There's Snow place like Japan

 This is the final leg of our trip in Japan!  

From Kyoto we went to Kanazawa.  A city I had never heard of before we started planning this trip. It is on the west coast of Japan.  I found it to be quite lovely and accessible.  Maybe I was just acclimating, but it felt easier to navigate and not nearly as hectic as Tokyo...but then again isn't everywhere?  We were a bit ambitious upon arrival and scheduled an afternoon tour of the sights.  After our bullet train ride, we managed to find a bit of food for lunch before our tour guide arrived.  She was very well intended but our group...mostly Augie, was not quite in the mood for a detailed tour.  Our first stop was a gorgeous park, Kenrokuen Gardens. Once the boys, mostly Augie, saw the snow all bets were off!  When the guide said, "Look at that beautiful park"!  Augie said, "Can I go run over there?"  When the guide said, "Look at this historic shrine", Augie said, "Can we find more snow?".  We finally had to surrender and admit none of us were giving the tour guide her due diligence and we decided we should kindly say goodbye to her and let the kids play in the snow.  I will say, the park she took us to initially was amazing!  There were these rope structures around all of the trees and plants to protect them from heavy snow.  The whole town had these structures over their shrubs and trees and they were pretty cool looking.

 

Rope tents to protect the trees.

This huge tree was supported by many poles!

Look...a temple!

Small guy, small snowman.

The power of a dirty mound of snow!

Our main reason for going to Kanazawa was to use it as a launching pad to the snow.  We rented a car on our second day, and our goal was to see Shirakawa-go village, a small village with thatched roof houses.  Turns out it was not only our goal but thousands of other people's goal that day!  Crazy traffic!  We drove and drove and drove looking for a parking lot that would let us in to park, to no avail.  We did however find snow covered field with an easy pull in parking place.  We happily spent the next hour or more running around in the snow!  We were very glad we loaded up on lunch food before we headed out for the day.  We (mostly Augie and Kelly) had snowball fights, made snow angels, ran around and just fell into the snow, there was so much joy in that field!  Thatched roofs had nothing on this!  The field was pristine when we arrived and looked like a war zone when we left!  There were of course others who could not find parking and joined us in the field of dreams.

Upon arrival before we trampled it all!

He could have spent the entire day here!

After being such a trooper through so many tours,
it was time to be a kid!

The next day we drove farther north towards Nagano.  If you are of a certain age, you remember Nagano as the 1998 Winter Olympics destination.  We visited the Togakushi, ancient cedars and shrine.  The drive up the mountain to this area was steep!  It was totally worth it!  There was a snow-covered trail that led to the ancient cedars.  They are truly majestic!  What a beautiful and peaceful walk, aside from the happy 5-year-old wanting to throw snowballs.  It was probably my favorite walk through nature in Japan.  I understand how having a shrine in this beautiful natural oasis makes perfect sense.  Those cedars are over 800 years old!  

We found a lot more snow!

I see the cedars!

TJ and Thomas entering the cedar walkway

Torii Gate entrance

After a night in a ryokan near Nagano, and our final onsen soaking it was time to get back to Tokyo.  We returned our rental car and took the train to Tokyo.  We spent our last few hours walking around the Imperial Palace gardens, after we sent Kelly and family off to do their own thing.  We were all leaving the next day and our flight was at 7 a.m. so we stayed at an airport hotel.  It was also New Year's Eve.  Talk about a different holiday season!  We said goodbye to 2025 at an airport hotel sharing a hamburger and fries at the only restaurant at the hotel that would serve us.  All of the nice restaurants told us they were "fully booked", even though there appeared to be many open tables.  We never expected to need reservations that night...at an airport hotel!  Oops. 

Quite the light display at our airport hotel!

Happy New Year!
2025 was a good one!
Hoping for more of the same in 2026!

Our time in Japan was so amazing!  We saw much of the country and still not nearly all of it.  I feel like I learned so much and was able to experience the culture!  I enjoyed exploring the food and found some definite favorites.  The tuna sashimi with fresh ground wasabi in Kanazawa was melt in your mouth decadently delicious!  I learned to really appreciate things like quiet trains, super clean everything, warm toilet seats in winter, peace and order.

Takeaways in no particular order -

-There are no hand towels in bathrooms and not always blow dryers for hands.  Bring a handkerchief or drip dry.

-A warm toilet seat with a light on a cold night, ahh.  The older houses and older buildings are not necessarily warm in winter so take the warmth where you can get it!  And press all the buttons.

-Sleeping under a cloud of duvet and silky soft sheets in a cold room is one of the coziest experiences!

-7-11 not just junk food!

-The beer is good, the wine is not.  Sake goes best with sushi!

