Takoyaki, an Osaka specialty or as the cook called it, Osaka “soul food”.

Time is money in Japan, so at this restaurant, you order from a vending machine…

…and out pops your dish. Well not really, but you do order from the machine. Come on Japan, I would’ve expected that from you.

Osaka Castle

A ferris wheel.

At the Osaka aquarium. They had two whale sharks.

The big guy was sitting there minding his own business when the other guy came and gave him a small tap. They both then stood up and spread their arms and stayed in this position forever.

No thanks woman. (I set this up on a timer…sad)

Dotonbori Street

Another specialty of Osaka is their okonomiyaki, which is a sort of pancake dish. My batter was filled with pork, shrimp, cuttlefish and various veggies, which was grilled in front of me. However, you can do it yourself if you wanted to. I just let the pro handle it.

It’s then topped with special sauce, mayo and bonito flakes.

I finished the night off strong with beer and waffles.

Thanks Japan for the good times.

MORE

Kobe!

The streets of Kobe.

The Maritime Museum. At a certain angle, it looked like a boat. Neat.

Ferris wheel

Story behind this is that this clock fell because of the earthquake, causing it to stop working at the exact time of the earthquake. They left it as it was and it’s now a memorial.

For those that have been to Japan, this should be a familiar sight. I walked into every one I came across trying to find that Black Thunder ice cream that Hanna freaking loves. Could not find it.

I was excited to see the deer and after a bit of walking, saw them right away just relaxing in the park. They have completely adjusted to the many tourists that come through, so they will walk right up to you especially if you have food. Some even learned to bow their heads asking for food. It was all interesting, but sad seeing these deer being toyed around with by some tourists. As least there’s harmony between the city residents and the deer.

This guy snatched the map out of my pocket to eat it. I thought he was going to spit it out after he realized it was just paper, but he kept going and just ate the whole thing. Thanks for that buddy.

“Sup”

The Todaiji Temple

There was a huge buddha inside.

A Nara barber

I found out there was a sake brewery in town so I went sake tasting. I found out it’s all about the quality of the rice. They also had this one sparkling sake, which was really good.

Sake ice cream!

The Fushimi Inari Shrine is for the Shinto god of rice who uses foxes as his messengers. So there were a bunch of fox statues here. Also, it is known for their torii gates, which are everywhere. I had a field day because the orange on the gates came out so well on the camera.

The Kyoto train station was amazing.

I ordered a mini “kaiseki” for lunch where they bring several small dishes at a time for you to eat. It was good, and definitely the tofu, which is what Kyoto is known for, was delicious.

At the Kiyomizudera Temple, there are two stones called the “love stones” where if you can walk safely from one to the other while closing your eyes, you will have good luck in love.

There was a graveyard nearby the temple and it looked like a city from above.

On the streets of Gion, which is a district know for its geisha. Supposedly it’s rare to see one, so I was walking around with my camera ready. It’s like they were animals and I was on some geisha safari.

I found mini beers, and they even came in a mini six-pack.

Speaking of the train ride there, as we got higher in the mountains, it started to snow. I rode a train through the Japanese mountains during a snowfall. It’s things like this that make traveling so great. I like traveling for moments like these, which turn into memories. This one was a keeper. It’s like that one scene in Forrest Gump where towards the end, Forrest is explaining his past experiences by sharing one certain memory from each event. One day I will do the same.

Well, once I arrived, which took about 7 hours by train, we briefly looked around his small town where he is the only English speaker. Seriously, everybody knows him because of this fact, and he was greeted on multiple occasions as we were walking around. I then met one of his friends, Keiko, who then graciously invited us for dinner that night with her family. Keiko was definitely cool, and she spoke some English. We helped cook part of the dinner, then it was time to eat. I had such an amazing time at dinner getting to talk with locals, and just feeling loved by people that I have just met. They also saw me praying before my meal, so they asked if I was Christian. After I said that I was, they asked me to pray again, but for everyone. No way. So I did, and was also able to lift up a prayer for Keiko’s husband’s back, which they told me was having some problems beforehand. PTL!

Brian and I with Keiko and grandma.

This is what we had for dinner, which was all from scratch. Need I say more?

