Old Trip Report – May-June 2016 – 24 days

PART 1

So I was going through old emails and pictures and found detailed writeups that I sent a friend of mine during our 2016 Japan trip. My friend had never been to Japan and knew nothing about it, so I’ll edit/ condense them for clarity, as I got into some pretty basic explanations that I’m sure a lot of you have figured out already.

**\*\* don’t think too hard about the dates/timeline, as I condensed and sometimes didn’t have time to tell Friend about things until a few days later, so the emails backtrack to previous days a few times -\*\***

We were planning on going again this year or next year with our toddler, but alas, pandemic. COVID-19 having slowed down content on this subreddit, I figured some people would still find this a fun read.

We did a 4 person trip (myself, my husband (B), my sister (S) and her boyfriend (K)) for 24 days, sharing accommodations and fair bit of food/transport costs, depending on what we were doing. We ended up realizing that increasing convenience or comfort generally didn’t cost a lot more than the cheapest options, so we often paid an extra $5-8/ night to get a business hotel instead of a hostel. We also opted for the convenience of the JR pass (which paid off for us) and the Jetfoil ferry.

\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~

Here’s our budget in CAD – Rough planned **(actual)**: pp = per person

Planned budget:

Plane ticket for \[SISTER\] & \[SISTER’s BF\]- $800- 1000pp **(Actual cost: $1100cad pp for YVR-PVG-NRT round trip)**

Plane tickets for husband and I: 150K Alaska miles +$220cad **(YVR-NRT direct)**

Tokyo accommodations – 180 pp **($189 – $121 pp at Hotel Horidome Villa, 2 rooms x 3 days, then $68 pp at an airbnb near Oku Station x3)**

Kyoto Accommodations – 123 pp   (**$367pp for 13 days at an japanese townhouse airbnb near Sanjo Station)**  

Food                      – 400 pp **(I didn’t end up tracking what we ate, but it was closer to $500 as we ate so many snacks and tried a lot of restaurants).**

21 day JR Rail pass       – 570 pp **($692 pp with taxes – the cost went up between us planning the trip and actual purchase, several months later)**

Attractions                     – 200 pp ($10 per attraction/15 days of attractions) **($250-ish – didn’t track this super closely).**

Hiroshima Accomodations – no estimate ( **32.84 pp – I forget which hotel, but in honesty, it was a pretty forgettable hotel that smelled like cigarettes even though we had picked “non-smoking” and had a very squeaky bed)**

Kagoshima Accomodations – no estimate **($34 pp – APA Hotel Kagoshima Chuo-Ekimae)**

Jetfoil Ferry from Kagoshima – Yakushima Roundtrip – **($202pp – free booking through Yes Yakushima)**

Yakushima accommodations – 85 pp  (330 total) (**$97 pp for 3 nights at Minshuku Iwakawa)**

Yakushima Island tour       – 100pp **($136 pp )**

Yakushima Anbo River kayaking – 100 pp **($86 pp )**

Yakushima bike rentals      – 15pp (didn’t end up renting bikes)

Kyoto daily transit           – 70 pp  ($5/day for approx 12 days) **(ended up renting bikes for $30 pp + 20 deposit (which they returned to us – we used the bus twice, the rest of the time was us biking around or using our JR passes to do day trips)**

Kinosaki Onsen **($86 pp for 1 night in the cheapest “nice” Ryokan we could find, Sinonomesou)**

Other (souvenirs, essentials, LH’s) – 300pp **(ha… my sister managed about $400, I was $600, as I ended up getting a tattoo – the guys didn’t buy much.)**

Tokyo Skyliner + Keisei tickets: **$44 pp**

Total per person minus plane tickets = $3145

Total for S & K (including plane ticket)  – $ 4200ish CAD ea

$3145 divided by 24 is approx $131 per day.

