Our Weekend in Tokyo

First of all, Friday afternoon we went to the elementary school with Ike. I wish that I had been allowed to take pictures there because it was so much fun and the kids were adorable! As soon as we entered the school and the kids saw Ike they all came running up to him yelling, "Hello, Dwight-sensei! How are you?" Then they would scream and break out in giggling fits. Older kids were giving younger kids piggy-back rides and were just wandering the halls between classes with no supervision. And they were SO good!!!! When they saw me and Pete the kids would point and whisper and start giggling again.

We went into his first classroom and the kids were in about third grade. We did some fun activities and then read the books I brought with me. One was Brown Bear, Brown Bear What Do You See? and the other was Goodnight Gorilla (they loved that one). We did other speaking activities as well as some self-introductions. They loved the smelly Highlights stickers we brought for them, too. The next class was a year older and we read the Eric Carle book that is co-written with a Japanese author. It is the same story only half is in English and half in Japanese. One of the students read the Japanese text and Ike read the English. It was a fun afternoon!

We went home and packed and caught the 4:45 bus to Tokyo. It was a four hour ride (I think-my bus and train rides are all blending together). When we arrived at the bus station in Tokyo I insisted on getting a taxi to find our Ryokan (a traditional Japanese hotel) since Ike wasn't sure where it was and it involved trains/subways, plus we had all of our luggage (5 big suitcases plus Ike's stuff). The taxi driver wasn't sure where to go but Ike had a map, which the driver kept pulling over to check. It took about a half hour and we were driving down these dark, desolate looking alleys and still couldn't find it. At one point he was creeping through this dark tiny street and it was really freaking me out. All of a sudden we came upon this really quaint and brightly light place that was our Ryokan! I was SO relieved. I kept picturing us being dropped off in the middle of the seediest part of Tokyo at 10:00 at night with all of our suitcases and no clue where we were. Luckily this didn't happen. :-) We got checked in and taken to our room which was GREAT! It was so big, especially compared to the tiny hostels we stayed at in Kyoto and Hiroshima. We were hot and stinky and found out that all they had were communal baths. :-/ Luckily it was late enough that nobody else was using it (and I discovered that the door had a lock) so we took turns cleaning up.

Saturday we explored some different shopping districts around Tokyo. We went to one place that is supposedly the busiest intersection in the world. I got a great video of it that I'll post on facebook eventually. We got sort of turned around on our way home and had trouble finding our Ryokan, but with Pete's keep sense of direction and Ike's Japanese (and my kvetching!) we finally made it back.

On Sunday we woke up to rain (pretty much the first we've had during our two weeks in Japan) and we called the guy that we bought our baseball tickets from to see if the game would be canceled. We had to wait until 1:00 to find out so we sat in our room and played gin. Turns out the game was postponed an hour but still on so we headed out for the subway. It was still misting but not too bad, and we found the stadium okay. It was a great game (the first professional baseball game for both the boys!) and the fans were just crazy. :-) It was fun watching the various cheers and dances they did while rooting for their teams. It was a nail-biter to the end, and in the last inning the home team pulled off an amazing win. We made it back to our part of town, ate supper, then went back to the Ryokan and crashed.

Monday morning we woke up and packed up all our stuff and took a taxi back to Shinjuku, the main train/bus station. Ike got us tickets for the airport bus and we (I) said our tearful good-byes. :-( Pete and I got on our bus and headed to the airport while Ike caught a bus back to Iijima. We had a five hour wait for our plane (yeah, even by Moss standards that was way early, but we had to check out of the Ryokan by ten and didn't want to wander around Tokyo with all our luggage). We finally boarded at 5:15 but had an hour delay on the plane due to high traffic because of the weather. The 11 hour plane ride went okay, except for the loud, screaching 3 year old that was by us. We landed in Chicago but missed our connecting flight to CR because of the long delay at customs. The next flight we could catch was five hours later at 9:40 pm, so we waited some more at the airport. We finally boarded the plane and then Pete noticed his window frame was broken. He told the flight attendent, who notified the pilot who looked at it and got a mechanic. They ended up just taping it. :-P We got out on the runway but then had to go back to the gate because apparently a panel was open. Yes, by now I was a bit crazed and ready to scream, but I kept it together. :-D We got the panel taken care of quickly and were soon on the way to CR. Erick met us at the airport and we were back in Washington at midnight.

