Japan

One thing I was really looking forward to while living in Korea was getting to travel to nearby countries during my breaks. That obviously wasn’t applicable during the pandemic, but before it started I was able to visit Japan for the first time! Looking back at my previous blog posts, I realized I had already written a short piece on my Japan travels… You can tell I look back on my posts often heh. Despite this, I hope you all enjoy a longer post about the trip! 

I had a friend (J) teaching English over there so my friend in Korea (B) and I planned to visit her during our first winter break. We booked our flight to Japan through I think Kansai International Airport in Osaka and landed there near the end of January 2020. It was a later flight, so the only thing we did that day was eat food at a ramen place nearby. 

The next day was pretty chill too as my friend and I were tired from the flight and traveling around Seoul the week before. We stayed at our friend, J’s place while she was working at school. After work, she met up with us and we explored her city of Akashi. We went to this pretty, colorful bridge lit up at night.

Our third day in Japan, the second full day, my friend and I took a train to Himeji Castle while our friend was working. We were able to walk around the castle grounds and follow a pathway throughout the castle itself, which was really cool. There was a shopping area nearby, so we did some clothes shopping (cause boy was it chilly!) and stopped by a Starbucks for Wi-Fi cause neither one of us thought we needed to get a Wi-Fi egg. Note for anyone thinking of traveling to Japan, don’t be like us–get a Wi-Fi egg or something similar! Once our friend was done with work, we met up with her and a few of her English Teacher friends at a vegan restaurant in Himeji. 

The fourth day in Japan took us to J’s high school as we spent the day going around with her to her different classes and meeting her students. Coming from a classroom of 8-11 year-olds with minimal English proficiency, it was a stark contrast to J’s higher level English speaking students. I was super impressed with their levels of English, as well as the different topics they picked for their debate and English conversation classes. The students seemed all very kind and sweet, and definitely found it exciting to have 2 more American English teachers in their school that day 🙂 For dinner that evening, we went to a local English teacher’s birthday dinner in the Hyogo prefecture, which was a few train stops away from where J lived. It was a different experience seeing just how many native English teachers were in the same area together, compared to the ten in my city back in Korea.

Remember when I mentioned getting that Wi-Fi egg, or something like that so you could have phone service? Well, once we returned from the birthday dinner that night, J’s apartment electricity had been shut off for an unknown reason, so B and I were without any phone service for the night, and hadn’t had any during the whole day while at J’s school. It was a funny (albeit tragic at the time) moment. It’s a little scary not having phone service in a different country, even if you’re there with friends. So again, don’t be like us, please I’m begging! Makes for a good story though, eh?

Our fifth day in Japan was a Saturday and the start to J’s time off from work for a few days. We had a planned trip to Osaka and Kyoto for our last few days, and hopped on the train to go there. After arriving in Osaka, we met up with yet another of J’s native English teacher friends as well as that friend’s two other friends. (Lots of friends, am I right?) We had lunch at this Surf Brunch place and stopped by our capsule hotel to drop our stuff off. It was B’s and my first time staying in a capsule hotel. In this particular one, each “room” has twelve capsule beds split into two smaller “rooms” with a sliding door for more privacy. Since we had 6 people on this trip, we were able to take one of the smaller rooms for ourselves. On the outside of this 12 bed “room” was a door with a keypad for even more privacy. This was a capsule hotel we were staying at, so there was a nice bathroom/shower setup, plus gym and swimming pool access (though this was the end of January, so no swimming for us). 

Once our travel bags were left behind in lockers (yet again, more security), we set out on our trip for the remainder of the day. Our first stop was a hedgehog cafe. Gotta admit, hedgehogs are cute, but bitey creatures. The one I was sharing with J’s teacher friend bit her and nearly bit me at one point :’). After that we tried to find dinner, but J’s friend had something particular she wanted, so we passed by all these nice places while she tried to figure out what she wanted. Safe to say, that dinner was not tasty. Before heading out of that particular section of Osaka, my friend and I stopped by another Starbucks (hello Wi-Fi & bathrooms). Then, the gang went to the Osaka Aquarium, which was SO. COOL. First of all, this aquarium was huge. There was this massive whale lit up at the front entrance, and the entire surrounding area had similar marine life lights shining at night. Second, you had to take an escalator down to the entrance of the aquarium. Third, you kept going down. The aquarium setup was designed so that you basically circle downwards in these big loops as you take in all the marine life the place had to offer. There were different sections that branched off, but everything eventually wound back together, so you never had to double back. It was awesome; definitely the highlight of Osaka. 

Sixth day in Japan, Osaka Day 2. Our first stop was the castle in Osaka. You could pay to enter the grounds, but since B and I had already done that in Himeji, we weren’t really invested in paying to see other similar castle. Next door, there was a history museum, which was free, so we did go through that. Part of the museum had miniature figures of historic Japan. I had my first fried sweet potato as we were wandering around the outside area after the museum. It was perfect for a cool day and tasted so good! You just peel the skins off and eat it just like that. I don’t remember what we did after that, but I know J’s friend was leaving early that day so after they said their goodbyes, the remainder of the group went to a grilling place for dinner then the capsule hotel for bed. 

The next day, day seven, J’s teacher friend’s friends were also taking off, so we said goodbye to them, checked out of our capsule hotel, then hopped on another train to Kyoto. I think Kyoto is my favorite city in Japan. We went to the area near the Fushimi Inari Shrine for food and shopping. There was this really cool tatami Starbucks (yes, yes, I know another Starbucks) where you could sit on tatami mats inside the store, and it was a very old-fashioned designed place. Looking through my phone pictures, I couldn’t believe I didn’t take any pictures of the place! So please, search for “Kyoto Starbucks Tatami” and look at the pictures of it, cause it’s so cool! The next stop in the shopping area was a Studio Ghibli store, since all three of us were huge anime fans. I bought this cute little forest spirit plush while there. I wanted to buy the whole store, but thought that might be a little excessive. After the coffee and shopping, we went to the famous Fushimi Inari Shrine, which is surrounded by lots of little shops (mostly selling touristy things). The shrine itself was honestly quite magnificent to see, even if it was super busy. According to Google, you can hike 2-3 hours to the summit of the mountain and back if you so choose, or just walk along the shrine’s trails as far as you want. There were lots of spots that branched off to new trails, so you could definitely spend a long while just wandering around the area. It was nearing nighttime when we took the train back to J’s place. Sadly her electricity was still shut off, so we had to use our phone’s flashlight to pack our bags for our flight the next day. It was chilly at night, but thankfully J had plenty of blankets to keep us warm while we slept. 

After landing back in Korea, my friend and I were so happy to be able to read signs and kind of understand things! And to have phone service! Korean is so much easier to read! Japanese is a beautiful language, but Kanji is so so hard to read. Despite a few things, it was a nice trip to Japan! There were two things I wish we had done differently, though. One, Wi-Fi egg. Sounds silly, but it would have made things so much easier having phone service to at least look for things to do nearby, or literally just use maps to find our way around. Two, eat better food. I wasn’t super impressed with the food we did eat in Japan. The ramen place that first night and a curry spot on I think our day in Kyoto were the best meals we had. A lot of convenience store food (“konbini” in Japanese). I’m not a seafood person, so all that was out right away. But I would have loved to try some other things while there. 

It’s been nearly three years since I’ve been to Japan. It was an interesting experience that first time; definitely not what I had expected, but still a fun time. I’m hoping to get to go to Japan in the next couple of years, so if any of you have suggestions on what to do, where to go, what to eat, please let me know! Stay tuned for my next blog: Busan Part 2. Oh, and happy new year!