\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~

Reminder:

**B = Husband**

**S = Sister**

**K = Sister’s boyfriend.**

\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~

**DAY 1 (Tokyo)**

*(No email report, as I was too tired).*

Flew into Narita, negotiated our way to the skyliner without Tooooo much difficulty, and met up with my sister and her BF at Hotel Horidome Villa. Pretty comfy little business hotel, and we had two adjacent rooms. We were a bit tall for the beds (B is 5’11” and K is 6’1″), but it wasn’t the end of the world. My husband could almost span the room with his arms. Used the tokyo subway tickets that came included with our Keisei Skyliner tickets to get around. First experience of Japanese 7/11 and ended up bringing an entire bag full of snacks back to our hotel room to try, which we ate while watching incomprehensible Japanese TV, then fell asleep

**Day 2 (Tokyo) – first email**

We walked around for nearly 8 hours and holy crap, I am looking forward to soaking in the tub in our room.  Despite the bathroom being so tiny, the tub is actually big enough to accommodate my thighs, Which is more than can be said for the one back home! ( I’m not a skinny person).

Due to jet lag, we fell asleep around 8pm last night and I woke up at 4 am.   B always sleeps longer than I do, so I basically read for 2 hours, waiting for him to wake up.  

Then we went to the gym.  We have an anytime membership, and they weren’t kidding. You literally can use it anywhere in the world. There’s an Anytime fitness about 6 blocks from our hotel.    We walk in, and about 4 old Japanese men who were on the machines just stop and STARE at us as we walked past them.

 They try to be surreptitious about it, but it’s a constant thing.   I make a point of catching their eyes, and they quickly look away, then try to sneak another look, and then get embarrassed because I’m still watching them with raised eyebrows.    Me and K got the worst of it later in the day, because I was wearing a red dress  and K has visible tattoos. 

The red dress thing was a surprise, because I had no idea that Japanese people really only wear like 5 colours when out in public here in Tokyo – black, navy, white, pale blue or beige.   The school uniforms tend to be one of these colours and most men wear black or navy business suits of varying formality. 

Literally, every person we saw who was wearing a different colour turned out to not be Japanese – either we ended up hearing them speak a different language, or they were obviously tourists.    I knew I was already going to stand out, having red hair, but this was a bit ridiculous. 

First thing in the morning, we went out to a breakfast place that served American food (“Bubby’s”). Despite being advertised as a family restaurant, the mug S drank coffee out of had a caption of [“F%\*KING FRESH”](https://imgur.com/FzVX7mx) on it. It took us quite awhile to find it and after that, we decided that 7/11 breakfasts were the way to go, both convenience and cost wise.

K also had a hilarious mishap in the morning while snapchatting with his mom, which I will copy-paste his own words: 

*Note to self: Be careful of the angles when snapchatting pictures of yourself in a Japanese robe with a beer. A few degrees can change a photo from G to 18A.* [*‪#‎justwantedacoolangle‬*](https://www.facebook.com/hashtag/justwantedacoolangle?source=feed_text&story_id=10153871178521263) [*‪#‎sorrymom‬*](https://www.facebook.com/hashtag/sorrymom?source=feed_text&story_id=10153871178521263)

After breakfast, we went down to Shibuya, which is where the giant 6 way cross walk is that you often see in pictures of Tokyo.   Since we had been up so ridiculously early, we had missed most of the morning crowds up until this point. But once we hit Shibuya, rush hour was in full swing.  People were 7-9 rows deep on the metro platforms and it was sea of dudes in business suits.   People didn’t quite have to be pushed onto the trains by white gloved attendants, but it was a close thing.  

Gaijin perimeter was in full effect though, and people avoided standing near us a lot of the time. We wandered around Shibuya for about an hour, venturing off the main shopping street into the twisty back alleyways.   At one point, we found about 12 love hotels in three blocks.

We also found what I like to call “[The saddest playground in Tokyo](https://imgur.com/xNDHSJG)”, featuring [PTSD Panda](https://imgur.com/tuoqCGL) and Mr. Tiger. 

After the huge crowds in Shibuya, I was aching for some quiet, so we headed to the [Imperial Palace Gardens](https://imgur.com/hCMGNGI).  However, we made a wrong turn, and went half way around the grounds in the wrong direction, so we didn’t get to see the public gardens (by the time we realized our mistake, we had been walking for 25 mins and were at the opposite end of the compound)

It wasn’t a loss though, because the exterior of the palace grounds is still really cool.   I only got a couple pictures of the walls and guard towers, but it was eerie how perfectly manicured all the plants and grass were.   We wouldn’t put it past the Japanese Imperial household to clip the grass by hand, you know? It had that kind of feel to it.   We don’t know if it was the case, but everything was utterly perfect looking.

