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Japan Recap 2026
13 Plays1 month ago
🎧 Welcome to Thoughts For Rent — the podcast where real estate gets real (and local)!
Hosted by Jenni McKenna, a Las Vegas born and raised seasoned broker, and Owner of McKenna Property Management, this show is your inside look at what’s really happening in the Vegas property management and real estate world. With over 20 years of experience herself - Jenni brings not just knowledge, but heart to the conversation.
Whether we’re talking market trends, property tips, community happenings, or just the everyday quirks of Vegas living, this podcast is all about keeping you in the know.
💬 Real talk. Local stories. Professional insight – provided from a company who has their boots on the ground and hearts in the community.
In this episode, we’re covering Max and Jenni's recent family trip they took to Japan. It was their first time back in over 30 years! What was their favorite food and favorite parts of their trip? What was their least favorite parts? You'll find out on this episode where they keep it real!
McKenna Property Management, proudly managing Las Vegas homes since 2005 (and loving every minute of it).
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Transcript
Introductions and Trip Overview
00:00:20
Irelynn Zurflueh
Welcome back, my friends, to Thoughts for Rent, Realtors Keeping It Real. I'm Mack Zerkflu, along with our host. Jenny McKenna. Jenny McKenna, fresh back from a trip to Japan. how good I miss.
00:00:35
Irelynn Zurflueh
Oh, how good I miss. With her shirt you bought in in Japan. It says Nevada. How about that? Isn't that crazy? You go to Japan and you find clothes that randomly said Nevada. i had to buy it. It was so cool.
00:00:46
Irelynn Zurflueh
Random, I mean, there's a lot of random say sayings on clothing and stationery and all kinds of things. But Nevada, why would Japan have something that says Nevada on it? Hey, sail made. i guess Yes, sail made. You're right. Ka-ching, sail made because I'm wearing it. But
Memories and Language Challenges
00:01:04
Irelynn Zurflueh
yes, we are just returned from a family vacation to Japan. And it was amazing. I say family because we went with all three of our kids, their partners, and our only grandchild.
00:01:19
Irelynn Zurflueh
Five-month-old grandchild. Yes. i Turned six months in Japan. Turned six months twice because she was in Japan on the 20th. That's right. I never thought about that. But I grew up in Japan, and I spent about seven years there and then worked there as an interpreter on Disney on Ice for about six more years. What are you doing with your screen there? touched my screen. Oh, no. know.
00:01:40
Irelynn Zurflueh
Okay, you just keep talking and I'll figure it out. Jenny was a skater on Disney on Ice and that's where we met. But I spent, again, seven years growing up there, six years on the road as an interpreter for Disney on Ice.
00:01:52
Irelynn Zurflueh
So this was like a sojourn back to back to Japan, the place where I spent a lot of time and where we met a lot of people. We actually played golf one day with a number of the people we worked with. And in Japan, they they'll label, you know even though there's just 12 golfers, they label it a competition. Yes. And this one was called Max's Return to the Country Competition. So I thought that was pretty cool.
00:02:13
Irelynn Zurflueh
And that's actually where we fell in love, Max. So we got to go back there with our kids ah in the country that love was blossoming.
00:02:24
Irelynn Zurflueh
Yes. How fun is that? That is correct. So are we going to talk about some fun things about Japan and some of the things I don't like about Japan and everything Japan? Sounds like that's what you want to talk about. And I think that's what we we should talk about. All right. Well, let's do the First all. a while. Our oldest child will be turning 30.
00:02:39
Irelynn Zurflueh
And ever since they were younger, they wanted to go to Japan. But we had to talk somebody. Who could that be? Somebody into agreeing to go. And she agreed. So we went.
00:02:53
Irelynn Zurflueh
Yes. And the reason why it was tough for me to give the approval was because I know that it's tough in Japan when you don't speak the language. When I was there working with Disney on
Tokyo vs. Other Cities
00:03:04
Irelynn Zurflueh
ice, I got lost a lot. There was this one time I almost peed my pants because I couldn't find a bathroom, no matter who I asked. that I didn't know the word for bathroom. it was so scary.
00:03:14
Irelynn Zurflueh
Now in Tokyo, it's a little bit easier to get around with all the English. I would say that we traveled to Nagoya and Osaka and kyota as Kyoto as well. Those are still, in my opinion, much more Japanese and not so much Americanified. is that the right word?
