Japan, Travel

Japan Trip: All Over Tokyo

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We are really getting to the end here. We have just a few more days in Tokyo, and then we go home…to see the cats who no doubt miss us very much. Okay, since I’m blogging after the fact, yes, the cats missed us, but they also seemed totally okay. One ottoman was completely covered in cat hair.

So…(going back in time music) it was another beautiful day in Tokyo. Well, sort of beautiful, in that it was a bit rainy. We decided to skip our hotel breakfast and try something else more tasty and with better coffee. No offense, hotel 🙂

We went to February Cafe which was around the corner, and was very nice.

Yogurt with granola and bananas

Cheese toast, and avocado toast of sorts. Plus a beautiful cappucino for me.

And then we headed off on foot, with our destination being Ueno Park, but planning to stop along the way at things we wanted. Our first stop was “kitchen-town”.

There are dozens, perhaps hundreds of shops dedicated to various kitchen supplies. So many gadgets, utensils, pots, pans and more! We poked around for some time.

We also found a lovely shrine.

There was a large pedestrian bridge to get around between all the streets and stations and such. Ueno is a very busy area, not just the park. There’s a lot of hotels, restaurants, shops and other stuff, as well as several museums and a zoo. There is a huge station where many long distance trains come in (not as big or busy as Shinjuku, which is the busiest train station in the world!)

Then we got towards Ueno Park. It’s a huge park, and we found a pond, but the pond was covered in lily pads. It was really cool.

So many lily pads!

The zoo wasn’t open, plus people say that we westerners wouldn’t like it because the animals aren’t treated as well as we expect. I don’t know. I do know that up until recently there were pandas there and they don’t have them anymore, they had to give them back to China. But I did find a panda ride outside the park so that was pretty good.

Next it was time to find lunch! We found a place on, you guessed it, Tablelog that was nice and enjoyable. It was called Yushimasuisan and was near Ueno Park. They had a “set menu” for lunch so we each ordered one of those.

After lunch we decided to walk south.

We found a place that sold custom keyboards for your computer.

And then we got into the Akihabara neighborhood, which is known for games and anime stuff.

This pencil will excite not only children, but also their mothers!

Harrison Ford selling whiskey.

We did a lot of shopping and bought a few things for gifts and souvenirs. We also just enjoyed a lot of window shopping and people watching!

We finally headed back to the hotel for a bit to get off our feet and relax a bit before heading to dinner.

For dinner, we decided to head to a nearby street called Hoppy Street. It is a street lined with izakayas which serve food and drinks, including one called “hoppy” which is a cheap beverage similar to beer. Often it is mixed with shoju, the internet tells me.

We picked a few places to try, and had some hits and misses, but had fun. We sat outside under tents, and had to work to avoid sitting near people smoking! So funny to have to worry about that in Japan. We ordered a variety of things, vegetables, various fried fishes and chicken, some noodle dishes. We did notice at one place that the English and Japanese menus weren’t exactly the same–some dishes had been left off!

Louie with a bottle of Hoppy.

Tofu.

Eggplant-

Each place seemed to have a minimum of what you needed to spend, and you couldn’t just order a drink or just order food.

After dinner, we decided to walk over to Sensoji Temple again and see it in the dark. It was MUCH more quiet and magical at night.

And we ended the night up on the roof of our hotel with the foot bath and some sake. They have a machine up there with 4-6 (maybe?!) kinds of sake and you can help yourself. We slept well after a long day!

The next day was our last full day in Tokyo and in Japan. We were going to meet Louie’s stepmom for lunch: she was from Tokyo originally and was visiting for awhile, and had just gotten there a few days prior.

Louie had bought this eye mask and I had to try it on. No time like the present.

Hotel breakfast.

We headed towards the area where we were meeting for lunch then, because there were some other things to do.

We had a coffee upon arrival, and we ordered it “Viennese style” which we learned means with a scoop of ice cream.

The Toranoman area was very different than Asakusa and other areas of the city we had seen. Cleaner, more big buildings, more modern.

Oh, look, a little white work truck!

There was a shrine on top of the hill.

We visited the NHK Museum of Broadcasting.

We learned about the history of broadcasting in Japan. It was quiet interesting.

And then we met Kiyoko for lunch. We took an elevator down from the top of the hill, which we didn’t know about at first, ha!

