japan

Japan – 24th October 2025

Travel
Steps: 7, 017
Miles kayaked: 3.86
Hours on trains: 2.5

Decided I was allowed a day off running today and had a lovely lie in until 6:30, ok maybe 7. Packing was easy at least, we’ve only been getting out what we need for each hotel, although we do seem to have accumulated enough extra stuff to warrant buying another suitcase before we head home.

Healthy breakfast, of course (you can ignore the fried chicken part, it was completely offset by a huge mound of salad and vegetables!), then we just needed to drag ourselves and our cases through rush hour Osaka to the mainline station in time for the 10:01 Shinkansen to Hiroshima.

This time we remembered to stock up on onigiri and water before we got on the train, it was only a 90 minute journey but gotta keep those energy levels up!

Actually the real reason was that we didn’t have much time after arriving to drop our bags and get ourselves down to near Miyajima island for the main activity of the day. Trix was grumbling about getting a taxi and thankfully we found the hotel really quickly and were back on a train platform with loads of time in our pockets.

Leaving the station at Maezora the exit gate flashed red and made a slightly unhappy sound when I scanned my IC card. I figured that it can’t be anything important or it wouldn’t have let me through, but of course as everyone and everything here is so polite it was telling me that I didn’t have enough money to complete my trip.

Ooops.  A young schoolboy caught Trixs attention, and with his courtesy (and google translate) he helped us charge up our cards at the machine, and re-scan them (to happy green bleeps).

“Is this a group activity?” Trix asks as we walk the short distance to Paddle Park, she wasn’t keen on the idea of sea kayaking at all, I’m not sure what answer will make her feel better.  “Um, yeah, I think so”, I actually had no idea.

It was just us and the guide, a super friendly and kind guy who owns the place. He got us all kitted up, we carried two canoes down to the sea and we were off, none of that health and safety nonsense.

The weather couldn’t have been better, bright blue cloudless sky, slight breeze, calm water. Trix was at the front of our two person canoe and set a strong rhythm, “Wow you’re fast” the guide calls over, I’ve got sweat in my eyes but just keep paddling, this can be my exercise for the day.

The O-Torii is huge, over 16 meters of wooden shrine rising up from where it sits on the seabed (it’s so heavy it’s not even buried in the seabed, can’t have been easy to balance 60 tons just right). No surprise that it’s a UNESCO world heritage site, and is as beautiful as it is impressive. 

We can see throngs of tourists on the shore, but it’s just us bobbing around out here, taking a few moments to rest our arms and admire the view.

“Do you want to go to the busy tourist beach with all the souvenir shops?” Kuboto-san calls, we wobble our heads and shrug, international sign language for “not really”.

“There is a local beach over there, it’s quiet and we can get a drink and some food”, that sounds much more like it. We beach the vessels and only slightly damp settle ourselves around a table set in a shady wood with views over the bay, small local deer wander around, thankfully they don’t seem to be the biting kind.

“Oh look Trix, I can get a beer and they do fried chicken, I think we earned a little snack?”, she grins at me and, well, we didn’t really have lunch, and supper is a long way off. Maybe it’ll come with a bit of green garnish.

The paddle back is easy, “downhill, we’ve got the tide with us”, sea bass jump nearby, sprats flicker through the surface as we weave through an oyster farm, the platforms made of bamboo.

“Oyster season started on the 21st, Trix do you like oysters?”, I can hear a noncommittal sort of noise in front of me and we all laugh, “Have them as a topping on okonomiyaki later!”. I’m looking forward to trying the local speciality (savoury pancakes) but not today, Friday is katsu curry day!

Kuboto-san opened his business in 1996, so he’s been doing this for nearly 30 years. Annoyingly he looked younger than me despite being 56! In the off season he surfs over on the other side, in the Japan Sea, or heads to Hokkaido to ski. He’s calm, gentle and seems genuinely content. Hiroshima has a large international community… just saying….