After the Imperial gardens, we came back to our hotel room and I passed out for about two hours – it was only like 3 pm, but we’d been walking around since 8am, plus I had done a run, so my feet were killing me. 

After my (utterly delicious and much needed) nap, we went to the Tokyo Skytree.  We got there right at sunset and it was gorgeous.   It was really crazy to see how far the city extended – literaly, buildings as far as the eye could see (it was an overcast day, so the mountains that surround Tokyo were not visible.) 

One thing that surprised me about Tokyo is it’s not as dense as I thought. it would be.  Everything is compact and small, but it’s rare for a building to be over 12 stories.  6-8 stories was more likely, except for some of the government buildings and just right around the main metro stations. It was more just endless amounts of urban sprawl.    

I’ve had Tokyo described to me as a “dirty great city” and that seems to be the truth – it’s just a huge city that goes on for miles and miles.   But because the metro system here is so extensive, you can cross it in like 40 mins, no problem.  The metro system is super easy to get around – I barely remember any of my Japanese lessons, but didn’t really need them.

However, I did make one embarrassing flub – I mixed up the words for “this is” and “Where is”  – *Kore* is this is and *doko* is “where is” . 

  So I confused several station attendants when asking for directions.   

Imagine a foreigner marching up to you and saying “This is the ginza line!” instead of “Where is the ginza line?”     I asked three station attendants and a police officer this before I figured out my mistake and they all gave me looks like I was crazy. 

**DAY 3 + 4 (Tokyo + Kyoto)**

OK, I’m awake now (slept 11 hours, jesus christ).   I have walked more in the last three days than I have walked in months, good lord.

I forgot to tell you about a funny part of the [Tokyo Skytree](https://imgur.com/ki8B3ZT) \- they have a fucking window cleaner musical.   They have a performance of window cleaners projected onto the windows, (the actors, thankfully, are NOT outside the 900 ft tower) where they sing and clean the windows in a synchronized fashion, then all march onto the floor with a brass band. I wish I was joking.  I couldn’t understand a word of it though, so I have no idea what they were singing about exactly. 

After that we went downstairs and explored the mall underneath the skytree for a few hours – it was actually a lot of fun and we found a [store](https://www.remoju.com/en-us/spots/detail/60367) completely devoted to cheese. Best. cheesecake. I’ve.ever.had.

As for yesterday, we got up and and took the Metro out to Shinjuku, where our friend’s hotel was.  (We were meeting up with some friends from China)

Remember how for Day 2, I said that we hadn’t quite gotten to the point where white gloved station attendants were pushing people onto trains?  Well, I had my first experience with it yesterday.   The train was packed, we squeezed on, and about ten people got on behind us.  

There was an awkward pause as you realize the doors weren’t going to close unless something was done.   I was already half buried under B’s armpit, with my opposite arm and purse buried between two tall (for Japanese) business men, with another dude glued to my back.  

Then the shove came and I was knocked into the two business guys.  I wasn’t even holding onto anything.  The crush of people held me upright for about five stops, which was all kinds of no fun, because you can guess at the sort of momentum that the train drivers have to deal with when braking and accelerating with a packed train like that.  Everyone got pushed around and elbows in places that you don’t want elbows as the train stopped and started. 

When we got to Shinjuku, it was pretty different from where our hotel was (we’re in Nihonbashi).  Lots of wide avenues and modern development.  The suited Japanese businessmen were still everywhere.   Our friends were staying in the Shinjuku Washington, and they reported that their hotel room (despite being much newer) was no bigger than ours. 

We wandered around Shinjuku looking for breakfast, and our friends, both being Chinese, and thus indistinguishable from the Japanese, were shocked at our Gaijin Perimeter abilities.  The crowds parted in front of B like sailboats dodging out of the way of a tanker, and giving him the same sort of wide berth, to the point where some people were stepping out onto the street.

We found a ramen place called Ichiran which had decent ratings. It was also very much the sort of place that drunk people would stumble into during their walk of shame.  Everything was designed so that you could have minimal interaction with other human beings.   

