Post Seven: sayonara!

Farewell to Japan! It has been the trip of a lifetime; now on to the second adventure!! I am headed for Australia by way of Singapore as of 7pm Japan time (5am EST). Wish me luck!

Post Six: French

Handless Masa? attempting to point at Tower of Terror

Monday we got up extra early and headed off to Dinseyland (no it was DisneySEA get it right, geeze…but Disney sea’s rides are all land rides…Indiana Jones temple, journey to the center of the earth…oh whatever). Anyway, Masa took me to Tokyo Disneyland(SEA!) it was indeed a whole new world (cue Aladdin music). The place is built to look like various locations around the world including Venice, Arabia, Cape Cod, and others. What a place, each ‘town’ is real and yet totally not real, they are all the perfect portrayals, so Venice without the beggars or noise, just the beautiful buildings (albeit they were not REAL Italian buildings) and the quiet waters. It did feel like we had jumped into a movie, kind of wanted to stay there actually, it all seemed so hunky-dory.

a brief high speed jet flight let me visit Italy that afternoon

Anyway, we went to get fastpass tickets (you can have one fast ticket at a time) so that Masa could have something to check, before going on some rides. We walked around the park and took pictures, and one kind woman offered to take a picture of the two f us. Now, she offered speaking in Japanese. Through my travels I have been taught a few words of this language so I replied “oui”…whoops, wrong language. My brain was apparently thinking “oh different language, respond in different language” wrong language brain, thanks, yes, French response to Japanese question. Perfect. I am sure every word was understood…how embarrassing. Oh well, we got the picture.

Taken by a willing non-french speaking volunteer

Later we had lunch before going on one of the rides that turns you in a loopdeloop…Masa decided that eating lunch before this was NOT good and that we should go on a littler ride to let our stomachs settle some before going on the big drop ride…so we headed to the Aquatopia…turns out this was a jerky, spinning ride. I was laughing my head off the entire time while Masa held on and suffered next to me. It was fun. To conclude our trip we went on the ‘tower of terror’. After waiting in line for a while (70 minutes during which we played ‘bagels’ and ‘5 minute mystery’. Yes, be proud Amirah and Erika). The name says it all and I will not elaborate. It did its job. Good way to end the visit and we left the park leaving the magic behind and going back to the real world. Yes the real world. I finally got to experience the pushers on the trains, absolutely packed, it was incredible. I think I had one inch of space in front of me, the rest of me was smashed up against other people as they packed tighter and tighter on the hour train ride home. I thought yes, it was perhaps not the most comfortable ride, but it was a cool experience and I feel it has augmented my Japan trip.

Post Five: Dinners

The church, this is a small alley that connects the the outside large street, one would never know that this building was here, but for the green spire.

So far it is hard to believe I have been here for over a week now! I would like to say that while I am of course enjoying our day-trip excursions immensely, I am also having a great time at the Takahashi house. Masa’s parents Tomona and Shu are pleasant, fun, and just all around wonderful people. I have been eating the most scrumptious food and enjoying some good conversation about life in Japan among other things. I accompanied Tomona to her Church in the downtown area Sunday morning. I was unable to understand the service of course, seeing as it was in Japanese; however I could follow along somewhat in the hymns with English titles and I had an English/Japanese New Testament. The service itself was similar in many ways to a typical protestant service in America, with some differences of course: birthdays were announced but then the birthday…ee… would speak a bit about their year, the sermon was very long, but one thing I liked a lot was that everyone SANG! The organ was very quiet and the congregation small, but everyone was singing loudly enough that the room was filled. It was a very nice surprise and change from what I am used to in America in that respect.

The rest of the afternoon was spent as a lazy Sunday should, a relaxing lunch, some TV, then a late afternoon run past city buildings and rice paddies under clouds that threatened of rain.

