Akita, Japan (Part 2): Around the City

The next day we headed out to check out downtown Akita Center.  Since it was raining we stuck to indoor museums.  First up was the Kanto Festival Center.  We didn't have the chance to visit Akita during their famous Kanto Festival so we thought this was the next best thing.  This museum was so awesome!

Here is a display from inside the museum.

And here is another display, which depicts the lantern festival that is famous in this town.  The size/weight of the lantern (which hold lit candles by the way) depends on the age of the male.  The younger they are the smaller the pole with the lanterns.

The best part of this museum was that we got to actually try it out, minus the lit candles of course!  This part was so much fun and I really appreciate that the staff was so accommodating and really wanted us to have this experience, even if it meant tracking down an employee that spoke some English just to help us out.  It was fun and definitely a memorable experience.  And no, this is not easy!  And yes, this was heavy so I was surprised to know this would be the size for a child (maybe teen).

After the festival museum we headed down the street to Akarenga, which is an old brink building that doesn't look Japanese at all, and used to house the Akita Bank.  You can see inside how it would have looked as a bank.  Many things inside are still the original.

This is the original fireplace.

After the museums we decided to find lunch.  The night before we passed by this restaurant called Pamplemousse, which looked really cute when we walked by.  We didn't know what they served so we were pleasantly surprised when we walked in and found very quirky decor AND an English menu.

Talk about quirky, in a very good way...the bell to signal to the server that you were ready to order was a bike bell.

Ryan and I both ordered a drink because, well, they all sounded so wonderful that we couldn't imagine passing on these.  Mine was amazing banana milk!

I don't need all of this to feel like I had a healthy and delicious meal but I can certainly appreciate the care that goes into running a restaurant like this and the food they are striving to provide to their guests.

Here is the menu.  How cute?!?!  And there you can see the banana milk that I ordered.

I absolutely love this menu and I love that it was also in English so I could fully appreciate it.

After seeing this menu I definitely knew I wanted to come back with my sister and so we are planning a trip there the next time she comes to visit me.

And of course I love this idea!  This place was so cute and I am so glad we decided to eat there.

Now for the food...

I could't resist the cheese plate.  It was yummy!

Ryan had a crazy version of a croque monsieur or something similar.

And yes, I totally did this!  I could not resist and I didn't see any reason to skip out on trying this.  It was definitely worth it!  Of course I couldn't finish it all, but it was certainly fun trying!

We also went to an art museum but I don't have pictures of that because they didn't allow pictures to be taken inside.

The next day before we left we headed to Kubota Castle and the park where this is located in Akita.  It was a short walk from the hotel.  It was raining the day before so we avoided outdoor activities.  Thankfully it was nicer that next day so we could check out the castle.

The park itself is pretty large and there is a lot of space to walk around.

The park had plenty of beautiful scenery and the weather was pretty good so it was nice to walk around, especially before we would be sitting in the car for a 4-5 hour drive.

I love this picture of one of the gates into the castle area.

As expected there was a shrine by the castle.

Lots of paper cranes!  It's hard to tell but these are all origami paper cranes that are linked together.

Then we finally made it over to the castle tower.  I am definitely glad we were able to see this castle before heading home.

We climbed all the way to the top so we could check out the awesome views.  Way out in the distance from one of the sides we were able to see out to the water (on the west coast, looking towards Korea).

One last picture of the park.  Really peaceful and serene.  Not a lot of people were out.  It was late November but the weather was actually warmer than I would have expected, which was nice.

That's all for our Thanksgiving mini-vacation.  Akita was definitely a good choice and I am so glad we went.

QUESTIONS:  Have you ever been to a lantern festival?  How are your balancing skills?  What is your favorite kind of pancake?

Osaka Craziness- Dining on Dotonbori

Getting to Osaka was a lot less crazy than I had anticipated.  We took a local train from Kyoto to Osaka station (not Shin-Osaka) and it took us between 30-40 minutes.  The train was not as crowded as we expected and that made things easier.  

We arrived at our hotel, Hotel Monterey Grasmere Osaka and were able to check in quickly.  Interestingly, this hotel starts on the 22nd floor...and there is a church in the lobby.  And by church I mean a free standing church, designed to look like an English country church and also designed to look like it was outside.  It was getting dark when we first checked in so I took a picture another day when there was better light coming in through the sky light over the church.

