Wandering Fel

Home Japan Spring

Showing posts with label Japan Spring. Show all posts

8D Avia Japan Trip: Sake Tasting at Takayama Old Town

Award for sake sold at Takayama Old Town Japan

Price for hot sake at Takayama Old Town Japan

Sake drinking area at Takayama Old Town Japan

Heating machine for hot sake at Takayama Old Town Japan

Hot sake bottle for two at Takayama Old Town Japan

Doll decoration at Takayama Old Town Japan

Sarubobo decoration at Takayama Old Town Japan

Do you know what’s the best thing to do after a morning walk by the river? It’s a visit to an old town in Japan. This time we are going to visit Takayama Old Town. The old town has so many kind of shops from daily household shop, souvenir shop, skincare shop, food shops and even sake shop. While all of these shops are charming, I really recommend a visit to the sake shop. This is because the shop owner will allow you to taste the sake for free (while he secretly hoping you to buy few bottles of sake of course). The shop owner (or the tour guide, if you are joining a tour group) will give you a picture of all kind of sake which are available for testing. If you’d like sweeter kind of sake, you can mention the word “amai onegaisimasu” and the shop owner will understand. Well it sounds like broken Japanese I admit, but at least the shop owner understood. Hahaha.

Since the weather is pretty cool outside it’s probably the right time to try out hot sake, especially since it’s only 500 JPY. My brother is not slow to take the offer and the shop owner immediately asked us to go to the drinking area (which looks like a simple cafe) where he puts the machine to heat the sake. He gave us a timer too and told us two simple words “three minutes”. I suppose we just needed to wait for three minutes before the timer alarm us to take the hot sake from the machine. The three minutes rules work for all kind of things I suppose, not just cup noodles. There were no other customers except for two Japanese tourists drinking but I had to admit it was a bit too early for sake-drinking. But hey, we may not be able to visit this place again so cheers!

We spent around 15 - 20 minutes drinking sake until our Mum started to nag us to finish drinking it faster cause she wanted to check the other shops but reluctant to go first by herself. But mom, I don’t think sake is meant for one-shot unless we are super depressed about life. Oh well, I eventually tried to finish it faster with the help of my brother but I did not leave the store without taking one cute souvenir, Sarubobo doll in wooden sake cup. Kawaiidesune~

Good morning from Gifu. After our very packed first day getting through Osaka, Kyoto and ending the day with a stayover at Gifu, we were ready to embark on the second day of our spring Japan tour with Avia tour. Day 2 starts at Gifu with a unique activity which can only be done in Japan. Uhm, nope, I know that river in the old town of Gifu is so beautiful and we do feel like having a morning walk immediately around the old town but we have thing that we need to do here.

8D Avia Japan Tour: Japanese Food Replica Making in Gifu

The activity that we need to do will be done in this one traditional store in Gifu. Oh I wonder if this involves eating snack, which is definitely what I love to do in Japan. I think I have space in my stomach for Japanese snack for sure.

The store is actually selling food replica. Do you notice that most restaurants in Japan display their menu in a wax replica which really looks similar to the real dish (sometimes even better). This is the store where you can buy keychains or fridge magnet in the form of food such as ice cream, dango (i.e. traditional Japanese cake), tempura, sushi, and even a can of spilled coffee or beer. That would be a very fun and harmless prank to pull at one of your friend’s house.

The classroom for the course is situated at the back of the store. The store itself is pretty huge and it seems to be very popular with the tourist because our tour guide emphasize that we have to reach this place by certain timing. I initially thought we will be exposed to intricate and complicated design of food replica but turns out I was worry for nothing.

Venue for food replica making course in Gifu Japan

Oh, are we making fake fruit tarts? Looks at how real the fruit pieces look like. I suddenly imagining myself having a real sweet and fruity tart for after-breakfast-dessert. Hahaha. Since there are 16 of us, we were split into 2 groups but the teacher spoke in Japanese and hence, our tour guide need to explain to us the steps required to make our food replica. Since it involves hot wax, please exercise caution. After a demo has been done, we will have our chance one by one to make our own version of...

...prawn tempura and cabbage. For the tempura, each of us was given the prawn so we just need to wrap the yellow which eventually turn into something which resembles batter. The cabbage is basically made by spreading out the green color wax like crepe and then shape it into a ball by squeezing it slowly. I wish they can be smaller because it’s kinda difficult for me to display them when they look this big. I mean, bigger make it kinda less cuter, right? Hahaha.

After the whole hands-on experience is done, the store staff will hand you a discount coupon yeay! We took our time to check out what we wanted to buy and my mum ended up with 4 fridge magnets in different kind of food. Our fridge door is really full of magnet now. Once you are done shopping, take your time to enjoy the scenery of the surrounding area a few steps outside the store. I really love the view of the river in the old town in Japan. It’s so clean and serene not like the river in the big cities I suppose.

