Misatos Birthday Enoshima, Yokohama, China Town and Kamakura

Went down to Yokohama for Misatos Birthday, there is a famous china town there, and Kamakura the home to the largest buddha, and Enoshima a popular beach town are near by. First we headed to Enoshima and had some local tiny fish on rice and Enoshima beer.

Below is a Enoshima original Takosenbei (octopus cracker), little octopus battered and then stuffed into a press to make a cracker, literally a flattened octopus cracker and you can hear it squealing as it dies, but pretty tasty.

Next we went to Kamakura to see the Big Buddha, I think this is one of the bigger ones in Japan, maybe the biggest sitting one?

We also happened to go by an old chateau type place that once belonged to some kind of weathly Japanese dude, but it had a beautiful rose garden so that was our main purpose since Misato loves roses and it was her birthday and all.

Below is local transportation carrying the surfboards on the sides of bikes. I dont think people in the US appreciate how convenient bikes are over cars sometimes and the multifunction that actually have opportunity for. Misato and I actually rented bikes for this day trip around Kamakura, great way to see the town and get exercise and not be trapped in a car stuck in traffic.

Next we went Hokokuji shrine that has a tea house and a really beautiful huge bamboo garden.

THe next morning we ate some breakfast buns filled with meat at the Yokohama China town.

Throughout Yokohama there were a bunch of other rose gardens so we mostly did that throughout the day and for some reason sketching seems to be a very popular hobby for elderly people here, we saw them everywhere. We then stumbled upon the cup noodle museum, which seems like a great place for kids. Kids running everywhere, and you can create your own unique cup noodle flavor and added ingredients, or you can even go through the whole manufacturing process and make the raw noodles. We just took the self guided tour. Kids are free, adults are cheap enough that we figured the price was worth it for a 30 min quick visit.

Then we were back to China Town. This is the main gate.

Misato did a some research before and found this restaurant with delicious chinese style yakisoba, and they had tsingtao beer, definitely easy to drink a couple of those after touristing all day.

Moto Day Trip

Took a little motorcycle ride this weekend up to a spot my friend Hiroi san had pointed out previously. Nice ride through a windy road in Tochigi starting around Nikko and then up through routes 169 to 245 up around 249 to Yunishigawa.

I took the same picture above in the winter in front of Yunishigawa.
Here it is for a compairson.

Moto Trip to the Flower Park

Updating a few older posts:
My coworker and new friend Hiroi san and I took a moto ride around Tochigi and ended up in Ashikaga not too far from Utsunomiya.

There is a huge flower park there. When Hiroi san first told me about it I thought it was just a park with flowers, but this thing is the real deal.

This season happens to be the Fuji flowers, basically a tree but all the hanging flowers come from one tree as you can see in one of the photos below.

We also saw a nice little shrine along the way.

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Hiroshima (広島）

Headed down to Hiroshima for golden week. Only an hour flight from Tokyo, but then another hour by bus to the downtown train station. Saw my first real life 787 although not what we flew.

Of course we had Okonomiyaki (お好み焼き）since this is the famous food of Hiroshima, which in this case usually contains noodles, but its really more like yakisoba in Utsunomiya.


Hiroshima has the tragic history of the first A-bomb, but has now been restored to a very beautiful city. Here was our first view of the A-bomb dome and the memorial park, had to walk around to work off all the Okonomiyaki.

The next day we rode bicycles from Onomichi (尾道）to a few islands that are adjoined by bridges. If anyone comes across this blog for fun or looking for the bicycle tour, use the ferry to cross over the start of the recommended bike route, the first bridge is a little bit dangerous and I dont think it is meant to be used by bicycles.

Bicycles can be rented from the parking structure next to the green hotel across from the train station, there are a variety of bikes, mountain bikes, the little ones you see in the picture and momma cherry's. We ended up biking about 30 kilometers on these little bikes. There are a lot of nice scenic places to stop and this gelato shop.

Which was delicious. The course is a little more than 70km one way but there are a few places were boats will take passengers and bicycles back to Onomichi station.

