Tokyo Trip, Part One: A Hotel Bed

We took a four day, three night trip to Tokyo from 01-03 to 01-06. Tessa and I had been to Tokyo a few times already, it's about a 2.5 hour bus ride from where we live, so it's definitely doable as a day trip, but since Tokyo is so huge, we still hadn't seen much of the city. We originally planned on going somewhere else in Japan for our big winter vacation, but high travel costs nixed them. Anyways, we had a great time and will be telling you all about it in 4 parts. This is part one.

We woke up early Sunday morning and caught a bus at 7:40 am, conveniently a two minute walk away from our apartment. To kill time we listened to iPods and did crossword puzzles and the like. About 2.5 hours later we arrived at Tokyo station. Since we couldn't check into our hotel until 2:00 pm, we immediately hopped on the subway and headed to Harajuku to see if we could see some of the famous crazily dressed cosplay partakers. We unfortunately didn't see many, but did get a picture of these two:


The good news though, was that the Meiji Shinto Shrine was also nearby, so we decided to check it out. The place was PACKED, far more people than usual there. We later found out that the number of people was due to a combination of the New Year's holiday, the upcoming Coming of Age Day holiday, and some kind of anniversary of the Shrine. We got to walk amongst the throngs of people, but were not able to go inside the shrine. Still, it was very interesting and beautiful, and we were able to buy a few souvenirs take some pictures:






After we walked around there for a while we decided to go to our hotel and just drop off our bags at the counter so we wouldn't be burdened by them while we explored our next stop. Quick side note, we took the subway everywhere we went. Tokyo is so huge, and their subway system is pretty great, though a bit confusing sometimes. The Tokyo subways are famous for the amount of people that ride it every day, especially during peak times when people are going to or coming from work. It can get so packed that it is not uncommon for women to get groped by a horny Japanese man while they are all packed in there, and the woman can't run or often see who is doing it. To combat this, some subway cars are marked for "women only" in the morning:




Luckily, we never experienced anything like that, had a pleasant time on the subway, and were only packed in like sardines once.

Anyways, when we got to the hotel, they told us that our room was available early (score!) and we could check in immediately. We were thankful for that because we were already a little tired from getting up early and walking around with our bags all morning. Our hotel room was on the tenth floor, and a little on the small side, which was fine because we were not expecting anything huge. What we were really looking forward to was the bed. We sleep on a futon on the floor at home. Now, you can take that mental image of an American futon and throw it out the window, because Japanese futon are quite different. Ours accounts for about 5 inches of padding when we add up all the layers of things covered by our sheets, resting atop the hardwood floor. Traditionally, the Japanese roll them up or fold them after they wake up in the morning. The idea of sleeping on a mattress and box spring up off the floor was something we longed for, and we were not disappointed. A bonus of the room was that it also had a beautiful day and night view of the Imperial palace gardens and the Tokyo skyline:



You can see Tokyo Tower (basically a copy of the Eiffel Tower) lit up on the right side.

After we rested up a bit, we decided to walk around the Imperial Palace (where the emperor and empress live) which was very close to our hotel. The walk around is about the length of walking around Greenlake in Seattle. Honestly, if I had that to walk around on a daily basis, I would probably get a lot more exercise in Japan. The palace (where tourists and the general public are almost never allowed), is surrounded by a moat and some nice gardens:









After that nice long walk, the sun was going down and it started to get cold, so we went back to the hotel where we watched crazy Japanese television programming before going to bed. A long, but adventurous day. And so ends Part One of Chris and Tessa's Big Tokyo Adventure! Stay tuned for Parts Two through Four! If you have any questions just ask us. How, you ask? It's easy. At the bottom of this post you should see something that says "x comments" (x being how many comments that post has). Click that to see what others have said and write your own comment/question. If you have a question, Tessa and I will answer it promptly, and you can check back for our reply. So simple! See you next time for Part Two: The Coldest Bar In Japan.