-The quiet on the trains and in the train stations.  Everyone is minding their own business.

-No trash cans in public!  Yet the streets and public areas are immaculately clean! You carry your trash with you until you get home.  Bring a bag!

-So many people!  

-Life is low...we slept on the floor, sat on the floor, ate on the floor(but not often).  Chairs and seats are small because most Japanese people are small.  I felt too tall for Japan.  I will say with all the crawling around on the floor my body did adapt and gave me huge respect for anyone over a certain age, you go!

-Almost everyone we talked to was very polite, kind and helpful.  But...rules are rules and you are expected to obey the rules.  

I think by now we both feel a little like I did when we left Japan...ready to move on.  Not that it wasn't amazing, because it was, but I knew there was something completely different and equally exciting ahead for us.  

Christmas in Kyoto

I feel like Tokyo was our initiation to Japan.  We were thrown into the fire for a couple of days fending for ourselves and then we got backup when the kids arrived!  Hakone was a beautiful and peaceful reprieve.  We got there and never left the building, it felt like we spent the night at an all-inclusive spa.  We left feeling more like we had a grip on Japan, and if we didn't, we had backup!

Understated Christmas decorations.

Christmas in Japan is definitely not like Christmas at home...or in Europe!  There were simple decorations here and there but very understated.  Many places did have Christmas trees.  The streets also had a lot of trees with lights on them, very nice with the short dark days!  You could tell it was Christmas, but it was not in your face!  We spent 4 nights in Kyoto beginning on Christmas eve until the 28th.  We stayed in a lovely home with 3 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms, full kitchen and living area.  It had traditional yet modern Japanese decor.  I think we were all ready to be settled for a while and Kyoto was a perfect place to settle!

Christmas Eve was when that nagging cold took me down!  I volunteered to stay behind with Thomas while the rest of the crew went to what sounded like a lovely dinner that involved a lot of meat!  Thomas and I had chicken sandwiches and salad from my new favorite spot, 7-11.  We both needed an early night!  One of my favorite moments of the trip happened when I put him to bed that night.  We read stories and then he gets a song at bedtime...my "go to" is usually something like Twinkle Twinkle Little Star but it was Christmas eve.   I sang two verses of Silent Night snuggled up with this sweet, tired boy who held my hair in one hand and sucked his fingers on the other hand as he drifted off to sleep.  I wept.  I was exhausted, feeling poorly and a little emotional. It was just the sweetest and I felt like it was my Christmas gift💖

I put up the 3 Christmas trees and
dined on convenience store salad.
Merry Christmas Eve!

Back downstairs I "decorated" for Christmas and went to bed with visions of sugar plums and feeling better dancing in my head!

Christmas morning came early!  Augie was disappointed at first that Santa had not come...until we turned on the lights in the dining room!  He did come!  It was a minimal haul since we were traveling but both boys were thrilled with their new toys and super appreciative for each small gift!  It was great!

There were vehicles, Legos, transformers, books, and robots...they were busy all morning and much of the rest of the trip.  Thank you, Santa!

The moment disappointment turned
into joy!

He came!!!

Smiles all around!

Christmas Mass in Japan was crowded!  If you want to get many smiles from Japanese people of a certain age, bring a young child anywhere.  Thomas was very popular with the older Japanese crowd...until he had enough of the sitting still and being quiet part of church.  He made it to the homily and then he and daddy had to make an exit.  Still, they seemed mostly hospitable and forgiving to our large "not always silent" group.  

 For Christmas, Chris treated Kelly and me to a flower arranging class and formal tea ceremony.  We had to hurry from church to our class.  We stopped at again, our favorite fast food chain for sandwiches before our class.  It was a cold, rainy day and we dined al fresco under the overhang of a building. Nothing like a cold, wet day to make getting well a little more challenging.  

The flower arranging class was lovely.  I am not sure I loved my arrangement, but I did love the learning part.  The tea ceremony was a highlight.  Our host was so sweet and made us both feel special.  She proudly shared her culture and knowledge with us through the history and rituals of the tea ceremony.  Towards the end, when she was methodically cleaning the vessels, I felt it was very similar to the liturgy of the eucharist at Mass.  The many steps taken, the care for cleaning, the humility of serving, the attention to detail and the respect for the tea and for the guests.  It was an entire cultural lesson!

Our flower arrangements!

Our most excellent host
modeling her beautiful dress 
at our request!

We did not plan to dress alike or 
to coordinate with the room...

Christmas dinner was over the top!  Chris is a great cook/chef!  His gift is preparing and serving amazing meals.  For Christmas the menu consisted of 7 fishes, cabbage potatoes carrots ham and chicken stewed together to make an amazing dish!  Chicken noodle soup and seared Wagyu beef, mushrooms and salad. We feasted on this meal a few times over the next couple of days!  