We just catch a local train back to town and finally actually check into our hotel. Our room is lovely, on a corner of the 16th floor, calm and quiet. We’re only here for 2 nights so there isn’t much point in unpacking much, so we have a brief chill and head downstairs to the hotel bar.

It’s definitely time for another beer, and Trix needs to catch up on some sketching, everyone’s happy.

Not hard to find a good spot for supper, it even comes with salad (sort of, just cabbage really, but it is green!).

Little wander around after eating and back to the room to wind down before bed (with ice cream, and beer, it’s only 7:30pm…).

Japan – 23rd October 2025

Travel

“Salad for breakfast, yeah?” I raise an eyebrow at Trix, she rolls her eyes and gives me the “yeah of course, that’s what I was planning anyway” look.

“Also bacon and pancakes. Yeah?” was the actual counter. Fair enough, I’m planning on also having hash browns, eggs and a croissant.

We find the location for our sushi making class, almost, and must be looking at lost as we feel when our instructor appears out of a building that looks nothing like what we were searching for. Turns out we’re the only ones there, in a (relatively) spacious kitchen with lots of lovely looking food laid out in front of us.

Our teacher speaks excellent English, with an endearing version of “back and forth” when cutting things (“back and horses” is how it sounds).

We make dashi from kombu (seaweed) and dried bonito shavings, tamagoyaki (omelette from egg, dashi, sugar and soy sauce), a tuna, cucumber, lettuce and crab stick maki roll, a pressed sort of sushi, and finally nigiri with an assortment of fish that appears from a large fridge in the corner.

Despite the breakfast my stomach’s been rumbling since the omelette, so when we sit down to eat our creations I’m very happy.

Trix’s creation is unsurprisingly neater and better presented than mine, arranged in proper rows, the pieces in descending size order. Very aesthetically pleasing, compared to my jumble of fish and rice.

No matter, it tastes amazing and I’m treated to an extra raw scallop nigiri as Trix isn’t so keen after de-shelling so many on Jura (they pulsate disturbingly when you pry them off their home…)

We wobble off about 12:30 and find a nice looking cafe for a sit down and coffee / milkshake, before the main event of the afternoon. 

Cup Noodle museum! One of us is more excited than the other, but it’s all good. Custom pot noodles made, smiley faces, and we start wandering back towards Ikeda station, when… 

It’s sunny! The sky is blue! It’s not raining! There is a big hill….right there! Ok maybe a mile away, uphill, but…

I park Trix outside the botanical gardens, a peaceful spot surrounded by well kept trees and shrubs, some gardeners pottering around in the afternoon warmth. We made a firm agreement that I’d be back within 50 minutes.

Up up up. Jeans and fashion trainers, non running rucksack, cotton t-shirt, as badly equipped as I could possibly be, I hiked and ran through the dense forest as fast as I could. I knew there would be a view somewhere, the sun dribbling in through the foliage was enough to have me sweating within minutes. Up up up…

I found it! Near the top of the hill was a platform raised high enough to peek over the tree tops. All of Osaka laid out in front of me, the view I wanted yesterday in Kobe but the weather decided otherwise. Lovely.

Happy I carried on and managed to loop back down a different route, placing each foot carefully so I didn’t slip on the piles of leaves and tip into the dark canyon beside me.

“That was quick”, Trix looked up as I appeared at the rendezvous point with 20 minutes to spare. Next stop, Rikuros, both ready for some cake.

The walk to Ikeda transported us both to another Studio Ghibli film, either (or both) of “The cat returns” or “Kikis delivery service”; quiet clean streets, buildings that could have been built yesterday or 50 years ago, uniformed school children and old men on bikes. We felt like we lived there until we remembered we were oh so obviously tourists.

Our Osaka train and tube skills kicked in and it was a smooth journey back to Namba station, popping out at precisely the right exit to join the long queue outside the instagram friendly wobbly cake shop.

