Boog's Blog

QB taking a day off to stay in a hotel, and avoid being outside and wearing herself out. However, Namba is so big that even an inside stroll is tiring. Takashimaya about the size of Macy’s NYC or maybe a bit bigger. The only service I have not seen in this station/compound is a 100 bed hospital – but all corners have not been explored as yet.

Luggage transported from Echizen Village arrived on time and wrapped in an excessive amount of plastic. Plastic is ubiquitous on everything. Almost everything is wrapped or sealed in it. Picnic dinners require a large plastic bag for disposal. Thought WFoods wasteful, of course it is, but here more so.

Wandering ended for QB at a Starbucks Reserve, one of the so many Starbucks close together. KB went on a stroll to the kitchen supply area.

Checked out the knives of course. These are the closest to Takada’s a preferred maker of ours.

Back to Dotonbori. The street is well known for its street food. Osaka seems to be known for street food.

Every food stall passed had a line. Only variation was the length of the line.

Originally thought it was the cruise line but wherever we go we find just the same few items as above

Pre-dinner spa (QB went but was not happy with the women’s side, small, dingy), men’s side lovely and the best of all hotel ones visited. While soaking one person almost tripped over me. Gomen Nasi, repeated (sorry, excuse me). After a bit I realized he is blind. Seemed to find his way around the large room so I am guessing he is a regular.

Non-picnic dinner for a change. QB can now taste some food. Dim Sum seemed to be a good choice.

Baseball crazy town, and time. From The Guardian.

A large police presence in downtown Osaka means there is unlikely to be a repeat of the canal-diving antics should Hanshin win the series decider on Sunday. Instead, the commercial city, whose people pride themselves on their carb-heavy street food and sense of humour, will mark the team’s feat with department store sales and cut-price deals at bars and restaurants.

In Kanazawa, we stayed at a Japanese business hotel. The buffet had virtually no western food and what little they had a ran out of quickly. Had an excellent spa. Excellent yukatas is in the room but no bathrobes, low furniture, buckwheat pillows. The electrical plug is required by innovative adaptive solution, hardly any of the staff spoke any English, no hooks, no luggage racks.

In Osaka very different. Large westernized, business hotel. Outstanding buffet, spa, with high security and three levels of entry., no yukatas, asked for, and got foam pillows replacing the feather ones, electrical plug westernized, all staff seems to speak good English,

QB still suffering, has started a course of antibiotics

Retailing in cities: every which way we turn, including up and down, there is massive retailing. Stores are crowded. Passageways are crowded. Markets are crowded. Everything is crowded. You can walk along and market area and every 50 to 100 feet you hit another drugstore that has many times. What a CVS would have. Department stores are generally nine floors.

After wandering along Dotonbori – a well-known street along the canal – we went and search for tea.

Was fruitless to search for black tea, other than the one type of Japanese black tea that we do not favor. The only solution: Starbucks. There are Starbucks everywhere, and they have good English breakfast, tea, and you can get two teabags, and a large size.

We did try to get tea in a department store and we were advised first to use B1 then 2 then 10 then 9th then 5F and we finally gave up and went to Starbucks

Finally got a small bit of rain on the walk back to the hotel. My hat got slightly damp.

QB is possibly feeling slightly better. Unable to commit to actual feeling yet.

Thunderbird Shinkansen to Osaka

At the station picked up a few tax-free items. What is the note is the plastic bag? It says we must keep the items in the plastic bag until we leave the country. Have not seen anywhere else in our shopping adventure.

The route passes through several Onsen towns each with their unique public baths.

In general the term hot spring refers to a spring containing at least 1 component in the 19 kinds of essential substances listed in the Hot Spring Law or containing an existing solvent substance with more concentration than in the specified amount or mineral water/hot water having a temperature superior to 25 degrees.

Washing stations on the right hand side. Soap up wash, hair, face, whole body with cloth and when completely clean then you go into the type of bath on the left. Many places have just one large pool. I have seen several with hot and cold water. Temperature generally about 104 to 106.

We have been to Onset towns that have had seven different public baths each with their own unique, waterfalls, rocks, etc. see blog from 2015 for that visit great food great service fabulous baths.

Okonomiyaki and yakisoba (greasy noodles under salad). Teppan prep and teppan serving.

Shopping for dinner at the bottom of Takashimaya

Fauchon first.

Spa, of course, prior to dinner. Big and warm 106 F

Not especially hungry after that big greasy lunch

Staying an extra night in Kanazawa for QB to regain a bit of energy. Today she is very tired, head hurts, skin hurts. Napping as I write this.

Weather- none but heat.
We packed lots of rain gear for the famous rain in Kanazawa, hiking and elsewhere. Cold weather hiking stuff. To date not a drop of rain has hit our heads and most days in the mid to upper 70’s. Even hit 81 yesterday. So much for puffy jackets and rain gear.

