Tokyo: Kinosaki + Asakusa
This is the thirteenth recap for LOHOjapan, my 3 week trip to Japan with my boyfriend. After an amazing day in the little hot spring town Kinosaki, we embark back to Tokyo to hear some bad news…
Kinosaki
We wake up from our fluffy futons bright and early at 8:30 am. This is because our ryokan serves their breakfast session at this time. Well, technically they start serving it at 8 am but we told our attendant we will not be awake lol.
A ryokan is a traditional Japanese inn – one with tatami mats. You sleep on futons and the inn prepares your meals as well (amazing dinner last night! Make sure you read my previous post).
Breakfast: Tsutaya Inn
Unlike the dinner service where our meal is prepared for us in our room, the breakfast service is in a communal dining room. They have tables set up for you when you first come in.
We have some lovely plating again. The first thing I do is take a sip from the miso soup. Ahhh, warm and inviting.
Next, I pop this cute tamagoyaki (egg roll) into my mouth. It is fluffy and soft.
Inside the big bowl, they present to me a block of soft tofu sitting in a daikon (radish) broth. There are some vegetables and mushrooms to go with it.
I eat this along with some rice and a simple grilled fish. I believe it’s mackerel. The thing inside the little tin foil cupcake thing is some sort of an acorn jelly mixture. It has a jelly texture and tastes kind of like a fermented side dish.
There are also some other side dishes we eat in-between bites. In the trio of boxes, there is some actual acorn jelly (lol idk what the previous thing is then), a carrot and some other jelly things, and third is some more jelly seaweed things. I’m sorry I can’t describe this better, but all 3 mini plates taste very similar.
And lastly there is a little mayo salad with a few slices of cold ham. I eat that last and it is the least satisfactory item.
In general, the breakfast has common bland flavours. It’s nice to start off the day with it, but it’s definitely nothing compared to the dinner we ate the night previously. Again, since there are not a lot of restaurants in Kinosaki (and not a lot of restaurants opened for breakfast), this is still a great option. It is very soul cleansing.
Things to do: Morning onsen (hot spring)
We want to maximize our hot spring pass and go to one more onsen before we leave Kinosaki. So after our breakfast, we hurry over to the closest onsen next door for a morning soak.
Mandara-Yu
Mandara-Yu onsen is the closest hot spring to our inn and it is also the oldest hot spring in the city! Similar to Kouno-yu, they have an indoor and outdoor pool.
I follow all the hot spring rules and enjoy my soak in the indoor pool. A large group of children come in so I make an exit to the outdoor pool. Sadly, I am disappointed that the outdoor pools are two tubs. Like literally water basin tubs:
I am a small person so I feel relatively fine sitting inside this tub. I am able to even stretch my legs out and sit kind of like a V in the water. This is definitely not as comfortable as the outdoor pool in Kouno-yu, but at least it is kind of private? Like no way another lady is going to come into this tub and join me lol. It is also oddly satisfying to watch the water spill over the edge of the tub when you step in.
Transportation back to Tokyo
After one last relaxing soak, we return back to Tsutaya Inn to change, pack and check out of the ryokan. They prepare a car to drive us back to the train station, which is again, very thoughtful and we leave Kinosaki feeling fully taken care of.
From Kinosaki, you must first go back to Kyoto Station. This is ~$50 one way and takes 2.5 hours.
Lunch: Katsukura
We eat lunch once we arrive at Kyoto Station. Instead of going to the basement floor, we go all the way up to the 14th restaurant floor. From there, we choose to try a tonkatsu (deep fried pork cutlet) restaurant.
We order 2 premium tonkatsu sets ($21 each). They come with some kind of premium cut of meat and unlimited miso soup, cabbage and rice.
I guess it is kind of sad that a random tonkatsu restaurant in a train station tastes just as good or even better than Saku, a Vancouver tonkatsu restaurant that usually has a 1-2 hour wait.
But yes, the tonkatsu is delicious. It is not greasy or oily and the texture is lightly fried and crispy. The meat is juicy inside and not dry at all. The miso soup has lots of vegetables inside.
Bullet train to Tokyo
We are very careful this time not to buy first-class bullet train seats. We purchase normal reserved seating and it costs us $350 for 2 people. It takes us another 2.5 hours to arrive to Tokyo Station, making our total travel time for today 5 hours.
Announcement: Typhoon Hagibis is coming!
