We got up the next morning and got ready, then went upstairs to check out our complimentary breakfast. It was a buffet with yogurt, juice, milk, fruit, hard boiled eggs, freshly baked breads, croissants and danishes. They also had salad, which Japanese people really like to eat in the morning. Having filled up our tanks with a good, hearty breakfast, we stepped outside into the overcast but extremely pleasant weather, and hopped on a bus to Disneyland. Because of the typhoon the day before, the temperature was a good ten-to-fifteen degrees lower for us.
Fifty's was a ten minute bus ride from Disneyland, costing us a paltry 300 yen each. Kelsey, who had been talking about Disneyland every day for the previous two weeks, was excited to see Mickey Mouse, and Minnie Mouse, and Donald Duck, and Chip & Dale, and Cinderella, and ... Yeah, I'll spare you the whole list.
Stef's research showed that this was the best time of the year to go, since kids were back in school. When we got to the park, there were thousands upon thousands of people lined up, waiting to either buy tickets or enter the park. Disney apparently realized that holding a promotion during this dead time would be a boon for ticket sales. At least I hope that was the case, as I'd hate to see what the park looks like during the Summer break.
With Halloween approaching, Disney redecorated the whole park with Halloween decorations. The non-human Disney character statues around the park all had jack-o-lanterns for heads, and they even changed the Haunted Mansion ride by installing millions of dollars worth of Nightmare Before Christmas animatronic robots.
Because of the Halloween theme, thousands of people came dressed in Disney character costumes. Japan is peculiar in that dressing up as cartoon characters is not out of the ordinary for twenty-somethings. It was tough at first to tell who was hired cast and who was visiting the park for Halloween. Eventually, we realized that paid cast is actually white. Even Princess Jasmine was a blonde girl with a fake tan and a black wig.
About 90% of the people there were in their early twenties, and I'd say that the vast majority of the people there were couples. There were very few elementary or junior high school aged children, if any. The Japanese take their schooling very seriously. The ratio of adults to kids was really quite shocking to me.
Because of the disparity between kids and adults, I was surprised to find that there were lines--often hour-long waits--just to take a picture with the characters. Grown adults waited to take pictures when they could have been going on rides. The waiting times for Mickey and Minnie were definitely the worst. I'm pretty sure that people here see the whole "take-a-picture-with-Mickey" thing as an essential tradition, much like viewing the cherry blossoms every year, or eating gooey multi-colored rice balls on a stick while looking in the moon during September (or is it October?). What else would explain lines of twenty to seventy year-old ladies waiting over an hour to take a picture with Mickey Mouse? Characters had to run between locations, aided by bodyguard-like park employees that did their apologizing for them.
Figuring that DisneySea, which we planned to visit the following day, would have characters in costume, we avoided waiting in line for pictures at Disneyland. We were there for the rides and the play areas. Stef spent some time a few days earlier researching which rides each of the girls could go on. She used her notes to mark up a park map and we set out to enjoy the park.
Our first stop was Toontown, where Kelsey and Mia got to run around and look at some of the characters' houses. They also had a few rides, including a Chip & Dale themed roller coaster called Gadget's Go Coaster, which was Kelsey's first ever ride at Disneyland. She was a little apprehensive at first, but after going on the first ride, she didn't want to stop. We worked our way around the park in the morning, going on the rides with short wait times.
The Peter Pan ride had a bit of a line (25 minutes), but I figured it would be worth it for Kelsey. As we approached the front of the line, the line stopped moving. They informed us that the ride was closed for "system adjustments", and to make it up, they gave us four fast passes (one for each of us) good for any ride in the whole park. Our crafty use of these passes made it the smoothest day we possibly could have had.
When you insert your ticket into a fast pass machine, it spits out a fast pass, which lets you use the fast pass line, which basically puts you near the front of the queue with only a few minutes to wait. You can only get one pass every two or three hours, and you have to come back to the ride after a couple hours to be able to use the fast pass line.
Because of the fast passes that I was given, I only had to get two regular fast passes the whole day. Here's how we did it. When you have to watch a kid that's too young (or too scared) to ride something while someone else in your party goes on the ride, you can get a babysitter ticket. This ticket is even better than a fast pass, because you enter through the exit and are escorted to the very front of the line, with no wait at all.
Stef used a single fast pass to get on Splash Mountain with Kelsey, and I had an employee write me a babysitter ticket while I was waiting for Stef. When she came back, I jumped straight to the front of the line and went on the ride alone while she watched the kids (Kelsey didn't want to go on Splash Mountain again). Amazed at the awesomeness of this plan, we did it for Space Mountain and the Haunted Mansion. I thought that Stef didn't want to go on the Haunted Mansion, so I didn't request a babysitter ticket. I waited in a normal line for the spinning rocket pods in Tomorrowland while Stef used our last special fast pass to take Mia on the Haunted Mansion ride. It was basically the perfect set up.
The food at the park was great--churros, real pizza, American-size hamburgers; they had pretty much everything we wanted. While we were eating dinner, a Russian family with kids sitting near us drew Kelsey's attention. She ran around with the two young Russian kids while I finished my burger. I went back to find a bathroom, and when I got back, Stef told me that the Russian boy had just dropped his pants and peed against the Tomorrowland cafe wall outside. The mom did nothing to stop him. Hilarious.
At night, Stef decided we should watch the light parade. I'm not a big fan of parades, but I was tired and figured that the girls would probably love it, so I acquiesced. I'm really glad I went. Kelsey loved every float that went by, and kept shouting the names of the characters and waving at them. I'd have a ton of fun if I went to Disneyland by myself, but being able to enjoy it with my kids was really something special.
Kelsey loved the rides, even if some of them were a little dark and scary. While Japanese kids were crying, she was begging for more rides. Mia was either happy or asleep all day. We went home very tired that night, but with the great weather, great food, awesome kids, and short waiting times, it was pretty much a perfect day at Disneyland.
Showing posts with label Vacation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Vacation. Show all posts
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
Making our Way to Tokyo
The night before we left for Tokyo, Stef went to play volleyball. When she came back, she could hardly move--she had somehow tweaked her back. Having been through my fair share of back problems, I knew exactly how difficult it must have been, and began to worry that it might ruin her trip. She took some Advil and went to bed, hoping that it'd feel better the next morning.
She woke up stiff and sore. Our plan had been to ride bikes to the train station to save money, toting our kids and as little luggage as possible. That was no longer an option, so we took a taxi to the station and hopped on our train to Matsuyama. The early morning trains get packed with people commuting to work, so there weren't any clusters of seats where we could all sit together. We found two seats, but we like to have two rows of two, since we can flip the front seats around and have four seats all facing each other. A man was kind enough to offer his seat to us, which I gladly accepted. We turned out seats around and rode comfortably to Matsuyama en route to the airport.
We got to the airport about 90 minutes before we had to, so there was some time to burn. Stef took the girls for a walk while I took care of the bags. Kelsey sat in the box that they use to gauge whether or not your carry-on item will fit in the overhead compartment, and Stef took a picture. Mia likes to copy Kelsey, so when we met up and went to the security checkpoint, she climbed into the carry-on-checker box up there.
The Matsuyama airport has a really good bakery/café upstairs, so we stopped and grabbed a bunch of pastries to tide us over until lunch.
The Japan Airlines flight we took had rows of two seats on the outer edges, with rows of three seats down the middle. When choosing seats on the JAL website, I picked the two left-side seats of the middle row, and the far right seat of the adjacent two-seat row. I figured that I could keep the girls with me while Stef sat across the aisle.
That never happened. There were a bunch of empty seats on the plane, so the flight attendants told us to sit together in a row. I initially insisted that our seating arrangement was fine, but they wouldn't take no for an answer. Once we were comfortably in our seats, another lady who worked for JAL came in to confirm that nobody was sitting in the seat that we had just been given. Apparently, the person who was planning to ride in the third seat of the middle row wasn't going to be able to make the flight. We sat and watched as the flight attendants awkwardly battled with the lady in charge of confirming the seating. Some people take their jobs way too seriously. I'm no scientist, but I'm pretty sure that a simple change in seating isn't going to cause an implosion or anything.
Our plane was delayed by about ten minutes due to a possible typhoon in Tokyo. When we landed, the horizontal rain was battering everything, and the strong, shifting winds rippled the surface of the steadily accumulating puddles outside.
Our train trip from the airport to Maihama was supposed to only take about an hour, but we ended up spending about two. At the train station in front of the airport, I bought a ticket that supposedly led directly to Kasairinkaikouen station, the station nearest our hotel. The Google Maps directions that I had printed and brought with me said that we had to transfer twice, but the train tickets I bought were a couple hundred yen less expensive than the ones on my directions and seemed more direct, so I thought I might have printed out a less-than-optimal route.
When we were approaching the station where I thought we had to transfer, I asked some people around me if that was the correct station. There's often not a lot of time to transfer on trains in Japan. The doors open for about 30 seconds while people file out and hurry in, then the whistle blows, the doors slam shut, and the train speeds off toward its next stop. The first girl I asked shrugged her shoulders and didn't utter a single word in response, while the men across the aisle were much more willing to help.
One of them told me that I had to wait until our train reached its final destination, then transfer to a line that supposedly would take me right to our stop. Just as the doors closed and the train pulled away from what I thought was the correct station, the man corrected himself, having consulted the internet on his phone. We were supposed to get off where I thought we did.
We got off at the next stop and switched to a train going back the other way, and got off at the correct stop. Luckily, up to this point, all the stations had roofs above us to keep us mostly dry in the typhoon. We went to switch to the Rinkai line, which led to Maihama, but we couldn't figure out how to go through without giving up our tickets, which would have forced us to buy new tickets. Unfortunately for us, there was nobody to help us at the turnstile--no workers were on duty.
