Utsunomiya – It's a Schmahl World

9 Things to do in Utsunomiya, Japan!

For my work trip to Japan we stayed about 75 miles north of Tokyo in Utsunomiya. Utsunomiya is the capital of the Tochigi prefecture and served as my home for two weeks. While Utsunomiya was a perfect home base for day trips to Tokyo and Nikko, here are the main things I found to do and see in Utsunomiya!

1. Hachimanyama Park– The large park located a 30 minute walk from the JR train station, includes a large play area, Utsunomiya Tower, a suspension bridge and more! I had no idea that it was more than just a park when I set out to find it, read about my adventure here.

Hachimanyama Park

2. Utsunomiya Futaarayama Shrine– The shrine just off the main road was founded about 1,600 years ago and the city of Utsunomiya was built around it. By the steps up to the main shrine area there are many smaller shrines. One funny thing pointed out to us was the shrine dedicated to liquor was larger than the shrine for medicine!

3. Lalasquare – This is the Mall near the train station with many stores including a giant toy store on the top floor. It was fun to go through the mall noting the differences from our malls back home. There are also quite a few restaurants on the ground floor.

4. Orion Dori – There are lots of little shops, restaurants and bars along this street to find souvenirs and night life. There was one store in the strip our Japanese friend called a mini Akihabara (the anime filled district from our Tokyo trip) for any anime souvenirs.

5. Eat Gyoza– Gyoza is a Japanese dumpling usually made with wonton wrappers and stuffed tith pork and cabbage. Utsunomiya is the gyoza capital of Japan with over 200 different gyoza themed restaurants.

6. Attend a Festival! – Ok, this one is completely based on what time of year you visit but we happened to be in town for Miya Matsuri. The streets, lined with food carts, filled with traditional Japanese clothing watching and participating in a parade like celebration!

Festival!

7. Hot Springs/Onsen in Bell Mall– Just a 10 minute bus ride away, we visited an onsen, or Japanese bath house, located in Bell Mall. This nude hot spring was quite the experience, read all about my Naked and Afraid experience!

8. Visit a cat café! – If you are a cat lover like me, there is a cat cafe in Orion Dori. You pay a small amount for the amount of time you stay and play with the cats, plus they have food and drinks available. The best part is that all the cats are up for adoption!

9. Castle Ruins Park – Now a small city park, this was once the site of Utsunomiya Castle before it burned down in the Boshin War. Some of the torrents and walls have been restored and are free to explore. When we went, the entire park was filled with Pokemon Go players!

While these 9 things in no way encompass all that Utsunomiya has to offer, they were my favorite aspects of the town. Let me know if you have any other recommendations!

Celebrating 100 Blog Posts!

As we reach the beginning of February the novelty of the new year starts to wear off, but here at It’s a Schmahl World, we are celebrating a blogging milestone! Today we are posting our 100th post! When we started this blog to write about our travels, we didn’t expect to be where we are today. In this post, we’ll look back at how our lives have changed from being two young professionals working full time to a Peace Corps volunteer and an engineering graduate student.

Cliffs of Moher

Back to where it all began, our first post It’s a Schmahl World after all… published in February of 2016. Both Kim and I were working full time saving up all our paid time off to travel. We went on trips with our family to Washington DC for the 4th of July and a quick trip to Colombia for our first time in South America! Kim was able to go to Europe with her college roommates, 5 years after graduation! Highlights of their two week trip were hiking through Plitvice Park in Croatia, visiting the baths and ruin bars in Budapest, exploring palaces and the opera house in Vienna, and wandering the narrow streets and canals of Venice.

Ruin Bar Pub Tour in Budapest, Hungary

Occasionally I was lucky enough to travel for work, one time all the way across the globe to Japan for two weeks. For my first time in Asia, I got the chance to attend a festival the small city of Utsunomiya, wander the temples of Nikko and explore parts of Tokyo for a day. I even reached waaayyyy out of my comfort zone to experience a Japanese onsen (or a naked bath house).

September of 2016 came with an exciting road trip around Iceland’s Ring Road for Nelson and I. We snorkeled between the tectonic plates, hiked on a glacier, saw some amazing waterfalls and last but not least we got engaged! While planning is still in the works over a year later, Nelson and I are finally going to tie the knot in July of 2018.

Blue Lagoon, Iceland

Snorkeling in Silfra Fissure in Thingvellir National Park, Iceland

Kim was the next to have a major life change when she decided to join the American Peace Corps to teach high school math in Liberia. Before she left we went on one last family vacation to Florida. We made the most of our limited time together exploring Key West, Disney World and the Ringling Museum.