You ordered your ramen from a ticket machine, and then there was four bar style rows, each with a little cubby that shut you off from your neighbour (though the cubby walls could be folded away).  

You pushed the ticket through a small bamboo screen and you were handed back a preference sheet that you ticked off – how spicy, how rich, what type of noodles, what veggies, and you returned it through the screen.  Minutes later, a bowl of ramen ordered to your preferences would be pushed through the screen.    You could literally accomplish all of this without saying a single word and the server was never visible – At most, you saw their hands through the screen.  Perfect for anyone with social anxiety.

After that, we headed out on the JR lines to [Tokyo DisneySea](https://imgur.com/YPN2g2m).   You heard that right, DisneySea, not Disneyland.  They are adjacent park, but the major difference is that DisneySea serves booze.  Not that we had any (booze was not immune to Disney prices).  

 On a purely artsy level, DisneySea was awesome – everything was gorgeously and meticulously decorated.   While walking through [“King Triton’s Castle”](https://imgur.com/taHN85q)(as opposed to the Sleeping Beauty’s castle that you’d find in the regular disney parks), we noticed that every single tile in every single mosaic was in fact engraved with pictures of Ariel, Flounder and Prince Eric.  Not the same picture either – different poses and positions.  

 There was a huge Steampunk flavour to the park too.   Everything was pretty to look at and the amount of detail was insane. 

It was crowded though and the rides were ok. We only went on about 6 of them, but they were fun.  Again, more just from the artsy side of it.  I would say it was worth what we paid, but only just barely.   I will say this though, when set free from the uniform requirements of black, navy and beige “NormCore” colours (according to my sister, that’s the name that’s used for that type of fashion?), Japanese people seem to have terrible taste in clothing.   Lots of mixed neons and plaid.  

I also got an extremely awkward sunburn, because I under-estimated how far the neckline of my dress went down and didn’t put on sunscreen that far down.  :/    It itches.  The sun here does not play around, we had to buy 50SPF+++ sunscreen (which is everywhere, thank goodness)

We got home and passed out super quick last night.  This morning, we woke up early and packed up our room, because we were heading to Kyoto today. 

   \~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~

SO, EIGHT HOURS LATER, WE ARE NOW IN KYOTO. 

Kyoto is crazy different from Tokyo. 

Big difference?   The Japanese business-suited business man has completely disappeared.   Now there’s people walking around in actual kimonos  (We saw no kimonos in Tokyo. none.)    Oh, and people are wearing colours. Actual colours. 

We booked out of our hotel around 10am and dragged our suitcases over to Tokyo station, which was around 20 minutes away on foot.  Not bad at all, but it was a hot day.   Also, the bank of Japan headquarters looks like a fortress and there is one office building just before the station that is entirely covered in roses – we’re talking a 6 storey building. Completely covered in roses.  It was pretty cool. 

Tokyo station is just nuts. There are 24 platforms, both local and shinkansen trains.  It is a white tiled rabbit warren.   B and K’s gaijin perimeter was invaluable when we were rushing through the crowds to catch our train. 

There was also a mall beneath the station, and much of it was devoted to different stores that featured a particular character.   Japan has a tendency to make a cutesy character mascot for everything. Literally everything. 

 Every prefecture, every city, has a character mascot. Most of the big companies have them.   Some of them, like Domo-kun have gotten extremely popular. Others, like Snoopy, have been taken, bastardized, and then grown into something that bypasses all of their origins.   There were, of course, stores dedicated to these two guys, and several others as well.  My favourite was the Studio Ghibli store (obviously).

There was alot of specialized food places, of varying quality, including a standing sushi bar.  

The shinkansen train was really new experience for me. I’ve been on really fast trains before – I’ve been on the TGV trains in France, but I was really too young to remember much about it.    However, Shinkansen bullet trains are pretty ridiculous, in a very cool way. 

First, they’re extremely long – about 16 cars.  Of course, our reserved seats were in the very last car, so we had to hike down the platforms with our bags (about 200 m and it was very very crowded). 