Seeing us fumbling and bumbling around, a kind man walked over to an intercom and paged a station attendant, who instead of coming, paged me on a closer intercom. I explained that I had purchased a ticket all the way to my destination, but wasn't expecting to have to relinquish my ticket at a turnstile. He told me that in order to hit the Rinkai line, we had to leave the station, go outside, and cross the street. Keeping our ticket was not an option. He sent someone to help us, who gave us a refund for the difference between our ticket and the one that would've taken us to that station.
You see, there was a way to make it all the way on one single ticket, but it would've involved using a different line owned by Japan Railroads. We had taken the monorail. Trains are confusing in Japan--there are JR trains, non-JR trains, the monorail, city trains, local trains, special express trains, the metro, and the subway. And all seem to go through similar stations and connect to each other. I've lived in Japan for two years, and I still have no idea how the train system works. Just when I think I've got the hang of it, I'm being paged by faceless attendants and getting refunds for buying the wrong tickets.
We walked through the wicket and towards the exit, only to realize that there was no elevator--only a ludicrously long flight of stairs going down to the ground level--and that there was no roof to cover us once we got outside. Stef's back was hurting, so she couldn't carry much down. I carried Mia (in her stroller) halfway down the stairs, resting her and my 2000 pound backpack on a big step. Stef had Kelsey walk down the stairs while I made multiple trips up and down the stairs for all our luggage. Stef took down as much as her back would let her.
Finally at the bottom of the stairs, our next challenge awaited: repack the bags so that the kids, the laptop, and the clothes will stay dry with just three umbrellas and two strollers. Kelsey walked alongside us, holding her own umbrella, while I carried the heavy backpack on my back, another backpack (with the laptop and other stuff) backwards on my chest, and a stroller full of luggage (or Mia--I can't really remember which of us took the stroller of stuff and which took the stroller full of Mia). Stef pushed another stroller. She and I each had an umbrella to try to cover all the stuff as we had to cross two streets with strollers, walking kids, and luggage, all in a typhoon.
While our clothes were pretty wet, we managed to keep the luggage mostly dry. We lugged all our stuff to the platform and caught a train for Kasairinkaikouen station. It's entirely possible that we got on the wrong train there, too. It happened a few times over the course of the trip, but never really cost us more than 15-20 minutes. We eventually got to our station, and we toted our stuff out the exit into a raging typhoon.
We readied the umbrellas and made a mad dash for the covered bus stop, which was halfway between the station exit and the taxi line, which is where we were headed. The wind jerked Kelsey's umbrella out of her hand and blew it across the parking lot. After briefly comforting Kelsey, I dropped all my stuff on the bus stop bench and made a run for the umbrella. The twenty-or-so seconds that it took to retrieve the umbrella were enough to soak most of my clothes.
By this time, I was getting pretty irritable, so while Stef was trying to plan the best way for us to stay dry while we darted for the taxi, I said, "Screw it," grabbed my stuff, and ran willy-nilly into the typhoon. A shouted for the taxi driver to open his trunk, threw my wet baggage in, then went back to help get everything else to the taxi. Perhaps we could have done it a bit smarter, but the "covers" of those bus stops are pretty useless when the rain is coming at you sideways.
The taxi driver took us to our hotel without any shenanigans, and it winded up costing no more than the minimum 710 yen fare. We entered the hotel, drenched and drained from the travel, and ready to relax a bit. Check-in time at the hotel started at 3PM, which just so happened to be when we arrived. We checked in, pulled Kelsey and Mia away from the kids' books that the hotel puts out in the fifties diner-style lobby, rejoiced at the sight of Dr. Pepper in the hotel vending machine, and checked out our room. We had a big bed for the two of us, and a twin bed that we pushed perpendicularly up against our own for the girls to share.
Stef and the girls changed clothes, but I took mine and blew them damp with a blow dryer. I figured I wasn't done getting wet for the day.
We hadn't planned on going to Disneyland that day, so the typhoon, the missing of train stops, and the aimless wandering were more annoying than demoralizing. With the rain being so strong, however, we worried that Thursday and Friday, the days we were planning on visiting the Disney parks, would be ruined as well.
The rain started to let up just before 5PM, so we grabbed two umbrellas and headed across the street to Royal Host, a chain restaurant which I had never seen before. I set my umbrella in the umbrella bin by the front door (which many stores and restaurants require, so as to not drip all over the floor inside). I told Stef, who had entered with her umbrella in hand, to put it in the umbrella bin, since "that's how they do things in Japan." For a brief moment, I felt proud that I was adapting to the Japanese way without really having to think about it.
We sat down and ate a surprisingly tasty meal. As we ate, I noticed that the rain had picked up again outside. We paid for meal and went to the exit to grab our umbrellas. Mine was gone--someone had stolen it. Honestly--what kind of person steals somebody else's umbrella in the middle of a typhoon? I understand that you don't want to get wet, but if there's one time that you should feel the most regret for stealing someone's umbrella, it's during a typhoon. Oh well, he can keep it. He'll need it in HELL!!! Wait.. that doesn't.. uh..
People often say that Japan is basically a crime-free country. While I agree that I usually feel safe at night, and don't worry about getting murdered, the Japanese are not perfect. People will steal a bike if they need to get somewhere. They'll steal an umbrella if they don't want to get wet. And, they'll do plenty of other faceless crimes that don't necessarily cause bodily injury, but are sufficiently irritating for the victim. I've known people to have their bikes stolen, only to find them returned to the same parking lot later.
Anyway, I went to report the theft to the restaurant managed, who first shrugged her shoulders, but eventually offered me her own umbrella. In no way did I want to force someone else to go without one, and I didn't actually expect them to do anything about it. I just wanted them to know where we were staying in case the culprit decided to return it. At the end of what was a very awkward conversation, I shrugged my shoulders and apologized as Stef decided to take the girls with the remaining one umbrella (which, incidentally, would have been two remaining umbrellas if I just followed Stef and didn't do things the way everybody else does them in Japan).
So, I had to brave the rain without an umbrella. All the way across the street. I'm pretty sure I didn't get any wetter walking through the rain (which had let up a lot) than I did sitting next to spill-prone Kelsey at the restaurant. It ended up being mostly a non-issue, except that I now have to buy another umbrella. That night, we didn't really go out (other than Stef making a quick conbini run for ice cream). We stayed inside the hotel, sipping Dr. Pepper and watching TV shows on the laptop--a nice, relaxing end to a turbulent day.
She woke up stiff and sore. Our plan had been to ride bikes to the train station to save money, toting our kids and as little luggage as possible. That was no longer an option, so we took a taxi to the station and hopped on our train to Matsuyama. The early morning trains get packed with people commuting to work, so there weren't any clusters of seats where we could all sit together. We found two seats, but we like to have two rows of two, since we can flip the front seats around and have four seats all facing each other. A man was kind enough to offer his seat to us, which I gladly accepted. We turned out seats around and rode comfortably to Matsuyama en route to the airport.
We got to the airport about 90 minutes before we had to, so there was some time to burn. Stef took the girls for a walk while I took care of the bags. Kelsey sat in the box that they use to gauge whether or not your carry-on item will fit in the overhead compartment, and Stef took a picture. Mia likes to copy Kelsey, so when we met up and went to the security checkpoint, she climbed into the carry-on-checker box up there.
The Matsuyama airport has a really good bakery/café upstairs, so we stopped and grabbed a bunch of pastries to tide us over until lunch.
The Japan Airlines flight we took had rows of two seats on the outer edges, with rows of three seats down the middle. When choosing seats on the JAL website, I picked the two left-side seats of the middle row, and the far right seat of the adjacent two-seat row. I figured that I could keep the girls with me while Stef sat across the aisle.
That never happened. There were a bunch of empty seats on the plane, so the flight attendants told us to sit together in a row. I initially insisted that our seating arrangement was fine, but they wouldn't take no for an answer. Once we were comfortably in our seats, another lady who worked for JAL came in to confirm that nobody was sitting in the seat that we had just been given. Apparently, the person who was planning to ride in the third seat of the middle row wasn't going to be able to make the flight. We sat and watched as the flight attendants awkwardly battled with the lady in charge of confirming the seating. Some people take their jobs way too seriously. I'm no scientist, but I'm pretty sure that a simple change in seating isn't going to cause an implosion or anything.
Our plane was delayed by about ten minutes due to a possible typhoon in Tokyo. When we landed, the horizontal rain was battering everything, and the strong, shifting winds rippled the surface of the steadily accumulating puddles outside.
Our train trip from the airport to Maihama was supposed to only take about an hour, but we ended up spending about two. At the train station in front of the airport, I bought a ticket that supposedly led directly to Kasairinkaikouen station, the station nearest our hotel. The Google Maps directions that I had printed and brought with me said that we had to transfer twice, but the train tickets I bought were a couple hundred yen less expensive than the ones on my directions and seemed more direct, so I thought I might have printed out a less-than-optimal route.
When we were approaching the station where I thought we had to transfer, I asked some people around me if that was the correct station. There's often not a lot of time to transfer on trains in Japan. The doors open for about 30 seconds while people file out and hurry in, then the whistle blows, the doors slam shut, and the train speeds off toward its next stop. The first girl I asked shrugged her shoulders and didn't utter a single word in response, while the men across the aisle were much more willing to help.
One of them told me that I had to wait until our train reached its final destination, then transfer to a line that supposedly would take me right to our stop. Just as the doors closed and the train pulled away from what I thought was the correct station, the man corrected himself, having consulted the internet on his phone. We were supposed to get off where I thought we did.
We got off at the next stop and switched to a train going back the other way, and got off at the correct stop. Luckily, up to this point, all the stations had roofs above us to keep us mostly dry in the typhoon. We went to switch to the Rinkai line, which led to Maihama, but we couldn't figure out how to go through without giving up our tickets, which would have forced us to buy new tickets. Unfortunately for us, there was nobody to help us at the turnstile--no workers were on duty.
