The Japanese Roadtrip: Kanazawa to Yokohama

I usually record my travels chronologically, but this time I thought I would do a ranking of the various places we visited on our family trip to Japan:
(i) Exceed Expectations
(ii) Twas Alright
(iii) Overhyped
Pretty self-explanatory right?

We wanted to escape the throngs of tourists said to be invading the major cities - Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka mainly, so we decided to go start in Kanazawa on the west coast and then do a road trip eastwards, stopping at a few locations along the way before finally taking a shinkansen from Matsumoto to Yokohama, the last stop in our journey. Well, we were naive if we thought we could completely escape the crowds, but compared to what we saw in Tokyo when we stopped there briefly before our flight to Kanazawa, it wasn't too crazy, apart from Shirakawa-go. I kinda miss the good ol' days when Japan was less popular and one would be surrounded by locals going about their day, making the entire experience feel more authentic.

Without further ado...

EXCEED EXPECTATIONS

Hida-Furukawa: It may be a sleepy town and you definitely don't need more than a day here, but this place turned out to be one of my favourite parts of the entire trip. I remember trying to do the itenerary and ended up coming up with ... nothing. Hence I found myself pleasantly surprised that one part of the town had koi filled waterways and beautiful old town-style streets to explore. We also had a fun time at the Hourai brewery. The saleslady was extremely nice, letting us sample the different types of sake they had to offer while giving detailed explainations which I tried my best to translate to the fambam. While we were trying out the sake, an ojii-chan from Tokyo casually joined us for a few samples and chit-chatted with the saleslady before leaving without buying anything, I even got an amazake recommendation from him before he ciao-ed. Did he just come for some free liquer then?

Trying out the various types of sake Hourai had to offer
We also had pretty amazing food here. The evening we arrived we had dinner at a small diner called Naniwa Shokudo ran by an old lady and a man I presumed to be her son. It took ages for the food to arrive despite there being only a couple there besides us (group of 6), since obaa-chan was the only chef (her son did warn us it would take a while), but the yakisoba was more than worth the wait, and this is coming from someone who doesn't even like yakisoba. The okonomiyaki was decent, but didn't wow me like the yakisoba did. The next day before we departed for Takayama we also had an amazing lunch at a restaurant called Ohako specializing in herb-based fare. I wasn't entirely sold on the hippie herb-based concept at first, but since the ramen place Hiro Dash we were supposed to go to wasn't open, we decided to go with Ohako since Joanne had heard good things about it. I suppose it was a stroke of luck that we ended up there, for the lunch platter we had at Ohako was not only extremely tasty despite being just fairly simple fare of rice with vegetables and hamburger steak (maybe the herbs added some extra flavour), but was also very pleasing to the eye thanks to the assortment of colours of the various dishes.

Godly yakisoba
Yokohama: Coming in a very close second and once again also helped by the lack of any expectations. I glanced through lists of tourist attractions there during the planning stage and it was always Chinatown or the Nissin Cup Noodle Museum at the top so I had resigned myself to shopping. When we arrived at Sakuragicho Station on Friday night, I was surprised to see the Air Cabin cable cars drifting serenely across the bay. The huge Ferris Wheel and Nipponmaru ship in the vicinity also made for a beautiful night view of the bay area. Unfortunately I don't have a good photo as we were all preoccupied with dragging our luggages to the Mitsui Garden Hotel, I only managed to steal a pretty close shot of the Nipponmaru.

I'm not sure why but there's a sort of Hawaiian trend going on in Yokohama, evidenced by a decent number of Hawaiian-themed restaurants and cafes serving things like pancakes, locomoco and garlic shrimps. We went to one called Merengue after dropping off our bags at Mitsui Garden. Since I have never been to Hawaii I can't comment on the authenticity of the food, but I did enjoy my garlic shrimps and fluffy pancakes. The cafe was also beautifully decorated to give off a tropical beach resort vibe and the waitresses dressed in voluminous hula skirts which I was extremely envious of. The next day we also spotted a Hula dance competition going on nearby when we were on the decks of the Nipponmaru, which used to sail the seas as a training ship in the 20th century, but now served as an exhibition. I really like the unexpected Hawaiian vibe though, and it got me thinking of visiting Hawaii soon, until I checked the hotel prices a few days ago and found out that hotels there cost around $300 dollars a night.

