Day 8 (Aug 6) - Tour guide from Calgary? Ainokura and Shirakawago

We had booked a tour for 8:30 AM for this day, so we got up at our usual time (between 5:30 and 6:30) and got ready for the day. When we approached the bus terminal, which was next to the station, I was told to go pick up my tickets from the bus office. It was my first guided tour this trip, and they had a tour guide that spoke fluent English. As she was explaining our day, she asked where each of us came from. There was a family from Hong Kong, a family from China, and a guy from France. When it came to our turns, we told her that we came from Canada. Our tour guide was surprised and told us that she lived in Canada for a year. When I asked her where, she responded: "Calgary". What are the chances?

Our first stop was for Ainokura, which was quiet, but filled with Gassho styled houses with the sloped straw-thatched roofs. It was a peaceful town and the residents there seemed to be quite friendly.

After 50 minutes or so, it was time for lunch, so we headed to a location just outside of Shirakawago. Lunch was a fantastic affair, with a variety of food from Gifu (or Takayama I guess?).

Once lunch was completed, we went outside to take a couple of pictures since we overlooked Shirakawago. At that point we were talking to the tour guide and we asked where she lived in Calgary. She didn't quite remember the place, but mentioned a neighbourhood that was nearby... which happened to be the neighbourhood that we lived in! What a small world!

We then had around two hours to explore Shirakawago. There was quite a bit to see, and a lot of small shops to explore. We even got to go inside Kanda House, which was a house turned into a museum of sorts. After visiting Kanda, we got some time to explore the Open Air Museum -- a section of abandoned homes. Unfortunately, we didn't have a lot of time, so we only saw one house. After coming back to our hotel, we set out for supper. We wanted to try out a burger place, but it was fully reserved for the night. We wandered around and finally settled for ramen. And fortunately we did for this ramen was quite scrumptious! 

After dinner, it was off to the convenience store for late night snacks and breakfast.

A fulfilling day and one I would probably do again! Shirakawago and Ainokura were very beautiful places to visit.

Day 7 (Aug 5) - Onto Takayama

The trip from Sendai to Takayama took about six and a half hours. There's a couple reasons for that: the layovers at stations and that there's no direct route to Takayama from Sendai. We had to go south to Nagoya before heading back North, albeit north-west instead of north-east to Takayama. The first part was by bullet train, while the second part was by a limited express train. The limited express train (Hida Wide View) made me reminisce about my first train ride in Japan when I was an elementary student. It was an older train in comparison to other limited express trains that I took in the past (ie: Azusa)

Once we reached Takayama, we went straight to the hotel. We were about 30 minutes before check in time, so they asked us to wait, instead of holding onto our luggage. Once we managed to check in, we headed straight to Old Town, which is the more traditional part of Takayama.

As we walked there, I noticed a lot of foreigners walking around. To this day, I'm not sure why Takayama is so popular with tourists. It's essentially a small city in Gifu with not too much to see (in my opinion, though nice and peaceful). It seemed like most of the tourists were Dutch, tough my Nederlands listening skills are horrendous.

Old Town was pretty though with a variety of traditional streets and shops. We bought some sake for our relatives (Takayama is known for their sake) and I got to try Hida beef -- a type of Wagyu. Looking for more wagyu, we looked for a Hida beef restaurant once we visited a bakery and headed back to our hotel to rest for a bit.

The Hida beef restaurant we found was filled with tourists. We waited 40 minutes or so for a table. I was ready to spend a fair bit for my meal, but to my utmost horror, I saw that we had to cook the meat ourselves. Not wanting it to be a repeat of Saga, I opted for a cheaper (still around $16 CAD) bowl of Bibimbap. There was barely any beef, but the pieces I had were really good! In a sense, I stilled had to cook my own beef because it was raw in my bowl. Nevertheless, we ate our meals, paid and left.

After dinner, we stopped by the closest 7-11 from our hotel, which was about a 10 minute walk, and stocked up on snacks and breakfast.

A busy day of travelling, but we managed to fit in some sights!

Day 6 (Aug 4) - Earthquake in Sendai

I had plans to visit Yamadera in Yamagata and to explore Iwate prefectures. We ended up cancelling those plans and decided to have an easy day in Sendai. Since we had time, we decided to try out their breakfast buffet.