We went to Bakery and Grill Sawamura Toranomon which was a nice restaurant. It was our first really not Japanese restaurant, which was kind of funny.

There was a bread basket instead of rice! And dessert.

Then we walked around for awhile with Kiyoko and she showed us the neighborhood.

After a few hours, we said our goodbyes. Our next stop was Jimbocho Book-town, a neighborhood with lots and lots of bookstore, of course mostly Japanese but also supposedly any language you would want.

After books, it was time for music. We wanted to visit some Jazz Kissas, or listening rooms. We also visited some places Louie’s dad recommended that played classical and tango music. The idea is that you sit and listen and you can order food and drink (or maybe even are required to hit a minimum order.)

We went to Cafe Ataraxia and enjoyed classical music with coffee and cake.

And we found a cat bookstore, all cat books. I should have bought more. My one regret.

We really wanted to get to Jazz Big Boy, which was one of the Jazz Kissas we had read about. It didn’t disappoint! It was really fun to sit and listen to music over an old record player.

Next we went to the Tango listening room. Viennese tea and a few snacks.

Then to a place called Jazz Coffee Incus, which was in a nondescript building and you had to take an elevator to the third floor. It felt like it was a studio apartment somebody turned into a jazz listening room.

The cheesecake was really good! And I think we were just on lemon sodas at that point, figuring any more caffeine was a bad idea, but not wanting more alcohol either.

After that, we thought maybe it was enough. We thought about what sort of food we hadn’t eaten yet, and realized dumplings were on the list. Are they Chinese really, probably, but they were all over, so we found a nearby and of course, highly rated place called Jinbocho Gyoza and Soup Dumpling.

There we did have to order a drink as well. Like, we had to, it was required. You couldn’t just order food.

We tried a variety and enjoyed them all!

After dinner, it was time to head back to the hotel. We ended the night as usual, up on the roof soaking our feet.

You can see the Tokyo Tower from the roof.

Last day: We woke up and wanted to do some more sightseeing before the flight. We didn’t need to be at the airport until around 3:30 pm, so we packed up and stored our bags so we could go out sightseeing again.

We had a delicious breakfast not far from the hotel at a restaurant called Blucca.

We poked around Asakusa for a bit and then decided to take the train to Ginza to explore there a little bit more.

We ended up back at Uniqlo as well as some other things.

Coffee and a snack at their cafe.

Not exactly Louie, but close.

A little white truck on a complicated intersection.

Finally, we headed back to the hotel to get our bags and take the train to the airport. We got through check-in and security and then had one last meal before boarding:

Honestly, this was probably the best airport food I’d ever had! Soba noodles with tempura.

I have to confess, I have no notes from after that. I think our flight was fairly uneventful and went mostly as planned. We connected in Detroit, and then got into St Louis in the evening. We got a ride home and went to sleep pretty soon after.

I have had a lot of time to think about this trip, and the thing I really took away was that 1) Japan was really amazing to visit and 2) the FOOD was sooooooooo good. People asked what was my favorite part and that was it. The food! But also, the people were overall so friendly and helpful, I loved learning about the history, using public transportation, doing a ton of walking, and let’s not forget, the onsens. It was really an amazing trip. I loved the itinerary, I loved what we did, and it was just really fantastic. Thanks for reading!

Japan, Travel

Japan Trip: Bike Tour and Shinjuku, Edo-Cultural Museum and Asakusa

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As with somehow everything, when planning for Japan I wanted to do it all. And the internet tells you, don’t do this, just plan one or two activities a day and allow for rest, you’ll get home too tired. Which is a good point, I’m sure, except who cares if you get home tired? Of course you want to be able to appreciate what you are seeing, and you don’t want to have such a jam packed, down to the minute itinerary that there is no room for extras or diversions, but there is no need to plan for a slow trip unless that’s what you want. Some of the days I look back on the most fondly in previous trips were the days where we really went all out and did so many wonderful things! For instance you could look back and see what we did in the Grand Tetons over ten years ago…

Of course, I was a bit younger then, (and cheaper/poorer, today we would pay the $40 to ride the gondola) , but I still have energy, haha. I talked with my friend Stephanie about Japan because she had been and she pointed out that I do more on a day to day basis than many people, so I should plan the trip the way I thought made sense to me. So I did. I had already planned the trip my way, skipping Osaka, heading into the rural areas on my first trip (so many say, just do the Golden Route, Tokyo, Kyoto, and Osaka, and I’m sure it’s great, but our trip was amazing, and I loved it.)