I also decided I had to take a ride on the Air Cabin and Ferris Wheel so I dragged Wei Jin and mum (dumped unceremoniously for the day by dad who wanted to go to the musuems) to both the following day . The Air Cabin ride took us across the water to the World Porters shopping centre and only lasted about 10 minutes one way. The Ferris Wheel felt a bit longer but perhaps it just felt that way because I was actually kinda scared while it was going up and up, my fear of heights suddenly taking over me. Overall Yokohama gave me a really nice vibe with the only downside being that the JR Yokohama Station was horrendously crowded when we went shopping there after lunch on Saturday afternoon, reminding me unpleasantly of Kinshicho and Shinjuku. I look forward to visiting again though.

TWAS ALRIGHT

Kanazawa: We only had one full day in Kanazawa which was definitely not enough to do it justice. During that time we managed to cover Higashi Chaya, Omicho Market, Kenrokuen Garden and Kanazawa Castle. Higashi Chaya felt like a discount version of Kyoto's Gion district, there was only two or three streets that were in the preserved traditional style. It was also a bummer we went on a day where there were no Geisha performances, I would have loved to see one live, blame Memoirs of a Geisha for hyping up the Geisha culture. We did visit Oshima Teahouse which used to be a real teahouse back in the days, but now served as a museum. What's a teahouse without tea? After wandering around Oshima's for a glance into the past, we had some namagashi sweets and matcha in their tiny cafe at the back of the building. Quite an enjoyable experience overall. Omicho Market was a bit meh to me, it felt similar to what I had already seen in Hakodate and Sapporo last year, just stall after stall selling various types of dried and fresh seafood. The boys looked like they had a good time snacking on uni and unagi:

The kaisendon we had for lunch was pretty decent, but there will always be a special place in my heart for the one I had at Chamu in Hakodate.

Kenrokuen Gardens and Kanazawa Castle are located in the same huge compound, and if I were going without the fambam I would make it a point to cover the entire area as I thought the gardens were beautiful indeed, but mum and dad decided there was no need to walk the whole place so in the end we only got to see about half of it. Initially I had bookmarked Shigure-tei to have tea at, but they were closed for a pottery exhibition that day, so we went to another place called Uchihashi-tei, which overlooked the Kasumigaike Pond, so we had a really beautiful view to enjoy with our second round of matcha and sweets. The sweets we had this time were unfortunately some pre-packed commercial type you could probably buy off the shelves somewhere, and while the taste was fine, it couldn't light a candle next to the fresh namagashi we had at Oshima's. I was interested in exploring Kanazawa Castle but apparently there's only a small part of it which can be entered and mum and dad also weren't interested so I had to drop that thought. Overall, I thought Kanazawa had quite a good variety of attractions, but we didn't have enough time there so it all felt a bit rushed. We also didn't get to go to the samurai district Nagamachi, that seems like a good reason to visit again in the future.

The proprietor(?) of Uchihashi-tei claimed it has the best view in Kenrokuen
Matsumoto: If given a choice to pick a city/town out of all the places we visited this time to settle down in, I MIGHT go with Matsumoto (or Kanazawa hmmm). It reminds me of Ipoh, not too crazy hectic like Tokyo, Osaka or even Yokohama, but not exactly in the boonies either. It also helps that the city is surrounded by mountains, lending it a plesantly serene air. We arrived here in the evening after our drive from the Hida region, and had to catch the Shinkansen to Yokohama the following afternoon, so we had effectively less than 24 hours here. Again, not enough time to do much exploring. The evening we arrived all we did was explore the shopping centre next to the JR Matsumoto station and stroll around the streets nearby before dinner. The next morning before our train ride to Tokyo we went for the Matsumoto Castle tour that Joanne signed us up for. I remember I was against the idea of going on a tour to a place we could easily explore ourselves, but it came as a package with the soba-making workshop that we were actually interested in, so we had to go along with it. Our tour guide (rats, I forgot her name) was a petite lady from the nearby Azumino region. She took us through the city to the Castle, pointing out interesting stuff along the way like the drinkable springs that could be found all over the city, perks of being surrounded by mountains. Matsumoto Castle itself was an extremely majestic sight to behold, I could barely think of Kanazawa Castle as a castle after setting my eyes on Matsumoto.