Christmas dinner was amazing!

The next two days in Kyoto and the first day in Kanazawa were spent touring many temples, shrines, Torri Gates, markets and museums.  We hired a private guide one day and we toured from 9 a.m. until 4 p.m. and she was such a good guide!  She customized the tour to what we wanted to see and read the group, allowing time to play in the rocks along the way or stop for matcha ice cream or snacks or shopping.  It was great to be able to follow someone who took us on the scenic, less traveled routes to some of the major sights.  We never would have seen some lovely parts of the city otherwise.  I really appreciate being led by an insider.  She shared a lot of history and culture along the way.  This may have been one of my favorite days of the trip.  It didn't hurt that the weather was perfect! 

Our last day in Kyoto we did a self-guided tour.  I wanted to see one of the most popular...and as a result one of the most crowded tourist sights...the Torii Gates at the Fushimi Imari Shrine.  Think thousands of orange Japanese gates covering 2.5 miles of trails.  We did not walk the entire trail.  We did quite a bit though.  I enjoyed seeing a beautiful bamboo forest halfway up to the end of the trail.  The area around the Shrine has many shops and we had taiyaki, a fish shaped pastry filled with custard, Yum! Our next stop was the Nishiki Market.  We love markets and Japanese markets are amazing! We strolled and gawked and had lunch in a Katsugyu restaurant.  Beef cutlets that you sear to your liking at your table plus all the fixings.  A ton of delicious food!  Maybe a little stressful with two curious boys and a hot skillet on the table but we all survived!

Our final stop for the day was the Samurai/Ninja Museum.  Quite fascinating and educational.  Augie was very engaged and always had an answer or a question when the guide asked the group.  It was neat to connect the history with my limited movie exposure to these groups.

A day of Shrines, Pagodas, Temples and a Zen garden

Kyoto gave me the feeling I was really in Japan.  I loved the precisely manicured trees around the temples.  I loved the zen garden with its raked rocks and peaceful gardens.  The architecture was classic and inspiring.  It was also nice to stay in a house for a few days!  The boys had room to play, and we all had a bit of space to spread out.  The weather in Kyoto cooperated for the most part!  It was definitely a one-of-a-kind Christmas holiday for our family!  Enjoy more photos!

We never would have found this without a guide!

No rocks were safe from these two!

A walk past the cemetery to the temple

Gotta love a good market!

Samurai gear

Japan part 2, Tokyo and Hakone

Our Japanese whistlestop route.
Tokyo, Hakone, Kyoto, Kanazawa,
Nagano and back to Tokyo

 

Our daughter and her family arrived very late on December 21, and we caught up at breakfast on the 22nd.  Smiles and hugs all around!  This was their only day in Tokyo, so we hit the ground running...slowly, because each of us was either under the weather or exhausted from traveling across the ocean. Looking back, I am shocked at how much we saw and did in one day. 

To keep our audience (children) engaged, we took the train to the Shibuya area in the morning.  We started by strolling down Takeshita Street, what can only be described as one of the most visually enticing streets...for a kid...or anyone interested in shopping!  Welcome to capsule stores, Anime, food stalls, cute toy stores and many souvenir shops.  We were a bit early, luckily, and many shops were not open yet otherwise we may never have seen anything else that day!  Japan is a haven for toys!  There are so many small, kitschy toys just screaming to be purchased everywhere you go.  I am still not sure what the deal is with all the little stuffed animals hanging from the purses and backpacks of men, women and children everywhere.  I did not feel the need to join the trend.

What cuteness!!!

My winner for cutest store.

So many capsules to choose from!

So many crepes to choose from... all plastic examples, and all so beautiful!

 We walked...a lot...saw a lot...and headed back for naps all around.  We went back out that night to explore counter sushi, convenience store snacks, a gigantic retail store with an entire floor of toys (I hear Santa did some of his shopping here), meat on a stick and more food on the Omoide Yokocho Memory Lane.  A historic alley for street eats and spirits.  We all squeezed into one of the tiny places to have some meat and drinks.  The city is very alive at night!  I am sure we could have stayed out later, but with jet lag setting in for some and a full day of Tokyo sensory overload, we called it a night.

Anthony Bourdain ate here, we did not.

So much sushi and he ordered like a pro!

Food and drink alley

When jet lag hits, it hits hard 💕

Christmas cake to go!  The one on the right was amazing!!!