So as we are pulling into Tokyo Station, we hear the announcement about Typhoon Hagibis. A typhoon is a mature tropical cyclone and because of where Japan is situated, they are prone to such natural disasters every year to different degrees. As a country, Japan is probably one of the most well-prepared countries when it comes to typhoons, so my initial reaction is that we will be ok.
As we research more about Typhoon Hagibis, we see the following headlines:
- Super Typhoon Hagibis heads towards Japan
- Typhoon Hagibis: Storm biggest to hit Japan in decades
- Typhoon Hagibis – Japan braces for monster typhoon
We are like holy shit this is a big and serious typhoon. Just skimming the articles, it sounds like this is one of the largest typhoons ever recorded. Evacuation for smaller rural towns have started and world events such as the World Rugby Cup were cancelled for safety.
My head is starting to get stressed already because I’m not quite sure what we need to do to prepare for the typhoon as a visiting tourist. We can see that Tokyo is restless. Tokyo Station is a frenzy, with a bunch of bullet train schedules delayed or cancelled for the next 2 days due to typhoon preparedness. We are glad that our bullet train to Tokyo did not get cancelled, and we hurry to our hotel.
Asakusa
Our last hotel is in the Asakusa area. A lot of people describe Asakusa as “little Kyoto” because the architecture in this district resembles older Japan. Like Kyoto, the buildings have traditional rooftops and things do not look as modern – there’s no glass or skyscrapers, etc.
My take is that if you are spending an adequate amount of time in Kyoto, you can probably skip Asakusa.
Accommodations: APA hotel asakusabashi eki-kita
APA hotels are a large chain of business hotels. When I say “business hotels”, I mean that they are targeted towards business men. The rooms are small but it has everything they need for a quick 1 night stay and onto another day of business meetings. We book for 3 nights and it costs us $.
The front desk reminds us that Typhoon Hagibis is coming in 1 day (Saturday) and that we are advised to stay inside our hotel room and not to go out at all. He reassures us that power and electricity will not be a problem as they have a back-up generator, but they do leave us with a (strange) recommendation to fill our bathtub with water…
The room is definitely small compared to the other 2 hotels we have stayed in throughout our trip. I am kind of disappointed that we didn’t book at a nicer hotel now knowing that we may be stuck inside.
The weather outside is already looking bad – heavy rain and some wind, but we still need to eat dinner so we do go out. After all, the typhoon isn’t supposed to come until tomorrow, right?
Dinner: Kaiten Sushi
We go to a sushi restaurant recommended by our local friend, Miyu. Kaiten Sushi is a conveyor belt sushi restaurant located in the Tokyo Sky Tree mall.
We wait 20 minutes until we have a table. Like other conveyor belt sushi places, you can directly pick up items from the belt or order via the tablet. Different plates = different prices. Kaiten Sushi is more expensive than the last conveyor sushi place we went to (Kura Sushi in Ikebukuro), but they have more specialty items like a sweet prawn sushi with the juicy head!
They do this fun thing where they make a bunch of these “special sushi” and the chef start ringing a bell and yelling about how delicious it is. People then raise their hands if they want a plate of the special sushi.
Our total bill comes to around $40.
Things to do: Walk around Tokyo Skytree but don’t pay to go up (lol)
We leave the restaurant hoping to check out the rest of the mall, but shops have closed so instead we take the elevator up to Tokyo Skytree. Tokyo Skytree is an observation tower reaching 634 meters. Tickets cost 1,800 yen (~$21 CAD).
Of course, we are not interested in buying a ticket to go up the observatory. Not only are we not too interested in just a view, the view is pretty shit because it’s night time and the rain is pouring. There’s lots of fog too.
I didn’t know you could still go up the elevator to the 30th floor or so and just walk around. They have bars and restaurants on this floor and the view there is not too shabby!
Final thoughts on day thirteen
Today was mostly a travel day since it took us so long to travel from Kinosaki back to Tokyo. I was really sad to leave Kinosaki but maybe it was a blessing in disguise. We would not be able to afford extra nights at the inn and since Kinosaki is more rural, I wonder how disastrous a giant typhoon will make on the small town.
As for typhoon hagibis, you will read later on just how big of an impact it made on our trip and for hundreds of other tourists who also visited Japan around the same time. Hearing the rumblings and all the safety announcements certainly got me worried, but at this point, the weather was quite similar to a bad rainy day in Vancouver.
Stay tuned for my next post and follow along with the other recaps!
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Sincerely, Loewe
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