(If you haven’t read my previous posts on this trip, feel free to go ahead).

So, we were back in Tokyo, staying at the Sake Bar Hotel in Asakusa. We had to get up early to meet our bike tour–the meeting time was 7:50 am and it was about a 30-40 minute train ride away, plus walking to the train station. It was too early for our hotel breakfast, so we picked up egg sandwiches and coffee at a convenience mart and headed out.

We found the meeting spot easily and had time to eat our breakfast and everything. Our guide was named Gaku and we had two other people with us on the bike tour, a mother and son team.

This is the tour we took: https://www.bicycletourstokyo.com/tour.html

A statue near the meeting spot.

Gaku was a great tour guide: personable, interesting, knowledgeable and very nice. We could tell right off the bat it would be a fun day.

We first visited a smaller neighborhood shrine, Hatsudai Shusse Inari Daimyojin. It was quiet and very nice.

And then visited the Meiji Jingo Shrine, which is gigantic and very busy. We were still pretty early in the day so it wasn’t too bad.

There were walls of sake barrels that are donated to the shrine.

I took less pictures than a normal day as it’s hard to take pictures while biking. We got back on the bikes and biked to Roppongi Hills, a very rich area of Tokyo with very tall buildings. Then we stopped by a grocery store to buy lunches for a picnic. We took the picnic and biked to the port and enjoyed our lunch watching the water and watching a large ferry take off for parts unknown.

The next parts of our biking tour were a little busier, including a particularly scary part where we biked through Ginza. It was scary and thrilling, being in heavy traffic in one of the biggest cities in the world! Gaku made sure we stayed together and helped us navigate, but it was still a bit of a thrill. For some reason, I never mind traffic as much as Louie: perhaps I’m just in denial.

We ended the tour on top of the Metropolitan Building getting a great view of Tokyo from above. Well, that was the last stop.

Tokyo. As far as the eye can see. What a huge city!

And then we biked back to the starting point to finish the tour.

Okay, so then what. We were 40 minutes from the hotel and we had a reservation for dinner in Shinjuku, where we were, so we needed to sightsee in the area. We decided to go towards the Shinjuku Gyoen National Gardens, and it turned out it was a great day for it because it was some sort of holiday and there was free entrance! The weather was really lovely too so we enjoyed walking around and seeing all the different plants and flowers. And people-watching too, lots of good people-watching.

We got a coffee and a snack first. We did not order the Sustainable Mackerel Curry Bread, the Fry Variety Set or the Grilled Sausage on a Stick but I was happy those were options.

These shoes were a lifesaver for me, though they didn’t have a huge amount of support. But for the day they worked.

All these people just relaxing in the garden. It was amazing.

Well, after visiting for a few hours, it was time to go. But what to do NOW? We were dragging and just trying to stay away, haha. I had some interesting places marked on the map, such as a jazz bar, but the line was out the door and down the sidewalk, so we figured that was a no. We found an Irish Pub called “Morris Lamb Chop” and popped in–at first they said, no room, reservations only, but we said even just for a drink, and they said, sure you can stay for an hour or so. So we did! It was good to rest our feet and use a restroom, and I didn’t take a single picture for some reason. I think Louie got a beer and I got a lemon sour.

After that we walked around a little more and then got a coffee at a store, mostly to use the bathroom, haha. and then FINALLY it was 7:30 and time for dinner.

I’d made a reservation at a sushi place called Sushi Hatsume, which wasn’t the most high end, but was high end enough. It had great reviews on Tablelog and people said it served a ton of sushi for the price. We had a reasonably easy time finding it, but it was in the basement and you should know, it is always a little tricky finding restaurants when they are small. This one was counter seating with one little table, and every seat was filled.

I don’t know how well you can read the menu, but it was 22 courses, mostly nigiri, but some other things too. We were ready, very hungry after all our walking and biking too! (According to my phone, it was an over 26000 steps day!) The way it works is: you sit there and they bring you the food on the list, one by one, and you eat it when you get it.

Not always a fan of sea urchin, though I know some are.

(Above) cold dish.

Clear soup, with the lid on.

Below: Sashimi, Longnose Trevally with Soy Form and Yuzu Pepper.

Nigiri: Emperor Fish.

Grouper.

