Green Grass and Blue Sky

A Temple, Some Tea and Fishing

2010-09-05T11:31:00.021+09:00

September 4, 2010

We went on a day trip to Uji, a town just 15 minutes outside of Kyoto. When we left on Saturday morning, the forecast said it would be very hot. It was great because my friends are relaxed about sightseeing, so we spent half of our time in air conditioned restaurants, shops, tea houses and museums and the other half visiting sights.
When we arrived, we got lunch and hung out in an air conditioned restaurant. I had cold soba noodles, pickles, rice, seaweed and vegetables.
We visited Byodoin Temple, which is featured on the back of the 10 yen coin (about a dime).

Julian, Yumi, Lauren and me

Uji is also famous for green tea. After hanging out in the sun for a while, we decided to go to a beautiful tea shop and eat green tea shaved ice and ice cream with azuki bean.

Yumi and Julian

One of the main reasons we went to Uji was to see their traditional and unusual way of fishing. It's called Ukai. We bought tickets for a riverboat and walked around.

Shinya met up with us

The cormorants

When it got dark, 3 people lit a fire and got in a boat. The fire helps attract fish .
They put a metal ring around the cormorant's neck which is attached to rope. There were 5 or 6 comorants. They put the birds in the water. The birds dove in to try to catch fish.
It takes a lot of skill to keep their ropes from tangling. They were darting every which way. The metal ring prevents the birds from swallowing the fish they catch. The fisherman takes the bird out of the river and takes the fish from the bird and puts the bird back in the water again.

First Day of School

2010-09-01T20:15:00.005+09:00

Happy Birthday Dad! Hope you had a great day!

Today is also the first day of the second semester of school. All across Japan, students are going back to school. It's the start of my contract as an ALT (Assistant Language Teacher) and marks the beginning of my sixth year in Japan.

Since I haven't been very good about posting blogs, I thought I would shift this to more of a photo blog. Below are some pictures of my first day back at Masui Junior High School. I've been going to this school since I arrived in Japan.
Opening ceremony in the gym. The students line-up before it starts. At the beginning and end of each semester there is an opening and closing ceremony.
The principal, Mr. Yoshida, gave awards to the students.
I went to lunch with one of the English teachers, Ms. Iwai. We went to a homemade soba (buckwheat noodle) restaurant. I had the cold buckwheat noodle soup with shrimp tempura, grated radish, seaweed and sprouts. Perfect for a very, very, very hot day.

Fighting Diakon Bus Tour

2010-04-09T12:35:00.002+09:00

April 9, 2010

May 16th and 17th, 2009

In Japan, people work hard and play hard. Since, vacations are usually limited to just two or three days, bus tour packages are very popular. Usually bus tours take people to many places and pack-in as much as possible. It’s inexpensive and everything is planned out for you. It’s a very appealing option especially with so little time for vacation.

Julian and Yumi put together a group tour to Wakayama to visit Urashima Onsen (hot spring). They reserved an entire bus and tour for two days and one night just for our 40 friends. Wakayama is the peninsula below Osaka. It’s famous for having wonderful onsens, beaches, mountains, the tallest waterfall in Japan, Japanese plums, and beautiful rural areas. Many places in Wakayama are not accessible without a car, so the bus tour made it easier for us to see a lot of places.

We met at the bus station early in the morning. Prior to the trip, Julian had to select a name for our group. Written on our bus kiosk was “だいこんファイト!" - "Daikon Fighto”. A daikon is a Japanese radish and fight-o, well that’s an English word that we often hear our Japanese friends and students yelling when they are playing sports or trying to overcome some sort of obstacle - “fighto, fighto”.

There is a story behind the fighting daikon. It’s not just some random words that Julian made up. In the little city of Aioi, which is about 20 minutes west of Himeji, there was a little baby daikon that was only a seedling. The daikon couldn’t grow, but it kept fighting to grow...fighto, fighto! Finally the daikon came up through a crack in the pavement. It fought hard and it survived! It didn’t give up! It’s an inspirational daikon. Well, that’s how our name for our tour group came to be, because our trip was about fighting to have a good vacation. If you ever visit Aioi, you will see a daikon character around city hall and other places. It’s now a symbol of their city. It also set the tone for a fun and awesome trip!

Side note, I just read on another blog that the daikon was "decapitated" and that the news of it spread throughout Japan. You can read about it by clicking on this other person's blog.

Back to our trip...our first stop was Shirasaki Ocean Park, which had beautiful white rocks and ocean views.

Next stop Shirahama and their beautiful cliff side views and a famous spot for suicide. The sign says that if you are considering jumping, please call this hot-line.

We ate Japanese plum ice cream.

Our bus was super deluxe! It was equipped with karaoke. They didn’t have many English songs, but we tried to sing as many as we could, the Carpenters, Beatles, etc. Yumi and Julian, our hosts belting out some classics.

Our next stop was a beautiful expanse of beach with lots of rocks protruding out of the ground called, Hashi Kuiiwa.

We finally made it to our hotel.

The hotel was on a little island, which was about a five minute ferry ride in this cute turtle. The reason for the turtle is because the name of the island is after a famous Japanese fairy tale called, Urashima Taro. It's about a boy who saves a turtle from getting battered by a bunch of thug kids. So, the turtle takes the boy to a magical land under the sea...if you want to read about the rest of the story, click this link.

Everything had turtles on it, including our yukatas (cotton kimonos).

The hotel was on the side of a mountain/cliff. As we walked to the onsens around the hotel, we walked through dug out tunnels and caves and had cliff views of the ocean as we relaxed in the hot water. There were 8 or 9 hot baths that we could visit.

We visited the tallest waterfall in Japan, Nachi Taki, and a shrine.

We went to a beautiful old road called, Kumanokodo (World Heritage Listed pilgrimage walk).

We also went to an ume factory (Japanese plum) factory. They had many types of pickles, snacks and plum wines, and a kamobuko (fish cake) factory.

Finally, we went to a shoyu factory (soy sauce). Below is a picture of the entire group.

Shikoku Camping Part 4 - Toyo Beach Camping

2009-12-20T19:37:00.002+09:00

December 21, 2009

May 6th, 7th and 8th, 2009

We took a train east to Tokushima and caught another train south to the beaches and surfing area of Kochi. We found a wonderful grassy campsite next to the beach.

View from our tent.

Starting from the left, a small market with local foods, the tall building in the middle is a hotel near the campsite and the next building is the campsite office and our tents on the far right.

Unfortunately, it wouldn’t stop raining, We held out through Thursday night and decided it was time to go home. Friday morning when we got up, it became sunny, but I think we were ready to get back to our own beds.

The campsite has rental equipment, nice bathrooms, and a small local food store. There is a tiny town with a small market that's about a 10 minute walk from the campsite.

Getting There: Take a JR train to Kaifu. Then you must change to a private train line called Agasakaigan-Railroad. Go to the last stop of Kannoura. We took a 10 minute bus ride to the campsite from the train station.

Campsite: 白浜キャンプ場 - Shirahama Camp-jo in Toyo
Phone number: 088-729-2346
Cost: 600yen per/site
Website: Toyo Campsite - Shirahama Beach

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Shikoku Camping Part 3 - Iya Valley

2009-12-07T19:35:00.001+09:00

December 7, 2009

May 4, 5 and 6 2009

We had another long day of driving on our way to Iya Valley.

On our way, we saw these beautiful carp flags for children’s day.

Stefan, our awesome driver. "Theees is not zeee autoban!"

Yumi, Julian and Rachel, our lovely backseat drivers.

We also saw lots of pilgrims along the way. Shikoku is a popular destination because of the 88 temple pilgrimage that’s associated with the priest, Kukai. As we traveled throughout the island, we often saw pilgrims walking, biking or riding trains, buses and ferries around Shikoku usually with a walking stick wearing a straw hat, a backpack and a vest with “dogoyo futari” written in kanji on their jackets, meaning, “two traveling together”. Julian is planing his own pilgrimage in 2010. He will push a peanut with his nose and visit all 88 temples.

We found a campsite next to the river also near an onsen, and a little amusement park. It was raining a bit, but we were happy to get out of the car. We made dinner and went to onsen.

The next day, we visited the famous vine bridge called Kazurabashi.
It's now reinforced with heavy metal wiring.

There was an hour long wait to cross the bridge, so Yumi and I
went to the end of the bridge and took a picture as if we had just crossed it.

Grilled river fish.

We also visited Chiori, a restored, traditional house in Iya Valley. Yumi had visited about a year ago and had left her sweatshirt, so we stopped by for a short visit. The purchase and restoration of Chiori was documented in a well-known book called, Lost Japan by Alex Kerr. It was in the mountains in a beautiful area of the valley. I think it only costs 3,000 yen per/night to stay in the house. Here is their website: Chirori.

Yumi and Stefan had to get back to Himeji for work. They left us and then there were three, me, Julian and Rachel. We stayed another night in Iya Valley and then packed up and grabbed a taxi to the train station to head for the beach in southeastern Shikoku.

Getting There: Get off at Oboke Train Station. Take a taxi or a bus to the campsite. We drove, so I don't have much information on how to get there.

The campsite had nice bathrooms, no showers but there was a nearby onsen, a cooking area and barbecues.

Campsite: Iya-Fureai Park 祖谷ふれあい公園　
Phone number: 088-376-8585
Cost: 1,500yen for a site
Website: Iya-Fureai Park

Shikoku Camping - Tosa-Shimizu - Part 2

2009-11-30T17:09:00.001+09:00

November 30, 2009

May 3 and 4, 2009

Our friends, Stefan and Yumi rented a car to drive around Shikoku for a few days. I thought we could head south from Matsuyama and go directly to the very southwestern tip of Shikoku to Tosa-Shimizu city. It turned out we had to head east and do a big loop. So, poor Stefan drove for 8-10 hours. Along the way, Yumi had suggested that we go to the famous Shimanto River, but as the day progressed, we realized we didn’t have time. We reached our second campsite and the most beautiful campsite during our trip around 9 or 10 at night.

Yumi, me, Julian and Stefan, our driver, stopping to look at the view
and stretching our legs.

Tosa-shimizu and the Cape Ahizuri area is famous for their seafood and dramatic cliff views. We drove through town and found the campsite and then circled back to eat some wonderful food at a small mom and pop restaurant. We were able to order many little dishes that we all shared. By the time we reached the campsite, it was late and we were all tired. We set-up camp and went to bed immediately.

