chiba factory scenery night cruise

This Saturday I got to go on an evening cruise of the nighttime factory scenery in Chiba Port! This is actually only the second time that this has happened here (I believe the last one was in February), but I've heard this sort of cruise is actually getting pretty popular around the country, and depending on interest it could become a more regular thing here in Chiba, too!

I met up with one of my coworkers and a friend at the station before walking over to the port together. After checking in we waited a little bit before getting on the boat, which was very sleek and fancy-looking, with cool blue lights along the sides. The cruise included a free drink, which was a choice between what I think was a sort of fruit cocktail (tasty) or juice. After getting our drinks, we decided to go up to the top of the boat for a better view, even though I'm sure the downstairs was much warmer, haha.

After a little bit, we were off! I was surprised to discover that there was actually a guide on the cruise to explain what we were looking at and give us some background. It was only in Japanese and I didn't understand all of it, especially when he was explaining more about the factories, but I was glad that he was there to explain things to us.

As we were heading out, we got a really nice view of Port Tower, which is currently doing a nighttime Christmas-themed illumination starting at 5 every day. It's basically a Christmas tree shape and lots of colorful twinkling lights,  which is actually quite pretty. From the boat we could see the whole Christmas tree design, which for whatever reason you can't see from shore, so that was pretty awesome.

As the cruise went on, we heard explanations of what factories we were passing by (what they were, what they did, etc), and we also got to see things like the Makuhari New City District in Chiba (where Makuhari Messe is) and Tokyo Tower and the Tokyo Sky Tree across Tokyo Bay, which was really cool.

We slowed down and got close to factories at two points, one at JFE Steel and another whose name I didn't catch (oops). There was actually something surprisingly pretty about all the lights from the factories, which you don't really associate with factories, and it was really cool to be able to see them up (relatively) close. They even brought the boat closer once upon somebody's request and told us what settings to use on our cameras for the best pictures, which I thought was really nice of them.

Near the end they also let us go through the captain's cabin at the front, where we saw all the navigation stuff, which I thought was really cool. I also noticed that a lot of the switches were labeled in English instead of Japanese, which I found interesting.

All in all, I think it was super interesting and I'm glad I got the chance to go! It got pretty chilly on the boat with the wind blowing the whole time, but I was relatively prepared and also I love boats, so I enjoyed it. :D Someday I'll have to go on one of the regular sightseeing cruises they offer in Chiba Port, because I'm sure those are also awesome.

family vacation, part two

So after a day of relaxing in Chiba, the family adventures continued! On Thursday morning we got up bright and early (like, really early) to catch the shinkansen to Nagoya, on our way to Takayama. In Nagoya we met up with my host mom (from when I studied abroad in Nagoya) and had a little breakfast at a cafe before wandering around and shopping a little before our train. It was really great to see my host mom again (it's been two years) and introduce her to my family, since I don't know if they'll all be in the same place at once again!

After that we got on the train to Takayama! We rode the 'Wide View Hida', which is so named because it has really big windows, which were great - as we got closer to the mountains we could see all the autumn colors of the trees (which we didn't get to see as much of in Kyoto) and the scenery was absolutely gorgeous. When we got there it was late afternoon, so we went to our ryokan (who picked us up from the station even though we forgot to ask them in advance!) and dropped our stuff off before getting bus tickets for the next few days and wandering around town. As it was getting dark and most things seemed to be closing (I guess it was a weekday after all), we decided to get dinner at a place called Kyouya that was in a restaurant guide. It was a very Japanese-style place and we got to try the famous Hida beef, cooked with miso and served on a magnolia leaf and a little stove! (It was delicious.) After dinner we went back to the ryokan and took baths, which felt awesome. They even had a bath outdoors, which was perfect with the cool autumn weather.

Don't worry, it got properly cooked after this!

The next morning we got up early to do a walking tour around the many temples/shrines in the area. Apparently we came at one of the best times for autumn leaves in Takayama, and we got to see lots of really beautiful places. From there we headed to the weekday market, where I bought a sarubobo (or monkey baby) keychain for my phone! They seem to be a very popular souvenir in the Hida area (they are adorable and don't look like monkeys at all, despite their name) and are also supposed to bring good luck. Then we were finally able to wander around the old historic streets, which were full of little shops and had a very quaint ancient feel to them.

