entrance of Fushimi Inari

Walking through one of the many, endless pathways lined with torii

After the rain subsided, we saw the gondola-dotted Hozu River, and wandered through the many shops nearby. Then, we viewed a local temple and wandered through the thick bamboo forest, whose shoots were so dense that the atmosphere instantly became considerably cooler and darker. Our last desire was to see the golden shrine, Kinkakuji, but considering the hour-and-a-half round-trip bus ride plus the time it would take to tour it, we realized we didn’t have time before our next bullet train, so instead we stopped for coffee, sweets, and a much-needed breather.

About to cross the bridge over the Hozu

The river is quite shallow, so instead of paddling through the water, he touched his pole to the ground and walked to and fro in the bow, pushing the boat forward.

So many women dressed in Kimono in Kyoto

This photo was taken in the mid-afternoon, although the shoots block out the sunlight!

Our train departed before seven and we arrived in Hiroshima – our last stop – around nine. We dropped our bags at our hostel and, with only ten or so hours before our bus would take us to the airport in the morning, we set out to find the A-bomb site, which my father (the history buff) was interested in. Hiroshima commemorates the tragic incident with a difficult-to-find, nondescript plaque located directly below the spot where the plane released the bomb in 1945. A few blocks away we found the Peace Park and Atomic Dome, a dilapidated building that had managed to not be completely decimated in the explosion, which remains half-intact as a reminder of the destruction of nuclear weapons. It was lit up in the night, next to the still waters of one of the city’s many rivers, and the sight was eerie and somber. Throughout our visit in Japan, and especially in Hiroshima, I noticed the way that the Japanese grieve and rationalize the aftermath of World War II; their coping mechanism parallels but also opposes our own American 9/11 motto. While every September, we say to ourselves in retrospective solidarity, “Never forget,” the Japanese take a more future-oriented, imploringly hopeful approach: “Never again.”

My dad read about the location of this innocuous plaque which marked the exact spot above which the bomb was deployed.

An ominous scene: the A-Bomb Dome at night

Day 4: Hiroshima

After getting lost until 1am, unable to find our way from the Dome back to the hostel and ending up probably a mile away with no cell phone battery and unable to navigate the labyrinth of rivers, we slept only a few hours before our last check-out. At 7:45am, we boarded a bus toward the airport and, wouldn’t you know it, my dad found himself sitting next to a woman who had been born in the outskirts of Hiroshima in 1944. She recounted tales from her father’s heroic - and horrifying - ventures into the city to rescue the victims of his country-people, himself suffering radiation poisoning but miraculously recovering, ultimately unable to ever forgive the USA for our horrific act of ruthless violence. As a member of the following generation, our new friend was not so bitter toward our nation because she recognized that our armed forces helped rebuild and recover much of the country, but that chapter of her country’s history still remains a dark mark on every Japanese citizen’s mind, surely. We even talked a bit about the current turmoil with North Korea and if Japan is worried – it seems their concern falls somewhere between the US’s apprehension and South Korea’s almost complete lack of anxiety. Plus, she laughed when Trump was brought up and confessed that Sanders would have been the best choice, so she and I ended on good terms.

At last, we descended over Incheon once more. Ah, the smog! I can't express how clean Japan was; I didn't even realize how polluted Korea was until I had something to compare it next to so drastically. An incredible whirlwind of an adventure with two of my favorite men had concluded. We checked another place off our bucket list, but, like many over our travel destinations, it remains a place we'd love to see again!