Castles in Japan: Okazaki Castle

Entrance to Okazaki Castle

Okazaki Castle is situated 30 minutes away from Nagoya by express train. This castle is made famous by stories saying that Tokugawa Ieyasu, the first shogun of the Tokugawa Shogunate, was born here.  Ieyasu was born in Okazaki as Takechiyo (later changed to Motoyasu). He was then held as a hostage by the Oda and Imagawa clans for 12 years since he was six years old. When Imagawa Yoshimoto was killed in the Battle of Okehazama, Ieyasu escaped and reurned to Okazaki. After conquering Mikawa, Ieyasu waged war against the Takeda Clan. After Nobunaga's death, he took control of Kai and Shinano.

Do-it-yourself picture

On the top floor of the castle, you can see a panoramic view of the city. You can even watch trains passing by. There is also a do-in-yourself stamp on the top of the castle where you can create your own picture. The kind ojichan on top of the floor taught me how to do it. He event took a picture of me in the samurai standees.

View from the palace

At the foot of the castle tower, you can find a small restaurant and souvenir store run by an old couple. If you get to visit the place, please purchase anything you can to help the old couple running the place. Behind the castle you can find the Okazaki Castle Museum that holds important artifacts about the Sengoku Period and the lords of the castle.

Cafeteria and souvenir shop

Okazaki Castle Museum

Outside the museum, there are also people dressed in Samurai costumes to talk to you and teach you some samurai techniques.

A Homey Capsule Hotel: Nagoya Wasabi Guesthouse

I stayed in this capsule hotel for three nights this February. As I've already read a lot of horror reviews about capsule hotels, I was surprised to find out that this guest house is opposite all of those stories. Nagoya Wasabi Guesthouse is not only very clean and quiet, it is also very homey. 

The lobby of the hotel is very welcoming. There are card games and board games on display that you can play with friends. There are also free post cards that you can get or you send to your friends or family back home. You can also purchase a stamp from the concierge to send your postcards. How convenient! The guest house is also renting out yukatas for Y1000 per night. 

And because my first night in their hotel is on Valentine's day, my friends and I were given Valentine's Day cookies as a welcome gift.

Hotel lobby

Free Valentine's Day treat

The guest house has five floors. The 2nd, 3rd and 4th are mixed dormitories while the 5th one is exclusively for female. We chose the exclusive floor. The room is surprisingly very quiet. I am happy that I got to stay there with really decent and quiet travelers who didn't make any kind of noise to disturb the others. The shared toilet and shower room are also very clean. There is a personnel assigned to clean it everyday. I bumped into the cleaning lady one morning. Your "room" which is the capsule might be small but don't estimate its convenience. It has all the amenities you need: safe box to put your belongings, a TV which can be converted to a PC (ahuh!), and a warm futon to comfort me during the night.

This capsule hotel is only 7 minutes away from Nagoya station. The location is not only very convenient , it also very cheap. One night costs around Y2,200.

Delicious Looking Melon Pan in Hakuo Bakery Cafe

Last night, I watched the first episode of Takizawa Hideaki's (Takki) old drama Mayonaka no Pan-ya san that featured a selection of delicious looking bread - melon pan being one of their specialties. So when I spotted a nice bakery on the corner of the street, I immediately entered, scouted the racks and put melon pan on my tray. Added by the coincidental detail that I was dragging my large luggage behind me, I felt like little lost Nozomi in the drama, finding her way to Boulangerie Kurebayashi. And yes, instrumental jazz was also playing in the background. Too bad, there was no Takki-looking guy at the counter of the bakery.

Hokuo Bakery is found behind Lumine Department Store in Ikebukuro at the South Exit of Ikebukuro Station. Prices of bread range from Y150-Y200. You can also get a small cup of coffee or tea for Y230. 

