Spring Vacation Part 2 - Washington DC

November 8, 2009



March 26 - April 9, 2009

I went to DC to hang out with my mom, dad and my brother Marc. Unfortunately, some of my pictures were lost due to technical difficulties. It was great to be in DC in the spring. It is a truly beautiful city. I spent time walking or driving around the city, eating great food, working in the attic to clean out stuff and saw some friends. Here are some of the pictures.

This is the house I grew up in DC.

Me and my pops. Mom and dad.

Lunch with the family. Ruben Sandwich!

Murch Elementary, Alice Deal Junior High and Woodrow Wilson High school + the water tower:

The interesting and cool streets of DC:

Spring flowers, flowers and more flowers...

I had Mexican food with my friends Nikki and Jason.

I gave Nikki a face massage tool to help her with all the stress she holds in her cheeks from smiling too much...

I spent a wonderful day with Andy and the kids driving and walking around DC, looking at the cherry blossoms and enjoying a picnic lunch of crabs and Marvelous Market sandwiches.

I also had some more Mexican food and went to my favorite Afghanistan restaurant.

And I went through the stuff in my parents' attic. It was like a time capsule. I realized that a two-ton tree fell on the house the summer after my freshman year of college. We had to move out for repairs, so I dumped the entire contents of my bedroom into a few boxes and forgotten about it. Here are some of the treasures I found there.

On one of my final days, I went visited my dad and we made chocolate egg creams. He use to make them when we were kids. It reminded him of Brooklyn. It's chocolate syrup, milk and seltzer water.

It was nice to be home with my family and to visit DC at such a beautiful time of year.

Spring Vacation Part 1 - NYC

June 10, 2009

March 21 - March 26, 2009

New York City

I went back to America for a few weeks during spring vacation. I hadn’t been home for a year and a half. I wanted to visit my family, but also I wanted to help my mom with cleaning and packing the house.

My first stop was Detroit airport. During my layover, I stopped in at Chili’s for my first American meal, tortilla soup, a caesar salad and a big glass of tea. There is no tipping in Japan. Last time, I visited the U.S. I almost walked off from a few restaurants and taxis without tipping. Luckily, Julian had my back and continued to remind me over and over again. This trip, I was on my own, so I wrote “Tip” on my hand.

I flew into New York City to see my brother, his girlfriend and 2 kids in Brooklyn. They were in San Diego for a wedding and wouldn’t be arriving in NYC until the following evening. I’m glad I arrived a day early, because it gave me time to clean up, relax and sleep. Traveling for 24 hours is tough.

The next day, I visited my college friends, Nikki and Emily and their families. I took the subway to NJ. I love NYC, all of its sites and sounds. But, after living in Japan for over three years, I couldn’t believe how dirty the subway stations were and how much litter was strewn all over the ground.

It was great to see my friends and their kids. It had been four or five years since I had hung out with them. We had a big bagel brunch, which was heaven!

Andy, Kirstin and the kids arrived Sunday night. I was soooooo happy to see them. The kids are adorable. Andy kept asking me what I wanted to do with my time, as much as I love to shop and see stuff, I was really there for only one thing and that was to hang out with them.

I knitted Jonah the elephant and Ida the rabbit.

Both Jonah and Ida, my nephew and niece, go to day care everyday. So, we decided to take Ida and Jonah out of care on separate days, so we could spend quality time with each of them. We played with Jonah’s numerous Thomas the Train toys, hung out in the park, went grocery shopping, played games, cooked, cleaned, etc, just daily stuff. It was really fun. Andy and I took a day and went into the city to visit some art galleries and squeeze in a little shopping as well. I wanted to go out at night, but everyday I was exhausted after running around with the kids plus the jet lag, made me even more tired. NYC is wonderful.

A real American breakfast.


Mmmm...street food.

After 4 or 5 days in NYC, it was time for me to head to DC. I took a bus there, which was easy, inexpensive and convenient.

Lake Biwa Camping

June 3, 2009

November 14, 15 and 16, 2008

In November, Julian and I decided to go on another camping trip. I was a little worried, because it was getting cold at that time, but I’m so happy we went, the weather was perfect. Before the trip, we purchased two light-weight sleeping bags and we had sleeping mats as well.

Lake Biwa is the largest lake in Japan. It is just north of Kyoto. Our original plan was to bike part way around the lake and camp along the way, but we couldn’t find much information on how to go about renting bikes and what area we could ride along. Instead, we went to an area on the lake called Makino. We camped at Makino Sunny Beach Campsite.