Seeing us fumbling and bumbling around, a kind man walked over to an intercom and paged a station attendant, who instead of coming, paged me on a closer intercom. I explained that I had purchased a ticket all the way to my destination, but wasn't expecting to have to relinquish my ticket at a turnstile. He told me that in order to hit the Rinkai line, we had to leave the station, go outside, and cross the street. Keeping our ticket was not an option. He sent someone to help us, who gave us a refund for the difference between our ticket and the one that would've taken us to that station.
You see, there was a way to make it all the way on one single ticket, but it would've involved using a different line owned by Japan Railroads. We had taken the monorail. Trains are confusing in Japan--there are JR trains, non-JR trains, the monorail, city trains, local trains, special express trains, the metro, and the subway. And all seem to go through similar stations and connect to each other. I've lived in Japan for two years, and I still have no idea how the train system works. Just when I think I've got the hang of it, I'm being paged by faceless attendants and getting refunds for buying the wrong tickets.
We walked through the wicket and towards the exit, only to realize that there was no elevator--only a ludicrously long flight of stairs going down to the ground level--and that there was no roof to cover us once we got outside. Stef's back was hurting, so she couldn't carry much down. I carried Mia (in her stroller) halfway down the stairs, resting her and my 2000 pound backpack on a big step. Stef had Kelsey walk down the stairs while I made multiple trips up and down the stairs for all our luggage. Stef took down as much as her back would let her.
Finally at the bottom of the stairs, our next challenge awaited: repack the bags so that the kids, the laptop, and the clothes will stay dry with just three umbrellas and two strollers. Kelsey walked alongside us, holding her own umbrella, while I carried the heavy backpack on my back, another backpack (with the laptop and other stuff) backwards on my chest, and a stroller full of luggage (or Mia--I can't really remember which of us took the stroller of stuff and which took the stroller full of Mia). Stef pushed another stroller. She and I each had an umbrella to try to cover all the stuff as we had to cross two streets with strollers, walking kids, and luggage, all in a typhoon.
While our clothes were pretty wet, we managed to keep the luggage mostly dry. We lugged all our stuff to the platform and caught a train for Kasairinkaikouen station. It's entirely possible that we got on the wrong train there, too. It happened a few times over the course of the trip, but never really cost us more than 15-20 minutes. We eventually got to our station, and we toted our stuff out the exit into a raging typhoon.
We readied the umbrellas and made a mad dash for the covered bus stop, which was halfway between the station exit and the taxi line, which is where we were headed. The wind jerked Kelsey's umbrella out of her hand and blew it across the parking lot. After briefly comforting Kelsey, I dropped all my stuff on the bus stop bench and made a run for the umbrella. The twenty-or-so seconds that it took to retrieve the umbrella were enough to soak most of my clothes.
By this time, I was getting pretty irritable, so while Stef was trying to plan the best way for us to stay dry while we darted for the taxi, I said, "Screw it," grabbed my stuff, and ran willy-nilly into the typhoon. A shouted for the taxi driver to open his trunk, threw my wet baggage in, then went back to help get everything else to the taxi. Perhaps we could have done it a bit smarter, but the "covers" of those bus stops are pretty useless when the rain is coming at you sideways.
The taxi driver took us to our hotel without any shenanigans, and it winded up costing no more than the minimum 710 yen fare. We entered the hotel, drenched and drained from the travel, and ready to relax a bit. Check-in time at the hotel started at 3PM, which just so happened to be when we arrived. We checked in, pulled Kelsey and Mia away from the kids' books that the hotel puts out in the fifties diner-style lobby, rejoiced at the sight of Dr. Pepper in the hotel vending machine, and checked out our room. We had a big bed for the two of us, and a twin bed that we pushed perpendicularly up against our own for the girls to share.
Stef and the girls changed clothes, but I took mine and blew them damp with a blow dryer. I figured I wasn't done getting wet for the day.
We hadn't planned on going to Disneyland that day, so the typhoon, the missing of train stops, and the aimless wandering were more annoying than demoralizing. With the rain being so strong, however, we worried that Thursday and Friday, the days we were planning on visiting the Disney parks, would be ruined as well.
The rain started to let up just before 5PM, so we grabbed two umbrellas and headed across the street to Royal Host, a chain restaurant which I had never seen before. I set my umbrella in the umbrella bin by the front door (which many stores and restaurants require, so as to not drip all over the floor inside). I told Stef, who had entered with her umbrella in hand, to put it in the umbrella bin, since "that's how they do things in Japan." For a brief moment, I felt proud that I was adapting to the Japanese way without really having to think about it.
We sat down and ate a surprisingly tasty meal. As we ate, I noticed that the rain had picked up again outside. We paid for meal and went to the exit to grab our umbrellas. Mine was gone--someone had stolen it. Honestly--what kind of person steals somebody else's umbrella in the middle of a typhoon? I understand that you don't want to get wet, but if there's one time that you should feel the most regret for stealing someone's umbrella, it's during a typhoon. Oh well, he can keep it. He'll need it in HELL!!! Wait.. that doesn't.. uh..
People often say that Japan is basically a crime-free country. While I agree that I usually feel safe at night, and don't worry about getting murdered, the Japanese are not perfect. People will steal a bike if they need to get somewhere. They'll steal an umbrella if they don't want to get wet. And, they'll do plenty of other faceless crimes that don't necessarily cause bodily injury, but are sufficiently irritating for the victim. I've known people to have their bikes stolen, only to find them returned to the same parking lot later.
Anyway, I went to report the theft to the restaurant managed, who first shrugged her shoulders, but eventually offered me her own umbrella. In no way did I want to force someone else to go without one, and I didn't actually expect them to do anything about it. I just wanted them to know where we were staying in case the culprit decided to return it. At the end of what was a very awkward conversation, I shrugged my shoulders and apologized as Stef decided to take the girls with the remaining one umbrella (which, incidentally, would have been two remaining umbrellas if I just followed Stef and didn't do things the way everybody else does them in Japan).
So, I had to brave the rain without an umbrella. All the way across the street. I'm pretty sure I didn't get any wetter walking through the rain (which had let up a lot) than I did sitting next to spill-prone Kelsey at the restaurant. It ended up being mostly a non-issue, except that I now have to buy another umbrella. That night, we didn't really go out (other than Stef making a quick conbini run for ice cream). We stayed inside the hotel, sipping Dr. Pepper and watching TV shows on the laptop--a nice, relaxing end to a turbulent day.
Planning a Trip to Tokyo Disneyland
Ever since we came to Japan, we've fantasized about visiting Tokyo Disneyland. We don't do a lot of traveling out here, partly because Japanese hotels insists on charging by the head instead of the room. With two kids (who are often considered adults in the eyes of the greedy innkeepers), travel costs spiral out of control pretty quickly. In order to save a bit of money, Stef and I decided we'd save our Disneyland trip for the weeks before we leave Japan for good.
However, when Stef did the research and crunched the numbers, she found that the busiest (and, consequently, the most expensive) time of the year at Disneyland is actually from July to August, when kids are out of school--and when I would be going home. The first part of September, according to Stef's online research, was actually the least busy time of the year; kids are back in school, so the attendance drops drastically. It's basically the same in America. So, we decided that we might as well check and see how much it would cost to plan a trip out to Tokyo in early September.
We found a good time to go, which just so happened to be the first possible day that we could book cheap airline tickets. Since I don't have a credit card in Japan, I had to run around like a headless chicken to get the reservations made (and make sure that I was getting the best possible price), and then make a mad dash to the convenience store (they call it a "conbini" in Japan) before midnight to make a payment on a confusing computer kiosk, all because that night just happened to be the last possible night that I could book the flight for the time frame we had set (you have to book at least 30 days in advance).
To make matters more stressful, I had to make sure right then that I could get decent hotel reservations for the same time frame, since it would be pretty pointless to pay out the nose for a place to stay for the sole purpose of saving money on a plane ticket. Hotels in Tokyo are not cheap. Any place near the park is absurdly overpriced. In my frantic rush to find a place for less than $650 (or at least the equivalent if the dollar were 1:100 yen like it used to be) for three nights, I even fooled myself into thinking that I might be overlooking great package deals from the resort hotels.
I saw the price per night at one of the official Disney hotels, and was surprised to see that they charged by the room rather than per person. Still, the $500 per night charge seemed outrageous. Then, I saw that there were rooms at another official Disney hotel for only $150 per night, and they charged by the room, too! When I got to the checkout page that asked for my payment, I realized that I had made a critical mistake--I didn't see the extra zero at the end of the total.
That's right--it wasn't $150 per night, but $1500 dollars. And the other, already outrageously overpriced room was actually $5000 a night. Five. Thousand. Dollars. This was not some luxurious penthouse suite, but a normal room at the official resort hotel. Who the heck has that kind of money?
I called Sayuri and asked if she could help me find a deal, and she gave me the name of the area in which I should be searching. I eventually discovered the website of a little place called Family Resort Fifty's for Maihama, which seemed close to the park, and only cost about $120 a night with breakfast included. I got the booking ready, and just as I was about to click the button to make the reservation, I remembered hearing that sometimes you can get better deals for hotels through other companies. I did a search for Fifty's on a few of the Japanese travel sites, and was pleased to find that I could get the same exact room for $89 each night. I booked the room at Fifty's for three nights for a total of $267--much less than the $600-$700 that all the other places were asking.
Having booked the room, I then ran to the conbini about an hour before the midnight deadline to pay for the plane tickets. We were going to Disneyland in a month!
However, when Stef did the research and crunched the numbers, she found that the busiest (and, consequently, the most expensive) time of the year at Disneyland is actually from July to August, when kids are out of school--and when I would be going home. The first part of September, according to Stef's online research, was actually the least busy time of the year; kids are back in school, so the attendance drops drastically. It's basically the same in America. So, we decided that we might as well check and see how much it would cost to plan a trip out to Tokyo in early September.