Overall this was the most amazing trip I've ever been on. I will make one more blog entry later about my thoughts and observations about Japan and the Japanese. Now I'll go put some more photos up on facebook.

Matsumoto

We returned to Iijima from Hiroshima on Tuesday evening adn decided to try this little tempura restaurant in town that Ike had never been to. It was really nice and the food was delicious. The owner was surprised that Ike has lived here for ten months and this was the first time he had been there. He even gave us these really nice ceramic cups as gifts. The next day (Wednesday) Ike had to teach and Pete and I hung around the apartment and recuperated from the weekend. :-) We did manage to walk down into town to do some grocery shopping at least. That evening we went to eat at this place in town where you cook your food right at the table yourself. It's an all you can eat place and Ike ordered all sorts of things. I actually tried squid (which was like chewing rubber!) and pig intestines, which just tasted nasty. Other than those two things, everything else was very good.

The next day, Thursday, Pete and I took Bethany's suggestion (and with Ike's urging) and rode the train to Matsumoto, which is a town about two hours away. I was really nervous about doing this without Ike since Pete and I don't know any Japanese, but since we had the rail passes and could ride free we decided we should take advantage of this. Ike had very detailed directions with times and we had to transfer trains two times on the way up, but we did it! There is an amazing castle in Matsumoto that we went to see and it was so worth it. When we arrived a woman who is a volunteer gave us a tour of the castle explaining everything in English. We did some shopping on the way back to the station and then caught the train back and made it home. We were so proud of ourselves! :-)

In the evening we met some of Ike's friends that we met last week for dinner. We went to a sushi place a few towns over. The sushi comes by the tables on conveyer belts and you just take off what you want. You are charged per plate. You can also order stuff off the menu and it arrives on a little Shinkansen (bullet train). By the end of the meal the five of us had stacked up 60 plates!

Today we will get packed up and in the afternoon Pete and I will go with Ike to the elementary school. I'm really looking forward to that and I hope I will be allowed to take pictures there. After that we leave for Tokyo for the weekend. We haven't figured out what all we're going to do there besides go to a baseball game and shop. We are still working on that. On Monday we catch our plane home! It's hard to believe we've been here for almost two weeks already. It has been an amazing vacation and we've seen some great things. But the best part has been spending time with Ike. It makes me feel better, though, after seeing how much he loves it here, and I can understand why he does. This little town is so beautiful, and the people are so nice.

Okay, I'm off to pack. I might get a chance to write an entry over the weekend, but if I don't then I will when I return home. See you all in a few days! :-)

Hiroshima Peace Museum (Tuesday)

On Tuesday we got up and took the tram to the Hiroshima Peace Museum. When we got off the tram the A-Dome was right there. What a somber sight that was. 600 meters above the dome was where the atom bomb went off and since it was directly above this building the pressure caused some of it to remain standing, even though every body and every thing inside of it was incinerated. We walked around the dome and then over to the peace flame. The Peace Flame is another monument to the victims of the bomb that destroyed Hiroshima, but it has an additional symbolic purpose. The flame has burned continuously since it was lit in 1964, and will remain lit until all nuclear bombs on the planet are destroyed and the planet is free from the threat of nuclear annihilation. Yes, I took that off of Wikipedia. :-) Actually, if you are interested, here is the link to the information about the area we visited. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiroshima_Peace_Memorial_Park

We walked around the park, looked at the children's peace memorial, which was really neat with the thousands of paper cranes. We then went through the museum and it was so sad. It was a very humbling experience.

