23 January 2026
Day 6 (Arrive in Kazamatsuri) 20th Jan
Shinkansen was awesome, very fast, they had one of those automated coffee making machines at the terminal which made amazing coffee!! (And they had decaf for Clare).
We had dry noodles (like no soup ramen) which was the BEST.
Day 7 (I don’t remember right now) 21st Jan
Clare and I went to the Natural History museum in the morning and spent most of the day there. It was only a short walk from our AirBNB and there were a lot of signs pointing to its location. It cost something like $5 for admission and had an amazing exhibit of animals, dinosaurs, geology and science. Lots of big rocks that you could touch.
We went to Cafe 107 which was very average near our AirBNB, but to make up for this, the bakery down the road was so good we went there three times during the day. My favourite from the bakery was a strawberry danish, very strawberry.
Day 8 (Clare got a publication confirmed! and castle walk) 22nd Jan
We woke to an email from the Journal of Attention Disorder, where her/our Secret Shopper Study paper 1 had been submitted. They were accepting the paper for publication! Very exciting, and a nice finish to a long road traveled.
In the morning we shopped, I love UNIQLO. While we were shopping we got too hungry and couldn’t find a place we thought would meet our expectations. I would’ve been happy with dry noodles again but we both knew it’s good to try new things, and dry noodles is a bit more of a chinese thing than a japanese thing. We were looking at a sign for ramen when a Japanese man swooped open us and took us up the elevator while rubbing his belly and saying “very yummy”. Japanese restaurants often have a ticket machine that you make your order on, once we were into the restaurant he pointed at the best item and said “oishi”. I gave him a thumbs up and said “Arigato” and he yelled at the two cooks running the place in Japanese, Clare and I thought it was something like “take care of these foreigners and give me my commission when I come back”. I had been suspicious of getting taken advantage of but he simply an enthusiastic customer who had enjoyed his lunch. The ramen was very good, Clare liked it the best.
Beautiful castle walk in the afternoon. It was proposed as a 40 minute walk and took nearly 3 hours, but gee it was good. We saw many agricultural lots that were dilapidated and in use walking up to the castle. The views at the top allowed clear vision of the Philippines and the North American tectonic plates. We were on the Philippines side (hence the mountain) and past Odawara City below was the North American side. Odawara lies in the delta formed by the two mountain ranges, living between the tectonic plates.
Before making it home we stopped in at a chain restaurant that served Asian meals in a diner style layout. Clare got a sizzling dish that sizzled itself in front of her, I got a cook yourself hotpot. Each cost roughly $10 AUD, a great deal.
Day 9 (Fuji Q Highlands Theme Park) 23rd Jan
In the morning we hired a car to travel from Kazamatsuri to Fuji Q. Our excitement for rides and adventure, and the promise of a beautiful sunny day led us down a path of speculative fun (rides). We hired a car because by public transport the trip to Fuji Q would take 3 hours, by car it’d take 1. However there’d been heavy snow the last few days and the car did not come with winter tyres, and they make you sign three pages of “It is illegal in Japan to drive on snow without winter tyres, do you understand: YES/NO” when hiring the car. Google and Apple maps are semi unreliable for Japan traffic conditions so there may have been ice or snow blocking our way. We also were unsure in Fuji Q would be open, and if it were open, if any rides would run. Fuji Q have a great website for ride’s live status, but I wish they’d guess earlier in the morning at if a ride is going to be running that day:
https://www.fujiq.jp/en/schedule/today/
Then again, maybe we were more nervous than we needed to be, because Fuji Q was open and all main rides were running (more than we could ride in the one day). On the way we stopped at a French bakery in Odawara which seemed to be run by a Japanese couple in their late 30s/40s (Same as BAKEMAN!). I ended up eating enough to fill me for the rest of the day. Such good bread. See 255Bakery here.
Clare won the Tokendai competition with 33 barrel roles whereas I only got 23:
https://www.fujiq.jp/en/attraction/tentekomai.html
We both agreed this was the best ride, we saw Mt Fuji from angles we never thought possible:
https://www.fujiq.jp/en/attraction/eejanaika.html
Second best was this one:
https://www.fujiq.jp/en/attraction/takabisha.html
Fuji Q in the winter was the most fun I’ve had at a theme park maybe ever? Good service and 20 minute queues max for the best rides.
We drove home and had a break before we wanted to hit a Lawson’s for a packet of crisps. On the way out, I backed our rental into the AirBNB’s fence. This was a devastating waste of time. To get full coverage (We’d paid for no excess coverage) I had to call the police emergency line and get a report. They police arrived an hour later but they were amazing, super friendly! While waiting I had Calbee Pizza Potato flavoured crisps, I give them a 9/10. The ChatGPT conversational tool used as a translator to talk with the police worked really well, even though the phone got so cold it stopped working. It is looking like we won’t have to pay anything for the accident (hooray). It took 2 hours of talking to police and on the phone to the insurance.
I’m starting to feel like I know and like this area around Odawara and now we have to leave! It’s been beautiful.
Day 10 (Travel to Osaka)
Shinkansen again!
