From Monkeys to Mice

Howdy from Japan. Denise and I had a super exciting 3 day weekend last weekend that we are still trying to recover from, so we can get ready for this weekend's adventures.

(Saturday, February 14)

We woke up especially early this morning, so that we could get on base prior to our bus leaving at 5 am. We got up at 4 am and left the apartment at 4:30 am. Believe it or not there were some party animals still having a good time in the bars nearby our apartment. We spent 10 hours of our Valentines Day sitting next to each other and holding hands on our bus ride to see the wild snow monkeys and Matsumoto castle. It took about 5 hours to get to see the snow monkeys which were near Nagano (think Winter Olympics). We had our Nintendo DS to keep busy during the long bus ride.

We stopped along the way at a few rest stops to take a break, buy souvenirs, go to the bathroom, and eat. They were pretty cool with a huge parking lot and a long building with sit-down restaurants, fast food restaurants, snack shops, pastry shops, souvenirs, restrooms, traffic conditions, and free hot tea (similar to our coffee). We had plenty of snacks to eat, but we did eat at one of the fast food restaurants on the way home.

We arrived at the snow monkey area around 10:45 am and then we had to walk along a wooded trail to see the snow monkeys. Along the way we went by an old hotel where there was a geyser that was spewing out of a small hole in the ground. We started to see snow monkeys here. They are called snow monkeys because the area usually has a lot of snow and the monkeys use the hot spring to keep warm during the cold winter months. There was not a lot of snow on the ground and the weather was quite warm for the day. We finally got into the park area where there were more monkeys hanging around. We went down to the hot springs and there was one monkey in there due to the warm weather. Before we left another three monkeys got in for a soak. It was fun seeing the monkeys cruise around the valley area, play fight with each other, walk right by tourists, and clean each other. The monkeys got very close to you, but if you stared them in the eyes they got scared and moved away.

After we left the snow monkeys we got back on the bus to head to Matsumoto to see the castle. It was another hour drive to get to Matsumoto and we got to the castle around 4:15 pm. We only had 45 minutes to explore the castle and the castle grounds. The castle was awesome and had a very wide water moat around it. It was five stories high, all wood, and the original castle. It was well preserved over the years and was not destroyed and rebuilt. We had to put on slippers to walk around the inside of the castle. It was very cool inside. The stairs to go to the different floors were in different locations around got steeper and steeper the higher up the castle you went. They had some exhibits inside including an old samurai outfit.

We left Matsumoto around 5 pm and ended up getting back to the apartment at 10:30 pm that night. It was an extremely long day, but both areas were awesome and well worth it to visit.

(Sunday, February 15)

We slept in this morning until 10:30 am or so. I made us our famous breakfast burritos. It was the first time I have made and Denise has had the breakfast burritos since right before I left to come to Japan. They were quite tasty especially with the New Mexico Hatch green chiles from Trader Joes. We left Yokosuka around 2 pm to catch the train up to Tokyo.

We went to Meiji Shrine in Tokyo which is near the Roppongi area. The Meiji Shrine is the largest shinto shrine in Tokyo and was built in the 1920s in honor the previous Emperor and Empress. There were over a 1000 trees imported into the park that surrounds the shrine. It was very peaceful walking through the woods to the shrine. It was a nice relief from the hustle and bustle of the city. We hung out at the shrine for over an hour before it started to get too dark.

We left the shrine and headed south on the train to the next train station on our way to the New Sanno hotel that we were going to stay at. The New Sanno is a 4 star hotel in Tokyo that is for armed forces use only and was reasonably priced at $65 a night for a western style room. At the next train station we headed to the Tokyo subways. This was the first time I have ever taken the subway, but we only had one stop to go before we got to our subway station. We walked for about 15-20 minutes before we got to the hotel.

The New Sanno hotel was awesome with only about 130 rooms, a small Navy exchange, American restaurant, deli, Japanese restaurant, and gift shop. We met up with one of my fellow engineers who was staying with his wife. We talked with them for quite awhile until we went to have dinner at the American restaurant. I have been in Japan for over a month, so I missed our good old American food. I have had some great hamburgers in town and on base, but I wanted something that was not quite fast food. I got an awesome Cajun chicken sandwich and Denise got a good old American burger. After dinner we walked around town and made sure that we did not get lost.

