Japan Trip 2024 – The Legendary Voyage

THE LEGENDARY VOYAGE 

Overview

28th – 31 July Tokyo Mistui Garden Hotel

1-5 Aug Sapporo/Otaru Tokyu Hotel

5-7 Asahikawa Hotel Amanek 

7-9 Noboribetsu Kashoutei Hanaya Ryokan

9-11 Hakodate Gran Palette 

11-14 Osaka Fairfield 

Activities

28 Fly from Madrid to Paris, then fly to Tokyo. Air France business class. Arrive at 9am. Can’t check into hotel until 3pm. 

Akihabara. Don Quixote. Taito Station. Starbucks. Dinner. 

29 Morning/afternoon: First visit to the konbini. Asakusa. Evening: Shibuya.

30 Afternoon: Immersive Fort Tokyo. Visit Jack the Ripper horror maze, Hansel and Gretel (witch side) see the spontaneous Oshi no Ko and Cabaret shows, pay extra for The Sherlock. See the confusing ending show about spies of some kind.  Evening: Teamlab Planets.

31 Morning/afternoon: Harajuku. Miipig Cafe. Yoyogi Park and Shrine. Evening: Shinjuku .

1 Fly to Hokkaido. Peach airlines. Evening: Tanukikoji shopping street. Taito Station again.

2 Morning:Sapporo beer museum. Afternoon: AOAO Sapporo aquarium. Early night.

3 Afternoon: Jingiskhan in Sapporo tv tower. Maidreamin maidcafe. Sapporo university museum. Evening: Sapporo beer garden in Odori park.

4 Day trip to Otaru. Canal cruise. Street festival.

5 Train to Asahikawa. Sake museum. 

6 Joyful Noroko train to Biei and furano. Tomita lavender farm. Evening: Asahikawa beer garden. 

7 Train back to Sapporo and then on to Noboribetsu. Jigokudani valley, Noboribetsu onsen. Lord Enma statue, oni hunting.

8 Date Jidaimura village (Edo theme park.) Onislo bus to natural footbath.

9 Train to Hakodate. Afternoon: Bar Gai craft beer. brick warehouses. Evening: Blue Moon bay cruise. 

10 Morning: Hakodate morning market, Mash Maru ship museum, revisit brick warehouses. Starbucks again.

11 Fly to Osaka. ASA. Evening: Dotonbori.

12 Afternoon: Kuromon market, Amerika-mura. big step mall. Evening: Dotonbori again plus surrounding areas, checking out host/hostess bar district.

13 Universal studios Japan (twilight pass). Visit My HeroAcademia 4-D theatre, live action One Piece Summer Premier show in evening. Everything else is a two hour wait time or requires extra money.

14 Fly the hell home via Air France. Many delays. Exhausting. Get in after midnight.

Food

28 Pork shepherds pie and cheese. Light breakfast on plane. More cheese (it’s Air France.)Sushi in Kaneda

29 Curry bread from the konbini. Deserted tonkatsu restaurant in Asakusa run by lovely ancient old man. Gyoza restaurant in Shibuya. We had 30 gyoza and a mapo tofu!

30 Morning konbini snack:  Kara age on stick, corn dog.  Lunch: Immersive fort melon bread sandwich. Dinner: Random izakaya near Kaneda. We have omlette, skewers, mushroom tempura, 

31 Lunch:Green Brothers salad bowl. Dinner: Sakeria Banco, a lovely european influenced izakaya/hotel bar.

1 Lunch: Outstanding bowl of udon from Narita airport.. Dinner: Burger and fries from Bearfoot, an american style diner/beer place in Tankuikoji.

2 Lunch: Totoriton sushi, konbini dinner (pork soba, mapotofu bread, butter chicken naan) ice cream after aquarium 

3 Lunch: Jingiskhan, konbini dinner (pork raisukaree, pork onigiri, curry bread)

4 Lunch: KFC. Afternoon snack from festival:  Zangi, hokkaido ice cream, hokkaido long fries, Dinner: more konbini food (hamburger sandwich, pork bento, noodle dog, frankfurter pizza roll)

5 Lunch: Matsuya beef bowl. Dinner: Unknown izakaya – potato donut, shrimp, skewers, broiled squid, toasted rice ball. 

6 Lunch: soy sauce ramen in biei, lavender and melon ice cream at torita fame. Dinner: Asahikawa beer garden- fried burdock, soba noodles, tandoori chicken, gyoza, duck skewers 

7 Kaiseiki breakfast and dinner.

8 Same again.

1. Lunch: Falafel and venison tacos, dinner: Hakodate’s famous lucky pierrot (egg burger, snow burger, chinese chicken.)

10 Morning market fresh seafood bowl. Dinner: Tonkatsu that takes a long time to arrive, we are told we can’t order a lot of the food and only after trying for 20 minutes she gives us an English menu. It was a quiet little place and took forever for the food to appear but my lord it was good!

