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.

NEWS FLASH NUMBER 2: earthquake!

There was a fairly large earthquake off the eastern coast of Japan last night, about 1:00 am local time here. I actually woke up twice from the quake and then from an aftershock. As I was lying in bed wondering how serious it was and if I should get up and go outside, I counted slowly and got up to 35, if I remember right (I was pretty sleepy!)--in any case, it lasted quite a while! So, that's the strongest quake I've felt since I've been in Japan. BUT . . . there was no damage here, as far as I can tell (well, it shook a cannister of chewing gum off my desk, making a large noise that startled me; some of the pieces of gum were chipped, but I guess that can't be considered damage). Fortunately, no one was seriously hurt.

NEWS FLASH

I have found . . . . . REFRIED BEANS!!!! Hurray!!!

I went to the imported food shop in the local mall and found cans of refried beans and frozen tortillas, both at a pretty high price. As you can see in the picture the beans were 396 yen, which is currently $3.77. The store (Kaldi Coffee Farm) is a chain, and I have actually been to one location that was MUCH larger in Tokyo, and they didn't have refried beans there, so I was surprised to see them here. So tomorrow I'm having taco salad, and if the beans are good, I'm going back to the store to get more (and if I buy a lot, maybe they'll keep stocking them).

Sakura (Cherry Blossom) Trip

As many people probably already know, viewing cherry blossoms (hanami) is a big part of Japanese culture in the spring. About a month ago, I took a trip to Tokyo, mostly for that purpose. I went to Ueno Park first, which is one of the most famous places for cherry blossoms in Japan. The trees were a little past their peak blooming, but it was still very beautiful. The park was extremely crowded, which can get annoying, but the cultural experience was definitely worth it. In one of the pictures, you can see blue tarps laid out on the ground; those are spots that are reserved for groups coming later to have a hanami party. I'm told that there are people who are paid just to stay in an area and protect it for the people who will come later in the day; I did see some people who seemed to be doing that. I walked down the main avenue where a large number of the biggest trees are, around the edge of the park, and then through the area that has a large pond with lilies in the summer. Guests that have visited me, you should remember the location of the panorama picture I'm including, but imagine the pond full of lilies, and it might look more familiar-in March there are still just brown stalks. (Paula, remember the spot in the park where you kept saying, "OK, no more pictures. OH! That's beautiful! One more picture. OK, no more pictures! Ooh, that's beautiful -- one more . . . . . ")

I'll continue the trip next time...

Ghibli Museum

In March, Mondo, Aiko and I went to the Ghibli Museum in Mitaka, a western suburb of Tokyo. Ghibli is a very famous animation studio in Japan that has produced some of Japan's most popular films. I started to become very interested in these films while I was still in the USA, and continue to enjoy them. Animated movies are frequently thought of as something just for children in America (with some exceptions, of course), but that is much less the case in Japan. Even movies that might have children as their primary audience are usually much deeper thematically and artistically than their counterparts in the US. If you haven't seen any of Ghibli Studio's movies before, I highly recommend them (especially Totoro). The museum showcases these movies, and has exhibits that show a short history of animation and the theory behind it through interactive displays. No photography is allowed inside, but I do have some pictures that I took outside the museum. Sorry about the strange shape of the photo of the outside of the museum; I stitched it together from six separate pictures, and the angles ended up a bit strange, but it was the only way I could get the whole building together. The giant robot in the picture with Mondo & Aiko is from a great film called Laputa: Castle in the Sky.

After the museum, another friend, Minoru, joined us. We went to a Mexican restaurant that was having a lunch buffet (hurray! Mexican food!). Later, we looked around the area near Tokyo Dome so I could check out a game store to see if they had any interesting board or card games. They had a reasonably sized assortment, but since many good-quality games currently originate from Germany, and the rules are then translated into Japanese for the market here, there wasn't much that would really be useful for me. (Shortly after that, I found one of my favorite games, "Ticket To Ride", in the local mega-electronics store here in Utsunomiya, but that will be another post . . . )

We took the train to Shinjuku, and we spent much of the evening looking around there. We went to an amazingly large bookstore and walked past Krispy Kreme, which is extremely popular. It's a bit difficult to see in the picture, but the line to get in goes all the way around the front of the restaurant, up the stairs on the side of the building, and over the top of a pedestrian bridge in the background (we did NOT bother to wait for donuts). Our last stop was the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building, one of the tallest buildings in Tokyo ( 48 stories) which has a free observation deck near the top.

Thanks for a very fun day, Mondo, Aiko and Minoru!

(P.S. If you didn't already figure this out, all the links connect to information on Wikipedia in case you want to read any more about some of the things I mentioned.)

My second birthday in Japan

Thanks to everybody that sent cards and gifts. I'm including a link to a YouTube video that I made of some of them. The video doesn't include all the Internet cards and greetings I received (it would be kind of hard to video those) but thanks to everybody that sent those greetings also!
Here's the link: Birthday Cards

Mauricio & Kay (part two)

The next day we took a bus tour of central Tokyo (Mauricio and Kay, thanks again for inviting me!) I had never been part of an organized, "touristy" activity in Tokyo before, so it was fun to see things from that perspective (kind of new again) and get some information from a native expert. Our tour guide was great; so you can easily follow them in a crowd, most guides here carry a long pole with a flag on the end, usually something fairly traditional. As you can see in the picture, our guide's "flag" was a small, stuffed Pikachu toy-VERY easy to pick out in a crowd! As she was explaining, she had a good balance of contemporary culture, history and humor.

