Osaka JaLS 3rd week

 Monday, June 15, my 4 weeks at JaLS were half over already. The time was going by very fast. This week I was tired a lot. I'd sleep well, but then wake up too early to get enough sleep, but too late to fall asleep again. No particular reason. Or maybe my brain was getting full already. Anyway  getting through the classes and private lessons was a bit of a challenge.

Tuesday after class I walked around the area around the train stations, venturing a bit further out. I found the Hankyu bus station and bought tickets for the  Saturday trip to Arima Onsen. 

I also went to the Tsuyu-no-Tenjinja shrine. It is now in the middle of the city but is very old and dates back when Osaka was still marsh-land. There is a story from a few hundred years ago about lovers that committed suicide on the temple grounds, so it seems to have a kind of romantic theme.

Wednesday was a long day, with the class and the private lesson. Wednesday evening the fire alarm went off in the apartment where I'm staying. Very loud and right inside every unit. About 20 or so people gathered outside and waited. It was taking a long time so I went to one of the quiet bars nearby. About an hour later I went back to the apartment and everything was back to normal.

Thursday after class I went to the Karahori shopping street I heard about. It's supposed to be popular but when I was there it was quite quiet. There was a calligraphy supply store, a tea place, several stores selling fresh seafood or vegetables.

Afterward I went to an art supply store near the school that a teacher recommended. I bought a small notebook. Across the way was a bookstore, where I bought a small book in Japanese, called This is How You Think, which contains quotes from a famous Japanese philosopher.

Friday evening there was an activity with the school. Apparently there is a  neighbourhood of Osaka that has a lot of people of Okinawa descent, and we went to an Okinawan restaurant there. We tried all kinds of Okinawan specialties, and there was entertainment. Customers, including students from the school, were invited to go on stage and sing or play the drum. Here is a photo with my classmate Yushan playing the drum.

On Saturday, June 20, I did a day trip to Arima Onsen, near Kobe, about an hour by bus from Osaka. Its a small, touristy, onsen town on the slope of a hill. It was raining but there were still quite a lot of tourists. When I arrived I first walked around the shopping streets.

At several places around the town there are sources of hotspring water. They are covered but have steam coming out. A couple have small shrines beside them. 

There are several temples as well, and a park that goes up the hill from the top of the town.

Many of the onsen are inside ryokan, but there are 2 public ones: Kin no yu (gold water) and Gin no yu ( silver water). The gold water is actually kind of muddy in colour, and there is a foot bath outside with the same water.

I went to both of them and then walked around the town some more before getting the bus back to Osaka. There are shops selling local treats, like a thin wafer, and a toasted mochi with red bean filling.

Sunday was variably sunny and cloudy, but not raining. I went to a park on the northern edge of Osaka called Minoh, where there is about a 3km hike to a waterfall. 

I can't help but compare to Canada. Canadian cities are small compared to most big cities in the world, and are surrounded by nature. But the infrastruture is so inadequate and so badly designed that if you want to go for a hike you have to drive 2 to 3 hours in traffic just to get there. In contrast, Japanese cities are many times larger, but hop on a train and in 30 to 45 minutes you're on a hiking trail.

The trail followed the river to the falls, and was quite straight forward. There were some restaurants along the way, and a temple. Before the falls, there was one spot with a detour around a part that was damaged by a landslide a few years ago, and that had some steep steps.

There was a nice view of the falls at the top.

 Also, about half way down, across from Ryuanji temple, there was a fairly steep, 300 step climb to a look-out with a great view of the city.

On the way down I bought the local specialty: tempura maple leaf.

At the train station there was a craft beer place run by the same brewery as the one I like downtown, so I stopped for a beer before heading back.

Osaka JaLS 2nd week

On Monday, June 8, the start of my second week, I didn't sleep well for some reason and was very tired. I struggled through the class and the private leason, picked up something to eat at a convenience store and went to bed early

Tuesday afternoon there was a school trip to Shitennoji, south of the central Namba area. It is one of Japans oldest temples, dating back to the 500s. It is actually a Buddhist temple, but is looks like  a shrine with the tori gate and the vermillion colour. We went up the central pagoda and walked around the inner courtyard.