We found a good time to go, which just so happened to be the first possible day that we could book cheap airline tickets. Since I don't have a credit card in Japan, I had to run around like a headless chicken to get the reservations made (and make sure that I was getting the best possible price), and then make a mad dash to the convenience store (they call it a "conbini" in Japan) before midnight to make a payment on a confusing computer kiosk, all because that night just happened to be the last possible night that I could book the flight for the time frame we had set (you have to book at least 30 days in advance).
To make matters more stressful, I had to make sure right then that I could get decent hotel reservations for the same time frame, since it would be pretty pointless to pay out the nose for a place to stay for the sole purpose of saving money on a plane ticket. Hotels in Tokyo are not cheap. Any place near the park is absurdly overpriced. In my frantic rush to find a place for less than $650 (or at least the equivalent if the dollar were 1:100 yen like it used to be) for three nights, I even fooled myself into thinking that I might be overlooking great package deals from the resort hotels.
I saw the price per night at one of the official Disney hotels, and was surprised to see that they charged by the room rather than per person. Still, the $500 per night charge seemed outrageous. Then, I saw that there were rooms at another official Disney hotel for only $150 per night, and they charged by the room, too! When I got to the checkout page that asked for my payment, I realized that I had made a critical mistake--I didn't see the extra zero at the end of the total.
That's right--it wasn't $150 per night, but $1500 dollars. And the other, already outrageously overpriced room was actually $5000 a night. Five. Thousand. Dollars. This was not some luxurious penthouse suite, but a normal room at the official resort hotel. Who the heck has that kind of money?
I called Sayuri and asked if she could help me find a deal, and she gave me the name of the area in which I should be searching. I eventually discovered the website of a little place called Family Resort Fifty's for Maihama, which seemed close to the park, and only cost about $120 a night with breakfast included. I got the booking ready, and just as I was about to click the button to make the reservation, I remembered hearing that sometimes you can get better deals for hotels through other companies. I did a search for Fifty's on a few of the Japanese travel sites, and was pleased to find that I could get the same exact room for $89 each night. I booked the room at Fifty's for three nights for a total of $267--much less than the $600-$700 that all the other places were asking.
Having booked the room, I then ran to the conbini about an hour before the midnight deadline to pay for the plane tickets. We were going to Disneyland in a month!
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Ryan and Erin Come to Japan
Ryan and Erin recently came to Japan for a week and a half. It's time for me to give an update on how all that went.
We all went to pick them up at Kansai International Airport in Osaka on September 29th. While we were waiting for them to come out with their luggage, a lady that looked Mediterranean walked by. I commented that I thought she might be from Italy. She walked by us and said something in English, and I asked her where she was from. From Lebanon, she married a man from Japan and came to live here. They communicate in English. We had a rather long conversation about how Christian values are eroding around the world, and she urged me to teach them in my lessons (that'd result in an instant firing, according to my contract).
Ryan had had knee surgery a few weeks before coming, and so we waited for him to crutch out with Erin, or possibly come out in a wheelchair. When they finally came out the doors, it was Erin that was riding in a wheelchair. She had a really rough flight, being motion sick for a good part of the trip. Ryan, who had been dreading the flight since he got sick on the flight back from Hawaii a few years ago, didn't get sick at all.
We took the luggage over to the delivery counter and shipped a couple bags so that we only had to carry one around with us. Then we got on a train bound for the part of town where our hotel was located, and went back there to rest for the night. Ryan and Erin had been awake for quite some time, so Stef suggested they go back and go to bed.
We were all hungry, so we first went to get some food at a little restaurant in Osaka. It wasn't the best food I've ever had, and it truthfully wasn't that much different from what we could have gotten at a convenience store. But it didn't matter, since it was so cool to be hanging out with Ryan and Erin again. Ryan and I wanted time to talk, so we went back to the hotel and soaked in the communal bath.
I knew that no matter what time they went to bed, they'd be waking up early in the morning. So I was fine with them going to sleep a bit early. I think they woke up at around 2AM and couldn't go back to sleep after that. At around 6:30 in the morning, we all went to a nearby convenience store to get some food for breakfast. We came back to the hotel and ate it in the hall. We were so excited to talk and hang out that we forgot that it was 7AM and that we might wake people up. A lady from Eastern Europe with pink hair and nothing but a long shirt to cover her unsightly body came out and gave us the death stare. When we realized that we had woken her up, we apologized for being loud, to which she replied, "Yeah, you were like, 'Blah, blah blah,'" in a thick, Russian-sounding accent. Yeah, it was pretty much awesome. We realized that we were loud and obnoxious, but getting to hear her comment was worth waking her up.
We had wanted to go to the Osaka castle that morning, but with so much traveling planned for the next few days, we decided to forgo the castle altogether and hop on a train to Hiroshima while it was still early. When we got to the Hiroshima train station, we bought some yummy little bean-filled hot griddle cakes and hopped on a tram to the A-bomb dome.
The dome consists of the skeletal remnants of the city office building that stood after the atomic bomb decimated the city. It was very sobering to think of the death and destruction that was caused by blast. They've kept the structure standing as a testament to the destruction, in hopes that it will deter any future use of such weapons elsewhere in the world.
After that, we walked to an okonomiyaki shop to eat lunch. They liked it, but I sensed that Ryan liked it more than Erin did. He washed his food down with an alcohol free beer, which was absolutely disgusting.
We then walked over to the Peace Memorial Park, an exhibit with all sorts of photographs, from bomb victims to the aftermath at ground zero. I was worried about things that Kelsey might see that could upset her, so I kept her close as we walked through the museum. I didn't want her to see graphic images of melted flesh, so I picked her up and whisked her past the disturbing sections. Young minds are so tender, and I would hate to see her react to that stuff.
One time, while at an electronics store, we let her watch the huge TVs while I helped another ALT get set up for internet service. Stef looked over and saw Kelsey sobbing, having just watched a grotesque cartoon preview where they showed a vampire devouring another person. Kelsey was inconsolable for a while. She wouldn't let Stef calm her down. I know you can't protect your children from everything forever, but I still think it's important as a parent to help kids retain their innocence.
After seeing the bomb exhibits in Hiroshima, we went back to the station and boarded a train bound for Mihara, where we planned to get on a boat en route to our next destination. We had to hurry, because we weren't sure if we'd make it in time to Ikina, where we planned to stay the night. In Mihara, we walked up to a taxi and asked the driver to take us to the harbor. He told us that it wasn't too far away, and that we should walk, not paying attention to the fact that we had two children, luggage, and a cripple on crutches. He shrugged his shoulders and drove us a whole three blocks to the harbor. We had just enough time to purchase tickets and make it onto the boat headed for Habu.
Ryan and I hung out in the very back of the boat with Kelsey while Erin and Stef chatted during the half-hour boat ride. We got to Habu with enough time to run to the ramen shop where we had hoped to eat. It was closed. We walked around the corner to a Chinese restaurant, where we had just enough time to shovel down some food before making a run for our next boat. I asked the lady at the Habu port if there was still a boat that headed to the south-most port on Ikina, and she said no, and that we'd have to go to the other port if we wanted to get to Ikina at all. She seemed very put off that I was even bothering to ask her a question. We hopped on the Ikina ferry and went across the straight--a two minute ride. When we got there, I saw the boat that we had wanted to take pull up to the port that we had just left. I was livid. The lady who had rudely disregarded me as a customer had given me bad information. That boat sped off to the port in front of Laura's house.
Ryan was on crutches, so there was no way we could make the walk to Laura's house. Without kids, it would take an adult walking at a brisk pace about 20 minutes to get there. With the kids and the crutches, it was just not doable. We called Laura and informed her of our misfortune, and she made a few phone calls. Her flower arranging teacher came to pick us up. While waiting for them to come, Kelsey, Stef, and Erin walked over to the source of some loud banging. Some kids were practicing with taiko drums for their Fall Festival. They let Kelsey play around with the drums.
We went back to Laura's house and hung out with her for a while, chatting in her living room. I set up her wireless internet for her so that Ryan and Erin could Skype with their daughter, Sadie. We all took turns bathing and then went to bed.
Laura made some corn bread for us the next morning, and we ate it with huckleberry jam. We got up in the morning and took a boat to Yuge to wait for the boat headed to Uoshima. We had some time to kill, so we grabbed some snacks at the convenience store on Yuge and sat around talking. It was raining, so we couldn't do much but wait for our boat. We tried to play a word game, but Ryan and Erin had differing opinions on how we should play, so Erin went inside the waiting room at the port and played with Stef. Ryan and I played our own version of the game until Kelsey decided that she'd had enough sitting. She got angry and started saying "No!" to everything we said to her, so we turned it into our own little word game.
Us: Place like home?
Kelsey: NO place like home!
Us: Bell prize?
Kelsey: NO bell prize!
Us: Where man?
Kelsey: NO where man!
Us: Torious?
Kelsey: NO torius!
...
This went on for a while, until she was saying things that sounded suspiciously similar to things she probably shouldn't say.
So much for helping my children retain their innocence.
The Uoshima boat finally came, and we got on and headed out to Fish Island. Ryan and I went up top and enjoyed the air, positioning ourselves by an overhang so that the rain didn't hit us. When we got to the island, the Azumas were waiting for us with a sign that read, "Mr. Stout Family, Welcome to Uoshima!" The sign was intended for Ryan and Erin, but the Azumas didn't know that Ryan was Stef's brother, not my own.
We walked up to the Azumas' old Japanese home, on the side of a hill towards the top part of town. They had prepared a delicious feast for us made up of all sorts of wonderful sashimi and breaded fish. The italian-style octopus sashimi was surprisingly awesome.
That afternoon, we just hung out at the Azuma home while Mr. Azuma taught us how to play Hanafuda, a Japanese card game. He also showed us how to play Go, the game with white and black stones that's said to be a lot more complicated strategically than even Chess. That may have been the highlight of the whole trip. A former teacher, Mr. Azuma was very methodical in showing us how to play. He gave us opportunities to show our understanding. It was clear that he's a good teacher.