We headed back to our hostel to get our bags, then over to catch the Shinkansen (bullet train) to Nagoya. We had one transfer about two and a half hours into the ride. Then we had another hour and a half on that and then had to walk to the bus station and catch a bus. We missed it by 3 minutes!!!! So then we had to wait two hours for the next one. While we were in the station waiting these two older women tried talking to me. I finally got Ike over and they wanted to know if I was their mother. Then one of them said that Pete looked like he was in the movies. :-) Our bus finally came and we had a 2 1/2 hour ride on that to Iijima. On our way to Ike's we drove by this little tempura restaurant that he had never been to so we decided to eat there. It was SO good!!! The guy in there was really nice and asked us a bunch of questions (we couldn't believe Ike had never eaten there!) and gavbe us two ceramic tea cups as gifts. :-) We then came home and started laundry and crashed. Ike has school today so Pete and I are chilling, doing laundry and I'm trying to get caught up on my blog and pictures. Pete is begging for the computer now so I'll have to put up photos later. :-)

Miyajima (Monday)

Monday morning we got up (5:00 for me, 7:oo for the boys) and we packed up our stuff and took the train to Hiroshima. We found our new hostel and got our stuff put away. This one was different in that it didn't have beds, just futons on tatami mats (the woven bamboo floors). Pretty barren, but this room had a tv which made the boys happy.

We then headed out and took a train to catch the ferry to the island of Miyajima. This is the place that has that famous floating gate. The ferry ride was only ten minutes and then we spent the day exploring the island. Lots of walking and hiking up trails, and gorgeous scenery. The floating gate was beautiful, and it's considered one of the best sights in Japan. Here's an interesting fact: the Japanese believe that spirits cannot go around corners, so all of their temples and gardens have lots of 90 degree turns. When I get my pictures up look for that. Miyajima reminded me a bit of Catalina Island in California. Lots of shops along the water and mountains all around. We did lots of shopping and then decided to hike up to the ropeway, which is the cable cars that go along the mountain. Yep, these things scare me tremendously, but I'm a good mom and the boys wanted to go on it so I sucked it up. :-/ We started climbing hundreds of stairs and then found out that we had to hike uphill (a steep one!) and I was pooping out. We decided to hang it up and headed back down. We got to the bottom and Ike says, "Oh look, there's a bus that takes you to the top!" :-P Gee, glad he saw that AFTER we went halfway up there. Anyway, we decided to go back up and ride the ropeway. We got on the bus and had a nerve-wracking 5 minute ride on a crazy narrow mountain path with death about two inches from the wheels (remember the bus ride up the mountain on Catalina Island Linda???) and then the bus let us off. We climbed a ton more stairs to the ropeway, rode the tiny car up the mountain (certain death, in my eyes), and then had to ride another one to get to the very top. We got off that one and then climbed more stairs to the very peak of this mountain. Apparantly some monk walked up to this point hundreds of years ago and decided it was a great place to have a meditation spot up there and a temple. They hauled stuff up by foot to make the temple (which we didn't walk the additional three miles, uphill, to see. Yeah, I'm a wuss. Too bad. We got some amazing photos of the sea from up there, as well as great pictures of the Engrish signs about the monkeys. :-)

We headed back down the mountain, did some more shopping and then a thunderstorm started blowing in. We made it back to the ferry just as the rain came down and then back to the train station. We got back to the hostel around 6:00 and the boys decided they wanted to go out to eat. I wasn't moving. :-) They headed out and I stayed back, showered and read my book. Those sweet boys brought back a pizza (not quite as good as American ones, but it was still good) and then they watched strange shows on Japanese tv.

Nara (Sunday)

Sunday morning I was up at 5:30 am (probably because I was so tired that I fell asleep at 9:00 the night before) and I waited until 7:00 to get the boys up. We headed to Nara, which is south of Kyoto. We took the Shinkansen (bullet train) to Nara and that was neat. We went to the Todai-Ji temple which has the largest Buddah statue in the world. As we walked into the park we were greeted by tame deer which roam the park. There are thousands of them and you can buy stuff and feed them (which we didn't do but had fun watching others do it). This place was huge, and I had no idea what I was going to see when we walked into this temple. We walked through the doors and there in front of us was a Buddah that had to be at least 3-4 stories tall. The temple that houses this, the Daibutsuden is actually the biggest wooden structure in the world (I was mistaken on my previous post). We also saw a five story pagoda here. Then we went to the Nara National Museum and wandered around there for awhile.

