We celebrated the end of March and the end of the current class term by taking a few days off and doing some fun stuff. The whole thing started just with a plan to visit the Yamazaki whisky distillery near Kyoto, and then it kind of snowballed into a four-day weekend extravaganza.
Since I had no classes scheduled, I took Thursday and Friday off. My students had wrapped up everything on Wednesday, and I have several open days the following week so there wasn’t any urgent planning that needed to be done.
Thursday morning I had to myself while Kuniko went to work, and then I drove the car over to Nishi Akashi and picked her up on her way home. From there we went over to Costco to do some rare weekday shopping. It was busier than we had expected, but still manageable. We bought lots of prosecco, a big block of Manchego cheese, and some other staples of outdoor eating since the weather had recently improved. All that remained on that day was to head home and sit outside on the deck, sip wine and enjoy being off work.
Friday was a big day. We woke up at 4:30 in the morning, caught the first train out, and went into Osaka. We started the adventure by lining up in front of Universal Studios Japan before they opened. One of Kuniko’s students works at USJ and got us a free pass, and although Kuniko goes there for work three or four times a year for me it had been almost ten years. It was fun to go there together after such a long time.
I was surprised to feel a little bit of giddy excitement as we waited outside the gate – just like when my parents took me to Disneyland when I was a kid. There were a lot of people lined up for the opening of the park at 8:00 am. In an interesting move, they let in people who had stayed at the USJ hotel in 15 minutes early, and there was a huge amount of people running in ahead of the crowds. It was a nice hotel promotion with a big audience of people who will consider staying there the next time they come to Osaka. Good move, marketing people!
Finally we were let in, and we hustled off to the Harry Potter area of USJ first. We didn’t exactly run, but we were walking much faster than usual. The Harry Potter area is set up like the fictional town of Hogsmeade, with lots of shops and realistic looking snow on the rooftops, and even a nearly full sized Hogwarts Express locomotive parked outside. We passed these at full speed aiming directly for the Harry Potter ride, and by the time we got in line the wait was only about 30 minutes. When we left the Harry Potter area it had grown to a more than two hour wait, so our 4:30 am wake up on a holiday paid off nicely.
The waiting time was time well spent, mainly because the design of the attraction had lots of visual entertainment for the guests. Many of the actors from the original movies were reprising their roles from the film (I hope they were paid well!) and the Hogwarts building we were traveling through had plenty of “magical” paintings that moved – just like in the books and movies. I had a lot of fun in line seeing how they designed the experience.
As for the ride itself – it was a lot of fun. It combined the feeling of Disney’s Haunted Mansion with the movement and virtual reality feel of Back to the Future. It was really well done, and even better to be able to experience it with Kuniko. Maybe after a few years we can head back and try it again.
Next we moved at a more sedate pace, looking through the shops around the Harry Potter village, trying butterbeer (non-alcoholic) and taking pictures of the scenery. They really designed the surrounding area well, with tons of tiny details that you might miss if you rushed through.
One thing that struck me while walking around USJ was the fact that they really focused on friendly staff and good customer service. Every staff member smiled, waved, or struck up conversations when possible, and as an American it felt good. Customer service in Japan is always very polite and very helpful, but it is rare to get a smile or any sort of small talk. I always give Japanese customer service full points for professionalism; the scores for warmth are quite a bit lower. This visit to USJ really illustrated the difference for me.
For us, the Harry Potter ride was the main attraction, and there wasn’t anything else that was a high priority. We walked through slowly, but before long we walked by the “Flying Dinosaur” attraction and I decided that I totally wanted to ride it. Kuniko noped out of there (she’s not a big roller coaster person), and instead was walking around while I lined up. The good news was that as a single rider I could get in a special line, and I bypassed most of the waiting time. In the end it took about 30-40 minutes to get to the front of the line. Not bad!
And when I say I got to the front, I really did – they put me in the front row of the roller coaster. The coaster is designed to hold you upright when you board, but then the seats rotate from vertical to horizontal, so you are looking straight down at the ground. From there you fly at remarkably fast speeds and being in the front made it that much more dramatic. As we rode up to the first drop, I could see Kuniko down below, waving and holding a giant turkey leg, so I had some big motivation to survive the experience. A father and his two young sons were strapped in next to me, and they had just as much fun as I did swooping through the loops and turns. We exchanged goofy grins when it was over – a great example of building comradeship through adversity.
Back on the ground Kuniko was waiting with a big smile and a turkey leg, and she said later that I was so excited about the ride – riding a big wave of adrenaline. The turkey leg was great, and we soon moved on to look at the rest of the park.
There were some other new attractions for me. The newest one was a ride based on the Minions characters from Despicable Me, but we decided to skip it because of the huge line and the huge amount of kids waiting for it. We stopped at a restaurant with outside seating and I went inside to wait in line for a couple of cold beers. After finally getting those, we sat outside and did some people watching and enjoyed the beautiful weather. It was blue skies and warm temperatures, which felt good after the long winter.
