There’s No Place Like…

Anita and I were planning on staying up all Monday night and going to the Tokyo Fish Market at 5 am on Tuesday, but around 3am we crashed. Anita got up at 4:30 and fully intended to get me up, but she saw that a sub-tropical-storm was headed at Tokyo and that it was already raining pretty hard… There’s something about being dog tired and lost in a city that is much worse sounding if you add in the attribute - rain soaked. So we slept in till 8 am (I didn’t mind too much).

We got up, found food, repacked, and head out for the subway entrance. We said our goodbyes to April at the subway station (taking different trains) and we took off for the Tokyo station. We then hopped on the Narita express train for the airport. We had a brief scare when we realized (once on the train) that it was all reserved seating, but it was ok, we were allowed to stand… After an hour on the train, we went to the airport, went through check-in, got mediocre airport food, had to go through customs, and made it right on time for our plane to board.

The flight back was much better than the flight there. 11 hours goes by a lot faster when you watch a decent movie, read for a couple of hours, and sleep the rest of the time (praise sleep). We then had to go through immigration in the US and customs (getting our check-on bags, walking around, waiting in line, getting a stamp or something, and then turning in our check-in bags again), and going to the plane. We would have missed the flight from Chicago to Louisville for sure, except that it was delayed. Unfortunately, it was delayed a few hours. Finally, we made it to Louisville and were picked up at the airport by a relieved Bryan (he was missing Karen pretty fiercely, I think). We hung out for an hour or so, but took off back to Columbus as it was already 7 pm by the time we took off. That put us in Columbus at like 10:30 or 11 pm and we slept like it was our jobs.

The Train Is Slowing Down

After the late night before, we all slept in… Anita and I slept in so much we missed our hotel’s breakfast. We found a snack and took the subway to the Tokyo Aquarium. It was totally disappointing. The animals had very small enclosures, particularly bothersome were the mammals. There were many dead or dirty exhibits and not too much to read in English… We left after (something like) an hour and a half and roamed the “Sunshine 60” shopping complex (basically a big mall like the galleria in Houston without the ice skating rink). I’m not a mall person, but because there was so much Engrish everywhere, it was a lot of fun. Lots of people watching too. After we left the mall, we walked a little while around the surrounding area, checking out the street life in the afternoon… there’s a lot of it, even on a Monday afternoon.

We then went back to the hotel and played card, waiting on Keiichi to let us know if he could get off work to go to dinner with us. It turns out he couldn’t. Just to clarify, Keiichi is one of the higher ups at some company that manufactures MP3 playing devices or something (no free stuff guys, I checked)… his normal workday is from 8am to 10-11pm… 6 days a week. Seriously. He also can spend up to 25 days a month traveling… basically working all the time (always representing the company. It’s craziness. Makes working at McDonalds sound ok doesn’t it? (maybe) James Brown may be the hardest working man in show business, but it’s probably nothing to Keiichi.

We walked around the hotel area looking for food and decided on a crab specialty place for our last nice meal in Japan. It was a 6 course mean and every dish was either jus crab, focused, or crab inclusive (made me think of the iron chef). Some of the courses were kinda weird and some were really good. By the end, though, we were all done with crab… perhaps the first time I’ve ever said those words: “too much crab”.

After that much crab, we were all really slap happy (or we all got really funny). So, we went back to the hotel and played more Canasta. Anita and I lost when paired for the first game and Anita and April lost when paired on this second game. I guess that means April and I half-won and Karen really won (Anita really lost).

Party In Tokyo (day 1)

Another morning of repacking, a walk to the station, and a train ride to Tokyo (~3 hours)… most people napped (I read).

