Cavern and gyoza

A buddy texted me one day saying let's go somewhere. She originally wanted to go to Taiwan, but I said that there are a couple of places I had my eye on domestically. She then suggested Universal Studios Japan, but I told her that it's considerably hotter in Osaka than in Tokyo. She does not handle the heat well. I then suggested visiting an underground quarry, where it's always cool (around 10C even in the summer).

When I booked the trip, the temps haven't been quite as high yet, so she saw that the temps were going to be 30C+ that weekend, she was on the verge of backing out had I not told her that we'd be charged a cancellation fee since we booked the trip under 20 days before the day we're leaving. Needless to say, she complained about the heat the whole time we were traveling.

We got to Utsunomiya around 8:30am, with the intention to drop our bags off at the hotel before we went to the cavern. We bought a day ticket that served as a bus pass and included entrance fees to the cavern and a temple featuring a 1000-armed Buddhist goddess. The cavern was an old mining site turned historical museum. The Oya stone, famous in the area and used as building material in the past, was mined in this site. The cavern features the history of mining since the 17h century and is big enough to fit a baseball field. There were lights strategically places to give the cavern a surreal atmosphere. The temple was a 1200yr old temple built in the volcanic Oya stone cliffs and has a 1000-armed Buddhist goddess of mercy chiseled in the face of the cliff.

We caught a bus to the cavern and it dropped us off at the entrance. The cavern was impressive since it was much more spacious than we thought. It got cooler the further we went underground so I pulled out my sweater to the amazement of my buddy. She loved how cool it was in the cavern but it was a bit chilly for my taste. I really enjoyed walking around the cavern. There were signs posted explaining the texture and how the quarry was mined. There was even a stage. Apparently, the cavern was used in music videos and such. There were openings in the ceiling where we can see outside. That was pretty cool. I saw mist forming around the openings and made things looks surreal.

After we got our fill of exploring the cavern, we went back up above ground and the heat hit us immediately. Yikes! We promptly went for some shaved ice from the stand we saw at the entrance. The sauce was made from local strawberries and it was mighty yummy!

After we visited the cavern, we hopped on the bus to go to the temple. There was some huge rock on top of a hill on the way. From the distance, it looked pretty precarious, but on closer look, the rock was tied down. I'm guessing it's some sort of memorial or something. There was huge statue of a goddess of peace near the temple. It was interesting to see how the temple was built into the side of the mountain where they chiseled the goddess statue. We weren't allowed to take pics of the goddess statue. She certainly had better days. The tape said that she was once covered in gold when she was first built, but chipped off over time. Looks like a lot more has chipped off.

The museum on the same grounds houses a 11,000-year-old skeleton. Kinda creepy. The garden was nice. There was a cute bridge to a little shrine where there were statues of white snakes. Supposedly, rubbing the white snakes brings you luck. I took pics but didn't bother to rub them.

My buddy wanted to go for gyoza (pot stickers), despite we'll be doing gyoza shop hopping the next day. We went to a shop that housed branches of several popular gyoza shops. We ordered a few dishes of gyoza--deep-fried shrimp gyoza, local wagyu gyoza, special cheese and basil sauce gyoza. The shrimp gyoza was really yummy. The wagyu beef was highly underwhelming. The special with cheese and basil sauce was surprisingly good. We also tried a couple of sample platters of gyozas from different shops. It was fun critiquing and figuring out which ones we liked the best.

We went back to the hotel (this hotel had the smallest rooms I've ever stayed at) to freshen up and take a short nap before we go out for dinner (the plates of gyoza we had were late lunch/snack LOL ). We found a Vietnamese restaurant next to the hotel. The food was surprisingly good. Did they have gyoza? Why, of course! We shared a bowl of beef pho, plates of steamed gyoza and deep-fried gyoza. We were really happy that we found a place that served good food that was so close to the hotel. With full and happy bellies, we retired for the night. I drew myself a bubble bath, enjoyed a nice soak in the tiniest bath tub I've ever been in. I'm only 5' but it was cramped even for me.

I woke up bright and early as usual, and was pretty happy to learn that there's a convenience store that offers grande-sized coffees. We didn't opt for breakfast since we planned to hit the gyoza shops as soon as they open (around 10:30am) so I got some pancakes at the convenience store to go with my coffee. My buddy was still in dreamland (an early riser, she is not). I packed away the stuff I wasn't going to carry around with me while sipping coffee and generally chilling until my buddy wakes up.

A new tram started running a couple of years ago on the east side of the station and there's a stop near the hotel. We took the opportunity to ride the tram (it was only 2 stops) to the station. It was a short but smooth and comfortable ride. We crossed over to the west side to catch the bus to the first gyoza shop we were going to go to. This shop opened at 10:30am. We go there a bit early, so we went to explore the shopping street. Not many shops were open but it looked like there was going to be some sort of event going on and we saw some people doing rehearsals. We watched for a few minutes until we moved on to explore some more. You don't see these kinds of covered shopping streets all that much in the city anymore. We went back to the shop to wait for it to open. There were only a handful of people waiting. I really like this shop since their gyoza is round and tasty. The wrap is thicker than usual gyoza but the texture was nice. The filling is flavorful. The last time, I had pan-fried gyoza and soup gyoza, but this time, we shared a plate of pan-fried gyoza and a special that was gyoza in tomato sauce. The shop recommends to eat the pan-fried gyoza with mayonnaise and pepper flakes instead of the usual soy sauce/vinegar/spicy sesame oil mixture. The mayo combo works. My buddy liked it. The tomato sauce gyoza was really good, too.

The next shop we went to was just down the road and didn't open til 11:30am, so we had a bit of time. I wanted to go to Gyoza Street to take pics of the gyoza statue. The street was just a few blocks away, so we headed that way. She commented on how a lot of buildings were covered with ivy and how many buildings looked abandoned. I guess that's one of the sad side of towns out in the boonies. The two most popular gyoza shops on the street had these insane lines of people waiting to get in. These shops usually have branches spread out in other parts of the city, so it's better to go to one of the branches.

The other shop we were going to opened by the time we got back and there was a line, but it wasn't as bad as in Gyoza Street. There was a bit of shade, so I parked my butt on the curb in front of the shop and enjoyed the light breeze. My buddy wandered off to sit in a more shaded area where she could see the entrance of the shop. We didn't have to wait for very long to get in. The shop only offered pan-fried, soup, or deep-fried gyoza. Nothing fancy. We ordered one of each. I really liked to eat the deep-fried gyoza with a spicy sauce. I bought a bottle to bring home with me. We were happily full but not overly stuffed. My buddy forgot to take a pic of the shop we went to first so we went back to take pics and further explored the shopping street since the shops were open by then. My buddy decided she's had enough of exploring and the heat, so we decided to go back to the station and find a cafe for a cold drink.

When we got back to the station, I took her to the private home that was turned into a museum. It used to be the home of a soy sauce merchant. The stairs in these old houses are super steep! I don't care how ridiculous I may look, I went back down those stairs backwards. Since the home of a merchant who was relatively well-off, the house was spacious for a Japanese home. I never saw pomegranate flowers or fruit just starting to grow. Pretty cute.

We found a cafe and chilled for a bit before catching the bullet train back to Tokyo.

It was a short but fun trip despite my buddy's complaining about the heat pretty much all day long. While complaining doesn't make it cooler but she insists that it does. Ok, you do you, boo. LOL

 July 9  

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What are your thoughts? 

 

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