Course number 7: Mongo Squid.

A little break from raw fish, steam bun with grilled minced fish.

One of the chefs showing us the next course being prepared (above) and the next course (below).

Now to my favorites: Tuna!

The aptly named Tuna no. 1

And then Tuna no. 2

I could probably just eat tuna and be happy! But alas, moving on to Mushrooms with roe.

Steamed egg custard (Chawanmushi)

Sardine herb roll.

Mackerel. Another favorite of mine.

Clam.

Spinach with salted sea bream entrail. Don’t think about it too much, just pop it in your mouth.

Shabu Shabu: Ruby snapper

Horse Mackerel (a fish, not horse): another favorite of mine.

Conger eel

Miso Soup

And last but not least, a “Japanese Traditional omelet” that really just was a cake of sorts. Very good!

We really enjoyed the meal! It was worth waiting around Shinjuku a bit longer than we would have liked, haha. When you reserve it, you can choose to upgrade a few courses here and there. We didn’t do any of the upgrades and found it to be terrific the way it was.

After dinner we took the train back to the hotel and pretty much just crashed!

The next day was June 7, my birthday! First we slept in a bit: my first picture isn’t until 8:43 am, so that’s pretty crazy, haha.

We must have popped downstairs for breakfast, but I didn’t take any pictures. The hotel breakfast wasn’t great (unusual for this trip) but it was still included and you could wear your pajamas.

Our first stop was to the nearby Sensoji Temple. Well, this was also everybody else’s first stop, so as we got closer, it got more and more crowded, like being in the halls between 2nd and 3rd period.

NOT a trash can–you’re not going to find a trash can on the street.

I believe these guys were guarding the temple.

Next we decided to walk to the Edo Cultural Museum, about a 30 minute walk I think.

We found an amazing curry place nearby: I’d never eaten anything like this before and it was delicious.

Then we got to the museum and realized that again, everybody else had had the same idea. It was a wonderful museum, but it was so unbelievably crowded, especially the first big room. You could barely move around. The museum had been closed for updates for a few years and hadn’t been open again for that long, so that may have been part of why it was so crowded. But we still learned a ton about the history of Tokyo, and of course some sobering moments during the WW2 history parts.

Louie testing his strength by lifting things that people would have lifted in the past.

Riding an old-timey bicycle.

An early Subaru! We have a Forester and love it, so we are both interested in the history of Subarus.

After the museum, we took the train back to Asakusa, where we had booked the private rooftop onsen for our free session. I guess this hotel caters to foreigners who don’t want to be nude in front of strangers, but readers, you should just do it, onsens are amazing. We enjoyed the bath but it did start raining at one point. Of course, you’re already a bit wet, but do you want to be rained on too? We relaxed then until our dinner reservation for the night, which was near our hotel for a change.

I’d booked a place that looked fun called Loop Tokyo and was described as a sort of French-Japanese fusion restaurant. It would be a set menu with many courses, and sitting at the counter. It was pouring rain by the time we headed out, and then we just could not find it! It wasn’t at the address I had: one of the reviews had said it was hard to find, but we were getting very frustrated! Finally we ducked into another restaurant to ask if they knew where it was (which we felt bad about, since we weren’t eating THERE) and the man grabbed an umbrella and led us around the corner to an unmarked door, and that was the restaurant. Literally we would never have found it!

We were two of the four guests that night, and we sat at a counter with the chef and his assistant preparing delicious food for us. What a meal!

Bread! We had bread! Very unusual.

Look at all the utensil options! It made us think of our dinner at Gron in Helsinki, where the utensils were in a drawer and we had extra ones left over. I don’t know why.

I believe these were lima beans! Rare for a restaurant, but delicious.

The chef made the noodles right in front of us, using the pasta attachment to a kitchenaid.

It was a lovely meal, and an excellent birthday.

I didn’t write this down, but I’m pretty sure that was the night we then went to find a better pair of shoes for me: we went to a Don Quixote, which is a sort of everything store with neon and lights and music, and I found a nice rubbery squishy pair of flip flops to wear with toe socks for the rest of the trip. Don Quixote is overwhelming but you should still go!

That’s where I’ll end for today. Let me know any questions or thoughts in the comments!

