Travel With Phie

Good morning! We (John, Laura, and I) woke up around 6am and went for a walk around town. We walked around 1.5-2 miles before we headed back to the hotel for breakfast. Breakfast was standardized and was at 7:30AM for everyone. 

When we arrived to breakfast it was all already set out. Once we sat down, someone came over and showed us how to correctly eat it. It was kind of like a build your own sushi with Eggs, Salmon, Rice, and you wrapped it in Seaweed. It was delicious and some of the best Salmon I have had. 

After we finished up breakfast, we headed out to start our hike. We were hiking the trail between Magome and Tsumago. This was a short section of the longer hike between post towns which actually spanded all the way from Kyoto to Tokyo. The trek was ~5.5 miles with some sights to see along the way. 

We started our journey and walked through a garden which was very cute at first and then turned a bit creepy, but nonetheless was fun to walk through. The next pit stop was a shrine. It was pretty, and a quick 2 minute excursion from the trail. The third and final was two waterfalls. They were a lot larger than expected and worth the additional .5 miles. We snapped a few photos, took in the views, and continued on our way to Tsumago. 

About 5.5 miles and 3 hours later we had arrived in Tsumago. This was another small town. It was considered another post town, so had a couple shops with lots of homemade items and a couple places for coffee/food. We walked through the shops and grabbed some Matcha while exploring. We walked around town taking in the views for about an hour and a half before catching the bus back to Magome. We wanted to allow enough time to explore the town we were staying and a lot of the shops closed at 3-4pm. 

We got on the 12:47pm bus (one of 3 buses that came that day). We arrived back in Magome and walked around through the shops as well as grabbed a quick lunch in town. We decided to go here as we wanted to try these rice balls which were a known food item in this region. We sat down and ordered the classics, Matcha/Coffees for everyone. We also ordered 12 skewers of the rice balls, but sadly they only had 8 left, so we all agreed to split them. 

They arrived and I think they were gone in about 3 minutes as they were absolutely delicious. We also of course needed a dessert, so ordered shaved ice with milk (we were aware it was going to be delicious as Nick had tried it the previous day and said it was a must eat item). Most of us ordered the Strawberry & Milk Flavor while Laura ordered the Matcha & Milk flavor. They arrived looking even better than expected. And they tasted even better than they looked. By far the best dessert of the trip, I think. 

After we finished up, we continued walking down the street of shops.  A while later, we decided to head back up to shower and get ready for dinner. Dinner w again at the hostel at 6pm with a set menu. We all showered and hung out for a while outside at the picnic table before they rang the dinner bell / let us know that dinner was ready. 

We headed in to our assigned table with the full meal ready to be served. We waited for all the guests to arrive before they went through what was on our plates for the evening. The plates had fish, veggie tempera, Mushrooms & tofu, rice, cold soba, and a delicacy from the region – raw horse. Each had its own sauce to go with the items. They let us know that if we wanted to try the horse that we should eat it first as it will dry out if you eat it at the end of the meal. 

The boys and I decided we had to try it, so we did. Besides the fact that we knew we were eating horse, it was better than expected. We then moved on to the other main course, the fish. Here the boys also convinced me to eat the fish eyes which were truly just salty and didn’t taste like much. Overall the dinner was a very memorable one. We tried to finish our entire plates, but there was a lot of food, so we did the best we could before heading out. 

After dinner, we all hung out for a while outside before heading back in to pack up and get ready to begin our journey to Mt. Fuji the next day. Overall, we loved the town of Magome and were so glad we decided to make a pit stop along the way. 

Goodnight!!