Kurashiki One-Day Trip

Kurashiki as a city needs to do a better job of tourism advertising.  It is not a half-day trip; it is not a one-day trip.

The city has got museums, shrine, park, old-timey houses, river walk, shops along river walk, gondola down the river, swans in the river.  Museums along include art museum, natural history museum, folklore museum, etc.

At least for me, I needed three days in this city.  However, I was lied to by the advertising, thinking it was a halfway stopping point between Osaka and Hiroshima.  So I planned one-night stay there.  It was not enough!

The willow trees along the river were swaying poetically.  We were rained on for a little while, but the rain simply added to the romance.  The swans were so cute!  I did not have enough time for shopping.  Apparently jeans and/or denims were very popular in the city.  They even had blue color ice cream!  Restaurants were all delicious!

Sigh, if I had time, I'd go back and stayed longer.

Delicious eki-ben

Beer for a hot day

つばめ喫茶室:  It is inside a courtyard that seems to be a museum.  OMG, the best chai that I've had in Japan.  Chai in Japan tends to be more milky than spice-y, but not here.  I could taste the spices and the milk.  It was wonderful!

Delicious vegan restaurant

Ohara Museum of Art

Japanese Apple Pie

This type of apple pie was quite famous.  It was a whole apple baked in a piecrust.  Since it was famous, I had been buying it as gifts for other people, but never tried it myself.  This time, finally, I bought one to try.

Box

Apple Pie

Cross Section

I was not sure if there were many brands.  For this one, the apple was delicious, but the piecrust was thin and stale.  I even heated it up in the toaster oven, as suggested by other people.  Still not my type of pie.  Maybe I should stop buying this as gifts.  Maybe it wasn't that good to start with; it was just the Japanese technology to bake a whole apple inside piecrust that intrigued people.

American apple pies were better.

停止中.....KEEP DISTANCE

Saw this in the women's bathroom in the grocery store.  I'm confused.  No more social distancing?

是我文法不好？還是英文不好？還是中文不好？

Matsumoto Castle & Tateyama Kurobe Alpine Route

Matsumoto Castle was so pretty from outside, but inside was empty.  All the weapon displays were guns.  What happened to samurais with swords?  Too bad people were not allowed to walk on the red bridge.

Matsumoto Castle entry ¥700/person

Apparently Matsumoto people eat horses.  I've tried horse sashimi once.  It was not as good as fish sashimi.

Horse Meat Cuisine

From Matsumoto to Tateyama Kurobe Alpine route was easy and not easy.  First, it was one-hour train ride from Matsumoto to Shinano Omachi, ¥680/person one way.  Even though the train was Japan Rail, it did not accept Suica.  We had to buy paper tickets.  Then it was 40-minute bus from Shinano Omachi to Ogizawa, ¥2,500/person round trip.

Shinano Omachi Eki

Shinano Omachi to Ogizawa

From Ogizawa, the Alpine route started.  Ogizawa to Murodo (or as Math Teacher called it, Mordor), it was ¥9,470/person round trip.  It was a lot of transportation.  It looked so confusing when I was researching online.  However, it was well-organized.  We didn't get lost. Followed the tourist crowd, and everything was all right.  Every stop took about 15-minute for transportation and half an hour for sightseeing.  I would highly recommend pack own picnic, as the food up in the mountains were very basic to none.  Besides, there was nothing better than to have a picnic surrounded by beautiful white snow under the bright blue sky.

Ogizawa to Murodo, ¥9,470/person round trip

Murodo was the top of the mountain with the snow wall.  It was only half way through the Alpine route, but it was enough.  Even though it was at the end of May, the snow wall was 14 meters high, and it didn't feel cold at all.

Of course I had to buy local beer as souvenir.  The red and gold tasted sweet and great; the black one tasted funny.

Top Gun: Maverick (2022)

I wasn't going to see this movie because I felt it was a two-hour advertisement for US military.  I also worried that, after 30 years, they wouldn't come up with original plot, just like Star Wars.

Math Teacher really wanted to see it, exactly because it was a two-hour advertisement for US military.  Then I got new contact lenses.  What better way to try out new lenses in a dark theater?

I was right.  The whole movie was an advertisement for US military.  The plot didn't change at all.  Tom Cruise was still the baddest ass pilot ever.  Same competition amongst pilots storyline, only with young generations.

They tried to be diverse with the young generation by throwing in an Asian man, with a codename "Yale". Heh, how original.  I don't believe he uttered a word in the entire movie.

This time they flew into enemy's country to destroy their infrastructure.  Nobody had a problem with US flying into a sovereign nation and stole the enemy's fighter jet?  Nobody had a problem that those enemy pilots were only defending their own sovereignty?  Because they threw in "Geneva Convention", that made everything ok?  What happened to diplomacy and talk?  This movie was saying because US didn't like something, US had every right to destroy it.  And it was sold as heroism.  What bullshit.

Go back to watch the original Top Gun.  It was better in every way.