11 Hakodate airport tonkatsu curry and butter corn ramen,. Dinner: dotonbori takoyaki followed by kuhikatsu skewers and a strawberry cake/ daifuku to finish.

12 Lunch: Sushi at kuromon market. Dinner: Okonomiyaki and teppanyaki near dotonbori. 

13 Lunch: Mc Donalds, (soy sauce burger, potato cheese pie, potato and beef burger, shrimp burger) Dinner: The final konbini feast (UFO ramen, sandwiches, buttery snack, barbecue waffles, chili rice cracker, chicken donut, pudding parfait, donut stuff, lemon bread) 

14 Cutlet sandwich left over from last night, Air France food – roast beef, creamy pumpkin pasta, more cheese, prawn cocktail and delicious vanilla cream puff on flight from Paris to Madrid.

Movies watched on plane

Journey to: John Wick 4, The Nun 2, Jungle Cruise, Godzilla vs Kong: The New Empire

Journey back: Asterix at the Olympic Games, Asterix and Obelix: Mission Cleoptra, It Chapter 2, Scoob!, The Lego Batman Movie

Travel Gaming

Project Zero: Mask of the Lunar Eclipse, Eastward, Super Mario Bros. 2, Abzu (Switch), Mario & Luigi: Bowser’s Inside Story, Castlevania : Portrait of Ruin (DS)

Analysis

• All the food was amazing. I’m not sure it’s actually possible to eat badly. But I’ll mention when it was REALLY good.
• The locals are beyond polite, especially if they’re paid to be -otherwise they kind of stay out of your way. Occasionally they look terrified if you ask them for help.
• As an anime fan it was lovely to see anime as part of the culture, but also somewhat sad to see how commercial it is compared to how edgy and cool one felt in 1996 watching it for the first time. Also as mentioned most things are all now related to mobile games and mainstream anime which I find quite boring.

28 First thing we see on the airport train is a young man unconscious on the floor. I heard this happens to businessmen sometimes, but nobody checks he;s OK so I assume this is standard stuff. Happened enough times to a mate of mine, let’s just hope he survived. ~Don Quixote~ truly blew my mind upon first seeing it. So much silly stuff seemingly randomly placed. Bob Sapp CBD drinks. Bizarre alcohol. Utterly inappropriate anime figures. Even my little ADHD brain was a little overwhelmed. However we were utterly exhausted and didn’t buy anything. ~Taito station~ was disappointing given how little actual games there were (very few), but there were at least some machines, keeping my hope that arcades still live in some capacity. We didn’t have the cash with us, so we didn’t play anything. ~Overall Akihabara is a must see,~ but I was immediately struck with the feeling that at the age of 45 I didn’t want any of this stuff. I love anime but I don’t have space or the need for a million not that great collectibles. Most stuff is all the latest series (MHA, one piece, Genshin impact, honkai star rail) and nothing for classic animes or any of my obscure favourites, not even much Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure stuff. The gatcha machines and cranes are fun but I don’t know why the Japanese need floors and floors of it. I did want to go to the miad cafe, but there are so many it’s impossible to decide, so I left it till Sapporo where I heard the maids speak some English. Don Potato for me was a disappointment. If you’re a real retro collector, you might find some gems, but they’re all in Japanese and for me, I have a Retroid so don’t need any physical retro products. They’re not that cheap either.

29 Wake up late and check out the markets and shrine at ~Asakusa.~ The heat is beyond ridiculous. Overall its is lovely. We wish for something at a shrine but my wife won’t tell me what it is. Luckily, it;s a “good fortune.” We find an empty tonkatsu restaurant run by a little old man and the experience is amazing.  In the evening we check out Shibuya,I tick off the statue of Hachiko and scramble crossing after having seen thekm in so many animes and video games – guess what, they are rather underwhelming IRL but Shibuya is certainly impressive – then we wander around looking for some food before finding an outstanding gyoza place on the second floor. I didn’t know that you would get something this good in the middle of the tourist district. Only young locals were in there. Seeing a nice young lady dressed up like a cross between Joan Jett and Alice in Wonderland devouring gyoza while playing Switch all by herself was all I ever needed from this trip.