For 1100 yen, one would have the opportunity to stuff their faces with a wide variety of dishes. I had a "traditional" Japanese breakfast with fish and miso soup as my first plate. I finished breakfast with a plate of curry... which isn't probably a dish most people eat as breakfast.

After breakfast, we walked down Hapina Shopping Arcade. They were setting up for the upcoming Tanabata festival events as we walked through the multitude of stores. 

After wandering for a while, we ended up going back to our hotel to gather our laundry. The nearest laundromat was about 10 minutes away, so I grabbed my Switch to keep me occupied at the laundromat. 

The machine in the above photo does both washing and drying. Fortunately, this laundromat was quite comfy in comparison to the ones I went to in Kyoto and Kanazawa. I spent nearly an hour playing Monster Hunter Generation Ultimate. Once laundry was done, we headed back to the hotel to relax before heading back out to the station to search for dinner.

They had a variety of bento boxes to pick from. As my brother was putting down a bento box he was checking, I swear I felt the ground start to sway a bit. All of a sudden, phones around me started to blare out an Emergency Alert as the ground started to sway back and forth. The multitude of light fixtures on top of us swayed as well, but ironically quite gently. After a few seconds, the ground stopped moving and we stared at one another. It took a few seconds, but we realized that we had our first earthquake. Most individuals around us though carried on with their tasks throughout the earthquake without batting an eye. I guess it shows how often it occurs in Japan.

We ended up getting Gyutan bento boxes. Before heading out of the station, we stopped to purchase cheese tarts and Zunda shakes. Before heading back to the hotel, we went to the nearby 7-11 to grab breakfast and additional snacks.

A normal day that turned out to be extraordinary. I later found out that it was a 6.2 magnitude earthquake. Fortunately, it was off the coast (with no risk of Tsunamis) and didn't do any damage to anyone!

Day 5 (Aug 3) - Aomori Prefecture

Aomori is quite a distance away from Sendai, being that it's the most Northern prefecture of the main island. I got up at around 5:30 to prepare for our 7:22 AM train. We booked tickets ahead of time since it would be aboard the reserve-only Hayabusa train. After transferring to a local train, we finally arrived at our destination: Aomori City, which is the capital of Aomori prefecture.

Our first stop was for Furukawa Fish Market. It's known for allowing you to create you own Seafood Bowl by purchasing tickets from a stall and proceeding to different fish mongers/stalls (that are participating) to see what they have caught for the day. It was a pretty fun event, walking up and down the market surveying the fresh catch from different stalls. Most stalls had something different -- very little overlap with stalls. After wandering around for nearly 15 minutes, I finished constructing my bowl.

The fish wasn't as fresh as I thought it would be, but I enjoyed my meal greatly. The miso soup and pickled vegetables were a nice touch to the meal. I would definitely recommend anyone who travel to Aomori to give it a try! The only issue was we went on a Saturday, so it was somewhat busy. After finishing constructing my bowl, it took another five minutes to look for an empty seat to eat my meal.

After breakfast, we ventured to Hirosaki. We did have to wait about half an hour for the train to Hirosaki, so we found a farmer at the station selling apple pie. I regret not buying the different varieties he had for sale.

Once we got onto the train to Hirosaki, we literally had 120 minutes to find the castle and explore. I was worried that we weren't able to get seats back to Sendai since it was nearly Obon and people usually travel home during this time. I booked our return tickets back, thinking five hours in Aomori prefecture would be more than enough. I was sadly mistaken, meaning that we only had 90 minutes or so to explore Hirosaki castle. We didn't enter the castle grounds because of the time crunch, but we managed to catch a "early" bus back to the station.

Once we were back at Shin-Aomori station (to take the shinkansen back to Sendai), we had about half an hour before our train would arrive. I ended up buying an ekiben to enjoy on the ride back. I ended up eating it, along with a crust less peanut butter sandwich for a meal.

After arriving back at Sendai, we rested at our hotel for a little bit before heading out to find dinner. We found a Ringer's Hut, which has Champon -- a noodle dish inspired by Chinese cuisine. We ventured to the Pokemon Centre near the station before shopping for breakfast for the next day.