We got out at Tokyo and took a subway to the hotel, dropped off our packs, and walked around to find food. Ironically, our hotel was right next to Akihabara, the Electronic Market in Tokyo, and it was Sunday, a day so busy the street is shut down to vehicles and the area is swarmed with geeks of all varieties and the people that feed on/off them. So, we walked around there for a while. Apparently the prices are supposed to be incredible, but I suppose you had to know where to shop because most of the prices I saw were simply good. Admittedly, they were good prices, but comparable to what you can get online and not an easy place for me to make a return. It was still really fun to see blocks and blocks (often for a few stories) of nothing but electronics, computers, anime, software, and quasi-related things like fake ninja gear and small stages where small musical acts preformed small music. (think Britney Spears before popular, perhaps even more fake)

After that, we took naps at the hotel, and took a series of subways to meet Keiichi at the dock to the ferry (we were late because of April, typical). We got ferry tickets and took the boat to a different dock somewhere else in the Tokyo bay / shipping channel (Sorry, I had no idea where we were). We couldn’t get on the top observation deck because the water was so high we would be in danger of hitting some of the bridges, but even from inside it was a cool trip and a good “getting to know you time” with Keiichi.

Once we were off the boat, we took cabs to a _____ restaurant. The food there was fantastic. Basically, it was just different types of meat and veggies that we grilled ourselves over a pot of coals they brought out to built-in grills in our table. Keiichi was really into rare meat, but it’s apparently a lot safer to eat rare meat in Japan than in the US – I think they don’t import meat from the USA due to safety concerns.

Somehow, I don’t remember the discussion about it, but somehow we decided to go to the Hard Rock café in Tokyo for drinks and dessert. It was Keiichi’s birthday and April got the waitress to do the birthday song thing… they really make a big deal there, with lights and sparklers, and everyone in the restaurant singing… I think it successfully embarrassed Keiichi, but only in a fun way. He took it well. He even got a button with his picture in it saying “happy birthday”. I think he was 20 something .

We were all having a great evening and didn’t want to quit (though poor Keiichi had to go to work the following morning), so we decided to go to a local Karaoke place. “That boy can sing” (as said Eddie Murphy in the movie Coming to America). Actually Keiichi was the best singer, with April coming in second, and the Karen and finally me. Yes Anita was there and she probably makes the list somewhere above me, but she would never use the microphone so she doesn’t get a score. Luckily karaoke is done in a private room there and we could still hear Anita… and lord knows we could hear loud April without the mic…We sang mostly English song, but Keiichi did sing a few Japanese songs, which were quite cool. We all left at like 1 am or something and we went back to the hotel… obviously not worth too much more after that. Keiichi had to be at work at 8 am (he works way too damn hard).

Kyoto Day 2

On our second full day in Kyoto we ate the last of the Fruit and some of the granola bars for breakfast; then we hopped on the #100 bus for the east side of Kyoto to see Ginkakuji-michi (the Silver Temple). The Silver Temple was much better than the Golden Temple because it was less overrun with tourists and also because the surrounding gardens were amazing. The cultivation of moss is, itself, remarkable, but to see the whole garden come together is quite impressive.

Karen and Arpil went to the Philosopher’s Walk at this point while Anita and I broke off to go to the Kyoto Imperial Palace and Kyoto Imperial Park (Central-North Kyoto). After some busses we made it to the Imperial Park. The park is huge and beautiful but probably 40% gravel pathways… there must be some big parades through there. There were many Japanese people walking their toy dogs there as well as one group of picnickers. As we walked through the park to the Palace, we soon found out that we were not getting in the Palace. It’s still the working Imperial Palace and understandably, they don’t want dumb tourists taking photos. (So I took a few photos of the outside)

We walked out of the Imperial Park and looking for food, ended up trying out “Mos Burger”. It was an experiment, measuring the yardstick of a “modern” culture by the quality of their fast food and Mos Burger wins (hands down) against any jast food chain in the USA.

After lunch, we got on the subway to a major bus route intersection, and finally caught the #28 bus out of town, West. We finally made it to Iwatayama Park (the monkey park). Karen had called it “Monkey Mountain” and as soon as we started walking uphill, we understood why. The path was about 20 minutes up one of the steepest “paths” I’ve seen. It was defiantly worth the effort, because about 80% of the way up, we encountered our first couple of monkeys, and were soon surrounded by monkeys. The tallest monkey would have been about 3 feet and according to park information, there were ~150 monkeys and each of them had names and the families were known. Like every primate documentary you’ve ever seen, the monkeys played and jumped and swam and fought and lazily groomed each other. The monkeys noticed humans but were not afraid of us at all – they never invited me to play, but were almost indifferent as we walked around. Also at this park there was a fantastic slide (meant for skinny people only) that I got a couple of great movies of Anita sliding down. She must have gone down the slide 4 times by the time we left the park… we were on a time-table to get back to the East side of town.

