Notes on Japan

Sunday night: looong day, transferred at Narita. Bought boxes of food (chow mein, fried chicken, french fries), beer, coke, candy bar. Nobody spoke any English, and Andy began charming the locals right away.

Drove from Hiroshima to Iwakuni on a major highway (San-yo), followed by a smaller highway. Initial impressions confusing and overwhelming; small cars, bright signs, riding in front passenger seat on far-left side of road. Roads SO narrow. Traffic heavy but nobody rude. Came on base and soon went to sleep.

Monday: slept a lot, stayed on base in the morning. That afternoon, went to Iwakuni for the first time. Walked up and down the streets near the train station and shopping area, went to the 100-yen store and a department store, bought some pastries at a bakery. Everything still very disorienting; many things look similar to American equivalents, but I can't read anything or communicate with anyone.

Monday night, ate at a local yakitori restaurant. Sat on floor, had yakitori (meat-on-a-stick), vegetables, and beer. People were very courteous and helpful, and gave us English menus. Nobody spoke any English.

Tuesday: Iwakuni (walking). Lisa, Andy, Mom and I walked from the base down to Iwakuni. Seeing a town on foot is the best way to get a feel for it. We ate lunch at an American-style restaturant owned by a Japanese couple. Again no English, but they had an English menu. I walked Andy across the street to the 7-11 during lunch, and he really charmed the three women that worked there, and two little girls. I was starting to get used to communicating with people without any language . . . so far I'd been using "arigato" (thanks), and "domo arigato" (thanks a lot). Those words combined with non-verbal communication were enough to get around, so far. We saw the covered outdoor mall and other stores, and stopped by the train station again. It was a nice, long walk through town.

After Stan got off work, we took a drive to Oshima Island, a small fishing community near Iwakuni. Here we really felt like we were seeing rural Japan; the homes were close together and very traditional, and every tiny piece of flat land was used, whether for a home, garden, or tiny farm plot. The roads were amazingly narrow. The center dividing line would disappear whenever the road became too narrow for two cars abreast, and this happened a lot. Sometimes it would be little more than a trail.

Wednesday: Stan's friend Ikue took us around the tourist area of Iwakuni, and we saw the Iwakuni art museum (mainly Samurai-related). The park around the tourist areas wes very beautiful and well-maintained. We also saw a few shrines and the white snake museum. We saw the Kintai Bridge, but didn't cross it yet. For lunch, she took us to a popular Japanese fast-food chain near the train station to have takoyaki. We didn't realize what it was until it came out: octopus tentacles in fried dough balls. We really tried to eat it, and we each ate two (out of eight). Finally Ikue noticed Lisa trying to hide the octopus under the other balls, and offered to take us somewhere else. We had steamed Chinese bread with pork filling and Western-style doughnuts. Ikue was very apologetic about the takoyaki, and we tried to tell her that we appreciated the experience and pictures, but I think she ended up feeling bad about the whole thing. After that we kept our fast food experiences restricted to McDonald's.

Thursday we went to Miyajima Island, a popular destination for Japanese tourists. It was covered in shrines and other historic sites, and had many deer that roam the island and beg tourists for food. One of the deer stole our map of the island out of my hand, and a group of Japanese school kids had a lot of fun trying to get it back. They did, and a sweet girl gave it back to me. We also got to try the specialty of Miyajima Island - small pudding-filled cakes in the shape of stars. They were very good.

For lunch, we found a small non-tourist restaraunt that had Japanese-style curry. We ordered coca-cola from the single copy of an English menu they had, and got hot cocoa instead, but it was delicious. I considered offering to help the woman running the restaurant to correct her English menu, but I was afraid she would be deeply embarrassed.

On the ferry ride home, Andy had really figured out how to ham it up with the locals. We were sitting near the exit of the boat, and as the tourists disembarked, he was shaking hands with all of them and laughing and smiling.

Friday, we went to Hiroshima to meet Toshiko's mother. We met at the fountain at Peace Park. When we first arrived, we were expecting her to bring an English-speaking friend to translate for us, but she wasn't there. It was just Toshiko's mother and her taxi-driver friend. They seemed very excited to see us, and after a few minutes of non-verbal communication we managed to tell them that we three were the entire group, and that we were ready to go wherever we were going.

They took us to Hiroshima Castle and Shukkeien Garden. They were both beautiful, and we were able to comment on a few things with the help of the English-language brochures and our picture/phrase book. Our conversations were light on details (to say the least), but we were able to talk about general things and mostly understand each other. At one point she asked me what we would like for lunch, and I was able to point out a few things in the book (mostly bland/Western after our takoyaki experience). She decided to take us to Andersen, a Scandinavian restaurant. We had steak and potatoes (with a decidedly Japanese flair), and a mixed platter of sashimi and other Japanese food. For dessert we had a half-pineapple filled with tropical fruit. It was all delicious, and Toshiko's mother was very dedicated to making sure we fully enjoyed everything. She saw that we were awkward with our chopsticks, and got forks and knives for all of us (using them herself as well). It was a great meal.

