Christmas Kotatsu

Here is a picture of my living room, slightly decorated for Christmas. This is where I spend a lot of time working on music, studying, e-mailing, and blogging (like right now!). The computer and mini Christmas tree are sitting on a kotatsu--I can't remember if I've explained what a kotatsu is before. Basically, it's a blanket covered table with a heater under it-very nice for staying warm. (Check the link for more information.)

My visa was about to expire in January, so I went to the immigration office recently to file papers for an extension. Two days ago, I got my final paperwork to renew my visa through January of 2010, so I'm glad that went smoothly. (It would have been very inconvenient to have to leave the country to renew from America in the middle of the school year!)

Almost Christmas-maybe snow?

Today our school had "UICS Family Christmas" party. It was a potluck dinner with games and some music. It was great to get together with everyone and enjoy some delicious food (including chicken and stuffing-yum!) Before the party, the high school students performed a short operetta-they're been practicing for quite a while, and did a great job!

The weather report says there's a chance of snow early tomorrow morning. Last time snow was forecast nothing happened, so I won't expect anything, but it would be fun to see some snow before Christmas.

Starbucks Gig 3

I just got back from our "live" at Starbucks. (Japanese uses "raibu" as a noun to mean "live concert".) Thank you to everyone that prayed for people to be open to receive the invitation to come to next week's Christmas concert; overall, everything went very well. People from the church came to support us, so the room was full both times we played (and I think more than full the first time we played).

Since I was playing, of course I couldn't take any pictures, so I don't have any to post right now; hopefully I'll get some later. Since I seem to be thinking about fast food a lot, just for fun, here's a picture of Wendy's latest promotional burger: the Creamy Aspara Bacon Burger! (sounds good - maybe I'll try it this week).

MERRY XMOS!

No, I'm not spelling that wrong; I saw this poster for a seasonal item at one of my favorite Japanese fast-food restaurants, MOS Burger. I thought it was a clever play on words. The poster reads "otona-mo kodomo-mo shiawase ni naru (*a kanji character I don't know*)" The first part I understood "both children and adults become happy", but I couldn't figure out the second part. Eriya just told me that the kanji means "taste", so it means something like "this taste will make both adults and children happy". At the bottom of the poster it reads, "mosu chikin pakku"--"MOS chicken pack". I'm assuming that this marketing campaign is trying to compete with KFC, which becomes extra popular around Christmas (that's a long story that I've talked about with some family members before). Basically, KFC in Japan takes advantage of the fact that Colonel Sanders looks vaguely like Santa Claus and dresses up all the statues outside their restaurants in Santa costumes-kind of fun, actually!

Venus Emerging From A Gyoza AKA Utsunomiya's Gyoza Statue

In October, the (semi-)famous gyoza statue was being moved to a new location on the other side of the train station when it was dropped and broken. The story made the national news here, and I sent information to some family members that had seen it when they visited. I thought the situation was a little bit funny, because I've heard that some people really don't like the statue that much. Well, my family members that visited actually were sad to hear the news, so here is the update: the statue has been completely repaired, and is safely standing at its (her) new location on the west side of the station, closer to the main entrance.

Christmas Is Coming

Last week, the preschool students helped to decorate the church's Christmas tree. I haven't posted many pictures of the inside of the church, so people that have never visited haven't seen much of it--this is in the entrance, right by the front door.
Good job, kids!

Japanese Test in Oyama

Today I took the basic level of the JLPT (Japanese Language Proficiency Test). I had been studying fairly regularly for a while, but the last couple of weeks I have been so busy preparing for music events that I wasn't as ready as I wanted to be. I'm really not sure how well I did because my reading is still so slow. I was confident in some of my answers, so-so in some, and just guessed on more than I was hoping to. The results aren't mailed until mid-February, so I have to wait a while until I know how I did.

The test was given in the city of Oyama. It's on the way to Tokyo, so I've traveled through Oyama many times, but today was the first time I actually stopped there. Today was a beautiful, clear day, so after the test was finished I took a walk around the city. I like visiting historical sites when I can, so I was interested to see that Oyama, like many cities here, has a park on the site of the ruins of a castle. After walking through the park, I noticed a street that led to the entrance of a temple. Even though most of the leaves have already fallen from the trees, I still thought the street was beautiful.

Starbucks gigs

A few weeks ago, I mentioned that friends and I were scheduled to play at some coffee tasting events at Starbucks in a couple of the local malls. Last weekend, we played twice on Saturday and twice on Sunday. Overall, it went very well. Lots of people from church came to support us. The pictures are all from our shows on Saturday. Our drummer, Hisato, had to work that day, so he wasn't there--sorry, Hisato, I don't have any pictures from our Sunday show yet!