In the Footsteps of Haruki Murakami: The Old Blind Cat

Haruki Murakami is famous for being a lover of music - jazz in particular. Even before he graduated from Waseda University in 1973, he opened his own bar called Peter Cat in Sendagaya. However, before that, during his first few years at the university, he frequented a jazz bar in Shinjuku. Some articles about him say that he even worked in this bar. The truth of this matter, I cannot really confirm. 

The name of the bar is, The Old Blind Cat. The moment I found out about this place, I had been itching to go there and see for myself what this old place has to offer. Fortunately, it didn't disappointment me. The place is found right outside the East Exit of Shinjuku Station. It only takes a 3-minute walk from the station to find the place. The jazz bar is found on the basement of an old building beside Big Echo.

Going down the stairs to the basement of the building felt like going to another world, as if you're being drawn to a place where you'd meet a sheep man or a talking cat. I slowly pushed the door open and took a step towards a different world. The place is very, very old and very, very small. Oh no, I am not exaggerating, that is really what it is. There are around 10 seats on the counter and behind them are four narrow tables which equally narrow couches on both sides that are supposed to cater to up to four people. But if the customers are a little on the heavy side, it might only accommodate one. I came in at around 8:45pm and there were very few people around. A group of four in the corner, two men on my left and an old man on my right.


"Are you related?" The bar owner asked me in Japanese as soon as I sat down. "No, I am alone." I said and smiled. He asked me because I came in right after an old man and sat beside him on the bar. "Where are you from?" He asked me again. "Philippines." He nodded and smiled. The old man with graying hair had a very light aura. His face was calm and cheerful. You can see that this man might have looked good in his younger days. He did not look like other old men who appear stressed or scary.

I ordered Margarita. He prepared it right in front of me. Across the bar, there are a lot of bottles of different kinds of drinks, from wine to whiskey, rum to gin, sake to vodka. Name it, he has it. There are also bottles of assorted Japanese snacks that you can freely munch on to your heart's content. The bar charges Y700 yen for unlimited snack. A glass of Margarita costs Y1,100 yen. Prices of drinks range from Y800-Y1,100. You can also order a whole bottle if you want to.

When the bar owner gave me the drink, he asked me if I don't feel cold in Tokyo. I said, "Yes, I do." He said he knows that the Philippines is very warm. The owner and the old man beside me appeared to be very chatty with each other. I later found out that they were old friends and they could both speak English a little.

The old man requested a song from the owner, which the latter gladly played after the present jazz album finished playing. There were no vinyl record players anymore in the bar. Some of the recent posts online that I've read before going there mentioned of a real player playing. But now, there were just old cords and old equipment in place of the old player. The owner is also now digitized. He's using a PC to play the jazz albums. I don't mind it that much, the place is too surreal for me to even mind about that. A few minutes later, he turned off two large LCDs hanging on the walls and played a jazz concert album featuring Bono of U2. Oh yes, the legendary Bono singing jazz just made my heart leap. Okay, this thing is not 1960ish anymore.
It amazed how there was a fusion of a very old school, almost kitschy, kind of jazz atmosphere and a very modern, digitized media playing jazz. No, it didn't turn me off. It just made me appreciate the place more.

The metal walls of the bar are rusty and scratched with several doodles that can no longer be distinguished. One girl who came in asked the owner if they could write on the walls but he laughed and said no. The old vinyl records that used to be the main attraction of the place were not only used to design the shelves of the bar. The yellowing sleeves were stacked neatly above the narrow tables.


The Old Blind Cat was established in 1965, making it 51 this year! It was amazing how a small place like this have been kept alive and thriving for a very long time. I tried to order as much as I can drink because I wanted to help the place live, not that it appears that it's dying. I want to express my appreciation to places like these that are kept alive not solely for business purposes but for love. While preparing the drinks of the customers, the owner happily sang the songs and hummed. I felt the pleasure he experienced while listening to jazz and serving people. It's not every day that you go to this kind of place and you encounter this kind of person.