The other side of the river has some flowers which I don’t think are sakura but nonetheless, they look pretty. Brown enjoys the view and sunlight of a clear spring day too.

By the way, where is Gifu? Gifu is actually located within 2 hours of bus ride from Kyoto. Train ride from Kyoto to Gifu takes longer around 4 hours unless you want to take shinkansen to Nagoya instead and then taking bus to Gifu. I read in Tripadvisor that it is cheaper to take an overnight bus from Kyoto to Gifu if you want to save time.

Kyoto has so many attractions but the thing is, it may not be easy to reach some of these attractions because of their location. On my previous visit to Kyoto three years ago, I remember I had to take bus to reach certain destination like the Golden and Silver Pavillion. However, some of the attractions are reachable by taking train such as Fushimi Inari and Arashiyama. Group tour seldom (or never?) includes Arashiyama as part of their tour itinerary. I suspect this is because the need to spend the night in Kyoto if the operator include Arashiyama in the itinerary. But, Fushimi Inari will always definitely in the itinerary of any tour operator whenever Kyoto is included.

8D Avia Japan Tour: Fushimi Inari Temple, Kyoto

As such, Fushimi Inari is always flooded with visitors from inside and outside Japan. All of them came to Fushimi Inari with the same goal, to take a look and take picture (whenever possible) with the many rows of Japanese torii gates (i.e. the red temple gate). The path to the torii gates are located at the very back of the main temple of Fushimi Inari.

Basically you don’t have to worry about not being able to find the torii gates because you just need to follow the crowd. The torii gates along the entire trail are actually donations by individuals and companies. If you are curious how much does a torii gate cost, well it costs around 400,000 yen for the small one and it can reach 1M yen for the large one.

The name of the donators will be inscribed at the back of the torii gates. However, the front sides of torii gates seem to be inscribed with either phrases or prayers, I am not so sure. Oh right, before you decide to complete the trail, let me just let you know that the torii gate trail at Fushimi Inari is actually a hike to the summit of the mountain. So it’s not like a walk in the park because you will keep on hiking and the hike to the summit and back takes around 2 - 3 hours. However, there is no restriction on how far visitor need to walk. You are free to walk just as far as you wish before making your way back.

Written characters on Fushimi Inari’s tori gates

To be honest with you, it is almost impossible to have a clean shot of the torii gates (and yourself) at the beginning of the trail. So it is highly advisable to walk further deeper into the trail at least until you pass by the statue of the fox. Oh right, a bit of background may be useful here. Fushimi Inari temple is built to worship Inari, the Shinto god of rice and foxes are thought to be Inari’s messengers. Hmm, now that I take a closer look at the fox, it seems to have a message scroll on its mouth. I wonder what the message that it’s carrying.

The trail becomes a bit less crowded as we go along but it will be split into two paths with smaller torii gates in front. But if you don’t feel to walk even further (like what happened with this tour group because we only had limited amount of time to spend here), you can just wait for your chance here to get a clean picture without anybody photobombing you. Tough but good things come to those who are patient. LOL.

Photo spot at Fushimi Inari Temple Kyoto

Anyway, we managed to visit Fushimi Inari within less than 1 hour. Of course, we definitely would not have time to spend checking out the temple market but as far as I remember, the market at Fushimi Inari is not as huge as the one at Kiyomisu Dera so you probably should spend more time there. When we made our way back to the bus, we saw a small Japanese cemetery which is probably built for the neighbourhood. The cemetery is so neat and well taken care of. In Jakarta, this would be practically impossible for public cemetery.

On the way to Gifu, we made a stop at BBQ restaurant for dinner and I notice that there’s capsule machine (a.k.a. Gacha machine) which gives Rilakkuma or Korilakkuma. My goodness, they are so cute and I can’t believe that you just need 300 JPY to get them because I bet this will cost at least double in Singapore. The morale of the story is, let’s play gacha when we are in Japan.

Rilakkuma gacha at restaurant in Kyoto Japan

I managed to get Rilakkuma and pretty much happy with what I get after I assemble him hehe. Konichiwa Rilakkuma!

Rilakkuma from gacha machine in Kyoto Japan

Another interesting thing that I bought in Kyoto is definitely related to green tea. Malebranche’s green tea langue de chat (i.e. chocolate biscuit) is pretty good especially when you want to pair it with green tea during tea time. However, the biscuit does not last long so consume them fast.

Malebranche matcha langue de chat from Kyoto

At this point of the tour, I feel that I somewhat join an Amazing Race competition instead of leisure tour. Why is that the case? Well, as you may have heard or aware, temples in Kyoto are popular amongst tourists, especially temples like Fushimi Inari and Kiyomise Dera. To be informed that we basically only have 45 minutes top to (1) make our way to the temple (2) take picture of cherry blossom (3) check out stores along the temple street is basically kinda crazy. Especially with this kind of crowd that we were dealing with.