00:03:34
Irelynn Zurflueh
I don't know. I think you might be a little full of crap right now in some of your statements you're making. The reason why you think I'm full of crap is because you speak the language. but So when everything's going on on the train station and... Yes, but the reason you dated me in Japan, one of the reasons you fell in love with me is because I spoke Japanese, so you didn't have any language problems when you were there the first time either.
Fashion and Travel Tips
00:03:53
Irelynn Zurflueh
I did because we didn't really start dating for months. And so I had to deal with Japan without you for at least least I would say this. I do speak Japanese and our crew relied on me a lot to communicate stuff, but I don't think they had to. Oh yes, they did. Because may I, do I get to say thing? no. Yes, they did. I believe that most of Japan is easy for Westerners to maneuver and navigate because everybody really understands some Japanese. Even back then, if you would have walked up to somebody and said, basurumu or toire or pipi, somebody would have got it. you just said oh It's like anything else in life. You have to be...
00:04:32
Irelynn Zurflueh
Aggressive and open in communicating. That's what I think. Max, you are so full of crap right now. I can't even tell you. And I wish my children were right here because they would tell you the same thing. We did try and speak English to some of
Convenience Stores and Dining Culture
00:04:48
Irelynn Zurflueh
the Japanese residents, not Tokyo. So I'll give you the benefit of the doubt in Tokyo. Tokyo was fine. But in Nagoya and Osaka, they looked at you like deer in headlights. Like, what is this crazy? Patience is a virtue. American trying to say. You have any patience. So when you're trying to find something, do something, figure something out, you don't have the patience to just take a chill pill. You want to know right away. So I think that might affect you
00:05:12
Irelynn Zurflueh
No. I am telling you, for everyone that is listening, I highly encourage that you go to Japan. it is a wonderful place to experience. Yeah. Just be aware that if you get outside of Tokyo, you're going to need Google Translator to help you out. This episode brought to you by Ojicha, some Japanese tea.
00:05:33
Irelynn Zurflueh
and um Again. Max has stopped drinking soda pop. We're going have to agree to disagree on this. Osaka has more foreigners in Tokyo. They were all over the place.
00:05:43
Irelynn Zurflueh
I think some of those big cities are... I will give you this. Nagoya, we did not see a lot of foreigners. Nagoya is where I grew up, so that's why we went there. Most tourists wouldn't go there. They wouldn't normally pick that on their itinerary. It's a pretty cool place, though, so they probably should pick that. Yeah, we had fun. we went I got tell you this. We went to the house that I grew up in in Chitashi, which is down the Tokonami Peninsula from Nagoya.
00:06:05
Irelynn Zurflueh
We went to the house that I grew up in. We connected with the people who were living there just by... has sp Yeah, just by chance. And the guy came out and he goes, he said, in the name of my father who rented the place 40 years ago. and i was like, oh my gosh, this guy remembers that. Turns out it was the son of the owner of the property who was renting it to my parents at the time. And the guy said, hey, there's still a sticker on the toilet roll dispenser.
00:06:31
Irelynn Zurflueh
I go, what are you talking about? He goes, somebody put a sticker on the cover that covers the toilet roll dispenser and it's still there. I go, oh, could you take a picture of it? He goes, no, come on in. You can come in and take a picture. So I went in and took a picture of it. And my brother must have put a sticker because it was for a motorbike helmet company.
00:06:48
Irelynn Zurflueh
And they still had it on the dispenser. And this is a, deep you gotta, you gotta imagine there are six Americans with a little baby hovering outside of this house in Nagoya. And the woman was out hanging her laundry and she had to think we were the weirdest people in the world initially. Well, you don't see a lot of foreigners out there anyways. and And we're talking English obviously. And she doesn't understand the English and she must've thought we were just like, who are these weirdos? And they came out and then he said, your dad's name and my son Kai fell to the floor. It was like, oh my gosh, how does that happen in Nagoya? So it was pretty cool. Yeah, yeah, 5,000 miles away, middle of another country.
00:07:28
Irelynn Zurflueh
So one of the things since I've been back, I've noticed the United States of America, I love United States of America. I'm gonna tell you that right here. I have a love that is in my heart, deep. I bleed USA.
