Shane’s Japan Trip Report Day 2
Japan Trip Report Day 2: Kojimaya Soba, Soothing Onsen, and Home-cooked Japanese Dinner
On our first full day in Japan, we took a train into Niigata City proper to do some shopping. Specifically, I had to buy a new suit for some business dealings in Tokyo later on during our trip. In Japan, know you’re in do-inaka (deep in the country) when only one train comes per hour, and the doors don’t even open automatically!
The train ride from Yoshida to Niigata takes one hour, but is might as well have taken one minute, because I was fast asleep from jet lag even before the wheels of the train began turning. I tend to sleep very well on Japanese trains; almost as well as this guy!
Once in Niigata, we made our way to a department store that has a shop that sells discount suits. I bought my previous suit at a similar store in Japan about 8 years ago, and I noticed that I had outgrown it during my last trip to Japan (it was all muscle, I swear!), and since I pretty much only wear a suit when I’m in Japan, as is mandatory when conducting business here, I decided to buy it while I was here and save some luggage space on the trip over.
I got measured for my suit, my nose running the entire time from either allergies or simply the sudden exposure to the cold weather, and then we went for some lunch while the suit was being altered.
I also bought a couple clothing items at UNIQLO, which is kind of like the Gap of Japan when the Gap was in its prime. Lots of fashionable items at very reasonable prices!
Lunch was at my favorite soba restaurant in Niigata: Kojimaya Soba. The soba here is fresh, light, tasty, and just really high quality. You can read more about it here.
After eating we had more time to kill so we checked out the depachika, which I never tire of visiting. The varieties of food found in just about any Japan depachika are astounding, and it all looks amazing, if not downright artistic!
We bought bread at a Japanese bread shop called Hediard, which I was told was actually headquartered in France. The bread looked so good that I wanted to eat every single variety, but we contained ourselves and selected about nine pieces to take home for the family. Then I got a large cup of mixed veggie juice at Veggiteria, a popular juice bar, and then went to pick up my suit.
We had a bit of time to kill so we stopped in to Doutor, a large coffee shop chain in Japan, to sample a maron-flavored latte (chestnut, which is a very popular flavor in Japan) that looked really good. It was.
I found this little Japlish sign at the cup return area amusing.
On the way back I saw some new cool Japan stuff. One was this combination winter coat/baby carrier, with a little pocket in the back for the baby. I have never seen one of these in the U.S.
Another was a very useful invention: a bicycle with hand warmers on the handlebars. Many Japanese commute on bicycle year round, so these hand warmers come in handy during the brisk winter months.
The highlight of Day 2 was a trip to the nearby Sakura no Yu onsen hot spring day spa. This onsen pipes natural hot spring water from some 800 meters below the earth’s surface into several types of indoor and outdoor baths. By now I’ve long overcome any self-consciousness at being the only naked foreigner among many Japanese bathers. Japanese are the best at the world at minding their own business, and so it really isn’t the big deal people make it out to be. The onsen was very refreshing, and left me feeling renewed.
After the onsen, we came home. Tonight, unlike the night before, we were ready to eat, and my mother-in-law (Okaa-san) did not disappoint, welcoming us with a spread of fresh-caught crab legs, seafood gratin, salad, miso soup with clams, and a big bowl of edamame that were far superior to anything found in the U.S. I went to bed a very happily fed gaijin.
Proceed to Shane’s Japan Trip Report Day 3–>