Dinners have been very varied and both enjoyable and fascinating experiences. I have had so many different dishes at the Takahashi household that it is difficult to keep track of all the many flavors, names, and types of meals. At the house I have had: curry rice (a very common dish sort of the macaroni and cheese equivalent),  shish kebob chicken with seaweed and spam and ginger and soysauce and white pickles and all manner of other things that you could pick and choose from to wrap in seaweed and rice. Shabu-Shabu, which is a dish where there is a pot of cooking mushrooms, cabbage, fishcakes and other wonderful surprises, then you add your own meat, cabbage, mushrooms and it cooks then you take what you want and put it over rice with other condiments such as soysauce or ginger or tomatoes. I have also had a stew with fried rice, and lastly but certainly not leastly I have had what is called Nato.

Nato requires its own introduction hence I will give it all of the royalties it deserves. I was told of this dish at the dinner table on Sunday night, it is amazingly delicious. I was then told that apparently Nato was “rotten beans”. Needless to say this did not make me particularly thrilled and I was then reassured that no no it was not rotten, we searched for the right word and found fermented seemed to fit better. Hence Nato is fermented soybeans. Slightly better, I suppose wine is from fermented grapes so why not soybeans as fermented? The next night I was treated to my first taste of this Nato. They smelled like a slightly used tennis ball…not a good start, mixed with mustard and soysauce I was given my first bit to try. I discovered that they tasted pretty good, not as starchy as beans they had a rich almost meaty flavor similar to tempeh. Thus my Nato experience was concluded with two more small portions and a picture of proof that an American woman can indeed like Nato. Bonus! Apparently Nato also makes on more beautiful, who knew, the secret the good looks of this family lies in fermented (not rotten!) soybeans.

Other wonderful dinner conversation included tales of mini-Masa’s exploits, the romantic union between a farmer and a samuri, stories of a soon to be rugby legend, and lots of laughter and smiles.

Post Four: TOKYO!

February 4^th 

The Idaho Burger

TOKYO! Grandpa Dennis you would be proud of me, I had Japanese McDonalds today! There is a special called “the Big America” series which runs from early January to mid March, there are four burgers and this month was the “Idaho Burger”. Masa and I tried them, and it tasted pretty much like any old fast food except there was a little tiny bit of sauce that tasted like soysauce with a little fish…Japanese zest to the “big america”. After this traditional Japanese lunch we visited the Meiji Shrine and the garden close by. This shrine was not particularly old, but the Torii (gate from the profane to the sacred, normal to spirit world). At one of the entrances is the largest in Japan, made from Cypresses that were 1,500 years old. Quite impressive! The garden was peaceful, I think the park was incredible in that it was right on the edge of Harajuku Tokyo, the fashion/hip streets, and yet one really couldn’t hear much except the crows and the other birds. Before locating the shrine, we wandered into this park looking for it. Neither Masa nor I am very good at directions, so we were quite proud of ourselves for finding the trail map and consulting it very carefully before continuing on…little did we know that the shrine was actually just around the bend and if we had looked up instead of consulting our map…we probably would have seen it and found it with no trouble…ah well.

Meiji Jingu

Jingu Garden

Our walking then took us to Takeshita street, a walking street with lots of ‘young people’ shops (hip hip clothes, puma shoes, etc.) and one perfume store that we went into and sniffed pretty much every single perfume. Our noses were so full of scents afterwards that we were smelling perfume well into dinner.

Our day ended with a spectacular show by Cirque de Soliel. It is really beyond words, I cannot describe it enough without taking days and days. Suffice to say it was amazing and filled with music, acrobatics, clowning, and visual effects that were astounding.

Lastly, on our ride home, one of the trains had been delayed and there were hundreds of people attempting to ride our trains. I did not experience the pushers, but I think this was as close as I could get! We were lucky enough to get a seat, but it got very hot in that train for sure!

Happy first day of spring!!!!!

Post Three: the first few days

The Takahashi House and my abode for the duration of my stay!

