Prelude
Well, where do I start? Let’s start by saying that Yoni, Gary and I have travelled a lot together over the years and it’s always great. We have walked literally thousands of miles together, including the thousand kilometre National Israel Trail or transliterated, Shvil Yisrael as well as Spain, Italy, France and Vietnam. Simon, another old friend who lives in Australia and not Israel with us, made up our fourth traveler.
I think it’s safe to say that the excitement and anticipation for this trip exceeded any of our other previous adventures. Spoiler alert… for good reason. Japan for me was the great unknown, my having never previously been there. The Kumano Kodo, the 6 day trek along the mountain paths leading to Japan’s holiest shrines, was the anchor, around which all the other activities were based.
And before we delve into the journey, an apology. Many people reading this may have already been to Japan and my observations may seem like things that they already know. But it is written through my eyes, as a first timer to Japan, full of the wonder of discovering a place that is foreign to me in almost every way. Hopefully a reader who has been to Japan before won’t think “yes, I know that”, but will instead allow my ruminations will bring back memories of this fantastical place. Bare with me.
The Start of our Great Adventure
I flew from Israel via Dubai straight to Kansai International Airport, the gateway to Osaka and all of Western Honshu Island. Japan is a modern Eastern country, renown for its innovation and industry. And what did I land in to? A tin-pot, shabby old airport that took us over an hour and a half to deplane, go through a long and complicated arrivals process, get my luggage and get onto a train to Osaka, where Yoni was waiting for me already. Simon was arriving a bit later in the evening and Garry the following afternoon.
Those that know me are probably aware that when I am in a state of anticipation or excitement I get shpilkes. Others say I always have shpilkes. It doesn’t matter. Waiting in line for far longer than I anticipated or wanted caused maximum shpilkes. I was rocking from foot to foot, fiddling, impatiently opening and closing my passport, driving the people in front and behind me crazy. I have been told that customs officials spot drug runners and importers of illegal contraband by looking for the ones showing signs of anxiety. I was running the risk of causing myself an even longer wait, by acting like a six year old kid rather than a sixty four year old gentleman. But I got through uneventfully and onto the train to Osaka, but not before being rudely buffeted aside by a herd of tourists originating in a large and powerful country that neighbours Japan, whose citizens are renowned for their lack of manners. I won’t name the country so as not to be accused of racism nor get into trouble with the woke police, but there may be some of you who may be able to guess where I mean.
In retrospect, this turned out to be about the worst experience of the whole trip, which really wasn’t so bad and just shows what a great time we had.
Osaka
Our hotel for the two nights before starting the Kumano Kodo trek was an interesting one. In a mostly successful attempt to be young and funky, the Henn Na hotel in Shinsaibashi doesn’t have traditional humans manning the hotel reception, instead investing in two robotic dinosaurs who greet guests and advise on how to complete the touchless check-in process. This may work for hip twenty-somethings, but unhip sixty-somethings needed to call a human on the telephone to the side of the reception desk to come and help with the process, even if the humans spoke less English than the dinosaurs.
Yoni came downstairs and we were out, looking to explore Osaka’s famous culinary wonders. We quickly found a takoyaki stall happy to prepare us the octopus balls that are one of Osaka’s best known delicacies. After quaffing the creamy, octopus filled balls of lava that deliciously singe your palate, just a snack, really, we searched for a local ramen restaurant to complete the meal. Finding a place that was suitably grungy and local was easy enough. Ordering proved a little more difficult. You place your order via a vending machine (the Japanese love their vending machines, but more of that later) which comes with photos, Japanese writing, but no instructions. We eventually understood that you first need to place money in the correct slot, push a few buttons and take the tickets that the machine spits out to the chef waiting in the window open to the kitchen. We weren’t entirely sure what we had ordered, but it really didn’t matter too much. Five minutes later we were slurping delicious ramen soup with all sorts of mysterious additions. This would be a common theme, eating delicious food that we weren’t sure (didn’t have a clue) what it was.
After feeling well fed we returned to the hotel to wait for Simon. By this time it was raining heavily and Simon arrived wetter than he would have liked and later than he would have liked, since he initially arrived to the wrong Henn Na hotel…which doesn’t have robotic dragons. He wasn’t so wet, however, that he couldn’t go back out into the rain to look for a different ramen restaurant than the one we had slurped in, in order to fill his gut. Yoni and I couldn’t let him eat by himself. That would be rude. So we ordered fried chicken and gyoza while he had his ramen soup, out of politeness.
so far, this had been a very successful start to our trip.