I asked him why he named the place "The Old Blind Cat." He explained it thoroughly but I did not get the rest of the explanation. Forgive my faulty Japanese. From what I understood, the name is related to or inspired by the 1930s when jazz artists used to come and play live." He even added that nowadays, no more jazz players come, only JPop stars do, he even joked. Please don't quote me on this because, as I said, my Japanese is faulty. 

This place is really a hideout from the rest of the crazy world raging outside it. It is like a world romanticized in the pages of Haruki Murakami's novel. It's also interesting that this place, being strategically placed on the basement of a building, blocks off any signal from your phone. It gives you a moment to be alone, detached from the rest of world just enjoying jazz in the company of strangers.

So if you want to go somewhere where you can stay, get lost and never be found, you know already know a place to go.

Living in Haruki Murakami's World: Walking Tour in Shinjuku

For fans of Haruki Murakami, Shinjuku is an interesting place to visit because there are several locations in the area that are either featured in his novels or were visited by the author himself in the past.

Waseda University. Start the tour at Waseda University, one of the most prestigious private universities in Japan. Murakami studied drama at Waseda University and graduated in 1973. In his novel Norwegian Wood, Toru Watanabe's university strongly resembles the author's own university. Watanabe enters the university in 1968 and lives in a dorm for two years. This dorm is based on Wakeijiku, a dormitory for male students, which is not very far from the university and where Murakami used to live himself.

How to get there: Take the Tozai line and get off at Waseda Station. The university is 7-minutes away from the station. You can also take the JR Yamanote Line and get off at Takadanobaba station. You can walk for 20 minutes or take the bus bound for Waseda University and get off at the last stop.

The statue of Shigenobu Okuma facing the Waseda University Bell Tower - A famous landmark in the university.

Toden Arakawa Line. Behind Waseda University is an old streetcar, which one of the only few ones left running in Tokyo. Watanabe's character in Norwegian Wood uses this line to visit his friend, Midori, who lives in Otsuka. 

Toden Arakawa Line, one of the last surviving streetcars in Japan.

Nakamuraya Cafe. In Murakami's novel, 1Q84, Tengo usually meets Fuka Eri at a cafe called Nakamuraya Cafe in Shinjuku. When I searched for it in Google Maps, the app said that the cafe already closed in 2011. However, I didn't let that disappoint me. I still went to Shinjuku to visit the place and see it for myself. The building called Nakamuraya Building, which stands beside Coach, is still open. It has eight floors of restaurants and shops. The 6th floor, which used to host the Nakamuraya Cafe, is now an oriental restaurant called Kichiri Mollis. So instead of dining there, I decided to go to the B2 instead and try the famous Nakamuraya curry at Manna. This might not be the exact Nakamuraya Cafe on the 6th floor of the building but I think it is still affiliated to the Nakamuraya group of companies because it serves the same famous curry.

 

Nakamuraya Building in Shinjuku

You'll easily find Manna right outside the elevator. There is a spacious space in front of it where there are several chairs for waiting visitors. This shows that there are a lot of people who go to this restaurant and are willing to wait just to try its famous curry. I was lucky because there were only 3 couples ahead of me so I didn't have to wait for a long time. The interior of the restaurant is not special. There is a large bar a little across the front desk/cashier and that's all there is to it. The restaurant has nicely-designed lamps though.

Manna is found at the basement of Nakamuraya Building

I ordered their Nakamuraya Curry set meal with green salad, Indian milk tea, indian chicken curry and rice. You can get the set for only Y1,620 yen or just order curry and rice for around Y1,100. The curry was very good, it was not hot but not bland either. The additional seasonings in the small white containers were also very good, they add a different taste to the meal when added.

How to get there: From Waseda University, you can walk along Meiji Dori to Shinjuku for 30-45 minutes depending on how fast you walk. If you are feeling too lazy to do it, you can take a bus from the Nishi Waseda Bus Stop bound for Shinjuku. Get off at Kabukicho bus stop and walk towards Shinjuku Station East Exit. You'll find a long line of shops and restaurants. Coach will not be difficult to spot.