00:07:42
Irelynn Zurflueh
Okay. I am gonna say though, When I came back, I was a bit disappointed in how Americans are dressing these days. So in comparison, we were in Japan for almost, what was it, like 18 days or something like that? So you get really accustomed to the residents walking around, how they're dressing, where they're going, if they're going to school, to their work or whatever.
00:08:07
Irelynn Zurflueh
My gosh, the level of putting themselves together is always so good. You get back here to the United States. I went to the grocery store the very first day I was back and I'm like, oh my gosh, what well a are these guys? i agree with you, but well not we won't make a big deal about that. Let's talk about some of the experiences we had. Okay.
00:08:28
Irelynn Zurflueh
Because... It was very fun. We rode the subways with the baby. That was good times. We rode trains. We rode the bullet train a couple of times. Heads up, if you're going to Japan and you're bringing luggage, you need to make sure that you reserve a certain car with luggage space. Do not think you can just pop onto the bullet train with your American-sized luggage and be able to have space for it. Yeah, most of the people I saw were trying to travel with like a carry-on size luggage because those are fine. They fit above the seats. But if you're going to book, if you're go to have like we we traveled from Tokyo to Nagoya with seven of us and the baby with each of us had a large suitcase and a carry-on. And luckily we had booked the last row of each train has a space behind it for oversized luggage. Not luckily, you knew to do that. So that's why I'm sharing with everyone. If you're going to go to Japan and you've got the American size luggage, you are going to want to make sure that you book. What's an American size
Sports and Transport in Japan
00:09:24
Irelynn Zurflueh
luggage? Bigger than a carry-on. So a check-in size. like Check-in size luggage. They probably have them in Europe, Asia.
00:09:30
Irelynn Zurflueh
Other places too. Maybe, but I'm just saying. American size? My luggage is full on American size, baby. And we needed that extra luggage space, which is just behind the last two seats in the bullet train. Actually, the trip from Tokyo to Nagoya, somebody else who hadn't reserved the seat had put some luggage there.
00:09:46
Irelynn Zurflueh
That's a no-no. Got little ugly. You're supposed to get fined thousand yen if you do that, but the guy wasn't around. We made it work. but Yeah, that's a no-no though. But a lot of our crew really liked the bullet train. They found that experience to be fun. I absolutely agree. And I think if you're going to Japan, you've got to take the bullet train, at least somewhere, because it's an experience. It's so clean. It is so on time. is, oh my gosh, it's something we should learn in America, how to be better at. Efficiency. We don't have a train. Efficiency. Efficiency is the right word for that. If we could have a train system like that, that'd be something else. We're lot widespread out than Japan is. Yeah, but the funny thing is, is since I've been living in Nevada my whole life, so 55 years, my dad and mom and my whole family, we've been talking about this bullet train that's supposed to go from Las Vegas. Originally, I thought down to Anaheim and then I've heard LA. And then when you and I were talking, you said that, oh yeah, it's pretty much ready to go to Victorville, that they're building the stations. That's the version I've heard. Yeah. Again, I've been hearing this since I can remember that this bullet train was going to happen. So as I was talking to Max, I said, well, why is it going to stop in Victorville? And he said, well, probably because it can't go through the mountain that is between Victorville and LA. El Cajon Pass. To maneuver that would be difficult. You notice on the bullet train, was always flat, right? No, it wasn't. For us.
00:11:10
Irelynn Zurflueh
What I was going to tell you is you said, well, that's because they probably can't go through that mountain. And in my mind, I'm like, oh, my husband is so smart. absolutely correct. You're talking about the tunnels we went through? Tunnels, freaking mountains, Max. I don't know They were tunnels now because they bore into the mountain. But there was this one tunnel that we were in black on the bullet train going 200 miles per hour for about four minutes. So I think technology is here.
00:11:39
Irelynn Zurflueh
To get us through that mountain to get to l LA. We'll see. The thing about the trip from Tokyo to Nagoya and Nagoya to Osaka, even when we took it down to Hiroshima, it was all sea level. We were all on sea level.
00:11:50
Irelynn Zurflueh
Sure, there might have been a mountain or two. We still went through mountains and many of them. How long have we been married? 33 years. ah' So why I came to Nevada 33 years ago, right? Yes.
00:12:01
Irelynn Zurflueh
And that's when I first heard about the bullet train to LA. Correct. Look, it's, here we are 33 years later. We'll see what happens. I don't know. But if they actually do create it, you better be buying some real estate in Las Vegas because that is going to be a definite hike up in real estate prices. If we can really have that bullet train get to LA as conveniently as what I experienced in Japan.