The rest of the time in Tottori was spent sightseeing. It was great to reconnect with my buddy, but also thankful that I was able to have that dinner with Keiko’s family. It was probably the highlight of my entire trip.

This was Brian’s house, insane. It was also nuts seeing Brian bust out his Japanese.

Being in a small town, we had little heaters to warm us up in the house, which had to be filled with…kerosene. Nice.

There was a nearby dairy farm, which Brian claimed had the best ice cream, but they were closed. On the way up, his awesome toy of a car was just cruising up the snow covered mountain roads with ease while we drove past other cars putting on their chains. His car is also awesome because it’s a car straight out of a Japanese cartoon.

Did I also mention that he lives like 10 minutes away from the slopes? Dang, if I were in his position I’d be practicing to be pro by the time I returned to the States.

Adachi Garden: Voted #1 in Japan.

The Matsue Castle

I wonder if this Samurai was rockin’ a soul patch underneath as well. Bonus points if he was.

My visit fell on Brian’s birthday so we went out for sushi. This place was popping, and we had to wait about 30 minutes, but it was well worth it.

Toro was my favorite of the night. It literally melts in one’s mouth. Delicious, no, DANG delicious.

Victory!

Tottori was cool, and I was so glad that it was part of my trip. It was a nice break from your normal tourist attractions, and I was able to get a better grasp of this wonderful, but complex culture. One example they were explaining to me was about the uber politeness. Along with what seemed to be a good characteristic, there is also a lot of faking and judging underneath it, so it can be really hard to get to know someone really well. Interesting.

On to Kyoto!

In terms of politeness, I’ve never had so many people say “excuse me” and “sorry” in such a short amount of time. This place was so polite that I was starting to get nervous in the way I presented myself because I didn’t want to offend anyone. I caught myself bowing on multiple occasions, but when in Rome…

Besides that, Tokyo is definitely a cool city, and their excellent metro system made it super easy for me to get around.

Saw a few of these in the city. Great restaurant I heard.

I went to a popular donkatsu place, Tonti, and you can watch them make it in these huge vats. There were also a lot of grandpa’s working at the place, and it made it that much better.

At the Tsukiji fish market, you can head over there around 5 in the morning to see the Tuna auction, but it was too early for me. I still checked it out because you can eat really really really fresh sushi for breakfast, and check out the market. Those are some big crabs.

I couldn’t believe that there was a place that just sold tamago. Tamago’s the last thing I want to spend money on when I eat sushi, BUT, they were giving out samples and it was not the tamago I was used to in the states. This tamago was dang delicious. The store had purpose.

Fresh sushi from the fish market.

I also made a visit to the Studio Ghibli Museum. Studio Ghibli is Hayao Miyazaki’s studio, and is like the Disney of Japan. The place was interesting, but took some work in actually getting tickets. I knew you had to buy tickets in advance, but since they didn’t have a place for me in China, I had to ask my dad to buy them for me in the States then mail them over to Beijing to take with me to Japan. Thanks pops. If you’re a Miyazaki fan, you should recognize this guy. I didn’t because I have only seen about four of his films.

Harajuku (there’s a girl looking at me in the picture). I wish I saw more cosplay people.

They put a whole cheesecake in this crepe. Of course I ate it, and it was amazing.

At the crazy intersection they always show on TV when talking about Tokyo. It’s in Shibuya where they had a store called the Loft that sold everything from travel gear to art supplies. It was amazing, and I picked up some awesome ear cleaners.

1. Good ol’ home cooking at TP’s grandma’s home
2. Buchingae
3. Popcorn chicken off the street
4. Mr. Wow hot dogs
5. Coffee & cake
6. Kyochon chicken

Korea’s amazing. They have these little tents set up all over town, and if you’re hungry, you just walk in at eat some odang. After you’re full, you just leave and continue on your way. You don’t even have to pay. Amazing.

At the Costco in Korea, they sold Bulgogi Bakes. It was good, and it tasted like a Philly Cheesesteak.

Met up with Jin the MC and Kaila to go to Korea’s happiest place on earth…EVERLAND!

They had a section called American Adventure or something to that extent. They did a good job with the streetlights, but they forgot to cover the streets in gold.

On to Japan!