Izakaya dinner

An Izakaya is a casual dining restaurant/ bar that serves small portions of food that goes well with beer and other alcoholic beverages. We found one and decided to try it despite our lack of Japanese language. Actually, we found a restaurant, tried it and then realised it was an Izakaya.

We were not disappointed.

The Izakaya. Sorry for the bad shot. It was after beer.

We asked for beer and Umeshu to start, and then started asking about food in our best pidgin Japanese. The waitress tried valiantly for a bit then sought reinforcement from her colleague, whom we shall call "Cowboy" because of his hat. His English was not so good, but his marketing skills were "Number 1".

In his best halting English, he offered vegetable tempura from "Okinawa's Number 1 vegetable", pig's ear tempura, and "Okinawa's Number 2 vegetable" tempura. We chose the first and passed on the other two. "Okinawa's #1" vegetable turned out to be bitter gourd. But it was good. I don't usually like bitter gourd.

Then we asked about yakitori and chose the chicken and pork. Both were good, and the chicken tasted rather special to me. Better than the pork actually. PL agreed that it was good too (she doesn't usually like chicken). We ordered another round of the chicken.

We also asked for Gyoza, and Cowboy informed us that it came with "Okinawa's #2" vegetable. He also tried to explain something, which we didn't understand but we said we would try anyway. And this was the highlight for us. The Gyoza was spicy! I think this was what he was trying to warn us about. We love spicy so we ordered a second round and this time (since we appreciated the spiciness!) he added on the side the chilli paste which he later told us was called "Okinawa no okus" (my best phonetic spelling of what he said). It was great! We wiped out the little bit of "okus" he had added on the side.

"Okus!" The red paste of spiciness!

Gyoza! Unknown to us, hidden spiciness!

(If there is a standard of spiciness based on buffalo wings, this would be a level 2 or 3 "heat".)


The yaki onigiri (grilled rice ball) came with takuan pickles (radish, I believe) and was up to standard. I prefer yaki onigiri (grilled) to plain onigiri, as I like the grilled flavour which goes well with beer.

The Izakaya's tradition is to present the final bill as a single price to be paid. The unitemised bill we got was ¥4100 for the two of us (about S$75). This was cheaper than the ¥4400 we paid for our first night's buffet dinner at International Garden Hotel which did not come with beer or alcohol!

All in a good deal and a great experience!

I highly recommend the gyoza especially if you like spicy food.

The Izakaya is on the 4-7 block next to the "Dirty Old Man River Hall" (don't ask! Picture of signboard over the entrance is on the left). The name of the Izakaya is in Japanese and I can't read it (Pictured right).

Hokkaido's street naming system is based on the N. American matrix system of streets and avenues (jo or jyo and chome). So the 4-7 block is 4-jo & 7-chome. Google map has this coordinates: 43.76917, 142.359925. It is about a 9 minute walk from Asahikawa Train Station.

Hotel Route Inn Abashiri

This hotel is conveniently located opposite the Abashiri Train Station, and is easily accessible with a bus from Memanbetsu Airport (¥880). Just look for the bus to Abashiri Station.

The lobby is on the 2nd floor. Rooms come with free breakfast (the in-house restaurant is also on the 2nd floor) and is buffet style - Japanese and International (i.e. non-Japanese).

The in-suite bathroom/toilet is amazingly small with a deep but short tub. Good for Japanese style hot-tubbing if you do not care for the communal Onsen on the second floor. The hot water is VERY hot so be careful. I don't like the manual hot/cold mixer with separate hot/cold water but the water pressure was strong (we were on the top floor - 9th). I used the tub once, and had a good long soak after a day of driving.

Touring Abashiri area

It all went rather well. We got an English language GPS but the map codes directory were all in Japanese, so the only input option was by use of telephone number. This was a less certain mode as not all telephone numbers are mapped onto the GPS system. But it was quite useful. At the same time I would say that the GPS was not essential. A good map, some common sense, sharp eyes, and a bit of luck will serve as well. Relying on the GPS was the last resort for me.

The best place we visited was Kamiyubetsu Tulip Garden in or around Yubetsu town. ("Kami" may mean "up", so it is in "upper Yubetsu".) (Do not confuse with Kamiyubetsu Onsen "Churipunnoyu" or Tulip Roadside Station.) Adult entry was ¥500 or about S$8.00. Unfortunately we got there late. And only had about half an hour at the place! We made the best of it, and it made our day.

Until we stopped at Saromako (Lake Saroma) visitor's centre we had no idea of where to find the flowers. So you should make that your first stop to get maps and some idea of where to go.

