My parents’ visit was great fun. I got to show off all my favorite places and restaurants so we started off with the okonomiyaki (very thick savory pancakes with all your favorite ingredients in them, originating in Hiroshima I believe) restaurant in Omiya station. My personal favorite is the mochi-cheese combination, although the kim-chi-cheese combo is also delicious. I have yet to try the monjayaki, which is the Tokyo-style liquid-version of okonomiyaki. My parents were exhausted by the time we made it back to my apartment and of course it was raining by then. The walk from my local train station is very short, but it always seems miles longer when hauling heavy luggage.
The next day I thought we’d explore my small town of Ina in the morning, so we waited until 10am, when everything opens, and then walked down to Unicus, the local shopping mall. Unicus has a Tully’s, a Baskin Robbins, and a huge grocery store with a large cheese and dessert section. We also visited “ze Daiso”—the hundred yen shop—and my favorite shop, Passport, which always plays nice French music and sells all sorts of cute pillows, shelves and kitchen stuff. Then we headed back to the apartment with our grocery store finds for lunch. We caught the New Shuttle and headed to Omiya to look around my other favorite stores, Tokyu Hands and Loft. For dinner we went to a ramen shop that also sells delectable fried rice and had annen-dofu for dessert, a slightly sweet dessert with the texture of tofu.
On Sunday we went to Odaiba to get some Indian food at the restaurant that overlooks the Rainbow Bridge. We did some shopping and took some pictures in front of the Statue of Liberty with the Rainbow Bridge in the background. For some reason, a heart frame had been put up in front of the Statue of Liberty in Odaiba so I got a great picture of my parents in front of a Tokyo landmark. My dad and I took a spin the huge ferris wheel, and we all had a quick look around Venus Fort before heading back. We went to an izakaya, a Japanese bar for which there is no simple English equivalent, in Ina. Izakaya are usually attached to people’s homes and the size of a living room maybe. They sell beer and sake of course, and usually serve snacks as well. Anyway, the people at this izakaya were incredibly nice—they kept bringing us food and beer, and even some vegetarian food (which is hard to find in izakaya) since they heard I was vegetarian. In the end they wouldn’t let us pay for any of it. I’ve been back to the izakaya since then and I always try to bring a gift now.
I had to work the next day, but after that, my parents came to see my schools, which was an interesting experience. That evening we ate at my favorite cheap Italian chain restaurant, Saizeriya, in Omiya. On the very first train, at 5:42 the next morning, we left for Kyoto.
I’ve been traveling and getting visits from people so I’ve fallen woefully behind on updating the blog, so I’ll be posting a series of short entries to let everyone know what I’ve been up to since yuki matsuri. A week after the big snow festival in Hokkaido, I left on a 3-hour train ride into Minakami in Gunma prefecture for a Reggae snow festival. It was a winter wonderland in a way that Sapporo wasn’t, being a big city. In Minakami the snow was piled at least three feet high, blocking windows in many cases, and the city had a sprinkler system on the roads to keep the water from freezing. The music was nice, and lots of people were skiing but I went for the onsen which were delightful. There was even a nice onsen in the ryokan (traditional inn) we stayed at, although the ryokan was notably lacking in western-style toilets (as many ryokan are). I found a lovely rotemburo (outdoor hot spring pool) in another hotel overlooking the mountainside and had the novel experience of building a snowman (well, snowcat) in the altogether. The next day I took a 45-minute bus ride to a famous onsen nearby. The rotemburo there were the most beautiful I’ve ever seen, with snow drifts and a river flowing by just beyond the pool. There was also an extremely hot indoor pool. I managed to inch my way in, but it did take an effort not to leap out again. I also encountered my first mixed-bathing rotemburo, which required some discussion about the etiquette of mixed bathing pools with my friend (“towels? No Towels? Towels.”) who was more knowledgeable about Japanese culture but, alas, had also never been to a mixed-bathing pool. I almost didn’t make it back from the onsen, since there was a snow storm moving in and the bus I was going to take couldn’t make it that far into the mountains, but I finally got out safe and sound, and even caught the train I’d been hoping to take (also running late because of the storm).
Unfortunately, since that wonderful onsen, I’ve been falling way short of my one onsen/weekend goal. I haven’t made it to any onsen since Minakami, but I intend to see many more before I leave Japan. Next up: my parents’ visit and trip to Kyoto in mid-March.