It was a grassy, beautiful campsite.

In the morning, we walked around the campsite which was next to the ocean. There was also an interesting retro-looking ocean viewing tower within walking distance from the campsite.

We wanted to stay longer, but time was limited for our driving buddies, so we got back in the car and drove to the Oboke and Iya Valley area located in the northeastern part of Shikoku.

Getting there: We went by car, but you can take a train to Nakamura Station. You must catch a bus from Nakamura Station. Take the Kuroshio Line Bus for an hour and a half to Kaiteikan-mae Bus Stop. There’s not a lot around here, so you will definitely need to find a market before you head to this campsite. N

It's in a national park. You can swim, scuba dive and fish at this campsite. There are showers, nice toilets and you can rent a barbecue and tents if you need them.

Campsite: Tsumajiro Campsite 爪白キャンプ場
Phone number: 088-085-0144
Cost: 300 yen per/person.
Other information: Open year-round, closed on Wednesdays. Reservations are not required.
Website: Tsumajiro Campsite

Shikoku Camping - Matsuyama - Part I

2009-11-28T17:58:00.001+09:00

November 28, 2009

May 1st, 2nd and 3rd, 2009

Planning and Traveling
In Japan there are three holidays in a row at the beginning of May. That week is called “Golden Week”. Usually, Julian and I don’t like to travel during these holidays because all of Japan has time off, but this year we decided to take the entire week off to check out and camp in Shikoku. Shikoku is not a popular destination among tourists mostly because there are so many other famous sites in Japan, but if you have time on your hands it’s certainly worth a visit for it’s rural beauty.

Shikoku, which means “four provinces” in Japanese, is the smallest and least populous of the four main islands of Japan. It’s located south of Honshu and south of where I live. I had never been to Shikoku but had heard it was a very rural and beautiful area of Japan including mountains, rivers, beaches, onsens (hot springs) and traditional villages.

Our first destination was Matsuyama. Matsuyama is located on the northwest part of the island and is the capital of Ehime Precture. It’s famous for their orange production, Dogo Onsen, Matsuyama Castle and haiku.

As we started planning the trip, we invited many friends to come along with us. We decided it would be fun and cheap to take a night ferry from Kobe to Matsuyama.

Some of our friends joined us and others went by car and met us at the campsite. The ferry left Kobe around 10:30 at night. This meant that we had one night of cheap accommodation and travel and we would arrive in the morning ready to see Matsuyama.

We were super excited to take a ferry. There are many ferry companies that operate throughout Japan (see below for ferry info). If you have some extra time on your hands, it’s an inexpensive and fun way to travel.

It was even more fun because we were with our friends. There are three types of accommodation: a shared room, a bunk bed or a private room. We opted for the shared room, which was a big room that included, a thin cushion, a blanket and a pillow. It was like a big slumber party! Our room had enough space for about 20 people, but there were other rooms on the ferry that could hold more people.

Tim, Maki, Simona, Julian and Rachel relaxing in our room.

Maki, Julian, Me, Simona and Tim on the deck.

Ray Ray Rachel

Tim and Julian

The ferry had a cafeteria, a lounge area with vending machines, a small convenience/souvenir store and coin operated massage chairs. We spent the first few hours exploring the ferry and hanging out on the deck.

Eventually, we all fell asleep. I woke up at 5am and was lucky enough to see the sunrise from the deck.

Matsuyama

We arrived in Matsuyama around 6 or 7am. We took a bus to the train station and put our things in a locker. We rented bikes.

We decided to bike to the well-known, Dogo Onsen. Along the way, we saw the Botchan clock, which is based on a famous Japanese novel called Bothchan by Natsume Soseki. I also got to sit at the bus stop with Totoro, a character from the wonderful Japanese anime movie called My Neighbor Totoro.

Dogo onsen is the oldest documented onsen (hot spring) in Japan. It’s also the inspiration for the onsen in one of my favorite Japanese anime movies, Spirited Away. So, I was really excited to check this place out. We paid to go to the onsen and sit in a beautiful room on the second floor to drink tea and have some snacks. We also had a small tour of the rooms designated for royalty that occasionally came through that area. The onsen was very small, but the building was beautiful and we enjoyed our time there.

After onsen, we walked around some more and picked up food for a picnic.

It was a beautiful sunny day, and there was a nearby park. After lunch, we lounged around in the park and took it easy.

We biked around some more, went to a temple and stopped for some coffee. It was a great day.

Kashima Island Camping
It was time for us to go to the campsite. The campsite was a 45 minute train ride from Matsuyama train station on an island called Kashima (See below for camping and travel details). Julian and Rachel camped there last winter, but I was sick and stayed home, so it was their second trip to this campsite.

We arrived at the train station and some of the group went ahead to the island to set-up camp. Julian and I stayed behind and shopped for food and met our friends who drove from Himeji. The island doesn’t have any markets or stores, so you have to purchase all of your food prior to camping.

Julian, Doug, Junsuke, Stefan and Yumi waiting for the ferry.

The ferry to the island had a deer statue on top of it because there are many miniature deer on the island. It was only a 5 minute ferry ride.

When we arrived, our friends had set-up most of the tents.

Julian, Junsuke and Tim

Rachel and Maki

Tim, Simona, Yumi, Julian, Stefan, Doug and Junsuke

Julian, me and Yumi

We started a fire and prepared dinner. We made meat and vegetable tin-foil wraps with several different types of sauce and cooked them over the fire. While in Matsuyama, I had bought orange liquor, which was great. Julian had also bought the juiciest, most delicious oranges I had ever eaten. We kept the fire going late into the night and just hung out and drank.

At night, there were a lot of creepy noises coming from the mountain, birds squawking to the point that it sounded like something was dying. Some of our friends, went and explored with a flashlight. It was really, really dark. I went for a bit, but got scared and went back to camp.

We all eventually went to sleep and woke up in the morning. Julian and Rachel made a delicious breakfast.

After breakfast, a group of us hiked around the mountain and spotted lots of miniature deer. They looked like statues.

Kashima Camping Crew: Julian, Maki, Stefan, Junsuke Doug, Tim, Me, Yumi, Simona and Rachel

We packed our stuff up and some of our friends, went back to Matsuyama. Stefan, Yumi, Rachel, Julian and I got in the car and drove to our next destination.

Travel to Matsuyama
There is ferry information at this website: Japan Ferry Info
You can also go by train: Train Schedule

Getting to the campsite from Matsuyama Station: We took a 45 minute train ride from Matsuyama Train Station to Iyo-hojo Station on the Yosan Line.

It's a 5 minute walk from the train station to Iyo-hojo pier/ferry terminal. The ferry only takes a few minutes. It’s open from 6 or 7am and the last ferry to and from the island is at around 8pm. If you are arriving late, please check the time, because it may change and I'm not sure of the exact times.

There are no stores or supplies on the island. Behind the train station is a big supermarket and home center so if you need any camping supplies, it’s a good place to pick up that stuff. It’s a 10 minute walk. You have to exit and go behind the train station and up some stairs on a foot bridge over the train tracks to get to the stores.

You can fish, swim and hike. There is a nice area for cooking and clean toilets. I didn't see any showers. There is no camping rental equipment.

Campsite: Kashima Campsite 鹿島キャンプ場
Phone number: 089-948-6556
Cost: Free
Other Info: It's year-round and reservations are not required.
Website: Kashima Campsite

Nagisa Music Festival

2009-11-28T17:03:00.008+09:00

November 28, 2009

April 29, 2009

I had a day off in April in the middle of the week. Sianna, Rachel and I went to Osaka to meet up with our friends Richard and Kimi and go to an all day music festival.

There were 4 or 5 stages with electronic, experimental, hippie, reggae, hip hop and rock music. It was a beautiful day and it was a great venue.

Rachel, Sianna and me

Some traditional Japanese music and dancing

The guy's toilet is open, so you can see them as they pee. Must be hard if you have stage fright.

It was a lot of fun. It's held in Osaka twice a year in the spring and fall at Maishima Island (the same place as my Osaka Incineration Plant blog. The tickets are relatively inexpensive at only 3,000yen for the day! There's good music, food and fun stuff to buy. Here is the website for the Nagisa Music Festival.

Koinobori - Carp Wind Socks

2009-11-23T22:17:00.011+09:00

November 22, 2009

April 25, 2009

On the fifth day of the fifth month, families all over Japan hang colorful carp flags (koinobori) along rooftops or flagpoles to signify children's day. Children's day celebrates the future health and success of children. It use to be specifically for boy's, but in recent years, it was changed to include girls as well.

The carp flags symbolize success due to the carp's long life and also represent strength and determination in the same way the carp travels upstream against the current. In some houses, a carp is flown to represent each family member with the father's being the largest at the top and decreasing in size to the youngest child at the bottom.

Julian's studio partner, Miki, invited me and some of my friends to her museum to dye carp flags for children's day.

Miki had already prepared the white carp flags and provided string, rubber bands and pebbles to tie-dye the fabric.

Me, Lauren and Emily decorating our carp-flags

We had a choice between blue or red dye.

Lauren's carp flag.

Masae's carp flag.

Emily's carp flag.

We also were able to spend time with Miki's gorgeous grandson. He is soooooo cute!

Due to technical difficulties, I lost my photos. Special thanks to Lauren for letting me use her wonderful photos.

Spring Vacation Part 2 - Washington DC

2009-11-08T10:50:00.029+09:00

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 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 remembered 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 forgot about it. Here are some of the treasures I found there.

On one of my final days, I hung out with 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

2009-06-10T18:15:00.018+09:00

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

2009-06-03T23:00:00.002+09:00

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

2009-05-30T15:18:00.001+09:00

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

2009-05-28T22:45:00.012+09:00

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

2009-05-27T23:30:00.003+09:00

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

2009-05-24T15:38:00.012+09:00

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

2009-05-24T11:30:00.005+09:00

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.

Matsumoto and Crow Castle

2008-08-26T08:00:00.003+09:00

August 10th

We left Tsumago and took a tiny two car local train to Matsumoto. The train followed along a beautiful river with many power plants. Matsumoto is a castle town about half the size of Himeji with 220,000 people. It is near the "Japan Alps", so you can see the mountains from town. It's also one of Himeji's sister cities. Matsumoto is famous for their castle, nearby wasabi farms, temari balls, and soba. Unfortunately, we didn't have time to visit the wasabi farms, but we were able to try some wasabi products- yum!