In June of 2017, Kim packed her bags and began the long journey to Liberia. After a bit of training in Washington DC, they received 3 months of training in the of Kakata, just an hour outside of Monrovia, Liberia’s capital. Currently she has been teaching at her site for the last 5 months and learning the ins and outs of her community. See all of her updates about living in Liberia here!

To wrap up our life changes through 100 posts we’ll look at a recent big change in my life. I left my full time job and my first order of business was to go on an amazing week long 10 year friendaversary trip to Tuscany, Italy with two friends from Girl Scouts. I traveled solo for the first time to Copenhagen, Denmark and now after my sabbatical I have started going to school full time to get my masters degree in Mechanical Engineering!

Hillerod_Day_trip_from_copenhagen_denmark_Frederiksborg_castle_view_from_hunters_hill

When we began this blog, we never would have guessed where we’d be now, after 100 posts… who knows where we will be after the next 100 posts, but we are excited to continue the journey!

Naked and Afraid in a Japanese Onsen

Some people are comfortable being naked; I am not one of those people. Locker room changes and communal showers became regulars in my collegiate athletic career, but while my teammates lounged au natural, I quietly changed in the bathroom stall and waited until the showers were all clear. With my aversion to nudity, visiting a nude hot spring never crossed my mind until my travel companions decided to visit a Japanese onsen. Japan is volcanically active, which lays the foundation for thousands of onsens throughout the country. As an important part of traditional Japanese culture, I knew I had to try it!

Traveling with only male coworkers, I tentatively wandered alone into the women’s locker room. Juggling my towel to attempt to cover every bit of exposed skin, I stripped down then placed the last pieces of my comfort zone in a locker. Using two towels is the custom: a large towel to dry off before leaving and a small hand towel to “cover your privates”. Ummmmmm, girls have two major private areas!?! After internal deliberation, my hand towel drifted downward. Unsure of where to go next, because all the signs were in Japanese, I scanned the room and found that these women, young and old, skinny and plump, had no insecurities. They let it all hang loose!

By the luck of the draw, I chose door number two and miraculously found the cleansing area. Slinking into the room, there were many small washing stations each equipped with a showerhead and bottles of soap and shampoo. I took a tentative seat on an open stool (only one cheek of course) and started washing my light blonde hair and tall, pale body. After a full body rinse, I realized that everyone who was washing when I arrived was still going strong. So naturally, I decided to sit there rewashing myself over and over and over again not wanting to be rude on accident. I stayed until I spotted a small, elderly woman get up who I could follow to the baths.

After the stressful start, I headed straight to the first empty bath I saw. I bounced from bath to bath to feel the variations in temperatures and jets whenever one emptied, stemming from both a desire to try everything and to escape invaders of my personal bubble. Settling into a bath with jets, I was finally able to unwind. I reflected on how difficult I made this experience for myself, I built it all up in my head. Slowly my tension evaporated, well, until it all repeated getting out…

Going to a Japanese Festival in Utsunomiya, Japan

While in town for work we were lucky enough to be around for the Miya Matsuri festival in Utsunomiya, Japan. It occurs on the first Saturday and Sunday of August each year. The festival started in 1976 when Japan was going through some slow economic growth as a way to encourage people to get out of their houses and interact. Since we were exploring Tokyo on Saturday we went to the festival on Sunday evening. We headed out in the evening to get food from the street vendors for dinner. There were so many options ranging from fried chicken to squid and rice to my favorite, the simple but refreshing pineapple on a stick!

The parade was definitely different than the ones I’m used to in the US: instead of different large decorated floats carrying people that pass you one time, there were 2 main sections of parade that went in circles up and down the street taking breaks at various times. One section had dancers, at the beginning of the festival they were all dressed in kimonos dancing the same traditional moves to the music but towards the end of the night the music got livelier with each group dancing their own variations to the same music. There were even groups of little kid dancers!

The other segment of the parade was designated to people carrying a mikoshi, a portable Shinto shrine. The mikoshi is taken from the shrine during the festival to be carried around the worshiping neighborhood on peoples shoulders. At this festival the mikoshi carriers bounced up and down and swayed side to side while carrying them. It is said that it is to amuse the deity inside! On some of the mikoshi women or children stood on the carrying posts chanting and waving fans or items in celebration!

Festival!

I was so glad that the Miya Matsuri festival was happening while we were there – visiting a festival in Japan was an unforgettable experience!

