Ito and Gotemba

Ito

Location: Yokikan Onsen

Website :http://www.yokikan.co.jp/english_top.html

We wanted an authentic Traditional Japanese experience and so we arranged for a trip to an Ryokan with Onsen on the premises. A Ryokan is a Japanese hotel with tatami mats for beds and onsen are hot spring baths. Our Ryokan was in a little coastal town called Ito.

The hotel was great! They had a private mountain tram/elevator to get to the hot springs at the top of the mountain (at first it was kind of scary fitting everyone into the tram, but after a while we realized it wasn't so terrifying and my brother breathed a sigh of relief at the top).

When we checked into our rooms, we were served a refreshing snack which was a little dish of cold jelly.

For dinner, they went all out and served us a huge kaseki dinner. We had salad, sashimi, dried fish, tofu, rice and a multitude of seafood and vegetables. It was such a huge spread for 3 people!

The food was really good (even though my mom doesn't like sashimi and ended up cooking all our sashimi in the stone bowls since they were kept warm on little hot pot stoves)

Gotemba

Some food souvenirs! Cakes and treats in the shape of the mountain.

The best gyoza we had in Japan! We had a very erratic eating schedule and so by the time we got hungry for dinner in Gotemba (which is a tiny town at the base of Mt. Fuji), most places were closed with the exception of this one "Japanese bar" across the street from our hotel. The Izakaya was located underneath the Gotemba Train Station and when we entered the first thing we smelt was the cigarette smoke. It was a really grungy bar - not something that we would expect of the Japanese because most other places we went to were clean and nice and this place almost felt seedy. Anyways, we entered, took off our shoes, tried to puzzle out what the servers were trying to say in their broken English and then sat down at a table to read through the menu. Luckily, I recognized gyoza as being pan-fried dumplings and so we ordered a plate. 

They were delicious crispy pan-fried goodness! And tender and juicy on the inside - it was such a surprise that they had such great gyoza at such a sketchy joint, but it was definitely a memorable experience.

The next morning we had breakfast at the Cafe downstairs from our Hotel. 

American style breakfast in Japan.

Mishima

On our way from Gotemba to Kyoto, we had to change trains at Mishima station. So we picked up lunch of what we thought was a chicken sandwich - turns out it was some kind of 'crispy on the outside' potato sandwich. That was a bit of a shocker since we bit into it thinking it would be meat, and it ended up being mushy inside of the crispy outer-layer. 

We also got some meringues because they were so nicely packaged and pretty!

Some kind of raisin and fruit bread and a melon bun (this one started the beginning of my brother's obsession with melon buns). The melon bun was really good - better than any buns I've ever had at any Chinese bakeries in Canada.

Bento lunch for the train trip.