They’re arranged pretty much like an airplane, with overhead and under seat storage and similar seats and once you actually get going, you don’t really process how fast you’re going, unless the train passes really close to something.     Most of the scenery passes much like it would if you were in a car.  But when something passed by at less than 5 m, it was literally so blurred that you could not distinguish what it was.   Several trains passed us on the adjacent track and you could not even distinguish the windows.  

The Japanese countryside is really neat –  Everything is really dense, and then there’s wild countryside.   They don’t really do “suburbia” in the sense that north america does.  There was very clear demarcations between human habitation, farmland and wilderness, and you didn’t see much overlap.   The mountains here are gorgeous, but wayyyy smaller than the ones back home.  They seem gentler too, but it’s hard to say, because I don’t know what Japanese hiking habits are. 

We went by mount Fuji too :))

Upon reaching Kyoto, it was much hotter and much more casual.  As I mentioned earlier, the business suits have disappeared and everything is older and feels more organic, so to speak. 

The townhouse were are staying in is extremely old and has tatami flooring, and we’re sleeping on futons as well.  There’s a supermarket 1 block away and we had a lot of fun attempting to decipher what the hell different foods were.  Sometimes my ability to read some Kanji helped, but most of it is a mystery, because Japan tends to favour cutesy drawings over pictures of products on their packaging.    

Also, vegetables and fruit are very very photogenic here.  Apparently, Japanese people are willing to pay a lot of money to eat “perfect” looking foods.  The carrots we bought were fat, bright orange and perfectly shaped. That was the only option. Same goes for every other veggie we could find. 

We also had a super awkward moment when we discovered that Japanese supermarkets do not give you bags.  B and I bought a basket worth of food, then discovered that we had no way to carry it home easily.  

So we opted for the most ridiculous route, and carried it all back to the apartment balanced in our arms.  People were openly smirking at us, but oh well. How were we supposed to know?  😛 

Super tired today, so we’re having a night in.  S, K and B have been drinking the super cheap alcohol that you can buy in the supermarket.  We’ll be going to bed soon, because we’re boring like that .

​

**Day 5 (Kyoto)**

We rented bikes for commuting around Kyoto. Kyoto is full of contradictions. The locals bike everywhere it seems, except on the actual designated bike lanes.  But you would not believe the glares we get when we ring our little bike bells to get wandering Japanese Obasans (old women) out of our way, because they’re in the middle of the bike path.   There’s also signs everywhere that tell you where not to park your bikes – only to have half a dozen bikes parked in front of them.

We rode up and down both sides of the Kamo river, which is in the middle of Kyoto – and there were a bunch of hawks and cranes up and down the river.  The hawks were fighting quite low to the ground and nearly buzzed B at one point.  Later on, we saw them steal a sandwich out of a girl’s hand.  She burst into tears and I don’t blame her – I worked with birds and that still looked terrifying.  

I should also note that it’s fucking hot out. The airbnb we are renting has 2 bedrooms but only one of the bedrooms has A/C. So all four of us are crammed into one room on futons because the other room is enough to make anyone melt. We’ve been using the other room as a “dressing room” and keeping all our bags in there.

**Day 6 (Kyoto)**

So I have a massive case of bike butt right now. 

As in, I’ve been on a bike for more than 20 hours in the last three days, and I have a seat shaped bruise on my ass.  I wish I was joking.

Still by far the best way to get around Kyoto (and the cheapest – we only paid about $45 for a two week rental) but jeez, you pay for it in other ways.  😛 I’m going to be sitting funny for a few days! 

Today was a lot of fun – we went out to Arashiyama (Biked to Nijo JR station from our airbnb – about 22 mins, then used JR pass), which is a district on the far side of Kyoto from where we are staying (we’re in Gion, which is the famous geisha district – did you ever hear of the book/movie Memoirs of a Geisha? That’s where it’s set).   Arashiyama is a gorgeous area, with steep mountains and these really beautiful gorges.  It started raining like crazy, so we didn’t go on the scenic train like we had been planning to, but we visited the Monkey park, which was a lot of fun.

Japan only has one species of monkey – the Japanese Macaque.  They’re not very big – they’d be about knee height on you, but they have red faces and red butts.  They’re the ones you see in pictures sitting in the hot springs!  The ones at this particular park are a part of a study group and there’s about 130 of them.   The monkey park is also a 20 minute hike up a mountain, so it has a gorgeous view of the entirety of Kyoto – from the opposite perspective than the one we had at Kiyomizu dera (which I will tell you about in a bit). 