(Monday, February 16)

This was the day Denise was waiting for ever since I told her we were going to Japan. Denise has a dream to visit every Disneyland resort in the world, so this was one of her top things to do while in Japan. We headed to Disneyland for the day. Disneyland was about a 30 minute subway and train ride from the New Sanno hotel, so we got there around 9:45 am. The train station is location right between the two Disney parks. There is also a private Disney train that goes between the two parks and might even go around the park. We just walked 15 minutes to get to the entrance of Disneyland. There is also DisneySea which is similar to California Adventure except it has different rides. We decided to go to the original which was celebrating their 25th Anniversary.

We got our picture taken soon after getting into the park with the castle in the background. After that we started hitting the rides. We went on the Pirates of the Caribbean, Jungle Cruise, Winnie the Pooh, Roger Rabbit, Tom Sawyers Treehouse, Haunted House, Western Train Ride, Honey I Shrunk the Kids, and Small World. The rides were very similar except a majority of the dialog was in Japanese. There were a lot of Japanese youngsters at the park. Most of them had funny mouse hats which we tried on to see what we looked like. We ate some curry popcorn which we had to wait 30 minutes to get, but it was worth it. Splash Mountain was being maintained so we did not get to go on that ride. It got really cold mid afternoon and then were getting tired, so we ended up leaving the park around 8 pm.

Denise did get her lanyard pins after some hard searching. The Japanese are crazy souvenir shoppers, so every store we went into to look for lanyards was jam packed with people buying Disney goodies. The prices were not that cheap, but people still threw down lots of money to buy stuff. I was surprised especially after reading that the Japanese economy is hurting.

We left Disneyland onboard the train headed back into Tokyo. The interesting part was that the train tracks we got to in Tokyo station were located way deep below the station. It took us 15 minutes or so to walk from that train track to the train track that would get us to Yokosuka. We walked three or four floors of stairs and at least two floors of escalators. As we were walking up we passed the signs for the subways prior to getting to the surface trains that we needed to get back to Yokosuka. We got back to our apartment around 9:45 pm and I used the last few days of work to recover from the fun packed weekend.

Better Together

Denise is back, the blog is back, and we are ready to bring on the excitement from Japan. We will get better at this blog thing since we are getting a few helpful reminders that we need to keep it up to date. For the record, Denise did make it here safely. Since the last blog entry and this one; Denise arrived (Yes!), I got sick, we celebrated Valentines Day, we went on our first Japanese weekend trip together, and now the blog is back. Sit back, relax, and read about the last week and half.

Nothing exciting happened until Denise got here. I worked lots of hours up until the Sunday Denise arrived here.

(Sunday, February 8)

I started out this day by talking with Denise before she boarded her plane in Seattle. Afterwards, I went back to sleep before eventually waking up and actually checking out different parts of Yokosuka. I have not spent a lot of time strolling through the local streets unless I had to get somewhere or get something to eat. I had two missions today with finding a nice flower to give to my wife upon her arrival and getting to the airport on time. I looked forever, but I finally found a flower that was worthy of my lovely wife. I later learned that it was a carnation, but it was beautiful.

I took the bus from Yokosuka Navy base to Narita airport for Denise's arrival. I knew that she was going to be late from the voicemails she left on Skype while I was sleeping in. Silly me, I forgot to bring the flower with me when I left the apartment to go on base to catch the bus. The bus was quick and got me to the airport about the time she was planning on arriving, so I had two hours or so to kill before she arrived. It was a magical time once I saw Denise coming out of the arrivals gate even though it took me a few moments to see her behind her stack of luggage.

{D} I arrived on Sunday. It was definately a long flight. Our plane left SeaTac 3 hours late because they were having some kind of computer problem. They had us on the plane the entire time as they tried to fix the problem. We arrived in Japan around 6:30pm local time. The customs process was fairly easy and quick. It took about 20 minutes from when I got off the plane to go through customs and meet up with Sean. The van ride from the airport went pretty fast.

(Monday, February 9)

The infamous cold bug that had been hitting everyone at work and at the hotel finally got it's grips on me starting on Monday. I was not very happy to be at work and was starting to become a space cadet. I was looking forward to seeing Denise when I got home from work, but I also felt bad because I was feeling so bad and she had just arrived.

