ネイトの来日
Tokyo and points West
September 2017
Just about one year ago, my lifelong buddy Nate came across the Pacific to visit me and check Japan off his bucket list. The two weeks he was here were not nearly long enough, but as we had them timed with my late summer holidays from Sophia, there was nothing to distract us from our awesome voyage.
The first few days were spent in Tokyo, eating at Sushi Dai and some incredibly high-end sukiyaki restaurant (courtesy of my friend Yukari). Pictures below include Hamarikyu Gardens, Shibuya, and Nakameguro. September weather can get a bit gloomy, but I think we did all right for ourselves.
We rode the Shinkansen out West, giving Nate a taste of the Kansai region, which I called home during my exchange in 2005-06. Our first stop was Okayama, on Nate’s request. It’s a small city which home to “Jeans Street,” the production hub of ostensibly all Japanese-made blue jeans. Many years ago the textile factories made school uniforms, but when demand fell off after World War 2 with the introduction of synthetic fibers, they found a second life in denim. There are about two dozen denim shops concentrated in a few small blocks—a real hidden gem of a tourist spot. High quality stuff, too. We ended up with matching pairs of Pure Blue Japan.
With a typhoon storming through the region the night before, the local trains were running especially slowly, so we were forced to cut a few itinerary items, opting to catch a ferry directly to Shodoshima, one of a chain of islands in the Japanese inland sea. We stayed two nights at an inn by the beach and enjoyed the excellent breakfast and multi-course kaiseki dinners, lounged in yukata, slept on futon, the whole bit. For our full day on the island, we rented a car and drove it all around. First stop was the Marukin soy sauce factory. Second was the set of Twenty-four Eyes, a 1954 film based on a book set on Shodoshima (and quite the tear-jerker, too). We took a canyon ropeway ride with incredible views, drove up and over Mt. Kenso, stopped to say hello to a troop of wild monkeys, then visited the 50-foot-tall statue of Kannon.
Our ferry out of Shodoshima docked in the port of Himeji. So naturally, we visited the castle (+15% combat strength for units fighting in friendly territory, free castle in the city). From there we jaunted over to Kobe, met up with my friend Natsumi, got Nate fitted for a pair of custom dragon frames, then caught a Hanshin Tigers game at Koshien Stadium and hit up Osaka for some late-night grub. For whatever reason, I stopped taking pictures in Himeji.
Our final day was spent entirely in Kyoto. As a frequent visitor and five-time veteran tour guide of the city, I managed to pull off an olympic itinerary for us, hitting the Heian Shrine, Nanzenji Temple (not pictured), the Philosopher’s Walk, the Ginkaku-ji (the Silver Temple), Kyomizu-dera, a nightime stroll through through the torii gates of Fushimi Inari (also not pictured), with breaks for lunch and dinner and time to spare for a walk along the Kamo river, all before catching the last Tokyo-bound Shinkansen and rewarding myself a little pat on back.
There are rumors of Nate’s return to Japan in 2019.