We hiked up to the top of the mountain, the monkeys were mostly just laying around and [chilling out.](https://imgur.com/9OWCow2) Some were grooming each other, and a lot of the younger ones were running around playing. They’re right underfoot! You weren’t allowed to touch them or crouch down to look at them (it’s a dominance thing apparently) but they were super chill around humans and only avoided direct contact. 

One of the cool things you could do up here was feed them!   Y100 yen got you a bag of apples or nuts and you could feed them at a designated feeding station, where they’ll take the food right out of your hand. 

 They would crowd around and I got really lucky, because the macaque that came up to me to take the apples was a [mother with a very young baby](https://imgur.com/L9IBfQ8) \- he was so tiny, about 7 inches long, and was clinging to her belly and nursing as she ate the apples.   Completely adorable. I also got pictures of her letting him [wander](https://imgur.com/cuvQtZi) around and [explore](https://imgur.com/TNPHyQ3) later.   

We came down from the monkey park and mostly just browsed the tourist shops, because the weather was so bad and sat in the the covered [foot bath](https://imgur.com/qkVvtmT) at one end of the high street.

\~\~

Kiyomizu dera is about 35 minutes south of our airbnb by bike, and it was a pretty cool ride until the very end – we managed about a quarter of the hill on our bikes, then had to walk up the rest of the way. The temple up is a narrow street lined with shops and there’s tour buses everywhere, so walking ended up being safer. We really enjoyed wandering around the temple – it was crowded, but not claustrophobic and the view over Kyoto was gorgeous. There’s tons of little side paths and little grottos that are sort of lurking around the main temple and [pagoda](https://imgur.com/HldEUJF), so you can spend quite a while just wandering. We checked out the shops on the way back down the hill and it was super nice.

​

**(Kyoto)**

We got up super early and went to the [Aoi Matsuri festival](https://imgur.com/PXwiEwm) (15 minutes bike ride from our airbnb).  I’m not entirely sure on the origins for this one (it’s one of the oldest ongoing “festivals” in Japan – about 1100 years) but it’s very sombre.  It’s a processional from the Kyoto Imperial palace up to a temple about three kilometres upriver, and apparently it was originally done to appease the gods after a series of disasters at that point.   All the costumes are modeled after the Heian era (about 900 years ago) and everyone carries hollyhock branches and the processional attendants carry an unmarried woman who was chosen as “Saio Dai” through out the procession, basically a priestess who leads the appeasement rituals. 

Generally, the Saio Dai has to wear 12 layers of robes.  It was about 27 C yesterday. I’m surprised she didn’t melt. It was interesting to watch from an anthropological standpoint (everyone was wearing shoes made of reeds) but there was nothing to really engross the casual observer and we couldn’t understand the chanting or the loudspeaker announcements at all.  We left after about 40 minutes, as there was precious little shade.

The funniest thing we saw was that someone in a security guard uniform was basically in charge of making sure the processional’s horses peed into a garbage bag instead of onto the parade route.

 Afterwards, we biked around several of the temples just north of our apartment ( a lot of them are world heritage sites, and very beautiful, but Kyoto is very much a place where there is a temple on every block, so you have to be picky about the ones you go to).  They were all beautiful and serene, but there weren’t many differences between them.  

 After that, we biked down to Kyoto Station to get some ramen from the ramen alley (35 min bike ride straight down the river pathway, then across).    In the station, up on the 10th floor, there is a section with 12 little ramen shops, each with a different style of ramen.  S and K went to a ramen place elsewhere in Kyoto and ended up getting ramen that was wayyy to spicy for them, so they were in a lot of, ah, discomfort this morning.   We’ve been taking it easy the last few days, as we haven’t been getting much sleep.  The person we’re renting an apartment from didn’t really give us good futons, so we’ve been pretty much laying on the hard tatami.  Thankfully, the problem was sorted today and I hope tonight we can get a good sleep!

​

**(Kyoto)**

So, since I’ve always wanted to try on a kimono, but lacked the funds to get one of my own (they cost about $5000 minimum, due to the amount of embroidery they often have), we went to a kimono studio.