We made it to the Gion district before our appointed time for a tour at 4:00 pm, so we waited for a while in a swanky coffee shop. Everything was swanky around there; it seemed like there was nothing for sale (besides coffee) we could afford. We found Karen and April, and found the starting point for our Gion district tour. (The Gion district is known as the center of the Geisha world)

The tour of the Gion district was fantastic. Peter McIntosh led us through streets and alleys, pointing out buildings, people, architecture, and history … all the time he was fielding our questions and giving us a brief but authentic seeming window into that culture. Peter actually had lived in Kyoto 12 years by that point and infiltrated Geisha culture to the point that he actually married a Geisha. His job is to act as a liaison to Kyoto culture for westerners – from prospecting for filming a Hollywood movie to taking around the occasional tour group like ours, it sounds like he’s one of those invaluable bridges between gulfs in language and custom… It was at least as interesting to talk to Peter as to see “under the hood” of Gion.

After the tour we invited him to come to dinner with us. Though he decided not to stay for the full meal (perhaps out of kindness so we didn’t have to pay for him), he went for a beer with us to a little, basement, super-nice shabu-shabu restaurant. He knew the manager of the place and with a simple request got us a discounted price of 40,000 Yen a person (all you can eat) and a little backroom all to ourselves. We talked for a while and he had his beer, and then Peter took off… we carried on eating the fantastic shabu-shabu until stuffed. After lumbering to the bus and to the hotel, we all passed out, almost instantly.

Kyoto Day 1

We got an early start, showered, dressed, and set out for the train station to buy bus passes before 8:00 am. 2,000 Yen for a 2 day all bus all subway pass is a good deal… also because it means you don’t have to pay attention to which company bus or subway you want to use, because in the city of Kyoto there are at least 3-4 different companies for public transit and most other passes don’t cover them all. At least we got a great (not to scale, of course) map of sights and bus routes (very useful).

We caught the 101 bus and arrived (after ~40 minutes) at Kinkakuji, the Golden Temple, right as it opened at 9:00 am. Even then it was swarmed with tourists – being one of the most touristy temples in Kyoto. It was impressive but still kind of too touristy to feel like a temple… perhaps it was the crowd.

After that, we walked 15 minutes to the Zen Gardens (Ryoanji Temple) and relaxed there for a while. The place was quite beautiful, but I wouldn’t pretend to know about the meaning behind things and little was in English (besides our tourist map).

At the Zen gardens we decided to split into pairs and Anita and I walked another 20 minutes to Ninnaji Temple. This set of temples ended up being the old Imperial Palace. There were many Temple and Pagoda, nice easy to walk avenues of gravel, and it was blissfully not crowded.

After that, Anita and I must have changed our minds about 6 times, as to what to do next. There was no question about what to do first – find food. We walked back the way we came and ended up eating at a random place right around where we decided we could go no further without food. The food was ok (Anita had Iced Ramen, literally) and the waiter was a water ninja, uncommon in Japan but quite nice because it was so HOT.

We wanted to go to the monkey park (in a future posting) but thought it too far to get to and be able to do anything else. We wanted to go to the Art Museum which we passed, but there was an air of non-English speaking around the museum and for some reason we didn’t go; probably because I was so eager to see the Kyoto Museum for World Peace (KMWP), a part of Ritsumeikan University. It wasn’t on the tour map, and though I knew it was in this area, we were faith navigating and eventually gave up. We decided to head out for the monkey park anyway, and started faith navigating to get to a bus stop on the right route and ran into the Peace Museum. KMWP was fantastic. It was very unbiased and covered a time period from the 15 year war (before WWII) until present day (in addition to the other war crimes and 3rd world genocides you might expect, they made mention of the fact that the USA as the only super power left in the world seems to bully it’s way into the world, often quite violently and aggressively). More information on this museum can be found here.

Afterwards, we bussed down to the hotel and showered, met up with Karen and April who had gone to the monkey park and said it was awesome. We decided on Soba for dinner and walked to a nice place we’d noticed the night before. The food was very good, especially the cold (room temp) soba Anita and April ordered. We then walked around for a half an hour and crashed.