00:12:25
Irelynn Zurflueh
Well, okay.
Final Thoughts and Recommendations
00:12:26
Irelynn Zurflueh
hey It won't be. What? It won't be. Maybe in our lifetime. Another thing I liked about your Japan, it wasn't like this as much when I was there. But the convenience stores are unbelievable.
00:12:38
Irelynn Zurflueh
They're on every corner. There's three ah major convenience store companies, 7-Eleven, Lawson's, and Family Mart. We spent a lot of time at 7-Elevens and Family Marts on this trip. You know, I'm i'm suffering still from jet lag. been back for five days. I'm yawning, you'll notice.
00:12:56
Irelynn Zurflueh
But I was thinking one of the reasons why my body is responding the way it is is because every morning in Japan, I got a 1,350 milligram vitamin c lemon drink. Oh, and it was so good. It would taste, it went down like just smooth. cause then i got back on Monday and I haven't had one bit of vitamin C in my body. So what happened to your little drinks you were doing? There was another drink that I got at 7-Eleven that was called fiber something. And it helps with your digestion. And I have to, I recommend i would recommend that too. That was a good one.
00:13:28
Irelynn Zurflueh
Yeah, eating is a whole thing in Japan. Obviously, the crowds were big when we were there. If I was going to do it again, I'd probably say don't go in April, maybe go little earlier in March or maybe fall. Don't go in the summer because it's muggy and ridiculous. Yeah, I It's too hot in the summer. But then the question is also, you know, dinners and reservations. Some people think I got to have a reservation. There's so many restaurants in Japan. It's unbelievable. And this is the other thing I found. We did both. So we can say we've done both.
00:13:59
Irelynn Zurflueh
We did the Yelp and Google reviews and we tried to find those restaurants that were really highly rated. And some of them we even got reservations for so that we can make sure that the party of eight and a half could fit. But I i also love the ones that you just walk down the street and you pop in and you grab your bowl of ramen or you grab your bowl of Roudon or Wagyu beef in ah a bowl. Oh my gosh. Those were the ones that I thought were the best.
00:14:28
Irelynn Zurflueh
so they were fun yeah So I'm kind of one of those that if you're going to Japan, don't worry so much about your reservations. Just go there and experience the random down the street restaurants cause they're everywhere. I mean, we had, we had udon, which flour based noodles from Japan. I love new udon. And we had two different versions. We had one where we went to this restaurant in an old Japanese building, very famous for udon in Tokyo, in the Nezu area. And it was very good, very tasty. I think a bowl of udon there was probably $16. Okay.
00:15:02
Irelynn Zurflueh
And we all enjoyed it. We did great. um And then we went in Osaka right by our house where we stayed. There was a stand-up udon stand that a bowl of udon was 320 yen, so two bucks. Two bucks. And I found the taste to be very comparable.
00:15:21
Irelynn Zurflueh
So when you try to chase down, oh, this great thing, sometimes it'll be great. Sometimes it'll be just as just as good as the guy you walk down the street, hop in the booth, and have a hot bowl of udon in your mouth in three minutes. And one thing that I did notice, at least right now, because the yen compared to the dollar is so favorable for us.
00:15:41
Irelynn Zurflueh
it really did not feel as expensive as I thought it was going to. i agree. I agree. mean, you could pick things up, as Max said, in any of the convenience stores for like just a couple dollars. And they were so fresh. Egg salad sandwiches. i mean, ham sandwiches. You got those little, what are they called with the... Inari. Inari. I mean... Onigiti and stuff. So we wondered how everything could be so fresh in all of these 7-Elevens, Family Mart, Lawsons. And we think it's because they are so computerized that they are able to know what they've sold. And then within a half an hour, there's a truck there and they're restocking. So it's a really good system. And I would honestly, would say just get to Japan while that yen is so favorable to the American dollar. It really makes for a great location. Well, there's shortage of Americans traveling to Japan. That's true. There was quite a few there. Another thing we did, I went in Nagoya, I worked at a sushi restaurant called OK Zushi.
00:16:38
Irelynn Zurflueh
just off the Higashiyama line on Hongo station. All that goes right over my head, by the way But we were there and we went to have dinner there, eight of us with the baby.