{D} I spent the morning with another girl that was on my same flight and her boyfriend who is one of Sean's co-workers. He had the day off to show his girlfriend around since she is only here for two weeks. It's so easy to walk to places here. The three of us went to a shopping center and looked around at shoes, clothes, and also went to the 100 yen store which is like our $1 stores. I came back around lunch time and got some rest since I was feeling a little tired. On Monday when Sean came home from work he wasn't feeling very good. He was coming down with a cold and just wanted to go to bed. He rested a while and then we went to the Navy base so I could get my pass to go on base. Then we went to dinner at this great place called Pepper Lunch which is a place Sean had been to before. It kind of reminds me of when you get fajitas at a Mexican restaurant. They bring you a hot skillet with the steak, rice, and green beans that you move around the skillet and finish cooking yourself. After dinner we just came back to the the hotel/apartment.

(Tuesday, February, 10)

I felt like a ragged doll that was all stuffed up with who knows what. I was feeling so bad that I did not even get up for the free breakfast. I thought that I could go into work after a few hours of rest, but I made it as far as the commissary to get medicine and walk back to the hotel. I had been quite healthy up to this point, but with the stress of work piling on my body could not fight it anymore. I rested the rest of the day.

{D} I got up and went to breakfast in the hotel lobby. We get breakfast everyday which is nice. For me to get breakfast everyday Sean had to give up his laundry service, but we are lucky to have a washer/dryer in our room since we are in the apartments. I would call this more of a studio instead of an apartment, but other people have far smaller rooms and don't have washer/dryer or a small kitchen area like us.

Well Tuesday was more walking around and exploring the general area with two ladies, Carol and Anne, whose husbands also work at the shipyard with Sean and happened to be on the same flight from Seattle as me. I took them back to the shopping center I had been to before since they really hadn't been out to see much. We also found a shrine up on this hill that we walked to. Sean stayed home from work on Tuesday since he was not feeling too well. I told him that his co-workers would think he was playing hooky since I was in town now. He definitely wasn't play hooky since I couldn't even get him to leave the room. On Tuesday I made grilled cheese sandwiches and soup for dinner and we just watched some TV.

(Wednesday, February 11)

Another day of sickness for me. I of course thought that after a few hours rest I could make it in, but I was wrong. I felt bad for calling in sick again because work has been quite busy lately that I did not want to let down my coworkers.

{D} Sean was going to try going into work a little later this morning. He and I went over to breakfast but he felt like he was burning up so he went back to the room and went to bed. I spent the day with Carol and Anne and we went to see the historic Japanese battleship here in Yokosuka near where we are staying. That afternoon after getting back from the battleship I came back and made tacos for Sean since he misses Mexican food. They turned out great. After dinner we got Sean out of the studio apartment for awhile and went for a walk. He took me to the train station where I got a train card and went on a short train ride so I could learn the system.

(Thursday, February 12)

I made it back to work today and struggled to get through the day. I was definitely feeling like a better day, but I was coughing really good at work most of the day. Today, was my mother's birthday, but I had to wait until Friday to call her since the time change. We sent her some local Japanese gifts that she received just before she took off on a vacation of her own to Florida.

{D} Sean returned to work. I went with friends Carol and Anne to Yokohama which is about a 30 minute train ride from Yokosuka where we are staying. With my new train riding skills I just learned the night before we made a trip to a very large train station. When we arrived it took us awhile to even figure out how to get out of the station. Once we got out of the station we didn’t go far since there was a big mall right above where we spent several hours. We went to this great market in the mall that had all kinds of different vendors – seafood, teas, chocolates, cookies, pastries, and potstickers also known as gyoza. We sometimes had to look away as because I was not accustomed to some of the things I was trying. My friend Anne said she knew when not to try something because I didn’t do a good job hiding when I didn’t like something I tasted.

We went into the department store at the mall where most of the stores were small shops. The department store was very expensive with most items costing $100 or more when I looked at the price tag. We made our way up to the Kimono floor where we were in awe of the beauty and the price. The robe part of the Kimono cost around $3000 depending on the one you choose or what accessories you got like the wide belts which alone costs $5000. I could hardly believe the belt cost more than the robe. Then there were the little sandal shoes that cost around $400. It was crazy but they are so beautiful. I’m actually going to be taking a class on Kimonos here in a couple days so I’m sure I will find out more about the different parts and the true names for them. After looking at all the kimonos we had lunch and headed back to Yokosuka. We wanted to make sure we hit the trains before rush hour so that if we had any problems we had time to figure it out.

