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After the gardens we walked over the Hiroshima castle. My understanding is that the castle is being decommissioned at the end of March due to necessary upgrades. It is uncertain when it might open again (although the castle itself will still sit prominently in the skyline, people won’t be able to go inside). Since our timing was opportunistic, I decided we could take a tour.

The castle is a replica, obviously, since the original was destroyed during the atomic bombing. It was rebuilt as a symbol of resilience in the aftermath. The interior is a museum that mostly features notable historic events, costumes, and details on the building of the castle. The castle was very busy, I suspect due to its impending closure, and the exhibits were a little dated. Probably the most interesting exhibit for me was the detailed process on how japanese swords are fashioned. There is a good view of the city from the top floor of the castle, but like most of the exhibits along the way, it was far too crowded to stop and take photos.

Outside the castle we stopped at the Gokoku shrine and got our goshuin books stamped, before traipsing off to the Peace Park.

We toured the park and the museum with the kids. Photography is prohibited in the museum, but it’s really something that has to be experienced in person anyway. And it was not any easier for being our second time through.

It was early evening when we finished the museum visit so we decided to go find some dinner. We found a Royal Host nearby and attacked the drink bar with single minded ferocity. Also, sundaes!

Originally our plan was to take the ferry from Matsuyama over to Hiroshima, but we instead headed back to Osaka and took a day off to do laundry, get groceries, and give the kids a day of rest. This pushed our visit to Hiroshima back by a day, but we went nonetheless.

Our first stop on the itinerary was Shukkeien gardens.

Shukkeien gardens was a quiet, hidden gem when we visited some twenty years ago. Now there are signs everywhere leading to the gardens and, ugh, tourists. Even so the style of garden makes it easy to find quiet places to sit and appreciate the beauty.

The garden itself is built around a very large pond. The widest point is traversed by a moon-shaped stone bridge, and the pond is home to many koi and turtles. And opportunistic pigeons. Small sachets of koi food are sold at the gate for 100 yen. The kids had fun taking photos of the garden, and Locke had a knack for finding and photographing the fish. The park is bordered on the outside by one of the many rivers in Hiroshima.

There is a colorful flower garden near the entrance, but as we were visiting while it was still technically winter, it wasn’t as abundant as it will be in a few weeks. It was surprising to me how much the kids enjoyed the garden, and we managed to spend a couple of hours simply touring the grounds.

We stayed the night in Matsuyama at the Dogo Funaya onsen. We booked a Japanese style room, but opted out of the dinner since it was unlikely the children would handle a traditional teishoku course. We were given a thorough tour and explanation of the room, then we dropped our bags and went to explore the area. 

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The main point of interest nearby in the evening was the local shopping arcade. My goal was to try the specialty mikan cheesecake…but the store was closed on Tuesdays. With tremendous sorrow, a heavy heart, and an empty belly, we carried on. 

The other other main point of interest in the area is Dogo Onsen. It is an old, traditional bath house that apparently served as the inspiration for the interior in Spirited Away. 

We grabbed some dinner in the area, then settled into our rooms. My main objective was to check out the hot springs in the hotel. The granite room was open to men in the evening, so I visited there. Rowan joined me, and we luxuriated in several of the baths together for about an hour. We tried the tepid pool first, then the warm indoor pool, followed by two outdoor pools. Thoroughly luxuriated, we returned to our rooms to sleep. The next morning the baths opened up at 5 am, so I headed down to check out the Hinoki bath. Similar layout of baths, but the hinoki room also included a sauna. Of the two, I definitely enjoyed the granite room best. 

The stay included breakfast and it was fancy! But sadly I didn’t grab any photos! Rowan declared that onsen ryokan were the best, and we should stay at one every night. 

After breakfast we visited a couple of the local shrines and got a photo of Dogo onsen in the daylight. 

Originally we were going to visit Hiroshima directly, but I read conflicting information as to whether we could simply walk onto the ferry or not. Deciding on simplicity, we returned to Osaka via the way we came, never having once tasted a delicious mikan no-bake cream cheese cake. 

 Our visit to Matsuyama came about entirely by error. When trying to psych the kids up for places to see in Japan, I had looked up Matsuyama instead of Matsumoto. And it looked amazing! And the kids really, really wanted to go. 