I had no idea that Osaka was such a massive city.  We had a great view from our room and it seemed like the city just kept going on and on and on forever.

After resting a little we headed out and very quickly (this is one of those places where my map made things seem further apart than they really were...we had this experience with our map in Florence, Italy) stumbled upon the famous Dotonbori.  This is the major street lining the canal and home to many famous food vendors and lots of good shopping.

I have read so much about this so I was so excited when we spotted these neon lights.  Plus, the weather was cooperating with us.

One thing I love about Japan is the tiny little side streets and alleyways lined with restaurants and other things.  There is nothing scary about heading down one of these in Japan (for the most part, I can't say I have visited every city and every alleyway, but every place I have been I have never thought there was trouble lurking down that alleyway).

This hotel was just too funny.  In fact, most things around here were on the outrageous side, but this was just flat out hilarious.  This is Hotel Gloria and from what I have read online, people love this place.  It is ranked pretty high on Trip Advisor, and it is really just so interesting from the outside that I would be curious to check out what rooms are like.

Ah, the famed canal along Dotonbori (which our guide told us means something like "street along the canal") in Osaka.  Lots of neon and lots of action here.

One thing about this street that people love to see are the signs for each establishment.  They are big and they are definitely worth talking about.  We just walked up and down taking pictures of these signs.  Here is one place, obviously they specialize in octopus...most likely takoyaki, which is a specialty food for Osaka (commonly eaten all over Japan, but Osaka is the true, authentic place for it) and is an octopus ball...more specifically a ball made from pancake and octopus.

This is the famous Kani Doraku, well known all over Japan for their crabs.  This sign is probably what helped make them so well known.  This is an iconic pic for Osaka and particularly Dotonbori.  Whenever I search for things in this area I always come across at least one photo of this place.  Obviously I took a picture the first time I came across it.  Did we eat there?  Yes, just not yet.  More to come on that.

The giant Meiji sign.  This is a famous food brand in Japan.

More of the crazy streets here.  Lots of shopping.

Here is where we stopped to try some takoyaki.  As I mentioned, these are famous in Osaka but popular all over.  I have had them in Misawa and Sapporo.  They are pancakes, more or less, in a ball shape and contain pieces of octopus...hence the giant octopus on their sign.

Here you can see the pancake balls cooked.  This is a special pan used just for takoyaki.

Here is the finished dish.  It is topped with some special sauces and dried bonito flakes.  These were really good.  Definitely better here than anywhere else I have tried them.

We passed on fugu (the one and only puffer fish), but it is available here and I believe this is one of the more famous places to try it.

Nothing like a giant sushi billboard!

Dragons, too.

This was probably the funniest sign we saw.  Since they serve meat here we passed on trying it out, but it was fun to look at the sign.

A location of Dohtonbori on Dotonbori.  We have this restaurant near us and I go there often for okonomiyaki, which is a Japanese pancake.

More dragons.

The we went to one of the Kani Doraku locations.  Here is the view from our window.  It is hard to tell but we are sitting along the canal and we have a nice view of the ferris wheel (the thing with pink circles on the left side of the photo).

I ordered some boiled king crab, which was served cold as this slows the cooking process so it is not overcooked when you eat it.  It was amazing!

I also ordered some broiled snow crab.  Delicious!

I loved that with the chopsticks they also provided a disposable crab "picker".  Of course coming from Maryland my sister and I opted to just use our hands.

In the front of the restaurant were some of these giant crabs for everyone to look at.

Yes, they really are that big.

And this very nice employee was happy to take one out and show us up close just how big these crabs really are.  I believe this is a king crab.  I can see where he gets his name from!

Then we checked out this almost "Where's Waldo"ish guy.  Apparently he used to be a cartoon character and was so well known his character can still be found around Osaka.

They sell pancakes in the shape of this guy so we thought that was a good way to end the night.  They were little bite sized pancakes and not filled with anything.  Here is my sister waiting on our order.

Last was a find on our way home.  We found these ice pops made from fruit only and that just sounded so refreshing that we both got one for the walk home. 

 So, I guess we did 2 dinners and 2 desserts!  It was our crazy food tour along Dotonbori.  Lots and lots of fun.  Definitely a place I recommend visiting in Japan.

QUESTIONS:  Have you ever heard of Dotonbori?  What kinds of crab have you tried?  (My sister had only had Maryland blue crab before this trip.)  Have you ever eaten octopus?