The pictures are of Shinya playing guitar and singing, Eriya playing bass, me playing keyboard, and Kaori and Kazuyo doing guest vocals. (Family and friends that received the worship CD from me for Christmas last year, all the people in the pictures are members of the worship team that played on that CD.)


Someone mentioned to me that I look like a mannequin in the picture of just me--I laughed because it kind of does look like that. It's probably a combination of the lighting and me staring and concentrating on the music while avoiding looking at the audience so I wouldn't get any more nervous than I already was...

Giant Cats and No Snow

These pictures have nothing to do with anything else, I just think they're funny. Well, actually they're a little bit sad (I can't imagine that these cats are able to chase mice or do many other typical cat things). Hmm.... well..... they're funny too.

When I first saw them, I thought somebody Photoshopped the pictures, but I checked from different sources and they're real.

Well, I can't say I'm very surprised, but it didn't snow today. It did stay cold all day though, so I think winter is on its way.

Soft Drink Vikings and 65 degrees to snow in one day?

I went skating again this afternoon in beautiful, mid-60 degree weather (that's 18 degrees for the metric readers). I was comfortable wearing jeans and a short sleeve shirt. I was very surprised to see the weather report this evening list a possibility of snow tomorrow! Apparently, there's a cold front moving this way, and even though it says there's no chance of snow staying on the ground, if it snows tomorrow it will be very strange after a day that felt more like spring than a month away from winter.

Along with the usual mix of reactions as I was skating I had one new experience. An older gentleman saw me as he was walking on the bike path. He smiled and asked me if it's fun (in Japanese-I was pretty happy that I understood at least that much). I said yes. He asked if it's difficult, and I said that it's a little difficult. After that, his vocabulary was a little too hard for me, but then he told me "ganbaru!" which means "you can do it / keep at it / go for it" depending on the situation.

The picture? Well . . . all-you-can-drink beverage bars are common in "family style" restaurants here. The word frequently used in Japan for buffet is "viking", possibly borrowed into Japanese in a similar way that "smorgasbord" was borrrowed into English. Put the two concepts together, and you have a "soft drink viking"! (No, it has nothing to do with ancient Swedish tribes drinking CocaCola on their raiding trips.) It still makes me smile when I see that sign in the restaurant.

Ginkgo and Gokiburi Update

I found out that ginkgo trees are common in California. (Thanks for the info, Elaine!) They may also be common in Oregon, and I just didn't know what they were before I came to Japan so I didn't notice them. It's kind of interesting that Wikipedia mentions that wild ginkgo trees in their natural environment are rare, and may be limited to one small forest in China--strange.

Well, I kind of forgot about Mr. Buri, the cockroach. But, when I looked in his little plastic prison on Sunday, he was still alive. I mentioned him to my conversation class students in my Sunday morning class (yesterday) and one of the students said that gokiburi hate soap. I was surprised, and to be honest, incredulous (To my students who read this: that's a good word for advanced vocabulary. The dictionary says, "incredulous: unwilling to admit or accept what is offered as true; skeptical".) But since it was so big that I didn't want to smash it, and I didn't have any bug spray, I decided to try some soap. I opened the top of the container a little, and squeezed some dish soap into the box. As soon as it touched Mr. Buri, he started running around the container like crazy and thrashing around. I quickly closed the lid. When I checked a while later, he was dead. I just did a search on the Internet, and several sites list soap as being a good, natural cockroach "poison". Also, if you smash a cockroach, sometimes that spreads its very small eggs, which can still hatch, so one site recommended against that. So, there you have it! (By the way, I threw the box with the late Mr. Buri in the trash; I was certainly not going to use it anymore. If you come to visit my house, you don't have to worry about that...) I think that will be the end of gokiburi discussions for a long time (I hope!)

Koyo

Koyo means "autumn leaves" or "leaves changing color". Today I saw some beautiful ginkgo trees in a park not far from Utsunomiya Eki (train station). I know ginkgo trees are grown in America, but I don't remember ever seeing any there. They are very common here, and obviously are amazing to see in the autumn. When I saw some trees last autumn, I noticed a strange smell when I was near the trees, and was then told that, unfortunately, the fruit that they produce doesn't smell good. That's an understatement. Some people say it smells like rotten butter, and other people say it smells like, . . . well . . . poop. I think the second description is more accurate. But the leaves are so beautiful, I'm willing to hold my nose while I'm enjoying the view.

Pirate Day?

I'm getting a lot of use out of the silly pirate hat I bought at the hyaku yen shop (dollar store)! In some of my classes we've been playing a game called "Treasure Island". The students use maps to hide a treasure and traps, and then try to find their partner's treasure by asking questions. It's good speaking practice, and pretty fun.

The weather has been great-about 70 degrees today with a beautiful, clear blue sky. I went roller skating on the bike path again today. It is getting pretty cold at night now, though.

AAAAAH!!!!!!!