It’s an original castle, one of around 12 remaining in Japan, so it ticked some boxes for me, as well. The downside was…it’s on Ehime, an island separated from the mainland by the Seto Inland Sea. Getting to Matsuyama from Osaka is a minimum 4 hour trip. There wasn’t really a feasible way to get to and from the castle in a single day and still explore the area. 

Then, by stroke of fortune, I happened to win a bursary through my employment. It was enough to defray most of the costs of staying at a ryokan in Matsuyama. And had the added benefit of letting the kids experience the whole ‘ryokan’ experience, which we otherwise would not do with our month-long house rental. It was set!

And so Tuesday we packed an overnight bag and began our long journey to Matsuyama. The train ride was the longest of the trip for the kids, but after the flight, it seemed fast and luxurious. The scenery was gorgeous as we travelled along and we spotted some very interesting sites along the way. 

Arriving in Matsuyama station, we stowed our bags in a locker, and began the hike up Matsuyama. First, we explored the third bailey – it features an elaborate garden in spring, but it was winter still. We saw the gardeners making preparations for planting. Regardless, it was an interesting spot to visit. 

Then, we had to climb the mountain. There is a ropeway and/or chairlift option to the middle peak, but it was on the other side of the park. Because we had walked over from the station, we were on the wrong side of the mountain to use it. And so, we had the choice – walk around the mountain, or walk up it. We decided to walk up it.

It turns out reaching the ropeway top is the halfway point. So we walked some more. And some more. And some more. We eventually reached the castle gates. Whereupon we had another 15 minutes of walking to get into the castle. But it was totally worth it. 

This castle is amazing. Soooo amazing. 

In many ways, it was similar to Matsumoto castle, in that it’s still largely in its original shape, so what is on display is the castle itself. There is the usual assortment of historical artifacts along the interior route: ceremonial robes, swords, paintings, rice scoops, and so on. But they were simply window dressing to the castle itself. The architecture itself, the woodworking details, the elaborate clay tiles, the fantastic stone drops and murder holes…all were very much at the forefront of the display.

Ice cream tally: 7

We had genuinely warned our children that adventures feature lots and lots of walking. But like all good children they rolled their eyes, knew better and simply ignored our sagacious wisdom. Then complained that their feet were tired. Why, we had hardly done more than 18,000 steps (mostly uphill) the day previous, and already they were fatigued? 

Our tentative plan had been to visit Miyajima and Iwakuni on Monday, but given the mumbles and grumbles of the assembled persons and their dire lack of footly fortitude, we opted instead to visit Osaka aquarium. It was the thing the kids were most looking forward to on this trip, and it was super close by, so we wouldn’t have to activate our rail passes yet. 

I feel like the aquarium had changed somewhat from our first foray here, but it has been 18 years since we last visited. I may simply be misremembering. Regardless, it remains impressive. 

We opted to purchase the audio guides for the children, which purported to provide additional audio details about exhibits. Alas, it was wasted on my children, whose knowledge of marine biology is uncannily deep thanks to our very competitive games of 20 questions. Locke dutifully listened to all the audio guide had to provide, but I think he had more fun playing with the guide itself, as opposed to the superficial information it provided. 

What I found particularly enjoyable about this visit was the maturity level of my kids. When we visited zoos and aquariums while they were younger, they would try to see as much as possible, as quickly as possible. This time, they were content to stop and watch exhibits for considerable time before moving on. It made for a leisurely and enjoyable experience. 

All in all we spent three or four hours at the aquarium, then finished with a visit to the cafe. We all decided to try to ‘eel’ hot dogs. 

Upon completion, the kids immediately asked if we could go visit again before we head home. And I suspect we will. 

Ice cream tally: 4

Our family was split 50/50 Sunday morning whether to wake up on time or to sleep in. While we waited for the others to arise, Locke and I decided we would go explore around the station.

Without a particular destination in mind, we simply wandered the area in a rough circle sphere square rhomboid lopsided dodecahedron. The area is substantially residential and the most notable feature was probably the schools. Each school is three stories tall, and it’s built on an elevated grade roughly a floor above street level, so they tend to tower over everything else in the area. 

We did, however, come across the occasional shrine or park as we traversed. The weather was gorgeous and clear, but a little cool. 

After our walk, we reunited with our wayward layabouts and set off for Kyoto. Destination: Kiyomizudera. 