As mentioned, the Matsumoto Castle tour came as a package with the soba-making so we just went along with it, but in hindsight it was actually great that we ended up going on this tour. The Castle had a total of 6 floors - 1 floor hidden from the outside, fooling visitors, and enemies back in the warring days, into thinking that it had only 5, with some really narrow and steep staircases. I am 100% sure mum and dad would have given up on the second floor if there wasn't a tour guide urging us onwards and upwards. As it was, we covered the entire castle and even had a photo opportunity with a "ninja".

After the castle tour we went for our soba making workshop taught by a kindly ojii-chan. Overall, it wasn't too difficult and there was certainly a sense of satisfaction in eating the soba that we had handmade ourselves, albeit with lots of help from ojii-chan. As much as I enjoyed the experience, I don't think I have the time or energy to make my own noodles on a regular basis and will continue buying the dried version for my meals.

OVERHYPED

I guess it's not surprising these three ended up here, considering that out of all the places we went to they were definitely the most well-known and still frequently pop up on my social media newsfeed.

Kamikochi: As a wannabe-hiker, Kamikochi was the place I was looking forward to the most. I knew I wouldn't be able to get any serious hiking done with my entire family in tow and had set my expectations accordingly, but I still thought there would be more to see. It was a short 10-15 minutes hike from the Kamikochi bus station to the most photographed spot in Kamikochi - Kappa Bridge, and indeed it was a grand sight to behold:

Well, marred slightly by the crowds. I guess I'm being a hypocrite since we were contributing to the crowds as well, but you know what I mean! We couldn't even have a proper lunch because the queues at the few eateries in the area were horrendous, so we ended up having some pretty decent apple pies at Trois Cinq instead, which wasn't crowded since it was more of a cafe with no proper meals. After that we hike along the Azusagawa from Kappa Bridge to the Taisho Pond area, which took about an hour. The hiking trail ran through the clumps of trees (don't think I can call it a forest) growing along the side of the river with not much views of note. The Taisho Pond area was pretty but not as awe-inspiring as Kappa Bridge.

A peculiar warning found amist the trail
I guess this is another place I will have to visit again but next time I will hike in the other direction from Kappa Bridge to Myojin Pond since we didn't have time to do it this round.

We had a pleasant stay in the cosy Kyomu no Yado Yamaboshi at the nearby Onsen town of Okuhida after our hike. It's a small establishment, so it was quiet and we barely saw much of the other guests. Room wise pretty similar to the onsen resorts I've stayed at before, with the only special feature being a traditional hearth that us kids had tea around. There were 2 outdoor private onsens and 1 public one with both indoor and outdoor baths, just the right number of baths for those of us staying for a night (1 bath before dinner, 1 bath after dinner, 1 bath before checking out the next day). Nice but nothing too spectacular. What WAS spectacular was the food, especially the dinner we had. Onsen resort dinners are always extravagant, but Yamaboshi's was extra special because they also included a lot of the Hida region's specialities into the menu, so in addition to the standard stuff, we also had goheimochi and iwana on spits as well as Hida beef. The staff explained all the different courses to me in Japanese and it was my task to translate all these so the fambam could understand. She also knew some of the food phrases in English and even showed us her little notebook where she wrote all her English notes.

