• D-T Reiff
  • D-T Reiff

Japan 2017

A 14-day adventure by D-T Read more
  • Trip start
    July 27, 2017
  • Dan & Midori's wedding

    July 29, 2017 in Japan ⋅ ⛅ 24 °C

    What a beautiful day and great mix of traditional Japanese, Jewish, modern, and casual celebrations that had amazing food and dessert... And spanned, eventually, four parties - over 12+ hours(!) (it was super nice of them to be willing to stay up so late with us in the hotel bar, we were definitely all tired and cannot imagine how whipped Dan and Midori were).Read more

  • Exploring Saporro a bit

    July 30, 2017 in the United States ⋅ ☀️ 24 °C

    We had some time after breakfast, before going it to sushi, so we walked around The Red Brick (Govt) Building. (We didn't really have time to warrant the, only ¥420, to go into the botanical garden even though it looked really cool.... And we were later told by Susan has a lilac path... Side note from there - hydrangeas are everywhere and huge - like occasionally small ornamental tree sized!)
    Notes:
    Crows are Japan's aggressive pigeons
    Many of them are slack-jawed and look silly
    Carp are funny when trying to get food being fed to ducks (as in, due to their decreased vision I believe, they keep trying to eat the ripples and are continually kicked in the face)
    The extreme amount of texture on the sidewalks is interesting.
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  • First JR trip - Saporro to Hakodate

    July 31, 2017 in Japan ⋅ ⛅ 20 °C

    Neat little angled houses with Japanese gardens, metal roofs (with ladder access and centered drainage), and often glass covered entrance ways. Beautiful seashore route with many tunnels (some of with have brief breaks in the middle when you can look it at the ocean and cliff side) through the mountains, and occasional streams. Industry and a few neat harbors.
    Interesting concrete shapes used in break walls: hollow triangles, donut-like, jack-like (like the game pieces almost), and odd cube type complex jack shapes.
    .... Learned about ordering bento boxes at the station or when you first get on the train (due to limited amount as well as selection and wait time to "prepare"/possibly warm, get from a stop along the way???).
    .... Trains also have an odd/fairly significant pressure change as entering tunnels.
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  • Nara - Todai-ji Temple - 1

    August 6, 2017 in Japan ⋅ ⛅ 33 °C

    Why go to deer park when they are and you everywhere?!?
    Also this place was amazing, with many temples and shrubs, including Todai-ji (with huge Buddhas); the largest wooden structure in the world!!!
    ... This entry just has deer and funny signs though.
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  • Himeji Castle - 1

    August 8, 2017 in Japan ⋅ ☀️ 17 °C

    I have no idea what the person whose blog we read which mentioned "about an hour" for this castle was thinking.
    It is gorgeous and immense and we only went through the main keep (all 5 stories) and the small, surrounding keeps and it took us about a little more than two hours to do that... Not to mention the other buildings and the garden that we had to skip (mostly to get back to the train on time, but also because it was again very hot as well as staying too rain a bit and seemingly threatening.
    Beautiful and totally worth it!!! (¥1000/adult plus ¥40 for the garden.)
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  • Tanpopo Restaurant - Hiroshima

    August 8, 2017 in Japan ⋅ ⛅ 31 °C

    Okonomiyaki Hiroshima style and at a great little "ma & pop" place that not only showed us how to eat it but treated us very well (& I believe talked with us and put up with us until 27 mins after close). We also met a very nice man, Kenji, who talked with us a bit about the area, travel, and showed us some of his beautiful travel blog (with photos of Cuba, etc).
    We both think this may be our overall favorite Japanese food so far!!!
    The Hiroshima nihonshu was also quite good.
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  • Trip end
    August 9, 2017