Japan, Travel

Japan Trip: One Night in Matsumoto

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When we decided to go to Japan, I asked (myself), can we go to Matsumoto? This is where Shinichi Suzuki had his school, this is where he lived when he pioneered the Suzuki method, a method, a philosophy really, of teaching children to play music by using music in the same way that a child learns his native language. This is the method I learned violin through, and it greatly informs how I teach the violin. One thing that turned music teaching upside down was Dr. Suzuki’s idea that all children had the capacity to learn music, and that they should start very young, during the years when language was still being acquired.

I grew up listening to recordings of all the music I was learning and going to learn in the next year or so. I listened constantly! My mother attended lessons with me, and she practiced with me when I was younger. We attended “institutes” in the summer to play with other students (we didn’t have the group classes that are a big part of the method after my first year or two just due to circumstances) and to learn from other teachers. It was a lot of fun (not always, with practicing) playing the violin, especially playing with others!

SO! Matsumoto had always been in the back of my head as a magical village where Suzuki taught everybody to play the violin. I started looking on the map as I started planning this trip, and then I saw you could do these walking tours on the Nakasendo Trail and end in Matsumoto! Though we didn’t technically walk to Matsumoto, we just took a very short train. Oh, and Matsumoto is a mid-size city, not a village. Was it a village before? Probably it was much smaller, and I’m sure it was magical.

We left off in Narai, at the end of a 5 day walking tour. We caught the train to Matsumoto and walked about ten minutes with our luggage (oh, so sad, no more luggage transfers included!) to Hotel Onyado Nono Matsumoto, which had actually been recommended by my friend Stephanie. It was a bustling place, with lockers for your shoes and a mat to put your luggage on to have it cleaned off. We checked in and got unpacked, and our first step was to clean up and hit the onsen!

Our room had a nice view, and it was very comfortable. We grabbed our things and our robes and went upstairs to our respective onsens. Mine was very nice, with an indoor and an outdoor pool, which I tried both.

After getting cleaned up and relaxing, it was time to seek out dinner. It was raining a bit, off and on, and I didn’t want to walk far.

Louie found an Izakaya called Furinkazen just a few minutes walk from the hotel with excellent tablelog ratings. As soon as we walked in, they said “no English menu!” We said, that’s fine, we will manage. They looked doubtful, but really, we aren’t that picky, and we figured we would use a translator app to help us.

Sitting at the counter of the Izakaya (a sort of Japanese pub).

Well, this was the menu. Not as helpful for a translator app, but very lovely! One of the workers came over to try to help us, and he spoke English well enough. We basically asked his opinions, and tried to explain we just wanted a variety of dishes, and didn’t care too much! But no horse. There was a horse pictured and neither of us wanted to eat horse.

Look, we got the egg from the picture!

I don’t remember what we ordered, and looking at pictures it’s still unclear. Egg with greens, fish, all kinds of delicious stuff.

And then we had asked for some vegetables, wanting to make sure we had a balanced meal. We asked what he thought was good. Well, they brought out this radish and greens dishes. Raw.

I honestly thought maybe they were just messing with us, because it was so weird! Louie and I ate it, dipping the radishes in the sauce, because we figured the roughage was a good thing. I don’t know though, was this a real dish?

Anyway, we had a lovely evening, and then went back to hotel and slept very well in the lovely bed.

Day 2 of Matsumoto:

We woke up and went downstairs for breakfast. Stephanie had said they had a great breakfast, and she was correct. It was a giant buffet with many stations of delicious looking food. It was hard to stop filling our plates!

Then we had to pack up and store our bags, since we had a train later in the day. But first, much sightseeing!

This was some of the most blatant law breaking we saw in Japan.

We walked along the river a bit heading towards the historic part of town.

This area was called Frog Street.

Nakamachi street: such a beautiful street with old white buildings!

Japan is known for its vending machines. This was a pizza vending machine!

Louie needed little rest so he had a seat.

We walked over to Matsumoto Castle, one of the 12 original castles left in Japan. We just walked around the outside.

It was surrounded by water, as a good castle should be, and it was beautiful and dark.

Our next stop was the Suzuki Memorial Hall, which was a museum in the house where he lived. It was a 15-20 minute walk along a busy road, but it was sort of interesting.

We got a private tour of the house: there was one man working there and he gave us a private tour. It was very nice to see everything! You took your shoes off, of course, and put on slippers that were pretty small for my feet.

This was Dr. Suzuki’s work room where he listened to all the graduation tapes students from around the world would send him.