After everyone else left, Yushan from my class and I went for ice cream. Afterward he left to go shopping and I stayed at the temple to start on a sketch.

After that I walked to the Namba area and went to schwa2, the craft beer place, and finished the sketch.

On the way home, in the shopping street near the apartment, I found one of those conveyor belt sushi places and had dinner there.

The next couple of days were not too eventful, just doing laundry, buying groceries, etc.

On Friday I went shopping in the department stores near the station for more clothes. I bought a bunch at Uniqlo. On one of the walkways connecting the department stores, it seems there is always some kind of J-pop entertainment going on.

Afterward I stopped at the craft beer place called umbrella RiB, and the guy there told me about a craft beer event that was happening the next day, at a place near the station.

Saturday, June 13, was a school trip to the  Ishikiri shopping street and shrine. It is about half an hour by train from Osaka station. We walked the kilometer long shopping street full of restaurants and fortune-tellers.

 It is on a hill, and it was quite hot that day. We stopped for lunch at a restaurant that served a kind of stew called oden.

Then we explored the shrine area. In front of the shrine are two stone markers about 20 meters apart. The thing is to walked around the pair of markers 100 times, and then pray at the shrine. I managed about 10 times before we moved on.

We walked back up the hill to the train station and went back into town.

Aterward I went to the craft beer event I had heard about. About half a dozen breweries had stalls in an open area.

I stood at a table and ended up talking to the people there in Japanese. It was really fun.

On Sunday, June 14, I went to Kyoto. I wasn't planning a trip to Kyoto, but one of the teachers at the school had a bunch of tickets to an exhibition at the Ryokoku museum there, and she gave me one. I figured I would make use of that, and spend time in Kyoto.

The exhibition had painted scrolls and wooden statues from the Shinnyodo temple in Kyoto. Some were quite old, dating back to the 9th century.

Next I made my way to Nanzenji temple, since I heard that is a big temple complex but it is off the beaten track, so it doesn't get the crowds of tourists.

What I heard was correct. Its a nice quiet corner of Kyoto near the green surrounding hills. On the way I stopped at Konchi-in temple with its beautiful zen garden.

From there I went to Nanzenji temple.

Surprisingly, and kind of out-of-place, just beyond the temple is a red brick aqueduct that was built in the Meiji era.

After that, I caught the train back to Osaka.

Osaka JaLS 1st week

Sunday, May 31 I took the train from Tokyo to Osaka. I got another view of Mt. Fuji.

I was going to Osaka to do 4 weeks at a Japanese Language School called JaLS. I first attended JaLS in 2016 in Sapporo, and at that time, Sapporo was the only location. They have since expanded to locations in Kyoto, Nagoya, Fukuoka, Tokyo, and now Osaka. I attended the one in Fukuoka last year. 

It is a highly rated school, and the only problem I ever had was with the accommodations they found for me. This year I found my own accommodation. Nowadays that's quite easy to do, even for long stays, with things like booking.com.

On Sunday I arrived in Osaka with quite a bit of time before I could check-in at the apartment, so I spent the time finding the location of the school. It's in a new development called Grand Green, just outside the Osaka Station.

The area around the Osaka station and the neighboring Umeda station is a bewildering complex of various ticket gates and passageways on several levels, all buried under an array of skyscraper department stores and hotels. I dragged my luggage around for a couple of hours in the heat and humidity before I finally found the Grand Green area, and the particular tower in which the school is located. 

The Grand Green area is very new and nice looking, with the buildings surrounding a green space with a wading pool. I stopped there for a while to eat lunch. The school is on the 8th floor with a view of the park.

After lunch in the park, I started searching for the apartment, which turned to be relatively easy. It's at the end of a long shopping street. The street is full of loud restaurants and bars, but the apartment itself is about a block passed all that, so it is actually quite quiet.

I got an email with the code to the lock box with key, and let myself in. Its a new building, and the apartment has everything: stove, fridge, microwave, dishes, towels, etc.

On Monday morning I walked to the school. I knew the apartment would be about a half hour walk to the school, and I didn't think anything of it. However I didn't count on the heat and humidity, and I arrived at the school drenched in sweat. So embarassing.