When we arrived we decided to walk around and explore. There was a section of town with many old buildings with funky shops, cafes and souvenirs.

Pictured above is a sewer cover with colorful "temari" balls.

Historically, temari balls were made from old kimonos. They were traditional toys made by mothers and given to children on new year's day. I read that mother's would put their wishes and hopes on a piece of paper that was placed in the center of the ball. It was a folk craft, but later, they became art pieces because the embroidery and wrapping became more decorative and intricate. There are numerous designs and colors.

Along the way, we saw many wells with spring water. You could fill your bottle up anytime. Julian commented about all of the water gurgling out of the ground in contrast to the dry, Arizona desert.

That night we got dinner at a small yakitori restaurant and ice, cold Japanese beer. A yakitori restaurant usually has grilled meat and vegetables on a stick. I'll take pictures next time I go to my favorite restaurant in Himeji. Afterwards, we walked all over town and ended up in the entertainment district, usually signified by bright lights a variety of bars, host bars, snack bars and restaurants that are stacked on top of each other in tall buildings and lots of drunken people. There weren't that many people out on a Sunday night. As we were walking, we could see a large animal in the distance. As we got closer, we realized it was a big, fat pig just wandering around the entertainment area looking for a good time. It was surreal to say the least. Again, I wish I had my camera. We saw the pig wander into a restaurant. We ended our night at a Spanish restaurant drinking Coronas.

The next day, we wanted to bike around town. I had read that we could get free bikes. As we were checking out of our business hotel, Toyoko Inn, I found out we could get free bikes from the hotel. We were both so happy! We biked all over town and visited the castle. Matsumoto Castle was built more than 400 years ago. It is also called Crow Castle (Karasu Jō) because of its black appearance.

We saw this mini parade of a dog in a captain's hat, 2 doves and an anpanman doll (a cute Japanese cartoon character made of bread) with children's music in the castle grounds. The owner travels around with his animals and brings them to different places around Japan. He was hanging out in the back secretly using a remote control to move the mini-car and wagon. Later he introduced himself and had his dog preform some tricks for the crowd. It was odd, but cute. I didn't realize Julian was filming, so you can hear me blabbing way too much in the video. This is my first time posting a video on here, so let me know if it works or not.

We really enjoyed spending a day in Matsumoto. For a small size town, it seemed like a really nice place with a lot going on. As we were biking around, Julian spotted the building in the picture below that looks like a mini replica of the castle. I think the picture sums up Matsumoto in so many ways, a little bit of the old with a little bit of the new.

Next stop Kamikochi in the Japan Alps...to be continued...

Blogging, Summer Vacation and Kiso Valley

2008-08-23T10:28:00.012+09:00

August 23rd

I haven't been blogging very much. I'm feeling very inspired after my summer vacation. Some of you may or may not know that we are staying a fourth year in Himeji. We are super happy about it, and that means you have another year to visit us in the land of the rising sun.

I love summers in Japan. My schedule is very relaxed, it's really nice to go out at night, it's great to toodle around on my bike, life feels easy and fun. Even though it has been a great summer in Himeji, it still feels good to get out of town.

The past couple of summers, we've traveled to other countries. This year, we decided to see some of Japan. I've been wanting to visit the Chubu area of Japan (Gifu and Nagano Prefectures) for a long time. It's famous for its beautiful landscapes, untouched rural areas, traditional Japanese architecture, excellent hiking and camping, the "Japan Alps" and hot springs.

August 9th

Before my dad became ill, he often encouraged us to visit Kiso Valley. He had very fond memories of a trip he made with my mom in the 1970s. It is where one of the "old edo roads" is located, the 500km long "Nakasendo" (path through the mountains). It's the road that people used to walk from Kyoto to Tokyo. The Nakasendo was built parallel to the more famous Tokaido road which was next to the sea. Because of restrictions by the shogunate, travelers were almost always forced to make the trip on foot. As a result "post towns" developed every few kilometers to provide travelers places to rest and eat during their long journey. There were 69 stations or post towns along the Nakasendo.

We made our way to a small "post town" called Magome. It's in the mountains and was the starting point for a three hour hike to the next "post town", Tsumago. We hung out for a couple of hours in Magome and had lunch. We were also able to mail our bags to the next town, so we could enjoy the 7 kilometer hike to Tsumago. Both towns have closed their streets from traffic, have building restrictions, hide their electrical power lines, are protected by the government and are well-preserved.

I was a little worried at the beginning of the hike, because it was mostly uphill and the sun was unrelentingly beating down on us. The first 30 minutes we were exposed to the sun, but then the path started meandering into the woods, through small towns and by crystal clear, ice cold rivers.

As we were walking, we came to a hamlet with maybe 3 or 4 houses along the road. One of the houses had vegetables cooling in a bin with ice cold river water running over it. There were actually a few cooling bins like this one in Magome and Tsumago. This particular bin had a sign over it saying how much to put in the can, along with some salt and a knife for a quick snack for weary travelers and neighbors.

We saw lots of roofs with big rocks on them just like the pictures above. It must have been the roofing technique of that time.

The hike was the perfect amount of time! After 3 hours of sweating and sun, we were so excited to make it to Tsumago. It was nicer than Magome. There were many souvenir shops and tourists in both towns, but Tsumago seemed untouched by modern times and so it had a more authentic feeling. As we walked through we could see craftsman making hats and wooden boxes and there were beautiful buildings.

We headed for minshuku Daikichi. After a bit of a rest, we went to the dining room to eat our already prepared, set dinner that was part of our accommodation.

Dinner was an adventure in and of itself....raw horse meat, which I had tried a couple of years ago and had sworn I would never eat again. It was actually delicious.

And to top off the experience, inago or crickets. I had to drink a lot of beer and take a mouthful of rice before I put one of these little critters in my mouth. It was sweet and crunchy. That's got to be one of the most difficult things I've ever eaten next to natto (fermented, rotten, gooey soybeans) raw horse and raw chicken. Julian mentioned that at least they were free-range and organic.

After dinner, we took a stroll through town. All of the tourists had left, so it was extremely quiet and peaceful with soft lighting. We came upon a local restaurant/bar and stopped in for a drink with some of the locals. We practiced our Japanese and found out that the crickets in this area of Japan are particularly fat and juicy! It was a great way to end our long journey.

The next day, we headed to Matsumoto...to be continued...

Here is a link to our photo album, 08 summer vacation.

Happy New Year!

2008-01-12T13:09:00.001+09:00

I visited America over the winter holidays. My dad is doing much better. His speech is becoming clearer and he can walk a little. He is receiving wonderful care and has speech and physical therapy five days a week.

The nursing home is only five minutes from my parent's house, so I walked there everyday. We made dinner a couple of times and brought it to the home. We also took dad to a nearby restaurant and went out on walks. My dad is working hard. He has a long road ahead of him to learn basic life skills, however, I'm very optimistic!

In other good news, my beautiful niece, Ida Maria Gensler was born on December 17th. She is named after both of her maternal great grandmothers. I visited her and my energetic nephew, Jonah in New York City. I was very happy and content to have this precious little girl sleeping in my arms.

Below: Kirsten AKA mom and Ida

Below: Jonah playing with a shinkansen. Jonah is very active, so most of my pictures of him are blurry. It was tons of fun to play with him. I forgot how fun it was to play hide and seek!

Below is Andy, Marc and Jonah all bundled up for the freezing cold of NYC.

I knit Ida a sweater. I can't believe it fits her. It looked way too small when I was working on it.

I had a lot of strange moments in the US. There were many things I forgot about in America. Most of it was minor, such as taxi doors not automatically closing, large food portions, being able to understand everything happening around me, and remembering to tip. Overall, it was great to see my family and friends. I saw many movies, ate lots of great food and enjoyed being in America. My only regret was that we didn't have time to go to Phoenix.

I kept forgetting my camera. I wish I had a picture of the jumbo slice of pizza we had one night. It was probably the same size as an entire regular pizza in Japan. Below: My mom with a huge salad; Julian, Dan and Naomi

It's good to be back in Japan. We are down to our last 8 months! Happy New Year!

It's Been A While and the Philippines

2007-11-28T23:18:00.000+09:00

I’ve been absent from my blog for so long that I’m not sure where to begin. I guess that’s always the problem when you are a slacker. So, I guess I’ll start from my last blog. I see this as a diary of sorts that I can refer back to for hopefully years to come, so I might as well move forward in an orderly way. Plus pictures are worth a thousand words, so no need to get too detailed.

August 2nd - 19th - Philippines
As some of you know, I went to the Philippines for almost 3 weeks with Julian and our good friend, Chelsea. The Philippines has over 7000 islands. It’s all about white sand beaches, swaying palm trees, crystal clear water, fruit cocktails in coconuts AND I can’t forget the many massages on the beach, waterfalls, motorbike rides, tarsier monkeys, scuba diving (not by me), jeepneys, a python snake, transvestites, chicken adobo, chicken fights, mangoes, seafood, hammocks, smiles and so on...

Somen Fun

2007-09-24T10:14:00.000+09:00

July 21st

Somen is a very thin wheat flour noodle usually served cold in the summer. It is usually dipped in some tsuyu sauce (a light soy dipping sauce) with ginger and scallions. Sometimes, cold cucumbers and nori (seaweed), fried egg, and shitake mushrooms are in the somen as well. Somen is made near Himeji in the town of Tatsuno.

My friend, Masae told me that the Somen Association was having a somen festival in downtown Himeji so I was really excited to go. I have wanted to try Flowing Somen or "Nagashi Somen" for a long time. There is a long piece of bamboo cut in half and then a hose with cold water is flowing down the bamboo and noodles are placed in the bamboo.

As the noodles flow down the length of the bamboo, we had to try to catch the noodles with our chopsticks and then eat it up.

Somen is yummy!!

Carol and Jo

2007-09-23T17:41:00.000+09:00

July 3rd - 18th

In July, Julian's mom, Carol, and sister, Joanna, visited us. We were super excited for their visit because we miss them a lot and it was their first trip overseas.

I picked them up at the airport and couldn't stop staring at Joanna. I met Joanna when she was 8 years old. The last time I saw her was when she had just graduated from high school and now she's a college girl. She's beautiful and really smart.

