After coming back to Tokyo, we spent a little bit of time getting caught up on some things we have to get done (thanks TurboTax) and meeting up with some friends and colleagues. It was an absolute pleasure to meet with my former colleagues for some long overdue dinners – thanks Shimizu-san, Masao-san and Nakanishi-san for a wonderful Spanish tapas dinner where I was made painfully aware of how much I’ve forgotten about mechanobiology and stem cell engineering since 10 years ago… Also thanks to Oshima-san for recommending one of the best Shabu Shabu places I’ve been to in Japan hands-down, made only better by the fact that it’s inspired by Krillin from DragonBall Z… double win!

That said, it was time to head westward for a few days to go to one of the only pre-booked activities we had planned before coming to Japan – the Nintendo Museum. This old Pokemon-trading-card-factory-turned-museum is located in Uji, about an hour southeast of Kyoto. It just so happens that Uji is home to matcha, Rachel’s favorite drink… how weird that we ended up here huh? In any case, we spent the first afternoon here exploring the Nintendo museum and I have to say, they knocked it out of the park – the historical halls with all the consoles, games and more were a great blast from the past for both of us and we left each exhibit with a giant smile remembering the good times we had as kids (or adults…) playing all these games. It also happened that the museum has an interactive exhibition where you essentially play some old games, as well as some unique-to-the-museum games – Nintendo truly does a great job of making games for all ages and you can see it in the smiles we have in each of the photos below 🙂

For the rest of our time in Uji, we were wholly devoted to Matcha – well, Rachel was at least. She took a matcha-making class in the morning, which checked off a major box for being in Japan in the first place, while I putzed around elsewhere on a short hike. As I was not physically present at the matcha-making class, we will all just have to use our imagination about the intricacies of the process and instead settle for some great pics of Rachel throughout the entire process… The hike that I did in the meantime was to a Buddhist temple nearby and an observation point above Uji – there is something to be said about the calmness of walking through the incredibly quiet streets and forests, and for me personally this was an unexpected highlight of Uji… For the rest of the day we walked around town and Rachel purchased more matcha than I thought was humanly possible to consume before it expires, before finally heading over to Nara.

In more academic circles, Nara is widely known as an old capital of Japan with dozens of temples, shrines and artwork from as early as the 7th century. For the tourists – Nara means deer. Lots and lots of deer… there is actually a lot of history and symbolism to the deer that roam freely around the city, but the consequence of their omnipresence is that tourists are encouraged to buy deer crackers and feed the deer which will bow to you in anticipation of the delicacy. We, being tourists, had to partake – and Rachel more than most wanted to be bowed to by a deer. That is until reality set in and the opening of a pack of deer crackers meant that about a dozen (decently aggressive…) bucks and does swarmed her to get a sweet taste of the fried cracker life – settling for chewing her pants or jacket instead when they couldn’t get any. The trauma in her eyes in the first photo below speaks volumes…

After we ran away from the deer, the rest of our time in Nara was spent exploring the temples, seeing more deer, eating great snacks, fleeing from deer, and checking out a cocktail bar right by our hotel. One way to de-stress from all the deer-related anxiety was to use the free facemasks the hotel provides, which gave me a wonderful sense of relaxation until Rachel pointed that I look downright terrifying with the mask on – I’ll let the readers be the judge of that.

Our final night in the Kansai region was spent in Osaka, where we met with Rachel’s cousin who has lived in the area for the last 25 years! Cynthia and Brad were a blast to catch up with and their story is fantastic – I’m not sure if I’d have the gumption to move to a country where I don’t know the language at all, but they both did it and successfully so I might add! We didn’t explore too much of Osaka, but we did check out America Village – a highly Americanized section of the Osakan downtown that is filled with thrift shops… I also remember it being the home of some of the only public trashcans I’ve ever seen in Japan, but it turns out that was a false memory I created 12 years ago.

We also had a nice leisurely stroll through the park surrounding Osaka castle, and through the castle grounds themselves. It was the first sunny day in a while, so we were joined by likely all the other foreigners in Osaka that day… crowding aside, Osaka castle is a wonder to see and comprehend the scale of human labor required to construct this almost 500 years ago. The grounds also host a forest of cherry blossoms that are now starting to bloom, so we spent a good amount of time wandering said forest and trying to stop and smell the roses… unfortunately I didn’t find any roses, just cherry blossoms.

We had a great, brief trip to Kansai and we’re not sure if it’s the last time we’ll be in the area on this sabbatical, but for now we have to turn back to go ‘home’ to Tokyo and get ready for our next big trip – Korea!