After lunch, she took us back to her house for tea. As I understand it, entertaining at home is not common in Japanese culture, so I feel fortunate that we got to see her home. It was a nice two-story house in the suburbs of Hiroshima, and her decor is traditional (sliding doors between all the rooms, and tatami mats on the floors). The entry was a small bare concrete area where we left our shoes and put on her guest slippers, and the rest of the floor was elevated. She served coffee with delicious fruits and cake, and loaded us up with gifts before we left despite our insistence that she had done too much already. All together, we took home two cakes, about ten small Japanese oranges, several cans of ginger ale, two bags of coffee, and some miscellaneous other food.

When we were leaving, we expected to return to the Nishi Hiroshima train station to return to Iwakuni, but she and her driver absoulutely insisted on taking us all the way back to the base. As we were saying goodbye, I bowed deeply and said "domo arigato gozaimas" (many thanks with great respect), and she shook my hand. We had a wonderful time, and I think they had a good time too.

Saturday: Hiroshima again. The first thing we did was exchange our Japan Rail Pass exchange orders for the actual passes at Hiroshima Station. Again, no one spoke any English at the station, but I was able to communicate what I needed, which dates they should cover, etc. After that we headed towards Peace Park.

On the way, we passed Hiroshima Castle again. I went in to try to find Andy's hat, which I'd lost there the previous day. Using a phrase book, I put together "Hat . . . it got lost . . ." and the attendant said (in Japanese) "Yesterday?". The hat had been returned, and they had it right there. I was glad, because we had tried three shops in Miyajima before we found the one we liked.

We headed to Peace Park, and Lisa and I toured the atomic bomb museum alone. It was very difficult, and raised feelings very similar to the Holocaust Museum in Washington. I'm glad we went, but towards the end we needed to leave.

For lunch we headed back to Andersen. It's a good place for kids, since they actually have high chairs (unlike most places in Japan) and it's buffet-style (toddlers aren't very good at waiting). After lunch we walked around and visited a Shinto shrine, then walked through the shopping district on the way back to the train station and Iwakuni.

Sunday we toured the rest of the Iwakuni Castle area, including the Hentai Bridge. You can't tell from far away, but the bridge is covered in stairs for the whole distance. It's a pretty long walk with a stroller, but we got some good pictures over the river.

In the park on the other side, we were approached on two separate occasions by English-speaking Japanese Jehovah's Witnesses. We were surprised to see them in Japan, and wondered why they targeted us (obviously non-Japanese).

We rode the aerial tram up to the Iwakuni Castle site. The castle itself is a brief walk from the tram, on a path that curves around the top of the mountain. The castle is nice, with four floors connected only by stairs. There were a lot of Iwakuni artifacts on display, and the view from the top of the castle was great. We could really see how the river curves back and forth through the city.

Early Monday morning, we headed off for our whirlwind tour of Japanese cities. Lisa and I were doing the first two nights alone. This would be the longest we had been away from Andy, and we were a little nervous about it, but knew he was in good hands. We departed from the Shin-Iwakuni station to ride the Shinkansen first to Hiroshima, then to Osaka. We arrived in Osaka late morning, dropped off our luggage at the hotel, and headed out to town.

We first visited the Dotonbori Canal shopping area, but it was still early and most things hadn't opened yet. We headed down to Den-den Town, the Osaka electronics district, and walked down among the many camera and electronics shops. There wass a McDonald's there, so we went ahead and ate an early lunch.

From Den-Den Town, we walked back up to Dotonbori through the shopping areas. Here began a covered outdoor mall that seemed to extend for miles. We walked probably ten blocks through the mall, and got most of our Christmas shopping done there. By this time, the hotel was ready for check-in, so we took the subway back there.

After getting set up at the hotel, we went down to Festivalgate, a recreation area/theme park spanning two buildings, with an outdoor roller coaster area between. It was partly closed down due to its being an off-season weeknight, and no one spoke ANY English there. We scoured our books for any way to find out how to ride the roller coaster, and finally I was able a to point skyward and say "open for business?" She said yes, so I asked "pay . . . where?" She wrote "5F" on a pad, so we took the elevator up to 5.

To ride the rides, we needed to buy tickets from a machine. The attendant at the roller coaster pointed us to the machine (which was all in Japanese), and I blindly put in 1000 yen and stared at the machine waiting for something to happen. The attendant came over and told us to put in 400 yen more; unfortunately all I had was a 10000 yen note, but the attendant was very kind and used another machine to break it for me. We finally got on the roller coaster, and considered the trip to Festivalgate a success. After the roller coaster, we rode another ride we had seen earlier where we rode through the dark on a sideways car and shot lasers at monsters. Interesting.

We wrapped up the night in Osaka by visiting the Floating Garden Observatory. This is a large platform spanning the space between the top of two skyscrapers. It's a really neat observatory, reached by first riding an elevator, then an escalator that diagonally spans the empty space between two buildings. The view of Osaka at night was great.

