Jeff Milner

Our first item on the agenda today was to replenish our foodstuffs.

Here are a few photos of what’s for sale in a Japanese grocery store.

Shrimp, some large snails, and more!

The melons here are expensive but also extremely tasty. A friend of Dave and April’s gifted us one, to all of our delight.

The kiwis are also delicious.

Octopus tentacles anyone? Uh, no thanks.

More octopus tentacles. There is obviously a market for them. Anyway, the Salmon is DELICIOUS!

Is it fruit? No, it’s CANDY!

We ended up with a nice assortment of sushi and sashimi for lunch.

Later that day, we attended a traditional tea ceremony.

After that, Dave and I watched his son participate in his judo class. Students of all ages attended the class. It appeared that everyone had either white belts or black belts and nothing in between. Because of the tea ceremony, we arrived slightly late. The classes go for about two hours, however, so we watched enough throwing, tripping, and grappling that our behinds were sufficiently sore from sitting alongside the wall.

To finish off our day, the adults went to an izakaya¹ for some evening drinks and dinner. Dave ordered raw horse meat as one of the dishes — he likes trying different foods — and reluctantly, I took a small amount and tried it. It was fine enough, I guess. It goes against my ethics to eat it, though. I classify it in the same category as eating whale, dolphin, octopus, or dog². I wonder if shark should go on my list too?

It rained during our walk over there and back, but coziness was the order of the day inside the izakaya.

Another wonderful day in Japan!

1. a casual Japanese pub or tavern that serves alcoholic beverages alongside a wide variety of small, shareable dishes[↩]
2. My hierarchy is in no particular order, just a binary status as to whether I will eat it or not[↩]

Today, I made my way to Sapporo to see my friends Dave and April and their kids. A quick refresher in case you don’t know: Sapporo is on the island of Hokkaido while Tokyo, of course, is on the island of Honshu. There is a train that connects the islands, but I opted for a flight — one that happens to leave from the Haneda Airport in Tokyo at 8:00am. Since the subway doesn’t open until 5:00am, I was worried about making it early enough in case I took the wrong one, etc., but I didn’t want to pay an arm and a leg for a cab. (Astute followers of these travelogues will note that catching the right train has not exactly been my strong suit).

After checking out of my hotel, I asked a taxi driver the cost for a ride to the airport. He quoted me 900 yen (which is not what I expected at all — but hey less than $10 Canadian — so, what a steal!) Soon the ride started with a base fare of 500 yen and started counting up by 100 yen every 10 seconds or so. I quickly realized he probably meant to quote me 9000 yen, which would mean this cab ride was going to push the better part of $90 CAD. Fine, at least I don’t have to worry about missing my plane.

April greeted me at the bus terminal. She said it was fun picking me out of the crowd from such a distance because I was a head taller than everyone else there. We took the subway back and made our way to their lovely little home on the university campus. I was struck by the change in conversation flow. I’m not sure the right word to use, but I’ll describe it. In Tokyo, I had been living a solitary silent retreat kind of life, but now I was surrounded by friends and we chatted a lot. It was an abrupt change from my internal dialogue to an abundance of chatting — not bad but notably different.

Some sort of Canada/Japan association at the university put on a Canada Day party which we attended. We loved the delicious food and it was nice mingling with some new acquaintances. When it was just about time to leave they held several draws. I won a Terry Fox t-shirt, April won a heli-skiing vacation package discount, and Dave won a bowl and spoon designed for pouring water onto wet sauna rocks — a wonderfully specific prize, to be sure.

Today, I endeavoured to travel to a Japanese volcano and visit a traditional Japanese onsen. I failed in such a spectacular fashion that it makes this particular report almost pointless.

That’s not to say I didn’t travel. Boy, did I ever travel.

I was still feeling worn out from my day at the Disney park yesterday and got off to a late start. I figured a soak in a natural hot spring would be just what the doctor ordered. I headed onto the subway and, following the directions of Apple Maps, just took whichever train it suggested. I have a metro card that allows for basically unlimited use, but it’s only for the trains in downtown Tokyo. I very quickly found myself outside of the metro area taking trains my card wouldn’t cover. When I got to Shin Yokohama, I disembarked because I knew that eventually I was going to have to pay, but I wasn’t really sure which trains I could take and which I couldn’t.

I scrunched up my face in confusion at the schedule signs and, seeing my consternation, a conductor asked where I was trying to go. Long story short, he helped me pay what I owed and then led me to another employee who helped me buy a ticket to Odawara where I would get a bus to Hakone-Yumoto. Things were looking up. She told me the next train leaves at 10:45am.

I left and went back to confirm which train I should be taking. She very clearly said any train on platform 3 or 4. After ascending the escalator, I quickly inspected the electronic train schedule. I confirmed my location on platforms 3 and 4, and all the trains arriving in the next 20 minutes or so had the same company name in matching orange letters. This all seemed like good news. One of the trains was leaving at 10:39, and it was an express train! My thought process went something like, “Hey, that’s just one minute away, and I can make up some time from my late start — what luck!”

The express train in question turned out to be on the Tokaido Shinkansen line — it was a bullet train. I soon discovered it was en route for Nagoya, a 1-hour-and-15-minute high-speed race across the small island country. Oh dear!

Going on an expensive train far, far away from my destination was indeed some kind of luck, but not the kind anyone wants.

Alas, when I arrived in Nagoya after stewing in my thoughts in the silent car, I ended up taking the next bullet train back to where I came from. When the inspector came around to check tickets — it felt like a scene from a movie — he moved from one passenger to the next, suspense building, and I knew that in just a minute or two, he’d be asking for mine! I did NOT want to pay the $100 CAD+ fee I surely owed for being on this train.

I explained I’d taken the wrong train, and he told me to just get off at the next stop (where I had come from) and it would be fine. It was such a relief.

Feeling disheartened, I headed back to my hotel, had a shower, a beer, and dropped into bed at about 5:00pm.

Tomorrow: Sapporo.