That night, we went up to the shrine for a karaoke festival, as well as the start of the Fall Festival in Uoshima. We watched my old band, Uoshima'X, as they played a couple new songs with their new singer, Amado. He's the new ALT on Uoshima. There were a few traditional Japanese dances, as well as the taiko drum-accompanied chants by the robed Shinto priests of Uoshima. I'm glad that Ryan and Erin got to see all that.
I was really tired that night, and a bit grumpy. People kept speaking to me in broken English, not knowing that I speak Japanese. I think they just assumed that I never learned, since I didn't really go out of my way to speak to them when I lived there. At one point, Amado, just trying to help (and likely unaware of my speaking abilities), acted as a translator, which really upset me. I didn't need a translator. They could've just spoken to me in Japanese, and I could've replied in perfectly natural Japanese. The fact that Amado has time to hang out with the band members and learn the Japanese songs made things worse. Having a family really changes everything. I just never had time for any of that stuff. I was a bit bitter that I didn't get to experience a lot of the things that I could have.
Of course, I wouldn't trade what I have for anything. I'm much happier than I would be if I were single. But I still wish I could somehow have some of the same opportunities without having to sacrifice time with the family. There's just not enough time in the day for everything, and I'm going to choose my family every time.
The next morning, Erin and Stef went up to watch the carrying of the portable mikoshi shrine, while Ryan and I chatted down by the docks. We walked up to our old house and waited for the portable shrine to come around. When they got there, we had some melon soda and some fried food on a stick. Someone randomly asked Erin to sing for everybody, and others started egging her on. Ryan and I suggested she sing the Itsy Bitsy Spider with hand motions, but she was too nervous. So we sang it together. When they asked for an encore, we sang Popcorn Popping on the Apricot Tree, complete with all the gestures. It was both surreal and awesome at the same time.
When we left the island later that day, the Azumas saw us off and stood at the dock waving until the boat was out of sight. I'm really glad that they got to see Uoshima. I really miss that place. Don't get me wrong--I love living in Imabari. I mean, there's a store in Imabari. But I still miss the people, the beauty, and the quiet of Uoshima.
For the rest of the trip, we relaxed. It was a bit difficult for Ryan to get around, since we couldn't use bikes. So we spent most of our time in the neighborhood near our home. And that was just fine by me. We went to a nearby park that has lots of koi and turtles, as well as some awesome roller-slides. They got to try tonkotsu ramen, a really tasty pig-based soup that's really popular, and also go to a kaiten-zushi, the conveyor belt-style sushi restaurant. We also dropped in to Hard Off, a recycle shop that sells all sorts off cool second-hand gadgets and gizmos. Ryan and Erin bought about 20 thingamabobs to take back to the 'States. I'm going to really miss Hard Off when we're back in America.
Hanging out with Ryan and Erin, eating noodles, riding trains, playing Peggle, gettin' nude with a dude--their visit is, so far, the highlight of our Japan experience (when it comes to things that are fun and not, say, terrifying). Finally, here are some pictures for all to enjoy.
We all went to pick them up at Kansai International Airport in Osaka on September 29th. While we were waiting for them to come out with their luggage, a lady that looked Mediterranean walked by. I commented that I thought she might be from Italy. She walked by us and said something in English, and I asked her where she was from. From Lebanon, she married a man from Japan and came to live here. They communicate in English. We had a rather long conversation about how Christian values are eroding around the world, and she urged me to teach them in my lessons (that'd result in an instant firing, according to my contract).
Ryan had had knee surgery a few weeks before coming, and so we waited for him to crutch out with Erin, or possibly come out in a wheelchair. When they finally came out the doors, it was Erin that was riding in a wheelchair. She had a really rough flight, being motion sick for a good part of the trip. Ryan, who had been dreading the flight since he got sick on the flight back from Hawaii a few years ago, didn't get sick at all.
We took the luggage over to the delivery counter and shipped a couple bags so that we only had to carry one around with us. Then we got on a train bound for the part of town where our hotel was located, and went back there to rest for the night. Ryan and Erin had been awake for quite some time, so Stef suggested they go back and go to bed.
We were all hungry, so we first went to get some food at a little restaurant in Osaka. It wasn't the best food I've ever had, and it truthfully wasn't that much different from what we could have gotten at a convenience store. But it didn't matter, since it was so cool to be hanging out with Ryan and Erin again. Ryan and I wanted time to talk, so we went back to the hotel and soaked in the communal bath.
I knew that no matter what time they went to bed, they'd be waking up early in the morning. So I was fine with them going to sleep a bit early. I think they woke up at around 2AM and couldn't go back to sleep after that. At around 6:30 in the morning, we all went to a nearby convenience store to get some food for breakfast. We came back to the hotel and ate it in the hall. We were so excited to talk and hang out that we forgot that it was 7AM and that we might wake people up. A lady from Eastern Europe with pink hair and nothing but a long shirt to cover her unsightly body came out and gave us the death stare. When we realized that we had woken her up, we apologized for being loud, to which she replied, "Yeah, you were like, 'Blah, blah blah,'" in a thick, Russian-sounding accent. Yeah, it was pretty much awesome. We realized that we were loud and obnoxious, but getting to hear her comment was worth waking her up.
We had wanted to go to the Osaka castle that morning, but with so much traveling planned for the next few days, we decided to forgo the castle altogether and hop on a train to Hiroshima while it was still early. When we got to the Hiroshima train station, we bought some yummy little bean-filled hot griddle cakes and hopped on a tram to the A-bomb dome.
The dome consists of the skeletal remnants of the city office building that stood after the atomic bomb decimated the city. It was very sobering to think of the death and destruction that was caused by blast. They've kept the structure standing as a testament to the destruction, in hopes that it will deter any future use of such weapons elsewhere in the world.
After that, we walked to an okonomiyaki shop to eat lunch. They liked it, but I sensed that Ryan liked it more than Erin did. He washed his food down with an alcohol free beer, which was absolutely disgusting.
We then walked over to the Peace Memorial Park, an exhibit with all sorts of photographs, from bomb victims to the aftermath at ground zero. I was worried about things that Kelsey might see that could upset her, so I kept her close as we walked through the museum. I didn't want her to see graphic images of melted flesh, so I picked her up and whisked her past the disturbing sections. Young minds are so tender, and I would hate to see her react to that stuff.
One time, while at an electronics store, we let her watch the huge TVs while I helped another ALT get set up for internet service. Stef looked over and saw Kelsey sobbing, having just watched a grotesque cartoon preview where they showed a vampire devouring another person. Kelsey was inconsolable for a while. She wouldn't let Stef calm her down. I know you can't protect your children from everything forever, but I still think it's important as a parent to help kids retain their innocence.
After seeing the bomb exhibits in Hiroshima, we went back to the station and boarded a train bound for Mihara, where we planned to get on a boat en route to our next destination. We had to hurry, because we weren't sure if we'd make it in time to Ikina, where we planned to stay the night. In Mihara, we walked up to a taxi and asked the driver to take us to the harbor. He told us that it wasn't too far away, and that we should walk, not paying attention to the fact that we had two children, luggage, and a cripple on crutches. He shrugged his shoulders and drove us a whole three blocks to the harbor. We had just enough time to purchase tickets and make it onto the boat headed for Habu.
Ryan and I hung out in the very back of the boat with Kelsey while Erin and Stef chatted during the half-hour boat ride. We got to Habu with enough time to run to the ramen shop where we had hoped to eat. It was closed. We walked around the corner to a Chinese restaurant, where we had just enough time to shovel down some food before making a run for our next boat. I asked the lady at the Habu port if there was still a boat that headed to the south-most port on Ikina, and she said no, and that we'd have to go to the other port if we wanted to get to Ikina at all. She seemed very put off that I was even bothering to ask her a question. We hopped on the Ikina ferry and went across the straight--a two minute ride. When we got there, I saw the boat that we had wanted to take pull up to the port that we had just left. I was livid. The lady who had rudely disregarded me as a customer had given me bad information. That boat sped off to the port in front of Laura's house.
Ryan was on crutches, so there was no way we could make the walk to Laura's house. Without kids, it would take an adult walking at a brisk pace about 20 minutes to get there. With the kids and the crutches, it was just not doable. We called Laura and informed her of our misfortune, and she made a few phone calls. Her flower arranging teacher came to pick us up. While waiting for them to come, Kelsey, Stef, and Erin walked over to the source of some loud banging. Some kids were practicing with taiko drums for their Fall Festival. They let Kelsey play around with the drums.
We went back to Laura's house and hung out with her for a while, chatting in her living room. I set up her wireless internet for her so that Ryan and Erin could Skype with their daughter, Sadie. We all took turns bathing and then went to bed.
Laura made some corn bread for us the next morning, and we ate it with huckleberry jam. We got up in the morning and took a boat to Yuge to wait for the boat headed to Uoshima. We had some time to kill, so we grabbed some snacks at the convenience store on Yuge and sat around talking. It was raining, so we couldn't do much but wait for our boat. We tried to play a word game, but Ryan and Erin had differing opinions on how we should play, so Erin went inside the waiting room at the port and played with Stef. Ryan and I played our own version of the game until Kelsey decided that she'd had enough sitting. She got angry and started saying "No!" to everything we said to her, so we turned it into our own little word game.
Us: Place like home?
Kelsey: NO place like home!
Us: Bell prize?
Kelsey: NO bell prize!
Us: Where man?
Kelsey: NO where man!
Us: Torious?
Kelsey: NO torius!
...
This went on for a while, until she was saying things that sounded suspiciously similar to things she probably shouldn't say.
So much for helping my children retain their innocence.