00:16:50
Irelynn Zurflueh
And the I worked there 33, probably 36 years ago. And they closed the restaurant down for us, fed us sushi. And it was it's really a high-end sushi. It's a great restaurant. The guy has been doing it for over 40 years and he's a master of his trade. But Jenny doesn't usually eat sushi. Jenny doesn't eat sushi at all, by the way. She won't even eat a California roll. Never, ever do not like it. So I was wondering what this experience would be like. She sat next to me. We were all on the counter and Everything he put out there, she was eating. I was impressed. I had to. But you don't have to. You didn't have to. I had to. You know what? He closed down the restaurant for our family. He is a master sushi chef. And you could tell the minute you watched him with the knives and the way he was cutting the fish and the way he was putting the rice together. Oh my gosh. He, he definitely is the master of his trade. You can't look at someone like that and go, Oh, I don't like sushi, so I'm not going to eat it. So I just, I locked in. Grinned and bared it. Well, just locked in and I will tell you,
00:17:55
Irelynn Zurflueh
I ate it and enjoyed it for sushi. I'm not going to order sushi again, but it wasn't that it was terrible. I mean, what I was eating, i knew i was getting top grade sushi. It was. Well, even our kids and their partners, not everybody's into raw fish. I think maybe three of us were good with, and had eaten a lot of that stuff, but everybody really did good. They tried it out. They ate it.
00:18:19
Irelynn Zurflueh
We even had some sea urchin, which I don't even like sea urchin. I even ate that, but I wasn't. Well, the thing that. won't eat again, like you said. i When I knew I was going to be doing this sushi experience, I was like, oh, I wonder if I'm going to be able to handle this. Maybe I can hide the fish down in my napkin. mean, I and had a lot of things going on in my head.
00:18:37
Irelynn Zurflueh
And then I thought, well, they're not going to serve me puffer fish because that's, that's like a real, I mean, that's dangerous. If you're, if you don't have a sushi chef that knows how to do it, what's it called in Japan? Fugu.
00:18:48
Irelynn Zurflueh
Fugu. You have to be licensed. You have to be licensed. And if you get the poison, it can instantaneously kill you. It stops your heart. Right? So I'm thinking, well, we're not going to be worrying about puffer fish. And the reason that matters to me is because I have a saltwater tank at home. And my absolute favorite fish is a puffer fish.
00:19:06
Irelynn Zurflueh
Him and I are buddies. How do your other fish feel about that? and I wonder if they know They're a little jealous because Buddy and i we really do. He's a miraculous fish. He's died almost twice and he's come back just for me. But on the second thing we we got served.
00:19:18
Irelynn Zurflueh
Can you believe that? He says to me, how about some? Fugu. Fugu. And I thought, oh crap, I think that's the puffer fish thing. And he's cutting it right in front of me. But he wasn't, he was cutting a piece of fish, not the actual, the body of the fish. No, no, it was, yeah, whatever he had already prepared. But I knew that that was the filet of the puffer fish.
00:19:41
Irelynn Zurflueh
And I wanted to just cry. And I'm like, can't, I'll just, and he placed it right in front of me. And I ate the puffer fish. And it was good was it was good. It wasn't bad. A few minutes after we ate it, we pulled out our phone and showed Taisho a picture of our of our Fugu back in the tank, our puffer fish back in the tank. yeah But then later in the way, we walked by that Fugu restaurant, remember?
00:20:03
Irelynn Zurflueh
My worst experience in Japan. So lots and lots of highs. This is my low. We are going back to our Airbnb. We go by a restaurant. A Fugu restaurant.
00:20:16
Irelynn Zurflueh
what kind of restaurant it is because it was in Japanese. See, he knows it because he can read it. What about the tank of puffer fish out in front of the restaurant? So then as I walk by, I see that there's this tank, that there's some fish in it.
00:20:26
Irelynn Zurflueh
And I go over to it and there's these beautiful, some of them are beautiful puffer fish. And then some of them are dead puffer fish. One was dead. No, two. Are you sure? Yeah, two. Two. And basically that aquarium was there to supply the meal. And it was so depressing to me.
00:20:44
Irelynn Zurflueh
I hated that. So it would depress you if you were walking in front of a steakhouse and there were some cows and in a grazing in a field? Yes. Actually, truthfully, yes. Please. I don't need to see that. You know, I know what I'm eating and I'm not against eating chicken, pork.
