Video: Trip to Nikko

While I didn't get our entire vacation video edited in time for last night's party, I did manage to get our Nikko video edited down to a brisk four minutes. Expect more shorts from our Japan vacation in the coming weeks!

Jizo and Pebbles

Seen in Nikko, west of the Annex Turtle Inn Hotori-An, where we had stayed the previous night.

From Wikipedia:

In Japan, Jizō, or Ojizō-sama as he is respectfully known, is one of the most loved of all Japanese divinities. His statues are a common sight, especially by roadsides and in graveyards. Traditionally, he is seen as the guardian of children, particularly children who died before their parents. Since the 1980s, the tendency developed in which he was worshipped as the guardian of the souls of mizuko, the souls of stillborn, miscarried or aborted fetuses. In Japanese mythology, it is said that the souls of children who die before their parents are unable to cross the mythical Sanzu River on their way to the afterlife because they have not had the chance to accumulate enough good deeds and because they have made the parents suffer. It is believed that Jizō saves these souls from having to pile stones eternally on the bank of the river as penance, by hiding them from demons in his robe, and letting them hear mantras.

Jizō statues are sometimes accompanied by a little pile of stones and pebbles, put there by people in the hope that it would shorten the time children have to suffer in the underworld (the act is derived from the tradition of building stupas as an act of merit-making). The statues can sometimes be seen wearing tiny children's clothing or bibs, or with toys, put there by grieving parents to help their lost ones and hoping that Jizō would specially protect them. Sometimes the offerings are put there by parents to thank Jizō for saving their children from a serious illness. Jizō's features are also commonly made more babylike in order to resemble the children he protects.

This Jizo must have been part Wicked Witch, or made of sugar, as it seems to have melted...

Not (Quite) Indispensable

Don't get me wrong: I love my iPhone. It's awesome to have the internet at my fingertips almost anywhere. But, for me, it's still a toy. It's not an indispensable tool. Not yet.

I regularly use my iPhone to Twitter, track my daily weight, look things up on Wikipedia, read USA Today, check my Gmail, track my to-do list, and check the weather. I rarely use it as the phone it is, as my friends are mostly e-mail or Facebook types, and I don't have a kid to track down multiple times a day. I do text with Aaron every now and again, when one of us is at work.

Very few of these things actually require a mobile handheld device. I could check the weather from my computer at work or at home. Same with my e-mail and Twitter (although Twitter wouldn't be quite as much fun that way). I have an Excel spreadsheet with my daily weight. And so on.

That said, the iPhone was the closest thing to an indispensable tool when we were in Japan.

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Tokyo Tower, Thursday Morning

As seen from the Tokyo Prince Hotel, room 950, on 18 May 2009 at 7:45am JST.

Playing Field, Tokyo

Seen from the Main Observation Deck of the Tokyo Tower, 13 May 2009 at 6:55pm.

Tokyo City View

As seen from the 52nd floor of Mori Tower in Roppongi.

Gate Guardian

Seen in Nikko, while touring the shrines and temples.

Shibuya Crossing

As seen from the 2nd floor of Starbucks in Shibuya Tsutaya.

Fuji-san

Photos really can't effectively capture the immensity of Mt. Fuji; she's massive and majestic, and we were lucky to have a clear view of her today.

View From Room 950

Much like the view we had last time, which is awesome.

'Twas The Night Before Tokyo...

The luggage and carry-ons are packed and ready to go, tomorrow's clothes are laid out, the boarding passes and travel documents are printed, and we're just about ready to settle down for a near-sleepless night.

Our checked luggage is still upstairs on the bed, and one inner pocket of one of our suitcases is completely full of chargers and cords for our electronics. Nikon DSLR, Minolta point-and-shoot digital, MiniDV camcorder, Nintendo DS, PSP, iPhones and iPods. (The laptop power supply stays with the laptop in the carry-on.) It's almost ridiculous how "wired" we are for this trip.

I have to wonder whether being more connected this time around is going to change our experience. And it's not just the fact of being able to upload photos of our trip while we're still ON our trip; it's being able to access our Google Map from our iPhones, instead of marking places in our Tokyo Atlas; it's having directions via the Tokyo Metro subway at our fingertips, instead of using our 8.5 x 11" printed map; it's the allure of Twittering (or even all-out blogging) about our vacation at any given moment. It's having access to the internet via the laptop in our hotel room, instead of using the free internet at the Apple Store in Ginza to find a kaiten-zushi restaurant in Asakusa.

Honestly, I think our gadgetry will only enhance our trip, instead of taking away from it. As long as we don't let ourselves get pulled out of the awesomeness that is our vacation in order to document our awesome vacation, I think we'll be just fine.

Our friend Kris is graciously picking us up tomorrow morning around 8:30am to drive us to the Detroit airport. Our flight starts boarding at 11:30am, and we take off at noon-thirty for Tokyo.

And the adventure begins...

Sanja Matsuri, Asakusa 2007

Seen in Asakusa during the Sanja Festival, 19 May 2007.

We never did find out what mythology was being played out here, and were slightly disappointed that the main characters never actually enacted the swordfight that kept being alluded to.

Vacation '09

After our ill-fated attempt at procreation back in '07, Aaron and I found ourselves sitting in Red Lobster, facing a second chance at DINKness (dual income, no kids). Eventually, after some discussion, we decided to do something crazy, something we never thought we'd be able to swing: a week-long vacation to Japan.

It was the best vacation EVER.

It beat the crap out of our previous vacation to Amish Country, or the mix-n-match week of daytrips from the year before that. Despite the ass-long plane trip, our week in Tokyo was everything we'd hoped it would be. Culturally fascinating, with fantastic food and geeky shopping like you wouldn't believe.