We left Nara and headed back up to Kyoto to meet up with Ike's friend Alberto. They went to school together at Kansai-Gadai a few years ago. We went to lunch and then to Rokuon-Ji Temple (The Golden Pavilion). The path leading up to this temple has a pond, which reflects the Golden Pavilion and is beautiful. We walked the pathways throughout the gardens. Along the way there would be these little stone bowls where you could toss coins and try to make it into the bowl for good luck (I missed). :-) We then went to the Ryoanji Temple, but the Zen garden was under construction. It was still pretty to walk around the temple, though. After this we decided to try to take the subway instead of the bus and we wandered around these little streets looking for the train station. Finally we came upon some tracks and there was a little station where one train car at a time came through. Ike and Alberto figured out which one to take and we ended up transfering to about four different trains until we found our way back to Kyoto. We ate supper at this tiny (REALLY tiny!) restaurant and we had a delicious meal. Then Alberto headed back home and we headed back to the hostel to crash, once again. :-)

Kyoto

What an amazing weekend we had! Hopefully I'll be able to get it all straight since we did so many things. Saturday morning I finally got the boys up around 7:00 and we went to Ginkakuji Temple. This temple is one of Japan's national treasures. It is a Zen temple that was established in 1482.We found that there are quite a few of these. The gardens here were amazing! There was a zen gravel garden that had patterns swept into it and it was so pretty. Just walking around the grounds of this temple was so relaxing and the walkways were gorgeous. I will put up photos on facebook eventually. :-) Tucked in among the gardens as we walked were various shrines and other smaller temples. We spent about an hour and a half here and then went on the Philosopher's Walk. This is a 1.5 kilometer walkway along a canal that a philosophy professor used to walk daily. It is so pretty and winds along through these quaint neighborhoods. Every once in awhile there would be a cafe or restaurant tucked into the houses. We meandered along this walk and about halfway through came upon the Eikando Zenein-Ji temple. We decided to stop off here and look around and we were so glad that we did. This was a Buddist temple and again, the gardens were amazing! There were walkways built into the side of the mountain and many waterfalls.

We continued walking the Philosopher's Walk to the end where we wnt to the Nanzenji Temple. This Zen temple is the most famous head temple of Rinzai Nanzenji school, one of the Zen sects. The gate at the opening is one of the largest in the world at 22 meters high. On either side of the gate at the opening are two huge statues carved out of wood. I'm not sure how tall they are but they go almost to the top of the gates. inside we were greeted by some young men who were volunteering for a club and needed to practice their English so one of them asked if he could guide us through the gardens. It was a beautiful walk and there were these huge aquaducts in the middle. There was lots of climbing of stairs and walking throughout these temples and boy, I was feeling it. Thankfully Peter was, too, so the boys didn't mind when I wanted to stop and take a break now and then. :-)

Next we went to Kiyomizu-dera, which is where Ike proposed to Bethany (he took us to the exact spot and it was gorgeous!). This is the largest wooden structure in the world, and it is tucked into a mountain and is 6 stories high. There were so many people here this day, and just walking to it was a long, uphill hike. Yes, I was dying here, folks. :-P And the thing that made it so bad was that there would be these cute little Japanese women wearing short skirts and HIGH, HIGH heels clip clopping up to this place! I mean, what are they thinking?????? Why would you dress like that to climb a mountain and go sight-seeing? Okay, my sour grapes venting is finished. :-) So the road leading up to this temple is steep, crowded and all along both sides are these wonderful little tourist shops. It was really fun to browse these places and made the walk easier (nothing like a little shopping, huh?). We get to the top of the road and there are stairs, stairs, stairs, and more stairs. We climbed these and then got out onto the temple and was greeted with the most amazing view of the mountains and Kyoto in the distance. Okay, yes, it was worth it. While we were up there walking around a bunch of junior high kids would come up to us and ask us if they could practice their English with us. Then they wanted to take pictures with us, too. Pete was a big hit, naturally, and they would burst into giggles when he talked Japanese to them. It was so cute.

Okay, I think at this point it was mid-afternoon (the weekend all just blended together for me!) and we went back to the hostel for a bit. Then we took a bus or train (again, we took so many trains, buses, trams that I can't keep them straight!) and went to Fushimi Iinari, which is the park with thousands of orange gates. This was SO cool!!!! We walked about a third of the 6 mile path of gates, and it wound through a mountainous forest. Again, every so often a shrine or small temple would pop up. We spent a long time here and it was really neat.

We finally made it back to the hostel and I was beat! Bless the boys, they went out and brought back sukiya (beef in a bowl of rice) and drinks and we crashed. What a long, amazing day.

