Traveling Ninja Notes: Japan Trip

We decided before we even had a wedding date that we wanted to honeymoon in Japan. For me, it was both a long overdue return to see friends and eat the food and soak up the culture but also a chance to introduce Troway to one of my other homes. For Troway, it was an opportunity to tick off one of the biggest and first desires on his travel list, so win win :)

On 1 Jan, we flew from Washington DC (will give an update on our DC trip later) to Osaka via Toronto and Tokyo. We enjoyed a blissful 16 days exploring the cuisine, culture, shops, temples and castles throughout several cities. We only got lost a few times and with the exception of a bit of a mishap with our accommodation the very first night, had smooth sailing the whole way (if you are interested I will share the story with you, it involves miscommunication with a taxi driver, last minute change of our booking by the accommodation, a very kind diner manager and a grandferly hotel manager who managed to book us an alternate room at 2am when we were tired and I was perhaps a bit stressed). For the moment, I will share two things from our trip: purikura and the outdoor shopping malls.

Purikura is a delightfully intense experience that I think everyone should embrace while in Japan. Found in arcades, shopping malls and bowling alleys, photo booths offer various themes and styles of photos for you and your friends/partner/anyone you can drag in with you. The horrid elevator music they play at deafening levels is slightly more intimidating than it was last time I was there, but I suppose it adds to the fun in some fashion. The best purikura sites provide mirrors and space where you can fix your hair and make up before the photo shoot begins; some we saw on this trip even had hair straighteners and curlers! Once you're in the booth (which have hooks for your bags and coats and umbrellas, I love Japan's ability to be prepared for everything) you pick a theme and the countdown is on. Most booths take up to about 12 photos so that's a lot of poses to come up with in about 2 minutes total!
Once the photos have been taken, you rush around to the other side of the booth to pick your favorites, then you get to decorate! You can set backgrounds, add text, give everyone hats or funny hairstyles, sky's the limit really. Hit save and the machine spits them out :) Kudos to Troway for agreeing to give it a go, given most of the other patrons in the arcade we found were about 17 haha. Of course the bonus to this is a group of high school girls took us under their wing to show us how to play some of the games, so even though we did not win anything we had a blast and had our own personal cheer squad who seemed pleased they would have bragging rights for helping the foreigners.

Neither of us are huge shoppers, but we enjoyed exploring the outdoor shopping malls that seem to be in just about every city in Japan. They are a seemingly endless maze of shops and food and people watching. One morning in Hiroshima we walked for two hours and I am sure we only saw half of the streets that were part of the mall. Shops range from tourist traps full of knick knacks to clothing stores, tea shops, swords chopsticks, kimono stores, sock shops (where they sell NOTHING but socks) and $2 shops full of everything imaginable. There is usually a couple of museums and arcades, and maybe a movie theater, and at least a couple temples in case you need a quick prayer break. We actually stumbled on a beautiful Buddhist temple just as they were beginning afternoon prayer. It was an incredible experience, listening to the chants and drumming, totally away from the hustle and bustle of the shopping street that was just outside the door. Food can range from McDonald's and Mos Burger to squid on a stick and seaweed salad. We sampled quite a few tasty treats during our explorations, and found that playing "Spot the Foreigner" was an excellent game to play because they stick out like a sore thumb, even the other Asian tourists.