How to follow that up? How about the other vacation destination we never thought we'd be able to afford: Hawaii. Beautiful weather, outdoor activities like parasailing and snorkeling, bus tours, a Polynesian theme park, and Japanese food. Again, long-ass plane ride, but ultimately worth it.

So.

Now we've done the two trips we really, really wanted to take in our lifetimes. We have another year to take another potentially over-the-top trip... but neither of us are wowed solely by breathtaking landscapes or fantastic weather. There needs to be places to go, things to do, and preferably some sort of nearby walkable civilized / metropolitan area. Since Aaron had to put in for his vacations so early this year, we're locked into traveling in either May or August.

Our two awesome vacations were awesome for completely different reasons. Hawaii was more of an outdoor adventure, while Tokyo was a geeky paradise for lovers of the Japanese culture. Maybe it's just because we're at the beginning of winter, but I'm recalling how much I really enjoyed being in the tropics. Warm breezes, perfect temps, sunshine, beaches... not that Tokyo in May was unpleasant by any means. So, while there are plenty of places I'd like to check out in Europe (especially England and Ireland), I think they're going to be pushed to the back burner, in favor of some fun in the sun.

I think I'm just jonesing for a getaway, and that's putting me in vacation-planning mode. I'm trying to balance price and flight length with potential vacation awesomeness, and am coming up with either the Caribbean or Mexico / Central America. I mean, Hong Kong would be great, but that's a loooong trip for more money than it cost to go to Tokyo. Fiji might be neat, too, but is it 20 hours and $3000 worth of neat? I highly doubt it.

San Jose, Costa Rica seems kind of far from the beach, although it looks like there's some awesome white water rafting. Belize is a possibility, as English is the official language, and there's interesting things to do like cave tubing and snorkeling. Puerto Vallarta might be fun — whale watching, swimming with dolphins, hot air ballooning, and jungle boogie-ing. One of the islands of the Caribbean might even be do-able: Aruba, or Jamaica, or St. Lucia.

I'm not entirely opposed to doing the touristy thing; in fact, I've enjoyed most of the touristy things we've done. I just like to have the option to just walk out of my hotel and find out where the locals go, or have an adventure I hadn't planned.

I guess I'm just feeling a little overwhelmed. We've done the top two trips, right out of the gate. Now the rest of the world is waiting.

Twitter Update (#1072611623)

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Schnuth Summer Luau 2008

Time to post something besides Twitter updates, cool as they might be.

In my own inimitable tradition, I planned a luau in honor of a.) the onset of the first day of summer and b.) our Hawaii vacation last month. Parties are a great excuse to get everyone together and drink and play video games, and I've hosted a couple successful ones since we've lived here. (Aaron hosted a few successful New Year's Eve parties at his apartments before that, too, but that was quite some time ago.) Our circle of friends hasn't been as socially close as we were, say, eight years ago, and a formal invitation to come over and see everyone all at once seems to have appeal.

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Hawaii Report #3

Saturday was our day to take the Grand Circle Island Tour, taking us all around the island of O'ahu. We mainly saw beautiful views of cliffs and beaches, although Cousin Greg was quite the snarky comedian and told us some local history we hadn't heard yet. After the tour, we went to the mall for conveyor belt (kaiten) sushi, and had an early night.

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Hawaii Report #2

Friday was our day to go to the Polynesian Cultural Center. When we'd bought our airfare and hotel package, the PCC was listed as one of the possible touristy things we could tack on for an additional price. Since we tend to gravitate toward cultural sorts of things anyway (like Behalt in Amish Country, for instance), we decided to go for it. It wasn't until after everything was bought and paid for that we read online that the PCC is owned and operated by the LDS church, and that the center is more of a theme park than an actual cultural experience.

Even without booze at the luau, though, we still had a great time:

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Flickr'd!

The photos we took in Hawaii are now posted in a set on Flickr. If you go through the slideshow, it'll take you about 25 minutes, assuming you don't pause the slideshow and don't skip through.

Next on the agenda: scanning the two photos we bought — one before the Orientation Breakfast (OMG cheesy!) and one before Germaine's Luau (not really cheesy at all). Also, I plan to post some short videos ("moving pictures") to Flickr, as I think some video we took will adhere nicely to that concept. I'm also going to edit together the 100 minutes of video we took into something a little more watchable.

For those of you who have asked if we're planning a party to show off our pictures, here's your Save The Date notice: June 21st, the first day of summer. Start scouring the local Goodwill for your aloha attire!

Hawaii Report #1

So, you're probably wondering how Hawaii was.

Hawaii was fantastic. Gorgeous weather, beautiful scenery, fun things to do, good food, and Japanese restaurants and tourists out the yin-yang. There's a lot to talk about.

This time, though, I'm going to do things a little differently, in the hopes that I'll a.) get through my travelogue before summer's over, and b.) not bore you silly with exacting details that you don't need. As with last year's trip to Tokyo, I wrote in my notebook every night all the notable things that happened that day. I think I'm going to just scan those in and comment on them as necessary, and add links to my flickr pictures for that day.

I'm going to try to put enough commentary on my flickr photos that the best way to find out about the trip would be to just do watch the slideshow. I don't have all the photos up quite yet, though.

So, let's go briefly through Days #1 and #2, shall we?

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Back From Oahu

We arrived back in Toledo around 7:30pm today, with a little sunburn and a lot of good times under our belts. Rest assured that I'll be sharing all the fun details and photos in the days (or weeks) to come. For now, I'll just say that the highlights of our trip included two luaus, snorkeling, parasailing, and taking several tours. That's only touching on the very basics, though.