The Uoshima boat finally came, and we got on and headed out to Fish Island. Ryan and I went up top and enjoyed the air, positioning ourselves by an overhang so that the rain didn't hit us. When we got to the island, the Azumas were waiting for us with a sign that read, "Mr. Stout Family, Welcome to Uoshima!" The sign was intended for Ryan and Erin, but the Azumas didn't know that Ryan was Stef's brother, not my own.
We walked up to the Azumas' old Japanese home, on the side of a hill towards the top part of town. They had prepared a delicious feast for us made up of all sorts of wonderful sashimi and breaded fish. The italian-style octopus sashimi was surprisingly awesome.
That afternoon, we just hung out at the Azuma home while Mr. Azuma taught us how to play Hanafuda, a Japanese card game. He also showed us how to play Go, the game with white and black stones that's said to be a lot more complicated strategically than even Chess. That may have been the highlight of the whole trip. A former teacher, Mr. Azuma was very methodical in showing us how to play. He gave us opportunities to show our understanding. It was clear that he's a good teacher.
That night, we went up to the shrine for a karaoke festival, as well as the start of the Fall Festival in Uoshima. We watched my old band, Uoshima'X, as they played a couple new songs with their new singer, Amado. He's the new ALT on Uoshima. There were a few traditional Japanese dances, as well as the taiko drum-accompanied chants by the robed Shinto priests of Uoshima. I'm glad that Ryan and Erin got to see all that.
I was really tired that night, and a bit grumpy. People kept speaking to me in broken English, not knowing that I speak Japanese. I think they just assumed that I never learned, since I didn't really go out of my way to speak to them when I lived there. At one point, Amado, just trying to help (and likely unaware of my speaking abilities), acted as a translator, which really upset me. I didn't need a translator. They could've just spoken to me in Japanese, and I could've replied in perfectly natural Japanese. The fact that Amado has time to hang out with the band members and learn the Japanese songs made things worse. Having a family really changes everything. I just never had time for any of that stuff. I was a bit bitter that I didn't get to experience a lot of the things that I could have.
Of course, I wouldn't trade what I have for anything. I'm much happier than I would be if I were single. But I still wish I could somehow have some of the same opportunities without having to sacrifice time with the family. There's just not enough time in the day for everything, and I'm going to choose my family every time.
The next morning, Erin and Stef went up to watch the carrying of the portable mikoshi shrine, while Ryan and I chatted down by the docks. We walked up to our old house and waited for the portable shrine to come around. When they got there, we had some melon soda and some fried food on a stick. Someone randomly asked Erin to sing for everybody, and others started egging her on. Ryan and I suggested she sing the Itsy Bitsy Spider with hand motions, but she was too nervous. So we sang it together. When they asked for an encore, we sang Popcorn Popping on the Apricot Tree, complete with all the gestures. It was both surreal and awesome at the same time.
When we left the island later that day, the Azumas saw us off and stood at the dock waving until the boat was out of sight. I'm really glad that they got to see Uoshima. I really miss that place. Don't get me wrong--I love living in Imabari. I mean, there's a store in Imabari. But I still miss the people, the beauty, and the quiet of Uoshima.
For the rest of the trip, we relaxed. It was a bit difficult for Ryan to get around, since we couldn't use bikes. So we spent most of our time in the neighborhood near our home. And that was just fine by me. We went to a nearby park that has lots of koi and turtles, as well as some awesome roller-slides. They got to try tonkotsu ramen, a really tasty pig-based soup that's really popular, and also go to a kaiten-zushi, the conveyor belt-style sushi restaurant. We also dropped in to Hard Off, a recycle shop that sells all sorts off cool second-hand gadgets and gizmos. Ryan and Erin bought about 20 thingamabobs to take back to the 'States. I'm going to really miss Hard Off when we're back in America.
Hanging out with Ryan and Erin, eating noodles, riding trains, playing Peggle, gettin' nude with a dude--their visit is, so far, the highlight of our Japan experience (when it comes to things that are fun and not, say, terrifying). Finally, here are some pictures for all to enjoy.
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
Our Trip to Osaka
Warning: long
When you have a baby abroad, you have to get a report of birth abroad from the consulate or embassy in the birth country. In addition to the birth report, you need to apply for a passport and social security number. The baby and both parents all need to be present in order to do this.
Mia was born so tiny and underdeveloped that we had to wait almost four months for her to be healthy enough to leave the hospital. Since she's now strong and healthy, we got to go to Osaka to do all her paperwork. I took a couple days off and we turned it into our first mini-vacation in Japan.
We had planned on taking the Orange Ferry, a huge vessel that leaves the Toyo (a city close to Imabari) port in the evening and arrives in Osaka the next morning. The Orange Ferry offers public quarters, where a bunch of people cram into a room and sleep on the ground next to each other with a little blanket and a buckwheat pillow. Little kids often have trouble sleeping in unfamiliar places, so we decided to look at other modes of transportation, just for the heck of it. We were going to pay about 12000 yen (about $120) per adult (kids under 3 are free) for round trip ferry tickets, but when we saw the prices of the express train, we realized that there was really no reason for us not to take the train. The train takes about three hours and cost only 8000 yen ($80 or so) more (total) than the communal boat. Sure, they offer private rooms on the boat, but they're more expensive than the train. We got to sleep at home--where the girls could actually get some rest--and only travel for a few hours.
We charged the laptop and put some Disney movies on the hard drive to keep Kelsey occupied. After a two-hour ride on an express train from Imabari to Okayama, we transferred to a bullet train bound for Osaka. I thought the express trains were fast; the bullet train blows away everything not flying thousands of feet in the air. The seats were big and cozy, and there was more than enough legroom for even me.
The first day, we took care of the paperwork at the consulate, and then went to find our hotel. We stayed at an old business hotel, which offered a Japanese-style tatami room with three Japanese futons, an AC unit, a fridge, and a TV. We had our own bathroom, but no bath. The first floor of the hotel had a Japanese-style communal bath with the first few hours of the evening reserved for men and the last few hours for women. We used the hotel as a hub and took the subway to various parts of town during our trip. The hotel was close enough to the subway station that we could go back for Kelsey's nap each day. If we were picky, we could have found reasons to complain. For the price (2000 yen per person, per night), it was great.
In the afternoon of the first day, we decided to look for a Mexican restaurant that we had read about online at an outdoor mall called Dotonbori. I should have remembered my own story about the mythical restaurant. We walked around for about three and a half hours, with half of that time spent just trying to find Dotonbori. I asked for directions at the hotel, and the front desk attendant gave us a map of Osaka and highlighted Dotonbori.
We got off at the correct stop, and then got lost. This particular stop was connected to a huge underground shopping plaza. The directions we had received required that we go up to the surface level right when we got to our stop, but there were so many shops with things to look at that we wandered farther and farther away from the exit we needed to take. When we got up to the ground level, we tried to locate ourselves on the map so we could head to Dotonbori. Unfortunately, it was basically impossible to figure out where we were. Figuring we'd eventually recognize something from the map, we just started walking toward the place where we thought Dotonbori might be. After a good chunk of time walking and talking, we decided to ask somebody for directions. According to an old octopus-ball salesman with a karate-style headband, we had walked a considerable distance past Dotonbori. We needed to walk back in the direction from which we came and turn left.
We turned around and walked back the other way for a while, but still couldn't find Dotonbori. We turned left where we thought the old man had told us to, but it became clear that we weren't going to find it without asking another person for directions. I went inside the first building I saw and asked an office lady if she could point us in the right direction. She stepped outside and pointed to where we needed to go, then gushed over how cute Kelsey and Mia were. We thanked her and set out for Dotonbori, which we could finally see in the distance. We needed to keep going and then turn right, not left.
We walked over to the right place and started looking around for the Mexican restaurant, which was supposedly called Hermanos. None of the people we stopped to ask knew where this restaurant was. I was determined not to have another all-you-can-eat yakiniku experience. We were going to find this place. Up and down the street we walked, scanning the five and six story buildings' signs. It was starting to get late, we were starving, and I was starting to lose my mind.
I found an internet café and searched for the restaurant. I got an address, the name of the neighboring hotel, and a phone number, which I decided not to call. We asked the locals where the hotel was, or if they could point us in the direction of the hotel, and finally, we got a lead. Someone knew where the hotel was, but wasn't sure if there was a Mexican restaurant anywhere near. We darted (as well as a family with a kid in a stroller can dart) to the hotel, and then examined the surrounding buildings. Nothing.
Undeterred, I entered the hotel and asked the desk clerk if he knew where the Mexican restaurant was. Next came the verbal punch to the stomach—Hermanos had been gone for a while. Let's review what I wrote about the mythical "perfect restaurant":
Number 1? Check. Except this time, I actually got confirmation that it doesn't exist. How could I have forgotten this lesson?
Number 2? Check. Though it was mostly our fault for not taking the first exit at the station, we were led astray by all but two of the seven or eight people we asked.
Number 3? Still a jerk. When we got confirmation that the place didn't exist, Imurdered a koala started to lose my patience. I told Stef that I was willing to eat anything that wasn't okonomiyaki, since we always get that. We almost entered two or three restaurants, but Stef couldn't commit, and I just about lost it. I just wanted food. Now. Or, then, at least. Which brings us to:
Number 4: Yeah, we caved in and went to an okonomiyaki shop. As hunger vanquished my life force, I lost the will to fight the status quo and gave in to the delicious cliché that is the fried savory pancake. We ordered okonomiyaki, nigiyaki (like okonomiyaki, but with a bunch of green onions), and omusoba. The omusoba, an omelette filled with yakisoba (noodles cooked in a savory sauce), was the best thing we ate on the whole trip. Never forget rule number 4.
Sure, I hate that I didn't follow my own rules regarding the Holy Grail of Restaurants. But on the plus side, it only confirmed my previous theory. And it taught me rule number 5: always make sure the restaurant you're searching for exists (by phone, etc.), and get directions.