With nothing else much to do, we made a couple of stops to see if we could find Kuniko’s student who was working at the park. Unfortunately she was inside one of the attractions and we didn’t want to wait two hours just to say thank you, so we left the park itself, and went back to the City Walk area between the park and the train station.
The City Walk area is special because the restaurants that are featured there are a mix of the usual Japanese chain restaurants and also some very rare American chains. For example, at USJ you can eat at Red Lobster or Bubba Gump’s. In America I didn’t really get excited about eating at either one of those places, but after living in Japan for 15 years suddenly they seem a lot more interesting. Kuniko and I went into Bubba Gump’s for a small lunch, and it was like stepping back into the USA for a moment. The staff sat us down in the empty restaurant, and we ordered up a blue cheese salad and some Cajun boiled shrimp. The staff warned us that the shrimp could be spicy, but they were not spicy at all – we had to request Tabasco sauce to finish them off. I drank a Budweiser (ha!) and we answered the Forrest Gump trivia question posed to us by the staff. Â I really wondered what they did all day – it was obviously not a popular place. Most people who enter USJ are not allowed re-entry if they leave, so I guess the restaurant staff are waiting for a dinner rush once people leave the park.
To be honest, I wasn’t too impressed with the food that we had. I noticed how much of the food on the menu was fried, and seeing the ratio of dressing and bacon to greens on our salad made me realize exactly what made this place “American”. Still, it was good to be back if only for a short lunch. It might be a longer time before we return.
With lunch out of the way we caught a train back to Osaka Umeda, and then took the Kyoto line from Osaka to Yamazaki, in order to join a tour and tasting at the Suntory Yamazaki distillery.
The Yamazaki distillery was in the news a few years ago because a single malt whisky made there outperformed some big Scotch producers in a tasting in Scotland, and the Japanese are understandably proud of the achievement. Unfortunately the downside to this is that it has become really tough to find a bottle of Yamazaki whisky, even in Japan. The prices have shot through the roof, stores are sold out, and online some bottles are starting at $100. We had a few bottles of Yamazaki before they became rare, but we’ve been holding on to our last one – taking sips only on special occasions.
So it was good to go to the actual distillery and see the process. If you’ve been paying attention you’ll remember that we went to the Ararat distillery in Armenia last summer, the Hennessy distillery in Cognac three years ago, and plenty of wineries in between. So we thought it would be interesting to see how the tours compared. Getting a tour at Yamazaki is not easy – we had to make a reservation several months in advance, and it was only available on a weekday (hence the timing of our days off) so it was with great anticipation that we got off the train at Yamazaki station and walked to the distillery.
It was only a short walk through a very small town. On such a nice day with the cherry trees blooming in the background it was nice to stroll through a peaceful old Japanese village. There wasn’t much else around, and I imagine most people who live there commute into Kyoto, which was just a few minutes train ride to the east.
The distillery is marked by a very dramatic black and white building, probably called modern back in 1960, and there is heavy security to enter. We stopped at the front gate, confirmed our reservations, paid the fee (1000 yen each – about $10) and received security badges on straps. Since we had arrived a little early we walked around the grounds, went through the museum, and then went into a well-designed tasting area to try some whisky.
The tasting menu was a paid tasting, but quite reasonable. You could taste small samples (15 mL) of everything they made, and most tastings were just 100 yen. We did a tasting of regular Yamazaki, 12 year old Yamazaki and also 25 year old Yamazaki. We also tried a Hibiki 17 year old “smoky” whisky. Â They served the tasting glasses with a big glass of water which was very much appreciated. We sat at a wooden table shared with some other people and went through the tasting. Of course we liked the 25 year old Yamazaki the best – it figures that we’d like the most expensive one. It was interesting to taste the differences and side by side they were much more apparent.
When our tour time came up we gathered at the meeting point and followed a tour guide through the distillery, seeing the stills, barrels, and grounds. The distillery was exceptionally clean and beautifully maintained – obviously Suntory put a lot of money into the place. The tour ended at a dedicated tasting area (similar in design and style to the one we visited in Porto at Graham’s). The tasting part of the tour was surprisingly comprehensive and they served us four glasses of whisky. The first two were whiskys that are not released on their own – one aged in white oak barrels and the other aged in used sherry barrels – both of which are used for blending to make the final Yamazaki single malt. The next glass was a small sample of the flagship Yamazaki, and the final glass held a really big slug of the same thing – Yamazaki single malt.
We tasted the first three with the tour guide, and she tried to explain the blending decisions and what the distillers are looking for when making a single malt whisky. During this time we sniffed and sipped, and they had a basket of crackers, nuts and chocolates for us to balance things out.
