Day 24

Farewell to Dormy Inn, our nice onsen hotel; and to Tohoku, where we barely spent two days. We were heading to Tokyo, our last stop before returning to SG.

There was a slight drizzle when we set off, and we were rushing as we had to catch a Shinkansen down to Utsunomiya. I went ahead to reserve tickets while Grace lagged behind to get her favourite strawberry Daifuku. I had expected her to buy 10 of it as she loved it so, and passed her a 5000 yen note, but she only bought 5 in the end, a big regret in retrospect. The 5 daifuku soon disappeared before we alighted at Utsunomiya to change to the local train bound for Nikko.


And as we walked down the flight of staircase to change platform, the handle of Grace's luggage broke off suddenly, sending the luggage tumbling down but thank God nothing was damaged. Now both of our luggages are damaged.

Nikko is a famous scenic spot about halfway between Tokyo and Sendai, but rather inaccessible too. The local train took about an hour to reach Nikko, and there were plenty of foreigner tourists on the train, as a result of which we couldn't get a locker big enough for our two luggages when we reached JR Nikko station, as they were all fully taken up by the backpackers. Thank God the station office offered storage service as well (a great way to increase revenue for them) and at a slightly cheaper rate too, so we could travel light into Nikko.

One of the attractions at Nikko, aside from the scenery and the temples, was the Nikko Jidaimura, a themepark set in ancient Japan and even bigger than the Edo Wonderland at Noboribetsu. Sadly, however, there was no shuttle bus on the day (presumably because the Jidaimura is closed once a week), so Jidaimura was out. After Grace expressed lack of interest in the temples, even though they were declared world heritage sites, we opted for the Kegon Waterfall instead. It was one of the three largest waterfalls in Japan (falls 97m perpendicularly), and the bus trip was so expensive that we almost wanted to rent a car and drive up ourselves (4200 yen for return trip for 2). Thank God we didn't eventually, as the road up to the waterfall was absurdly steep and full of sharp turns. Yet the bus driver kept the speed above 40km/h throughout the journey, making us hanging on to our seats (and our dear lives too) as we brushed against deep valleys that didn't seem to have much protective barriers in place. The view along the way was fantastic, but by the time we reached the top, Grace was a little pale from all the sharp turns.


It was rather chilly up there, and there were dark clouds building up in the distance. We walked to the waterfall area, and as we neared it, we could hear the thundering sound coming from it. There was an entrance that charged 500yen per person for elevator, something we couldn't make much sense of then, so we decided to head to a staircase leading to a little platform, where there seemed to be quite a bit of people gathered. And to our surprise, we came face to face with the magnificent waterfall!!


I know it doesn't look THAT fantastic on picture here, but pictures can't do justice to what we actually saw, a fact that I had grudgingly accepted since the start of the trip. It was an incredible feeling, standing right in front of the waterfall and gaze in awe at its magnificence, and marvel at God's ingenius creation. The other waterfall we saw at Shiretoko was beautiful indeed, but vastly different from the one before us. We were staring with mouths agape and "wow...wow" for quite some time initially, before frantically snapping pictures of the waterfall. There were a bunch of old folks there too, leaning against the railings and chatting excitedly amongst themselves; and from my limited Japanese proficiency, I learnt that they were here 20 years ago, and that the waterfall looked different then. Seeing that they won't leave for quite some time, we tried to snap a few pictures and descended to the lower level for a slightly different view of the waterfall. And there were signs warning people against throwing anything downwards as it might hit people below, and it was then we realized that the elevator would bring people down to an observation platform at the foot of the waterfall. But as we would rather spend the 1000Y on food, we gave it a pass.

It was getting cloudy, and we had trouble spotting the famous "nan2 ti3 shan1", or male body mountain in direct translation. According to what I had read previously, it was a mountain that supposedly resembled a certain section of the male body, and hence its name. However, most of the mountain was obscured by the clouds, and even when we saw the photos of the mountain on clear-sky days, we couldn't really spot the resemblence. There was also a huge lake, and Grace contemplated walking around the entire lake, but was discouraged from doing so after looking at the map - it'd take us at least 1.5 hours to walk to the other side of the lake, i.e. 3 hours to and fro. Madness. After taking a picture of a stone statue with Emperor Meiji's writing engraved upon it, we headed back to the bus terminal.



The return bus trip was anything but enjoyable, as there was a HUGE, bee/hornet/housefly thing on the window beside us. To date I had no idea what it was, but it looked like a hornet (too big to be a bee) with yellow and black stripes on its belly; and as soon as I spotted it, I took out my jacket and covered Grace up to prevent her from getting stung. It flew back and forth a few times, apparently trying to get out but to no avail, and before long Grace was complaining of being suffocated. So I removed the jacket cover but kept my eyes on the disgusting insect, which at times rubbed its front legs like the houseflies do, but the yellow and black stripes on the belly made it impossible for it to be a housefly. If it were, I'd probably kill it on sight rather than letting it pester us for the next 40+ minutes, and I developed a bad headache and mild nausea as a result of constantly monitoring the stupid insect as the bus driver did his stunt maneuvers at high speed.

We were relieved to get off at the Divine Bridge. It was a red bridge builted over a large stream filled with boulders, and again there was an admission charge of 300Y/350Y. The Japs are really smart, charging admission for everything and in so doing ensuring that such heritage sites could be better preserved and maintained. But of course, stingy as we were, we chose to take pictures of it from afar instead of paying 700Y for a close-up shot. Then it was a long walk back to JR Nikko station, and along the way we grabbed some quick bites from the Conbini SunRus. Local train to Utsunomiya, then Shinkansen to Ueno, then Yamanote line to Ikebukuro.




I chose Superhotel Ikebukuro Kitaguchi againt for 3 nights, mainly for its affordability, relatively good breakfast and generally good quality. And of course its proximity to two of our favourite Ramen shops: "The Bomb", whose real Japanese name we couldn't really pronounce so we gave it a rather apt nickname; and Nobunaga, a shop very close to our hotel that offered unique dip-in ramen. And tonight's dinner would obviously be "The Bomb", something that we had been craving for ages.

It wasn't hard finding "The Bomb", and there was already a long queue by the time we reached. We ordered two different ramen but each topped up with extra Charsiew, egg and *drumroll* the BOMB!!

Yes it looked like a bomb and it was also called "bomb" on the Japanese menu. Its basically a uber delicious ball of spicy minced meat, and when dissolved and mixed into your ramen...........*slurps*

We waited quite a while before spaces cleared up and we could get in. There was a big HK family that just left before us, with lots of kids who were more interested in playing with the free fans provided at the entrance (meant for customers waiting outside to keep cool, not to take away) than the ramen, and took a few with them when they left. Disgusted, we went inside and was immediately overwhelmed by the rich aroma in the air and the familiar "Irashaimase~" from all the staff and cooks. We sat down and before long, our ramen was served.



Words can't describe how good it tasted. Just seeing it and smelling it sent shivers down our spines (haha sounding a tad exaggerated but true, we missed it so much!). A quick slurp of the soup, and followed by frantic gulping/munching/slurping, we were both sweating like pigs near the end (thanks to the spicy Bomb + hot tonkotsu soup) but feeling really satisfied and happy. Grace was grinning from ear to ear and kept mumbling "heavenly" in between big mouthfuls, while I struggled with the extra noodle I ordered. And for the first time Grace finished all her ramen and even helped me with my extra plate, revealing just how much she loved the ramen. Our bellies were filled to the brim when we walked out, and as the wind blew away our sweatdrops on the way back, we felt really, really happy and satisfied.