Going to School

On Friday (yesterday) we went to school with Ike. The school is a junior high school and the most amazing thing to me was how respectful the kids were and how clean the school was. We started the day out by being introduced to the staff and I was so impressed listening to Ike talk all about us in Japanese! We then went to his first class with the lower level kids who were extremely shy. We made a Bingo game that had facts such as (I like anime, I live in Iijima, etc), and the kids had to ask other people the questions in English to fill in the spaces. We had some that only Peter or I could answer so that forced the kids into talking to us.

The next two classes were upper level ones and we taught them how to play an adapted version of the game "I like everyone here, especially those who..." We had a group of 36 so those of you who know the game, just imagine the chaos that ensued. :-) It was funny because there were some kids who wouldn't get up at all so then we would say one like, "I have a nose. Do you have a nose?" in order to force them to get up. Anyway, for those who don't know the game, if the statement applies to you then you have to get up and run to another chair. There is one less chair than person, so the person left standing has to say a statement. It's really fun and the kids enjoyed it. I wish we could have taken pictures but the principal told us that a new law was passed and pictures couldn't be taken in the school.

Lunch was interesting in that the food was trucked in and kids served it in their classrooms. We ate in complete silence! The amount of food was very abundant, since most kids have been at school since 7:00 am and lunch was at 1:00 pm. After lunch we had a break and these random kids would come up to us and start giggling. It was so cute. Ike would run them through some questions that he had had them practice in getting ready for our visit.

We passed out the gifts we brought during class time and the kids seemed to like them. They were just these little patriotic pins and flag pencils. Then came cleaning time! Every day at 2:15 the can-can music comes over the intercom and the entire school - students, teachers, principal, everyone, dons these funky head scarves and cleans. There are kids bent over the floor with rags running down the hall wiping down the floors, kids sweeping, mopping, cleaning bathrooms and even out pulling weeds! What a smart idea. The school is absolutely spotless.

Ike's principal let him leave early since we were heading to Kyoto on the afternoon bus, which was nice. We went home and packed, drove to the bus station in town, and then hauled our stuff over the bridge and back down that crazy flight of stairs. The bus ride was about 2.5 hours and it was gorgeous! We drove through the mountains and I just sat there with my nose stuck to the window. When we got to Nagoya we had to get our rail passes activated (which took some time) and then we caught the bullet train to Kyoto. It only took about 35 minutes to get there. The buses and trains are so clean and comfortable in Japan! We arrived at the Kyoto train station (largest train station in the world!) and walked about 6 blocks to our hostel. Again, this hostel is very clean. Granted, the room we are in is very tiny, especially for the three of us, but all we're going to do is sleep here. The boys went back out to get some dinner to bring in while I made the beds. We then ate, showered (in the communal coed bathroom (they were private at least) then crashed for the night.

I got up around 6:30 this morning and wrote this entry. Today we are exploring Kyoto, going to many of the temples, tourist sites, etc. Should be a long but amazing day!

Our First Day in Iijima

Wednesday morning Ike got up and went to school and Pete and I slept in. I think I got up around 9:00. After Pete got up we took a walk around Ike's neighborhood and it is really great! All of the houses have beautiful gardens, both flower and vegetable. They put mine to shame. There are rice patties everywhere, tucked into back yards and all over. There are irrigation ditches running all through his neighborhood, which is really cool. We only walked around Ike's area and didn't venture too far. Today we'll give that a try while Ike's at school. It is just so pretty here because Iijima is tucked into a valley between two mountain ranges.

After Ike got home he took us for a drive up into the mountains. It was raining on and off but it was still beautiful. There are tons of little waterfalls all the way up, and the trees are gorgeous. Every once in awhile we would happen upon a little shrine just tucked into the woods. We stopped at this neat dam and had fun taking lots of pictures. I will try to get them up on facebook today. We really enjoyed the signs they had posted, especially the one that is simply a big exclamation point. :-)

After our drive we came back to town and went to the grocery store to get stuff for supper. Ike cooked a delicious meal of dumplings (actually Peter cooked those), miso soup, and some chicken dish. And yes, I ate the entire thing with chopsticks! I crashed early (9:00!) which made me wake up early. Pete made us breakfast today and now I'm trying to talk him into another walk around town. I think we'll venture a bit farther from Ike's house today.