00:21:02
Irelynn Zurflueh
Well, one of our poor group wanted to try out the the restaurant where you go and you you fish the fish that you wanted to eat and then they cook that for you. And we... you know we had heard about it and we went into a place in Osaka and we sat down and we went and looked at the tanks and it just the fish were they sick some of them were dead in the tank yeah and then you you we got out of there we didn't finish you got a net and and this is what I was so glad when my daughter's like I'm getting kind of the the creeps here we should probably leave and I was like yes please let's do but there was a little boy probably about six or seven He had gone over and he had pulled out a fish with a net. The fish was still in the net flipping around
00:21:43
Irelynn Zurflueh
And ah that bothered me a lot. I was like, thank you. We we can just leave here. So we left that restaurant and went had rotating sushi. So the result end result was about the same, but still. I didn't get to see the flipping fish in the net going over to the cook that was gonna about to fry it. pictured that experience being more elegant, more presented well. But what the play and i mean this maybe the place we went just wasn't.
00:22:05
Irelynn Zurflueh
You know, it was in the Shinsekai market. and maybe Very touristy kind of, yeah. But we went to zoos, aquariums. Some of our group went to the Ghibli Museum and land in Nagoya. We went to two baseball games. Those were fun. The baseball experience in Japan is interesting. Yeah, so it's totally different. If you're planning on going to Japan, even if you're not a baseball lover...
00:22:27
Irelynn Zurflueh
Take the time if it's the season and go see a baseball game. It's definitely different than in the States and they take it very seriously. And the chance that they have for each of the players is so fun to listen to. Even though I have no idea what they're saying, they do it all together. Thousands of them do it together. And that part is awesome. But I think you need to tell them what Kai's favorite part was. This is our son, 24 year old son. What did he love?
00:22:57
Irelynn Zurflueh
Well, in in America, you'll have guys running around selling beer. But in Japan, it's all young ladies with little kegs on their back running around and they fill up your glass right there in front of you. And and it's cold, right? Isn't it super cold beer? It's cold and good. and Yeah, so that that's a very different experience, but it's also a good one. But but they are everywhere. Yeah.
00:23:19
Irelynn Zurflueh
don ever Yeah. So i I know that when the beer people are in are in America, they I probably see them what? Maybe once every two innings, maybe once every third inning. If they're good, once an inning. but but i don't know Normally, I don't see them doing that much. But anyways, here in Japan, I saw them all the time. like I do think they were different beers. One was a Sahi, one was a Sapporo. Yeah. We also had lemon sours. So if you were waiting for like a Sapporo, you might be waiting couple innings. But if you're okay to just have any type of beer, they were all over the place. And beer's great, but the food is also amazing because like in Tokyo, every player had their own bento. That was kind of the stuff that they liked. Yeah.
00:24:03
Irelynn Zurflueh
I mean, the the seats are pretty crunched up, but everybody's eating a bento or drinking a beer or got some popcorn. Well, and i found it yeah I found a player that came from America, somewhere in America, and his meal was a margarita pizza.
00:24:19
Irelynn Zurflueh
Oh, is that right? Yeah. So I was going to go find his meal and buy his margarita pizza from the concession stand. And then I got sidetracked and I ended up buying gyozas. But that's really cool because you can feel even more connected to the players if you're getting their favorite meal.
00:24:36
Irelynn Zurflueh
So baseball was fun. One of our party lost their phone, left their phone in a cab. Yeah. So I had to call the cab company. And then they said it's an item of value. So we have to drop it off at the police station closest to you. So we had to walk over to the police station at about 1230 at night and pick up their cell phone.
00:24:53
Irelynn Zurflueh
So that was fun. There's a lot of shopping in Japan. Did you? shopping every everywhere. i don't think you did too bad, but no, I did really good. And the reason why I did really good is because i had filled my, my suitcase to the absolute brim. And I knew that I wasn't going to be able to do a lot of shopping, but my daughter, she was smart. She actually packed an empty suitcase within her big suitcase. And boy, she found some awesome stuff over there. She bought a ton. She did. She bought so much. But tip some people bought some knives, bought some clothing, bought different things. Don Quixote. oh my gosh. Or Donki. That's the shopping malls that they have all over the country. They have mega ones that are huge. They're open all day long.
00:25:35
Irelynn Zurflueh
We also had a great, well, speaking of shopping, I never buy anything. He doesn't. never buy anything. But I bought something in Japan that I'm very proud of. This is the one thing I bought. It's a Skechers shoe. the red sole and on the back in Japanese it says Nihon.