I was there!

I believe this was in his handwriting. These are some songs that he wrote for the first volume of pieces, and if you stop by my house in the afternoons, you’ll hear my students playing them.

There was also a large living room area filled with recordings and pictures. We listened to a recording of Ave Maria that inspired Suzuki to become a violinist! Louie didn’t know much about him at all so he found it quite fascinating to learn about the method and the man. He thought it was quite interesting that Suzuki himself learned the violin starting as a teenager yet dedicated his life to teaching young children to play.

It was a wonderful visit to the house, and I was happy to be there. I had reached out to the local Suzuki school about visiting, but they were on vacation while we were there.

After that, lunch! We took a cab back to the main area of town, and found an amazing soba place, Marushu. It was a little busy when we arrived so they had us wait outside until they were ready.

We sat at the bar and really enjoyed our lunches.

We had a little more time then, so we just wandered around heading towards the direction of the hotel.

We had a ticket to Tokyo leaving around 3:30 or so: we ended up with sort of a short connection in Nagano, and then the train seemed to be running a little behind so we were a bit stressed out about catching the next one. It ended up being just fine, but I would say to people: if you want to be less stressed, choose a longer connection when possible.

I got a picture of the Shinkansen train arriving at the station in Nagano. By the way, the train ride was absolutely beautiful from Matsumoto to Nagano and then for the first part to Tokyo: the mountains! We would love to go back and explore that area more as well.

Pictures from the train window aren’t the best, but you can see there are mountains.

We got to Ueno station and then took a subway to Asakusa and walked about 8 minutes to our hotel for the remainder of the trip, Sake Bar Hotel Asakusa.

Two beds, something we were pretty accustomed to, haha. This is considered a nicer room than a room with one bed.

A large tub as well as a Japanese style shower. This place didn’t have public onsens, just one you could reserve and use once for free. What it did have was free sake to drink and a foot bath on the roof.

We got some laundry going in the hotel’s machine and then went out in search of food. We settled on a nearby ramen restaurant with very high tablelog ratings. Noriaki Bibi Aged Miso Ramen Asakusa, which was right around the corner from our hotel.

You ordered from a machine and then got a little ticket that you’d hand to the counter.

They asked if I wanted a bib and I looked around and saw many people were using them, so I said YES. They only offered one additional raw egg unlike a previous place where there were unlimited. (One is enough for me). This ramen was really delicious!

Yummy! After dinner we wandered around the area a bit more, just to stretch our legs.

And then back up to the rooftop foot baths. It looks like it was even a little chilly!

Tomorrow will be more exploring, and I’ll leave us there for now. We will see how soon I can get back to telling you more about Tokyo 🙂

Hiking, Japan, Travel

Japan: Walking Tour Day 5: Yabuhara to Narai

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Okay, so I’m going to tell you about our last day of the walking tour. This isn’t the last day of our trip, but it IS the last day of the walking tour part. As a reminder (or if you are new, WELCOME), we did a trip to Japan in late May/early June, with part of it being a lovely 5 day walking tour on the Nakasendo Trail supported by and booked through Really Rural Japan.

Day 5: Yabuhara to Narai

  • Distance: 4 miles to 7 km
  • Elevation Gain: 320 m
  • Elevation Loss: 305 m

Okay, so this was it, the last day! I was all in on the hiking, and hopeful that my feet would survive one more day.

Breakfast was a spectacle as we thought it might be, though not as much as the “Shogun Dinner” the night before. It was tasty though, and filling. There was a western breakfast option, but we didn’t take it.

We had to catch an 8:55 train from Kiso Fukushima Station to Yabuhara Station. Though the walk wasn’t super long, it was probably about 15 minutes, and the hotel had offered to shuttle us, so we took that offer. A bunch of us loaded into a van and got dropped off at the station with plenty of time to get tickets. It was a short train ride and then it was time to walk!

We were a little slow getting out of the train station and pretty much people left us behind, no problem there. We prefer an empty hike anyway! Except for bears, maybe there’s safety in numbers?

We walked through Yabuhara Juku, under some railway tracks, and then past a nice fountain. The guidebook suggested we empty our water bottles and fill them with “the good stuff” but we just topped off.

The water tasted good, and we didn’t get sick, so yay!

And then we got to the footpath, the woods, the fun parts! I enjoyed walking through towns to see them, but the woods were always so nice.