I had to work during their visit but I was able to take a couple of long weekends and day trips with them. They went to Himeji Castle and Garden, Kobe, Osaka, Koya-san, Kurashiki, Kyoto and Nara.

Here is a slide show of their visit.

Yukata Matsuri 2007

2007-09-19T17:39:00.000+09:00

June 22nd - 23rd

I went to the Yukata Matsuri last year. I posted about all of the great food booths, games, beautiful yukatas (cotton robes), and other stuff I saw but I didn't wear a yukata.

This past year, Julian and I dressed in yukatas. It was just as much fun as last year, but this time we got to be apart of the excitement.

The festival is for 2 nights. I didn't dress up the first night, but as I was walking around I ran into some of my Junior High School students. They are so cute!

The second day, all of the teachers got ready together at our apartment building. Some Japanese friends came over to help us get dressed. It may look like a simple robe, but it's not that easy to put on. There's a lot of adjustments and the obi or sash takes a bit of time to tie properly.

We fooled around a bit in our yukatas.

Then we all headed downtown to eat yummy festival food, play games and people watch! Julian and Jason with their game prizes; and Tsutomu, Sato, Hisashi, Masae and us.

Afterwards we went to a ramen shop for our friend's good-bye party. We lit sparklers there and had a great time drinking, singing and eating.

Here's a slide show of the festival!

Shiraishi Island

2007-09-19T16:48:00.000+09:00

June 15th - 17th

In the middle of June, we went to Shiraishi Island, which is a small island in Okayama prefecture about 3 hours southwest of Himeji. We went with some of the Australian and American teachers from my residence. We stayed in a beautiful villa that could accommodate 10 people, which included a communal kitchen, dining room, living room and deck overlooking the ocean.

In order to attract more foreign tourists, Okayama Prefecture had the genius idea of building 5 houses/villas around the prefecture in lesser known areas. A couple are at the beach, one has an onsen and the other two are in the mountains. It's really inexpensive at around $25 per night. Okayama International Villas only allows foreigners to book accommodations.

I have visited three of the villas: Shiraishi Island, Ushimado and Takebe (2 beach villas and an onsen villa). Shiraishi Island is really wonderful. It's a very small island. There are no traffic lights, no movie theaters, no shops, 2 or 3 very small food markets and few restaurants and bars. It takes maybe 45 minutes to an hour to bike around the entire island.

We hung out at the villa for a bit and then headed to the beach to play. Below: Tina, Chelsea and Marie on the deck; and everyone walking to the beach.

The girls met some cute boys, we went kayaking and hung out.

After a day at the beach and kayaking we went back to the villa to clean up, have a few drinks and enjoy the view from our deck.

We paid for a restaurant to serve up a beach bbq with meat, fish, veggies, rice and drinks! Julian was grill master. It was heaps good!

We had to finish by 10pm, so we stumbled back to the villa and played jenga and drank more. Marie took this awesome action shot of the jenga game blocks falling.

The next day, we made breakfast.

Afterwards, some of us went hiking, biking or just relaxed on the beach. Jules, Tina, Marie and I hiked to the top of some mountains where we had a beautiful view of the ocean. Julian found himself and became a zen master.

You can see more pictures in my photo album.

Philippines

2007-08-20T01:08:00.001+09:00

I've been in the Philippines for the last 3 weeks! I wanted to write, but I couldn't log in. Anyway, I'm back from vacation and ready to start blogging again. Stay tuned for more updates. Hope everyone is having a great summer!

Trial Week

2007-07-31T12:50:00.000+09:00

During the first week of June, the 2nd year (8th grade) junior high school students had "Trial Week" or in Japanese, "Turaiaru Weeku". During trial week the students go to various businesses and work there for one week. Students work at hospitals, nursery schools, restaurants, grocery stores, department stores, car shops, museums, libraries, hardware stores, city trash pickup, Japan Self-Defense Forces, etc.

I got to visit the students many times. Most of them seemed excited and happy to be working. I think it's a great idea. Ninth grade students in Japan have to start thinking about what they want to study and do with their lives, so they can apply to high school. I don't know what I would have done if I had to figure out my future at age 14 or 15. I'm curious to know what would you have selected at age 14 or 15 - please comment.

Kyoto Take 2

2007-07-29T10:22:00.000+09:00

I went back to Kyoto with Naomi and Dan for the day. On the 21st of every month, there is a big flea market at Toji Temple with lots of wares, antiques, hand made work and food.

Afterwards we went to my favorite shrine, Fushimi Inari. It has thousands of red torii gates lining a 4km hike up a mountain.

Exercise Machine - Yee Haw

2007-07-28T14:06:00.000+09:00

On our way home from Koyasan, we stopped in Osaka to pick up something from an electronics store. I showed Naomi and Dan the Joba Exercise Machine. It simulates a horseback ride to strengthen your abs and thighs. When you ride this gyrating machine, it's not only good exercise, it's also very pleasurable.

Monks on a Mountain

2007-07-28T11:32:00.000+09:00

My second weekend with Danomi, we went to Koyasan, a sacred mountain in Wakayama prefecture about 2 hours by train from Osaka. It was another destination that was on the top of my list. Unfortunately, Julian was sick so he wasn't able to join us. Even though it was the middle of May, it was cold in Koyasan. We wore jackets and scarves.

The train ride from Osaka to Koyasan is beautiful. It's a slow ride through the mountains. Once we arrived at the bottom of Koyasan, we had to take a cable car to the top. It's as steep as a roller coaster and is a very slow ride up but it only takes about 5 minutes to get to the top.

Koyasan is the headquarters for the Shingon Budhism sect. The priest Kukai or Kobo Daishi founded the place twelve centuries ago in the early 800's. Situated on top of the mountain is a complex of temples, halls, pagodas and statues. There are over 120 temples and at least half of them provide lodgings and vegetarian meals for visitors and pilgrims. We stayed at Rengejo-in temple.

We got there late in the afternoon, so we decided to walk around for a bit before dinner.

At the temple lodging, we went to an evening meditation in their shrine. I can definitely cross off Buddhist monk from my list of possible future jobs. The meditation was about 45 minutes long, but I was so happy and excited to be in Koyasan that I couldn't stop thinking or quiet my mind, so I shifted a lot.

Dinner was included with our stay at the temple. Koyasan is known for their vegetarian cooking and sesame tofu. It was delicious. There were many young monks in training helping around the temple, serving us food and drinks and preparing our rooms.

The mother of the chief priest, stopped by during dinner and told us about herself, a bit of history about Koyasan and the temple. She is 87 years old and had lived in that temple for over 60 years. She talked about the war years, not having a lot of food and the temples being in disrepair. She also talked about the history of Koyasan and monk life. Before the war she had studied English literature at a university in Tokyo, but she moved back to Koyasn when the war broke out. Her English was excellent.
After dinner, we took a long hot bath and went to bed early. The next morning, we got up for the 6am morning prayer service. I was told that sometimes, the head priest translates the service into English, if there's enough of a demand. There were a group of around 30-40 Japanese pilgrims staying at the temple, so they conducted the service in Japanese. It was really amazing. I've never had an opportunity to attend a Buhddist prayer service, so I really enjoyed the experience. Mostly we sat, watched and listened to the monks and priest chant. The shrine is dark and has many candles and ornaments. It's really beautiful.

After we checked out of the temple, we headed to the cemetery. There are anywhere between 200 to 500,000 graves in the cemetery which is in a cedar forest. It's a really beautiful and quiet setting. We walked around for 2 to 3 hours.

At the end of the cemetery there is a temple with thousands of lanterns and behind there is Kobo Daiashi's grave or as I've heard and read his eternal meditation place. We were not allowed to take pictures. There were a lot of pilgrims praying by his resting place.

In another part of the cemetery, there were graves from companies such as Nissan, a famous coffee brand place and this rocket ship, but I'm not sure who is buried there or the purpose of a corporate grave. Some even have boxes where you can leave your business card.

Koyasan is well worth a visit especially if you are interested in getting a glimpse into monastic life.

Kobe, It's Beefy

2007-07-21T09:24:00.000+09:00

Naomi was insistent that we go out for Kobe Beef. Kobe is only a 40 minute train ride from Himeji but it had never occurred to me to go out for Kobe Beef. I can’t believe I never thought of it. Then again, at least half of our visitors if not more have been vegetarians.

So, what’s the big deal about Kobe beef? I was thinking the same thing, until I took my first bite of the delectable, melt in your mouth like butter deliciousness. It was soooooo good!

Kobe beef is from a special breed of Japanese cow. The way the cows are cared for is also suppose to be important , massages, beer, fresh food, etc. It's all about how the beef is marbleized with a mixture of meat and fat throughout.

We went to a fancy teppenyaki (cooking on an iron griddle) style restaurant called Wakkoku and had the meat cooked in front of us with vegetables. It's a pricey meal at about $85 per person, but you can reduce the costs by going at lunch. It's certainly worth a special visit if you enjoy beef.

Our chef gave us pointers on how to eat it. There were different sauces and dips, salt, pepper, mustard, soy sauce, garlic, etc. It was really awesome! We were so full when it was all done that we were in pain, but we enjoyed every bite!

Syonara Typhoon Man-Yi

2007-07-15T21:06:00.000+09:00

A quick update about the typhoon. It veered south, so we had a lot of rain while we were walking through Kyoto on Saturday but it was all clear by Sunday.

Typhoon Man-Yi is Coming

2007-07-14T07:59:00.000+09:00

Another interruption in my catch-up blogging to talk about what's happening now. Typhoon Man-Yi is on its way. It hit Okinawa yesterday and is making its way towards Kyushu. They are predicting that it will come our way very soon. I'm hoping it will veer north or south.

Julian's mom and sister are here right now and we've been having a great time with them. It's been raining almost everyday but I think they are enjoying it because it's so hot and dry in AZ. Rain is great, but a typhoon, well that's just ridiculous!

Kinosaki - Onsen Heaven

2007-07-13T10:47:00.000+09:00

I had been wanting to go to Kinosaki for a long time. It’s a town along the Sea of Japan that’s famous for their onsens (hot springs). It's about 2 hours north of Himeji.

Usually Japanese people visit Kinosaki in the winter for a big crab meal and some serious onsening. Julian and I discovered long ago that it’s much better to visit places and do things that are out of season. It’s not crowded, it’s less expensive and it’s really fun!