Sunset Over Lake Kasumigaura

I think we've mentioned before, but in case we haven't, we live next to the second largest lake in Japan. Unfortunately, it's dirty and polluted and you can't swim in it, but it does make for some nice scenery. I remember one time in class, the Japanese teacher asked a student (in English) "Do you want to swim in Lake Kasumigaura?" The purpose being to teach the grammar point of "Do you want to ~ ?" The student gave him a look that seemed to say "I'm not swimming there, you're crazy!" I know a lot of people go fishing there, so I asked the teacher if people ate the fish from there, and he said "Uhh, it is...possible...but uh...I don't want to. It would depend on how hungry you are." So there you go. Anyways, now that Tessa and I are on winter vacation (fuyu yasumi) we need excuses to get out of the apartment (at least before our big trip to Tokyo) for some fresh air, and the lake is a nice enough area to walk, especially right before sunset. See below:

That is a small Shinto (I believe) shrine. You see small shrines like this by the road all over the place.

The Rainbow Tower, Namegata's only claim to fame. It's also pretty boring inside.

This was spray painted on a wall under a bridge. I have no idea why.




Nice shot of the light reflecting off the bridge. It's the best I can do with the crappy 5.0 mega pixel no zoom digital camera we have. That's all for now, we leave for Tokyo on the morning of the 3rd.

Kurisumasu in Japan

In case you didn't know, the Japanese love them some Christmas. It's not a religious holiday over here of course, but a secular one. One of my teachers explained to me how they celebrate Christmas and New Years as the opposite to how they are celebrated in America. For Christmas day they go out and party, and for New Year's, they stay inside and celebrate with family. New Year's is much more spiritual. All the super markets and department stores have Christmas decorations everywhere, and playing Christmas music. Some of the music are the old classics in English, but some are in Japanese. One store has a Japanese version of Santa Claus is Coming to Town playing on a continuous loop. It's all in Japanese, except for the chorus of "Santa Claus is coming to town" and for some reason they throw in a random "merry Christmas" here and there. I have also heard a Japanese Jingle Bells that was similar.

Last week sometime, a friend of ours invited us to a Japanese Christmas party in Kashima put on by the Rotary Club. Yes they have Rotary Clubs. We were pretty nervous, as we didn't know what to expect, and we are both naturally shy when it comes to the unknown, but part of the reason for this whole trip was to do something out of my comfort zone, so we decided to do it. We went to the hotel where it was being held (pretty big for the area) and pushed open the large double doors into the large banquet room. We knew we were a little late, so what would await us on the inside? A lot of Japanese people silently eating, then looking up to see why three foreigners (including our friend) had interrupted them? Naw, not exactly. It was much like I imagine something like that would be in America. A buffet of Japanese and Western foods, and many tables scattered around filled by Japanese people having a grand time, and someone playing Disney favorites on the piano. We got some food and sat down to eat with friends of our friend, and had a good time. At some point, they started having kids play musical chairs for prizes. First, really young kids, then older elementary school aged, then Junior and High school. After that they asked for parents to come up. I laughed and remarked to Tessa that we would (thankfully) not be playing since we didn't qualify. But I was wrong. The slightly tipsy Japanese emcee dragged me up there anyway much to Tessa's delight and my chagrin. Out of like 15 adults, I got second place somehow (with Tessa giggling all the way), and won a box of snack things. Afterward, a random old Japanese man vigorously shook my hand and thanked me for playing. Thankfully, there is justice in this world, as they had another round of musical chairs for adults and dragged Tessa up there. She got FIRST PLACE and won a larger box of snacks. Later in the night they had some kind of raffle and ended up with some nice flowers, and a giant bag of rice (about 30 pounds) that the winner didn't want. It was a really fun night.

We're getting close to Christmas and our winter holiday here. We have to work Monday and Tuesday, then have Wednesday off (national holiday for the Emperor's birthday), then back to school on Christmas eve (what's the point?). We have Dec. 25th through Jan. 11th off, though Tessa has to go back for one day on Jan. 8th for some reason. We love and miss you all. Happy holidays!!!