Believe it or not, Aaron's already in bed asleep, since I managed to sleep better on the plane ride home than he did. I still have a bit of juice left in me before I crash out myself.

A hui hou (until we meet again)!

Into The Wild Blue Yonder

Bright and early tomorrow morning, Aaron and I will be driving up to the Detroit airport and flying out to Hawaii. Don't expect to hear much from me for the next week or so (not like I've exactly been the prolific blogger of late). I may post occasional updates to my Twitter from Aaron's Nintendo DS (since our phone is incompatible with Twitter — damn Tracfone), so keep an eye on my Twitter page.

Expect us back in a little over a week (factoring in recovery from jet-lag) with photos and stories and video and a great tan.

Aloha!

Japan Trip, Day 3, Part 2: Meguro, continued

I seriously doubt I'm going to get through blogging the remainder of our Japan trip in the next few days. We'll see, though.

When we last left off, we had just finished walking through the Meguro Parasitological Museum. Considering that it was free, and that we got to see elephantitis of the nuts, we felt it had been worth our time.

As we made our way back to the subway station, we saw that the city was finally awake and alive, unlike when we'd first arrived. Sure, salarymen and women had been crowding the crosswalks on their way to work, but no restaurants or retail stores had been open yet...

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Japan Trip, Day 3, Part 1: Meguro Parasitological Museum

Don't laugh. I know it's been almost six months since I blogged about last year's Japan trip, and nearly a year since we took said trip. I just feel like I should really finish documenting the last awesome vacation before we go on another one.

When we last left off, we had just finished Day Two of Seven. So far, we'd gotten to Japan, gone on a day tour, and took our first trip on the subway to Akihabara. On Day Three, we visit the Meguro Parasitological Museum, peruse the awesome otaku-centric stores at Nakano Broadway, and eat dinner at the Curry Lab...

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Hooray For Tax Returns

Funny, isn't it, how something really spectacular — a vacation, or a great meal, or even just a fleeting feeling — can hang so heavily over the rest of your life? Nothing else will quite measure up to that moment of wondrousness, and it would be easy to spend the rest of one's life searching for that elusive something that would match or exceed that one golden moment.

That's the trap. When Shakyamuni Buddha postulated that life is suffering (dukkha), he also explained that part of this suffering is being stuck on the happy moments that fail to last. It's not healthy to keep chasing after the next big thing.

That doesn't stop us from trying, though. It doesn't stop me from going to Red Lobster and ordering some expensive lobster tail, knowing full well that it won't hold a candle to the whole steamed and stuffed lobster I had in Boston during our honeymoon in 2003. It doesn't stop me from looking fondly at the memorabilia I bought and the photos I took during our week in Tokyo last year (note to self: still need to finish blogging that trip).

And it doesn't stop us from planning new vacations with our tax return money.

Let's segue now, shall we, from the realm of the spiritual to the realm of the worldly, and talk about things like TurboTax and NWAWorldVacations...

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Japan Trip, Day 2, Part 5: Asakusa, Ginza, and Akiba

When we last left the Dynamic Tokyo Tour, we had just arrived by boat in Asakusa.

Along with the rest of the tour group, we walked to the Kaminarimon Gate ("Thunder Gate"), the entrance to the Nakamise Dori, the shopping avenue which runs from the gate up to the Sensoji Temple. Historically, shopkeepers would sell their wares to pilgrims traveling to the temple. In modern times, they're mainly selling to tourists, pilgrims of a different type.

A Japanese couple who wasn't part of our tour group approached us and asked us to take a photo of them in front of the gate — a standard tourist picture. Then, as appears to be polite among tourists, they asked if they could take our photo for us. It hadn't been a photo I would have sought out or asked a stranger to take, but I'm glad they offered, because this is now one of my favorite "Us in Japan" photos, just because it's so obvious where we are.

For more Japan travelogue, read on...

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Japan Trip, Day 2, Part 4: Imperial Palace and Sumida River Cruise

I know it's been a while, and you'd probably given up on me actually finishing the narrative of our trip to Tokyo in May. Even though some of the freshness of the moment has faded, I do want to document the rest of what happened in Japan. You might want to review the previous entries to get yourself back up to speed on our trip so far.

Day 2 in Japan was the Dynamic Tokyo Tour; so far, we'd visited the Tokyo Tower, participated in a group tea ceremony, seen 500-year-old bonsai trees, and had a Japanese BBQ lunch. Next on the agenda was a visit to the Imperial Palace grounds...

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Japan Trip Travelogue Interruptus

You may have noticed that it's been a while since I documented anything about the Japan trip back in May. You may also have noticed that I haven't even managed to document our entire first full day in Japan yet. Daunting, yes.

But, you can listen to Aaron and myself talk about the Japan trip on his Weekly Anime Review Podcast. What we've covered so far is:

• Part 1: Our arrival, our bus tour, and our impromptu trip to Akihabara.
• Part 2: The Meguro Parasitological Museum and Nakano Broadway.
• Part 3: Ginza and the Sanja Festival in Asakusa.

I have photos up through Day 4 on my Flickr, if you choose to peruse. I still have a couple days' worth of photos to upload, and I'll get on that soon.

We really need to go back to Japan someday.

Samurai Statue, Imperial Palace

I'm overdue for another Japan Trip installment, I know...

In lieu of that, for now, I present this photo of the statue of Kusunoki Masashige, just outside the Imperial Palace grounds in Tokyo.

