It’s finally happening: the rescheduled 2020 Japan trip! As I am cheap, after airfare refused to cooperate in 2022 for a trip in 2023, I managed to snag a miles deal for cherry blossom season and here we are: doing the thing. The Yen is at like a 30 year low against the dollar, so we booked some splurges on this trip and I am excited for fancy trains and some nice hotels that I don’t know if we’d ever spring for again.

(Don’t remind me that we are remodeling and I probably should have chosen fiscal responsibility over yolo spending)

We have a few goals on our trip:

• After the Tiny Iceland Shower discovery, do not book any places with cramped shower spaces so Rhett is not sad (yes, Iceland really does have tiny showers!!)
• Rhett bonks his head as few times as possible
• Ride trains forever
• Exploit Weaksauce Yen
• Get all the taiyaki and tea
• Attempt to not trigger menieres (easy in Europe, ??? in Japan)

And so, we’re off!

This has been a pitiful winter for snow at home, so naturally the one and only serious snow storm of the season would be occurring over our departure date. Great. I am so excited.

As one laden with an anxious monkey brain does, I watch all the arrivals at the airport the day before our flight like a hawk to make sure all the big planes landed. According to the airport website, they did!

But unfortunately, as I discovered the next day: the airport website lies. Delta sent our Haneda plane to Paris instead and we had to wait on a replacement one, so our flight ended up getting delayed by four hours. Now we’re getting in pretty late and there is no time for crepes or Meiji shrine. Boo. At least it is only 3/4 full and I can watch Curb.

We landed in Tokyo to infinite rain. Rain in Japan is a serious sort of thing, generally lasting for much longer than we’re used to at home. This was rain and wind and cold and it felt like our weather from Minnesota had just teleported across the ocean in a slightly warmer fashion.

But rainy night Tokyo has a magical sort of vibe to it, so I’m not that mad over the crepes (I swear).

All things considered, it would have been a pretty miserable day for sightseeing, so landing late maybe wasn’t the worst thing. Maybe.

Our hotel was really close to Tokyo station and was the epitome of perfect rest stop: dead silent and great showers. They provided slippers, which I immediately placed on Rhett’s size 13 foot and giggled at the entirely unsurprising outcome.

Returning to our trip checklist, I have succeeded with this hotel: the shower was an uncramped success!

Since Covid, Japan has actually finally made some serious improvements to train booking, and I was able to handle it all online beforehand. I just had to pick up our tickets from vending machines and be on our merry way. I gifted Rhett some 7 eleven curry bread (he loved this, as predicted) and was on my way to my vending machine adventure.

This adventure reminds me that I am wholly unfamiliar with Tokyo station’s east/Yaesu side. I’m really good at the other side, with its fancy brick exterior. It’s the exact opposite of the east side, which is an ultra modern building. I meandered a bit in the driving rain to the station, finding some wiggly woobly art exhibit next to one of the new fancy hotels (this hotel was Too Fancy and exceeded my spending quota even with Weaksauce Yen).

I wrestled my jetlagged self free of the grasp of the twisty, fluttery ribbon thing and went onwards to the stations. Fortunately, the east side is where the Shinkansen tracks are, so finding the machines and using them was surprisingly not a problem at all, even running on airplane cat nap fumes.

Upon the return to the hotel, I realized what The Forgotten Thing was: toothbrushes! This is a much better thing to forget then a camera lens! The hotel had freebies lying around, so we availed ourselves and fell asleep.

Our shinkansen to Himeji left at 7am, because we have about two days of stupid sleep ahead of us, so I will use the early morning nonsense energy to my advantage. The sun was coming out and it was beautifully clear, so we got some gorgeous view of Mt Fuji from the train.

The train was blissfully silent until a gaggle of elderly slavic language speakers got on in Osaka and we were just Upset that the perfect peace was ruined. The old people with their non-native tour guides did not know any train etiquette and I judged them. So loud (strike one). So much seat swapping while everyone else was boarding (strike two). And one man watched something on his phone without headphones (strike ten thousand). Fortunately, they didn’t get off at Himeji, so we were free from their cacophony, unlike everyone else on the train.

Himeji! It’s white heron castle. I’ve been here before during the fall (see Himeji castle!). It’s usually a beautiful castle and garden visit, and I built in some extra time to grab a leisurely brunch. I found a great cafe down a side street (thank u googs) and I got a hazelnutty drink and shared a sandwich with Rhett.

After our brunch: time for castle-viewing. Himeji is an old fortress that has been standing for over four centuries. It’s been entirely dismantled once for restoration and also survived WWII bombings.

It’s one of the best places in Japan to see cherry blossoms (allegedly), but the cherry blossoms have been lazy so far. One would think this would keep the crowds down, especially on a Wednesday.

ONE WOULD THINK.

This is entirely wrong. I’ve been checking congestion and visitor volume on the website, since we only have a few hours here. Visiting over lunch shouldn’t be that bad.

But hoooo boy there were people, and Himeji keep was kind of like an extended Disneyland line. All the Japanese people around us were saying two things:

• I was here not that long ago and it wasn’t even this busy and
• The cherry blossoms are not even blooming yet so what gives???

Also gleaned from the people around us was information about the weather, as there’s been a cold snap for the last few days and almost all the blooms were pushed back. Oh.

We had to wait about 15 minutes for tickets, and touring around the keep and the castle was mostly a game of long lines. Ugh! It’s beautiful but not fun to combat the crowds. Plus, the four trees that WERE blooming were incredibly popular…

I didn’t think there was a particularly large crush of foreigners, but maybe because the cherry blossoms are usually out by now and foreigners (like us) can’t just reschedule their entire trip around fickle trees, that’s why so many more people were here today.

But I didn’t cross the ocean on a delayed plane and survive a train full of Slavic Train-Sinners for nothin’.

We wound up all up six stories inside the keep and imagined throwing rocks out of the rock-throwing holes (it would reduce the crowds). You learn about the influential Princess Sen, see some of her restored kimono, and wind through the battlements and apartments. It’s still a great view from the top and a really magnificent structure.

Anyway, pictures.

Don’t skip Koko-en, the gardens just outside the castle gates. This is still my favorite part of Himeji – especially the pine and pond gardens. We arrived in time for Koi feeding and enjoyed the relative quiet of the garden.

On the way back, we chose to not walk down the main road, but detour into the covered shopping arcade. There were way more people over here, and I managed to snag some fresh taiyaki (custard!) from a vendor.

After a day of fighting the crowds and not any invading feudal forces, we hopped back to Kyoto, where we’ll be spending four nights temple hopping. This is the first of the Fancy Hotels – a machiya-style apartment. It’s set far enough away from the city center, so it should be a peaceful respite.

The lobby has infinite free snacks at any time of the day, indoor and outdoor slippers, and children under 12 are not allowed to stay here. Our apartment has all kinds of fun sliding doors and a deep tub. What a gem of a find.

Dinner was a vegan restaurant I found not too far away. They warned me the service was slow since it was almost closing time. Fine – just feed me curry buns! This lady told me my shitty Japanese was really good but I think she is just overestimating my ability to fake it and respond in a socially fluent manner and is really quite forgiving of all my mistakes.

I like this lady and we will be back.

I also keep forgetting Rhett knows no Japanese besides “cowlick” “pine tree” and “sussy baka” so this will be a great 17 days for him after I translate all my conversations with him after the fact. He says he enjoys watching them try to speak English with me until we switch to Japanese and relief floods their eyes so I’ll take it.