Most of the people walking around Kyoto are wearing yukata instead of kimono.  Most good yukata will still set you back about $200 though, (but we ended up getting nice cotton ones from a cool 2nd hand shop in downtown Kyoto – we still use them as our summer bath robes). 

So I was looking for places to rent them from (there’s plenty) but I also discovered a place that will dress one up in a full kimono, as well as put on all the traditional geisha makeup. My sister wanted to try this too, so off we went the day before yesterday.   It’s a little three story studio several blocks south of where we were staying, that called itself the “Maiko Experience”. Despite the good reviews, I thought it might be touristy, but the clientele was about 50% Japanese as well.   Several older Japanese ladies were in the make up and dressing rooms with us. 

Turns out that being belted into a proper kimono is NOT something you can do yourself.  I had some vague ideas that you needed help to do it properly, but it’s often a two or three person job.   

We were put into makeup first.  Traditional Maiko make up is where they paint your skin and neck completely white (with the exception of a small area at the back of your neck, because apparently it’s erotic to have a small bit of skin showing through layers of white paint?)   The white makeup feels pretty much like paint but they basically buff you non stop with a powder puff to get it to smooth out and cover everything, including the entirety of our lips. 

The eye makeup wasn’t too different from what some people would do – red/pink shading around the outer eyes and black kohl liner, which shows up quite dramatically against the white face paint.    What was weird to me is that she spent several minutes painting my eyebrows red, then overlaying it with black kohl.    

  The effect was very interesting though, and one I saw it properly after she was finished, I figured out what she was going for. It makes for a far deeper and more subtle look than just putting black would have done.  Just black would have made me look like I had huge black caterpillar eyebrows.   Adding the red blended the whole thing with the eye makeup and added a lot of depth. Which is a weird comment to make about eyebrows.    

The lips were the most annoying part.  If you’ve ever seen pictures of traditional geisha makeup, you’ll notice that they often only paint one of their lips fully (usually the bottom) and only a little line or a half done on the upper.   This is because if you actually painted your entire lips with a white face, you’d end up looking like a ridiculous clown. 

I don’t have Resting Bitch Face or anything, but my default expression is definitely not a close-lipped smile, which is what the make up artist required to apply the lip paint.   I had trouble keeping a close lipped smile while concentrating on keeping everything else still and, in her very meek Japanese way, I could tell she was annoyed with me, because every time I concentrated on keeping still, my mouth would return to a neutral position.   Either way, it came out crooked and it caused a flurry among the hairdressers later when they noticed it and swooped in to fix it. 

They don’t torture you by doing your hair in the geisha hairstyles (which were usually expected to last for days), so they have a half wig that they comb your hair over and paint black. 

After that, you pick what kimono you want to wear (I went with [pink, my sister chose blue](https://imgur.com/BayB64i)), [and](https://imgur.com/z7SujyT) you get strapped into them. 

I’m not even joking, it’s like getting trussed up into a corset.    There’s about three layers of underwear, and while my sister had no problems (her shape being more similar to the typical Japanese woman), I could tell my boobs were giving the dressers trouble.  Lots of untying and rearranging of padding, before being tugged tight again.  Apparently they try to make you cylindrical shaped before they even put the kimono on.   No buttons or anything – everything is held in place by cotton cords.   Still pretty merciless on the breathing though. 

After satisfying themselves with the undergarments  (and they are not sexy undergarments ) we moved onto the kimono. 

Kimonos come in one standard length, and the dresser folds them up to match your height.  So this caused another problem, because all the padding they had put underneath to even me out had to be rearranged so that I didn’t look pregnant when they folded up the kimono layers .   By the end of it, you are trussed up so tightly that you are forced to have good posture and can’t really even bend at the waist too good – all bending over is done with the knees. 

However, that’s half the pleasure of wearing corsets anyways (your back is forced to be straight, which alleviates a lot of aches) so it wasn’t that bad. 

We were taken for a couple studio pictures, then given ten minutes to take our own[pictures](https://imgur.com/jcykclY).  B noted that he barely recognized us through the make up and we took a couple [funny](https://imgur.com/HB5qeOg) shots (as funny as you can get with your movement restricted like that,  while wearing okobo sandals (which you should google). They’re as hard to balance on as they look.  