Japan Trip, Day 2, Part 3: Japanese BBQ

When we last left our travelers (myself and my husband Aaron, that is), the Dynamic Tokyo Tour was leaving Happo-en Garden and heading toward Chinzanso Gardens for a Japanese BBQ lunch at Mokushun-do Restaurant.

You may recall that, at the very beginning of the tour, our tour guide had asked us if both beef and pork were OK for lunch. We're crazy omnivorous Americans, so we agreed that both were fine. En route to Chinzanso, Junko asked again for a show of hands of who didn't want beef, and who didn't want pork. After a quick count, she seemed perplexed, and told us that some people had apparently changed their minds, because the counts were different than earlier. After two more shows of hands, Junko finally went through the entire bus one more time, asking everyone individually whether they wanted only beef or only pork, and making it clear that it would *not* be OK for us to change our minds after this point. Being that this didn't really affect us directly, the whole scene was more amusing than anything else.

Japanese BBQ, as with other styles of Asian BBQ, involves a server cooking the food at your table. At Mokushun-do, we were served pork, beef, sweet onion, asparagus, and Japanese sweet potato, all grilled at the table and dipped in a light BBQ sauce before serving. Each table at the restaurant was equipped with a large square griddle in the center; we could feel the heat put off by the griddle at our table before we even sat down. All of the tour participants sat six to a table, two on a side, with one side of the table reserved for the chef/server. Aaron and I ended up sitting with a younger couple and an older couple, who both turned out to be from Sweden.

That was one interesting aspect of our English-speaking tour: most of the tour participants were not native English speakers. There were Swedish people, Japanese people, and I'm sure there were other nationalities and languages being represented, as well. English just seemed to be a common second (or third) language for most of these people. It made the tour more interesting, I think — especially during the earlier tea ceremony, when Junko-san had to repeatedly tell the Japanese-speakers to please be quiet until the end of the ceremony.

Back to lunch. Our server came around and tied apron-bibs onto all of us who were seated at her table. The photo ops that ensued became yet another way for us to meet our fellow tourists and get photos of ourselves:

It was at this point when we learned that our table-mates were all Swedish — and, no, the two couples were not together. They were visibly excited to learn that they were compatriots, which was fun to see. It was also fun to see other people use up all the conversational English they knew. ^_^

As our server put the meat and vegetables on the griddle, she would tell one person in the group what it was. There was one item that Aaron and I didn't catch, though, and that eventually offered me an opportunity to use my Japanese again. We were served one piece of meat and one vegetable at a time: pork and asparagus, beef and onion, etc. When the mystery item was served, I got our server's attention and asked, "Kore wa nan desu ka?"

"Japanese sweet potato," she said in highly accented Japanese — so it came out "Japanesu suweetu potehto." Then she told us that it was very different from normal sweet potato, and we agreed and thanked her. After she told us, we could totally tell that's what it was. The insides were white and the skin looked purple, but the texture and taste became immediately more recognizable, once we knew what it was.

A moment later, our server gestured to my chopstick hand and said, "Good chopstick!" I thanked her, once her meaning sank in (I forget whether I did so in English or Japanese), and Aaron and I briefly compared chopstick styles. Aaron uses kind of his own style, while I do it the way that the disposable chopstick wrappers describe, with their pictures and their great Engrish. Our server saw the way Aaron and I were silently comparing notes, and how Aaron was realizing that he was doing his chopsticking some kind of effed-up way, and she giggled. It was a cute moment.

After four or five mini-courses, we had a dessert of vanilla bean ice cream (with cute little spoons!) and a different kind of tea than the standard green tea served with lunch. After dessert, we were given 30 minutes to walk the grounds and make our way back to the bus. Aaron went to untie his apron-bib, and our server jumped into action and apologized, helping him remove his bib. The level of service in Japan is really an experience in itself.

We made a quick restroom break at the restaurant, then headed out to see the grounds — in the rain. Luckily, Chinzanso was kind enough to provide umbrellas for their guests, so we each borrowed an umbrella and struck out into the rain. I would have liked to have spent more time in the gardens, as there was so much to see: a 500-year-old sacred tree, with branches held up by crutches; Shiratama Inari Shrine, a three-story pagoda, and various gods/idols and water features and bridges and such. Alas, we barely had time to check out the few things we did, and the rain really started to come down as we were walking. We made it back to the main building on time, dropped off our umbrellas in the waiting rack, and headed out to the bus. Next stop: the Imperial Palace.

Previous: Day 2, Part 2: Tokyo Tower and Happo-en Garden | Next: Day 2, Part 4: Imperial Palace and Sumida River Cruise

Japan Trip, Day 2, Part 2: Tokyo Tower and Happo-en Garden

When we last left off the trip narrative, Aaron and I had just finished an overpriced breakfast buffet and were preparing to embark on the Dynamic Tokyo Tour: a nine-hour whirlwind bus tour of Tokyo, taking us to lunch, a tea ceremony, gardens, the Imperial Palace, and more.

As we sat in the hotel lobby with both of our jackets, my camera, and Aaron's shoulder bag, waiting for the bus, we noticed that other gaijin were joining us at a distance. Two couples were talking about their impending day-tour of Mt. Fuji, so we knew they'd be on some tour, but not ours.

Eventually, we went outside to wait for the bus — once it arrived, a Sunrise Tours representative got off the bus, asked if we were waiting for the tour, and presented us with a colored slip of paper bearing our names and the tour we were going on. Then all of the tour-awaiting gaijin boarded the bus with us, and it was explained to us that we would trade in our colored slip of paper at Hamamatsucho Bus Station for a printed ticket. Once we arrived at Hamamatsucho, that's exactly what happened. We presented our blue piece of paper and received a large printout in return. The nice lady behind the counter explained our tickets to us, told us at which gate our bus would be arriving, and pointed us in the right direction.