8D Avia Japan Trip: Kiyomisu Dera Temple, Kyoto

But there’s nothing you can do other than quickly follow the tour leader in front to make your way to what I think it’s the entrance gate of Kiyomisu Dera Temple. Once we have reached this point, the tour leader quickly briefed us that we better off not wandering deeper to the temple ground because you have to calculate your way back via the same crowded street. At this point, my main motivation here is that yummy looking matcha soft serve which everyone seems to carry along the temple street. I have to get my hands on that baby.

But it would be a waste not to take picture of at least the main temple building and the cherry blossom since it’s not really easy to make your way to Kiyomisu Dera (I remember you have to take bus here cause there’s no train station nearby). The sakura flowers seem to be at the end of their bloom when we visited the temple but for us who don’t have the opportunity to see sakura at our own country, we enjoy seeing them at whichever stage I suppose. Except when all of them already on the ground I guess. Hahaha.

We finally found a good spot to take picture with the sakura tree. The side under the main temple will be a good photo spot for you to take picture with sakura tree. The good thing is, there are not many people here as well. By the way, I heard spooky history of Kiyomisu Dera before where people used to jump from the temple above to kill themselves. Well, at least it does not look so spooky during the day especially with a number of human spotted in the premise. XD

Cherry blossom at Kiyomisu Dera Temple Kyoto

Peach coca cola is currently the trending stuff in Japan but since they are available in Singapore, I did not grab any. After all, I cut back my coke consumption nowadays. But I am still unable to resist the temptation of bubble tea sometimes back in Singapore. The weather is just too crazy hot and humid there. Oh right, i did not realised that the packaging for the peach coke in Japan is somewhat different though since they have the limited sakura bottle for the peach coke. You may want to get it if you are collecting the bottle.

Peach coke at Kiyomisu Dera Temple Kyoto

The tour leader has warned us not to get matcha ice cream from the stall with long queue. Since my brother and I are pressed for time, we just went for the stall with not-so-long queue. Come on, there is no stall with no queue at all at this popular tourist spot, duh!

Ice cream and crepe kiosk at Kiyomisu Dera Kyoto

We took a glance at the crepe too but Kyoto is well-known for its matcha so we decided to focus on our main objective: buy and eat matcha ice cream. There are three varieties offered for the ice cream: (A) Deep matcha soft ice cream (300 JPY), (B) Deep matcha & vanilla (300 JPY), and (C) Vanilla soft ice cream (300 JPY). I stick to deep matcha soft ice cream while brother decided to mix it with vanilla. Both taste yummy and I love the fact where the spoon that we use to ice cream is actually a kind of snack.

Matcha soft serve from Kiyomisu Dera Kyoto

Mission accomplished although we reached the bus at the nick of time. I think I really did a good job here. Hahaha.

The trickiest part about joining a tour group is the food. While it’s reassuring to know that meal is provided 3x a day, you will not be able to be so choosy about the variety of the food that the tour is providing you. But then again, it’s part and parcel of a tour group so let’s hope that Avia does not feed us Chinese food in Japan. LOL.

Our first meal in Japan came after our visit to Osaka Castle. Avia brought us to a restaurant alley in busy district of Namba. I actually kinda wonder if the tour will manage to find a restaurant big enough to cater for 27 people (25 tour participants + 2 tour leaders). Turns out big restaurants exist in Japan. I feel so noob. Hahaha.

8D Avia Japan Trip: Kushikatsu Lunch at Namba, Osaka

You can’t really blame me for having such worry though. Because from outside, the restaurant that we visited does not look big at all. Turns out, it has three storeys and hence, able to cater so many people including tour groups. It is frequented by many office worker because of its affordable lunch menu. A lot of Japanese office worker spotted inside the restaurant with the chicken karage set (550 JPY) in front of them. Good economical choice which cannot go wrong (cause fried stuff won’t go wrong).

I was kinda expecting similar stuff served to the tour group. But oh boy, I was so shocked with the amount of food that they gave us for each person. The table has been prepared for all of us and in front of each person there lies a place of Japanese fried noodle (a.k.a. Yakisoba), a plate of three fried chicken (a.k.a. Karage), a bowl of rice and a bowl of miso soup. The chicken karage is served with a mushroom spring roll and do you know how the Japanese love to season their fried stuff with? Yupz, a dollop of mayonaisse (which happen to be my fave too although I like to add chili sauce with it thanks to my Indonesian spicy eating culture). Yakisoba is also one of my fave food in Japan mainly because it’s...fried. I’m fried food queen indeed hahaha. Fried noodle in Japan is leaning toward the sweet side though so you probably want to add some chili powder to it if you prefer savory kind of fried noodle.