After all the bicycle riding we needed more Okonomiyaki, this time topped with Oysters, another specialty of Hiroshima.

The next day we spent most of the morning in the memorial mesuem,

but then headed to Miyajima (宮島). Unfortunately the main gate is under construction, as you can see in the first picture above, but the shrine and the island itself is very beautiful place, we'll just have to make another trip to see the gate without scaffolding.

Hanami Party 2012

Misato and I rode our bicycles out to this road that has 600 cherry blossom trees lining the road near the Honda Engineering facilities. It was really nice seeing all the trees, and there is a park with food vendors of course. I prefer the Hachimanyama park in Utsunomiya though, more food vendors, and more peaceful with no traffic.

The next weekend I took a nice motorcycle ride to Mt. Tsukuba, if anyone lives nearby or happens to read this that is looking for motorcycle routes I highly recommend this. Beautiful windy road and as I was riding through the cherry blossoms were still out and falling pedals surrounding me when I was cruising through. Really nice peaceful ride. There are a lot of other people other doing the same thing, with motorcycles or rally cars cruising through the curves.

This photo doesnt really do the ride justice.

Mike Comes to Japan

Mike came to visit, we took a little self guided bicycle tour around Tokyo. I highly recommend if you are interested in bicycles and getting off the beaten path and away from the busy subway stations. We stayed near okachimachi which is really good for daytime market experience, but no real bars/restaurants are open late. There are a few bicycle rental places near Ueno/Okachimachi for 200 yen you get a mama cherry all day.

The next weekend we went to keirin which was also really fun, betting on bicycle racing just like horse racing, but we did not win. One of the big wins was the trifecta in order, it paid around 200,000 yen, this in on a 100 yen ticket so a good deal if you can win. The guys legs are freakin huge. The race is mostly a sprint where there are a few laps that are guided by a pace bicycle, the last lap and a half the pace bike drops out and the race is on. Apparently each bicycle can jump out in front of the pacer at anytime to kind of start the race on their own terms. Unfortunately there are no photos allowed inside and no alcohol, strange since alcohol is allowed almost everywhere in Japan and you can usually bring your own into events like basketball games.

After Keirin we headed down to Osaka to check out the city. This was my first time to Osaka and we decided to stay in a capsule hotel. Capsule hotels are awesome for 2 guys traveling alone, or anyone traveling alone really. The only downside is that you are limited on communication once you get into the capsule so its hard to tell when the other person is up and ready to go for the day, one day I lost mike for a few hours.





As you can see there is plenty of room for me, and Im about 5'11". Even some room for my bag. There is a TV and a little radio. Only drawback is you can hear other peole and alarms going off, so definitely bring some earplugs.

We went to check out the aquarium which was ok, but from my posts a few years ago youll see the Oarai aquarium is much nicer.


Later that day we went to the Osaska castle, which is more like a museum which is nice in that regard, but if youd like to see what the actual castles look like I suggest the Matsumoto castle posted earlier this year.



Osaka has a great number of places to hang out an explore if you are in for the nightlife. Mike and I found a place similar to utsunomiya where there are many small places lined up together, we sat at one and met a random guy who spoke really good english. This guys usual friday was to hang out at bars all night before catching the first train back to the suburbs and his family early saturday morning, gotta love Japan.

We took the night bus from Utsunomiya to Osaka which worked out pretty well. They turn the lights off around midnight and back on at 6, so if you can sleep in a somewhat reclined seat and 6hrs is all you need youll be good to go. I suggest the earplugs again.

Valentines at Yunishigawa Onsen

Misato and I went up to Yunishigawa onsen for valentines day. There is a special event there where they light up a bunch if igloos. Nice little getaway. I want to take my motorcycle back this summer for a nice tour of the mountain roads.

Caught these guys clearing the roof of snow, apparently there is no OSHA in Japan.

Had an awesome dinner in a BBQ sand pit inside the hotel.

Then took a nice private onsen with the two of us next to the river with the snow, very romantic.
Nice picture of the train coming to take us home.

And the Nikko Mountains.