Celiac CJ

Tag: Saga

  • Japan Day 3: Ogi Park & Travel to Beppu

    Japan Day 3: Ogi Park & Travel to Beppu

    Saga

    Saga is a beautiful prefecture that previously served as a major site for Samurai training and is known for its pottery. The main town of Saga is centralized around castle ruins from the Edo era that are available for touring. We stayed at The New Otani Hotel which was right on the moat of the castle grounds. For the first time this trip, we awoke to sunny skies with a stunning view of the moat and castle grounds.

    Breakfast the Hotel The New Otani was buffet style with – believe it or not – gluten free labels on each food item! All the fruit and vegetables were extremely fresh. They provided house-made kale and tomato juice with local produce. Saga is known for its tomatoes and that showed nicely in what was the best tomato juice I’ve ever had. Though it was a bit pricey, I would highly recommend this hotel and breakfast buffet for any celiac or gf/veg person visiting Saga.

    Ogi Park

    After a lovely breakfast, we caught a cab out to the small town of Ogi, about 20 minutes away, to visit Ogi Park to observe Sakura (cherry blossom season)! This park did not disappoint. Between beautiful islands in the lake to walkways lined with cherry blossoms forming arches over the path, the sights were stunning. There were almost no other tourists in the area, so if you are looking for a unique spot to visit the cherry blossoms, this is it.

    Ogi Park Cherry Blossoms
    Ogi Park Lake

    After a magical morning in Ogi Park, we packed our bags and head to the train station to make our way to Beppu for the start of our 5-day Buddhist retreat.

    Beppu

    Beppu is known for its onsens, natural hot springs, of which there are more than 2,500 in Beppu alone! And though we plan to explore many onsens during our time here, we came to meet Zen Master Yodo from Beppu Zen Retreat to immerse ourselves in the world of Buddhism and monastic life.

    Yodo was extremely kind and picked us up at the train station. We then proceeded to the main guesthouse and dinner house for our orientation and first dinner of the retreat. We started to learn the ways of setting the table and table rules that would be our new normal for the next 5 days.

    Table Settings at Beppu Zen Buddhist Retreat

    Our first question-answer period with Yodo focused mostly on the natural threats and dangers in Japan, and how to deal with them should they arise during our stay. We were treated by 6 other fellow guests from around the world (Germany, Spain, Netherlands, USA), who we are excited to get to know more about throughout our stay here.

    We had an early night at our guesthouse to get some much needed sleep after a few jam-packed days of travel. Next: 0700 morning meditation at the temple!

  • Japan Day 2: Tokyo & Travel to Saga

    Japan Day 2: Tokyo & Travel to Saga

    Searching for breakfast

    After constant rain since our arrival, we were happy to wake up to more of a drizzle this morning. Coffee & breakfast was our mission before catching an afternoon train to the South Island of Kyushu.

    Unfortunately, our mission turned out to be a bit more complicated than expected. For whatever reason, many breakfast places in the Ginza area of Tokyo do not open until 1100. With a 1230 train, we didn’t feel like we would be able to squeeze in a sit down restaurant, so we ended up getting a bunch of snacks from 7/11 instead.

    I will say, the 7/11’s and Lawson’s here have lots of grocery-store level food with clear labels that we translated using Google Translate Lens. If you’re looking for an ingredients list, they are usually in the top row of the box of writing, so you can zoom in on that with your camera to make it easier to read.

    Here’s a list of places that did NOT have gf/veg options:

    We did find one place that was promising and open before 11, but unfortunately there was a 1-hour wait list, so it didn’t work out for us. However, it looked really tasty, so if you’re in the neighborhood, I’d recommend checking out bills Ginza, an Australian restaurant.

    Coffee

    Though not a one-stop excursion, we had better luck with coffee. We started off at Glitch, a recommendation from an American we ran into the day prior. Unfortunately for us, there was a massive line outside the shop that was time-prohibitive. But if that’s any indication of the quality of the coffee, it must be excellent!

    While wandering around looking for breakfast, we came across Teron Coffee & Bar Ginza, which was a wonderful experience (review pending). There is certainly no shortage of excellent coffee in Japan!

    Ultimately, we planned to try a place that advertised gluten free ramen at the train station. Our plans were foiled by a mile-long lineup that was preclusive to us catching our train. So, we found a mediocre stand up sushi bar, in a desperate act compromised our vegetarian nature for fish, and went on to catch our train.

    Shinkansen

    If you know me, you probably know that I am a huge train geek – and this train is sure one to geek out about. Using electricity to propel an aerodynamic set of cars at speeds of up to 300 km/h, we soared through southern Japan, from Tokyo to Hakata on the South Island of Kyushu. In a rush to get tickets, we got the “green car” thinking that was some sort of environment preserving fee, but was in fact a first class ticket in a car with fewer passengers, extra leg room, and heated seats that recline farther back than they probably should. I spent most of the 5-hour train ride looking up high speed train facts and staring at the Japanese countryside. The cherry-blossom scattered hills and nearby ocean were a delight to take in the entire ride.

    Canal City

    For dinner in Hakata, we followed some Google recommendations to Canal City, a massive mall with a combination of outdoor fountains and indoor cavities among retail shops. Though the mall itself was an excellent experience, we had a bit of an unusual experience for dinner at Ramen Hidechan (review pending). They do have two gluten free options – cabbage soup and tofu noodle soup. We ordered one of each. Though somehow, lost in translation, we ended up with “gnarly” broth that we later discovered was pork-fat laden. After an unintentional affirmation of our choice to be vegetarian, we ended our meals and proceeded to try to find something to cleanse our palate.

    Cabbage Soup in Pork Broth (WHOOPS!) at Ramen Hidechan

    100% Gluten Free Churros

    We were absolutely delighted to find a gluten free churro shop on the main floor of Canal City. Danny’s Churros (review pending) offers 5 flavours of churros that can be made into custom arrangements and powdered in colours of choice. They are all made fresh to order and wrapped individually for a special touch. We opted to go for the mini set of 5 to try all the flavours, which were all excellent!

    If you are celiac in Hakata, definitely stop by this 100% GF facility to treat yourself to the rare find of GF churros.

    Danny’s 100% GF Churros in All 5 Flavours

    After we finished our dessert and cleansed our palates from the accidental pork ingestion with heavenly churros, we made our way back to the train station to complete our trip with a 1-hour train to Saga. We made it to our lovely hotel The New Otani without difficulty, and slept almost immediately.