We visited a couple of the main temples, the gardens at the Imperial Palace, drove by the Japanese Diet Building (Diet as in Congress, not food, although we did have some good food for lunch...), drove through the Akihabara and Ginza districts, and ended up in Odaiba (Tokyo Bay) before returning to the hotel. Odaiba is the man-made island in Tokyo Bay that has a large entertainment and cultural district. If you've been reading my blog for a while, you might remember pictures of Japan's Statue of Liberty that I took last year. Here's the same location with Mauricio, and also a view of the statue from the boat tour we took. The whole tour (on the bus and on the ship) lasted most of the morning and afternoon, and I was surprised at how much we were able to see in that short time.

Mauricio and Kay, I'm very glad you guys were able to visit and that we could spend some time together. Come back and visit again any time!

Mauricio & Kay

A couple of months ago, my friend Mauricio sent me an e-mail surprising me with the news that he and his wife, Kay, were planning to come to Japan for a trip. I actually thought he was joking at first (Mauricio, you do have a history of jokes and kidding people, you know!) but when he sent me back an e-mail with their schedule, I realized he was serious. So, not long after that, I happily greeted my friends Mauricio & Kay in Tokyo (about five weeks ago). We spent the weekend together, traveling to different areas of the city. It was great to see them, and fun for me to be able to show people around one of my adopted cities (even though I certainly am not an expert). We met up on Saturday afternoon, relaxed and caught up a bit in their hotel, and then took the train to Ueno Park and Shibuya.

The first picture is actually from the next day when we took a tour around the city, and I'll save that description for another post, but I think it's a great picture of Mauricio and Kay, so I started with that one. The next picture is in Ueno Park, not far from the zoo. The picture with the shrine and the video monitor behind it is near their hotel in Shinagawa. I thought it was an interesting contrast between an old image of Japan and a very modern one. The last picture is in Shibuya near the Hachiko statue. After walking around the district and being amazed by the energy and scale of the neighborhood, we were walking back to the train station. Near the entrance there was a group of people holding up signs (as you can see in the picture) that said "free hugs". I thought it was very odd, so of course, took a picture. Since then, I've checked online, and it's apparently a recent, semi-worldwide movement; check this link if you're interested:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Hugs_Campaign

More later . . .

Nasu (Northern Tochigi)

About three weeks ago I took a trip to the Nasu area of Tochigi. I visited my former student, now friend, Hiromu. He had visited here in Utsunomiya a couple of weeks before, and we talked about getting together again in his city, so when I realized that I had a day during my spring vacation that I had no other commitments, I decided that would be a good day to visit. Hiromu and I made a plan, and on April 1st I took the train there. The shinkansen goes there and takes only 17 minutes, but costs about $30, so the local train taking 45 minutes and costing only about $8 seemed like a much better choice! Since I'm such a roller coaster maniac, and there's a fairly large amusement park there, that was on the list of things to do that day, of course. The weather forecast for Utsunomiya was predicting a warm, sunny, comfortable day.

Did I mention that it was April 1st? The weather was about to play a big April Fools joke on me...


After about 20 minutes on the train, I noticed that the weather was getting much worse-dark and cloudy. About 10 minutes after that, the train traveled through a small town where there was snow on the ground, which really surprised me. The closer I got to Nasu, the worse the weather got. Hiromu met me at the station, and as we were driving away from the parking lot, the rain slowly started to change to a mix of rain and snow. We decided to drive to the amusement park anyway, and see what the conditions were like, and well . . . . you can see the picture! I guess I didn't realize how much higher the elevation is in Nasu!

Obviously, the amusement park plan was canceled. Nasu is known for having many different kinds of museums. One that I had heard of before, and that Hiromu had never visited, is a group of three "trick art" museums. We decided that would be a good, unexpectedly snowy day activity.

The two photos with paintings in them are completely flat (2D) but have a strong 3D look because of the technique used where part of the picture extends beyond the frame. The other two photos use an optical illusion and a trick. (I'm not actually doing a handstand in the middle of an art museum.) See if you can figure them out!

After the museums, we went to an onsen, which felt really good after the cold, gloomy weather. Then Hiromu's father called and invited us to come and have dinner at their family pension. From previous descriptions that I had heard of pensions in Japan, and from the word itself, I expected that it would be something like a "B and B" (Bed and Breakfast) in America. I was very surprised; it's more like a small hotel! It turns out that in Japan, the word hotel is usually only used for structures that are four stories tall or higher. So even though this building has many guest rooms, and more than one floor, it's not considered a hotel. In any case, it's a wonderful place! Kuroda-san (Hiromu's father) is an excellent chef, and served us a delicious steak dinner, the best I've had in at least a year! As we were finishing our dinner, Hiromu's mother arrived and spent some time talking with us too. Kuroda family, thank you again for a great evening!

So, in spite of the snow, the day turned out great! (And I'll visit the amusement park another time. . . !)

Mount Kogashi

I'll post something more recent before trying to catch up on older trips and pictures: on Saturday my friend from church, Shouji, and I went to Mount Kogashi. It's about a half-hour drive into the countryside from Utsunomiya. (Previous visitors: it's a little further beyond the town of Oya where the huge Kannon statue is.) At the foot of the mountain there's a beautiful park with a reservoir surrounded by trees, including several sakura (cherry trees). They were still blooming when we visited, and that's one of the pictures I'm including. The other panorama photo is from the top of the mountain (or very large hill). The third picture is Shouji near the summit. Shouji, thanks for again for taking me-I had a great time!