As we waited for our tour bus to arrive, we not only saw our first glimpse of vending machine goodness (which another gaijin was also photographing, so I was less shy about it myself), but we also got talking to a nice seemingly-Japanese man who said he was visiting from Australia. Small talk, but it was the first real conversation we'd had with someone other than each other since our arrival. Funny guy.

We traded in part of our giant-ass ticket printouts for bright yellow stickers, which were to act as tickets to particular places, in addition to keeping us all wrangled together. As we did this, the woman who took our tickets (who turned out to be our tour guide) informed us that we would be eating beef and pork at our Japanese barbecue lunch, and confirmed that this was OK with us. (It was, of course — we'll eat just about anything. Although we did hear that sea urchin is pretty vile... we didn't try any while we were there, nor did we try natto.)

After that, no problem. Bus arrived, we boarded, and we were off to the Tokyo Tower.

The Tokyo Tower (in case you haven't figured it out from previous photos) is a replica of the Eiffel Tower. It was built in the 1950s, and it stands 333 meters tall. Our magic yellow stickers got us up to the mid-level observation deck; it was trying to rain, though, so we couldn't see much. We opted to go in front of our tour guide, Junko ("Just remember 'junk' with an 'o' on the end!") and do our own sightseeing. Usually, Fuji-san is visible from the Tokyo Tower, but not that day. We did see our hotel, which was right across the street, and a couple pretty neat views of the city.

There's also a crapload of souvenir shops, eateries, and general touristy stuff at the Tower. We walked by the Sanrio shop, but didn't get the opportunity to really buy much at the Tokyo Tower until later on in our vacation. (It was right next door, after all, so no big loss there.)

Next on the tour: Happo-en Garden.

At Happo-en, we broke into two groups: one group watched a tea ceremony, then got time to visit the grounds, while the other group got to see the grounds first, before their tea ceremony. Aaron and I were the last two to make it into the first group. As such, we ended up sitting not on the bench surrounding the table in the tea house, but on small wooden and canvas stools, instead. Turns out that I got the best seat in the house for photographing the tea ceremony.

The tea, it was explained, is actually dried and powdered green tea. It's much stronger and more bitter than brewed tea, and is served with small sweets beforehand. The sweets we received were sugary confections in the shape of a green maple leaf and a purple hydrangea. I'm ill-suited to explain the entire ceremony and the significance of everything therein, but the Tea Master basically checks all the bowls and utensils for purity and quality, ritualistically cleans and wipes them, then prepares the tea with a combination of boiling water and cooler water, so as not to destroy all the nutrients and flavor in the tea.

At this point in the ceremony, an assistant came out of the back of the tea house, carrying two trays of prepared bowls of tea. They were passed out to each of us, set carefully on the table in front of us with the decorative pattern on the bowl facing us. This was so we could contemplate and admire the loveliness of the artwork, which was truly very classic and simple. Then we held the bowl in our left hand and turned the bowl with our right (yes, just like the tea ceremony in Karate Kid II), because you don't want to sully the side of the bowl that has the design on it. We all took one small sip, and the Tea Master (the woman who prepared the tea) asked us something in Japanese.

We'd been primed for this en route by Junko. She told us that the Tea Master would ask us how the tea was. Even if we didn't like it, we were required to say kekko desu, which I'd learned from my Pimsleur lessons means "it's fine," or "all right." (What Pimsleur didn't tell me, though, is that kekko desu is apparently an older phrase, not often used in normal society these days. I wonder what kinds of looks I would have gotten, had I used it...)

As a learning aid, Junko had a notebook in which she had written the words in giant letters: KEKKO DESU. Then, on the next page, she wrote: KATE CALL THIS. If we couldn't remember kekko desu, we were to remember "Kate call this," or just say "Kate" and mumble the rest. As for some other helpful Japanese, she had written out arigato gozaimasu, or "thank you," then on the next page GO THY MUST. She also drew a nice picture of an alligator and told us to remember "alligator" without the "r". Priceless. Simply priceless.

Back to the ceremony. When the Tea Master asked how we liked the tea, we all obediently chorused, "Kekko desu." We were then directed to drain our bowls of tea, and to make an appreciative slurping noise at the end. We then each took our thumb and forefinger and wiped off the place on the bowl where our lips had touched, then wiped our fingers on the paper on which the sweets had been served. Then we turned the bowl back around to admire the pattern again before setting the bowl back down on the table. The ceremony was over, and we all left the tea house to admire the scenery.

Happo-en Garden has a collection of bonsai trees ranging from a few decades to a few hundred years old. They also have a pond with multicolored carp, and some beautiful flower gardens. We definitely could have spent a longer time here just enjoying the views and walking the grounds, but we had a date to keep at Chinzanso Gardens for a Japanese barbecue lunch at Mokushun-do Restaurant.

Previous - Day 2, Part 1: Breakfast | Next - Day 2, Part 3: Japanese BBQ

Japan Trip, Day 2, Part 1: Breakfast

We learned something about Japan on Thursday morning. Something important, but something that no one happened to mention to us in preparation for our trip.

Sunrise is around 4:30am.

Since we'd crashed out at 7pm local time, and the sun beamed in through the shears at 4:30am, we ended up being wide awake at 5am after a long and healthy ten hours of sleep. Since the hotel restaurant downstairs didn't open until 7am, we decided to take a walk around the block, to familiarize ourselves with the new neighborhood.