I learned another rule the next day, when we went to Americatown. You know how big cities have Chinatowns, Japantowns, Koreatowns and Little Italys (Italies?) in America? Here in Osaka, it's Americatown, or Amerika-mura. If you're not into drinking or buying overpriced clothing imported from America, there's not much to do in Ame-mura (the shortened Japanese version). Well, that's not entirely true. It's a great place to people watch. Some of the craziest, most outrageous clothing and hairstyles that we saw in Osaka were in Ame-mura.
Earlier that morning, we went to Kaiyukan, a huge aquarium in Osaka. The aquarium route begins after riding a huge escalator up five stories or so, and slowly winds down toward the bottom, the sloped spiral path surrounded on both sides by fish-filled tanks. At the top, there are penguins, sea lions and dolphins. At an above-water sea lion exhibit, Kelsey prostrated herself on the ground and looked through the five or six inches of glass that were under the water line, hoping to see what the sea lions were doing under the surface. As you descend to the ground level, you can actually see the same sea lions swimming around. At the same time, the fish you see come from deeper and deeper waters, becoming gradually more exotic as you work your way down. Children, however, gradually lose interest in the fish and, in the end, just want to run and yell.
Blue = Awesomeness of Fish
Red = Child's Interest
We saw some manta rays (one as large as a small automobile), a couple of whale sharks, sea turtles, sun fish, arapaimas, giant crabs, jellyfish, eels, and countless other kinds of fish. It would have been nice if we could have really enjoyed the fish, but it was still fun to watch Kelsey squeal in delight as she ran to the glass to watch the dolphins zip around their tanks.
Toward the beginning of the aquarium, I saw one of the JETs from Imabari and said hi. I was surprised to see someone that I had met (albeit briefly) so far from Imabari, so I gave a big smile and said, "Hey, how's it going?" She clearly didn't remember me, so she averted her eyes as she passed and mumbled, "Good." I told Stef that she didn't seem friendly when I had met her before, and so she obviously didn't care enough to socialize. We ran into her later, and Stef, being the awesome woman that she is, decided to strike up a conversation instead of being bitter about the snub. She hadn't recognized me at all, but when we started talking, she was really friendly. I can see why she reacted the way she did, since I probably came across as The Creepy, Crazy, Overly-Friendly Guy Who Bugs You in Aquariums. You know, that guy. Anyway, she's been in Japan for five years and is going home in a couple weeks. Her sister is visiting in Japan before she heads back home.
Later that day, back in Ame-mura, Stef and I had been checking out some shops and scoping out potential restaurants for dinner. We saw a couple that appeared to serve things that we probably couldn't find in Imabari, and decided to eat at one of them after exploring the rest of Ame-mura. As we walked past a burger joint, we saw the Imabari JET with her sister, sitting and talking. We went over and sat down to chat a bit. We told her about our fruitless search for the Mexican restaurant, and how, other than the baby paperwork, all we really wanted to do in Osaka was eat Mexican food. We had been talking for a couple minutes, when suddenly I realized that Kelsey was grunting. Stef took her inside and helped her use the potty while I talked to the JET about a possible lead on a Mexican restaurant in the neighborhood. She drew us a crude map, explained how to get there. I knew that it was unlikely that we'd ever find it, so I thanked her and started thinking about where we were really going to eat.
Stef came out with Kelsey after a while, and we talked with the girls for a few more minutes. I told Stef about the restaurant, and she agreed to look for it for a few minutes—under the condition that if we didn't find it soon, we'd eat at one of the other places that we had already found. As we were wandering around, looking for the restaurant, a man named Rigby stopped and asked us if we needed help finding anything. I told him about the taco shop, and he told me that he not only knew where it was, but that he knew the owners and knew that it wouldn't be open for another 90 minutes or so. He gave us the owners' phone number and told us where to go. We had no trouble finding it.
We went to the lobby of a hotel to relax and pass the time while Stef fed Mia and Kelsey snacked on some pretzels. After a while, Kelsey got a little too restless, and we decided to go down and work our way back to the restaurant. We got there in time to meet one of the restaurant owners in the process of opening shop. We went up and sat down in what turned out to be a bar. Luckily, we got there before everybody showed up to drink. The bar served tacos, quesadillas, fajitas, and all sorts of other meals. The dimly lit bar was adorned with sombreros, ponchos, and other typical Mexican decorations, with salsa music booming in the background.
The owners didn't speak Spanish, but they sure knew how to cook Mexican food. We got some shredded chicken tacos, a shredded chicken quesadilla, some gourmet-style nachos, and a plate of eggs and chorizo with corn tortillas. We were forced to order one drink per adult (a sort of cover charge for the bar), so I got mango juice and Stef got some Jamaica drink. In all, the food cost over 5000 yen, but was worth everypenny yen...ny (sorry). It was the perfect dinner for the perfect day with the fam. So, rule number 6, which I learned that day, is as follows: if you have followed rule number 1, and are okay with the idea of eating somewhere else (countering rule number 3, honoring the spirit of rule number 4), then you can implement rule number 5, provided that the person that you ask is not Japanese (rule number 2).
While it seems complicated, rule number 6 is quite simple: don't get your hopes up, make sure the place really exists, get directions from an English speaker, have a backup plan, and stay in a good mood, and you may just stumble across the Holy Grail of Restaurants.
We capped the night off with some ice cream, which we ate on the subway ride back to our hotel.
The third day, our only plans were to go to Costco and return to the hotel. We accomplished both goals. Costco was fantastic. After renewing my membership, we walked up and down the aisles, carefully making note of everything they were selling. We got two cases of Dad's Root Beer, some corn bread mix, a gigantic sack of tortilla chips, and a few other things. What we really wanted, though, was the food from the food court. Costco dogs. Pickle relish. Churros. Heaven.
Costco was packed—much more than any Costco I've ever seen in America. Stef saw some people complaining about the size of the shopping carts, which were the same size as the carts at Costco in America. They had no idea what to do with such a beast. In Japan, shopping carts are just a regular shopping basket that you put on a frame with wheels. One Costco shopping cart equals ten or twelve of the other shopping carts. This does not make it easy to navigate the store. Imagine the busiest subway station in Tokyo, with shoulder-to-shoulder foot traffic clogging the grounds. Now give each of those people their own hippopotamus-sized shopping cart and watch as nobody gets anywhere. At one point, my stomach dropped as I watched a family, only ten feet away, swoop in to grab the beef jerky samples, with me trapped in a sea of shopping carts. All I could do wasslash their tires shake my fist and curse them. In my mind.
That evening, after a nice nap, we had no plans. We walked around a cool electronics district, where I bought some headphones. Well, one side of it was cool. The other side was littered with porn shops. The night before, I took Mia out for a walk, and explored a nearby restaurant district. I turned a corner and looked up, only to realize that I had stepped into the red light district. Humongous murals of naked women covered the facades of the buildings. I took my baby and promptly headed in the other direction. I can't believe the stuff that they show in public here. I guess there are places like that in most countries. I'm glad that they don't allow that in the U.S.
Back in the restaurant district, we looked for a place to eat. Employees from the myriad restaurants begged us to patronize their restaurants. When you walk through a restaurant district, you can, at any given time, have four or five different people shouting the praises of their restaurant at you. And it's not just the invasion of personal space that's annoying. Their voices are high-pitched, nasal bleats specifically designed to cripple your defenses. It's a verbal battle royale for your business.
"Please eat here, oh beloved guest! Please enjoy our delectable cornucopia of cuisine. It's really good, I promise!"
"No! Please, please, please come eat here! You'll love it! It's a veritable smorgasbord of cornucopias!"
"I won't cut myself with a samurai sword if you find it in your heart to give us the honor of enjoying your presence in our humble establishment!"
Stef and I really wanted to eat at one restaurant, but the street screamer was so annoying that we almost walked away just to spite him. I turned around to consult with Stef, and we vocalized that we were going to eat there because the food looked good, and not let the Gilbert Gottfried of Japanese restaurant employees stand in our way. I turned and walked away from the restaurant, signaling that we were heading in another direction. At the last second, I spun around and ducked inside the doors, after which the guy followed us in and shouted to the staff that they needed to prepare a table for four. It's okay. Let him think he convinced us. We were there for the food.
I saw something that looked like tacos, and I ordered it. They were curry-flavored tacos, and they weren't half bad. Stef, craving the omusoba that we ordered the first night, got some yakisoba. Kelsey had ginger for dinner (and some noodles). She eats pickled ginger plain. We have no idea how she does it, since it's such a strong flavor, and neither of us like it very much. That night, we watched Kelsey use chopsticks, successfully, for the first time. Her form needs some work, but it was still mighty impressive.
The next morning, we went to church at the Abeno Ward in Osaka. Finding the church proved to be quite the task. A few unanswered phone calls to missionaries and one useless taxi driver later, we found ourselves in the neighborhood of the church, with no idea which side of the city block it stood on. We found the church, but we had missed the Sacrament. The Abeno Ward was like a full-sized family ward in America. It was great to see so many people at church, including three sets of missionaries. Kelsey got a dolly from the nursery leader, who was excited to have someone to watch. Unfortunately, we had to leave. One family, the Kochis, gave us a ride to the station after Sacrament Meeting, saving us an hour or so in travel time. We took the trains and were home by about 4PM. Kelsey and Mia were great.
It was great to spend a few days in Osaka. We figured out how we like to do trips—it's best to plan about two things each day, and leave the rest of the time open for whatever else you want to do. You can relax or explore, and not feel like you have to run around to get a lot done. Riding the subway, while a bit expensive, is very convenient, and reminded me of our time in Matsuyama, where we rode the city trains all the time. We were also reminded how awesome it can be to be in a place with people and restaurants. Imabari's great, but there are so many more things to do in Osaka. It's nice to live in a laid-back place like Imabari, but it's important to experience city life every once in a while.
When you have a baby abroad, you have to get a report of birth abroad from the consulate or embassy in the birth country. In addition to the birth report, you need to apply for a passport and social security number. The baby and both parents all need to be present in order to do this.
