Sado Island, Mute Night in Shibuya, Instant Noodles and Kobe

OK, it's official - we're off to Japan for our next visit in a couple of weeks

This time around, the main reason for going at this particular time is to visit Sado Island before it gets too hot and humid in high June. Sado lies in the Sea of Japan, north of the main island Honshu. Our itinerary will have us arrive in Tokyo and spend a few days there, before flying over to Itami airport (outside Osaka) for our usual return home to nearby Kobe. Here we will stay with family and will act as our base for the rest of our trip.

A DJ friend is running a Mute Records club in Shibuya, Tokyo so we have booked a hotel nearby (with a great half-price deal via their Facebook page!) so we can squeeze that into our fairly tight schedule before we head over to Kobe.

In January, I visited the Disaster Reduction and Human Rennovation Institute in Kobe. It documents and commemorates the Great Hanshin Earthquake of 1995 when more than 6,400 people were killed. I'd never been before and it was a sobering and yet fascinating way to spend a few hours (few can turn tragedy into an opportunity to learn like the Japanese). A visit there if you are ever in Kobe is thoroughly recommended. It was also in a part of Kobe I had never visited before, Nada, which I enjoyed wandering around. It got me thinking I should spend more time exploring the different districts of Kobe, rather than spending so much time thinking about consuming in Muji and Tokyu Hands! ;-) I haven't yet planned where I'll go this time. But I'm keen to revisit Ikuta Shrine - where my wife and I got married a decade ago - to check out the forest behind it.I might also go visit Kobe Fashion Museum on Rokko Island. I'm not into fashion and probably won't go inside. It's the arcitecture of the building I'm interested in. The Rough Guide to Japan describes it as looking like a docked Starship Enterprise (which from the photos I've seen it does). Getting there also means I get to ride on the Rokko line monorail - which still gives me a kind of retro-future, big kid thrill. ;-)

One thing we have planned (and booked in advance as it is necessary to get a specific day and time) is a visit to the Momofuku Ando Instant Ramen Noodle Museum in Osaka. I'm not joking! Lots of big name Japanese companies offer this kind of museum/factory tour, which usually end with you getting to sample some of the produce for free. (I first did it many years back with the Asahi Brewery - concluding with free beer tasting - which was rather nice.) Ando was the inventor of instant noodles. Here, you get to make your very own, unique Cup Noodle, complete right down to designing the packaging, which you get to take home with you. Cannot wait!