We arrived early in the evening, right before the campsite office was about to close. So, we rented a tent, a grill, and bought wood and drinks. We struggled with putting up our gigantic tent at night.

Julian got the fire going and we prepared our chicken and veggie kabobs. We were the only ones at the campsite that night and our tent was under some pine trees right next to the beach. It was great! Fortunately, it wasn’t that cold!

Our campsite looking out at the lake.

The next day, we made breakfast and some more campers arrived. We rented bikes from the campsite office. There was a beautiful bike path through rice fields, along a river and up into the mountains. Our destination was the nearby onsen (hot spring). It was a gorgeous fall day and the leaves were bright yellow and red!

The bike path.

A falcon

Fall is an important time in Japan, so we were lucky to be in a somewhat remote place enjoying the leaves. Usually, the more frequented places such as Kyoto are packed full of tourists fighting to see some leaves.

We got off the bike path and ended up on a big road with a line of gorgeous trees that were starting to turn yellow. As we biked along this road through the trees, we were surprised to see a number of photographers taking pictures at the other end of the trees.

We continued on to the onsen, which was at a ski resort. We had a wonderful soak and headed back to our campsite. On our way back, we saw wild monkeys!!! There was one in the road and we could see a group of them jumping and climbing around the trees.

There's a monkey in this picture. He's sitting on the road, but you can barely see him.

We made it back to our campsite and relaxed for the rest of the day. We made curry and rice for dinner and hung out by the lake. The next day we headed back to Himeji!

Camping Information:
Makino Sunny Beach Chinai-hama Camp-jo
(マキノサニービーチ知内浜オートキャンプ場：滋賀県高島市マキノ町知内2010-1)
Address: Chinai, Makino-cho, Takashima-gun
Contact: (074)027-0325
Open: all year round
Fee: Y2000 per site
Rental: Tent Y1500 - Y2000
Facilities: Restaurant, showers, water, toilets and cooking area
Activities: Lake Biwa; swimming, fishing, tennis
Getting There: 20-minute walk from Makino Station, Kosei Line
Note: A 7-minute walk from Makino Station, there is also Makino Sunny Beach Takagahama Camp-jo

There is a weblink for the above information on the right side of my blog under Accommodations: Camping in Japan-PDF File. Scroll down and look under the "Special Interests" section and click the "Camping in Japan" PDF file. It's listed as number 38.

Charlie and The Maishima Incineration Factory

May 30,2009


October 11, 2008

In the fall, we made a reservation to visit the amazing Maishima Incineration Plant in Osaka. It looks like it could be modeled after the factory from Charlie and the Chocolate factory.


It was built when Osaka was putting in a bid to host the 2008 Olympics. Maishima is a man-made island. It's made from layers of dirt and burnt trash generated from the incineration plant. Osaka is building another nearby island in the same way.

The plant was designed by world-renowned painter, sculptor and architecht, Friedensreich Hundertwasser, from Vienna. You can see similarly designed buildings around the world.

Yumi is our awesome Japanese teacher, enthusiastic
tour guide and wonderful friend. Yumi pressed the doorbell and at that point, I was acturally expecting to see Charlie.

The wavy yellow lines are suppose to reference fire. The architect had the trees from the original site replanted and added new trees, so there are more than 16,000 trees in and around the plant.

In addition, the plant creates electricity that is used in Osaka.


These balls are gilded in gold and are each worth about $4,000 dollars.

Inside, the hallway is wavy too.

The above cute mascot spoke to us in Japanese to tell us about the plant. The plant can incinerate up to 900 tons of garbage a day.

Pictured above, the trash bin is 44 meters deep.

The claw holds 7 tons of garbage. The claw picks up trash from the bin and dumps it into the incinerator. The picture on the right shows the guy using a joy stick to control the claw. Yep, the many hours of video games I've played over the years may be useful!

His job is to watch the incinerator on live TV all day and night.

It must be the cleanest, most beautifully designed, most interesting, most high-tech and most fun incineration plant in the world. The place is super clean and the most unbelievable part, IT DOESN'T SMELL! That's because, no air escapes from the incineration area.

Utility and function can indeed work hand-in-hand with creativity and art.

Contact Information: The plant is open every day except Sundays and national holidays. The free tour lasts about 90 minutes and is in Japanese. Reservations for the tour are required. Reservations can be made by telephone or fax, but must be received at least one week before the visit. Phone: 06-6630-3121 Fax: 06-6630-3580
Homepage: http://www.city.osaka.jp/kankyojigyo/.