I got to compare the mental image of my Google Maps exploration of our new 'hood with the reality of where everything was and how to get there. We walked past the Tokyo Tower, past the Tokyo Prince Park Tower Hotel, and past Shiba Koen, where a group of adults appeared to be doing some early-morning Tai Chi (or some similar Japanese internal martial art). It was peaceful and smelled like spring.

Then it started raining.

We hoofed it back to the hotel (which, luckily, wasn't far), went up to our room and dried off, then went down to breakfast at one of the hotel restaurants.

The restaurant cashier didn't speak as much English as the front desk staff had, and we had a little communication problem as we came in to breakfast. I got to use the first of many useful Japanese words and phrases: Wakarimasen, meaning (in this context) "I don't understand." Eventually he simply told us, in English, "two people," and the price for each of us, which was roughly 2000 yen apiece (a little less than US$20). Yep, the hotel breakfast buffet was a little pricey. In retrospect, we figured out that he was asking us our room number, so we could charge the meal to our room.

Breakfast was good, if expensive, and we had a fantastic view of the private hotel gardens. There was rice, miso soup, tamago (sweet omelettes), some sort of roe, various fish, some sort of stew, and lots of other good food that we didn't have the balls to ask what it was. :-)

After breakfast, we paid the confused cashier, went back up to the room and gathered our things for the all-day bus tour...

...which I will blog about tomorrow. In the meantime, you can view the flickr photos of Day 2, if you want some spoilers.

Previously - Japan Trip, Day 1 | Next - Day 2, Part 2: Tokyo Tower and Happo-en Garden

Japan Trip, Day 1

All righty... Time to recap the Most Awesome Trip that was our Japan Vacation 2007.

On Monday night, Aaron and I drove up to Sheryl and John's house in Wixom for some hot Wii Sports action (and so we could stay there overnight and forego an early morning haul to DTW and a prohibitively expensive parking bill). Tuesday morning, Sheryl was kind enough to drive us and our luggage to Detroit International and drop us off for our Big Adventure.

Getting our boarding passes and going through the security checkpoints was no big deal, even for us Toledo bumpkins who do little to no airline travelling. We checked our luggage, located our gate, chilled for a while, then had some lunch at Max & Erma's in the airport. Mmm, tortilla soup.

When the time came, we boarded our flight and located seats 60-A and 60-B. However, we failed to pack a bag other than our large overhead-compartment storage carry-on (an error we rectified in our later return flight). The flight out was long and turbulent, and neither of us got much sleep. The airline meals were yummy and cute, although that didn't really make up for the fact that the airplane ride WAS NEVER GOING TO END. Never.

After thirteen hours, the hell that was the initial flight to Japan finally came to an end, and we disembarked at Narita Airport. We successfully located our luggage, dealt with some nice customs agents who basically waved us through and welcomed us to Japan... and were met by a Tonichi Travel Representative holding a sign that read, "Mr. and Mrs. Schnuth."

O.o

Talk about personalized service.

Our travel rep got our limousine bus tickets for us, helped us out with our luggage, gave us our itinerary and vouchers, and stayed with us until the limo bus arrived. Excellent service.

It took over an hour to get from Narita to our hotel, during which time we got to see Tokyo and the surrounding area, and get used to driving on the left side of the road. When we arrived at our hotel, a cute little bellhop girl in a mauve outfit singlehandedly manhandled our luggage up to our room for us.

(BTW? No tipping in Japan. Otherwise, we would never have let someone take our luggage if we could have helped it.)

I don't remember even eating dinner. We familiarized ourselves with our cute little room with its awesome view of the Tokyo Tower, then totally crashed out at 7pm.

View photos of Day 1 on flickr | Next - Day 2, Part 1: Breakfast

Back From Japan

Slept 14 hours last night. Spent today unpacking and downloading pics from the memory cards and generally chilling out. Currently saving jpegs to take to work and to post on flickr. Also trying to recover some photos that seem to be lost due to a corrupt memory card. Will post a detailed vacation entry soon.

For now... damn that corrupt SD card, anyway.

Live from the Apple Store, Ginza

So, here we are, using the free internet access on the fourth floor of the Apple Store in Ginza. I already checked my e-mail, and ended up deleting all but three messages, and marking one as spam. I don't appear to be missing much in the way of internet communication, so that's cool.

As a side note, the apostrophe on Japanese keyboards is Shift-7. The colon is where the apostrophe should be. How disconcerting.

Quick rundown so far:
Tuesday/Wednesday: Long-ass plane ride. That sucked balls. We were personally met at the airport by a super-polite and super-helpful travel rep. A nice bellhop at the hotel single-handedly moved all of our luggage into our room. Holy crap!
Thursday: Dynamic Tokyo tour. Best tour evar. Got to see gardens and a tea ceremony (got great photos of that), and impressed the server at the barbecue restaurant by asking, "Kore wa nan desu ka?" when I didn't know what the Japanese sweet potato was. Also got complimented on my chopstick skillz by the same server. Spent a little while in Akihabara afterward, and figured out meal ticket usage at a ramen restaurant. Freaked out the server there by asking, "Kore wa eigo de nanto iimasu ka?" when I didn't know what the ginger was.
Friday: Parasitological museum. Swear to God. Again, I've got pictures. Some of them might not go on flickr because, well... you'll see. Found a great toy / anime store and got an Anpanman plushie for me and a gift for a little someone back home. Ate a great melon glacé bread thingy from a street vendor. Shopped at Nakano Broadway and got some gifts and other cuteness. Got tired early, though. We plan to go back later in our trip.
Today: We're heading up to Asakusa later to check into our ryokan before hitting the Sanja Matsuri and shopping the Nakamise Dori, but wanted to hit the Apple Store on the way (mainly for the free internet). And here we are. We're currently finding where the conveyor belt sushi place is.