Takayama: Like Hida-Furukawa, Takayama Old Town (there's another part of Takayama that's modern and unremarkable) is another one of those towns with preserved buildings and retro vibes. Unlike Hida-Furukawa, it was bustling with yes you guessed it, tourists from all the world. The main street was full of shops aimed at tourists' wallets, from general souvenir stores to those specializing in one particular type of souvenir like senbei and miso. I found most of the shops pretty dull and was further discouraged by the crowds, until we found the Sake Theme Park, or rather, Funasaka Sake Brewery. This place had an interesting concept where you could get tokens for 100 yen apiece that you could then use at their sake vending machines, which for a token would dispense a small Japanese sake cup portion of your chosen poison. They also sell you the sake cup for a few hundred yen that you can take home as a souvenir after you've had your fill of sake. Of course, they also sold the full bottle versions of the sake there for interested peeps and Wei Jin got conned into buying the umeshu. I had heard of sake vending machines in Niigata before but didn't expect to be able to visit one on this trip, so this was a pleasant surprise. There were only about 10+ types of sake available for trying, but it's not like we could drink that much anyway with dinner coming up after that.

Speaking of dinner, I was actually looking forward to the Hida beef yakiniku since Hida beef is supposed to be the region's "meibutsu". It also took us a lot of effort to book the yakiniku place since a lot of the restaurants either didn't do reservations or required customers to call them for one. Joanne's friend Arissa who is half-Japanese and still has her Japanese phone number helped us booked a table at Akariya. Interestingly enough, there was a dispute going on between a Taiwanese tourist and the restaurant staff when we entered, with the tourist claiming his card was charged a large sum for no known reason, so we were just stood sort of neglected awhile as the staff was too occupied with the dispute. When we finally got our table we ordered lots of Hida beef and also some pork for Wei Jin. It was tasty I suppose, BBQ seldom isn't, but I didn't get the "melt in the mouth" feeling I was hoping for. It was also slightly stressful as mum didn't want to go back too late and was making sure we sped up our BBQing. Another interesting moment when the staff involved in the dispute before came in and requested my help to translate the Taiwanese tourist's Chinese text message from the bank. I did my best, a shame he didn't give us free dessert for my efforts. All in all, it felt like a steal to be having wagyu at a much cheaper price than what we're used to in Malaysia and Singapore, but I had also expected to be wow-ed by the beef and was left wanting for more.

Along with Kyomu no Yado Yamaboshi, The Machiya Hanare villa in Takayama was my favourite stay. The villa is part of a row of buildings sitting by the banks of the main river in Takayama (does it ever flood?) and has a deck overlooking the river, so when you open the sliding doors you can hear the soothing gurgling of the river outside and spy on the people (well, mostly tourists now) on the bridge going about their day. The villa was also tastefully decorated in a mix Japanese and modern style, the bedrooms had tatami mats and shoji sliding doors, and there was also a nice cypress bath in the downstairs bathroom but the living area and kitchen was contemporary. May the Gods grant me enough money so that I may own a vacation home like this some day.

The view from our villa
Shirakawa-go: Yeah... no, I don't think I want to go back for a long time. Don't get me wrong, it is still a beautiful place that's worth visiting, you don't get the UNESCO World Heritage badge of honour for nothing, but what with tourists swarming everywhere, yikes! We had booked a walking tour and our tour guide had a pretty good sense of humour and did a solid job telling us about Shirakawa-go, but there wasn't all that much to see in the first place, mainly admiring the design of the thatched roof houses which is called "gassho style". Mum got bored quite fast and even dad lost interest towards the end. Very picturesque but incredibly difficult to take good photos when there's just so many people wandering around. Before we came to Shirakawa-go we actually went to another much smaller gassho village called Ainokura, I thought they were similar enough and if one didn't want to brave the crowds Ainokura would suffice really.

I think I had enough of Honshu for now. Next on my list for Japan: The Chuugoku and Shikoku region (Tokushima, Okayama)? Or maybe Kyuushu (Miyazaki)?