Even though it was May, it was still cool at night and warm in the day, so we didn’t mind being in swelteringly hot steamy onsens. It’s one of the most hedonistic experiences one can have – seriously, it’s out of control relaxation and fun - nonstop soaking, eating and sleeping.

I picked a nice ryokan (Japanese style inn), Tsukimotoya Ryokan for us to stay. They provided us with traditional yukatas (cotton robes) and geta (wooden flip-flops). There are 7 onsens around town, so people walk around town in their yukatas and geta and visit various hot springs. And yes, in case you are wondering, we were naked under our robes – woot!

After we had checked into our ryokan, we decided to go to an onsen before dinner. We had paid for the stay including dinner and breakfast. We selected an onsen near our ryokan. Onsens are almost always divided into a separate men’s and women’s area. So it was nice to be with Naomi and Dan because none of us had to be alone.

I don’t know if I have ever written about going to onsens. Luckily we all love onsens. You must be naked, onsens are not for washing only soaking, you must clean yourself in the shower before going into an onsen to soak. Always rinse off all of your soap before entering the onsen! If you relax, you will soon get over the fact that everyone is naked including you and it's really ok because all you can do is relax and melt into the water.

Dinner was enormous. It was a big mix of delicious food, including crab, vegetable and shrimp tempura, nabe, sashimi, tofu, pickled vegetables, fish, shellfish, assorted appetizers, melon, meat pudding, rice, miso soup, beer and saki. As the meal progresed more food was brought out and served.

This was shellfish that wasn't very appetizing.

After dinner we passed out for a couple of hours and then dragged ourselves out of bed to endure more hot spring goodness.

This time we selected an onsen that had an outdoor bath. The setting was amazing because it was against this backdrop of a huge waterall, so we could soak and when we got hot we could lounge on the rocks next to the waterfall. There were fresh squeezed juice bars around town, so we could rehydrate after our bath.

We slept really well that night.

In the morning we had the difficult task of eating breakfast. We were all still full from the night before but we persevered.

Afterwards, we went to one more onsen. We then shopped and hopped on a train back to Himeji.

Here's the photo gallery.

Naomi + Dan = Danomi

2007-07-12T17:02:00.000+09:00

In May, my wonderful friend from college, Naomi and her cool husband, Dan visited us for a couple of weeks. We hadn’t seen them in about four years, so we were really excited to spend time with them.

I met them in Osaka. I almost went to the wrong airport, which would have been disastrous, because I would have had to travel 2 hours from one airport to the other. Luckily I discovered my mistake early on and went to the correct airport. YAY!!! They are so awesome - I love the above picture of them.

We made our way to our hotel in central Osaka. We went out for Oknomiyaki for dinner and met up with Julian . We walked around Osaka to experience the big lights, sounds and energy of the city.

We stopped in at one of our favorite bars, Umiya and headed back to the hotel. Below: hotel issued PJs; I pity the fool that don't go to school (settle down Dan).

This is a strange advertisement that was in our hotel elevator.

The next day we headed to Kyoto and rented bikes. I love biking and I love Kyoto, so biking around Kyoto is one of my favorite activities. We headed to Kiyomizu-dera Temple, a world heritage site and a spectacular temple. It’s on the side of a mountain with a huge wooden deck/porch overlooking the trees.

There’s also a fountain which is from a waterfall. It’s said that if you drink the water you will have health and longevity. There was a long line of people, so we decided to risk it and not drink the water.

There’s also another lucky spot at the temple, if you walk a straight line between two rocks with your eyes closed and make it to the other rock then you will find love. We already found love, so we didn’t check it out…awwwwwwwww….

We went out to an izakaya restaurant that night and then...

...to a bar, where we wore our sunglasses at night

Sunday, Danomi went to Sanjusangen-do Temple, which has about 1,000 statues.

Then we met up and went to the Kyoto National Museum. The museum has a massive collection of pottery and sculpture and ancient objects from Kyoto and around Japan.

Next on our agenda, the steamy town of Kinosaki...to be continued...

If you want to see more pictures go to my photo gallery or you can click on Taube's Photo Albums in the links section on the right side of my blog.

Kibi Bike Trail 2

2007-06-30T07:12:00.000+09:00

In the beginning of May, it was “Golden Week”. Golden week is a week with three national holidays in a row. Many Japanese people take time off during that week, so it’s a really busy time of year to travel in Japan. We opted to stay in Himeji since our friends from the US would be visiting us the following week.

Besides hanging out in Himeji and going to Spiderman 3, we organized another bike ride on the Kibi Bike Trail near Okayama. We went last November for my birthday with our friend, Chelsea. This time there were 15 of us, a biker gang taking over the country-side of Okayama. Here are some pics of our adventures with our mamchati biker hogs.

On the train to the trail - Me, Jane and Steve; Jules and Leon; John, Bill, Jono and Jodi

Picking out our bikes.

Picnicing - Jodi and Jono loving American style PB&J, but I still can't handle vegimite; Karen and Bill

Sites we saw along the way.

Azaleas

Wedding Bells

2007-06-28T18:25:00.000+09:00

Our friends, Aiko and Iken, got married on April 15th. It was a beautiful wedding! They had the ceremony in their garden. The forecast had predicted rain that weekend, but luckily it was a perfect day.

It was Miki and Ken Iwata's daughter, Aiko, that got married. Miki is Julian's "pottery partner". The Iwata's are a very friendly, community oriented, artistic and dynamic family. We were honored to be invited to the wedding. They have made us feel so welcome in their home and in their lives.
What was truly wonderful about the ceremony and the party was the thought that went into every aspect of the event.

Miki made Aiko's beautiful wedding dress. Aiko's dad, Ken, made special woodblock prints of Aiko, Iken and their new house with two doves to give to the guests. It's traditional for the couple to give gifts to the wedding guests. Miki also made 150 ceramic cups to give to the guests and to toast the couple!

A lot went into putting together the wedding. Her parents making gifts and musical performances and speeches by family and friends. Even setting up for the wedding was great. Julian worked on cleaning the studio for a couple of days and I lent a hand with some of the food preparation as well. It was really nice to be apart of it all.

At the end of the reception Aiko and Iken sang a song for us. Aiko is gorgeous! Congratulations you two!!

By the way, I'm trying out the above photo slide show which is embedded into this post. Please comment and let me know if it works and if you like it.

Himeji Elections

2007-06-26T07:00:00.000+09:00

Elections were towards the end of April. It was a fairly quiet day but the weeks leading up to it were noisy! On some street corners there were groups of supporters and a candidate in matching color clothes and head bands bowing and waving at people and using megaphones and microphones to tell us to vote for them. They were mostly in cars with loudspeakers blaring and waving at people with white gloved hands. The worst part was the continual noise from the cars especially on an early weekend morning. It was fortunate that I didn't understand most of what they were saying.

Unlike Arizona, candidate posters were designated to one bulletin board in each community.

It's Rainy

2007-06-25T17:43:00.000+09:00

An interruption in my belated blogging for some current blogging.

Firstly, I haven't posted a pic of my adorable nephew Jonah in a long time. Here he is on father's day. He will be 2 in August.

I also wanted to let you know that “tsuyu" or rainy season started on the official day of June 14th. I don’t know why its the official day, especially because I thought it had already started a month ago. We have had some rain and some dark ominous days. I don’t mind the rain, especially coming from Arizona. One of the teachers in our building, Tina hates the rain. Tina you should make some teru teru bozu dolls so you can keep the rain away. A teacher told me today that Japan wouldn't get too much rain this year.

This picture shows off my dorky rain jacket and pants suit for biking to school. Unfortunately, I'm too uncoordinated to use an umbrella and ride my bike at the same time. The rain suit is ugly and hot, but it keeps me dry - sort of. Actually, by the time I arrive at school, I'm dripping with sweat, so it kinda defeats the point.

Hiking Mt.Masui

2007-06-23T08:09:00.000+09:00

My school is at the bottom of Mt. Masui. In April, the teachers invited me to go hiking with the 1st year students. I've been to Mt. Masui a couple of times for a hike and for a festival. The plan was to hike the mountain, draw some pictures of nature and eat lunch. It was a good opportunity for me to get to know all 300, first year students, plus it was a ton of fun!

Cherry Blossoms

2007-06-18T23:31:00.000+09:00

I have many blogs to catch up on since Tokyo, which was back in March. I've been a slacker with this blog business, but I am determined to catch up. Kudos to the Australian teachers for motivating and inspiring me to blog more frequently. To the right of my blog in the "Other Japan Blogs" links section, I have all of their blogs listed, which they update weekly. They are “heaps cool", so you should check out their blogs as well.

When we were in Tokyo the cherry blossoms were in full bloom, so we were surprised when we returned to Himeji to find that the flowers hadn’t blossomed yet. They made their appearance the first week of April and lasted for about two weeks. We went to many “hanami” (flower viewing) parties, both day and night during that period. I think the cherry blossoms look like puffballs of pink cotton candy. Here are some pictures from just a couple of events.

Night Hanami - freezing but beautiful and lots of food

Hanami Festival - Masae & Tsutomu; Tottori City Mascot (Tottori is a Sister City of Himeji and is north of Himeji on the Japan Sea)

I'm next to the Mayor of Tottori, next to him is some guy who just randomly joined us for our photo shoot and next to him is the Mayor of Himeji, Tina, Lucy, Karen, Jodi, Chelsea, Marie and Lauren.

Lots of sake

Festival - Lion dance up a ladder; Taiko drumming with some of my Sugano JHS students

Beautiful Kyoko and John

The Fast and the Furious - Hanami Madness

2007-06-10T12:30:00.000+09:00

Saturday was our last day in Tokyo. We got up early to go to Tsukiji Market, the huge and famous Tokyo fish market. Everyday 2,300 tons of fish and seafood arrive from all over the world. There's an auction that starts around 5 in the morning. Afterwards you can go to the local market and eat fresh sushi!

We walked through the hustle and bustle of the market. There’s a lot of activity so you have to be careful not to get run over by a fast moving truck and other such seafood obstacles.

Next, we headed to the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo. The building alone was a piece of art. We saw a great show of a Japanese artist and his work starting from the 1950s to the present, their permanent collection and another show of four emerging artists.

We went to the Tokyo Bay area to get some Manju, Tokyo’s version of oknomiyaki.