OK. I need to go get back to my super-cool vacation. Catch ya later.

Leavin' On A Jet Plane

Blog entries may be scarce over the next week, as Aaron and I are leaving for Japan tomorrow. I'll try to blog a little while we're there, if I happen across any free internet access. In either case, I'll be bringing back craploads of pictures.

This evening, we drive up to Sheryl's house in Michigan, to stay the night and leave our car. Tomorrow morning, Sheryl will drive us out to the airport and see us off, and we'll be on our way to Tokyo.

See you on the flip side... Mata ne!

Japan Update

Aaron's passport arrived on Monday, at which point we faxed in our order for Ghibli Museum tickets to the JTB (Japan Travel Bureau) office in Manhattan. According to Maiko-san, they were overnighted to us today, so we should have them in hand tomorrow. And that's the last piece of the pre-planning puzzle to fall into place.

Aaron and I still need to figure out a more detailed itinerary, but we do have our trip roughly sketched out:

Tuesday:
Leave Detroit Airport 2pm local time

Wednesday:
Arrive Narita Airport 4pm local time
Two-hour limo bus to hotel
Dinner (in hotel?)
Commence jet-lag

Thursday:
Dynamic Tokyo Tour
- Tokyo Tower: check out the observatory and the kitchy souvenir shops
- Tea Ceremony at Happo-en Garden
- Lunch at Chinzanzo Restaurant
- Driveby of the National Diet Building
- Photo-op at the Imperial Palace Plaza
- 40-minute cruise up the Sumida River to Asakusa
- Asakusa Kannon Temple
- Nakamise Dori (Avenue) shopping area
- Drive through Ginza shopping district

After tour: dinner somewhere, then watch Japanese TV in the hotel?

Friday:*
Akihabara!
- Super Potato (collectibles)
- Maid Cafe (lunch or snackies?)
- Kaitenzushi (conveyor belt sushi - lunch or dinner?)
- Hell, we'll probably visit just about every store there...

Saturday:
Sanja Matsuri in Asakusa - the third largest festival in Japan!
Check out the shops and the festival/parade
Overnight stay in the Ryokan Asakusa Shigetsu

Sunday:*
Nakano Broadway - a giant otaku mall in Nakano
Maybe check out the Harajuku girls?

Monday:
Ghibli Museum in Mitaka

Tuesday:
Breakfast, check-out
Limo-bus back to Narita Airport
Depart Tokyo around 4pm local time
Arrive in Detroit around 2pm local time, same day

We still have to fit in a few more definite things, like the Ramen Museum south of Tokyo, and we still need to be sure we have everything marked in our handy-dandy bi-lingual Tokyo atlas. We obviously have some more time to fill in, and the asterisks on Friday and Sunday mean that we might swap our Akiba and Nakano days around, since we'll be closer to Akiba after spending the night in Asakusa, anyway.

Oh, and as a cute illustration, allow me to show you our neighborhood-for-a-week:

Distance from Tokyo Prince Hotel to the nearest 7-11: one-third of a mile.

Let me know if you don't know WTF I'm talking about with some of our itinerary... it's getting late, and I'm getting lazy with the linkage. :-)

OMFG Japan! *head asplodes*

Life Is Good.

Furniture was delivered Saturday afternoon. Only major downside was that the old couch didn't fit through the basement door, so the entire point of buying a new couch (so we could put the old one in the basement) was nullified. On the upside: we have a giant, nine-foot pillow-back sofa on which to lounge; a new, smaller dining room table with non-80's chairs and a bench; and after our return from Nihon, we will have a new massagey recliner.

In other news, Aaron has determined the status of his passport. Due to our change in departure date, it hasn't yet been processed, even though he applied for it back in February. It has now been expedited, and should be on its way by week's end. Which is still calling it close, and may mean that we'll need to obtain our Ghibli Museum vouchers after we arrive in Nihon instead of in advance.

Weight has stabilized at 198 pounds. I'm OK with that for now. Slow and steady weight loss means it's more likely to stay off. I won't make my goal of 190 by Japan, but so be it. I still intend to eat heartily while we're on vacation.

I am SO almost done with my freelance project. I'm hitting some snags with programming the content management system, and I'm going to just have to set some strictures on what it can and can't do. I can't make it account for every possible instance of weirdness. Hopefully, the client will be accepting of that. Honestly, though, I'm really just glad to have it done. I don't know if I'll get the remainder of my pay by the time we leave for Japan, which is unfortunate... but, again, I'm OK with that. Between Aaron and myself, we have enough money saved up to have a sufficiently good time.

Yes, indeed... life is good.

Passports: On Their Way

From: Diana Schnuth
Sent: Monday, March 19, 2007 2:46 PM
To: 'Aaron R. Schnuth'
Subject: passport

That took my entire lunch hour.

There were nine people in front of me, not including the dude who cut. The actual process didn't take overly long, though. I had to have my picture taken twice, because the first time there was too much glare on my glasses. The second time, my hair didn't look as good, though. ;-) My clerk reminded me that even expedited, my passport will take four weeks to arrive, but that I should be able to start checking online after two weeks. Oh, and she loves the forms from the computer -- they're just so nice and neat! Total price? $191.18. Yikes.