Fukushima To Kyoto (relaxing Day)

We finished packing for a couple of hours and then took way too much stuff down to the Koori-Machi train station. We caught the 15 minute train to Fukushima and stuffed our packs into lockers at the train station there. (Except my pack, which wouldn’t fit in any of the lockers)

We then went to the 100 Yen store – the Japanese equivalent of the $1.00 store, but much, much cooler. We basically were just on an Engrish hunt the entire time, and we found a decent amount, from “Mom’s Milk” filing boxes to wrist bands that were “as cool as the all fashion”. Afterward, we dropped in on April’s favorite Italian restaurant… which was actually pretty good, though Anita and I felt guilty at some place that wasn’t Japanese. After some communication complications we successfully ordered the cheese fondue – which is really kind of ironic in Japan, I thought.

After repacking in the schwag from the 100 Yen store, we hopped on the Shinkansen from Fukushima to Tokyo, where we switched to a Shinkansen to Kyoto. The 2 train rides totaled about 5+ hours of travel time, but it was travel time where we didn’t have to drive and the train, though going 60-100 miles an hour, was a very smooth ride – so we all read a good amount of our books and/or napped.

In Kyoto we only had to walk (with all of our stuff) about 15 minutes to our hotel, the Tour Club. The hotel required us to pre-pay for our room, and it was only 1 room with literally just enough floor-space for 4 futons and a bathroom. It was awesome! We paid under $400 for 4 people for 4 days… and we even had a wall mounted air conditioner! (a mild novelty in Japan) We walked around the station area, looking for food, and ended up at a nice looking restaurant with fantastic French/Japanese fusion food, but the portions were miniscule. This was unusual for Japan as pretty much every meal seemed perfectly sized for a person, usually with a portion of salad and fruit (at least more balanced than in the US). So, after eating our good food, we went to Lawson’s, a Japanese corner store (think a really nice Stop-and-Go), and we got drinks and chosen snacks: really good onogiri, ice cream, and frozen peach chunks in a bottle (so good!). By the time we got back to the hotel room, we crashed.

Koori-machi, Layers Of Folded Beauty

Wednesday, we went to the elementary school April visits a few times a week. We did a brief tour of the classes and had an audience with the principal and vice-principal. The school seemed wonderful, but we didn’t have as much time to spend there as we did in Jo-Chu. We had to rush through the school, stop for a quick Ramen lunch, and be back at April’s apartment in time for Karen to receive a several wonderful gifts from some of April’s students who were in Elizabethtown last year. Around the same time, our chauffer, Ishihata-san, arrived to pick us up in the city van. He was very nice, and helped develop the itinerary which kept growing as we went.

We started out going to the national forest / park on mount Honda. We walked around the lake and discussed foliage and wildlife, festivals, and the multiple sports fields which are tucked into the trees as only the Japanese could make work so well. We then drove to the local temple and got shown the areas of worship and hear about some of the customs… and told what we were and were not allowed to take pictures of. Magnificent! We also stopped by the 800 year old nutmeg tree, which happens to be the oldest nut-tree in Japan. It’s HUGE, and producing an obvious abundance of fruit (nuts).

Then we stopped off at the local onsen for iced coffee, peach mousse, and tea. While there, we discussed the kokopechi dolls and found out they were made in Koori-Machi, and so we were detoured to the house / shop where they are made. We went through a stunning garden and were invited into the house, where we got to look at a large variety of the commercially available lines as well as many unique pieces of art. It was not encouraged to take pictures, but I wish I’d snuck a few in – these pieces were amazing. We all bought a few and subsequently found out that we received a mighty discount… and then a deeper discount. We were fed mineral water and expounded upon as to the virtues of this mineral water…. Through complicated and broken translations (April has only been learning Japanese for a year, and the lady talking to us had to be in her 70s or 80s) we figured out that the lady bottles her own mineral water on the property in addition to painting the dolls. We find out (again and again) about the superb qualities of this water, that it cured one man’s cancer, can thin people (fat Americans) down, and cured this woman’s diabetes. While this discussion is taking place, we are all presented with large glasses of water we are expected to drink… which are then refilled. We also find out she had a vision of the 9-11 attack and tried to warn the US, but the US didn’t listen. She has a drawing dated from May of that year and hands us photocopies of said drawing as well as a video of her on some TV show about it. When we finally leave, we are stopped and handed several large bottles of her mineral water and again, extolled to about it’s virtue.