That evening after getting back, Sean and I joined some friends of his from work for a wonderful little restaurant near base. The name is in Japanese and so is the menu and there is no plastic food to point to. The chef is amazing. He could probably only fit about 10 people in the restaurant and you watch him prepare every piece in front of you. We had breaded pork also called tankatsu in addition to all the other wonderful things that came along with the meal. Definitely don’t go there hungry because the chef takes his time to prepare everything perfectly. You watch him prepare everything for close to an hour before you get to eat your dinner.

We will be writing again tomorrow evening about our past weekend, so you can find out about the longest tourist day, followed by relaxation in Tokyo, and finishing the weekend at the happiest place on earth. Stay tuned...

Kamakura

I apologize for not being on top of this blogging thing and waiting until a week has passed before I add any blog postings. This last week of work was extremely stressful and difficult and required a lot of overtime to keep the ball rolling. Once I got home I was angry at the world especially because I could not talk to my lovely wife from the peace of this apartment I call home. I will get better at this and next week there will be the added bonus of blogs by both Denise and myself. I am sorry that my posts are long, but that is how I roll.

(Wednesday, January 28)

This was the last night I hung out with my good friend Karen before she flew out on Friday. I finally got to experience yakitori. I should be eating yakitori everyday because it is different forms of grilled chicken and other meats. For my seafood allergy this is a great choice for me. I went to the yakitori restaurant nearby the hotel with Karen, Patrick, and Trevor. We sat at the bar and there were two cooks there along with a group of three local Japanese patrons. They have the barbeque coal grill located at the end of the bar that was smoking with someone elses meal.

I ordered some form of chicken, quail eggs, vienna sausage, grilled rice ball, and some vegetable skewers for dinner. All the meals are bite size pieces on skewers that they cook on the grill after you order them. The vegetable skewer was good, but someone gave me some of their asparagus skewer which was even better. It was wrapped in cheese and was almost as good as Sarah's baked asparagus. I am not sure if I was tricked into this, but the chicken I ate was a young chicken and it tasted very spongy. The vienna sausages tasted like little smokies from my Boy Scout days. The quail eggs were awesome and after that I tried some chicken balls which were not awesome. I did not puke, but they just did not taste good. The grilled rice ball was not that great and I would rather just have regular rice.

After we were done eating the cooks started preparing another meal. They greased up a pie dish, laid out a tortilla, and started putting slices of American cheese on top. They put 9 slices of cheese on top, turned the tortilla over and cut of the excess cheese from around the tortilla, then flipped it back to throw some jalapenos on it. They then took it to the back to start baking it. We were mesmerized on what they were making because it looked like a quesadilla. They bring it out, start slicing it up, and actually served it to us. We said it was a quesadilla and the cooks said it was nachos. Lost in translation, but it was very tasty none the less. They said they were testing it out and we were the guinea pigs.

That concluded my last night with Karen before she headed back to Washington.

(Friday, January 30)

After two crappy days at work, I went to an event on base called Nippon Night. It was an evening packed with Japanese culture that included dinner and entertainment. This was the first year they have ever done the event and it was a lot of fun. I went by myself, but met up with and shared a table with Don and Joyce. The night started out with two Japanese ladies playing a Koto which looked like a chello on the ground. The Koto has 13 strings that are plucked by one of three picks worn on the thumb and fingers. It was very soothing music to take your mind of work.

While they were playing the Koto, we helped ourself to the buffet for some authentic Japanese cuisine. They had tempura (fried shrimp), kushiage (beef), sushi, buta no kakuni (pork), steamed cod, and mitsumame (fruit salad). I stayed away from the seafood and just enjoyed the other non seafood items. The food was good, but it was hard to eat because of the entertainment going on. I did not want to look towards my food and miss something on stage.

The first entertainment of the night was the Shi Shi Mai Lion dance which is a January ritual for many Japanese neighborhoods to celebrate the new year. There was some drummers and silly performers. The fun part was the two guys dressed up as flying lions that had some cool masks. The lions left the stage and walked around to bite your head to remove bad spirits and ailments.

After the dancing was a samurai sword fighting performance. The performers play faught on stage with fake looking swords. They even brought in a Kabuki theatre actor who looked like a woman, but actually looked quite different. At the end of the normal performance a 11 year old kid came out and kicked everyone's butt. After the normal performance they grabbed three people from the audience to experience the ways of the samurai. They picked one guy who was 7 feet tall and just towered over the Japanese performers. The crowd people learned a few moves and went through them on stage in a comical matter.