The class itself was great, at just the right level, with only 5 students. A lot of the students were from Taiwan. I had the class in the morning and on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday I had a private lesson that is mostly conversation practice.

In the evening on Monday I found a grocery store about a block from the apartment and bought some fruit and vegetables.

Tuesday afternoon, after class, was a school trip on an area in Osaka called Shinsekai, or New World. It dates to 1903, and there are cartoon-like statues every of a character called Billy-ken, which is actually modeled on the US president at the time.

Shinsekai is known for a food called kuchikatsu, which is battered, deep fried meat or veggies on a skewer. It is also full of arcade-type games. 

We went as a group in a restaurant to eat kuchikatsu. Unfortunately it was raining that day so we didn't walk around very much.

On Wednesday morning I found a route to the school that used air-conditioned underground passages for about half of it, which helped somewhat with the heat.

In the evening I did laundry. There is a washing machine in the apartment, but no dryer. Instead there is something called a drying panel on the wall outside the door to the shower cubicle. I looked it up, and essentially you just hang your clothes in the shower cubicle, close the door, select 'dry' and a time on the panel, and the shower cubicle becomes a dryer. Very cool.

Thursday evening I found a craft beer place between the apartment and the school, called Craft Beer Market. 

Friday evening I went to the craft beer place called schwa2, that Celene and I went to before, downtown near Dotonburi. I like that place as it is always very friendly.

Saturday, June 6, I did a day trip on my own to a temple complex about an hour from Osaka, south of Nara, called Hasedera. It dates to the 600's and it is mainly devoted to the Kannon Bodisattva. It is main temple for Shingon Buddhism.

From the Hasedera train station it is a 20 minute walk through a small town to the entrance to the temple area. Being Saturday, it was fairly busy with mostly Japanese tourists, and I just followed the crowd.

The temple complex is on the side of a steep hill, so there is a long staircase up to the Main Hall.

 The main hall has an alter with a huge statue of Kannon. Walking around  I found a side door that you had to pay to go into, and I did. It took you an inner room where the statue was, so you were right next to it. I didn't expect that, and it was kind of cool.

Hasedera is known for flowers according to the season, and in June there is a huge display of hydrangea.

After visiting the temple I walked back through the town, which was now in full swing with all the vendors selling local specialties.

 I stood in a long line to buy a kind of mochi stuffed with red bean. The mochi was green because a plant called mugwort is added (at first I thought it was matcha but I asked someone and found out otherwise.)

I also bought a special kind of sushi, called kakinohasusi, which is wrapped in a persimmon leaf.

Sunday, June 7, was lightly raining and refreshingly cool. I decided it would be a good day to go to a museum, and I had heard about the Nakanoshima Art Museum that was within walking distance.

From the apartment I went straight south, stopping at a cool cafe called Omo and Coffee. I reached the Tosahori River that flows through Osaka and the Nakanoshima Island in the middle of it. At one end of the island is a beautiful park with a rose garden. 

Despite the rain there were many people out jogging this Sunday morning, and under the cover of an overpass there was what looked like a yoga class happening.

I walked along the river until I reached the art museum. There were two exhibitions, but you could only buy a ticket to one of them at a time, so I went to 'Takashima Yajuro: 50 years after his passing'. He was a solitary artist who did oil paintings in a mostly Western style, and had traveled extensively in Europe. He was unknown during his lifetime. His details of landscapes are very striking, and apparently his approach to realism is influenced by his  Buddhist ideals.

After the museum I walked further south to another park called Utsubo Park. There was some kind of demonstration going on, and by reading the banners I could tell it was against nuclear power.

I headed back to the river and along Nakanoshima island again in the direction of the apartment.

After eating something at the apartment I went to another nearby craft beer place, called 'umbrella RiB'. The guy there recommended an area further east of the apartment, called Tenmangu. Since it was still kind of early, I headed over there. It's a shopping street that is several kilometers long, and the view of it seemed endless.

It will take a while to explore. After walking a bit I went back to the apartment.

Tokyo take 2

 On Wednesday, May 27 we took the train from Hakone to Tokyo. We came back to Tokyo since Celenes flight back to Vancouver was on Saturday.