The next day we slept in a little, then headed for the train to Kyoto. Navigating in Osaka was the most difficult, since it's really not a tourist city and none of the signs were in English. We got the tickets to Kyoto, located the track, and got on the train.

Our first impression of Kyoto was that it was a lot smaller than Osaka. Our hotel was conveniently right next to the train station, and they held our bags and gave us free tickets to the Kyoto Tower. We intended to see a string of historical sites in town.

When we first tried to use our subway passes, we discovered that Kyoto's train system is fragmented; only two of the city's subway lines are owned by the city subway, and the rest require special tickets from different companies. When we couldn't board our chosen train, we ended up walking an extra mile to the shopping/restaurant district we were going to (Gion). Exhausted, we found a good Chinese restaurant for lunch and had a long, big meal.

After lunch we visited the Nanzen-ji Temple, and from there began the Philosopher's Walk along the canal. The walk ended up at the Ginkaku-ji Temple (known by Americans as the Silver Pavilion). Here we walked through a breathtaking Japanese garden, the construction of which was the life's work of one man. At the top of the hill in the garden we saw the sun set over Kyoto. It was beautiful.

As we were leaving, we hailed a cab to take us to the nearest subway station. Due to communication difficulties, we ended up at the wrong station, but didn't realize it until we were underground. It was another station of the first off-limits rail line. We walked another extra half-mile to the correct station, and headed for Kyoto Tower.

The tower was located in the city's pachinko district. It was small, but gave a very nice view of Kyoto from the south. After that, we found a McDonald's near the hotel, had an early dinner, and collapsed in the room.

Wednesday was dedicated mostly to travel. Lisa and I took the Shin from Kyoto back to Osaka, and transferred to another train back to Hiroshima. There we met my parents and Andy, had lunch, and got on another northbound train to Tokyo (by way of Osaka). All in all, we were on trains from 9am to 7pm.

Just after reaching the hotel, we had dinner in the hotel restaurant, put Andy to bed, and went out to the Roppongi area of Tokyo to see the night life. Our impression of Roppongi was that it's very American; many people were speaking English and most of the signs were in English. We had a drink at the Gas Panic bar, walked around little, and went back to the hotel for bed.

The next morning we had a nice long breakfast at the hotel, then went down to Tokyo Tower for a day view of the city. The tower is quite tall (observation at 250m), and the the view was excellent. We could see all the big buildings, the water, and even Mount Fuji way off in the distance.

After Tokyo Tower we went to the Ginza, Tokyo's premier shopping district. It was very similar to 5th Avenue in New York, with many of the same stores around. We had lunch and walked a nice circuit through the neighborhood, then got back on the subway and headed to Senso-ji Temple.

The street to the temple is lined with several blocks of merchants. We had a good time shopping at the many different shops, then went through the temple's gate to view the historical sites. The wooden buildings were huge and spectacular, and streams running through the grounds had large fish swimming in them. Most of the temple had been destroyed either in the 1923 earthquake or in WWII, but there were a few old structures still standing.

After the temple, we got back on the subway to beat rush hour, and returned to the hotel. We had dinner there and relaxed for a few hours, then went back out to the Shibuya district for another small taste of Tokyo night life. Shibuya is the location of the famous statue of Hachiko, the dog that accompanied his master daily to the Shibuya train station and waited for him to return from work. When the man died suddenly at work in 1925, Hachiko continued to wait for his master daily for ten years.

Shibuya was what we had expected from Tokyo. It was bars, nice restaurants, galleries, and boutiques all sharing street space, and the sidewalks were filled with people. Neon and television signs were everywhere, creating a view both reminiscent of Times Square, while at the same time very Japanese. We took a nice walk through the streets, taking it all in, then decided to skip the three trains to the hotel and took a cab instead. We went to bed, feeling that we'd seen a good brief cross-section of Tokyo.

Friday was mostly travel. We relaxed at the hotel and did a little shopping until noon, then got on the first of two trains back to the south. The ride was just as long as the first, but train travel seems to be much less exhausting than airline travel. The only difficulty was maneuvering a stroller and luggage up and down the many flights of stairs.

Saturday we relaxed and prepared for the trip home. We took one trip off-base to visit a local grocery store, and marvelled at the enormous selection of fish and other seafood available, as well as the tiny size of the shopping carts. We bought last-minute supplies for the flight home (mostly food for Andy).

That night we went to dinner at a local restaurant specializing in pork. The standard fare was a fried pork cutlet with a pile of finely shredded cabbage with ginger dressing. On the side was soup (miso or pork) and rice, with a garnish of pickled vegetables and a wasabi/mustard sauce. Before the meal, we were presented with a bowl of sesame seeds and a grinder, and we ground the seeds to make sauce for the pork. I was a little sad since I knew this would be our last real meal in Japan. We all ate everything, then had ice cream for dessert (vanilla and strawberry). The meal was delicious.

On Sunday, we got up at 4:30 in the morning for the drive to Hiroshima to catch our flight.