After the samurai performance there was an awesome performance of the taiko drummers. There were eight women and one lead man playing the drums. The noise coming from the drums was quite powerful especially the big drum in the middle. Check out the video and you can get to experience part of the magic. It was a well needed night of relaxation and entertainment to get my mind off of work.

(Sunday, February 1)

This was not Super Bowl Sunday for us, it was a regular day off of work. The Super Bowl was today on Monday. I worked on Saturday, January 31, so there was nothing exciting to talk about. Today, I talked with Denise and my brother-in-law Matt prior to heading off on my adventure to Kamakura. Kamakura was the capitol of Japan in the 12th century and stayed the capitol for 100 years or so. The city is surrounded with Buddhist Temples, Shinto Shrines, and the Great Buddha (Daibutsu).

I headed up to Kamakura with Trevor. It was just the two of us because everyone else I know has already been there. There is too much to see in Kamakura for just one day, so I left a lot to do with Denise when she gets here. Trevor and I took a couple different trains to get to the Hase Station in Kamakura which was the same direction I went to Enoshima Island the week before. From the Hase Station we started walking north towards the Great Buddha. We did not get very far before I saw a temple to the left that looked interesting. We headed towards this temple which happened to be the Hase-Dera Temple.

The Hase-Dera Temple costs us 300 yen to get into, but was well worth the price. The grounds for the temple are beautiful and reminded me of a Japanese Garden with the trees, bushes, and waterways. There was also a cave that we could explore with some stone statues inside. It was a small cave, but it was a lot of fun to explore. We walked around checking out the grounds and taking pictures. We walked up the stairs up the hillside to the halls. There were three halls with bronze statues inside including Daikokuten and Benzaiten. Daikokuten is one of the seven Japanese Gods of Fortune. You could not take pictures of the statues. This temple area was very peaceful. We spent almost two hours just checking out everything. The temple area grounds will be very beautiful in the spring when all the flowers, flowering trees, and bushes come back to life. I can't wait to take Denise there.

After we left the temple, we headed to the Great Buddha. The Great Buddha costs us 200 yen to enter and then another 20 yen to get inside the bronze statue. The Great Buddha is huge and made out of bronze, but was smaller than the stone Buddha I saw at Mt. Nokogiri. It was cool to check out the Buddha, but the rest of the area was quite boring compared to the temple. There was these cool straw sandles on the wall that were huge and I imagine they are big enough to fit Buddha's feet. There were a lot of people at the Great Buddha. After the Great Buddha we walked through town to find some more temples.

We found a few more temples along the way, but nothing nearly as exciting. We finally made it to the Tsurugaoka Hachiman Shrine which was a huge complex and very busy with people. We got there about the time it started getting dark and cold, so a lot of people were on their way out. They were having some sort of service there with people sitting down and praying in front of some elders. It is hard to explain what they were doing being an outsider like myself. We found a huge pile of sake containers that we had to take a picture in front of. I will have to go back to this magestic place with Denise once she gets here because there was a lot to see and we ran out of time.

It took awhile to get home because we were waiting at the Kamakura Station for 45 minutes since none of our trains were coming or were being cancelled. That sucked since it was getting very cold by then. Once we finally got back to Yokosuka we went to a resturant called the Station Grill and had some hamburgers. The interesting part was the hostess/waitress that sat us was a white, blonde haired girl. I was not sure if I should talk to her with my few Japanese words or use English. It was quite strange since 99% of the people in Japan are Japanese. Food was good and we got done in time for me to get back here to watch Lost. Such a great show, thank you Katrina for getting me hooked.

(Monday, February 2)

Super Bowl Monday! The only problem was that I had to work today. I know this has little to do with Japan, but I am American. The game started at 8:30 am here, so we watched the first three quarters online via gametracker. During the middle of the third quarter we left for an early lunch to watch the remainder of the game. It was a great game to watch, even though the Steelers won. We were watching the game on the Armed Forces Network which does not have any commercials, so hopefully there were no good commercials this year. I got back to my room at a reasonable hour, so that I could Skype my wife since she is staying at her parents this week. I miss her so much and I am super duper excited to see her on Sunday. Let this week pass by super fly fast.