Several days in Japan have been most wonderful in terms of new experience and excellent company. My first morning I arose from dreams of jetlag and confusing time zones, dreams which consisted of Star Wars references and it somehow being 1pm already (it wasn’t yet of course). In these dreams I had missed the most important event (unknown) for which had been one of the primary reasons for my dream self having traveled to this country. Not to worry, they were merely dreams. I had slept well and felt ready to greet the day. Masa and I went for a walk around the neighborhood, I saw gardens, cemeteries, houses, a small shrine, two schools and the athletic fields nearby, as well as a friendly children’s rugby tournament and softball practice. The weather was clear and crisp but held up nicely for our morning walk and I was able to see the beautiful mountains in the background, behind which was mount Fuji itself rising a snowy peak in the sapphire sky. 

The next day Masa and I traveled by bus and then by rail to Kamakura to see the Tsurugaoka Hachiman-gu Shrine. It was an amazing piece of architecture located on the side of a hill that provided the beautiful backdrop against the red gold and brown structure. I was intrigued by the wishes written in Japanese and hung near the shrine—anonymous ones that people had left in hopes that they might be granted. One little boy wished to be the best at everything he did…a modest request to be sure. 

Tsurugaoka Hachiman-gu entrance (and Masa)

The Torii

Wash and cleanse before entering

a smaller shrine to the left up a hill from the main building

After seeing the shrine and sitting at the edge of a pond listening to preschoolers at recess and watching some older girls set up a surprise birthday we walked through a local footstreet filled with little shops selling clothes, food, and all manner of souvenirs. It was well past lunchtime at this point and Masa had decided that this would be a lunch of traditional Japanese food, I certainly did not object and happily looked at the pictures outside food places to see what was served there (pictures = the universal language). Eventually we wandered into a sushi place, one where each sushi option was made and placed on a conveyer belt, customers then could grab the dishes at a whim while each plate passed by our table. Items I tried included octopus, salmon, tuna, fish eggs, egg with seaweed, and some sort of silver skinned fish. All were quite tasty, though perhaps less so for the fish eggs. I would say that my favorite was the silverfish, but everything was delicious.

Finally, we returned to Atsugi in the late afternoon, we then went for a quick run in the cooling afternoon sunlight. What a place. Each house is similar in design but totally unique at the same time. The gardens are trimmed with orange trees and pink flowers, the narrow roads are shared by cyclists and cars that are taller than they are wide, I did notice that there were not many walkers, people choose instead to ride the busses or use wheeled forms of transportation; though on our run by the river and soccer/softball fields we did see a few people enjoying the last bits of daylight, all under the watchful eye of the mountains.

View from the train, Mt. Fuji in background

Day three we woke early. Masa had an upcoming tryout with a hockey team in Hachinohe, the far north of Japan, and we needed to catch a taxi, a train, and then two bullet trains. Our trip would last three days, two for travel (there and back) and one for the tryout. We traveled again by taxi to the station and then from there we took a few local trains to the Bullet train departure. All through this journey Masa continued to make sure we did indeed have our train tickets (bullet train tickets are expensive, thus one would not want to lose them). I finally mentioned that—the more times he checked to see if we still had these tickets…the more chances we had to lose one of them…to this I received the look that the comment deserved, and a laugh to go with it. Nevertheless, we made it to the train (tickets in hand). High speed rail is an excellent way to see a country I have to say. We quickly left the city areas as we traveled northward. We began seeing snow and even shot through a snowstorm as we whizzed through a mountain pass.

 

The tryout day (Wednesday) also began early, we needed to be at the rink by 8:30. I am perhaps biased and since my knowledge of hockey is limited I am not a good judge; but I would say that it went exceedingly well, and that Masa was (as always) darn good. I watched from a vantage point inside the (thankfully warm) viewing area as I listened to the exploits of one of my other favorite literary characters; Ms. Amelia Peabody. That night we went out with one of the English speaking hockey players for dinner and learned more about the social life in Hachinohe.

Hachinohe from the rink location

Our stay in the up-north of Japan was concluded by one more practice for Masa and a long mountain walk for me. I managed to find my way without difficulty as I wound around the mountain roads. It was quite peaceful, I think I only saw a few cars and one or two people in my excursion.