We then visit the main peach orchard and see the place where 9 years ago the emperor’s son and wife came and got some of Koori’s famous peaches. Famous for a good reason – these peaches redefine what fruit can be! We then are driven to Ishihata-san’s house and encouraged to pick fresh peaches from the vine and then invited inside where we meet his parents (80 years old) and daughter, and are presented with even more tea and a variety of foods from rice cakes to lightly pickled eggplant and cucumbers. We pass around photos and passports and memorabilia while all of us suffering through a language barrier, all with smiles and good humor. Afterwards we were given a brief tour of the impressive vegetable garden, and then driven to the place where Ishihata-san works. We get to see his office and are given hand-made woodblock prints of an image of the old town hall. After a brief time there, we are chauffeured back to April’s (about 6 hours after we initially left) and left with no means of really communicating how grateful we were that this obviously busy and important person took a big chunk of his day to drive us around town and then invite us into his home.

His wife manages the onsen and while we were there for coffee earlier in the afternoon, she invited us back to the onsen after is officially closed, so we could have the whole place to ourselves. Anita and April went to take advantage of this opportunity while Karen and I stayed behind to pack. Part of the reason I chose not to go was because I have an open wound on my toe and don’t want to risk infection; partially just because I was pooped. Anita said the onsen was very relaxing but otherwise uneventful… which is the whole point I suspect.

We are now all packed and ready to go on the second part of our trip… first to Kyoto for 4 days and then to Tokyo for 2 days and then back to the US. During this time I will probably not be able to post updates, but I will keep taking pictures and make notes for the posts to come… I hope you are enjoying this recount of information… it’s important for me to record these events as I know, as it’s happening, that this is one of those trips I will remember the rest of my life… perhaps these blog entries will help me remember more accurately.

Kill Them With Kindness

Tuesday 19 July 2005, we dressed in our nice clothes, carried our own house slippers so we didn’t have to use visitor slippers, and walked to Jo-Ho Chugakko Junior High School, known as Jo-Chu. Arriving at school a few minutes early (which was really on time) we met with the principal (Coach O’Sensei). Immediately we were amazed with how generous he was… treating us like honored guests would be putting it mildly. The school day started with a ceremony in our honor, held in the main auditorium where the class sang the school song, welcomed us in English, presented us each with a beautiful bouquet of flowers, and generally made a big deal of our visit. Anita, Karen, and I all had to give the briefest of speeches (hello, my name is…) and try not to sweat through our clothes. It may have been the only 500+ person standing ovation I’ve ever received.

Once classes started, we presented ourselves with gripping details like: “I like Frisbee, I work with computers, and I live in Columbus Ohio.” For the older classes (ninth grade equivalent) we also presented some “cultural items”. April quizzed the classes on our spoken English, helping them sift out details… then they presented themselves similarly, the cultural items they discussed were sometimes about their food, or music, or clothing, one on chopsticks, and one on the family kitana (sword). Some classes were overly excited, and some were overly shy… but absolutely every student we met was polite, bright, interested, pleasant, and for the most part, very good at English (at least for their age group). We were literally swarmed in the hallway, speaking and listening to the simplest of English phrases and dolling out “April-sensei dollars” as reward for their efforts. Many of the girls flirted with me, and many of the boys wished they were flirting with Anita but all three of us were star attractions… “gaijin on parade” as Karen observed, but at all times we were honored and appreciated and thanked… the whole time we felt embarrassed that we couldn’t earn the respect and appreciation that was given to us. We will probably never be able to reciprocate the kindesses of Coach O’Sensei, Naoko-san (an interning English teacher who facilitated much of our events Tuesday), and everyone at Jo-Chu, we are humbly grateful. (notice the Japanese influence?)