An Adventurous Dinner in Utsunomiya, Japan

A couple weeks ago, I had a chance to travel to Utsunomiya, Japan on a trip for work and had the chance to try a lot of new foods while I was there! One night we went to a yakitori (translated as grilled bird/chicken) restaurant with our new Japanese friends. We were seated in a back room that could accommodate all of us with a table low to the ground with circular pads for us to sit on the floor. The way the bar worked was we paid a set price for food and unlimited drinks for 2 hours.

As a notoriously picky eater, I was a bit nervous for the meal. Many plates of food were brought out to us starting with a simple caesar salad, something I could easily handle. The foods to come were definitely more exotic. I asked my co-workers not to tell me what each dish was until after I took a bite, a good thing because I’m not sure I would have tried everything! The strangest dish for me was boiled chicken skin. Other dishes included tamagoyaki (a Japanese rolled omelette), potatoes covered in a small fish egg sauce, gizzard (very very chewy…) and various fresh fish.

My favorite drink I tried was called a Calpis Sour. At first we thought it was called Cow Piss, I definitely felt the need to clarify after all of the other interesting things I had already tasted that night! According to our friends Calpis is made with fermented milk and was first created almost 100 years ago. To me it had a hint of fruit loops taste. I also tried a plum wine with soda. While good, it definitely didn’t compare to the sweet Calpis drink!

Although we didn’t speak much Japanese and they didn’t speak much English the night was full of fun. We did a lot of miming to tell stories and learned a few more Japanese phrases by the end of the night! Another source of entertainment ended up being me trying my best to use chop sticks – as a first timer I can say that it wasn’t exactly graceful!

Visiting a Cat Cafe in Utsunomiya, Japan

As an avid cat lover and missing both my cats from home while traveling to Japan for work, I couldn’t be more excited when I learned that there was a cat café near our hotel in Utsunomiya. Just off of Orion Dori (a main shopping street), you can find Cat Café Nekomiya. It is on the second story and you can easily see it (and some cats!) from the outside. Going inside, you go up some stairs lined with cat photos until you reach the landing. Before heading inside you have to take off your shoes then get ready for some cat-tastic fun!

Inside there were big fat adult cats along with adorable energetic kittens. In the small café there were about 10-15 cats given free reign. How it works is you pay for the amount of time you are there. The first time option was 30 minutes, then 10 minute increments from there. You don’t have to decide how long you’ll stay when you get there you pay when you leave. We were there for an hour and that only cost us 500 yen (~$5)!

We started sitting at a table but didn’t stay there long. We ordered drinks then spent the entire time petting, chasing and playing with the cats! There are boxes of toys to play with, structures to climb and scratching posts to scratch. If you are hungry they also had cat themed meals and desserts. Although no one there spoke English, we were all able to easily communicate our love and excitement for the cats!

Visiting Hachimanyama Park in Utsunomiya, Japan

On my recent work trip to Japan, I only ended up with one free day (without work) in Utsunomiya. I decided to venture out to try to find Hachimanyama Park since I had read about Utsunomiya Tower online. Leaving from my hotel close to the train station, it was supposed to be about a 30 minute walk but I decided to walk along the river for some scenic views along the way. The first thing I realized upon arrival was that this was not just a normal park. On the map at the entrance, I could see a go kart track, a suspended bridge, Utsunomiya Tower, and even a small zoo!

I ventured around without too much of a plan other than eventually reaching Utsunomiya Tower. The park in itself is beautiful with many different areas to hike around through. One area was called the cherry blossom viewing area which was still pretty even though the cherry blossoms weren’t in bloom in August. Another area near the tower is a small scenic pond with lots of fish inside!

Utsunomiya Tower is on the top of a hill and has a little store nearby to get food or a drink. I bought a drink to re-hydrate, having to mime my order since I don’t speak Japanese and took a seat on one of the many benches nearby. After my break I headed straight for the suspension bridge, one of the ends is right next to Utsunomiya tower. From the center of the bridge you can look out over Utsunomiya for views of the city from above. The other side of the bridge leads you to a giant children’s playground (and bathrooms if you need it!)

Hachimanyama Park

Hachimanyama Park

On my way out of the park I found the mini zoo. Unfortunately on the hot day most of the animals were sleeping in their shaded areas and hard to see but I did find the lemurs and a pony!

Leaving the Hachimanyama park on the south end, I wondered the streets and ran across the gate to what I later found out was Gamou Shrine. After walking through the gate and climbing all the steps I came across the purification stations, statues, strings of fortunes and the main buildings of the Shinto shrine. Back down the steps there is are stairs to a smaller wooded area which I found out to be the Mikurama Tomb, an ancient burial mound constructed in the early 6th century!

On my adventure to find a small park and see the Utsunomiya Tower, I discovered that there was so much more to the park itself and stumbled upon other hidden gems in this city!