The famous Nakamuraya Curry

Kinokuniya. This is a chain bookstore that can be found all around Japan. It sells both Japanese and English books. In the novel 1Q84, Tengo first bought some books from the store before heading to Nakamuraya cafe to meet Fuka Eri. In his book What I Talk About when I talk about Running,  Murakami also mentioned buying parchment paper and a good fountain pen at Kinokuniya to write his novel.

"Tengo Took the elevated train to Shinjuku after his third class ended. He bought a few books at the Kinokuniya bookstore and then headed to the Nakamuraya Cafe." -IQ84

Kinokuniya in Shinjuku is composed of 8 floors of books and magazines.

How to get there: The bookstore is across Nakamuraya Cafe.

Gonpachi: Kill Bill Restaurant

Gonpachi or more popularly referred to as the "Kill Bill Restaurant" is visited by thousands of tourists and locals alike not only for its ambiance but also for its good food. Kill Bill is a Hollywood movie starred by Uma Thurman in 2003. A sequal, Kill Bill Volume 2 was released in 2004. Although the iconic fight scene between The Bride (Uma Thurman) and Yubari Gogo (Chiaki Kuriyama) was not exactly shot in this location, this restaurant inspired the setting for that particular scene.

The restaurant is found in Azabu Juban, a high end district in Tokyo where mostly expats live.To go to Gonpachi, you can take either the Oedo Line or Hibiya Line to Roppongi Station. Take Exit A2. You will find Meidi-Ya, a large supermarket, outside the exit. Go down the road towards Roppongi Hills and walk for around 8 minutes. Gonpachi is found in an intersection, a block away from Roppongi Hills.

Outside the restaurant at night

I have to say though that the exterior of the restaurant looks more badass without the glaring lights around the trees. If you want to take good photos outside, better visit earlier when the lights are still turned off. If it's winter, it gets dark in Tokyo as early as 4pm. 

The interior of the restaurant will not disappoint you thought. It exudes an authentic Japanese traditional feel to it. This restaurant is classified as an izakaya, meaning a local Japanese bar, so it serves not only traditional Japanese food but alcohol as well.

For bigger groups of people, there are tatami rooms on the second floor of the restaurant that can be reserved for special occasions. Take note that you have to remover your shoes when entering the tatami room. There are also large taiko drums on the second floor, which make me wonder whether these drums are actually used for live performances or are just placed there for aesthetic purposes. The restaurant also plays traditional Japanese music that gives an additional authentic Japanese feel to the place. You'll feel like The Bride in her yellow track suit is going to come out any minute with her sword.

A traditional Japanese set meal for Y3,500.

Prices might hike a little during dinner time but for lunch, the restaurant offers affordable set meals. Lunch menus are served until 3pm. Prices of the set meals range from Y1,500 to Y3,500. We ordered the 7-course meal and shared it. At first, my friend and I thought that the food was quite little for sharing but it was just right! It doesn't look much but once you start eating it, it does fill you.

Quentin Tarantino visited the restaurant in 2003.

At the entrance of the restaurant, there is a shelf that shows Kill Bill memorabilia. It even displays a photo of Kill Bill's director, Quentin Tarantino when he visited the restaurant Circa 2003.

The Tomb of Tokugawa Ieyasu

the tomb of Tokugawa Ieyasu

The Toshogu Shrine in Nikko was declared as a UNESCO World Heritage site. This is only one of the numerous shrines that enshrine Tokugawa Ieyasu, the first shogun of the Tokugawa Shogunate.

Shinkyo Bridge

Before sunset

The stunning vermillion-lacquered bridge is part of the Futarasan Shrine and is associated with some mysterious Japanese legends. The Futarasan Shrine is dedicated to the three sacred mountains namely Futara, Nyoho and Taro. This bridge marks the entrance to the shrine complex where the important world heritage sites are situated.