We arrived early enough on Wednesday to leave our luggage at the hotel and explore a bit. We are at the same hotel near the Akasaka area, so we walked through Akasaka, had something to eat, and then took the train to the Ginza area. I had never been to Ginza, and Celene had heard a lot about the high-end shopping district. After looking around for a bit, I decided to sit in a place and have a beer while Celene looked around some more. Afterward we went back to the subway station.  On the way to the station, we stopped in a Seiko store since I'd like a new watch, but the watches there cost over $10,000! We went back to Akasaka for dinner and then back to the hotel.

The next day we went to the Yanaka area in northern Tokyo. It is a little off the beaten track. It is supposed to be an older, 'retro' area.  Indeed, the rows of small, simple stores and restaurants looked like they were from the 1970's. 

There were many small temples, all of which had grounds that were full of grave markers.

We went down some sidestreets and found a slightly different aspect of the area - little artist-run galleries - and it gave the feeling that Yanaka might be an up-and -coming artistic area.

We also found a place that served the most enormous shaved ice.

At dinner time we met up with my friend Kanako, her husband Joel, and their daughter Anna. I've known Kanako for over 10 years now, since the time we used to meet for a language exchange in Vancouver. I met with them last year as well, and it's great to keep in touch.

Afterward we were on our way back to the hotel, when we decided to explore the area around the subway stops where we got off. We ended up in a very high-end bar on the 36th floor of the Prince Gallery hotel. We really splurged and had a couple of drinks there, but the environment and the view was amazing.

The next day, Friday May 29, was Celenes last full day in Japan. We went to the over whelming Shibuya in the day for some shopping.

In the evening I thought it would be cool to go to Roppongi, since I remembered it as a lively nightlife area. However it was very quiet, even on a Friday night. I don't know what happened, but it was kind of disappointing.

Saturday, May 30, I went with Celene to the airport. Then came back to Akasaka sit in a craft beer place to read and blog.

Hakone

 On Sunday, May 24, we caught the Shinkansen from Shin-Osaka to Odawara, and transferred to local trains that went into Hakone. This is a mountainous area near Mt Fuji that is known for its numerous onsens. The small trains that go into Hakone go up a very steep grade. A few times the train go into a switchback that looked like a dead end, but then the tracks would switch and the train would reverse direction continuing up the other steep track.

We reached the small town of Miyanoshita, where the inn was. It was about a 15 minute walk up some steep roads through what looked like a residential area. The inn was an old, Japanese style inn run by a lovely elderly couple. There were two onsen baths inside, and they for private use. That is, if no one else was using it, we just entered, locked the door and had the bath to ourselves.

The couple that ran the inn called a restaurant for us to make reservations, and then drove us to the restaurant. The town seems very quiet. There are several big hotels, probably all with their own onsens. But there may not be enough restaurants for the number of people staying, since apparently reservations are necessary everywhere.

We had a nice dinner at a restaurant near the station. I had a craft beer from a local brewery called Gora brewing, and it was one of the best IPA's I've had.

The next morning, the man from the inn drove us to the town of Gora, which the start of the cablecar up the mountain. Before getting on the cablecar we had breakfast at a great place called Camp Coffee.

The cable car was packed with people, and made a few stops before reaching the end stop called Souzan. There we transfered to a gondola that took us to the highest point. From there we got a view of Mt. Fuji above the clouds.

At the top you could several places where volcanic gas was escaping from the rocks.

There were tourist shops selling "black eggs", which are cooked in hotspring water from the volcano. We bought some to eat later.

Afterward we continued on the gondola down the other side, to Lake Ashi. We took a break, walked along the lake and ate our eggs. We also stopped at a small restaurant the served deep fried smells that were caught from the lake.

The last part our tourist circuit - which was all included in the 'Hakone Free Pass' that we bought at Odawara station - was the sight-seeing boat that went to the end of the lake.

From there we caught a  bus back to the inn.

We dinner a the same place as the night before. An interesting appetizer was deep fried fish bones. They went well with beer!

The next day we decided to go to the town called Hakone-Yumoto. It is the biggest town  at the entrance to the Hakone area. It is known for onsens, but most of the onsens are inside hotels.