So, both of our passports are on their way. Everything will arrive in time. :-)

Love!
Diana

Home Again, Home Again: Conclusion

Part Two of my vacation narrative detailed our trip through Amish Country, eating good food and browsing antiques. Today's final installment covers our exodus from Amish Country and our visit to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum and the Great Lakes Science Center.

read more...

Home Again, Home Again: Part Two

When I last left off the story of this week's vacation, Aaron and I had spent a relaxing/boring evening in the quiet town of Millersburg: walking the Rails-to-Trails, checking out the Amish people at Wal-Mart, and watching cable TV in our hotel room.

Next comes the meat of our vacation: travelling about Amish Country.

read more...

Home Again, Home Again

I'm back.

I have several corps-related e-mails to answer and some general stuff to take care of (including watering my poor, thirsty plants, both indoors and out), but first I'm going to relax and take some time to document my vacation.

If you're interested in reading about antiquing in Amish Country and other vacation highlights, read on.

read more...

The Vacation Thus Far

So far, you already know about the Art Fair and the Zoo trip. Next, on Tuesday, we visited COSI in Toledo, and were particularly disappointed to find that it was nothing like the Cleveland Science Center. At COSI, there are a zillion hands-on exhibits for the younger kids, but very little for big kids like us. The highlight of the day was the Distorted Gravity Room, where the room is built with the floor at probably a 45° angle, if not greater, and with no right angles in the doors or windows. Makes it very funky to try to walk from the entrance door to the exit. Weird, wild stuff.

But that was the highlight of our visit. Overall, I think we spent an hour and a half or so at COSI.

Today we drove out to Sauder Village to see how the settlers and old folks lived. I brought my 35mm camera, but ended up not taking very many photos at all, since most of the interesting stuff was indoors. Aaron and I both had a great time, even so. In each one-room building is a Sauder worker or volunteer, dressed in period clothing, who explains the building and the history behind it. We ended up looking into one original home, a replica of the first home in the Black Swamp, a one-room schoolhouse, a farmhouse, a community jailhouse, a mill, a printing press (including two linotype machines, for the VCT-minded—very cool), and various other buildings, in addition to walking around the grounds and checking out the museum building. Fun time, definitely worth the price of admission.

So, that pretty much concludes the major trips we'd planned for this week. Sometime tomorrow we plan to go see Fahrenheit 911 and maybe hit some earlybird garage sales. Friday we had considered going to a Clutch show in Flint, but I think we've opted against it at this point. We may go to the Art Museum for free. Saturday, there's the community garage sale on Clymena, then we're going to the Full Moon Walk with Kris and Jamie. We've still got some stuff left to keep us occupied, but no more major road trips.

In other news, we happened upon the Concert for George Harrison on PBS tonight. Not something I would have thought to rent on my own, just to watch, but seeing it on PBS was actually pretty cool. It featured a bunch of people we didn't know, plus Clapton, Petty, George Harrison's son, Ravi Shankar, Ringo, and McCartney, and Monty Python. Good concert, well-produced.

And I'm out. Word.

Vacation *insert Go-Gos tune here*

Eleven AM on a Tuesday, and here I am, chillin' at my computer downstairs. Good times.

So, to catch everyone up on what's been happening at the Schnuth abode: we're both on vacation. I return to work one week from today, and Aaron doesn't go back until the following Monday. Our original plan, way back when we requested our vacation time, had been to attend the Star Trek Convention in Las Vegas, but we had to choose between buying a house and going to our very first Star Trek Convention.

Then, I had thought that maybe we could use our new tent this week. However, Aaron brought up the fact that it's the middle of summer, and it has the potential to get damned oppressively hot lately. With that in mind, we opted to wait until Labor Day to go camping.

So, what are we doing this week? All the shit in Toledo and the surrounding area that we haven't done yet (or haven't done for a while).

On Saturday, we went to the Ann Arbor Art Fair. In years past, we've always missed when it was, so we were thankful to have gotten a flyer from one of the artists at this year's Crosby Festival.

Anyway, Aaron and I went with Kris and Jamie, leaving Toledo around 9:30am or so. We arrived in Ann Arbor at the mall shuttle pick-up around 10:30am, paid our $3 per person round trip, and off we went. When we got to the fair, Aaron and I discovered that not eating breakfast had its disadvantages, and that we were starving. So, around 11am, we headed into Amer's and were delighted to find that they have some pretty decent salads there. Yum.

The rest of the day was spent looking at art (obviously), sitting on the grass in the diag and talking, browsing various stores (including, of course, Wizzywig), taking pictures, and just generally enjoying ourselves. I think we left around 4:00pm, and by then we were completely drained from walking all day. Great time, though.

As for the rest of our mutual vacation... Sunday was our normal errands / groceries / laundry day, and yesterday we went to the Toledo Zoo. Today we're planning to go to COSI, tomorrow we may go to Sauder Village, sometime this week we're going to see Fahrenheit 911 (since I haven't seen it yet), and we're contemplating going to Cleveland to check out the Rock Hall in its entirety. (We browsed the first floor during last year's Gravity Games, but we didn't get beyond that.) We may also visit Aaron's grandparents while we're in Cleveland, but I think the jury's still out on that. Although we would be allowed to sleep in the same bed now, if there's one big enough for the both of us...

On Saturday, it sounds like Frieser's neighborhood is having their 'hood-wide garage sale, so we'll be checking that out, then on Saturday evening we're joining Kris and Jamie again for the Full Moon Walk at Oak Openings Metropark.

So, even though we're not really going out of town this week, we're still having a pleasant vacation. Oh, yeah... I was so ready for a break.