Coach O’Sensei was very interested in our impression of the school and words failed me, as they currently are… The school was incredible, the students both brilliant and adorable. Lunch was amazingly good, well balanced and healthy, facilitated in each classroom by the students and cleaned up by the students. The whole school was polished and clean, and we found out why – at the end of the day, the students clean up… every day. It’s a middle school, and the normal coming-of-age complications are evident in a few of the students, but at the same time, it’s so much more controlled and polite than any school in the US could hope to be. They had a gym, a pool, computer lab, shop class, home economics, and even a Japanese room for tea ceremony and ikebana. We were able to join the students in after school activities for a while as well. Anita and I played ping-pong while Karen watched April practice Judo.

I think the worst 15% of the students of this school would be the best 15% at most junior high schools in America. This over-achievement comes at a price though – these kids go to school and/or club activities from ~8 in the morning until ~7 or 8 at night, 6 days a week… Tuesday was their last of class for the term, but almost all of them will be back for most of the day, 6 days a week for club activities… it’s just how things work here… your job is most of your life… at least that is how is seems to us.

All in all, the best part of the trip to Jo-Chu for me was the intimate insight it gave me as to the personalities and lives of these children and their teachers. Being a small part of something so obviously great allowed us to see and interact with some of future Japan. The real-ness and precious-ness of this window on Japanese culture is better than any possible tourist attraction could be. Thank you Jo-Chu!

After the school trip, we went to April’s apartment, showered and changed, and went to an enki, partially in our honor and partially to say goodbye to another JET teacher who is going back to the states soon. Six Japanese members of the board of education (BOE) the four of us, and the other Jet went into a medium sized conference room at the local Onsen and were offered a ridiculous amount of fantastic food and our choice of Japanese beer, Sake, and French wine. It is the first time I drank alcohol since I was 17, and only because there were no other options. By the end of the night I had all 3 types of alcohol in mostly full glasses in front of me, and I probably drank the equivalent of 1 glass of beer… needless to say I was thirsty. What the enki lacked in non-alcoholic beverages, it more than made up for in amazing food. We ate sashimi, sushi, sausages, steak, and 3-4 other dishes I didn’t know the name of, including a very good Chinese chili-sauce shrimp dish. We were all given gifts in addition to the food and beverages, and made to feel like welcome royalty. As occasionally comes up in conversation, the fear of April’s driving was put on the table and we teased her about jerky driving and past marrs on her driving record… normal teasing, right? Wrong. The head of the BOE disappears for a while and we find out that he has called someone else who has agreed to drive us around all day Wednesday, for our tour of Koori-Machi’s sights. There was no backing out, we were given a guide / driver simply for joking about April’s driving abilities. The motivation was both to protect us and April from possible accident, and also granting us someone who would be able to show us around the town with an insider’s perspective. Loose lips get driven around by a local. As if that wasn’t enough, as we were leaving, one of the BOE members had to buy us a flat of 16 of the most beautiful tomatoes I’d ever seen, a few more peaches, some locally grown and produced apple juice and onsen boiled eggs.

Many Mountains, One Castle

This morning we ate fruit, cereal, and granola before setting out for Mount Azuma. We took the Aizu Bandi Skyline (highway) for some beautiful but quite frightening driving in the mountains. A couple hours of hair-pin turns and sulfur smelling air later, we ended up at Mount Azuma. It’s a large (dormant?) volcano crater in the midst of a gorgeous mountain range. We walked around the crater, against some very serious winds. Karen hated heights, and so didn’t make the crater rim hike, but it’s probably smart on her part… with the wind and loose gravel, we all had a good amount of adrenaline pumping. I’ve got many pictures I’m going to try to splice into a panorama sometime, and several that didn’t make the cut… but some are posted and even a couple of movies are uploaded.. the movies are horrible though, because of the wind, I couldn’t keep the camera even close to steady.

After the mountain, we drove another (less) frightening 1.5 hours to Aizu Tsuruga-jo Castle. It’s a recreated feudal Japanese castle turned into a museum on Japanese history. There was tons of great history on display, but all of it was in Japanese – so it was mildly frustrating. We made it to the top of the castle and got a couple of good shots of the city Aizu (movie). Before that we went to a Japanese Tea garden in the castle complex and paid 500 Yen (~$5) for a really fake Tea ceremony.