GOKIBURI!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

If it isn't already very obvious, gokiburi means cockroach.

I was getting ready to make dinner, walked into the kitchen and Mr. Buri was slowly walking across the counter. After jumping about a foot backwards, I regathered my wits, remembered that Mr. Buri would start running VERY fast as soon as he figured out I was not his friend, and grabbed the nearest thing I saw that I could slap on top to capture him. Obviously, from the picture, that was a Ziploc container (that I will no longer be using for food storage).

Oregon doesn't have many cockroaches, so I haven't had much experience with them since I lived for a summer in San Diego. I'm really not happy that I had this experience, but I can't say I'm really surprised. It's the first time that I've actually seen one in this house, but I've heard many stories (and seen a couple of Mr. Buri's brothers or sisters outside by the garbage area). Including legs sticking out (bleah!) he's about the size of my thumb; I've heard they can be much bigger.

Mr. Buri is now trapped in his little plastic prison until I decide what to do with him . . .

Gigs

I have already told some people about this, but it looks like I may be gigging fairly regularly. Shinya met the manager of the local Starbucks, and he invited him to bring "his band" and play in the store ("the band" = Shinya, Eriya, Hisato and me, and maybe some guest vocalists too). Before we even played, the manager was making plans for a coffee tasting event at a couple of the local malls, and realized that he wanted to have music at those events too, so invited us to do that too. So, on November 29th and 30th we're playing at those events and then probably playing at Starbucks in December. At a meeting that the manager was at, he mentioned these plans, and a couple of the managers of other Starbucks are interested in having us in their stores, so we may be kind of busy with music!

On a related note, I tried the new dark cherry mocha from Starbucks tonight; it's good!


You probably already noticed, but I added a clock to my blog so you can see what time it is here; use it just for curiosity or in case you're planning to call me from America, please notice the time here and don't call me at 4:00 AM.

Pepsi . . . YOGURT?!

Well, it's been a long time since I've posted anything about unusual food items. I think I've found the perfect thing: White Pepsi featuring yogurt flavor!

It basically tasted like . . . well . . . mild Pepsi with a dairy flavor. That may not sound good, but it wasn't actually bad, considering I don't even like Pepsi.


It's a nice day, so I'll go roller skate and drink a White Pepsi (well, maybe not the Pepsi part...)

Lunch-yum!

My salmon sashimi lunch turned out so good, I thought I'd take a picture. I splurged and bought the next grade up from the normal sashimi I usually get at the grocery store, and it was really good!

"Good Times..."

"...and roller skates, roller skates..."

(For those that don't know, that's a line from a disco song by Chic)

I had been thinking about buying roller blades, but had mixed feelings about them before, even after using them quite a bit. When checking prices and information on the internet, I discovered "quadline skates". After checking some more, I decided to try them, and received mine in the mail a few weeks ago (thanks, Jane!). Since they are designed to be used with your own shoes, most of the reviews I read said the key to a comfortable ride was comfortable sneakers. After some experimenting, I decided to buy some hi-top Vans. So, I'm having my 70s flashback (skates) and 80s flashback (Vans) all at the same time. I've used them a few times, and have fun getting exercise and getting surprised looks as I skate by on the bike path. Roller blades aren't real common in Japan, from what I can see, and skates even less so. I've seen more than a couple of people trying not to look like they're looking at me as I go by. The last time I was skating, I passed a group of elementary students walking home from school. I heard one of them exclaim, "Sugoi, ne!" ("Great/cool, huh?!")

Halloween

Well, I just noticed it's been over a month since my last blog entry-I've THOUGHT about blogging a couple of times a week, but just don't seem to get around to it.

LOTS of music preparation is going on right now: 1) we are preparing for "Joyful Christmas" 2008-similar to what I participated in last year. The church rents out one of Utsunomiya's largest concert halls for a Christmas program. 2) This Sunday, our school is having a culture festival with a short drama, music and artistic presentations. 3) And a local Starbucks is interested in having us (Shinya, Eriya, Hisato and me) play in their store, so we're also practicing for an audition for that.

Yesterday I went on a tour with some members of the church up to the mountains to Chuzenji Lake to see fall leaves (for those of you that know or remember, near the town of Nikko). Most of the trees were past their peak colors, but there was still some very beautiful scenery. I'm including a couple of pictures.

In spite of the title of this entry, not very surprisingly, Halloween isn't a big deal here. It's mostly seen as an opportunity to put up some decorations in stores, and sell some themed treats. As I noticed last year, some of the decorations include small trees with Halloween theming. Kind of a Christmas/Halloween hybrid-very unusual by American standards.

I takes longer here than in Oregon for autumn to settle in; the nights are just now getting much colder, but the change was quite sudden and noticeable. I picked my last green pepper a couple of days ago, so my garden is completely empty now. I thought about growing some herbs, but since I can't seem to get more than one blog entry per month done, maybe I'll skip the herbs . . .