We took the Keihan line to near our destination, then walked along the canal. It is still early in cherry blossom season, so the canal was a little bare. Still we found one or two brave trees starting to bloom. 

We have visited Kiyomizudera on every trip to Japan. Many of you have used chopsticks sourced from these very stores! It’s chaotic, colorful, and a definite tourist trap. As in, it has every possible knick knack a person could possibly want and at price points intended to shake every final coin from your wallet. Rowan and I picked up our goshuincho from a little shop, Locke browsed the ties, and everyone bought chopsticks as we made our way up the street. 

Arriving at the top is the namesake temple. I’ve posted about it before, so I’ll spare the details. But today we were here for Seiryu-e! An ancient festival (started in 2000) featuring an 18 meter dragon paraded from the temple and through the streets. The dragon is purported to be one of the four guardians of Kyoto. And it happens to bring in the tourists, too! 

Alas! We only took video! But here is a screenshot of the dragon being paraded from the temple to the main square. They also played actual conches to announce the parade! How cool is that?

Ice cream tally: 2 

Back in March, we decided to take the boys on a mid-week trip to the Woodland Park Zoo in Seattle, Washington. We had a kickstarter package to pick up, and going for a couple of nights meant that it would all be duty-free – BONUS!

We drove down after work on a Tuesday & checked in for 2 nights at a cheap motel. The first night was mainly uneventful as the boys had both fallen asleep in the car, and we managed to get them in the room without waking them up. Then the next morning we were off to the zoo!

One of the main attractions was the fact that three lion cubs were just starting to come out on exhibit there. We had excellent timing and managed to see them several times as they came out to play with their papa.

The zoo also had a pretty nice penguin area so the boys got to see some penguins close up.

And they thought this hippo statue was pretty cool too (oddly, we didn’t get any photos of the kids actually climbing on it).

We weren’t sure how they would handle the day at the zoo, so we thought of a few other things to do in case we needed to fill time. Our fears were unfounded though and they lasted the entire day. In fact, after the zoo closing announcement, as we were headed to the parking lot, both boys got quite upset that we had to leave at all and we had to stay an extra half hour or so before actually driving back to the motel.

We’d read a good recommendation for a local Italian restaurant and ordered some dinner from there. Unfortunately, they’d had a scheduling error and after nearly 40 minute wait, I phoned again to find out that the delivery driver had just gotten there after getting called in at the last minute. She was profusely apologetic when she dropped off the food in the pouring rain about a half hour after that. The food was pretty good, though difficult to eat as they hadn’t packed us any utensils for it. (Mental note, add a couple sporks and some chopsticks to the suitcase before our next trip!)

Luckily, we’d brought some digital entertainment for the boys. I think the hardest part was keeping them fairly contained in a small motel room. True to our previous travels, it just wouldn’t be right unless the boys kept us up most of the night. The rigors of walking all day proved for some pretty intense leg cramps for Locutus. Lance ended up walking him up and down the street for a while, just so his crying wouldn’t inconvenience our fellow travelers. A few of them did pack up and leave in the wee hours anyway.

We got up the next morning very tired and decided to head back to the zoo for a while and make the most of our trip (and duty-free allowance). Again, we weren’t sure how long the boys would last, but yet again, they wanted to stay all day long.

We were pretty exhausted when we got back but had an excellent time and are looking forward to making another trip down this fall now that the zoo also has 3 tigers on display.

One thing I realize I’ve never done, is written an extensive post about washrooms in Japan. First off, just like at home, public washrooms are hit or miss for their cleanliness and the facilities available. But, Japanese washrooms have many features that I’d love to see adopted in Canada. But, let’s start off with some caveats . . .

Most importantly, if you enter a Japanese washroom and they are selling pocket packs of kleenex by the entrance for 100 yen, BUY SOME! This generally indicates that the stalls do not come equipped with toilet paper so you’re on your own to supply it, or drip dry.

I’ve yet to see a paper towel dispenser in a Japanese washroom. Air dryers are sometimes present. Most Japanese people carry a washcloth or handkerchief with them at all times. It’s a good habit to get in to.

Squat toilets are quite common. Don’t fear them. They are actually fairy easy to use unless you are drunk or have a physical disability that would prevent you from balancing in a squatted position. In fact, when I am wearing Locutus on my back, they are easier to use than a sit-down toilet. Sometimes they stink. Sometimes our public washrooms stink too.