"Oh the weather outside is frightful..."

Well, just cold, really. We just bought de-icer for our cars, but Chris has only used it once. We have another 2 weeks of school, and then we'll be able to sleep in past the time of day when you need de-icer ;) I've been listening to Christmas music for a little while now, and while it cheers me up, it also makes me pretty homesick. I love this time of year, but it's hard without family and friends. Luckily Chris and I have each other, and we have a lot of fun. I just made him a christmas mix CD for his junior high kids, and I'm already laughing imagining them singing We Wish You a Merry Christmas and Santa Claus Is Coming to Town. (By the way, they call him Santa-san)

I'm sure we'll have more to post about Christmas in Japan, and pictures too! Our town recently put up a great show of lights at the community center, so we'll try getting some snaps. It's not what we're used to, but it'll do for now.

107 days left over here!

Thanksgiving in Japan

Hi patient blog-readers!

Chris and I cooked our own Thanksgiving Dinner yesterday. Obviously the Japanese do not celebrate Thanksgiving (although they do have a national holiday on Nov 23rd called Labour Thanksgiving, but it's not a big deal) so we both had to work on the actual holiday.

Dinner posed a bit of a quandary for us, as we are pretty limited in cooking equipment/resources. The Japanese don't really eat turkey (never seen it once, in 8 months) so that was out of the question. Not that we had an oven to cook one in anyway. We wanted to find something at least a little special to base the dinner around, so Chris cooked up some pepper steaks. I took a step into the unknown and made Beer Cheese Soup for the first time, and cobbled together something that was based in part on an online recipe, as well as what was available in the store. It ended up being pretty tasty, but you wouldn't want a very big helping ;) Good for roll dipping, though. I love yams, so we got the closest thing to them: Imo . I mashed them with some butter and milk, then sprinkled brown sugar over the top - delicious!

We found some kind of odd little cake for dessert, and I also made some no-bake chocolate peanut butter corn flake treats.

All in all, a pretty good mini-feast. We missed our family and friends, but we managed to create some of the normal holiday spirit, and ended the evening by watching Miracle on 34th Street - the movie does start on Thanksgiving, so technically it was all within November traditions. Plus, if you know me you know I start getting pumped for Christmas pretty early, so I was dying to see a holiday classic.

Check out the pics from our little dinner:

"Climbing" Tskuba-san

Last weekend on Sunday (Nov. 8th) Tessa and I climbed Mt. Tsukuba. They call it "Tsukuba-san" (kinda like "scuba-sahn"), the "san" suffix being the same they apply to people to denote honor or reverence. Basically they call it Mr. Tsukuba. Anyways, while it's not the world famous Mt. Fuji, it is locally quite famous, and we have been trying to get a chance to get out there to climb it for a while now. It is 2,877 feet high (for some really interesting historical info go here). It's almost a two hour drive from the trail head, so we left home at about 9:30 am to make a day of it. I have to admit that when we got to the base of the mountain, we were a little intimidated. Both of us have gotten a bit out of shape recently, not having much to do but hole ourselves up in our apartment, so the looming mountain looked quite daunting. We decided that this time we would forgo the actual hiking up the mountain trail in favor of the cable car that takes you up to the middle of the two peaks. Mt. Tsukuba has two peaks, a male and a female side. The cable car is angled like the steep side of the mountain and took us straight up the steep (35% grade at some points) mountainside in ten minutes. Once the cable car got us to the middle of the two peaks, we picked the male side and began the hike up. It was strenuous, but not too far. At the top there was a small Shinto shrine, and we witnessed some people praying at it. Unfortunately, it was a bit foggy at the top, so our view was a bit obscured. Usually one can have a panoramic view of the whole Kanto plane, but alas. Maybe next time. On our way down the peak, we randomly ran into our coordinator from our company. She and her group had hiked all the way up the mountain (next time, I vowed) and poked fun at us for taking the cable car up. We then decided to hike down the mountain, which we did. It took about an hour and a half with rests, and it really wasn't easy. The trail was quite rocky and rooty from all of the trees, but we made it. So yeah, we may not have climbed *up* the mountain, but we climbed *down* it; that has to count for something, right? I'll answer that question, yes, yes it does. The following three days, Tessa's and my legs were INCREDIBLY sore (did I mention we were out of shape?). Walking up stairs was tough, but walking down them was torturous. I also heard later from seasoned Tsukuba-san scalers that going down was more difficult, so there you go. Anyways, we got some great pictures, this area of Japan is really beautiful in the fall, and not too cold yet too. The first picture is from my iPhone of a sunset over Lake Kasumigaura, and you can see Mt. Tsukuba in the distance. I took it about a month ago, but I added it here to give a bit of perspective. Enjoy!