YUM!

You've heard my complaint about not being able to find much Mexican food in Japan--there's no Taco Bell here (I know, that's not real Mexican food, but you know what I mean...). But the fast food restaurants that ARE in Japan do have some good things that they DON'T have in the States. I think I've mentioned that McD's has a teriyaki burger and a shrimp burger that are both pretty good (and people that have visited me have said they like the "Shaka-shaka fries"). Wendy's, though, definitely has McD's beat in the creativity department. On the menu, they have a special feature hamburger that changes seasonally. A few weeks ago I tried their curry burger (Japanese-style curry sauce on a cheeseburger with grilled onions) which was VERY tasty. Tonight I tried the newest special: the eggplant and spicy meat sauce cheeseburger! That might sound pretty strange, but it was REALLY good!

I'm still here . . .

Since getting back from my America vacation, it's been a little difficult for me to get back into my routine, so sorry for no recent blogging. I still need to finish my summer vacation entries from when Tim visited, and then post about my America trip--I'll get back to that after this short detour.

Earlier this week, we played a silly game in my preschool English class with funny costumes. ("Put on the hat." "Take off the glasses.") Here are two pictures of my youngest students.

Thursday in Hokkaido

This is more of what I originally typed on the train as we were returning from Hokkaido:

The day after we arrived in Sapporo, we decided to take the short train ride to a town on the ocean called Otaru. Otaru is very famous for fresh, excellent quality sushi. After buying some sunscreen at the dollar store so I wouldn't get burnt, we walked down to the area near the seafront, stopping at various places to read signs that give the history of the town. In this area also, there was a lot of development during the Meiji era, so much of the architecture has strong western influences. Many areas in Hokkaido seem to have been strongly influenced by German culture, especially everything related to beer. We had a "snack" at one of the many German-styled restaurants that we either just saw or where we actually ate.

After that, we explored the town a bit more; there is a very famous canal that is now lined with restaurants and shops that were converted from old brick warehouses. We looked in a couple of craft shops (I'm using the word "craft" very loosely- the glass shop we looked in had pieces that were definitely fine art). Next we went to sushi (restaurant) street--yes, that's REALLY what it's called! We walked up and down both sides and inspected the outside of most of the restaurants. We had no idea how to choose a restaurant, so we finally just chose one of the first places we had seen when we got to the area.

It was mid-afternoon--for most people, too late for lunch, and too early for dinner--so we had the restaurant (and the attention of about four employees!) to ourselves. Tim ordered a set plate, and I just started asking for individual pieces. Since "uni" (sea urchin) is famous there, I decided to try it, even though many people say it has a strange taste if you just get the standard grade from an inexpensive restaurant or a supermarket. I had read descriptions before that if you get good quality uni, it has a taste almost like eating a pat of butter as it melts in your mouth. This was apparently very good quality uni, because that's very similar to what it tasted and felt like in my mouth. So good quality uni is pretty tasty, and maybe I'll skip trying the so-so quality. I also had maguro (tuna) and my very favorite: salmon. It was, quite literally, the best salmon sushi I have ever had in my life. The taste was fresh and wonderful-completely salmon-ish, but without any of the bad aspects of a fishy taste. The texture was fantastic; I think I had four pieces.

While we were sitting and slowly enjoying the experience, the chef asked us where we were from and tried to talk to me a bit in Japanese, occasionally using a couple of English words. Sometimes there was just too much vocabulary that I didn't understand, but I was able to communicate basic ideas. I wanted to tell him that the sushi was the best I had ever had, and couldn't think of anyway to communicate that, so finally I called Shinya and asked him to tell me how to say it (thanks for being my "on-call translation service", Shinya!!!) I think I made the chef happy. So that was a fantastic experience, but the bill certainly reflected the quality of the sushi.

We returned from Otaru to Sapporo, and decided to take the short bus trip to the mall/restaurant complex that was converted from the former Sapporo Beer Factory buildings. At the bus stop, the driver of one of the buses told me which bus stop to board at. We looked at the signs at the stop, and it looked like the correct place, so we boarded a bus. The trip was supposed to take about 15 minutes, so when it was getting close to 20 minutes after we'd boarded, I decided I had better ask the driver. At a traffic signal I showed him the brochure with the picture of our intended destination and asked if we were going there. He got a surprised look on his face and said "chigau" (wrong or different) and then a concerned look on his face and said "doshio..." ("What should I do ...") Then he said "Chotto mate, kudasai" ("Please wait a minute") and used his radio to start making calls. It turns out we were out in a residential area of Sapporo, not even close to where we were trying to go. After about five minutes, one of the last passengers on the bus talked to the driver. The passenger spoke English very well, and told us the driver was going to show us where to get on a train that would take us back to the main station. After the last passenger got off the bus, the driver turned off the fare board, took off his hat, and drove us directly to a local train station. Then he escorted us into the station, and explained the situation to the station manager in the little neighborhood station. He didn't leave until he was convinced that we understood what to do and where to go. Amazing! So it was another "transportation adventure" that I wasn't counting on, but it was definitely an interesting cultural experience, especially, I think, for Tim. The train ride back to the main station took about 30 minutes, and after that we decided that was enough adventures for the day and went back to the hotel.