Restaurants aren’t required to have public washrooms. Neither are stores. Get used to using train stations and using whatever facilities are available before you leave places.

Some washrooms come equipped with multi-functional seats. If you don’t understand the buttons, don’t push them unless you consider yourself a stoic, brave adventurer. Just don’t squat on a sit-down toilet.

This is not a squat toilet, do not squat on it!

Now on to my wishlist . . .

1. Stall doors that fit better and go down to the floor and higher than the ceiling. Obviously, in a culture where squat toilets are normal, a normal stall door goes all the way to the floor. This prevents unexpected toddler visitors during your stay as well. A taller door also prevents people from grabbing your coat and/or purse, while you are otherwise indisposed.

2. Multipurpose rooms. Often times in train stations or department stores, we would find a room that was designated a ‘multi-purpose room.’ This means that it could accommodate someone who needed wheelchair access, it also would have a change table in it. And sometimes other things. Like a fold-out bed, essentially.

A full folding bed was handy for diaper changes

This one also had a mini-stall for other small children to use

I just think this is incredibly clever. In case you are just feeling ill, you’ve got a spot to lie down. It also works for a first aid station if someone has a cut or takes a fall. Most of them had a sink in the room. Some of them were even more posh and also would serve as a nursing room and had a bottle-warmer as well.

3. A little-boy urinal in the ladies room.

A little urinal for little boys who need to go to the washroom with their mommy

The little boy doesn’t have to wait and all the ladies don’t have to wait for him while he takes up a stall. It’s just smart!

4. A baby-seat in the stalls. This would work in either men’s or ladies’ rooms. It gives you a place to put your baby so they aren’t getting into trouble while you go to the bathroom. There technically is a falling hazard, but since the stall is so small that you should be able to grab your baby while sitting on a toilet, I don’t see why this wouldn’t work. Except that our stalls are too flimsy in construction.
Something which I would like to see change in general too.

Let’s not limit my wishlist just to public washrooms and such either. While the heated seats are nice, and the bidet functions do come in handy, they aren’t necessarily on my wish list. Let’s move on to the shower/tub section of the bathroom now.

1. On demand hot water. Move water heaters to the spot behind the water source. Then I don’t have to wait and pump out cold water for 5 minutes while waiting for the hot water from our water heater in the garage to move up to our third floor.

2. Separate the temperature and pressure control in the shower/bath. One dial controls temperature and another controls the pressure. Not the norm in every hotel bathroom, but boy was it nice when it was set up that way! There even appeared to be a safety button on the temperature control to prevent scalding. At home in my shower there is one generic pressure setting and you can’t get cold water to come out at a strong water pressure.

3. A handheld shower head with 2 brackets at different heights. This came in so handy!!! First of all, if you’ve got a kid who is a mess, you just stand them in the bathtub, take the handheld sprayer and hose them down. You get nice warm water right away if you’ve got number 1 & 2 in place already. We also used it to clean out messy diapers and easily rinse off messy towels (eating strawberry yoghurt with a 1 year old will make it look like there’s been a homicide).

4. A pause button on the sprayer. You can turn the shower on and then pause it, without having to completely reset your pressure setting to off. Also very handy, if a bit of a luxury item. It also lets you move the sprayer within reach of the toilet and sink without getting water all over the floor. Not that this is an issue, since most Japanese bathrooms have a drain built into the pre-fab washroom floor.

5. Let’s not forget the mirror with a heated panel that doesn’t fog up. Love that too!

By now, you’ll have noticed that our early efforts at souvenir shopping were quite frustrating. The places we returned to lacked anything new and unique that grabbed our attention. We’ve come to the conclusion that Japanese department stores are actually just cleverly designed traps intended to confuse and exhaust tourists until they buy things out of sheer exhaustion. Trust us, we adventured through 5 in one city and couldn’t find anything actually worth it. It was only because we are experienced adventurers that we got out unscathed.