00:25:50
Irelynn Zurflueh
It's a Japanese edition of a sketcher slipping. I think it's pretty cool. Pretty cool right? Really cool. I was very impressed that Max found that and actually didn't just look at and go oh that's cool and then never buy because sometimes he does that so. I'm not a buyer. I'm a looker. Fact that he bought. Get the heck out of there. Yeah. Actually, while she was going shopping some other store, I left, bought these, and went back out. She didn't even know I had gone in. So yes we have a different philosophy on shopping. True that. And then the final thing we did that I think was pretty cool is in Osaka, on the last day, we went to a private onsen bath. Oh, yeah. There's bathhouses all over Japan. we weren't really into the scene of going to the public ones. but there's this And a lot of our kids couldn't go into some of them because if you're going to Japan, read up on the fact that if you have tattoos, there are going to be some places that you are not going to be allowed to go into.
00:26:41
Irelynn Zurflueh
But we rented out this room. ah Take no Ya was the name of the establishment. And we rented out their kin no take, which has a tatami room and the be in the in the front. When you walk in, then there's a sauna, a cold plunge pool, a bath, hot onsen bath, showers. And we rented out for two hours. and it was the end of our trip. So it felt really relaxing just to chill out. was the perfect way to end.
00:27:08
Irelynn Zurflueh
a very strenuous few days think because you walk a lot in Japan. Anybody who's into, oha who's at Osaka and his tired of walking around and just needs a couple hours of just a reprieve, that place, Take no Ya in Dotonbori.
00:27:24
Irelynn Zurflueh
And there's big screen TV. So there's a big screen TV over the hot tub that you get to enjoy whatever you want. They had Netflix, Dizzy Plus, and all kinds of things. You just log into your account. And then in that one room, which you say it, but I don't know how to say it Tatami? Yeah, that kind of room, which is Rice Mats, where they had some bean bags to relax on. They had a big screen TV there, too. So it was really nice. It was such an experience. I would love if I could find somewhere like that in Nevada. I do want to build that in our house. So we close out our trip with that bath. what was your What's your rating of the trip? One to ten, how do you rate the Japan trip?
00:28:03
Irelynn Zurflueh
Twelve. Twelve? Over ten? Yep. gosh She ate a bunch of sushi rated at 12. We did walk like a son of a god no My Lord. We, my God, but we did so much. And i felt like we really did not only the touristy things, but because of Max, you know, had living in Nagoya and the people that we got to interact with, which is his past friends and family. I thought it was just, it superseded 10.
00:28:29
Irelynn Zurflueh
yeah It's definitely job. And I think if we if we're ever to go again and we want to go to Kyoto and see more of that city, I saw some really nice hotels, ryokans. There's a four seasons. yeah There's some places in Kyoto where you can really go on the on the high dime and really have some relaxation combined with some of your tourism. I agree. If I didn't travel with all of our kids and you know we were eight plus a five-month-old, I would say if I did Japan again, i would take four days of just Kyoto in general and stay at one of those.
00:29:02
Irelynn Zurflueh
oh my gosh, they looked incredible. So if you're going to plan on doing in Japan, I recommend bite the bullet, stay Kyoto for a little while and enjoy that history because that is one of the neatest cities I think I've ever been to.
00:29:15
Irelynn Zurflueh
No, it's cool. And hey, if you're going to Japan, give me a call while we're talking about Japan and we can talk about your house that you want to sell or you want to buy. And we can talk to you about that. But I'm happy to have and have a conversation with you to give you some insights to Japan. a lot of people seem to be going. Seems like a hot place to go, but I'd be happy to to inter intercept some questions if you have some questions for me. And all of us agree, Max is the best tour guide we've ever had. so good job, Max.
00:29:41
Irelynn Zurflueh
Well, that's our our conversation today about Japan. Jenny rated it a 12. I'll give it a 10 because that's the high mark. I can't go above that. We had a wonderful time. But we're realtors, property management, real estate sales. We do it all. Give us a call if we can help you with anything. Love to hear your feedback on this podcast. and We'd love for you to subscribe and also share.
00:30:04
Irelynn Zurflueh
Correct. Close it out, Jenny. We'll be back. So don't forget about his thoughts for rent. Keeping it real.