Beautiful sunset. Mt. Tsukuba is left of center in this shot.



The beautiful fall mountainside.

I am conquering Mt. Tsukuba!

Scaling the rocks.

The shrine at the top of the male peak.


Beautiful fall colors at the top of the male peak.


The view of the cable car tracks down the mountainside.

Action shot of the cable car moving down the mountain.

Pros and Cons of Living in a Rural Area

Sorry again for the lack of updates. So as anyone who has read this blog or talked to us since we've been here knows, we live in Japanese farm country. Not just rice mind you, but sweet potatoes ("imo"), corn, pumpkins, persimmons, watermelons, wheat, etc. Most people in this area live the "simple life" of rustic farm folk. Then you have us citified foreigners ("gaijin"). We stick out pretty well here, sometimes getting double takes from people or stares from children. This actually is part of the reason why our jobs exist, to help acclimate Japanese children into seeing a non-Japanese person. It is important in a country where 99% are Japanese and 99.9% are Asian, and especially important in rural area where the numbers are further skewed. Living in this rural area has pros and cons.

Cons: Boring, Isolated, Expensive to Travel
Not much to do here. No nightlife to speak of, and very few people who speak English around us. It's a good thing Tessa and I have each other here, or else I don't think we would be able to do this. There is a feeling of isolation when you know of only one other native English speaker within a 30 minute drive from where we live (and he doesn't really have anything in common with us). There are a few other people we've met around the area, but they live further away, and it's difficult to get together sometimes. Also, if we want to visit a bigger city, like say, Tokyo, it takes a long time and can be pretty expensive. We were thinking of going to Hokkaido for winter break, but couldn't afford the travel, so we are going to spend three nights in Tokyo in January.

Pro: Quiet, Nice Scenery, Inexpensive, Cultural Experience
Hey, what the heck are those things in the sky? Stars? Huh? Being away from a major city center is a nice and quiet life free of bright lights and noise. It is kind of nice. There is also some beautiful scenery and sunsets. It's not nearly as expensive as living in the city, for rent or for buying everyday items. There also is a nice extra cultural experience. Now I know what you're saying, isn't just living in Japan itself a cultural experience? Well yeah, I suppose it is, but living in the sticks gives us a chance to experience a life that few foreigners get to see. It's that kind of experience that I will be able to take with me for the rest of my life.

A couple of weeks ago I heard some drumming coming from outside our apartment, so I went to investigate. Around the corner, I saw a large cart on large wooden wheels sitting in the parking lot of the city hall. It was topped by a large statue of what looked like a Japanese Samurai. Down the street, I saw many Japanese men and children dressed in traditional clothing pulling ropes attached to another one, pulling it down the street. It was also topped by a statue, and a bunch of Japanese men playing traditional flutes and drums. I watched another one get pulled in too. After they were pulled in, the adults kicked back and started drinking beer and Chu-Hi (sorta like a Japanese Mike's Hard drink). At 9:45 am. That's just how they roll here though, I suppose. This was all part of some sort of local town festival. Anyways, I bring this up because I just think that we're pretty fortunate to see this kind of thing. How many Americans have seen these festivities specific to the tiny town of Aso in the small city of Namegata in the rural Prefecture of Ibaraki? Not many. But Tessa and I have, and so will you (in pictures below):











Night shot!