So, while we had picked up a thing or two here and there, we hadn’t really found anything of the calibre we’d brought back on our previous trips to Japan. Nothing as stunning as a Foo Dog statue or replica musket. We have particular weaknesses for drinking vessels and had yet to find anything really indulgence worthy there. The day we were going to possibly go in search of Imari pottery we stopped because of the long travel times involved. I was also looking for some outfits for Locutus to wear to our Samurai Night Fever costume party, and had yet to find any used Kimono stores where something might be worthy. Even in the 1000 yen shop in Miyajima (it’s like a $10 store where everything is about $10) the only children’s jin bei (asian style pyjamas) they had were quite ugly and they were completely out of the men’s selection (Lance likes wearing these in the summer because they are so nice and light and comfortable).

In one of our earlier searches, we’d seen that there was the Harbour Bay Shopping Centre right next to the sumo stadium. So we thought we’d go check it out. It didn’t seem particularly large, but it was close to sumo, and the map showed a small green space where we thought we might let Locutus run around for a while and have some fun. So we went, and kind of hit the jackpot.

It’s a shopping centre and ferry terminal. Cruise ships dock behind us.

Doesn’t look like much, does it? But inside, in addition to a giant aquarium in the centre, they had an entire shop for Imari style pottery. While none of that struck our fancy, they also had a selection of pieces that were by a local artist. It. Is. Gorgeous. We don’t have any pictures, but his pieces were in earthy brown tones or blues. The earthy pieces depict forest scenes with little shrines. They are intricate and gorgeous. The blue tone pieces feature Japanese troll-type creatures. The tea mug I bought has his front on one side and his back on the other. Anyone who has an appreciation for DnD-type mythology would love these! So we . . . decided to invest.

Before we bought though, we had to discuss our purchases. So we went to the Japanese Duty Free store in the next building over (we were basically at the cruise ship port). I’d read briefly about it and it sounded like a standard duty free store featuring perfumes, makeup, etc. I didn’t think we’d actually find anything. Except in the clothing section, they had some yukata (like a casual kimono made of cotton) and some children’s ensembles. We picked up 2 in different sizes and neutral styles so they can be passed down to other kids in the future too (because I consider Foo Dogs and Dragons to be completely gender neutral).

We also picked up a few sumo souvenirs of course. The couple of times that the sumo association had a table set up they had some very good deals and we were happy to support them a bit too. Sadly, they sold out of the handkerchief I liked early so I didn’t get any additional colour variations. But that’s ok, because handkerchiefs is one thing I did stock up on in Kyoto early on.

Things we almost bought, but didn’t . . .
– Japanese patterns – we actually found a fabric shop and they had a pattern section with a few promising pieces. But since the instructions would all be in Japanese, and my Japanese isn’t that strong, I decided against it.

– a sweater dress – in the basement of the building next to Hakata station, they had a store that was selling a bunch of really cute sweater dresses. But, in the end, I can get something similar back home fairly easy, so I’m glad we didn’t pick one up.

– anything Hello Kitty or Pokemon. Don’t tell my nieces and nephews, but we did look for learning chopsticks in those themes. Aside from entire bento sets or cutlery sets, they didn’t have anything appropriate though, so we didn’t get anything. Also, they sold out of the really cute Hello Kitty Sumo figure by the time we thought to buy one. Clearly we weren’t meant to support those particular Japanese icons.

– furniture – Yes, we saw some really cool pieces. However, aside from the obvious issue of getting them back to Canada, there is also the issue of where to put them in our house. (Editorial note, this is only an issue for Jenn. Lance takes an entirely different approach to home furnishing and this did not present an issue for him at all.)

– wood carvings – there were several that were gorgeous, but again, luggage restrictions really limited us.

– booze – well, there’s still a chance we’ll pick something up at the airport duty free store. This is the first time we’ve gone to Japan and not visited a sake brewery. We thought we might visit the Asahi brewery, but the info brochure they had at the tourist centre didn’t actually tell us where it was or how to get there. In a choice between randomly wandering Fukuoka in search of a beer brewery and watching sumo while drinking beer (Lance at least), we chose sumo.

– a suitcase – this is the first time we’ve actually managed to fit everything we’re bringing back into the same bags we came with. This was partly made possible by the fact that we packed a backpack in one of our suitcases for the trip over here. The other contributing factor is the dwindling diaper supply. On the way here we had a supply that lasted about 10 days. On the way back, we only need to bring a couple of days worth. (Editorial note: if I had to do it again, I’d bring fewer diapers to start, but more diaper wipes)