If It's Wednesday . . .

I'm typing this on the train returning from Sapporo-Tim is letting me borrow his laptop, so that's a new experience for me, to be able to blog while I'm still on the train (I'll post this later and add more details, because there's no Internet access on the train, of course.) I will make a separate post later with some of the pictures I took.

On Wednesday, we continued our sightseeing in Hakodate. We visited the Goryokaku Koen. As always, check the link if you want more detailed information, but basically it's a star-shaped fort that was built in the middle of the 1800s during a period in history when that design was commonly used all over the world, especially in Europe. I believe it was the first western style fort built in Japan. It has been interesting for me to get to know the history of Japan more as I've lived here; I'm probably typical in that I received the usual history lessons of American students: some basic classical history, European history, American history, and just a sampling of Asian history, with very few details, and mostly just how older Asian history related to events in Europe and America. The reason that I'm mentioning this is that Hakodate has lots of significance in the history of Japan, and the fort we visited is one of those connections, specifically events related to the transition from the Edo period to the Meiji period.
Next to the fort, there is an observation tower that we went up. It gives you an overhead view of the remains of the fort, and it is one of the only ways to see the true size and shape of the remains. However, searching on the Internet, I did find one other amazing way to see the shape of the fort; the picture in this post is a picture from space that was taken from the International Space Station. You can clearly see the star shape near the center of the city. Click on the picture for a larger view. So overall, the whole time in Hakodate was a very wonderful experience learning about culture, history, and just seeing a beautiful place.

Next we headed north towards Sapporo. We had a plan to stop off at Onuma Quasi National Park which is on the line, and then continue on to Sapporo. When we arrived at the park in the afternoon we noticed that the next express train left only an hour later, and then after that there were only local trains. In many areas, the express trains aren't THAT much faster than the local trains, so I didn't think it would make too much of a difference. We decided to spend about three hours in the park.

We rented bicycles and rode around the larger of the two lakes there. I'm very glad we decided to stop in the park; it is an absolutely beautiful place! The temperature was perfect for biking and the humidity was very low. Parts of the ride reminded me of biking in Portland or Eugene, Oregon during the summer, but it also reminded me of several other places I've visited--I have a faint memory of a family trip to the Wallowa Mountains when I was quite young. I think that's one of the places that I was remembering as I rode around the lake. It was about a one-hour bike ride through lush, green forest with frequent stops along the way to take pictures and just enjoy the scenery. The area is a typical resort town; most of the village closes up right at 5:00 p.m. I was starting the get concerned that we could find anyplace to eat, but we finally found a little restaurant. When I communicated to the waitress that I couldn't read the menu in Japanese, she went back to the kitchen and got what I assume was the cook. He spoke English very well (so well that I think maybe he had lived abroad) and Tim and I both ordered the local yakisoba that he recommended. It came in three sizes and we both ordered medium. When the bowls arrived we were both surprised; it was more the American definition of medium than what you usually see in Japan--very large! I couldn't finish all of mine.

After dinner, we headed back to the train station and waited for the next train to Sapporo. When I showed my ticket to the station attendant, he looked confused and asked me (in Japanese, so my understanding was very limited) if we were returning to Hakodate to transfer to the express train. I said that the local train was fine. He then gave an explanation of which I understood almost nothing. I said that I didn't understand well, and that the local train was fine. That turned out to be a big mistake. The train arrived a few minutes later. I'm using the word "train", but streetcar would describe what it looked like better. It was truly a VERY local train. We didn't really know what else to do at that point, so we got on the train/trolley and hoped for the best. It was traveling VERY slow, but I thought it would speed up after we got further along the tracks away from the closely spaced stations. No. That didn't happen. It was something like traveling on a San Francisco cable car for several miles between little towns out in the middle of the countryside. The one very fun thing that we were able to do on the slow local train was try out my new "Ticket To Ride" card game that Tim & Elaine gave me as a gift when he arrived. It's a great game! (So anybody that likes to play card games... let's play!) I thought it would be funny to play a train-themed game while riding on a train, so I got my chance.