Kanazawa and Home

May 28, 2009

August 16 and 17, 2008

We took a bus from Ainokura and a train to our final destination of Kanazawa. Kanazawa is about the same size as Himeji and located along the Sea of Japan coast. During WWII the city was not bombed, so its historical and cultural sites are well-preserved. We only had one night in Kanazawa but I felt like we could have stayed there for a few more nights as well.

Check out this cool tori gate at the train station. The picture on the left is from my friend, Lauren, who also visited Kanazawa in the fall. I borrowed a few pictures from her and my friend, Richard, because I didn't take that many photos of the city.

We wandered around the city and visited the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art. We were lucky to stumble upon a Ron Mueck art show at the museum. He is an Australian artist, who use to work for the film industry. " His sculptures faithfully reproduce the minute detail of the human body, but play with scale to produce disconcertingly jarring visual images." Please check out his work. It's really interesting.

Also in the museum is this unusual swimming pool.

As we were hanging out at a cafe, we saw these girls walking around.

The next day, we headed to Kanazawa's famous garden, Kenroku-en. It is deemed as one of the three most beautiful gardens in Japan (the other two are Kairuaku-en in Mito and Koraku-en in Okayama).

From there we had to make our way home by train. It was a long 8 hour train ride because we took local trains due to the special fares available during that time. Not quite ready to go home yet, we decided to make a quick stop in Osaka to meet our friends, Richard and Kimi for dinner.

They took us to an all you can eat kushi-katsu restaurant. You can choose lots of meats and vegetables on a stick along with side dishes, dessert and drinks.

You bring the sticks to your table and batter them and fry them in the center of the table. It was fun!

I don't have any good pictures of Richard and Kimi, so I won't post them. It was a really nice ending to our trip. We headed back to Himeji from there.

My favorite places were the most remote and beautiful locations such as Kamikochi, the Nakasendo Road and Ainokura. Also, after successfully camping in Kamikochi, we decided that we wanted to start buying our own equipment and try to camp in other locations.

Ogimachi and Ainokura

May 27, 2009

August 15 and 16, 2008

From Takayama, we caught a bus to Ogimachi.

There was a ton of traffic, so the bus was moving slowly. This is Julian's "mow" face. When a Japanese person becomes frustrated or upset, you will often hear a disgruntled and sometimes extended "moooooooooooowwwww".

There are some villages in Shirakawago and Gokayama that showcase old, traditional, A-frame style farmhouses called gassho-zukuri (hands in prayer). The houses were built this way to protect them from heavy snowfall.

In the 1960's, Construction of a dam threatened to eventually submerge these houses. The government intervened and moved many of these houses to preserve them. In 1995, some of these villages became Unesco World Heritage sites.

Our first stop was the village of Ogimachi which has the largest collection of gassho-zukuri. We didn’t have much time, because we needed to catch a bus to another smaller village. Below are a few snapshots before we moved onto the next place.

Ainokura is a smaller village that has 15-20 gassho-zukuri. These houses are about 2 or 300 years old. I booked a room in one of the houses. Ainokura is stunning!

As soon as we arrived, we hiked around the area up a small mountain and took lots of pictures. We saw many juicy grass hoppers, which made me hungry!

We stayed at Yomoshiro Guesthouse, which is in the Lonely Planet travel guide. I couldn't find anything on the internet about this excellent place, so the phone number is 076-366-2377. The guest house was great! Noriko prepared wonderful meals for us, including sashimi, Iwana (a small river fish), tempura and local mountain vegetables. We ate with a French family and a big Japanese family too. It was full that night, so we slept upstairs, which was great! We had the floor to ourselves, and when it rained that night, there was a cool breeze.

The next day, as we were hiking around the village, we came across this storehouse filled with susuki grass, which is native to that area and used for the roofs. It costs about 2 or 300, 000 dollars to replace a roof. It has to be replaced every 30-40 years. Many of these houses were in disrepair until the government stepped in with grants covering around 95% of the cost. It takes a team of 200 people to re-thatch one side of a roof in two days time.

And of course there is concern for fire. Scattered around the village are these fire hydrants, that shoot upwards to put out roof fires.

Above is an older style farmhouse.

There were a couple of museums in town as well.

All of the houses have an irori, an indoor cooking area/hearth.

Traditional winter clothes.

The sara-sara is a traditional musical instrument from the area. It's wood pieces are tied together and make a clacking sound.

It takes a bit of time to get to this region of Japan, but it's well worth the visit. That afternoon we took a bus from Ainokura to our final vacation destination of Kanazawa.

Takayama

May 24, 2009

August 14 and 15, 2008

We made our way to Takayama by bus. Many guidebooks describe this small town as a little version of Kyoto. I booked a small hostel in a temple. We made our way there and rented their bikes.

