Japan I

      What a blessing it is that we are able to travel the world to visit our children wherever the Lord has seen fit to send them!

     We have just returned from three weeks visiting our daughter, Kimberley, who is teaching English to elementary students in Japan.  She has been there for a year now.  She lives near Osaka, and planned a wonderful tour that showed us much of that beautiful country.  Above, you see us the day after we arrived at Osaka Castle.  Most of the old castles are now tourist attractions, and can be toured.  So much of this blog will be ABC or ABT -- Another Beautiful Castle or Another Beautiful Temple -- but that can't be helped.  Japan has a rich cultural heritage, and we loved learning about it.

     First, Kim lives in a sharehouse in Amagasaki.  A sharehouse is a common way of living there in Japan.  It is an apartment house, with three bedrooms to an apartment.  The three bedrooms share a bathroom.  Then there is one kitchen, well equipped, where everyone does their cooking and eating.  Kim has a small refrigerator/freezer in her bedroom closet to keep personal perishables alive, but does most of her dinners downstairs.  The first night we were in Japan, we stayed in a vacant room in the sharehouse.

Yes, it really is this small

     
     The beds were as hard as you have heard.  They were made of wooden slats with just a futon over them.  Fortunately, we had been warned and brought some small air mattresses with us.  They padded the worst parts.  Let's face it, I'm a spoiled Westerner and I had plenty of times that I was reminded of that during this visit.  But these were the hardest beds we slept on.

     Walking through Kimberley's neighborhood was an experience.  She has a beautiful park between her and the store which makes a nice resting spot.

     And, as you can see in the background of this picture, they take the art of bonsai to great heights.

       The next day, though, is when we visited Osaka Castle.  Most of the tourists took the lines that had the elevator to the fifth floor of the castle.  From there, we climbed three more floors to the eighth floor and went down from there.

     It is important to note that we and most of the tourists took the easiest way to see all the sites we went to.  The entire time we were there, daytime temperatures were in the mid nineties with a humidity of about 85% or so.  I think if I ever get a chance to visit Japan again, I will do it in the spring or fall.

      Osaka Castle has been turned into a history museum chronicling the wars that unified Japan.  One of its main features was a painted screen which depicted the summer war that was waged in this area.  (No pictures were allowed.)  There were areas which showed videos of close ups of sections of the screen.  The screen was fairly large, but it took true artistry to get the amount of detail that was shown on close-up into the actual size of the picture.  All I am going to say more of it is that it accurately depicted the horrors of war.

     The next day was Sunday, and we went to church with Kimberley.  Her branch is the only one listed as having English in the Osaka area.  And that's just because there are so many English speakers teaching school there, and have been for so long that some of them also speak Japanese, that there is someone to translate.

Notice my make-up?  This is the last time you'll see it.

     After church, we had a steak dinner at the sharehouse.  (Kim had mentioned that she missed beef)  Then we walked to the train station and headed off for our first visit to Kyoto.

     All the lodging we had in Japan Kim had gotten through Air B&B.  It produced an interesting mix of experiences.  The room we took in Kyoto the first time was Petit Hotel.  And it was lovely!  Near the station, near the things we wanted to see, and there was a very helpful desk clerk who had learned her English living in Australia.  I wish we could have booked it for our second trip to Kyoto, but that was a holiday weekend and it was already booked.  More about that second trip later.

     There are two major religions in Japan -- Shinto and Bhuddist.

     There was a large Buddhist temple near where we stayed in Kyoto, Higashi Honganji.  The gardens, Shosei-en, are well known.

It is said that a true Japanese garden looks the way nature could if it would just put its mind to it.

     We happened on a Buddhist worship service there, walked around the gardens before returning home for a nap.  We wanted to start off slowly to get some stamina before the hard touring started, but it was hot and humid enough (this theme will be repeated often throughout this blog) that I was already wilted.  So we took a bus to the Kyoto Tower, a VERY tall tower built mostly for communications, but also as a tourist site.  It is on top of a building with commercial stores in it, and is the tallest structure in Kyoto.  It seems whenever we travel, we like to go to the top of the tallest buildings wherever we are.  I can't tell you how many cathedral roofs and towers we have been up going through Europe.  So, of course, we went to its 100 meter viewing platform and just enjoyed the view.

     This trip to Kyoto was really a stopping off point on the way to Maisuru to catch a ferry to the northern island of Hokaido.  The ferry didn't leave until midnight and wouldn't even let us on the ferry until 11:15 p.m.  So we window shopped at the nearby mall in Maisuru, ate some donuts, and sat at the bus station that would take us to the ferry dock and sang songs.  I hope we didn't bug the others waiting with us too much.

     When we got to the ferry dock, we found out that Kim had inadvertently gotten us tickets for the dorms.  Sleeping rooms are necessary, because the trip from Maisuru to Hokaido is 20 hours.   So we quickly upgraded to a private room with four berths.  Yes, we do value our privacy.  After we cast off at midnight, we went to bed, but the next day, the scenery looked like this:

     Twenty hours of sea and fog.  And relaxation.  :D  Just what we needed most.  The ship had a lovely bath house, and we took advantage of it to wash off the salt and sweat of the day before.  We had high hopes of it being a bit cooler in Sapporo, since it is much farther north that Osaka.