We then drove a couple more hours back into Fukushima for some Okinominomiyaki at a restaurant called Dohtonbori. The food was basically a mix of various ingredients (raw meats and veggies) grilled on a grill in the center of the table. Because it has an egg and ends up looking like a low-egg-content frittata, it’s often called a Japanese omelet. It was ok, nothing compared to sushi for me and Anita, but Karen liked it a lot. Anita liked the restaurant motto: Pon-poka-pon! (the onomatopoeiac word for pounding your belly, in Japan at least)

Nikko Is Nippon

Saturday we took a local train to Fukushima and ate lunch at our first Japanese restaurant… it was spectacular! It was a friend of a friend’s dad’s restaurant and we ended up being there 20 minutes before they opened, but they let us in and sat us by the window looking out onto their wonderful and very small garden. We had pork medallions and miso and cabbage salads and rice - I had a curry dish. All of it was even better than we had hoped. We learned how to compliment the chef (which April has to keep reminding us) and also learned not to tip in Japan. Apparently it’s very offensive; that’s a difficult thing to adjust to… good for the money supply but awkward for me none-the-less.

We then took the Shinkansen and then a local train (~45 minutes each) to Nikko. Nikko isn’t as big of a tourist location as Kyoto or Tokyo, but it definitely draws in some people. It was even more crowded because Monday is a national holiday and the Japanese are quick to take advantage of a 3 (2) day weekend. There are posters everywhere saying “Nikko is Nippon”, Nippon being the Japanese word for Japan. We dropped our packs in the coin lockers (as we do often) and went to see the Tosho-gu Temple complex. This involved walking up a very scenic hill, with a fog covered river and the Shin-Kyo sacred bridge (photo on right). The temples were impressive, but were easily seen in an hour and 20 minutes. It was neat to see a Japanese family getting their car blessed by one of the only monks we saw there, and to see all of the “fortunes” people drew… bad ones being tied to trees and wires to hopefully counteract them.

We walked back into town (down the same hill) and found a great local place to eat. We had yaki-tori and an udon dish, some gyuzo and some Japanese meatballs, all great (a standing theme in our food experiences here). We picked up our packs and found our “slightly off the beaten trail hotel” called the Turtle Inn or sometimes, the “Pension Turtle Inn”. It was cheaper and nicer than most other places, probably because it was smaller and more out-of-the-way. It suited us fine. They had a private Japanese style bath area which we all tried out, as well as 2 bed and a full bathroom in each room. We got a “western style breakfast” in the morning, because that was our only option. It consisted of some of the best fruit I’ve ever eaten, some buttered toast, and a hard boiled egg. Exactly what we needed for our day of hiking.

We checked out of the place, put our bags back in the coin lockers, and hopped on a bus for Chuzenji, a nearby area dominated by a large lake at high elevation and many hiking areas and mountains. We picked a direction and started walking, soon running out of path and walked along the road for much longer than any of us wanted to. Walking along a road in Japan can be like walking along a narrow bridge in the US, there are nothing like shoulders to keep one out of traffic. We eventually found a path that went along side the road and kept on walking. Along the way we kept seeing great views of the lake and ended up walking by a few campsites, all fully equipped with matching camping gear, tents, chairs, etc…

We finally made it to the Ryuku falls (photo on right). We walked up many, many stories of stairs, following the path of the falls. We were impressed by the elder Japanese, out in the heat, walking up the steps as well as we were. There must be something to eating a lot of fish and staying active. We made it to the top of the stairs, started walking the next path of the hike, a 5.5 Km hilly path to a different set of waterfalls, and went about 5 minutes before we decided we were all tired and already behind our original timeframe for getting back, turned around and took a bus back to Nikko. We grabbed relatively crappy food (comparatively) at a touristy place. Karen and April had the Japanese version of pizza, and Anita had ramen while I had tempura-soba… I will never get tempura with anything brothy… it turned the fried-crispy-goodness, into soggy mush. at least the broth and noodles were good.