Then we went on a riverboat ride to eat an amazing meal, drink a lot, see the cherry blossoms, and sing karaoke. We also celebrated Julian's birthday again!

Then to Shinjuku for our final night of drinking. Julian took us to Golden Gai, the dive bar area in Shinjuku, which I had mentioned in a previous blog. We went to the coolest little hole in the wall bar with flamenco music, cave like walls and cool locals.

Unfortunately, we couldn't stay there very long because we had to catch the last train home. As we were walking through Shinjuku, we ran into these cute girls that let me take their picture. Maybe they work at a "maid cafe".

In a city that is open all night, I can't understand why the trains stop between midnight and 1am. It was such a bummer to have to get the train, but it was good we went back, because we had to leave the next morning at 7am to catch our bus to the airport.

We flew back to Himeji the next day. We did so much in one week, but I still feel like I could explore Tokyo for another 3 months or longer. Each area of Tokyo is like a mini-city or community, so there’s always tons to explore.

Stepping off the train into Himeji I was in a complete daze. I couldn’t believe how few people were walking the streets of Himeji on a sunny Sunday afternoon. But then I realized I was just comparing it to Tokyo’s density.

In regards to the Kanto (Tokyo area) versus Kansai (Osaka area) fight, to be honest, I didn’t see that much of a difference. Tokyo is a bigger city and there are just so many people that I think sometimes, people have to be rude or fast about helping you and people do knock into you and you get pushed around more as well, but to be honest, to me it’s Japan and it feels just as Japanese as any other place. I love it all!

The Fast and the Furious- Sumo Style

2007-05-19T08:00:00.000+09:00

Friday, as we headed into Tokyo to Roppongi Hills we got a little lost and took some pictures of some cool signs and places along the way.

In many areas of Tokyo, there are many no smoking signs posted on the sidewalks. People aren't allowed to smoke outside, but I don't think it's only because it's unhealthy. I think it's also that it's so crowded that people get hurt, check out the sign below.

After our little adventure, we made it to the Roppongi Hills development to visit the 54 story, Mori Building. The Mori Building has lots of shops, restaurants, offices, an art museum, and an observatory. We bought tickets for the observatory and art museum, which are on the top floors of the building.
It was fun looking out at the city after we had romped around for a week. We could see all of the areas we had walked and been to from up, up high. It’s really an amazing city!
We ate lunch at the little café and they had pillows and little tables set up so people could sit on the floor against the windows in an alcove and see the view. Look at the background of the picture you can see a short table and some pillows in the window. Also, my hamburger is a "dragon burger"- can you see its face?
Afterwards, we met up with Yukiko and Honda-san and headed to Tokorozawa to eat Champon, a meal for sumo wrestlers. It’s basically nabe (hot stew pot) but with every kind of meat and vegetable possible, big enough for a sumo wrestler. Actually, a former wrestler owns the restaurant. We also ate the most delicious appetizers of chicken wings, eggplant and mochi potato pancake.

Yukiko found out about a nearby jazz club in Tokorozawa, so we had a couple more drinks and then headed home.

The Fast and the Furious - Furiouser

2007-05-03T20:10:00.000+09:00

Okay, so I couldn't think of a better title for this blog, so I went for bad English. That's right, I'm furiouser! Aaaaarrrrrrhhhhh!!!

Thursday, I felt better. Me, Julian and Honda-san went to Ginza again to see some art galleries. We found one and from there we picked up a listing and went to a dozen small galleries. They were tiny, one room spaces in buildings usually on the upper floors with little signage and difficult to find. It was fun to run around and try to find as many as we could with the couple of hours we had.
Check out this thin, tall building.Afterwards, we met Yukiko again this time at Tokyo station. Tokyo station is in the center of the business and financial district of Tokyo and is an old 1920s brick building.
We walked around the area and Yukiko showed us where she use to work when she was a big corporate staff person in the financial world filled with high rollers and bosses that told her she had to dress more scantily, but then she moved onto her “slacker” life of jazz and booze ;-)

She took us to this great part of town, where there are lots of little restaurants under the train tracks. We went to a fantastic Thai restaurant that was in a tunnel under the tracks. Afterwards, we went out to a jazz club and then headed home.

The Fast and the Furious - Back in the Hood

2007-05-03T11:06:00.000+09:00

Wednesday, I was sick, so I went to the doctor. We relaxed at Honda-san’s all day and watched a movie. I ate a lot of cough drops.

That evening, we had plans to visit my old neighborhood of Sakura Josie and to hang out with our neighbors, the Shinos. The Shinos live across the street from my old house. Shino-san has three daughters that are close in age to my brothers, Akiko, Naoko and Yoko. Shino-san use to care for me and help my mom a lot. We spent time together almost everyday. Now, her daughters are married with children and live next to their mom. Shino-san lives in the same place, but it's been renovated into a modern house and our old house is still across the street.
Shino-san speaks no English, but she’s so energetic and fun and says whatever she thinks. Her two grandsons were cracking up the entire evening because she kept saying really funny stuff. She’s my Japanese grandma. I wish I could still speak Japanse so I could communicate with her more. Her daughters speak a lot of English so we had fun talking all night.

I enjoyed showing Julian my old house. I wish I had taken a picture. We were really lucky to live in Tokyo, in a beautiful house and to have wonderful friends in such a foreign place.

The Fast and the Furious - Ninja

2007-05-03T10:30:00.000+09:00

Tuesday, we headed to the National Museum of Modern Art in Kitanomaru Garden near the Imperial Palace with Honda-san. She had never been to the museum, so it was really fun to go together. I don’t know much about Japanese modern art, but the museum contained some famous pieces that Honda-san was really happy to see in person. I really enjoyed learning more about contemporary Japanese art.

We also went to the nearby Craft Gallery which is part of the National Museum of Modern Art for a retrospective of a famous Japanese ceramic artist. To the right is a picture of the craft gallery

Later that evening, we met up with Yukiko at a ninja themed restaurant called Ninja in Akasaka. It was even difficult to locate the secret entrance. We were lead by a ninja hostess to our table but we had to first travel through a dark rocky cave with rock stairs leading us up and down through twisting paths. We passed by waterfalls and walked over streams, but then our path was blocked by a broken bridge and the ninja had to say some secret password so a draw bridge could drop and we could cross. It was dark and cave like throughout the restaurant.

Usually in America, themed restaurants are kind of cheesy and the food can be mediocre, but this place was really fun and the food was delicious. It was a modern/fusion Japanese restaurant. Some of the more interesting dishes included: tofu with a ninja star cracker, a wooden box with smoke seeping out that contained an egg with a special gelitain salad in it, some conk shells that had a string that the ninja lit and sparked, and stone soup.

The stone soup was great, it was in a bamboo bowl that had lots of fresh vegetables. The ninja waitress brought over a really, really hot stone that she put into the bowl with the vegetables and meat. It cooked the soup and then she came back and pulled out that stone and added another one. It was delicious thai tom yum soup.

Later a ninja magician visited our table and preformed a couple of magic tricks. We had a blast! Here is Julian and one of our ninja waitresses in front of the restaurant. She's holding a scroll with our exit fortune. I think Julian was a ninja in a former life.

The Fast and the Furious - Electric and Meaty

2007-04-30T23:41:00.000+09:00

I love vacation especially the luxury of late breakfasts and coffee, which is what we did almost everyday.

Monday, we headed for Akihabara the famous electronics district of Tokyo. We just wandered around for a couple of hours. It’s similar to Osaka’s electronics area with building after building of every electronic gadget and accessory that you could ever want or dream to have- Julian's dream place. These are some cool buildings we saw along the way probably in Shinjuku.

We met up with Yukiko and her mom, Honda-san on Monday night. They took Julian and I out for his birthday to the 54th floor of the opera house to a wonderful “yaki-niku” (grilled meat) restaurant. On the way up in the elevator, we saw this cute sign...don't get your finger caught in the door.

We sat in our own little room with an amazing view of the city and wore aprons to prepare for the meat!

We ordered lots of meat and cooked it in the center of our table. It was delicious. I actually enjoyed tongue, but I still can’t eat liver.

We even ate raw beef!

Afterwards, we headed to Honda-san’s condo in Tokorozawa. It’s a suburb of Tokyo, which is about 40 minutes from Shinjuku by train. Her condo is really beautiful and convenient. Honda-san is so kind and wonderful. She spent time with us, helped us with our travel plans, joined us for some of our excursions, took care of me when I got sick and even made us breakfast everyday. She’s my Japanese mom. I love the Hondas!

The Fast and the Furious - Hung Over

2007-04-27T11:25:00.000+09:00

As you can imagine, we were pretty hung over on Sunday. We started our day at 1 or 2 in the afternoon. We met up with Yukiko for coffee. It was rainy and it was getting late so, we decided to go to the famous temple in Asakusa, Senso-ji.

Senso-ji’s southern entrace has a huge gate with a gigantic red paper lantern. After you enter through the gate, the long walkway leading towards the temple is packed with colorful souvenir shops. Within the grounds of the temple, there’s a beautiful pagoda, a really big bronze incense pot and some statues and other buildings.

Asakusa is an old area of Tokyo with many old shops and restaurants. We walked around the back streets for an hour and stopped in a restaurant for some comfort food, sukiyaki. We hung out for a couple of hours eating and drinking saki and beer.

Afterwards, Yukiko took us to a famous bar called, Kamiya that has been around since 1880. They brew their own special alcohol called “denkibran” (electric brandy). It was really strong and felt warm in your chest for a long time after you sipped it.

I was still tired from the previous night, but Julian decided to pop out for a couple of drinks. He explored a lot of places and found this really cool area in Shinjuku called “Golden Gai” filled with a jumble of 200 dive bars each the size of my closet. I was really happy for him, because he often tells me that the one thing he misses is the dive bars of Phoenix. Yes, we are still pinning for the Mecca, Bikini, and Emerald Lounges. More about “Golden Gai” in a later blog.