     Then we disembarked at Otaru at 8:00 p.m. on Tuesday, the 20th.  We still had to take a train to Sapporo to get to our room for the next two nights.  It was not a room I would choose to stay in again.  Traveling is always an adventure, and even when you are staying in regular hotels, you're not sure what your situation is going to be.  This was a -- let's say "cozy" -- place with no air conditioning.  It at least had a fan, but as in Seattle, everyone who builds there thinks it's far enough north to never need air conditioning.  I've got news for the builders in Seattle and Sapporo.  It gets hot there, too.

     One of the main reasons we went to Sapporo was to see the new temple.  It was past open house, and not yet dedicated, so we could only walk around the grounds.

     You really have to see the barriers they use in Japan.  They hold up the poles with cute figures.

Kind of odd, but you're not going to miss them!

   
     They use a lot of different characters, sometimes even recognizable cartoon characters like Hello Kitty and others.

Very definitely an oriental flavor to the design.

     Unlike the Tokyo temple, the grounds are spacious and beautifully landscaped in the oriental style.

I sat for a long time, longing to go in.  We'll just have to go back.

   
     Then we went to a cultural village that captures the history of several different areas of Japan.

This is a fishing house that housed 30 fishermen.

Get up; get dressed; turn around and eat.

     The old school there housed the organs that had been used in the past.  It couldn't have been just from the school.  The walls were lined with old organs.  I have no idea where they all came from.

     And it was HOT!  (The recurring theme)  and HUMID!  I picked up a rash on my legs that I first thought was from exposure to a plant that my body didn't like, but as it recurred later in the trip, we decided that it was a heat rash that occurred when I've been on my feet for too long in hot, humid weather.   Note to self:  get off your feet if it's hot and humid.  Not that we could.  After this, we decided that we would get out early, do an activity and then, about noon, go back to our lodging and spend until 4:00 p.m. resting.  As it turned out, noon each day saw us in the middle of our activity, with no way to get back to the hotel.  So we would finish the activity, come home and die for the rest of the day/evening.

     We left Thursday morning by train for Aomori.   Aomori was the real reason we went to Hokkaido (the northern island).  They have a lantern festival there.

     They have a lantern festival there.

     No.  They have a LANTERN festival there.

       No.  They have a LANTERN FESTIVAL there.

     Yes, this festival is too big to fit on this blog.  YouTube it is for some of it, then.

     Most of Japan is coastline, so there are many fishing villages.  And along with fishing villages come the fish tales.  There are many myths and war stories, and these street-size floats are 3D depictions of some of them.    The following is a detail depicting how the characters are made.

     From right to left, after designing the float:  1) Put up wood and wire frame for characters on float; 2) Attach full-size light bulbs -- about 800 of them; 3) Glue small pieces of paper to the wire frame so that you can get excruciating detail without wrinkles; 4) Block in rough features; 5) Add color and depth.

     The floats themselves are, as I said, street-size.  They are created on a small two-wheeled vehicle that sports a generator.  They then are pulled by 30 full-size adults.  The two-wheeled vehicle is so that the float can turn from side to side and bow.  Please watch the woman with the fan directing the motion of the float.

     This is a community event.  Anyone can join in one of the cheering squads that follows each lantern.

  
 
   Anyone can join.

It is also a family event.

     As a matter of fact, all the music, drumming and dance is the same throughout the whole parade.  It has never been written down and is only passed down from generation to generation for hundreds of years.

 

      The fancy hats are fish hats and represent--fish.  Fishing village, you know.  While the first ones are pretty run-of-the-mill, you see they can get fancier.  And these were not the fanciest we saw.

     This next clip I included just because the drummer was having so much fun.

    


During our wandering around the street during the day, I found a new favorite treat.

     You take frozen strawberries, shave them like shaved ice, then put sweetened, condensed milk (Eagle Brand) on it and top it off with strawberry jam.  YUM!!!

     Exhausted from a full day, we picked up our luggage from the coin lockers where we had stored it when we arrived in Aomori and took the train to a nearby town to spend the night.  It was festival time in Aomori, and there was, as to be expected, not a room to be had in the surrounding area.  They are prepared for a high volume of visitors, though, having extra rooms of coin lockers at the train station which, I am sure, are closed most of the year.  We went to Misawa, where there is a U.S. naval base and stayed with a young woman who is in the navy.  She is single and rents out a couple of the rooms in her house as Air B&B.  She and her dog were both sweeties.

     The next day, we left for Sendai and the Tanabata Festival.  And that's where we'll start the next blog.

     

    
    
    

Alo-o-o-ha!

 

     No, I did not take this from a picture postcard. I really took the shot myself.  There is a reason Hawaii is called "The Rainbow State".  It is beautiful and green and...wet much of the time.

    To start this blog properly, I need to go back several months when our oldest son, David, told us he and his wife, Rachel, had decided to take their little family to Hawaii this summer and invited us to come along.  It has been several years since we were in Hawaii, and it is one of my favorite places to visit, so, of course, we jumped at the chance.