A nice cobblestone path through the woods, isn’t it lovely? And green?

Big different between very often and not very often, glad they cleared that up. We kept ringing the bells and had little bear bells attached to our bags. After so many days, we hardly noticed them any more. Perhaps the bears didn’t either.

We did run back into some people, and actually passed a few going uphill, I couldn’t believe it! The hike wasn’t bad today, just up for a bit, and then, down. You know, normal. We had one place where we had a little navigation confusion but it worked out, and another place where there were bathrooms…but they were super gross so I didn’t use them. Very usual for a hike, very UNusual for Japan.

We kept crossing paths with various members of a multi-generational family group that we had seen on previous days. It turned out they had booked with Oku Japan, another company I had looked at. They were happy with their hike and the details as well.

Misty mountains.

There was a shrine at the top of the pass, which is named Torii Pass. That meant to me that it was the high point, and that meant it was downhill from here!

This is the torii gate that the pass is named for.

How people looked back in the day. Lots of pipe smoking and glaring, and way more snow on the mountains. Less trees though.

Showing us how bears look from the side.

And from the front.

This was the last bear bell on our journey! We knew because it was labeled as the first bear bell coming the other way and all kinds of instructions. I rang it loud and clear and all the bears scrambled away from us.

Our first view of Narai from the path.

So, we made it to Narai, the final destination on our walking journey. Our day wasn’t over yet however. We had to take a train to Matsumoto later in the day, and we had to wait until after 3:30 for our luggage to be delivered to the train station, so that meant we were planning on the 3:52 train.

So, it was time to eat lunch and wander around Narai. It was a lovely old town.

Don’t get your semi truck stuck on the tracks!

We found a highly rated soba noodle restaurant, Kokoro-ne.

The table next to ours: we were sitting on the floor on those cushions, very traditional.

Soba noodles with tempura vegetables. It was so tasty! You dip the noodles in the sauce.

After lunch we wandered the town for a bit–it’s a beautiful street, though it IS open to delivery trucks. There are some museums but the weather was so lovely we didn’t want to be inside.

This little guy was all over. It is a Tanuki statue and is mostly a symbol of good luck and prosperity.

We wandered over to the river and there was a lovely bridge to walk across. We took lots of pictures and wandered around.

We got coffee at Matsuya Sabo, which made siphon coffee–sort of like a chemistry experiment where the coffee is made in a glass goblet. Why didn’t I take pictures, I don’t know. But here’s the coffee.

And finally our luggage was at the station so we went to check things out. We decided we needed a break, so we bought our tickets and sat with our luggage, waiting on the train for a little while. We chatted with other people near us: mostly from the aforementioned family group. And then the train arrived and we were off to Matsumoto!

I’m going to stop there for today, as it’s the end of the walking tour. Next I’ll tell you about Matsumoto, and then I’ll try to get the remaining days in Tokyo as compact as possible, hahahaha! How do people do this? I guess if I didn’t have a job or other hobbies recapping my trips would be so much faster (in weeks, not the actual amount of time spent typing and looking at pictures/links/notes/etc.) But alas there are other parts of life (sadly, because traveling is so much fun!).

I gave Really Rural Japan excellent reviews online. We had never done this sort of tour before, but we felt supported and everything worked smoothly. When we had questions we could send messages via Whatsap and they responded quickly. We also had great GPS files to use via the Gaia app as well as a guidebook and other printed materials (and pdfs of everything). The hotels were great, the included meals were terrific, and the suggestions for things to do along the way were also really good–everything that we tried that was recommended was tasty and unique. So if you want to copy my trip, I highly recommend it, or to use them for another trip.

Random thoughts

Two weeks done already?!

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The time flies, doesn’t it? I’m already two weeks into the school year, though for my college job that means I’ve only taught some students one lesson rather than two. It will be Christmas before we know it.

I read something on the internet the other day, it was a 20 year old asking older people, how long does it feel to live from 20 to 60? The first answer I read was, it feels very long while you live it, and then like no time at all when you look back at it. I suppose that’s true for everything in adulthood, isn’t it? The day of teaching feels plenty long, when you are helping students tune, making them “suffer through” their scales, making them slow down to practice things properly, bugging them about their technique, etc. And then at the end you go, where did the day go?