When I realized that we weren't going to be getting to Sapporo anytime soon, I finally asked the conductor when the train would arrive in Sapporo. He looked a little bit surprised, and then explained that the train (street car, trolley, cable car, hamster and rubber band powered wagon, ...) didn't even go all the way there. He was EXTREMELY kind and helpful; he checked in the train table book, and then explained that the next station was his last stop, and at that station we could transfer back to an express train. By this time it was about 8:00 p.m. and the express train wouldn't arrive for another 45 minutes after we got there. And it was still a two-hour ride from there to Sapporo. I alternated between laughing out loud at how silly the situation was, and feeling a little concerned that the hotel might not hold our reservation if we arrived too late. I called Eriya on my cell phone, and he called the hotel for me and explained that we would be late. (Thanks, Eriya!)

We finally arrived in Sapporo around 11:00 p.m. I showed the hotel address to a station employee and he gave us a map and directions. Unfortunately, we realized later that the website had printed the wrong address on our reservation form. You can probably guess what happened next... After asking a taxi driver and a convenience store employee where the hotel was, we finally got there over 45 minutes later. If we had walked there directly, it would actually have been about a five-minute walk. The next day the train experience and the hotel mistake were very funny, but that night, after finally finding the hotel we were wiped out and quickly went to sleep.

Tomorrow is Tim's last full day here, and we're going to spend most of it in Tokyo, so I'll be taking another break from blog entries, but I'll try to continue after I return on Wednesday.

More later...

If It's Tuesday, This Must Be Hakodate

Tuesday morning we left for our Hokkaido adventure! The train trip (first part on shinkansen, second part on express train) was comfortable and went by faster than I had expected. We rode from Utsunomiya to Sendai on shinkansen, and then transferred to another shinkansen that's slightly faster that travels to a town called Hachinohe. From there, we traveled by express train to Hakodate. At some points of the trip, we could see the ocean, and the look of the coast along with the general feel and appearance of the landscape started to remind me a little of Oregon.

One of the interesting parts of the train trip was traveling through the Seikan Tunnel that connects Honshu to Hokkaido. Even though it's just a trip through a long tunnel (darkness with lights rushing by along the side of the train as you look out the window), the thought of where we actually were was quite strange. Check the link above to Seikan Tunnel if you want more details, but in brief, it's currently the longest traffic tunnel in the world, and passes under the ocean. The total length of the tunnel is 54 kilometers (33 1/2 miles). It also has the only undersea train station in the world. (The station is infrequently used for passengers-you only stop there if you take a special tour of the facility-but I think it is regularly used for employees.) It was rather strange thinking, "we're traveling on a train under the ocean".

We arrived in Hakodate in the afternoon and checked into our hotel (after a short conversation with a "colorful local character": there was a funny older gentleman riding around on his bicycle talking to people as they left the train station. He asked us where we were going, and he didn't seem to know exactly where our hotel was. He rode away, probably to have a similar conversation with other tourists.) Hakodate is a very beautiful city. Just walking around the historical area and reading the information signs was interesting. There is an area on a hill that overlooks the city and the ocean where there are several historic churches. When I get home, I will add pictures of that area. There is also an aerial tram that goes up to a much higher part of the small mountain, but it was so foggy both of the days that we were there, that we didn't try it. We had a great dinner at another microbrewery, and a good night's sleep.

I'll continue in the next post...

If It's Monday This Must Be Nikko

I will try to add pictures to this later, but I'm writing from the hotel in Sapporo, so I can't post any of my pictures right now (I'm using Tim's computer).

Monday morning, we walked to the station and caught a train for Nikko. I've posted entries about that before, but briefly, it's considered to be one of the most impressive temple complexes in Japan. (Actually, many people here consider it to be ostentatious--it is VERY ornate.) Even though I've visited about five times now, I'm still impressed every time I see it. They are currently doing some restoration, so part of the floor is being replaced in the main temple, and it was actually very interesting to see the process. They are, of course, doing it with the traditional construction techniques that were used to build it.

After we toured the main temple site, we walked along a pathway into an area that I had never seen before. We didn't stay there long, but it was good to see another section I hadn't toured before, and it was amazing how large the complex is.

After that, we walked almost to the edge of the town to the emperor's former summer villa. The imperial family stopped using it a while back, and it was subsequently turned into a museum. I will post pictures and video links later. I don't think even then it will be possible to communicate the feeling that it gives you; even though the lines and forms created by the architecture are rather simple, the overall feeling is very impressive. It's one of the most graceful, elegant, refined places I have ever seen.

In a building next to the villa, there is small museum exhibition space, and they were having an origami display. Tim had seen posters for this exhibition in Utsunomiya, and I didn't know where it was being held, and planned to find it later, so when it was exactly where we were already visiting, it was a great addition to the trip. The origami art was amazing; I had no idea it was possible to make so many different animals (and other items) with origami.

Tim also sampled the local microbrewed beer in the first stage of what I am now thinking of as the "Japan beer tour" (Tim, I'm just giving details--like I said, it's your vacation, and I'm happy to share the experience with you!)