30 ~Immersive Fort~ for me was excellent, the kind of thing you will only see in Japan. That said, I have been to other “immersive theater” events before (Phantom Peak in London) and the concept is similar – others have said the park feels a bit empty and it does. I was extremely impressed by the main event, The Sherlock – it took some getting used to, but what you do is follow actors around an IMMENSE area where so much effort has been put in, and you’re free to go where you like and discover the mystery out of order. Our audi guides worked well for the most part and we managed to follow most of the mystery – it plays out like one of the lesser Phoenix Wright cases, and being Japan, it of course had to have a little bit at the end that made the whole thing make no sense. I emailed them later for clarification, but they said that they wouldn’t tell! You would get more out of this park if you can speak Japanese, but would heavily recommend. ~Teamlab Planets~ was truly astounding. You can see what it’s like from the online imagery but you cannot comprehend the experience. I think nobody alive would not enjoy this. My wife had already been to the other one which I hear is “better” but it seems they’re different enough to justify either.

31 ~Harajuku~ is essentially a mess. High end shopping streets (which are very nice if you like that) and then a load of touristy stuff stuffed up a single street. It sure has character though. The animal cafes will certainly be divisive. We went to the miipig cafe and the girls just basically bury you in pigs. It’s at this point we notice that the Japanese staff will basically not interact with you outside of basic business and they seem constantly uncomfortable being asked anything, which makes sense but we could have done with a bit of guidance than just having pigs thrown at us. ~Yoyogi Park~ I found truly impressive. Just the sheer size of it, it’s like being in another world. I’m tempted to wander off the path but my wife reminds me the forests are full of ghosts in Japan so I think better of it. We walk to ~Shinjuku~ in the blazing heat, looking for the bar Deathmatch in Hell, but we are simply too tired to continue past the station. Then the rain comes down and we didn’t bring the umbrella. We call it quits and go back to the hotel and then fall asleep almost immediately – at least my wife does because I spend every evening for the rest of the trip after she falls asleep enjoying random nonsense of Japanese TV together with a 9% whiskey highball or lemon sour. 

1 The airport food is delicious and the flights super efficient with no hassle. Everything in Japan runs on time to the second. We arrive in ~Sapporo~ and it has a friendly vibe around it. Tanukikoji is great. Again, just a great vibe and a lot of tourists from Asia, but not too crowded. We have another go in the arcades and enjoy a game of House of the Dead: Scarlet Dawn and a few rounds of the drumming game. We even have a go of Sonic Blast Heroes because we’ve been doing some self defence classes in the gym but my wife hates it. She’s right, it was always lame. Everywhere is quite busy for food so we try the Bearfoot diner, all the staff are non-Japanese and speak English. You can see some fellow travellers are up for a chat, too- I’m not sure how great the food was compared to the rest of the top level stuff we’ve been having but there was something soothing about it. 

2 The ~Sapporo beer museum~ seems like it’s in the wrong part of town and it’s hellishly hot on the way there. Although it’s in a nice place, it’s tiny and contains almost nothing, and then is just a place to drink beers. We leave quickly and spend an hour wait for the sushi place by poking around a recycle store – the highlight is seeing a guy picking through the secondhand lolicon figures inspecting every one. The toriton sushi, strangely enough, does not actually have sushi on conveyor belts, just being a screen ordering place as usual but it’s absolutely outstanding. Totally exhausted and we check out ~AOAO (Sapporo aquarium)~ which is also in a great mall and I sample my first Hokkaido ice cream – how good is this Hokkaido milk really? The answer is ridiculously amazing. So creamy and somewhat cheesy even. The aquarium, we are not sure about at the start but turns out to be one of the trips’ highlights – so chilled and relaxing and the middle floor has an awesome collection of much lesser seen creatures. Only negative is the penguins on the top floor seem to be poorly housed and one of them has clearly gone insane, trying to drive itself relentlessly through the glass wall. Apart from that it’s awesome if not a little expensive and has some of the cuter souvenirs of the trip.