The final glass – the big slug of whisky – was used in a demonstration on how to pour a perfect highball. Â The highball has become more and more popular in Japan, largely driven by a huge marketing push by Suntory and Nikka. Here the staff showed us how to make the cocktail, and we used sparkling Yamazaki spring water (the same stuff they use for their whisky making) to finish the cocktail. It was certainly the most expensive highball I have ever had – and it seemed almost a waste to blend the Yamazaki whisky with sparkling water over ice. It was good, but I think I prefer my whisky neat.
With that we finished the tour and tasting, and they dropped us off (of course) in the gift shop. It was hard to believe that the whole experience cost just 1000 yen. Â We did end up buying a special limited edition Yamazaki bottle in the tasting room – the only one they had available, so I guess the tasting ended up being profitable for them. Later on Saturday we tasted the whisky and we were very satisfied – as Steve Coursey would say, “It’s a good drop!”
Since we were so close to Kyoto, we had decided to finish up the night with a nice dinner out in the big city. Kuniko’s friend had recommended a Spanish restaurant called El Fogon, and so we took a train to the busy Kyoto station and then walked from there.
The place had a nice atmosphere – more traditional than modern – and we sat upstairs and ordered from the menu. We chose a dish of garbanzo beans and spinach in a paprika sauce, a mixed plate of tapas, and then a grilled pork dish that sounded delicious. The first two dishes were a hit – really well done and rich in flavor, and we sipped some nice red wines while enjoying them. The meat dish took a surprisingly long time to reach our table, however, and we were starting to get a little worried. When the meat arrived it was actually a little cool – and there was some aluminum foil embedded in part of the meat which is always a bad sign. The cut of pork was a little fatty, which I don’t mind when it is served seared and piping hot, but unfortunately cold fatty meat is less than appetizing.
What saved the meal was my last drink order – a sweet sherry made from the Pedro Ximenez grape. Long ago I had misunderstood that Pedro Ximenez was a winery, not a grape, so it was a learning experience for me, too. The sherry was sweet, of course, but it had a big mouth-filling impact and it was a sensuous experience – so good. The next day we called the restaurant and got the name of the maker, and I ordered a bottle online. It was that good.
Despite the sherry being so good we were a little depressed about the pork dish, so we walked a couple of blocks to a restaurant we hadn’t visited in a long time – an Italian bar kind of place with a focus on wine. It is called La Shull-Shull, and we sat at the bar to have some olives and a quick pasta dish. We settled on the porcini and cream pasta, and while we waited the master served us red wine by the glass. Â We had different ones, and mine was a pinot noir from Romania, which was a first for me. It was pretty good, too – which means that we’ll have to pay a visit to the area someday.
The porcini pasta knocked our socks off – with giant slices of porcini mushroom soaked in the rich, creamy sauce. Â It was a great way to wrap up the day.
From there it was a long ride home on the special rapid train, and we took a short taxi ride from Nishi Akashi to our home to save a little time and get to bed that much earlier. We were tuckered out!
Even though the big day was over, we still had a couple of events left on the weekend. Saturday we were invited over to the Yamaji’s place for a lunch on their patio next to their little cherry tree, which was blossoming at just the right time. We ate some good food with the Fukumi’s, the Yamaji’s, and their sushi-making friend who came all the way out from Osaka to join us before going back to work that evening. Hiroka was pretty active during lunch, chasing around insects and making various demands that his parents hurried to meet. The big conversation topic was that the Fukumi’s were selected to be neighborhood representatives this year, which is really tough for them considering their working situation.
There is a whole blog post here about how the system of neighborhood associations is outdated and a waste of time, but I’ll save that for later. The Fukumi’s left early to try to negotiate with some other neighborhood residents and maybe escape some of the responsibilities. I hope it works out for them. We have to go through the same thing in a couple of years, and our strategy will be to put me forward as the representative and then I’ll pretend I don’t speak a word of Japanese (in Japan among foreigners it is called “playing the gaijin card”). We are both working, and the amount of duties and responsibilities are really overwhelming, and designed to be handled by a housewife at home with plenty of free time – not for a busy dual income household.
Anyway, the party was a success, and we filled up on sushi, barbecue, beer and wine. The next day we got up and went off to Akashi to see the cherry blossoms there. We had some coffee and sat on a bench and enjoyed our own quiet little party. The weather was still warm but a little hazy, so the pictures of the cherry blossoms didn’t come out quite as nicely as they would with a big blue sky. Still, we’ve got plenty of pictures of cherry blossoms already so no big deal.
We capped off the four day weekend with a small barbecue at home – roasting peppers, mushrooms and onions out on the grill while sipping vinho verde and snacking on Manchego cheese. It was a really busy long weekend, but we are pretty refreshed and ready to get a new school term started from this week.