The Fast and the Furious - Julian's Birthday

2007-04-16T07:08:00.000+09:00

The next day, Saturday was Julian's birthday! we went to the famous area of Harajuku to Takeshita Street, where the kids dress up in crazy goth outfits and there are many funky boutiques and clothing stores.
Apparently, many of the kids sneak out of the house and change in public bathrooms. I wish I had gotten more pictures. The blurry picture below of the girls is from a department store ad, but it's how some people dress in Harajuku-so cute!
We asked a lot of questions as to why kids are dressing up this way. Is it a political statement? But it seems it’s mostly about fashion and about being different.
We headed to nearby Omotesando, a tree-lined boulevard with elegant and upscale shopping. Of course my favorite shop in the area is Kiddy Land, which has 5 or 6 stories of kids stuff. Japan is so full of cuteness. On every sign or product there’s always a cute character of some sort. I can’t get enough of it.
We also stopped at this shop.
After a hard day of shopping, we got some crepes at a fantastic French café, Le Bretagne. Then we headed back to the main drag and went to a fancy café for some coffee and people watching.
We headed to Shibuya in the early evening to people watch. There were thousands of people crossing the intersection every which way with cross walks that zig zag horizontally. There were more department stores, shopping, bars and nightlife along with huge TV monitors and screens, while music and sounds blared at us from all sides. Th photo below is also from the internet. We mostly took video and I don't know how to post videos up here yet. But this is exactly what we saw and walked through - a river of people!
Since we were in a huge city, Julian’s request for his birthday was to go to a Mexican restaurant. We are seriously starved for good Mexican food. We make it ourselves sometimes, but there’s nothing like going to a restaurant and ordering and eating all that you want! Yukiko made a late reservation at El Torito in Shinjuku, a chain restaurant that I’ve been to in Washington DC. It was the best Mexican food I’ve had in Japan. We got a big pitcher of margaritas, ate salsa, beans, guacamole, fajitas, and more. It was so delicious; we stuffed ourselves. I wish I could go there now!

Afterwards, we headed to Roppongi, a nightclub and bar area. We went to a bar that had a really bad rock band, stopped at a stand-up bar, called Azool, where the drinks were only 500 yen, and went to a nightclub called Muse at about 1 or 2 in the morning. It was a 2-story bar that had lots of little rooms and alcoves. There was a pretty good DJ in the basement, but no one was dancing. So, we hung out, wandered into different rooms, sat on a swing together, talked, drank and people watched. We took a cab home and finally went to sleep at about 5 or 6 in the morning! Happy Birthday Julian!

The Fast and the Furious - Tokyo Drift

2007-04-15T09:52:00.000+09:00

We finally visited Tokyo! It was our first visit since we arrived in Japan. Ever since we've moved here many people emphasize the differences between Kansai (Osaka area, where we live) and Kanto (Tokyo area). Japanese people often comment on the difference between language-dialect, food, attitudes, etc. It's kind of like the ongoing fight between Los Angeles and San Francisco or the West coast versus the East coast or the South versus the North. The picture on the right is from wikipedia.

This is a picture our friend Dain took when he was in Tokyo. His digital camera can take awesome panoramic shots. Even though I never saw the movie, I think it matches the title of my blog.

As most of you know, I grew up in Tokyo. I lived in Tokyo from age 3-8 and so I was really excited to show Julian the big city and for him to see my house and meet my friends and neighbors.

The first weekend we were there we stayed in the Star Hotel in Shinjuku. Shinjuku is in the heart of Tokyo. Everyday, at least 2 million people walk through the Shinjuku train station, which has over 60 exits. The station is a messy and confusing maze of three train lines that sprawl every which way. It's a mad house.

Our first afternoon, we wandered around Shinjuku. Shinjuku has so much, many large department stores, lots of little bars, restaurants and nightlife, including the red light district of northern Kabukicho and the interesting little road of Shomben Yokocho (piss alley) with little, dilapidated bars and small restaurants just off the main drag near the station. I read that the eastern part of Shinjuku was the inspiration for the movie, Blade Runner.

At all hours of the day there are thousands of people walking around. Three am in Shinjuku has the same amount of people as rush hour on a workday. It feels like Shinjuku is screaming at you with music, and people yelling from the fronts of stores, lights blinking and people, traffic and trains moving around you. It was really thrilling and energizing and crazy! The fun of any big city is wandering around and people watching and that's mostly what we did with our week. I don't have any good pictures, so here's a link to a photo of Shinjuku.

That evening, we met up with my friend, Yukiko. Yukiko was my best friend in preschool and is still a close friend. We went out to a delicious izakaya restaurant and then to the top floor of the Keio Plaza Hotel to see a jazz band and look at the city lights.

Graduation

2007-04-10T21:25:00.000+09:00

The Japanese school year is from April 1st through March 30th. Many changes happened during the end and the beginning of the school year. I’ll touch on the beginning of the school year in a later blog.

My 3rd grade students (9th graders) graduation took place in the middle of March. I missed it last year because I was sick, so I was really excited to go this year. It was held in the school gym and only the parents (mostly moms), PTA, staff, teachers and 2nd graders were present. I really loved the 3rd grade class. They had this really kind and gentle energy about them, which is interesting, because that was true at Sugano JHS, my other school from this past fall.

The principal was dressed in a tuxedo with tails.
All of the teachers wore black suits or dresses; none of the teachers wore a kimono, although sometimes teachers do wear them. There were some speeches from the principal and PTA and everyone sang the school song. The homeroom teachers called out each of their students’ names and each student stood up and yelled “hai” (yes).

The students had to stand-up, bow, sit-down and repeat this at least 20 times during the ceremony. It was impressive because they did this in perfect unison.
One of my favorite students, Eri gave the good-bye speech. She is really sunny, bright and enthusiastic. She wept throughout the entire speech. I couldn’t understand a lot of it but her heartfelt emotion really came through to me.

Later, the homeroom teachers stood in front of the class and were given flowers. At the end of the ceremony, as the teachers stood in front of their students, row by row, the students stood up, bowed and yelled out “arigato gozaimas” (thank you), and then marched out. Students, teachers and parents were crying and that’s when I completely lost it.
After the ceremony, the teachers, the 2nd grade students and parents lined-up on either side of the school terrace, a kind of pathway that leads to the exit of the school. The brass band played music as the 3rd graders and their teachers ceremoniously marched out of the school while we all clapped and cheered. Some of the 2nd graders were balling. It was really moving.
Unfortunately, my camera died and I didn’t have any extra batteries, so I didn't get any pictures of the exit procession or the picture taking session afterwards with many of my students and their parents.

I think in order to understand the emotion behind graduation; I need to explain the Japanese school system and the relationships among students and teachers further. In Japan, junior high school is required but high school is not. Students must take entrance exams to get into high school. They go to different high schools throughout Himeji or in another city or some choose to skip high school altogether and go straight to work. I think the Japanese junior high school graduation is similar to our American high school graduation because it might be the last time that the students get to spend time together.

It’s difficult to describe the relationship between the students and teachers and even among the students. The student/teacher relationship seems parental in nature. Students are very close to their homeroom teachers and to each other. Homeroom teachers make home visits, meet with the parents for conferences, provide moral/ethical instruction and help to guide the student through each school year.

Students don’t change classrooms; they spend all day in one classroom, which is their homeroom. Teachers visit the homerooms to teach various subjects. The students also eat lunch together in their homeroom and clean their homeroom during cleaning time. All school sports activities, music activities, competitive events and everything else during the school day is separated by homeroom.

Also, throughout junior high school, pretty much the same group of teachers works with the students for the 3 years. The students are at school from 7 or 8am to 5, 6 or 7 pm. They are there on the weekends and during vacations for club activities such as baseball, volleyball, kendo, band, art, etc. A big part of their life is at school. When I ask students what their hobbies or interests are, it usually centers on what they are doing at school. It’s like a second home. So you can imagine what it must feel like to graduate from junior high. It's a big step.

Congratulations to the Masui JHS and Sugano JHS class of 2007!

Another Year

2007-04-03T09:25:00.000+09:00

Well, it's official, we are staying for a third year. The Phoenix Sister Cities Program decided to allow the second year teachers to apply for one - third year position. I applied and I was accepted. We are staying in Himeji through at least August 2008. We are really happy!!!

Let's Make Happy Gomi!

2007-03-17T17:07:00.000+09:00

Gomi is a big part of my life in Japan. It’s funny that I haven’t written about my gomi experience so far. Gomi is pronounced like gome and it means trash in Japanese. I think it plagues every foreigner in Japan and we are all pretty loud about it. Perhaps secretly some Japanese people complain in private as well. Gomi is considered to be a civic duty and a great responsibility to your neighborhood and community. There’s a lot to remember in order to keep your gomi in order and even though I complain, I have enormous respect for the goal of a cleaner environment.

There are four kinds of gomi. Below is a picture of the huge schedule chart that's hanging on my fridge that helps me to remember when to take our various gomis out to the trash areas.
BURNABLE GOMI is kept in specially designated clear plastic bags and usually contains food, organic items, dirty containers that can’t be cleaned, etc. It gets picked up twice per/week.
CLEAN PLASTIC just like burnable gomi, is kept in a specially designated clear green plastic bag. Clean plastic is anything plastic such as plastic wrap, yogurt containers, and any container with this sign on it. It gets picked up once a week.
Everything is over-packaged in Japan, consequently we create a lot of plastic gomi. It’s common for food to be individually wrapped in plastic and in some sort of container and then put in a plastic bag for you to take home. For example, I bought a coffee to go and two pastries the other day, the coffee was put in a paper bag, the pastries were each individually put into small plastic bags and then all of it was put into a big plastic bag along with a plastic straw that was individually wrapped in plastic. I’ve bought batteries that are individually wrapped in plastic and then the package of 4 are wrapped in plastic or cookies that are individually wrapped and are in a plastic package and of course all of it is put into another big plastic bag….and that means we create a lot of gomi – especially plastic gomi.
PRETTY PAPER is kept in any kind of paper shopping bag. We call it pretty paper because when the building attendant explained it to us, he kept saying “pretty paper”. In Japanese, pretty and clean are the same word, so it was a mistranslation. It’s any kind of clean paper.
Finally there is “big gomi”…..

BIG GOMI is sorted and put out about twice a month. Big gomi must be sorted into bins provided by the community, it includes: cans, green, brown and clear glass, juice cartons which must be cut up, big plastic bottles, dishes/plates, light bulbs, batteries, detergent containers, cardboard boxes, magazines, newspapers, small appliances and big furniture and other items such as bikes, couches, book shelves, tables, chairs, etc. It’s fun to bike around on big gomi day/night and find stuff for your apartment.
We keep our clean plastic and big gomi in these really cute containers that Julian bought. It makes me happy.
In the morning, there are assigned gome monitors that are volunteers from the local community. They rotate the monitoring job monthly. The monitors make sure the gomi is appropriately sorted. Our community was kind enough to put English labels on the bin signs for us. Luckily, we don’t have to monitor the gomi in our community. I recently discovered that our building attendant monitors the gomi for us – thank you very much!
In almost every monthly teacher meeting, there’s some problem with our gomi, someone didn’t sort it properly, it was in the wrong bag, it was put out the wrong day, etc… It’s actually a bit of an emotional subject for people. When will we ever get it right and continue to get it right?