3 After picking up the rail pass at the station: We go to have Jingiskhan at the ~TV tower~ with the locals. All the servers look really miserable, but the customers are having a great time. I’m familiar with korean BBQ but I find the rilled lamb especially amazing. We put some chinese cabbage on the grill for the second round and are immediately stopped by a terrified man who lets us know we have committed a fatal error, as politely as possible of course. The TV tower is surprisingly fun and full of merch that seems cute and unique but we will see repeated many times.  ~Maidreamin~ is certainly an experience. I see some people being super anti maid cafes but I would say there is no way you cannot go to one. The girls are terrified to see us but my god to they do their daman best to put on some kind of a show. Only other people in there are a group of guys having a birthday and an old man eating a full meal by himself. We get a Sexy lemon sour and a cute bear parfait that is enchanted by the 2 maids, I annoy and interrupt them at every turn, not on purpose of course, but they warm up towards the end. I suspect that a native Japanese would get a bit more value out of them as they’re supposed to do some “cute” things, one of them puts some glasses on at one point and that’s it. Altogether it was unmissable and the photo of them we have looking confused and bored will last until the end of time. Onto the ~University Museum,~ it’s a bit stuffy but in the best way, it really is a university museum and a great building, I would strongly recommend. We finish in the pop up beer garden, as with many things on the trip is seems impenetrable at first but the wonderful staff help us figure it out and it’s such a cool place to be, until the heavens open, the rain comes down and that’s the end of it. Watching the reaction of the locals is quite hilarious, some just stick it out under umbrellas, others are visibly trembling at the thought of their hair or loli costumes wet.

4 ~Otaru~ is definitely worth a visit although it’s a bit like Japanese Blackpool. Many tourists but the canal cruise is great and the Birmingham accent English voice is priceless. The highlight of the trip is the street festival, everyone is in yukatas, there are people breaking out into sing song all over the town as the sun goers down and every stall is selling amazing street food including the local fried chicken, Zangi, which is ginger or saffron flavourerd, and the long fries, same as the milk – how good can Hokkaidan potatoes be? RIDICULOUS. So fluffy and crispy, you will have never encountered anything like this. We finish off with a concert from the local Christian church, it’s certainly high energy which is both bad and good.  

5 On arriving in ~Asahikawa~ it's the first time we hit the “everything closed” for lunch problem. My cries to eat in the station fall on deaf ears (we find an amazing food court  there later!) and after much searching there’s a huge queue in Satan’s sun for the good ramen place – impossible for any non native. In the end we have an (amazing) meal in a fast food beef bowl chain. The tourist information at the station speak little to no English and direct us to the ~sake museum~ which like the beer museum is in the middle of nowhere. It is tiny, contains almost nothing, the staff hide from us and finally reveal you can buy sake but not drink it on the premises. We leave. That evening we go back to town and try an izakaya after two drunk guys spill out and make motions to tell us how good the food is – we sit right next to the grill and get some legendary food, amazing atmosphere and one staff speaks Engliush and waits on us like a personal butler. Sad that we weren’t allowed tip him!

6 After some more detective work we book the tickets to the “Joyful” Nrokko train and it is indeed delightful. The countryside is lovely but it turns out the lavender and flowers are just a tiny area packed with tourists at ~Tomita lavender farm.~ Due to the heat and the small area there really isn;t much going on, we get back to the station only to find out we misread the time and have to stay another hour – the toilet attendant at the the temporary platform speaks no English but is again amazingly helpful. We decide to hit the pop up  ~beer garden~  at the station and eat a little item from every stall, it’s all amazing and I think one of the girls makes fun of me for ordering a lemon sour badly but that’s probably on me. The stall owners on the other hand are thrilled we’re ordering from them and it’s not too busy, overall a smash for the otherwise tiny Asahikawa.

7 train to Sapporo and then on to ~Noboribetsu.~  For me Noboribetsu might have been the top highlight. We’re actually in Noboribetsu Onsen, basically a street of hotels and spas surrounded by forested mountains and covered in little Oni statues. Indeed, there are a lot of statues and a huge animatronic Enma, king of Hell, who puts on a little show where he turns into a demon – imagine if there was an animatronic Lucifer that turned into Satan in your home town. Jigokudani valley is indeed impressive if not a bit smelly, but the real highlight is our ryokan, Hard to put into words. The room is massive, the service like nothing on earth, and the absolutely massive Kaiseki dinner one of the greatest things I have ever eaten. The onsen I am unbsure about and it’s sad not to go in with the wife, and I get bored quite quickly but I do have to say that it was extremely refreshing and invigorating. The sleep is great too!