We trained it back to Fukushima, and the Shinkansen was so full we didn’t have seats. We ended up standing in the back of the train with a Japanese man who was already drunk enough to talk to us. He joked about his secretary who was Japanese but raised in America, thus worked out well as his translator but couldn’t really read Kanji anymore. He also talked about his having multiple girlfriends in different locations and loosing a bunch of money in golf this weekend. We got off the train in Fukushima and picked up what is soon to be April’s new car. She drove very well (a serious fear, knowing Aprils driving record in the US) and got us back to her place. We showered (desperately needed) and then walked to a very nice sushi bar in Koori-Machi. The sushi was SO FRESH! Karen didn’t go with us, as I think she was really tired and not a big fan of sushi. Then we went to the grocery store to get breakfast and random food, and then came back to April’s. She went to a friend of hers party, while we stayed here, contemplated doing something, and fell asleep.

This morning, I’ve been typing in this post and eating the best grapes I’ve ever eaten. We are taking a day trip somewhere to see something and eat something… I think castle and soba were mentioned… I don’t remember the name of the place… details to come…

Haved Arrived In Japan

24 hours, is a long time to travel.

We flew to Chicago from Louisville, but got delayed on the runway in Louisville; so we had to run in Chicago to make it to our connecting flight to Tokyo… we made it though, and started our ~11.5 hour flight.

The plane ride was fine, in that really long and tiring kinda way. We were good and stayed awake (mostly) in order to sync our sleep cycle with Japan which is almost exactly the opposite of our timezone. The flight was an interesting social experiment (for me at least). People were walking around barefoot, and happy to talk to each other. A few of us made laps around the 747 (airplane) and stood around “at the water cooler”. It was kinda neat to see hundreds of people decide that we were all in it together and to let down some of the normal social guards…

So, we got off the plane, got our Rail Passes, and got on the train to Tokyo (the Narita airport is outside Tokyo). We then swtiched trains to the Shinkansen, taking the green line up to Fukushima. — It sounds so simple when I write it down here, but I assure you it was a bit disconcerting, because after the airport, though the signs all had english in them, the people didn’t speak english and would often avoid trying to help you so they didn’t have to deal with not being able to communicate… better to fake that you don’t exist than to create a situation of posible embarassment. It was most pronounced when I was trying to buy a phone card at a Kiosk (actual company name there) and it waited in line 3 times, to have thet cashier stop working the line and start stocking and fidgeting in the back until I left the counter. Eventually I didn’t leave the counter and made the international telephone symbol with the thumb and pinky on my ear, which got me a phone card without problem.

So, we made it to the Shinkansen and rode that for ~1.5 hours. At this point, we were fairly blithering. Anita and Karen were napping heavily and I dropped for a few minutes… I enjoyed looking at the city on the train from the airport to Tokyo, but by the time we were on the train to Fukushima it was dark and I couldn’t see much. I listened to some “learn Japanese” for a while and some music… and tried to remain lucid with varying levels of effectiveness.

We made it to Fukushima and April was there waiting for us. We said hello, but didn’t have time for a 6 month absense greeting as we had to run to catch the connecting train to Koori-Machi (an outskirt of Fukushima). We got the 15 minute ride over with (standing room only) and walked ~4 minutes from the Koori-Machi station to April’s apartment. We unpacked and said hellos and hung out.. trying to put off sleep for as long as possible, to ensure we were on a more normal cycle. Anita and I crashed and burned around 9-10pm local time (8-9am in Louisvlle) and slept like rocks. Karen and April were up until almost midnight. Anita woke for a few hours around 2am, but was able to get back to sleep and everyone feels rested.

We are packing for our overnight trip to Nikko and (hopefully) getting some food real soon. I’ll update when we get back to Koori-Machi with more pictures and story. (I’ve got a few pictures posted on my Japan trip photo album.)

Japan Trip - T Minus 34 Hours

All of the “final” preperations for the trip to Japan are (almost) complete. We are packed and will be going to Louisville on Wednesday night… then flying to japan Thursday morning - flying until sometime friday (Japan time) and the train’ing to April’s town… arriving sometime Friday night…. We are not looking forward to the travel time, but super excited about going. We have packed a hiking backpack apiece and books and music…

I’ll update as we go (if i can) and will be collecting photos… so exciting