Since getting back from vacation we’ve been trying to make sure our day-to-day life isn’t just work/work/sit in front of tv/sleep/work/work/etc. It’s easy to get in that habit, and while I don’t think it’s bad for some of the days of the week (we’ve been enjoying 100 Years of Solitude on Netflix and watched Dark Matter before that), I want to keep getting out of the house and doing things.

Last weekend we had a flurry of activities: dinner at Madrina with Ben and Roz, dinner at Robin with Louie (I loved this place, it felt somehow more different than other restaurants around here), and then we had tickets to the Cardinals on Sunday and went with friends as well. I don’t take food pictures on a day to day basis like I do on vacation, which is a bit of a shame and maybe I should, but it feels weird when I’m a local, you know?

We had been worried about the weather/heat last Sunday, but our seats were in the shade and there was generally enough of a breeze going that it was quite enjoyable.

I only look a little crazy in my selfie there?

Anyway, the Cardinals lost, but our tickets included a hot dog and a soda so that was nice. We took the Metrolink both ways which was easy, and it was PACKED after the game, which made it feel like we lived in a really cool city. Also the B.O. was an issue, but luckily the ride wasn’t toooooo long.

This past week I mostly just taught then, and then last night we went out to visit a couple of friends who have a pool so we swam and then ate dinner together. No pictures, because, well, I just didn’t. Am I a real blogger or not? (Not, as those of you waiting to hear more about Japan and then Alaska know.)

Today is a wedding in Hermann and tomorrow an outdoor (perhaps ) concert, and then Monday totally off. I’m debating if I need to send a reminder to my students of NOT having lessons Monday, as the system I use only sends reminders of when they DO have lessons and sometimes people get on autopilot. (I actually just went and did this, I don’t want anybody showing up on Monday).

I’m ready for fall weather! This heat is horrible. We are in our fall schedules, we need some cooler weather!

Random thoughts

First Day of School

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I’ll take a break from (not very quickly) writing trip reports to writing about my day to day life as is. And technically yesterday was the first day of school, but today is the first day for some people.

The last few weeks before school started went by quickly, and I didn’t get very much done. I had some high hopes for a few home projects, but I found myself just wanting to catch up on my reading and podcast listening.

One thing Louie and I both did that has been fun is we joined a gym. We have been debating this for a little while, and we decided to join the Wash U gym, which is a great deal. You have to be careful about when you go because it gets horribly busy, but the first few weeks were great. Yesterday the students were back, but I found mid morning still wasn’t too bad. When we toured the gym the student made sure to inform us of all the pickleball options and also pointed out that most faculty show up early, around 6 am to get their workouts done before the work day. We are not most faculty, I guess!

Other fun things: Leslie stayed for two nights en route from New York to Arizona. We had food, chatted, and took a long bike ride on the Katy Trail.

Her cats lived in our music room for the time. My cats were upset by this, as you would expect.

I went to an art class at Bowood Farms.

Muriel enjoying the couch on another day.

We’ve also been to an opera and out for dinner for friends, and I’ve met up with a variety of friends for lunches and brunch. So, it’s not that I haven’t done anything at the end of my break, it’s just that my constant guilt of say, not having completely finished decorating the house kicked in.

I am looking forward to a good year! I am limiting my new students, in fact, not taking any new students at home for now. My schedule is pretty good and I have plenty of students, and the nice thing is that I only teach past 8 on one night instead of 3, so that’s better for getting to bed early, plus it’s better for the nights I have to reschedule for rehearsal: less students to reschedule. So either I get free time/more sleep, or simply less stress. And when I reschedule, it doesn’t always work out so I often lose that teaching income, so my hope is that having slightly less students still works out well.

Performance wise, there’s nothing terribly exciting in the immediate future, but more fun stuff later in the year. Maybe I’ll keep you posted!

The other fun thing later is that I finally caved and got an apple watch. This fits in with my gym going: I’m working on improving my fitness so we can do a bigger hike in Europe next summer, in addition to healing my feet, ha! So having a watch is a great way to monitor my heart rate and activities, but I learned yesterday that it picks up violin playing and counts it as steps, oops! So from here on when I play unless I want it to appear that I have walked extra miles, I have to turn off fitness tracking for it. I wish there were another way, but that’s what the internet tells me is the best solution: do you have any better ones? And putting it on another wrist isn’t an option, and I’d rather not just take it off.

thoughts about violin, teaching, running, life.