20 Days In Japan: We survived Sakura!
Jun 25th, 2016, 05:29 AM
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I have been having a hectic time lately and didn't realize that my final day of this report did not post! So here it is, not that it's much beyond the thank yous.
Shelleyk, okonomiyaki lost out to eating oysters for every meal! Minnbeef, when you are back at Mume, ask Hisako about starting her business. She tells a good story.
April 25 A BULLET AND GOODBYE TO JAPAN
Packed up and headed to the hotel's Japanese restaurant for breakfast, which I had paid to have included in our room rate of $135. We got the $24 Japanese breakfast with about 10 different tastes including grilled fish, yogurt and a big dish of rice porridge. The 3 "appetizers" or usual lineup of 3 tiny tastes, is so popular that they have it available boxed so you can take it home with you! One of the three was tasty even to me; I think it was fried sardines and Japanese pepper boiled in a sweet soy sauce. The biggest surprise was that one side of the restaurant is glass and looks out on a big beautiful Japanese pond garden that runs the length of the restaurant. Rock features with raked patterns, and the azalea pinks were in full bloom. Who would think this was on the fifth floor?
Took a cab to the station and then went to the ticket agent -- this time there was no line tho we had come early just in case -- so we could buy our ticket with a credit card. We have the Bank of America Travel Rewards card which reimburses us for travel expenses so we wanted to charge it. The fare with Shinkhansen and another train to the Kansai Airport was about $110 apiece. I hadn't realized until we started this trip that there are extra seat charges in addition to the price you see on Hyperdia so I probably didn't calculate correctly whether a JR pass might have saved us money; I had thought it was a wash and it would limit our choice of trains (as you can see by this report our preferred method of train travel was winging it). Frankly, I still don't know.
We had intended to make the 11:17 bullet train but we were ready to catch the 10:21 so we did. The JR Ltd Express got us to the airport at 1 for our 5:30 plane! We aren't used to the idea that trains won't be late -- or more likely, we might miss a connection because we don't know what we're doing. Neither train was crowded and we need not have paid for reserved seats.
Kansai Airport has a ton of shopping; we picked up a few last food gifts and tried a sample of some awesome cheese cookies, which we promptly bought. Then we went to a kind of restaurant we hadn't tried yet: conveyor belt sushi! Great fun figuring out how to order on an iPad and watching our selections zoom toward us. First time we ever had nigiri with cheese, or squid and okra. Also got some final shrimp tempura. Soon we were on JAL heading for LA, where we had planned a 23-hour free stopover so we could see our brother and family.
Thanks again to everyone on Fodor's Forums for all the advice and for taking time to write trip reports. I couldn't have planned this so well without you! And thanks for reading.
Shelleyk, okonomiyaki lost out to eating oysters for every meal! Minnbeef, when you are back at Mume, ask Hisako about starting her business. She tells a good story.
April 25 A BULLET AND GOODBYE TO JAPAN
Packed up and headed to the hotel's Japanese restaurant for breakfast, which I had paid to have included in our room rate of $135. We got the $24 Japanese breakfast with about 10 different tastes including grilled fish, yogurt and a big dish of rice porridge. The 3 "appetizers" or usual lineup of 3 tiny tastes, is so popular that they have it available boxed so you can take it home with you! One of the three was tasty even to me; I think it was fried sardines and Japanese pepper boiled in a sweet soy sauce. The biggest surprise was that one side of the restaurant is glass and looks out on a big beautiful Japanese pond garden that runs the length of the restaurant. Rock features with raked patterns, and the azalea pinks were in full bloom. Who would think this was on the fifth floor?
Took a cab to the station and then went to the ticket agent -- this time there was no line tho we had come early just in case -- so we could buy our ticket with a credit card. We have the Bank of America Travel Rewards card which reimburses us for travel expenses so we wanted to charge it. The fare with Shinkhansen and another train to the Kansai Airport was about $110 apiece. I hadn't realized until we started this trip that there are extra seat charges in addition to the price you see on Hyperdia so I probably didn't calculate correctly whether a JR pass might have saved us money; I had thought it was a wash and it would limit our choice of trains (as you can see by this report our preferred method of train travel was winging it). Frankly, I still don't know.
We had intended to make the 11:17 bullet train but we were ready to catch the 10:21 so we did. The JR Ltd Express got us to the airport at 1 for our 5:30 plane! We aren't used to the idea that trains won't be late -- or more likely, we might miss a connection because we don't know what we're doing. Neither train was crowded and we need not have paid for reserved seats.
Kansai Airport has a ton of shopping; we picked up a few last food gifts and tried a sample of some awesome cheese cookies, which we promptly bought. Then we went to a kind of restaurant we hadn't tried yet: conveyor belt sushi! Great fun figuring out how to order on an iPad and watching our selections zoom toward us. First time we ever had nigiri with cheese, or squid and okra. Also got some final shrimp tempura. Soon we were on JAL heading for LA, where we had planned a 23-hour free stopover so we could see our brother and family.
Thanks again to everyone on Fodor's Forums for all the advice and for taking time to write trip reports. I couldn't have planned this so well without you! And thanks for reading.