While I thought these are all that we gonna get for lunch, the lovely lady owner of the restaurant came with pans of Japanese pancakes called okonomiyaki. We thought the okonomiyaki is for sharing for each family but then she informed our tour leader that the okonomiyaki meant to be one for each person. OMG. As you can see, Japanese pancake is by no means a light dish. It’s an egg pancake filled with ingredients (mostly veggies and sometimes meat) and then it’s heavily seasoned with brown sauce (which kinda similar to takoyaki’s sauce), a heavy dose of mayonaisse, furikake and onion leaves, with a portion of ginger aside. It’s yummy but I was already half full from the yakisoba and karage earlier.

That’s not the end of the meal though because the servers came again this time with what-I-feel-was the best dish of the day, Kushikatsu (Japanese dish of deep-fried skewered meat and vegetables). You can pick from chicken to squid to onion and all of them are fried beautifully. The sauce for kushikatsu is provided on every table in a tin box which are meant for sharing. So please take note that hygiene is very important here. You are only supposed to dip your skewer to the sauce once and that’s it. You can’t possibly dip it once, lick it and dip it again to the sauce container which are meant to be for sharing purpose. Cause that’d be simply eww. LOL.

The lady owner asked us which one is our favourite dish while distributing green tea (matcha) ice cream to us. She was somewhat surprised when I pointed to her that I love the kushikatsu so much. I wonder if she expect me to answer okonomiyaki instead? Oh well, kushikatsu is the winner of my heart that day. Hehehe.

Our tour to Japan with Avia started with a long flight from Jakarta to Singapore and Singapore to Kansai International Airport in Osaka (total flight hours spent around 9 hours). I don’t know why but the older I become, the less tolerance I have toward long flights. Thankfully this flight hour to Japan is nothing compared to Europe or even, USA. I reached Kansai International Airport in the morning so without further ado, the tour started immediately after we collected our luggage.

8D Avia Japan Trip Day 1: Osaka in Half a Day

The tour leader for this trip is called Andhy and he seems to be a freelance tour leader specialised in Japan, Australia and New Zealand. He collaborated with a tour operator + tour agent in Japan of course to bring us to visit some places in Japan. The local tour guide is named Irma and as you may have known from the sound of the name, she’s Indonesian. She has spent around 17 years in Japan and hence has perfect Japanese to assist us to talk with the locals for certain stuff (including shopping, if needed). The journey from Kansai International Airport to the city centre of Osaka took us around 1 hour on bus. Little Brown is getting hungry as the bus strolled on the highway.

From Kansai International Airport to Osaka Castle

When I visited Osaka Castle before by myself (not by tour), I remembered that I have to walk a pretty good distance from the nearest station to Osaka Castle. I suppose one of the plus points about taking tour is that the bus drop you off convenient location to see Osaka Castle and sakura trees which are in season.

However, the minus thing about joining a tour group is that the allocated timeframe to visit Osaka Castle is so minimum, it’s nearly a joke to be honest with you. But we had no choice other than to adher to the time of 15 - 20 minutes to take picture of the castle, the pretty white sakura flowers, my mum with sakura flowers, my bro with sakura + castle and of course, little Brown with sakura flowers. It’s kinda hectic and I barely had the time to enjoy the view. Geez.

White sakura in Osaka Castle garden Japan

Too bad the sky is not blue when we visited Osaka Castle. But then again, the sombre mood of the castle is also quite nice to enjoy. Somemore, I have been into sombre and melancholic mood lately.

Little Brown is enjoying the blooming white sakura. This is his first trip to Japan by the way and I hope he has a great time in Japan. Hehehe.

How to go to Osaka Castle (if you are not on tour):

1. Take subway to the closest station to Osaka Castle: Osakajokoen Station

2. Follow the road sign which lead you to Osaka Castle

Chances are there will be a lot of tourists making their way to the castle and you just have to follow the crowd.

I did not go inside the castle but I recall that the entrance to the castle may be waived if you purchase certain Osaka tourist pass which come with subway ticket and bus pass. According to a friend who has been there, there was nothing much inside the castle, so I don’t think I will give the castle a visit anytime soon since I’d rather use the 500 yen on ramen. LOL.

Subscribe to: Posts ( Atom )

Wandering Fel

8D Avia Japan Trip: Sake Tasting at Takayama Old Town

8D Avia Japan Trip: Japanese Food Replica Making in Gifu

8D Avia Japan Trip: Fushimi Inari Shrine, Kyoto

8D Avia Japan Tour: Express Visit to Kiyomisu Dera Temple, Kyoto

8D Avia Japan Trip: Kushikatsu Lunch from Namba, Osaka

8D Avia Japan Trip: Osaka Castle

8D Avia Japan Trip: Osaka Kyoto Shirakawago Fuji Tokyo