A Shikoku Detour, a Ride on the Bullet Train, and the Tastiest Pancakes in All of Japan

So, clearly I’m a little behind on the updates, but yes, I am still alive. We left Kyoto on June 4th and have been traveling pretty much nonstop since (with extremely limited Internet access — in fact, I don’t even have Internet access now; I’m writing this from a ferry back to Kagoshima from Yakushima so I can post it whenever I finally do get online).

In any case, it’s now been just over a week since we left Kyoto, so I’ll try to do a quick recap to bring us up to speed. In the meantime, please forgive the cheesy photo of my iPod against a window taken from my seat on a train. Unless you work for Apple’s marketing division and are hiring, in which case: please let me know where to forward my resumé.

Where Were the Naruto Whirls?

We left Kyoto on June 4th — our next major stop was Hiroshima, but we were taking a detour through Shikoku along the way — we were out of the hostel by 8 a.m., grabbed some breakfast at the Zen Cafe restaurant next-door, and then headed over to Kyoto Station to take the subway up to the Hyanku Railway terminal and ride the train to Umeda Station in Osaka (where we transferred to yet another train that would drop us off in Kobe).

We arrived in Kobe by around 10:30 a.m. or so, and bought a pair of tickets for the JR highway bus that would take us across the Akashi-Kaikyo Bridge, over Awaji Island, and drop us off on the northern coast of Naruto on Shikoku.

Generally speaking, there doesn’t seem to be a whole lot to do in Shikoku, although the bus ride was our sighting of real ocean and harbor  villages. But its main attraction — for me, at least — are the Naruto Whirlpools. A tidal phenomenon caused by the opposing currents that swim into each other in the Naruto Strait, these whirlpools — at their peak — can reach widths of up to 20 meters. Our timing wasn’t quite right, so the whirlpools we saw weren’t the most dramatic, but the tidal action was nonetheless pretty cool:

After the whirlpools, we took a local bus to the JR Station in Naruto and hopped on the JR towards Hiroshima. The lengthy trip took us through Tokushima, where we transferred to another JR line that took us out of Shikoku, across the Seto Inland Sea, and to Okayama, where we made yet another transfer towards Hiroshima — but this time on a Nozomi shinkansen (bullet train).

All Aboard the Bullet Train to Hiroshima

The Nozomi Shinkansen (のぞみ新幹線) is Japan’s fastest train service; these super-express trains stop only at Japan’s largest train stations and reach a head-spinning speed of 300 km/h (186 mph). They’re not only super speedy, but they’re also super swank (and, sadly, not covered by the JR Rail Pass — but we weren’t using one anyway, and as luck would have it, taking the Nozomi was both the fastest and most economical way to get from Naruto to Hiroshima! (We’d take another one on our way to Kyushu later, between Hiroshima and Hakata, but since first impressions are what count, I’ll just cover all the “Wow, the bullet train is fucking badass!” ground right here.)

The Nozomi is by far the cleanest, most modern, and luxurious train — at least aesthetically — that I’d seen in Japan so far. The train announcements, for instance, are done in Japanese and English, and the lady who does them in English even sounds appropriately pretentious. And British, but I guess that’s sort of the same thing. This particular model had 16 cars, including First Class “green cars,” reserved and non-reserved seats, a smoking room, toilets, and even vending machines in the sixth car.

The train is even equipped with AC power ports and Wi-Fi (provided by Japan’s mobile phone carriers, which meant it was locked and useless to me, since I’m not a Japanese cell phone subscriber, but still — cool!)

And, although pretty standard on most of the major JR lines, the Nozomi also features a snack and drink car (hence the tray tables).

The Most Delicious ‘Pancake’ You Ever Had

Our train finally pulled into Hiroshima Station at around 8:30 p.m., and after checking in at our hostel, we wandered into town for some food. It also happened to be the beginning of Hiroshima’s annual Tokasan festival, which celebrates the beginning of summer, so there were plenty of street vendors, food stands, and people in the streets wearing their yukata. We made our way to the main entertainment district and tracked down the local specialty for dinner — Hiroshima-style okinomiyaki (お好み焼き). Basically a savoury pancake (apparently some people describe it as “Japanese pizza?”), okinomiyaki derives its name from “okonomi” — meaning “what you want.” “Yaki,” of course, means grilled, and the idea is you basically choose from an assortment of toppings that are then cooked on a teppan grill, sort of like an omelette.

We didn’t try any okinomiyaki in Osaka — we were too busy with the fugu and takoyaki — so I made it a point to try out the Hiroshima version. Unlike Osaka’s, which mixes the ingredients together, Hiroshima okinomiyaki has the toppings layered on top of each other. You can usually pick whatever toppings you want, and many places have specials with certain toppings already in them, but the popular ones include okonomiyaki sauce, seaweed flakes, dried fish flakes, mayonnaise, ginger, cabbage, pork, squid, octopus, shrimp, cheese, noodles (soba or udon), egg, scallions, and cheese.

How it all begins; the first step is apparently to simply ladle the batter onto the hot grill — just like a pancake!

The batter then gets a quick seasoning, and it’s topped with shredded cabbage.

Once the cabbage has wilted down, the other toppings start going on. Huge slices of pork, squid, octopus, shrimp, cheese, some noodles (your choice of udon or soba), cheese, corn, and pretty much anything you can think of is fair game.

The chef then fries an egg and skillfully flips the okonomiyaki onto it as it nears completion…

For a little color (and lots of flavor), the final steps include a heavy glaze of savory okonomiyaki sauce  (with a brush, natch) and a generous sprinkling of scallions and seaweed flakes.

The final product is a little messy but well worth it. If you’re sitting at a table, the chefs will slide your okonomiyaki onto an iron pan and a waitress or hostess will bring it to your table. If you can, though, I’d suggest sitting at the counter and watching the chefs work up close. And once you’re done watching your meal be prepared, the chefs will simply slide it across to your end of the teppan grill. They’ll give you a metal spatula to scrape the food off the grill and onto a plate where you can feel free to dig in with those eagerly poised chopsticks.

Anyway, after okonomiyaki we explored Hiroshima a little to check out the festival before heading back to the hostel. The next day we’d check out the Hiroshima Peace Park (and then Miyajima), but both were a… more somer and sobering experience than the festive energy that buzzed through Hiroshima on our first night. So I’ll get to those later.