Two days in Tohoku so far and I'm quite enjoying the atmosphere this region provides in comparison to Tokyo. Sendai is busy, but no where as crowded as Tokyo. Aomori has a really rustic feel that makes it feel like "authentic" Japan. After digging my head (for the last minute or so), why I find it authentic, could be traced back to when I first went to Japan at the age of 9. I was with my dad and we were visiting his parents/my grandparents in the countryside.

So far though, waking up extremely early has led to productive days! I wonder how long it'll last though...

Day 4 (Aug 2) - First day in Sendai

Waking up super early was the theme for this trip. We checked out of our hotel at around 7 AM and headed towards Shinjuku Station to head towards our next destination: Sendai. As you can tell in the picture below, streets were quiet early in the morning.

The trip to Sendai was about an hour long. Not knowing that the Shinkansen to Sendai was reserved seats only, we had to stand by the doors. As we arrived at Sendai and exited the station, the first thing I noticed were the various amount of streamers set up to celebrate the upcoming Tanabata Matsuri or Star Festival. Even though it's normally celebrated on the 7th day of the 7th month, Sendai does it in August. From my understanding, they base it on the Lunar Calendar.

Our hotel was only a short walk from the station. We dropped off our luggage before heading towards the bus depot to find the Sendai Loople Bus that would take us to the touristy spots around Sendai. Since the Daimyo, Date Masamune was credited as the founder of Sendai, many sites were dedicated to him. We started with his Mausoleum, which was extremely grand.

Besides his Mausoleum, I believe they had constructed Mausoleums for his son and grandson as well.

After our first location, we ventured onto the ruins of Aoba Castle (Sendai). We got to try Gyu-tan (Beef Tongue) here, which is a dish that is well known in Sendai. I quite enjoy beef tongue, but it was extremely exquisite here! Also, if you get the Loople Bus Day Pass, they give you a 100 yen discount on your meal.

After checking out the souvenir shop and purchasing some snacks for relatives, it was off to our final Date Masamune spot - Osaki Hachimangu. This shrine was, (as I found out today) constructed by Date to honor the Shinto God of War. Hachiman. Hachiman was also viewed as the general guardian of Sendai.

After visiting these three sites, we headed back to the hotel to check in. Our triple room was quite spacious and each bed was quite comfy. After settling in for a while, we headed back out to visit Matsushima, which housed one of the "Three Sights of Japan". Being only a 30 minute train ride, we got to the location quite quickly. What makes Matsushima famous is that it has 260 islands covered with pine trees. It was hard to view it from the ground and we weren't able to make it on a tour boat to venture around the bay to see the islands. We did, however, manage to walk to Fukuura Island via a long red bridge.

Not staying too long since there wasn't much else to see, we headed back to Sendai to grab a bite at Tokyo Soup Stock located within the station. I first noticed this chain restaurant back in 2014 when we were leaving (or was it arriving) Narita Airport, but I never tried it out till this day. I had to say that my meal was extremely good!

Finally, as we ventured back towards our hotel to crash for the night, we stumbled across a Zunda Shake stall. Sendai is known for the edamame treats, and a Zunda shake is apparently one of the more famous edamame snacks. It was essentially a vanilla milk shake with a hint of edamame.

Extremely delicious.

Day 3 (Aug 1) - Odaiba and Mitaka

I apologize for the delay in post. I was feeling quite fatigued and ill last night, thus went to bed early. I didn't end up sleeping till 6:00ish... so I guess I'm more jet lagged than I thought I was.

As for Day 3 -- I woke up at around 4 AM that morning. I was able to crash right after we got back to the hotel at night, but woke up a lot earlier than I thought I would. After lying in bed for about an hour, I got up and ate breakfast before heading down to the lobby for the hotel's complimentary breakfast.

Once we were all up and ready, it was off to Odaiba to see teamLab's Borderless. I've seen clips online of the museum and a few friends who went to this place recommended it to me. We spent around 40 minutes exploring the different exhibits. Rooms did not stay the same, for the art was flowing from one place to another.