The temple hostel. Hanging out on a bridge.

We tootled around town, visited the historic machiya (old storefronts) area, went to a temple and just generally enjoyed the weather and scenery.

The above Saru Bobo dolls are a traditional and famous doll in Takayama. Saru Bobo means baby monkey. Mothers use to make these dolls for their children. There is no face because children are suppose to imgine their mother's face when playing with this doll.

We stopped at a little restaurant and ate yakisoba, and takoyaki with beef instead of octopus. It was delicious along with an ice cold beer on a very hot hot day.

It was a nice place to spend the day, but we were ready to move on and see the old houses of Shirakawago and Ainokura.

The Japan Alps

May 24, 2009

I'm ready to blog again. I have some blogs that I had written but never completed. I want to finish documenting our 2008 summer vacation, and from there, I'll move directly to the present.

August 11, 12, 13 and 14, 2008

When we lived in Arizona, we use to go camping two or three times a year. Since we moved to Japan we hadn't been camping for about 3 years. I always assumed it would be impossible, especially because we didn't have any equipment, nor did we have a car and we couldn't speak the language well.

We decided to camp in Kamikochi, which is a camping spot in the Japan Alps. Before I continue, I should also mention, that I like to research and plan all of our vacations. I love reading about a place and dreaming about everywhere I want to see and go.

When I started planning, I told Julian that even though we only had about a week, I actually needed at least a month to see and do everything. So, the cycle of my planning is always the same, me dreaming way too big and then Julian and I negotiating and editing down. Fortunately, we both like to hang out and relax, so it usually works out well. After our negotiations, per his suggestions, we decided to camp for three nights. It was the only place we stayed for more than one night and it was well worth it. On hind sight, I could have stayed there the entire vacation and been very, very happy.

Monday morning, we took a bus from Matsumoto to Kamikochi, which is in the "Japan Alps". It took about 2 hours. When we arrived, there was a big bus terminal with restaurants, souvenir shops a huge parking lot and many people milling around. We walked for about 10 minutes through another area along a beautiful river also with lots of restaurants, hotels, shops and people. As we wandered away from the hub of activity, we got to a really nice campsite along the river.

We arrived at the campsite with nothing but our clothes and a couple of sleeping mats. At the campsite, we could rent a tent, wool blankets, cooking equipment such as a cutting board, pots and pans, knives, a grill, etc. There was a nice shop/restaurant with meat and vegetables for sale as well as meals and various camping supplies. There were also bathrooms with running water. It was deluxe!

In the background, you can see our heavy duty camp site issued tent.

The next day we hiked around the mountains. We went to onsen (hot springs). We had a little picnic by the river with snacks and beer.

As we were walking around the camp grounds, we saw a cordoned off area with a metal barrel near some tents. Many people were looking at the barrel and taking pictures. We were told that a bear had visited the camp site 3 days in a row. One night, the bear had dragged a tent with a person sleeping in it. The metal barrel was a trap. The camping staff had put the metal drum in an open tent with some food in it and they had caught the bear that morning. This was a bit unsettling and provided me with the motivation not to bring food into our tent. Later we saw the staff drive away in a station wagon with the bear. They were returning him to the mountains but a bit further away from our camp site.

Elevated wood platform hiking trail.

On our final day, we took a bus to a small onsen in a mountain. There was a tiny cafe, where you had to wait and you were allowed 30 minutes in the cave. We drank coffee and hung out in the cafe waiting. When it was our turn, the clerk took us to a mountain with a locked door. There were lights and Julian and I went down some stone stairs to a small murky onsen/bath. It was a bit creepy, but we enjoyed it a lot.

Door to the mountain cave that leads to a small onsen.

On our final night, we decided to make meat and veggie kabobs. After dinner, Julian invited the couple in the next tent to hang out with us by our campfire. As we were talking with Ian and Nana, they told us that they live in Osaka and that one of their close friends, Richard, is from Phoenix and lives in Himeji. We were so surprised, because we live and work with Richard in Himeji. Originally, we had invited Richard to go camping with us, but it didn't work out. Richard had invited Ian and Nana as well, so we all showed up there on our own in adjacent tents. We got a bit rowdy and some campers yelled at us for being too loud. Eventually, we went to sleep and we got up early in the morning to catch a bus to Takayama....

Camping Information: Here is a link to a listing of great Tourist Information PDF files compiled by the Japan National Tourist Organization. If you scroll down to the section called "Special Interests" and click the PDF file called "Camping in Japan" it is an English listing of only some of the camp sites around Japan. Kamikochi is number 24 on the list of campsites.