Bear in at Hoshinoya Kyoto, Arashiyama

Posted on May 11, 2023 by sumi

Today we were headed to a hotel Pokin was excited to surprise Michael and Savannah with.

In her research of Kyoto, she came across a property near the Arashiyama bamboo forest that could only be accessed via a short river boat.

“Sounds middle of nowhere fun!” Thought Pokin. So she made the whole gang check out of their Kyoto hotel, take the transit system for 40 minutes to the edge of Kyoto, haul their luggage for 30 minutes over cobblestone, to check into some hotel for one night.

Arriving to the pick up spot for Hoshinoya involved heading to a small building across from the river with a couple covered river boats. We were told we could drop off our luggage, but that we couldn’t check in till later. No matter, there were things to see around here like monkeys and a bamboo forest.

We started with the Iwatayama Park since it was right beside us.

Rumours were there were monkeys. In a park. This park happened to be located on top of a hill. We we paid our admissions fee and started walking up and up a path.

Turns out the monkeys were all just hanging out near the top of this mountain, in a clearly with a purpose built feeding hut.

We got some apples to feed them. That was fun. The monkeys were kind of rude though.

After we had our fill of feeding monkeys we headed back down to what looked like a carnival stand.

Michael challenged my bud to a game, so they spent some time on that and ended up collecting all sorts of random things.

Then it was back across the bridge towards Arashiyama Bamboo Forest.

Arashiyama Bamboo Forest, is one of the region’s main sites. It’s a grove of naturally occurring mōsō bamboo — some of the biggest bamboo stalks I’d ever seen. These are pretty cool.

By now, it was getting close to our check in time, so we started making our way back towards the Hoshinoya boat dock. As we were walking down the main street though, something caught my eye.

There was a whole store dedicated to a bear named Rilakkuma!

I was intrigued. We stopped in.

Not only was there a full store of things worshipping Rilakkuma, but there was even a shrine. Well this I can get behind!

After we paused long enough for me to appreciate how much other cultures appreciate bears, we made it back towards the Hoshinoya boat dock where we waited for our transport.

It was a pretty short wait. We had just enough time for tea and then it was time for our boat ride.

Hoshinoya Kyoto is a small 25-room resort perched on the side of a river. The grounds were peaceful and groomed the way you would expect Japanese gardens to get groomed.

While we were overlooking the river, the balcony wood deck in front of us made it a little difficult to see the river, but we could definitely hear it.

Since you get in and out of the hotel via a boat ride, we pre-arranged dinner reservations. Interestingly it’s not included so the poor souls who don’t know to book in advanced are left with instant noodles? Not really sure. We had reservations for a kaiseki dinner which had all sorts of mystery foods for my bud.

We took some time to enjoy the property and then relaxed for the night. Me, with the incense making kit, my bud, in the wooden bathtub they had in the room.

Kill Bill

Posted on May 5, 2023 by sumi

After a day of cafes, I checked into a new hotel. Not bad, except that they didn’t have the matching jammies in my size. Unacceptable.

For dinner we went out to the restaurant that inspired Kill Bill. It looked pretty awesome. They didn’t give out katanas though. Disappointing. My bud will just need to make me a katana to make up for it.

The Best Cafe

Posted on May 5, 2023 by sumi

Day 2 in Tokyo and we ended up in some cafe. Meh, thought I.

What I didn’t know was that this was an art cafe, where the staff are trained to create 3D foam art with your drinks. With the choice of drawing anything, Nicholas had the smarts to pick the only real option.

I love this place.

We also went to some crazy animal cafe where they had a bunch of strange pets you could hold. I already have way too many pets, so I just asked if we could go back to the other cafe.

Back to Tokyo

Posted on May 4, 2023 by sumi

After a long hiatus, it’s back to Japan I go!

The last time my bud took me, he was tired. It was wet. I remember we slept in the hotel a lot.

This time we were determined for it to be different. Less sleep, more exploration.

I checked into a nice hotel, have a good view of the palace. Let’s go!

This time we’re traveling with Michael and Savannah, it’s their first time in Japan and they are super excited. In addition to that, Pokin will be busy for a few days in a work conference and another friend, Reesa, will be joining us. This is starting to sound like a crowd, but I’ll roll with it.

The first thing Nicholas, Reesa, Michael and Savannah did was book a food tour. Normally Pokin would handle this sort of thing, but since she isn’t here, we’ll have to make do with a regular guide. Unfortunately nobody told the guide about my allergy to anything non-chocolate, so he picked traditional japanese places instead. The rest of the gang seemed to love it though, they ate and drank all evening at different places.

After successfully navigating our way back to the hotel, we decided to call it a night.

This is art.

Posted on May 24, 2019 by sumi

Tokyo has a cool art exhibit called teamLab. Pokin’s friend Chris was the one who heard about it. It had recently opened and it’s technology meets art in a pretty cool way. But it was a trek by train to get over there. This better be worth it!

It’s supposed to get busy there so we headed off early. Once we got in, I have to say the experience looked pretty cool.

Wait.. WAIT. Hold on. Outside this art place I noticed they had a GIANT GUNDAM ROBOT. Forget the art. I NEED ONE OF THESE. Nicholas!!

Tokyo alley ways are cool

Posted on May 22, 2019 by sumi

While I was underwhelmed by the technology level of Japan, I do have to say that alleys are pretty great.

Tiny little back alleys full of restaurants and bars, people grilling meat and serving drinks… The golden gai and piss alley areas were especially fun at night. Many restaurants had signs that said “no foreigners”, which seemed a bit rude as I’m a pretty cool bear. They shouldn’t judge like that. 😠

We spent some time exploring all the alleys, stopping into random restaurants for some skewers. The skewers were good, even if people were biased against bears and buds.

We saw some pretty weird stuff. That was also cool.

Nicholas and Pokin met up with their friends Laura and Chris and packed into one of those little bars for some food and fun.

I’m warming up more to Japan.

Tokyo and my expectations

Posted on May 20, 2019 by sumi

This morning we got up for a quick flight to Tokyo. With the time zone difference it meant we got in around 5pm.

I had wanted to try out the famed Tokyo bullet trains, but instead we ended up on an Airport Limo, aka bus.

For the first part of our trip we went through a lot of countryside. It looked lush, I saw rice fields and simple houses, and a lot a lot of golf courses and pitch driving ranges. And thus I was reminded of golf being one of the national sports in Japan.

The shuttle can be as short as 1 hour but we lucked out to arrive during rush hour and it took closer to 100 minutes for our ride. It was interesting to see that the highway lanes were generally fairly narrow.

I expected Japan to be more modern, with tall packed skyscrapers everywhere. While the city looked very developed as far as my eye could see, the housing density was less than I expected. It also looked considerably less modern. Many trains did not have digital displays.

We arrived to our hotel, checked in, and with jet lag still in full force, passed right out.

The next day we were greeted with rain. A lot of rain. Today was the day I learned Tokyo gets 1,530 millimetres of precipitation a year. Vancouver, which qualifies as a rainforest only gets 1283 mm. So it was too wet for sightseeing. And we decided to stay in and work.

Before arriving to Tokyo, I had this expectation of a very high-tech metropolitan city. I knew that the country was very respectful of tradition, but I did not at all expect it to feel old. Compared to cities like Hong Kong, the metro station didn’t feel as modern. I suppose that’s what happens if you were early to adopt the tech. For instance, here is a photo of the Honk Kong skyline a few nights before, much more Neo-Tokyo than Tokyo.