Then after a quick ramen lunch, it was time to get on the bus to our next destination! Our real goal was Shirakawa-go, yet another World Heritage Site, but I had unwittingly booked us a place that was about 20 minutes away, so we just decided to take it easy that night and just relax there. It was at Hirase Onsen (onsen = hot springs), and we had made a reservation to get dinner and breakfast there, too. So after we got there we decided to go into the onsen (there was a bath right in our ryokan) and soaked a little bit before being called to dinner. When we got there all the food was beautifully arranged at our table (unfortunately I don't have any pictures though), and even though there was already a lot there, over the course of the meal they kept bringing us more! It was all very traditional Japanese food (I think) and really delicious - we even managed to eat it all, even though it took us almost two hours, haha. After dinner we went back up to our room and had a little beer that my parents bought for the sake of the bottle it came in, before going to bed in our futons.

Breakfast the next morning was almost as elaborate but just as tasty - I think having Japanese dinner/breakfast at a ryokan is definitely an experience everybody should try at least once! Then we got on the bus to the historic villages of Shirakawa-go, which are famous for their distinct Gassho-style houses, which (supposedly) look like hands in prayer. First we went to the Gassho Folk Museum, which is an outdoor museum with many Gassho-style buildings set up to look the way the did in the past. It was really cool and also very picturesque, with lots of little ponds and gardens - I think it was one of my favorite places this trip. Then we wandered around the actual village, where people still live today - since most of the houses are private property we just walked along the streets and little shops before getting lunch and then getting on the next bus to Kanazawa!

When we got to Kanazawa, which is mostly a pretty modern city, we went to the Museum of Traditional Arts & Crafts, which had displays of things like Kanazawa's gold lacquer and a collection of obis owned by the citizens, and also the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art. My favorite piece there was an exhibit with almost 300 light bulbs hanging from the ceiling, each flashing at the rate of somebody's heartbeat. You could get in line and have your heartbeat measured too, and the furthest lightbulb in the corner would start flashing in time with it! Super cool. Then we got dinner (okonomiyaki) and some crepes with gelato (very yummy) and went to bed.

The next morning we got up for a tour of Myouryuji, which is also sometimes known as the Ninja Temple (though it has nothing to do with ninjas, actually). The reason it's called that, though, is because it's a place full of secret passages, hidden staircases, etc! There was even a room specifically built for the purposes of committing seppuku (or hara-kiri, as most Americans know it) and burning the place down, if an attack happened (they assured us it hadn't been used though, haha). You have to make a reservation in advance for a tour, which is also only in Japanese, but they do have English pamphlets to follow along with and I highly recommend it!

Then we wandered around the old samurai district (stopping in a place that sold ceramics and a historic samurai family house) and got lunch before heading to Kenrokuen, which is a very famous garden that's said to be one of the most beautiful in Japan and containing all 6 attributes of a perfect garden: "spaciousness, seclusion, artifice, antiquity, waterways, and panoramas" (according to Wikipedia). Unfortunately it was raining so I don't think we saw it in all of its glory, but it was still very pretty.

After that we had some extra time before our train, which we spent shopping, and then we got on the train to Maibara (whose station was unexpectedly devoid of eating establishments and anything really, to our dismay) and then took the shinkansen from there back to Tokyo and the train back to Chiba! There weren't any taxis at the station so we walked back to my apartment (in the rain) and finally got home around 1am - tired and wet, but happy to have had such a good trip! Or that's how I felt anyway, even though I had work the next day. :D

family vacation, part one!

Well, it certainly has been a while since my last post! In my defense, I haven't really been traveling recently, but this week has certainly made up for it - my family is visiting for two weeks, so we have been wandering the country for the past few days and will be off again tomorrow! In an effort to keep this post from becoming enormous, I'll just give a quick summary of each day up until now.

On Saturday we got up bright and early to take the shinkansen to Kyoto! We had booked a travel package that included two nights in Kyoto, a night in Hiroshima, and transportation in between. I think it was a first shinkansen experience for everybody except me, so that's exciting.

After getting to Kyoto, we checked into our hotel and then got on a bus to Ryouanji, which is a temple famous for its Zen rock garden and also a World Heritage Site (we went to quite a few of those in just a few days, actually!). Before heading into the temple grounds, we stopped to have a late lunch at a tofu restaurant recommended by my sister's boyfriend's teacher. We ate at a little table right next to a very picturesque little pond, and it did not disappoint! After we ate, we went around and saw the temple and the rock garden (the appeal of which, I have to admit, was a little beyond me). We had been planning to go to Kinkakuji as well afterward, but ran out of time and ended up just taking the bus back to near our hotel and wandering/shopping for a little bit before bed.