Tonight we are going out to eat in the next town over with some of Ike's friends. We're going to a Chinese restaurant (seems funny to go to a Chinese restaurant in Japan).

Days 1 & 2: The Trip Over

Oy vey, what a day! It's been long and crazy but we finally made it and I got to hug my baby. :-) We started out at 7:00 am, when Susie picked us up to take us to the airport in Cedar Rapids. We got there with plenty of time to spare (go figure) and we got our four big bags checked through with no problem. We then settled down to wait for the plane. There was a short delay (20 minutes) and then we were off for Chicago. We had a 2 hour layover there but it went fast. Finally boarded the plane to Tokyo at about 1:00 pm but then had to wait an hour because there was luggage on the plane that belonged to a passenger that didn't board. It was probably one of the people who took the "overbooking deal". We were tempted, since they offered $800 plus hotel and meals and the same flight the next day, but we didn't have any way to contact Ike and knew he only had the day off to pick us up. Anyway, we finally took off for Japan! I took Ike's advice and stayed up the ENTIRE flight. :-O Each seat had it's own monitor on the headrest in front, so we watched lots of movies, tv shows and played games while listening to music. I read a lot, too. We were close to the back of the plane so I was able to get up and walk around a lot, which helped me tremendously. It was a huge plane so it wasn't as claustrophobic as I expected.

We finally landed on time at around 3:30 pm (this would be 1:30 am, our time) but couldn't get off the plane until the health officials came on board and cleared everyone. Went through customs without any trouble and then came out to find NO IKE! :-/ We waited and waited and then started to worry. I went to the information desk and had them page him (that was kind of funny hearing them pronounce our names) and then waited some more. Of course you'd think I would have thought ahead and gotten his cell phone number, wouldn't you???? That was a major screw up on my part. But I thought, maybe I have it in my email somewhere. So I had to walk the Tokyo airport and find an internet kiosk, which only took 100 yen coins, which I didn't have. I went to a snack kiosk, bought a bottle of water and got my change. Remember, I had been up for a good 20 hours straight and was a bit frazzled by now. I was impressed I could think this clearly. Plus I was really starting to freak out about Ike not being there. Anyway, went online and couldn't find his phone number anywhere. Emailed Bethany and decided to go back to where Pete was waiting with the luggage. Pete then went to see if he could find Ike's number somewhere online but had no luck, either. So now we've been waiting at the airport about 2 1/2 hours and I was about at the end of being able to hold it together. I went back to the information ladies who were SO sweet, and one of them said that she would try paging Ike at the other terminal. I thought, "the other terminal???" She did that and all of a sudden I heard these big running footsteps come up behind me and I felt a big bear hug. :-) Yeah, I bawled, but it was more out of relief that we weren't going to spend the night sleeping in the airport rather than seeing my baby. :-P No, it was a combination of them, acctually.Turned out he was at terminal one waiting all this time, and was even there early! He finally bugged someone enough and asked if we could have come in at any other part of the airport and they told him where. So considering the two of us screwed up, it was great we finally connected.

Okay, so now we had to run and catch a bus that took us from the airport to another bus station in downtown Tokyo. We arrived at that station as the 8:00 pm bus to Iijima was pulling out! Luckily there was a 9:00 bus (the last one) so we took that. It was fun watching all the people who were out shopping at night. It was crazy crowded! If I hadn't been so dead tired I would have enjoyed it more. So, at 9:00 pm our bus arrived and we loaded our things in the baggage compartment and climbed aboard. The bus was comfy and we could put our seats back and try to sleep for the 3 hour ride, but the roads were bad and it was loud and bumpy. We finally made it to Iijima, and the bus dropped us off on the side of the highway. Really. We then had to haul our five suitcases up these steep stairs, haul them over these railings, then walk down this dark street, over the highway to the parking lot on the other side of the highway where Ike's car was parked. Remember, this was now about midnight! I am going to have to figure out a way to post pictures on the blog so you can see how crazy this was.

So, turns out the trip, door to door, took us a mere 27 hours! It was great to get to Ike's apartment and take a shower and climb into (down on to) the futon. I slept well, even on the floor. :-)