Unfortunately, we didn't have time to see the Chuzenjiko area, but I knew we already had plans to see a beautiful natural area on the Hokkaido part of our trip later. (And we certainly did! We visited Onuma Quasi National Park (yes, that's really the name), but more about that later.)

We got home, and started to prepare for the Hokkaido trip.

It's late, and tomorrow is our last day in Sapporo, so I need to go to bed--more later.

Tokyo Highlights

This morning we took the shinkansen to Tokyo for a quick trip to some of the famous highlights of Tokyo. We started in Ueno Park. It's a very international place, and has kind of a fun vibe most of the time, so we walked around and enjoyed the atmosphere. A more serious part of the park is the small peace memorial that I have referred to before. There is a monument with a flame that was lit from the fires burning in the Hiroshima and Nagasaki peace memorials. That's the picture with Tim. Next we went for a short trip through the National Art Museum to see a small sampling of the permanent collection there that focuses on the history of Japan. Like I mentioned, we didn't stay long, but it's an amazing place to get a feel for Japanese culture, art and history even if you have just a short time.

Next we visited the Akihabara "Electric Town" district. I hadn't been there since the violence that occurred several weeks back, and even though it seemed to be mostly back to normal, they have installed some security and crowd control devices that were not there before. It's sad that there are mentally troubled people who can't find the help that they need, and also sad that the violence there has caused so many repercussions.

We went to a much more light-hearted place after that: Harajuku. There weren't as many cosplayers there today as there are sometimes, but it was fun to see the scene and also listen to the street performers and watch one magician who was doing a pretty cool trick.

Next we went to Shibuya and checked out Tower Records there. That music store has the reputation of stocking nearly any mainstream artist's CD ever produced. People say that if you can't find a CD there, it doesn't exist. A little bit of an exaggeration probably, but a fun place anyway.

After that, we went to the observation deck on the 44th (?) floor of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building in Shinjuku. There are other observation areas in buildings in Tokyo, but this is the only significant one that's free. It's not quite as nice as the others I've been to (the other buildings very carefully arrange the lighting so there are few reflections in the windows for picture takers) but I did manage to get one picture that turned out OK of the amazing sunset. Just after I took this picture, a huge storm was moving past to the north. I took a couple of videos of that, and will try to post them later.

We just got home about 90 minutes ago. Tomorrow we're planning to go to Nikko, and I've got to go to bed.

More later . . .

Welcome, Tim

On the first full day of Tim's trip to Japan, we took Shinya up on his offer to hang out and have lunch with us. Tota also joined us (sort of-well, he rode in the car to and from the shopping arcade). So Tim got to see downtown Utsunomiya and have a gyoza lunch.

After returning to my house, we went online and looked up information about geocaches here in town. (Geocaching is a sport / hobby / activity that Tim has enjoyed for quite some time, playing in America, Norway, Denmark and Japan, so far.) We found a few good possibilities, and then headed to Utsunomiya Station by bicycle. The first picture is Tim looking around for the cache (with GPS indicator in hand). We found the cache a few minutes later. According to the game, you're not supposed to give any more specific location information than this picture, so as Forrest Gump would say, "that's all I have to say about that."

The next picture is in Utsunomiya Castle Ruins Park where another geocache is located. That was our second goal, but we couldn't find that one. The GPS indicator showed that we were VERY close, but we couldn't quite find it. After returning to my house, we went online and checked for some more clues, and we have a pretty good guess of where the cache is hidden now. We might go back and check again later.

We're planning to go to Tokyo tomorrow. I'll try to keep this up-to-date, at least through Monday. On Tuesday we leave for a five-day trip to Hokkaido, and I'm not sure how much blogging I'll do from there, but will update after we return if I don't from there.

Another Big Quake

Just a quick update: a large earthquake struck northern Honshu last night. A little after midnight, I felt the house start to move. Although I didn't think it would ever happen, I've kind of gotten used to earthquakes (at least small ones) so I just stood still for a second to see how strong it would be. It got stronger, and lasted about 30 seconds, and I was JUST about to go downstairs and out the door when it stopped. No damage at all around here, but as I said, the center was fairly far north, and to be felt that strongly, that far away, it must have been fairly big.

Sorry I haven't kept up on posts recently; I've been finishing up classes and preparing for my cousin (-in-law; but I usually just say cousin) Tim to arrive. He will fly into Narita tomorrow, and spend about 11 days here, including a much-anticipated trip to Hokkaido. See you tomorrow, Tim!

Independence Day

Happy 4th of July! My second July 4th in Japan-not a holiday HERE, of course, but a good day anyway. I went to Starbucks and Wendy's to celebrate! (Well, not really to celebrate...) The special promotion hamburger at Wendy's right now is the curry double cheeseburger --WOW, it was great! And I had a green tea frappuccino (uh-oh; I'm starting to like coffee-ish beverages!). It's really fun sometimes to see the Japanese take on American culture.