View from our tofu restaurant

The next day we got up early to go to Kiyomizudera, another famous temple and World Heritage Site. We got there after a nice scenic walk from the hotel, and the temple was also very pretty. We didn't actually do any of the famous things like walking in between the love stones or drinking from the waterfalls, for the sake of time, but I really enjoyed it anyway. I especially liked all the little shops and streets on the way back down from the temple, which were full of omiyage and free samples!

After that we took a very quick glimpse around Yakasa Shrine (where a wedding ceremony was taking place!) before meeting up with my parents' friends for lunch. I think my sister and her boyfriend enjoyed their first conveyor belt sushi experience a lot, and he even won something in the lottery that you get every 5 plates!

Next our parents' friends took us to Shigaraki, to look at ceramics in the Ceramic Cultural Park and in their museum. I had fun seeing all the tanuki everywhere and was also really impressed by the very very small tea sets that were part of the ceramic exhibit in the museum - they had teapots only about as big as a quarter and cups just bigger than a fingernail! Then we went to a little shop with Shigaraki ceramics, which I gather is pretty famous, before heading to the Hotel Granvia Kyoto to eat at a buffet there. But this was no ordinary buffet - it was super fancy, with gourmet delicacies like Kobe beef and matsutake mushrooms. It was very delicious, and I definitely ate enough to make it worth the price!

The next morning we finally headed to Kinkakuji, or the Temple of the Golden Pavilion, which had been one of our goals since the beginning. It was pretty awesome to see the Pavilion, which was actually gold, even though it was pretty crowded with school groups and other visitors, even on a weekday. It was pretty impressive to see how efficiently they guided visitors in and out - we left a lot earlier than we expected and so we decided to go to Nijo Castle as well!

Kinkakuji

I was expecting it to be like all the other castles I've visited in Japan, which (frankly) are all pretty similar, but it definitely exceeded my expectations! To be fair, it seems like it was in fact a palace where the shogun lived, and so a little different from your typical castle. You could really feel the grandeur and beauty of the place as you walked around, from the beautiful art on the doors/walls to the details on the ceilings and the absolutely gorgeous gardens. I think Nijo Castle was one of my favorite places that we visited, and if I can I'd love to go there again! If I could go once the leaves have all changed color (we were unfortunately a bit too early to see any of the famous Kyoto autumn leaves), I bet it would be stunning (but also super crowded).

Then we had a quick ramen lunch before taking the shinkansen to Hiroshima! Shortly after we got there we decided to take the ferry to Miyajima, to see the famous Itsukushima Shrine (yet another World Heritage site). I love boats, so even though the ride was only 10 minutes I really enjoyed it. We got there just as the sun was setting, and it was already dark and the shrine was closed by the time we walked down to it, but the lights on the iconic torii gate were lit up and it was really beautiful! We spent a while just admiring it and taking (lot and lots of) pictures before wandering down some of the streets with souvenir shops, even though most of them were closing. There we saw the biggest rice paddle in the world and found out that they were invented in Miyajima, which was pretty awesome! After that we had Hiroshima-style okonomiyaki for dinner (not gonna lie, I think I like Kansai/Osaka-style better) before heading back to the hotel.

Itsukushima Shrine's famous torii at night

The next morning we got up and got on the streetcar (I think it's so cool that Hiroshima has streetcars!) to the Atomic Dome, which is the only building hit by the atomic bomb that has been allowed to survive, and the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum and Park. We watched part of a documentary about the bomb before going into the museum with a volunteer English guide, who was a Japanese lady and very knowledgeable. Going into the museum and seeing all the effects of the first ever nuclear weapon was definitely an experience; very sobering and sad but definitely something I think everybody should do if they can. Afterward I wandered around the Peace Memorial Park by myself for a little as my parents went back in the museum and the other two went to find food. It was a gorgeous day, which I really appreciated. Then my parents and I had another quick ramen lunch before we all hopped on the shinkansen back to Tokyo and Chiba!

Atomic Dome

Today was a leisurely day spent back home in Chiba, which was really welcome after four days of travel. In the morning after breakfast we walked to Port Tower, which is a 125-meter tower along the harbor. On clear days you can see the Tokyo Sky Tree and Mt. Fuji, but we weren't that lucky today. After Port Tower we bought bentos and had a picnic outside in Chiba Minato Park, near my work. Then we went to the Chiba City Museum of Art to check out a pretty cool art exhibit involving 3D flowers and plants that you had to take your shoes off and enter small spaces to see, or find hidden in what seemed like an empty display room. After spending some time shopping at Parco, then we came back for a homemade dinner and a night of rest before our next trip starts tomorrow!