When you buy a freshly baked cheesecake, that is a warm jiggly mound of sweetness and air, do you put it in the fridge to have after supper? Of course not!

Trix was tired and sore, her injuries have taken a toll; falling on the wet cobbles in Nara park bruised her tailbone, deer bites on her arms and legs, full of snot and tickly cough. She opted for instant ramen while I was determined to get something more interesting in Kuromon market.

It was mostly closed, but one stall happily served me Wagyu beef skewers, gyoza and beer, using their “Supervised by Michelin restaurants” sign to charge me an eye watering amount of yen.

Not exactly full I meandered until I found a yakitori bar, much more like it. Skewers of freshly grilled bits of chicken and ice cold Sapporo. Sorted.

Back to the hotel, fold up the laundry (which Trix kindly supervised the cleaning of), think about packing, another beer, and making plans for the journey to Hiroshima tomorrow.

Happy and tired.

Japan – 22nd October 2025

Travel
Steps: 18,000
Hours on trains: 3
Octopus balls eaten: 0

Managed to drag myself up and out by 6:30 for a run around Osaka castle, bit misty and drizzly but lovely to get the legs moving, especially before the streets get too busy and I can cross roads London-style without feeling too guilty (the locals are very strict about waiting for the green man to light up).

Curry for breakfast again, we’ve promised each other that tomorrow we’ll use the salad bar, so we get at least a few nutrients that might possibly be missing from meat and rice!

Last night we had a breakthrough with how to navigate trains and tubes here, so instead of a convoluted tube journey we walked for 10 minutes and got the direct train to Nara, felt like a major win. Disconcertingly the train goes up and over a (small) mountain, feels so very wrong to be on a train that goes uphill.

I wanted to see the temple housing a 14 meter bronze Buddha, Trix was more interested in the deer. I had a vague notion that they were protected and you could buy biscuits to give them, I had no idea there would be 13,000 of the cute creatures, and that they had the process of getting food from tourists absolutely nailed.

They’d gather around the food vendors waiting for someone to buy some, and then nibble anything they could get their little mouths around, hoping for something edible. Trix had her bottom bitten and one of the soft toys hanging off her bag got a thorough chewing before I wrestled it away. For such small animals (the size of a large dog, mostly) they can be surprisingly intimidating, so we stashed the food and rushed off to the temple.

Tōdai-ji was first opened in the year 752 (!), and apparently is the world’s largest wooden structure, though that didn’t really matter, what we noticed was how calm we both felt inside, looking up at the massive statue inside, I could have stayed there for hours.

Wandering through the park afterwards Trix figured out that the best deer strategy was to find one that looked a bit lonely, bow to it, and then when it bowed in return, reward it with a biscuit. Quite incredible how well they know the procedure, made us both very happy.

After all this feeding we were starting to feel undernourished, so nipped into a local cafe slightly away from the tourist places. Calm and gentle, perfect. Hamburger and rice (and beer) for me, tea and nuts for Trix, then back to the station with 3.5 miles in our legs.

Back to the hotel to chill, or… add another hour to the train journey and go to Kobe for an early supper?

I mean, Kobe, home of Wagyu beef, could we really turn down the opportunity? Course not.

It was a bit early by the time we got there, so had a pleasant wander around the port area and stuck our heads into the Maritime museum for a bit (not very exciting, but nice to get out of the drizzle).

Kobe did not disappoint, the food was amazing (the restaurant wasn’t as good as Jumbos in Tokyo, but half the price, so …), we didn’t overcook it and could have carried on eating for ages.

Now we really did need to get back to the hotel, thankfully the train line passes mercifully close by and (with a pit stop at the local Lawsons for beer and snacks) within 90 minutes we’re back chilling on our sofa and planning tomorrow.

Oh, as we got off the train Trix noticed the grab handles are little deer, a very Japanese detail.