It's still officially the rainy season here right now, but it doesn't seem to be as rainy this year as it was last year during this time. It did rain during the night, and then was cloudy and VERY humid this morning. In the low 80s with humidity over 90%, so it felt much hotter than it really was. A huge storm passed by just to the east of the city earlier this evening. I could see flashes of lightning on the horizon about every ten seconds for several minutes, but it didn't quite make it here. Very amazing clouds though! One of those times that I wished I had my camera with me.

I'm going to a tea ceremony tomorrow, so I'm looking forward to an interesting culture experience.

More later . . .

Trip to Sendai

On Sunday, part of the worship team from church went to the city of Sendai. Sendai is about a 2 1/2 hour drive north from here. It's twice the size of Utsunomiya, and is the largest city in the northeast region of Japan. (Sendai-wa dekkai yo!) The churches there join together for youth services once a month, and once a quarter they have a large outreach event at a concert hall in the community (rather than in a church). They invited our church's youth leaders and part of the worship team to be part of the event this quarter. It was a great ministry time, and a lot of fun too!

Here is a link to a short video of part of the show. It was just taken with my digital camera, as usual, so the quality isn't that good, but it will give you an idea of what we did: Sendai concert

Sakura Trip Part 3

Three weeks since my last post?! How did that happen!?

Continuing from last time, next door to the Ginza district is Hibiya Park. It's a western style park that was built about 100 years ago. It reminded me a bit of Central Park in New York City, partly because of its style, and partly just because it's a beautiful green space in the middle of a huge urban area with skyscrapers.

The large wall next to the water is part of the original structure of the castle that used to stand on this site. If you look in the middle of the picture, you can see a tree that's growing right out of the wall, which I thought was pretty amazing.

As I probably mentioned before, some of Tokyo's parks have a large wild cat population. I saw a beautiful calico cat walking around and took some pictures. I saw her getting rather close to a crane (or maybe heron?) in the water, and wondered at first if there might be some kind of dramatic encounter. But, as you can see from the pictures, they basically ignored each other, and the cat went on her way. (Sorry-one of the pictures is kind of blurry.)

Later in the evening, I met Mondo, and we had dinner, and then returned to Ueno Park. Cherry blossom viewing continues into the night in many places ("yozakura"-night cherry blossoms), and Ueno Park is especially famous for that. I took several pictures, but they just didn't turn out that well. Instead, check out the links to videos at YouTube; one is yozakura, and the other is walking through the park during the day. The one at night is pretty dark, but might give you a little bit of an idea of what it's like:
Yozakura video
Daytime Sakura video

Sakura Trip Part Two

After lunch, I made plans with Mondo to come back to Ueno Park later in the evening after he finished work. As I was preparing to leave Ueno Park, I was approached by a local businessman who asked if he could practice speaking English with me. I had heard that this is not uncommon, and since I had some time, I spent about an hour talking with Minoru who works in an office building near Ueno Station. We went to the Starbucks in the station building and talked about cultural differences, politics and other topics. Minoru, thanks again for the tea and conversation! He gave me some suggestions about places to visit and I also had a list that I made of other parks with hanami that I had found on the Net. I had enough time to visit a couple more places I hadn't seen yet, so I checked my map, found the right train, and headed to Asakusa.


Considering how huge the population of Tokyo is, sometimes I'm surprised by how many things are located not that far from each other in the neighborhoods in the central part of the city. I've posted some pictures and information about Asakusa before, but I had never visited the area next to Asakusa along the Sumida River. One of the most famous sights there is the unusual Asahi Building; it features a huge, golden flame on top of a mirror-black structure. Various explanations are given about the design of the building, and apparently some people think it's truly ugly (if you want to know one particularly derisive nickname, click on the link above and read the article). I liked the design, but it definitely creates a large contrast with the surrounding neighborhood. After looking around the area, I walked back across the bright red bridge in the picture. On the opposite side of the river from the Asahi Building is a long park lined with cherry trees along the waterfront. As I walked through this park, it suddenly reminded me of Waterfront Park in downtown Portland; Portlanders, from the picture, do you agree?


Next I headed to Ginza, a district known for upscale shopping with several famous department stores and malls. I wasn't dressed too much like a tourist, so I went into one of the malls to look around a bit. The stores were amazing, as were the prices (as in "amazingly high"). I saw some VERY classy suits by various designers that I wouldn't mind owning, but many of them cost a large percentage of my monthly salary, so I just window shopped . . . I didn't even consider taking any pictures inside the mall, and I couldn't get a good angle for a picture along the street, so no pictures of Ginza--sorry!


Next to Ginza is Hibiya Park, my next destination, but I'll save that for the next post.