     So, here we are, boarding in Los Angeles, headed for paradise.

     Staying in Hawaii or just about anywhere else for a week is very expensive if you stay in a hotel.  And I get tired of eating out really fast.  So, when we stayed at Park City as a family last Christmas, we used a site called "Home Away" and stayed in a really nice home there.  David looked on the same site for Hawaii, and found this gem.

     We got the top floor with three bedrooms--one for David and Rachel, one for Brent and me, and one for Rachel's mom--and James and Jared slept on the front room floor.  It really worked well, because Hawaii is 4 hours later than Utah and 5 hours later than Illinois, so when 8 pm hit, we were all ready to crash.

     We were right across the road from the beach, so the next morning, even before church, we hit the beach a little:

Not a big beach, but adequate for us

That ocean is mighty big!

Finding out what happens when you build you house on the sand

Joy took a little convincing, but wound up loving the whole beach experience

     David had looked at places to stay on the North Shore.  We were in a little town called Hau'ula, just five miles from the Polynesian Cultural Center (PCC).  We knew we would want to spend at least one day there, so Monday morning, that's where we headed.  We took the Ambassador tour to help us get good seats at each of the areas we went to.

Joy makes sure her necklace is in place so everyone will know she is with the tour.

There were a lot of interactive things to do.

David really got into the spirit of things.  You can definitely hear Rachel cheering him on.

James got a Maori tattoo that means "Chieftan"

Getting dressed for the occasion

Joy had her own way of enjoying things

The noon parade of boats from the different islands

    We went to the luau and the evening show, and dragged home and crashed.

     The next day, we just hung around the house until lunch time.  We had heard of this shrimp wagon (similar to our local taco wagons in Sunnyside) that was famous for its coconut-macadamia nut shrimp and garlic shrimp.  It was pretty tasty, but everyone else had heard of it, too, so it was a long line and wait for what everyone wanted.

    But it was worth it.

Mama even brought her little chicks for lunch.

     Chickens are feral in Hawaii.  They are everywhere!  And, usually, no one bothers them.  Of course, chicken is one of natives' favorite foods.

     After that, we stopped again at the PCC and just went around and did stuff that we found
interesting.

     David and Rachel practiced to learn the how to do the fire baton.  (We're looking forward to seeing them demonstrate it at their next winter luau that they throw for their friends in Quincy.)

James and Jared both learned to weave a fish.

     The PCC is right next to BYU Hawaii.  Most of the people who work there are students at the college.  It is also right next to the temple, and PCC sends bus tours to look at it, and those who would like to can get off and visit the visitor's center for a while.  While David and family went into the visitor's center, I found a good way to enjoy the experience:

      But, of course, we had to take a picture of the family in front of the temple.  Families are forever, you know, and the temple is the way to make sure of that, so we will always point our families to the temple--whichever temple they like--and make sure we help ourselves see ourselves there as often as possible.

We are a forever family

     That brings us to Wednesday.  We went to the Pearl Harbor Memorial and the battleship Arizona.  James is a World War II buff.  He loves the ships and airplanes of that time and stories about the war.  He's young.  He doesn't yet appreciate how hellish war is.  The Arizona Memorial, though, helps us to understand a little bit of the price of war, and why it's a good idea to avoid it whenever possible.

A concerned father talking about the price of war to his sons.

     After that, we got to hang around the memorial for a while, and tour the submarine there, and the museum and they had periscopes and seats with guns to try out.

James examines the submarine plans

     Joy enjoyed the trip in her usual way.

     The next day, Thursday, we went to Waimea Valley on the North Shore.  There are two attractions there.  The most fun is the waterfall that you can climb into and get washed off.

See those crazy people hanging onto the rocks?  I wasn't in this picture, but I was one of them.

The young folks

The old folks

All the folks

     On the way down, there were some side trails that showed and explained some of the kahiko (ancient) Hawaiian ways of living.

     And flowers.  Flowers, flowers, flowers!

Hibiscus--Hawaii's state flower

     And that's just a few of them.

     Friday, David and family went to Hanauma bay near Honolulu to snorkel.  Brent and I have done a lot of that type of thing, so I'm afraid it wasn't very interesting to us.  Besides, we had arranged to have our Russian coach call us so we could study in preparation for our mission to Ukraine in January.  As a bonus for the family (and us) we kept Joy home so they didn't have to worry about what to do with her while they were in the water.

Joy helping Grandma study Russian

          Saturday was a hard day.  We all flew home.  It was David's birthday, and we didn't even really get to celebrate it.  I guess in a way, the whole week was one great big party.  And I did give him a kiss and a happy birthday wish as we said good-bye in the morning.

     Then we had to return home to try to yank our schedule back around before leaving for Japan in less than two weeks.  I have found that it is easier, bio-schedule speaking, to go west than east.  It is easier to stay up later than it is to get up earlier.  It was hard, and I'm not sure we succeeded before heading out again.  But here we are in Japan.  And that is several more blogs yet to come.