Blaby Travels!

  First Stop Our first stop was a standing bar near the station. We were able to try 3 different types of sake (dry, medium dry, and sweet). Second Stop The second place was an izakaya, or Japanese-style bar. We were able to pick a drink and food from the menu. I tried shōchū with matcha, it looked quite green!            Third Stop At the third place we were able to choose one dish and two drinks. It was small but cozy, and we had a great conversation with our group.      Fourth Stop At the final restaurant, the food was delicious and I got to try a new drink! One of the options for drinks was a shandygaff, which is a beer mixed with a ginger ale. This Himeji Bar Hopping Tour was booked through the Travel Network Act ; they have cycling tours and e-bike rentals, too!     

Friday - Sapporo We visited Sapporo last year in the summertime, so I didn't think we'd be back. But here we are again, this time for their famous Sapporo Snow Festival! Sapporo is a city in the northernmost island of Japan called Hokkaido. It's so close to Russia that you'll notice some signs in Russian, and the island is home to some of the snowiest areas in the world. To get to Sapporo from Himeji you have to fly into New Chitose Airport and take either a bus or train to Sapporo City. We spent most of the day traveling to get to the city, and got to Sapporo in the evening. Since our Airbnb was close to Odori Park, where the majority of the the Yuki Matsuri (Snow Festival) snow sculptures are, we spent the rest of the day seeing them. The sculptures are up for only one week, and they receive a lot of tourists from around the world during this time. Saturday - Moerenuma Park & Susukino The next day we visited Moerenuma Park, which has free admission and is closer...

Setsubun is a Japanese festival celebrated February 3rd, but it's not a public holiday so this year the festival was on a Sunday, Feb 2nd! Last year , we went to Himeji Shrine and Sosha Shrine. This year we were invited to Tatsuno for their own local festival to celebrate the beginning of spring. They had a bonfire where you could make a wish and toss in a wooden stick as you walked around the bonfire. After the fire was put out the logs and ashes were spread out and people could line up for a brief fire walk. The event ended with enough time to actually make it to Sosha shrine for their bean throwing. We didn't think we'd be able to do both events so it was nice that it worked out! Afterwards we were able to grab a delicious sukiyaki dinner with friends!    

Nunobiki Falls ( 布引の滝 , Nunobiki no Taki ) are four waterfalls: Mentaki, Ontaki, Tsutsumigadaki and Meotodaki near Kobe's Nunobiki Herb Garden. In the past, we've caught glimpses of one of the falls from the cable car taking us to the Herb Garden. We finally got to walk the path instead to see the falls and the water reservoir up close. The falls also have special significance since they have been inspiration in some Japanese literature and art. One example is The Tales of Ise from the Heian period (794 to 1185AD). Before reaching the water reservoir, there was an area that had a great view of the city and lots of benches to sit down to enjoy the view.  We had lunch at Jesus Pizza. Can't visit Kobe without stopping by here! From there we got ready to walk to Meriken Park and see the annual Kobe Luminarie. The Luminarie event not related to Christmas but is an annual light festival in commemoration to the Great Hanshin Earthquake of 1995 honoring the victims. The first ...

This post is more about our cleaning process for our apartment, and hopefully can help future residents. There is no cleaning service used in between residents so when you move in your apartment cleanliness is pretty much dependent on the previous resident and how they maintained the apartment. The weather also does not help. As depending on how long it was since the previous resident moved out and when you moved in the humidity and hot summer can be a perfect combination for mold/mildew to grow when no one is residing in the apartment. Being from Arizona, we are not used to the humidity and the mold and mildew it can bring. When we got the common cold, we had a lingering cough (breathing issues) which we now think was made worse by some mold/mildew we found in the apartment. We've had to do a lot of cleaning and hope there's no more mold/mildew growth while we're living here. It also make us appreciate the dryness of Arizona!   1. Kitchen Fridge The shelves an...

  Christmas: Blake led an English lessons for the local Japanese community members in our area on Christmas Day. After lessons in the morning, we prepared for a Japanese Christmas meal: KFC and Christmas cake. We also played some games with our neighbors and enjoyed the evening here.    Dreidel  Night: We got together with teachers and had a dreidel night for Hanukkah. For tokens, we got creative and used a mix of gelt, clay, and pom-poms.   New Year's Eve :  We hung out with friends for New Year's Eve at Mt. Shosha again! We took a cable car up and waited in line a few hours to ring the bell. The first 108 people got to ring the bell and received a couple of small gifts including a snake-shaped bar of soap. I was 17th and Blake was 20th. It is a New Year Buddhist and Shinto tradition . Afterwards we walked around Maniden, the temple grounds and caught a cable car down! After New Year's Eve, we also had osechi again under our kotatsu . Osechi is a ...

Day 1, Thursday  Time to visit a new place: Kochi! From Himeji Station we took a ~30min Shinkansen ride to Okayama Station and transferred to the Dosan Line Limited Express train to get to Kochi Station. Overall, it took about 3.5 hours to get there and cost 10,750 per person one-way.   Since we arrived around lunch time, we had to try the meibutsu (local specialty) katsuonotataki , which is seared bonito sashimi. After lunch, we saw Kochi Castle. It's one of only 12 castles with surviving original keeps in Japan.  Day 2, Friday  There is a tourist My-Yu Bus you can use to get around to major attractions around the city. We used it to go to Makino Botanical Garden. The garden is named after Dr. Tomitaro Makino. Dr. Tomitaro Makino is considered to be the father of botany in Japan as he worked hard identifying Japanese plants and lobbied for a botanical garden. Unfortunately, he died in 1957, a year before the Makino Botanical Garden opened.    There's a lo...

  Shimonoseki Fish Market Karato/Kamon Wharf Day1  From Himeji Station we took a Shinkansen to Shin-Shimonoseki Station and transferred to a train to get to Shimonoseki Station. Normally, it'd be about 3.5 hours to get there, but there was a delay as there was a warehouse fire and the Shinkansen was stopped until the fire by the tracks was taken care of and put out. After a long morning traveling on trains, we took a 20 minute bus ride to Karato Fish Market. It has a lot of fresh seafood, available especially their specialty, fugu (pufferfish). The fish market was packed with people and even the restaurants nearby at Kamon Wharf had a long wait time for lunch. We eventually found a place with only a 45 minute wait and ate their fugu sashimi lunch set. It was delicious and we walked around the fish market afterwards.  On our walk back to our hotel, we stopped at Kaikyo Yume Tower to enjoy a nice panoramic view of the city. It was a nice stop to get out of the cold an...