Breakfast at hotel buffet skipped in favor of tea and french toast in the hotel lobby. QB needed some decent tea and a bit of western food. Buffet not suited for western tastes.

Headed to the Kanazawa station to get tickets to Osaka tomorrow. Line at JR counter would have been an hour or more. Braved the automatic ticket machine. Naturally needed and got some help. Pic shows the complications – no English.

Very busy station. Taxi line 30 or more deep.

Station is enormous as to be expected in a major city. Even a department store, uncountable number of food choices and gift choices,

7-Eleven has a large store, again no surprise. This is just a very very small sampling. The triangles are 123, a favorite of George and QB. Many flavors.

Sandwich section

7-Eleven here has 9 registers, all had queues.

Off to the Edo section, the old samurai section. Just a few buildings remain, three to be exact. Museum, house, soldier house.

Soldier entryway

There are a number of these relics still scattered about.

Picnic dinner

Finishing up Kanazawa with public baths – both of us. A nice way to finish up.

A change of plans

Due to illness, a bad cold, not COVID (QB tested twice) – long boring story about getting covid tests today as it is a national holiday and all pharmacies are closed. Well, almost all.

Bad colds and non-familiar Japanese foods do not go well together. Found a FoodMarket to stock up on supplies. Drinkable yogurt, etc etc

We have bagged the hike, will stay one day extra in Kanazawa, then move to Osaka.

Then we found a real coffee shop.

Large market with lots of seafood, a great deal of yakitori, many restaurants, many, many tourists or local tourists

We both took lovely naps, and while QB was finishing her as I went down to the public bath. Perfect, at 104.5.

Ate dinner in the room from the food market shopping earlier. Basically convenience store food.

An especially restful sleep last night. Likely to be due to the hot tub (public bath) in the hotel. 105.5 F. Perfect.

We said goodbye to George and Michelle today. They are off to their Osaka visit and we are heading north.

Limited Express, but not in the Shinkansen class.

QB has been looking forward to having this. Karaage is a specialty of this city

Kenrukuen garden, reputedly one of the three best in Japan. Very large garden with multiple entrances hard to find. Lets seniors in free

Large, older hotel room

The electrical plug system is not designed for the high wattage equipment I brought. No surprise. Found a solution….

Hotel bath at 104, very nice. Suspect I will sleep well.

We visited the museum and then the workshop.

Katsumi Ikeda, Japanese master, who made the above image for us in just a few moments, because George showed him beautiful fountain pens

Morning departure from the cruise, taxi to Shinagawa station, Shinkansen to Echizen Village.

Now it is four of us. Seven have departed.

Went to a very nice knife store and had a negotiation with the manager. George managed to get three very high-end knives at a discount price after I negotiated. He was purchasing demo knives off the demo rack, and I asked for a lower price and much to my amazement. They gave it to us half price. Spectacular knives.

George is on the hook to buy us dinner tonight

Shrimp, sweet shrimp, salmon, tuna, uni, halibut, eel , seafood-clams soup, scallops, salmonroe, ice cream.

A truly fabulous dinner. Very memorable.

The hot tub spa was 105°F and absolutely perfect. Four washing stations, toothbrushes, razors, shampoo, basins. wash soak wash again rinse soak rinse off leave. Leaving very carefully since somewhat woozy. Lots of water afterwards.

The final leg of the cruise -overnight then all day return to Tokyo. No shrines no excursions just food food, food, and exercise.

We will arrive in Tokyo around eight in the morning scurry off the ship and make our way Echizen. Traditional craft village with knives, lacquer ware, washi paper, etc..

Shrine in a cave, vista points, park with easter island statues Clear sunny weather continues.

First time in Kyushu, in the far far south

For those few not familiar with Japanese counters, this may be of interest.

https://chat.openai.com/share/82e91c8c-b6e3-4754-99e9-8c92def4d4be

Subtropical area with unique rice growing process where the second harvest grows from the first harvest continuously. Good sushi rice comes from this region.

Very interesting rock formations along the coast. Coast is very popular for surfers. Bruce had a very good time surfing here.

There is a paper making factory at the port.

Washboard rocks, beautiful, beautiful mountains, palm trees. Bus ride along the coast. Sedimentary sandstone eroded to flat tops.

The road to the shrine is quite spectacular. In part, it looks like the coast of California but in large part, it has some unique features. One of the rock formations are a combinationof sandstone and Jelly fish fossils. No pic unfortunately.

The statues are at a theme park as a filler after the shrine visit. Only thing worth seeing here. These are replica Easter island statues, done as restorations with the approval of the Easter island authorities, because the Japanese helped restore and preserve some of the originals.

They are allegedly facing the originals so they do not have to face out towards the sea. They communicate telepathically.

QB acquired a stamp for the stamp book and some fortune telling message. It might be summed up as “don’t do anything precipitately.