We plan to check out Takinoue park next.

As an aside, "Churipu" is "Tulip". The softer "T" becomes the even softer "Ch", the "L" becomes "R" and the "u" at the end is added, because Japanese don't usually like to end words with a consonant.

Japan by Train 1 - Narita to Haneda

Trains.

The sad thing is I left the rail passes behind. Terribly upset. Consolation is I can get a refund. But would have like to have the passes instead.

Now we have to plan and cost every trip.

For example, Train from Narita to Tokyo. 900 yen. Narita to Funabashi 520 yen on the Keisei line then switch to JR rail. The Funabashi to Tokyo was a 380 yen trip.

The confusion for us was Keiseinarita was the same as Narita station. Sort of. Just that the line was run by the Keisei company. Same for Keiseifunabashi and Funabashi station. The 5 minute walk in the Hyperdia website advice was simply crossing over from one platform to another but exiting and entering another gate. So in that sense it was a different station. But Keisei line simply refers to their stops as "Narita" and "Funabashi", without the "Keisei" prefix. But for preciseness, Hyperdia makes that distinction. Once you understand that, it is less confusing.

Later we took the train to Haneda Airport. For once Hyperdia failed us, it was unable to recognize the other stations and only had directions from Tokyo station, to Hamamatsucho (150 yen) to change to the Rapid Monorail to Haneda (450 yen).

From Haneda we flew to Memanbetsu Airport but was worried about how to get to our hotel in Abashiri. There was a bus, but the schedule was subject to change. Fortunately, the hotel was near the Abashiri Station and the bus was quite regular. The bus took us and only collected fare at the end of the Journey. The bus had a bilingual announcement system that announced the stops as they came up. When the system announced our stop, we just made some worried noises and the driver asked us something in Japanese and we answered in the affirmative and he dropped us off at the right stop, and pointed the station out to us.

No worries about change. The driver was able to make change with the machine on board.

Flight SQ 12 Airbus A380-800

The Biggest most Modern Aircraft in the world.

I hope it doesn't crash.

There have been all those incidents involving the Rolls-Royce engines - blowing up, catching fire etc.

Probably won't crash, but it could mean delays.

But that's all out of my hands.

What I can do is think about which seats to choose. The tip was to take the economy seats on the upper deck. Yes. There are economy seats on the upper deck.

And I had loaded the new iPhone App, SQ Mobile. 48 hrs before the flight, online check-in is open. Son on Friday morning, I use the App to get in. As usual, you have to be absolutely accurate in order to log in and check in. My surname didn't work, but I tried other combinations and eventually got in.

Except, it just had my name and not PL's name. I thought, maybe the system just takes one check in at a time. So I went ahead, checked in, and changed my seat from the lower deck to one on the upper deck with two seats.

Then I tried to check PL in. No luck. Tried every combination. Just won't get in!

So I switch to the desktop internet webpage and finally managed to check PL in.

Except... now the seat next to mine was taken!

Never mind, there's another seat in the next row. Switch! NO! System says there's a problem and to contact customer service (Tun-tun-tuuuun! Cue dreadful music!)

So I called customer service. push lots of buttons, no I am not a Krisflyer member. No, I'm not business class, suite, or first class passenger. Yes, I know all your customer service personnel are busy.

OK a live person is on the line. He sounds like he is in Mumbai. Or from Mumbai.

He says he can't do anything about it as one passenger is checked in and I should cancel my check in and re-check in and it should all be fine.

Right!

Goodbye to customer service personnel, and back to the online check in.

Except, there is no option to cancel my check-in. And all the seats are taken.

Sigh.

More on the flight in another post. It's now less than 12 hours to take off!

Preparations so far

As of today, we have booked our tickets from Singapore to Narita, booked most of the hotels, booked the domestic air tickets from Haneda to Memanbetsu, and Hakodate back to Tokyo (we wanted to go to Osaka but there were no direct flight from Hakodate to Osaka), booked rental cars for driving around in Hokkaido (Abashiri & Asahikawa regions - for the flowers), and booked a mobile 3G wifi (mifi) for the duration of our trip.

We just have 2 more nights not yet booked, and rail pass not yet bought.

1st April 2012

G.

Rail pass bought! Two weeks pass for about S$1,400 for 2 persons. That's about $50 per day! We better use it lots!

JAL was to email the domestic tickets ($900) to me, but there has been some problems. 

G.

2nd April

Update: Domestic tickets settled in early April. Minor delay. Travel Insurance bought. Everything set. Only two nights without hotel which we will wing it. Maybe try a capsule hotel?

14 days to go!

6 May