After washing off all the make up (also a lengthy process), we had a pretty quiet day in, as we have been going full speed for the last several days. 

Yesterday, we went down to Osaka.  We were late starting out, so we didn’t get to do as much as we wanted, but we took the shinkansen down and went to the Kaiyukan Aquarium, which was extremely impressive.  It’s a 7 story structure, and all the tanks are layers so that as you walk down through the aquarium, you re-encounter the same tanks, but at different depths.   

 There’s also a massive, 9 m x 34 m x 40m “Pacific Ocean tank” that takes up the majority of the middle of the building. It’s about 4 storeys high and actually contains a whale shark, the only one in captivity.   Half of the walkways have windows that open out onto this tank, so you could look at it from different perspectives.  We also got to watch several feedings, though as per usual, everything is in Japanese, so we have no idea what the trainers are actually saying. 

After the Aquarium, there’s a giant ferris wheel thing that’s 112m tall next to it, so we went on that, which gave us a pretty cool view of the city.   Osaka is much denser than Tokyo, with taller buildings, but spread over less of an area.  It had way more of a “crowded dirty city” vibe too.  We might go back to check out Osaka castle. 

**(Kinosaki Onsen) (days 9-10?)**

Good lord, did I ever get massaged into submission.  And not even by anything alive. Our [hotel](https://imgur.com/gfQgpda) room in Kinosaki had a rather frightening but extremely effective massage chair.  As it, it was so effective that you had to make sure the massaging bits didn’t push you right out of the chair before it was finished turning you into mashed potatoes.  It was an impulsive trip – we didn’t even know Kinosaki onsen existed until we were in Kyoto a few days, and decided to spend an overnight here – we left our suitcases at our airbnb in kyoto and just took a small bag each with toiletries and a change of clothes. It was worth keeping the Kyoto airbnb, because it meant we didn’t have to haul heavy bags around when we were exploring.

Also, Kinosaki is probably the my favourite spot of our vacation so far.  Not only did we have amazingly comfortable beds…. there was seven different onsens (hot spring baths) within walking distance of our hotel.  

I know you’re a loving connoseur of hot water, so this place would be heaven for you.  Basically, this was a town devoted to multitude of ways that you can douse yourself in hot water.  

 Do you want it hot enough to turn you into a tomato? Check.   Whirlpool jets? check.   Outdoor hot pools set under a tumbling waterfall? Check.   Stone benches to sit on with hot water running down the backs? check.   Outdoor hot pools in rock lined grottos? Check.  Steam rooms? Check   Free and unlimited access to seven onsens that offer these diversions? check.   (generally, your onsen fees are included in your hotel cost). 

Plus, the hotels provide you with [yukata](https://imgur.com/GS8cssQ) (light kimono) to wear while wandering around the village, and you can move freely between onsen while they’re open.  It’s extremely comfortable and makes everyone look colourful. 

We had a lot of fun with it, and like all Japanese bathhouses, nudity is a given.   Other than that, my sister and I got stared at a lot there (sort of like how it was in Tokyo – lots of side eye and awkward looking away when I caught their eye).    The best example was when they started laughing at something I did by accident. 

A bit of background – when you go into the bathing area in the onsen, you’re only allowed to bring one teeny towel to “cool” yourself with. You’re also not supposed to leave it laying around, so most people just fold it up….and set it on top of their heads.  There’s variations of course, but generally, it’s just sitting there. 

Not being used to this, I would usually forget it was there and drop it in the water whenever I tilted my head.    After this happening three times, I’ve finally managed to keep the awareness of keeeping my head level down to a science.  Then I started sneezing randomly while sitting on the side of the bath.  violent huge AHHHCHOOOS.  Shit, there goes my towel!  I snatch for it, fumble, and manage to catch it just before it hits the water.  All of the ladies in the tub burst out laughing.    They’re not laughing at me maliciously  (it did look pretty funny)  …. but I was in a corner, not really in the middle of anything.  They were all watching anyways!

K and B had a very different experience – basically any tub they sat in, all the japanese guys got up and moved to the other tub.

​

See part 2 below