Our next stop was Hakone.  We took the bullet train and were seated in the Romance car.  This is the car at the front of the train with huge windows across the front.  Perfect bullet train intro for 2 train loving little boys...and their grandparents.  We did the Japanese thing and got our bento boxes and drinks for the ride.  Still amazed at how so many people eat and drink on the trains and leave no evidence behind.  Impressive.  We all enjoyed the ride!

The Romance Car

Bullet train food to go!

Hakone, a small town of about 11,000, is famous for its hot springs.  We stayed in a ryokan which is a traditional inn, complete with tatami matted floors (which were so nice to walk on), Onsens (hot spring baths), sliding doors, futon beds, traditional meals and traditional attire provided to wear during your stay.  This was our full immersion experience, and it was lovely.  I will admit, for some reason I was a bit apprehensive about this experience before we arrived.  I felt like it was a very immersive experience and not knowing the language, how to honor the customs, what to expect as far as the meal...and my first Onsen experience were all playing into my apprehension.  I shyly entered the peaceful ryokan and we were greeted by the polite bowing host and led to our room.  After his instructions, which I understood "most" of, I explored our very spacious accommodations!  Wow!  Very large bedroom, 2 futon mattresses up on a wood platform...that should be fun in the middle of the night...a living room with a traditional low table and floor chairs, a balcony with chairs looking out over the valley to the mountains, and then the bathroom.  The 2-room bathroom with a private (yes) Onsen!  There were two kimonos with wool jackets and those Japanese socks with the thong toes for us to wear to dinner.  It was peaceful and we felt like we were back in time.  The welcome beverage eased my anxiety about making any cultural mistakes.  

A lovely view!

                                                                   Here is a video tour!

A word or more about the Onsen experience.  It is luxurious!  A natural hot tub!  Like really hot tub.  The fact that there is cold water to add to cool it off says something.  The minerals naturally in the water make the water extra buoyant.  It felt like an anti-gravity tub in addition to the heat and the mineral treatment.  No wonder the Japanese people live so long.  I really appreciated these little surprising ways to get warm in the winter.  This may be TMI but sitting in an Onsen with its anti-gravity effects makes your body feel many years younger...all your parts feel like they are back to their original locations.  We both agreed that we need an Onsen in our lives!

We stayed at one more ryokan on this trip.  It was near Nagano and it was our last night together.  It was a similar yet different experience.  A much larger facility with more people staying the night.  The Onsens were public not private, but you could use them privately for 45 minutes at a time, which we did.  They were large baths!  The place seemed much more traditional with our futons right on the floor and a smaller room with two low chairs at a low table.  This was the point, or maybe it was just the end of the trip fatigue, that I decided I am just too tall for Japan.  Maybe too tall and too old.  I got tired of folding myself up to sit or go to bed.  It wasn't that I couldn't do it, but everything just started feeling low and small, and I am neither.  I am very thankful the tables and chairs for meals were "regular" height.  

Finally, the food in a ryokan.  You better come hungry...and be on time.  Dinner was a multi course affair of about 20 different foods!  Each in individual small portions for each of us.  I tried everything but I can't say I loved everything.  Definitely had my favorites, for example the oyster in the shell baked with sauce on top and a broccoli bite.  Any and all fish was good.  Some of the vegetable/sweet potato dishes were not my favorite.  

A+ for presentation!

This display was just the beginning!

Definitely one of my favorites that night.

Again, when jet lag hits, it hits hard.  
He was so excited about this meal and after he ate
his tamago and sushi, he was done.

Breakfast was a similar display of foods!  I definitely preferred dinner.  I was not quite ready for the number of different savory and fishy dishes we were served in the morning.  I was quite surprised that we were each served an entire fish at breakfast!  I hesitated to dive in but did so reluctantly.  I will admit, it was one of the best fish I have ever eaten...and probably the only one I have ever eaten for breakfast!  Another breakfast treat was the tamago (thin layers of egg omelet and Augie's favorite) served with 3 different condiments.  My personal favorite was the pickled or fermented cucumbers and daikon radishes.  

The winner...or loser
my least favorite food...of the entire trip!
Fishy broth, tomato, some kind of other root vegetable, a soggy fish cake
 and a whack of kale or seaweed on top...
for breakfast!

A little more like a real breakfast food,
tamago with sides.

Winner of most "surprising deliciousness",
especially for breakfast!

I can't believe I ate the whole thing.

I love this!
Breakfast shenanigans!

As you can tell, I could go on a lot longer, but I'll stop for now.  I'll continue in the next post with Kyoto, Kanazawa and Nagano.  We are definitely glad we had our son-in-law to plan so much of this trip!  He made reservations at the ryokans and booked the trains along the way which made the trip so easy for us!  It was nice to be led around instead of being the leader.  I am sure he may have felt like he had 4 kids at times!  It was a treat for us!