Post Two: journey to and arrival in Japan

Konichiwa Japan! What a trip it has been already. It began with some heartfelt hugs and blown kisses to my two wonderful parents and extraordinary sister (with the previous night, a Skype goodbye to Sam who has been at LU for four weeks now…hahaha Sam, I am still on vacation). Then I had to endure a completely uneventful and easy quick pass through security at the Cleveland airport. So far the trip was going better than expected! However, this was not to last. I arrived at my gate early by about an hour, so I people watched and struck up conversation with a lovely Cleveland local who is originally from India and was flying there for her niece’s wedding.  The plane for us to take to Chicago arrived on time; unfortunately this was where the smoothness ended. Apparently someone forgot to plug in the anti-icing device on this plane, hence it was experiencing significant icing…I considered offering to eat this icing as I am a fan of this confection, but I became aware that this was sadly not the kind of icing to which they were referring. Thus we ended up waiting an extra hour and a half whilst they attempted to fix the problem and eventually they just ended up getting us a different plane. During our wait I befriended a United Airlines VIP, a frequent flyer consultant for a pharmaceutical company who did offer to take me under her wing if we missed our respective flights in Chicago (we both were scheduled to depart at 1:00pm). She said she could take me to the private United club and there we would be taken care of well. She also took it upon herself to ensure that I and my Indian friend (who was very worried about not making her flight at 3…) were in good hands, pestering the United employees to give us frequent updates on our situation. Thank you to her wherever she is now.

Once finally boarded to Chicago everything was fine. To reach my flight to Tokyo I powerwalked through the Chicago airport so fast that my mother would be proud, OH! I also found my way to my gate all by myself by following signs! Perhaps this means my navigational skills are improving! Anyway, I made it in the nick of time and was pleasantly surprised to see that not only did I now have a window seat, but I was seated at an emergency exit so there was legroom galore!!!! I said my goodbyes to the U.S., I will not touch American soil for 5 months now.

Last looks at America for 5 months!!!! (Chicago)

The in-flight movies were nothing spectacular. One of them was, in fact, a TV show entitled “how do they do it”…not touching that one…(it ended up being an educational show on how things are manufactured, or how boats are docked in this case…but still…) so I ended up napping for just a wee bit and then entertaining what was quite possibly the cutest baby on board (she was absolutely fascinated by my nose…for what reason only she is aware), before diving into a Jack Reacher novel that I have been dying to read and saving for this very flight.

I did enjoy looking out the window. Practically the entire flight it was perpetually what seemed like sunset. Our plane was chasing the sun ever westward: over Canada, Alaska, and yes, even a teeny bit of Russia…though I was unable to catch a glimpse of both Alaska and Russia at the same time. The scenery consisted of beautiful snowcapped mountains, and miles and miles of what I assume to be tundra with not a city in sight; a heavy contrast to Chicago when there was a long period where nothing could be seen but vast expanse of city. 

 

Then finally of course, arrival in Tokyo! I feared that my baggage had not made it from my flight to Chicago from Cleveland given the closeness of my arrival and departure, but thankfully my bags were both awaiting me at the baggage claim in Tokyo undamaged. I navigated my way through the airport with little difficulty and only had to show my passport at Customs, no bag search, no pat down, easy as cake. Once through customs I met my lovely Masa and after giving and receiving the biggest hug ever we headed back to his house, about a two hour drive. Throughout I managed to stay awake! I was greeted by Masa’s parents and we ate a scrumptious curry with soup and salad and tea and fresh fresh strawberries for dessert. After a quick tour of the house I could hold out no longer and I collapsed into an easy sleep after having been awake for over 26 hours!

First view of Japan

First post

We’re off!!! I leave today at 10:44am from the Cleveland airport. My plane will make a quick stop in Chicago where I will change flights and then board the giant aluminum vessel that will take me across the Pacific Ocean to Japan. Au revoir U.S.A.! No more shall I see you again until my return July 2^nd. I will miss everyone greatly, but I hope to have an experience worth going for; both in Japan and then in Australia. Wish me luck!