8 I manage to misunderstand the bus and for no reason there’s no more for two hours. Date Jidaimura is a totally hilarious Edo themed park which turns out to be a blast – a yokai exhibit, goblin haunted house a ninja house and three (very similar) live shows. I love ninjas, so I’m on board, but I would have liked to see more ninja techniques rather than jumping about with some silly comedy, but despite the heat and the restaurant closing early I would heavily recommend it. We walk there and back and this is where the prasol saves out lives. It’s actually a very pleasant walk and I am super ready for another kaiseki – although I swear it’s not quite as good the second time around with a tiny bit less care put in. I think I offended one of the staff by puring drinks for us while she was serving, because a different server returns to the room. Oh well!

9 And so to the last hokkaido stop, ~Hakodate.~ We get totally screwed by the early closing this time but find an extremely good ~craft beer~ place with outstanding tacos The owner speaks good English and is one of those guys just going on about his bar and business, but watching the whole crew help each other out is awesome. We are joined by some Japanese hipsters that question why they have to sit on beer barrels, just like you might in any hipster joint. The famous ~brick warehouses,~ are a bit of a let down and have some nice goods but nothing I would want or haven;t seen already. The beer hall is somewhat dingy and disappointing but we take the Blue Moon cruise at sunset exactly with a lemon sour in our hands and it’s utterly fantastic. Vistas are of limited interest to me but I cannot stress how amazing this was.

10 Eating at the ~morning market,~ is every bit as good as I dreamed, a huge bowl of fresh raw seafood and a beer at 10am – I didn’t like seafood at all until a couple of years ago, now I am completely converted. We find the Mashumaru ship by accident and it turns out to be really fun and interesting, with lots of switches and buttons to flick that is fun for everyone and the whole museum is well put together too. A highlight. Back to the brick warehouses, they are still boring, and I convince the wife to eat at ~Lucky Pierrot~ which she was extremely resistant to – unfortunately it turns out to be quite weird and an odd taste and a strange, kitsch experience that would certainly appeal to some – unfortunately it does not go down well and we are forced to curse the clown’s name for evermore. One for weirdness enthusiasts and not hard to see why it hasn’t made it out of Hakodate. Overall Hakodate was a bit weird.

11 And finally, down to ~Osaka~, now most people know what Osaka is like, I have to say after all the amazing experiences we’ve had I am not a huge fan – crowded bwyong belief, noisy, and I’m not convinced the food is that great. We drink too much and have a huge robust up over a mochi. I couldn’t say the takoyaki was really that amazing, to be honest. But you know what you’re getting here I guess.

12 We settle our disputes at ~Kuromon~ which is much more chilled and have some top level sushi. Osaka is kind of weird. Not much more to say about it. We try to visit a cool looking horror experience in ~big step mall~ but are advised that we need to speak Japanese. At this point I only just trmemeber about using Google Translate to communicate, a bit late. We decide not to queue at the vegan okonomiyaki place with the other vegan-looking tourists and end up queuing for quite some time at another one but it is so worth it I cannot express it, if not for the hilarious banter between the staff, who clearly all fancy the same waitress. We walk back through the host bar district, which us foreigners will never get to experience, but from the outside looking in it just seems awesome and hilarious. How many girly-looking dudes can you fit into one district? All the girls touting whatever kind of bars exist there all look beyond fed up.

13 The grand finale – ~Universal studios Japan .~ We get the twilight ticket from Lawson after much confusion. It then turns out you’re not guaranteed entry into Nintendo world with anything but the full price ticket – and of course we do not manage to acquire them. However the heat is so ridiculous I couldn’t image jumping around a Mario world. Everyone looks half dead. I can’t see how any kids are enjoying the experience. The park is impressive but as you have probably read, it is small, and the wait times for attractions just completely unfeasible. We do make it to the MHA 4D theater, and I have to say it’s a blast. I love seeing what they come up with for this kind of thing. The wife loves it too and has no idea who these characters are. I always find it odd that characters like Mickey Mouse are eternal because they have no “storyline” but animes do, and thus require a lot of explanation as to what point in the story these side-stories are set. It shouldn’t work, but it’s great. And so we finish off with the One Piece show, which is held in the Waterworld set -how is Waterworld still a thing? It’s 80 entire minutes, completely incomprehensible (although I think after watching one One Piece saga they’re all pretty similar) and I absolutely love it. How will they do Luffy’s stretchy arms, I wonder? They don’t. It’s all just pretend play. That said there’s a lot of love for the series and it is a great show, and it has a lot of heart! And the wife got to high five Luffy at the end, we even had Shanks make an appearance next to us even though he wasn’t in the story.

14 Ok that’s enough Japan.