After Borderless, we ventured to the nearby Toyota Megaweb Dealership. There were a number of new sights, including the new GR Supra. I have to say that it looks better in person than in pictures. We also got the chance to play a Gran Turismo simulator they had set up, simulating the new Supra. I initially thought we got to race one another, but it ended up us racing AIs. I was a little suspect since the Supra was beating extremely fast cars in the game...

After Toyota, we ventured for lunch at Kokugikan Mai -- on top of AquaCity. It's a ramen alley that had 6 different shops with 6 different flavors. We opted for Hokkaido Miso Ramen.

Once lunch was over, it was straight off to DiverCity to see the new Gundam Base, which replaced the smaller Gundam Front. It was huge, with a wide variety of custom built Gundams displayed from previous winnners. After venturing for a while, I brought up the idea of heading off to Mitaka to see a specific Subaru dealership called Car Do Subaru. What made this dealership special is it's upstairs floor.

They had a 22b (Holy Grail of Subarus) on display! Besides that, there were a whole lot of other Subaru cars to see including an old rally Legacy and Impreza. There was also a S208 on display.

Once that was done, it was back to Shinjuku for dinner and to check in for the night.

Day 1&2 (July 30th and 31st) - Start of Japan 2019!

As it is my fourth summer in Japan over the past six years, it seemed pretty routine. I no longer had the deep desire, nor initial excitement that I had in 2014 and 2015, but I was happy to be on vacation. The weather was nice as our mom drove us to the airport. Checking in and security took literally 5 minutes. The gate at the international airport in Calgary was quiet like a few years back. Since we explored it a couple years back, we opted to just sit and wait till we had to board our flight.

Unlike two years back, we were in a Boeing 767-3 aircraft. It feels slightly dated, in comparison to the 787, especially when it comes to the in-flight entertainment system. Nevertheless, I had Friends downloaded on my phone and Seven Deadly Sins to read to keep me entertained. I did watch Infinity War (first time) and parts of End Game (first time as well) to round up the 10 hours and 15ish minutes. Fortune was on our side, for our flight was practically turbulent free. Also, there wasn't anyone sitting behind me so I was able to recline my chair back into a comfortable position!

After arriving at the airport and going through immigration, my brother and I headed to a somewhat quieter spot to set up our phones with data only Japan SIM cards that we got this time around instead of a wi-fi modem. Unfortunately, my SIM was a dud, thus wasting ten minutes trying to get it to work. After my brother got his SIM card to work, we headed down to the JR Ticket station at the basement floor of Narita Terminal One to trade in our JR Rail Pass Vouchers. Due to our trip being longer than three weeks (our vouchers were three weeks), we opted to start our Rail Pass a couple days later -- to make use of our first major train travel!

After getting our Rail Pass, we purchased tickets for the Narita Express and headed towards the track to wait for the train. I'm not sure why, but it has always been cloudy every time we travel from Narita to Shinjuku, though granted it has only been twice (2015 and 2019 -- 2014 was straight to Hokkaido while 2017 was straight to Okinawa). I had to admit, I was trying to muster excitement over the 70ish minute train ride, but I was unable to do so. Once again though, it was vacation and I was glad to be able to travel.


Our first hotel was City Lonestar Shinjuku. It was relatively close to the station, with each of us (including a third member that we met up with at the hotel) with our own rooms. Since it was a single room, the room was extremely small (the bed took up about 60-75% of the room), but very clean. After settling in and getting changed into my shorts (I always wear sweats on the plane), it was off to Roppongi. I never been to Roppongi to explore, so I was excited to see what it had to offer. We managed to find Roppongi Hills, a towering skyscraper that is apparently similar to Sunshine City in Ikebukuro where it's a city within a city (housing, entertainment, sustenance and whatever you can think of in one location). There was some sort of festival/event set up I believe. After wandering around for a while, it was off for some food. I did had a rice ball and drink before Roppongi, but I was starving at this point.

Back in 2017, our friends introduced us to Uobei, a conveyor belt sushi restaurant, in Shibuya. Like Muten Kura Sushi, it was fun though I personally like Uobei better since sushi is made on demand and shipped out to you on a conveyor belt. 

After filling our stomachs, we headed back towards the hotel to grab breakfast at a nearby convenience store. A long day of travel, but with new sights and familiar food. All in all, a great way to start the trip!