I was told that if the gomi is wrong then the processing factory has to stop and pull out the illegal item and then re-start which takes lots of time and adds work. And if the item gets through then it can emit harmful fumes/chemicals from being processed wrong. So, I try to keep that in mind when I’m feeling lazy about washing a container or putting it into the correct bag or some other boring task that goes along with keeping gomi correct.

One other observation, which many foreigners comment on, is that there are no public trash cans around Japan. They do have them in the train stations with separation holes for plastic, cans and burnable trash, but not just out on the street or in a park. I thought about that for awhile and couldn’t figure out why, especially when I sometimes see trash strewn in the canals, rivers or parks. Julian pointed out to me that it would cost a lot of money to pay people to sort public trash, so, if you create trash, you have to either bring it home or go to a train station.

It really makes you think about how much trash one person creates on a daily and weekly basis, especially when you become really intimate and knowledgeable about what you are throwing away.

When you come visit, I will put you to work, everyone should experience gomi, it’s part of daily Japanese life. Thank you Nikki! Let’s make happy gomi!

Let Me Count the Ways I Can Make Gohan

2007-02-16T18:34:00.000+09:00

During test week at my former Jr. High School, I went to the nearby Elementary School to teach some classes. The fifth grade class taught me how to make various rice dishes. The elementary school kids grew and harvested their own rice - so amazing. I would love to harvest rice. We made 8 different rice dishes. It was a blast! Here are the pics.
First, we had to thoroughly wash the rice. The rice needs to change color from white to a clear color. Then, of course cook the rice in an electric rice cooker.
We made onigiri or rice balls, but their actually shaped into a triangle. We made three different kinds of onigiri: pickled plums, seaweed and green pickled veggies in the center. Then we wrapped it with seaweed.

In all of the convenient stores and supermarkets you can buy one onigiri for about 85 cents. They usually have many different selections such as salmon, tuna, chicken, fish roe and with mayo,etc. They are healthy and quick! I love them! My favorite is pickled plum.
I made a sweet mochi type of desert. We pounded the rice and then shaped them into balls and then dipped them into sweet red beans and soy bean powder.
I made yaki onigiri (grilled rice balls). There's nothing in the center, but there's a soy sauce glaze brushed onto the rice ball and then we grilled it over the stove flame.
We pounded more rice and shaped it onto a chopstick into a long shape, like a popsicle. Then we grilled it and also brushed it with a soy sauce.
We also made a rice snack, which was my favorite. We pounded the rice and shaped it into thin flat discs and then grilled it with soy sauce as well.
Then the kids gave me all of their concoctions to eat. Luckily, I was able to share some of it, I couldn't eat all of that rice by myself. I really enjoyed this class. Even though everything was prepared a little differently, I have to admit, it all seemed like the same concoction just in different forms/shapes or with different dressings. It was fun and delicious!

Mochi Festival

2007-02-04T17:35:00.000+09:00

My last week at Sugano, there was a mochi festival (rice cake festival). Mochi is a traditional New Year's food in Japan. People from the community helped organize and prepare for the event. They made two big vats of miso soup and prepared the rice in a wood-fired stove.
The rice is pounded in either a stone or wood bowl with a big wooden hammer. Many of the students pounded the rice. I also got to pound the rice. As the rice is pounded a person sticks their hands in the bowl and turns the rice over so it can be pounded more. I was really nervous to watch and as I was pounding it as well, because I was afraid someone's hands would get smashed. I was really careful about it though and nothing bad happened.
Then the pounded rice is shaped into sticky balls and dipped into sweet red bean sauce and sweet soy bean powder.
The mochi and the miso soup were delicious!Mochi is actually a dangerous food. Each year, a handful of people choke on mochi and die. It's very gooey and can easily get caught in your throat if you swallow before chewing it properly.

You can see just how gooey it is in the picture below. The boys played a game where they each were chewing on one end of the mochi, pulling and stretching it and eating. I dont' think this is typical, they were just having fun, and I thought it was cool.

Potatoes

2007-02-04T12:04:00.000+09:00

I changed schools in January, and now I'm back at Masui JHS. It's the same school that I went to last year. It's really different from Sugano JHS, it's twice the size and it's an urban school very close to my house. I have a few blogs I still need to post about my experiences at Sugano.

I really enjoyed working at Sugano JHS and being in the country side. I was excited about the fact that the school has it's own plot of land for farming. They asked if I wanted to pick potatoes with the students and I jumped at the opportunity. About a month later the students built three bonfires in the school yard and we roasted them for an hour and then ate them. It was really fun and delicious. What school in America would let junior high kids build not one but three bonfires around their campus school campus?

Thanksgiving 2006

2006-12-30T12:45:00.000+09:00

Congratulations to my friend, Canada and her new husband, Kirby! They got married over Thanksgiving weekend in Mexico!

This year, we had a big pot luck thanksgiving dinner at Shirasagi Residence with 30 people.

A friend of a friend went to the Tokyo military grocery store and bought us 3 - 8 pound turkeys and 6 boxes of stove top stuffing.
Some of the teachers came to our room, so we could cook together.

Chelsea and Julian cleaning and playing with the turkeys.

Steve made vegetarian pasta.Karen helped me clean and cut carrots. She also made sweet potatoes.
Chelsea made a huge pot of mashed potatoes. I helped her peel 50-75 potatoes.
We deep fried three, 8 pound turkeys. Julian had to work that night, so he left as we started working on the 3rd turkey. Thankfully, our friend, John was there to help me. I don't like to work with boiling hot oil, so he was a huge help.

Here is our Thanksgiving buffet table. Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Birthday to Me

2006-12-29T15:06:00.000+09:00

I know this is a bit late, but now that I'm on vacation, I can catch up on my blogs. My birthday was on November 5th and it was fantastic! This is what Julian surprised me with for my birthday.
I wanted an ipod but I never thought I needed one. I was so incredibly wrong! My commuting experience to and from school became fun. I will go to another school in January which is a 15 minute bike ride from my house. I’m going to miss listening to music, news podcasts, knitting and reading books. I won’t miss getting up early, but I won’t get to use my ipod as much. I’ve even started knitting an ipod sock for it.

My birthday weekend was a three-day weekend and I took one extra day off to have four full days of relaxation and fun.

Friday, I went on a 15 km bike ride with Julian and our friend, Chelsea. The bike trail is near Okayama, which is about 1 hour from Himeji. We biked through rice fields, flower fields, neighborhoods and by temples. We were in the middle of nowhere. It was beautiful.

We stopped at one temple and happen to show up at their archery competition for high school girls. It was beautiful to watch. It's hard to describe but there's this quiet, peaceful moment before the arrow is shot and everyone hold's their breath. When the arrow is shot, it's really smooth and it flies really fast through the air and when it hits the target it makes this satisfying "thwack" sound and the on-lookers all cheer.
We had a nice, leisurely bike ride. We stopped mid-way and had a picnic of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, pringles, mekons, nuts and chocolate. It was such a great day! I definitely want to go on that bike ride again in the spring. As we drove into town to drop off our bikes, we saw this computer store
Friday night when we returned, we met up with about 10 friends at our local pub, Hosanas for some live music and drinks. It was Steve’s birthday too, so we got to celebrate together. After a few drinks at Hosanas, we got our karaoke on! I sang my favorite karaoke songs – My Sharona by The Knack and Take Your Mama Out by the Scissor Sisters.
It was Steve's birthday too.
Fortunately, I had no plans on Saturday. I stayed home all day in my pajamas and watched movies, slept, read books, knit and slept some more. I woke up in the middle of the day with a surprise apple pie from Allison. I LOVE ALLISON! Food is really the way to my heart- especially pie. I've never met a pie that I didn't like!
Sunday, I spoke to my family in the morning. My parents box of gifts had not arrived. After I hung up with them and about 30 minutes later the box came! YAY! I got books and money for our trip to Kyoto!

I totally forgot my camera- doh. So, from this point forward there are no more pictures, but I did put links below to the shrines, temples and places we visited.

Anyway, we headed for the ceramics festival in downtown Himeji. I ran into Gayleen and Rosie who bought me ice cream. We bought wine cups and tea cups and a tea pot. I was really happy with our purchases. There was also a flea market, so I was able to buy a coat and a sweater for 1 dollar.

Julian and I headed off to Osaka that afternoon. We needed to get our mini mac computer fixed. While the mac store fixed our computer, Julian suggested we go to dinner at a French restaurant near the apple store. It was an amazing French restaurant. We had a 6 course meal in which the chef selected what he served us. We had, oysters, scallops, steak, frois gras, cake, etc. and it was so very delicious! Thank you mom and dad!

We decided to stay in Osaka for the night. We originally were going to stay in a love hotel, but after walking around for 2 hours and researching our various options, we realized it didn’t seem all that exciting. Love Hotels are for young couples and for people having affairs that have no other place to get together. You can rent for 30 minutes, 4-5 hours or all night. The hotels look really interesting from the outside, kind of Las Vegas like – glitzy and fun. Then we would go into the lobby and look at the pictures of the rooms and they looked like regular, tacky hotel rooms but with karaoke. We did find one hotel that offered Hello Kitty, Winnie the Pooh and Mickey Mouse theme rooms, but it just looked really creepy to the both of us. So, we went to a standard business hotel.

The next day, we headed to Kyoto. Kyoto is my favorite city in Japan. So, I was really excited to go there for the day. We went to my favorite shrine, Fushimi Inari. The shrine has thousands of red tori gates that follow a 4km hike/walk on the mountain. We spent a couple of hours hiking through the woods. We had a beautiful lunch of soba and udon noodles on top of the mountain as well.

Then we headed to Sanjusangendo Temple. It’s a long temple with 1,001 statues and a beautiful buddha. It was nice to walk around this temple as well. I’ve been to both places before, but I really wanted to go with Julian.

I had such a great weekend! Thank you everyone for your well-wishes and love