The man from the inn drove us there. We had breakfast and walked along the river and the town for a while.

We found out from the tourist information centre that there is a big, public onsen called Yuryo  and there as a regular shuttle bus to it from the station. 

We went there early, about 11am, in case we needed to make a reservation. But it wasn't busy so we went straight in. A very beautiful onsen with several outdoor baths, a sauna, a tatami mat rest area where you can hang out in your yukata, a rest area outside with a fire pit, and a restaurant. We were there for almost four hours.

It turned out the Gora brewery was just a few minutes walk down the road from the onsen, so we went there for a drink and a bite to eat.

We walked back to town - it was only about 20 minutes - and had dinner at a soba place that was recommended by the man from the inn. It was very different: some of the dishes were bowls of cold soba noodles topped with raw egg.  At little difficult to eat, to be honest. 

We then took the train back to the inn.

Osaka and Kyoto

 On Wednesday, May 20, we took the ferry from Naoshima to the port town of Uno, where we had breakfast. Then a local train  to Chayamachi, transfering to an express train for Okayama, where we caught the Shinkansen to Shin-Osaka. From there it was a few stops to Yodoyabashi Station at the north side of central Osaka. I picked the same hotel as I stayed in last year, since it is in the business area and is very quiet at night.

We got to the hotel in the late afternoon so we had time after checking in to go to the famous Kuromon food market near the lively Dotonburi area in central Osaka. As I expected, Celene loved the food market, and we tried seafood and wagyu beef.

 Next we went to the craft beer place that I went to last year. I started talking in Japanese to a couple of people from Tokyo who were in Osaka on a business trip.  One of them was a big fan of hiking and craft beer, like me, and he recommended a hike and craft  beer place on Mt. Takao near Tokyo.

Celene and I kept walking around Dotonburi and it got more and more lively as the night wore on. After getting something to eat at a ramen place by the canal, we headed back to the hotel.

The next day I spent mostly blogging, reading, and doing laundry, while Celene went shopping. We went back to Dotonburi for dinner and found a great little Japanese style restaurant for grilled fish.

The next two days we did day trips to Kyoto, which was quite convenient since the Keihan line station was very close to the hotel.

Since Celene had never been before, I figured she should see the famous places even though it would be crowded. The first day we got of the train at Gion, the main traditional cultural area of Kyoto, and walked to Kenninji temple. Despite the crowds it is still one of my favourite temples. I took a picture of the same garden that I had done a drawing of in 2014.

Near Kenninji we stopped in a little place selling matcha called 'its me'. There were also hand-stitched napkins for sale and the woman working there said they were made by her 90 year old grandmother. Celene was very impressed and bought a couple of them. Just then the grandmother arrived, and the two of them were so happy to meet people who had just bought her work.

From there we walked up to the Kiyomizudera temple area. The crowd of people up the shopping street to the temple was a thing to see in itself.

We stopped for something to eat and then went into Kiyomizudera. Its a beautiful temple area, with great views of the temple with the city in the background.

Afterward we went to a craft beer place I knew from last year, called Kyoto Beer Lab. 

Then took the train back to Osaka and Dotonburi again for dinner. We found a little place that was run by a guy who was really into camping. There were pictures of his camping setups in different places he got to by motorcycle.

The last day trip to Kyoto, we got off the train at the Fushimi-Inari shrine, with the large shrine at the bottom and the rows of Tori gates that wind their way all the way to the  top of the hill.

There were lots of little shrines along the way, and a rest stop by a little lake next to a bamboo forest.

We spent a good part of the day at Fushimi-Inari, and then caught the train to the center of town again, this time to go to the Nishiki Market. Another super-crowded place. 

We stopped at a place for a snack, but otherwise just walked straight through. We had dinner by picking up food at the basement of a department store nearby, and going to the roof to eat.

We walked back towards the river, and by then it was starting to get dark but you could see the row of restaurants with terraces along the river.

We walked up a narrow street next to the river which had all kings of restaurants and bars. We stopped for a drink at a jazz bar called Stardust.

Then we walked back to the train station on the other side of the river, and watched the street musicians before catching the train.