Kansai-tastic

The Kansai trip with mum was almost a month ago, but it was definitely one of the highlights of this year so far. I took a week off school during the school's spring vacation and trekked down and around the beautiful, delicious, fascinating southwest Japan. I have wanted to come to this part of the country even before I got to Japan, and it was nothing short of what I had expected.

Shinking

It was the first time I ever took the bullet train (Shinkansen n., 'to shink' v.) and it was really fast. We weren't even on the fastest train, and took 3 hours from Tokyo to Osaka, whereas if one took a local train it would've taken 9-10 hours including all the stops and changeovers etc.




Special Kansai food #1 - Okonomiyaki
(which literally translates as fry the stuff you like)

It's sometimes referred to a Japanese pancake, or pizza, minus the bread, tomatoes, cheese, pepperonis, olives....
It's basically a big mish mash of flour, egg, meat, shrimp, sometimes leek, sometimes noodles, with toppings and cooking style varying slightly depending on region. So we had to have okonomiyaki as we were in Kansai. It was surprisingly salty. And my clothes still smelled the morning after we had it for dinner. Still nice though.

Special Kansai food #2 - Takoyaki

or Octobus balls! No not the reproductive sort, but a mish mash of little bits of octopus, pickled ginger, rice crispies, scallion, held together in a ball shaped by batter, cooked in little half-ball shaped grill plates, topped with this sweet/sour brown sauce and thin fish flakes that move about in the steam. I did get a little sick from too much of these octopus balls last summer when all the japanese festivals were going on, but again, had to have it. So we did, and shared a fresh piping hot plate sitting in front of Osaka Castle, under a blue sky, with cherry blossoms starting to bloom, kids running around and cute little puppies being carried around by big middle aged balding men.

Food - everything else

I can seriously go on and on about food......it was such a tongue-tantilising trip. Super soft 'fuwa-fuwa' cheese cake; Kobe beef, niku-maki (a 'meat wrap' - ie a rice ball wrapped around by meat'), yaki-soba, japanese topping-tastic curry, Yudofu (literally boiled tofu...I'm still not sure what's so special about it), tofu-burger, sushi, grilled things on a skewer (chicken, corn, wings...), UCC Coffee, tea with gold flakes (actually that was horrible)...

Osaka

First stop. We spent the first night squishing through the streets around Dotonbori with the saturday night crowd. A deep-fried manju, niku-yaki, 2 new pairs of earrings, photo with Mr. Dotonbori (right), bathing in the sights and sounds of a big bustling city all came together and equalled succes.

We hit the Osaka Castle the next morning, and I met up with a friend who used to be an exchange student at Warwick, and did some shopping. I had been telling her I'd visit Osaka for 8 months.

Highlight - Sacchan!

Kobe

Kobe the city itself was clean, beautiful and easy. We only did Kobe as a day trip, but we managed to fit quite a lot in thanks to those at the tourism board that were clever enough to create the City Loop Bus. We did the earthquake memorial park, Kobe beef (!!!), some shrine, shopping, a Japanese-paper art museum (actually more like a shop....and yes that was mum's idea), Kitano Meister Garden - this was a really cute, oldish-style building, with lots of little cake/chocolate/souvenir/crafts/coffee shops.

We spent the night in this place just outside of Kobe called Arima Onsen, in a Ryokan - traditional Japanese-style inn. We were very warmly welcomed and attended to - it was probably quite expensive...I wouldn't know 'cause mum paid for everything (WIN!); got dressed in yukatas; sat for a 13-course dinner; and slept on a futon in a tatami hotel room. Breakfast was about 10 courses. We then spent the rest of the day walking around the town - very touristy but again very cute. At one point I came across a sort of free public foot-bath, and sat down next to old grannies and dipped my feet in scorching hot water. I didn't even need a towel as the steam evaporated pretty quickly off my feet. I may have killed several million cells in my feet then.

Highlight - Kobe beeeeeeef.

Kyoto

Third and final stop. Kyoto was old and sweet. Even the hotel that we were in was in one of those typical narrow old streets where the creaky wooden gates in front of Japanese style houses are on. Kinkaku-ji (shrine), Ginkaku-ji, kiyomizudera (temple), Gion - where I saw a real geisha (I think), cherry blossoms lit up along the river at night. And even walking around those little Kyoto streets was calming. You'd occasionally come across a man dressed in Japanese clothing and sandles standing next to the cutest of shops or cafes, girls dressed in kimonos, with cherry blossoms floating around in the air...

Highlight - Cherry blossoms along Tetsugaku-dori

After two days of temples and shrines the third day was devoted entirely to shopping and making our way back up North to my territory of Iwaki, Fukushima. It was nice to be home. I took us to a local sushi restaurant, and just chilled out for the weekend. Mum went back to Tokyo for a night after 2 nights in Iwaki, and home.

We managed pretty well with my Japanese and our clear goals of what we wanted to do and see in those areas. I'm definitely going to try to visit some of those places again. It was too beautiful to take it all in at once.