Mia was born so tiny and underdeveloped that we had to wait almost four months for her to be healthy enough to leave the hospital. Since she's now strong and healthy, we got to go to Osaka to do all her paperwork. I took a couple days off and we turned it into our first mini-vacation in Japan.
We had planned on taking the Orange Ferry, a huge vessel that leaves the Toyo (a city close to Imabari) port in the evening and arrives in Osaka the next morning. The Orange Ferry offers public quarters, where a bunch of people cram into a room and sleep on the ground next to each other with a little blanket and a buckwheat pillow. Little kids often have trouble sleeping in unfamiliar places, so we decided to look at other modes of transportation, just for the heck of it. We were going to pay about 12000 yen (about $120) per adult (kids under 3 are free) for round trip ferry tickets, but when we saw the prices of the express train, we realized that there was really no reason for us not to take the train. The train takes about three hours and cost only 8000 yen ($80 or so) more (total) than the communal boat. Sure, they offer private rooms on the boat, but they're more expensive than the train. We got to sleep at home--where the girls could actually get some rest--and only travel for a few hours.
We charged the laptop and put some Disney movies on the hard drive to keep Kelsey occupied. After a two-hour ride on an express train from Imabari to Okayama, we transferred to a bullet train bound for Osaka. I thought the express trains were fast; the bullet train blows away everything not flying thousands of feet in the air. The seats were big and cozy, and there was more than enough legroom for even me.
The first day, we took care of the paperwork at the consulate, and then went to find our hotel. We stayed at an old business hotel, which offered a Japanese-style tatami room with three Japanese futons, an AC unit, a fridge, and a TV. We had our own bathroom, but no bath. The first floor of the hotel had a Japanese-style communal bath with the first few hours of the evening reserved for men and the last few hours for women. We used the hotel as a hub and took the subway to various parts of town during our trip. The hotel was close enough to the subway station that we could go back for Kelsey's nap each day. If we were picky, we could have found reasons to complain. For the price (2000 yen per person, per night), it was great.
In the afternoon of the first day, we decided to look for a Mexican restaurant that we had read about online at an outdoor mall called Dotonbori. I should have remembered my own story about the mythical restaurant. We walked around for about three and a half hours, with half of that time spent just trying to find Dotonbori. I asked for directions at the hotel, and the front desk attendant gave us a map of Osaka and highlighted Dotonbori.
We got off at the correct stop, and then got lost. This particular stop was connected to a huge underground shopping plaza. The directions we had received required that we go up to the surface level right when we got to our stop, but there were so many shops with things to look at that we wandered farther and farther away from the exit we needed to take. When we got up to the ground level, we tried to locate ourselves on the map so we could head to Dotonbori. Unfortunately, it was basically impossible to figure out where we were. Figuring we'd eventually recognize something from the map, we just started walking toward the place where we thought Dotonbori might be. After a good chunk of time walking and talking, we decided to ask somebody for directions. According to an old octopus-ball salesman with a karate-style headband, we had walked a considerable distance past Dotonbori. We needed to walk back in the direction from which we came and turn left.
We turned around and walked back the other way for a while, but still couldn't find Dotonbori. We turned left where we thought the old man had told us to, but it became clear that we weren't going to find it without asking another person for directions. I went inside the first building I saw and asked an office lady if she could point us in the right direction. She stepped outside and pointed to where we needed to go, then gushed over how cute Kelsey and Mia were. We thanked her and set out for Dotonbori, which we could finally see in the distance. We needed to keep going and then turn right, not left.
We walked over to the right place and started looking around for the Mexican restaurant, which was supposedly called Hermanos. None of the people we stopped to ask knew where this restaurant was. I was determined not to have another all-you-can-eat yakiniku experience. We were going to find this place. Up and down the street we walked, scanning the five and six story buildings' signs. It was starting to get late, we were starving, and I was starting to lose my mind.
I found an internet café and searched for the restaurant. I got an address, the name of the neighboring hotel, and a phone number, which I decided not to call. We asked the locals where the hotel was, or if they could point us in the direction of the hotel, and finally, we got a lead. Someone knew where the hotel was, but wasn't sure if there was a Mexican restaurant anywhere near. We darted (as well as a family with a kid in a stroller can dart) to the hotel, and then examined the surrounding buildings. Nothing.
Undeterred, I entered the hotel and asked the desk clerk if he knew where the Mexican restaurant was. Next came the verbal punch to the stomach—Hermanos had been gone for a while. Let's review what I wrote about the mythical "perfect restaurant":
1. The Holy Grail of Restaurants, no matter where you are, doesn't exist. Don't be stubborn. You will not find it.
2. Don't ask for directions in Japan. It doesn't matter how little Japanese people actually know about something: they'll go totally out of their way to help you, even if it actually ends up being more of a hindrance than a help.
3. Dang it, even in my nostalgic, partially-confabulated peak season, I was still a jerk.
4. You can never go wrong with okonomiyaki.
Number 1? Check. Except this time, I actually got confirmation that it doesn't exist. How could I have forgotten this lesson?
Number 2? Check. Though it was mostly our fault for not taking the first exit at the station, we were led astray by all but two of the seven or eight people we asked.
Number 3? Still a jerk. When we got confirmation that the place didn't exist, I
Number 4: Yeah, we caved in and went to an okonomiyaki shop. As hunger vanquished my life force, I lost the will to fight the status quo and gave in to the delicious cliché that is the fried savory pancake. We ordered okonomiyaki, nigiyaki (like okonomiyaki, but with a bunch of green onions), and omusoba. The omusoba, an omelette filled with yakisoba (noodles cooked in a savory sauce), was the best thing we ate on the whole trip. Never forget rule number 4.
Sure, I hate that I didn't follow my own rules regarding the Holy Grail of Restaurants. But on the plus side, it only confirmed my previous theory. And it taught me rule number 5: always make sure the restaurant you're searching for exists (by phone, etc.), and get directions.
I learned another rule the next day, when we went to Americatown. You know how big cities have Chinatowns, Japantowns, Koreatowns and Little Italys (Italies?) in America? Here in Osaka, it's Americatown, or Amerika-mura. If you're not into drinking or buying overpriced clothing imported from America, there's not much to do in Ame-mura (the shortened Japanese version). Well, that's not entirely true. It's a great place to people watch. Some of the craziest, most outrageous clothing and hairstyles that we saw in Osaka were in Ame-mura.
Earlier that morning, we went to Kaiyukan, a huge aquarium in Osaka. The aquarium route begins after riding a huge escalator up five stories or so, and slowly winds down toward the bottom, the sloped spiral path surrounded on both sides by fish-filled tanks. At the top, there are penguins, sea lions and dolphins. At an above-water sea lion exhibit, Kelsey prostrated herself on the ground and looked through the five or six inches of glass that were under the water line, hoping to see what the sea lions were doing under the surface. As you descend to the ground level, you can actually see the same sea lions swimming around. At the same time, the fish you see come from deeper and deeper waters, becoming gradually more exotic as you work your way down. Children, however, gradually lose interest in the fish and, in the end, just want to run and yell.
Blue = Awesomeness of Fish
Red = Child's Interest
We saw some manta rays (one as large as a small automobile), a couple of whale sharks, sea turtles, sun fish, arapaimas, giant crabs, jellyfish, eels, and countless other kinds of fish. It would have been nice if we could have really enjoyed the fish, but it was still fun to watch Kelsey squeal in delight as she ran to the glass to watch the dolphins zip around their tanks.
Toward the beginning of the aquarium, I saw one of the JETs from Imabari and said hi. I was surprised to see someone that I had met (albeit briefly) so far from Imabari, so I gave a big smile and said, "Hey, how's it going?" She clearly didn't remember me, so she averted her eyes as she passed and mumbled, "Good." I told Stef that she didn't seem friendly when I had met her before, and so she obviously didn't care enough to socialize. We ran into her later, and Stef, being the awesome woman that she is, decided to strike up a conversation instead of being bitter about the snub. She hadn't recognized me at all, but when we started talking, she was really friendly. I can see why she reacted the way she did, since I probably came across as The Creepy, Crazy, Overly-Friendly Guy Who Bugs You in Aquariums. You know, that guy. Anyway, she's been in Japan for five years and is going home in a couple weeks. Her sister is visiting in Japan before she heads back home.
Later that day, back in Ame-mura, Stef and I had been checking out some shops and scoping out potential restaurants for dinner. We saw a couple that appeared to serve things that we probably couldn't find in Imabari, and decided to eat at one of them after exploring the rest of Ame-mura. As we walked past a burger joint, we saw the Imabari JET with her sister, sitting and talking. We went over and sat down to chat a bit. We told her about our fruitless search for the Mexican restaurant, and how, other than the baby paperwork, all we really wanted to do in Osaka was eat Mexican food. We had been talking for a couple minutes, when suddenly I realized that Kelsey was grunting. Stef took her inside and helped her use the potty while I talked to the JET about a possible lead on a Mexican restaurant in the neighborhood. She drew us a crude map, explained how to get there. I knew that it was unlikely that we'd ever find it, so I thanked her and started thinking about where we were really going to eat.
Stef came out with Kelsey after a while, and we talked with the girls for a few more minutes. I told Stef about the restaurant, and she agreed to look for it for a few minutes—under the condition that if we didn't find it soon, we'd eat at one of the other places that we had already found. As we were wandering around, looking for the restaurant, a man named Rigby stopped and asked us if we needed help finding anything. I told him about the taco shop, and he told me that he not only knew where it was, but that he knew the owners and knew that it wouldn't be open for another 90 minutes or so. He gave us the owners' phone number and told us where to go. We had no trouble finding it.
We went to the lobby of a hotel to relax and pass the time while Stef fed Mia and Kelsey snacked on some pretzels. After a while, Kelsey got a little too restless, and we decided to go down and work our way back to the restaurant. We got there in time to meet one of the restaurant owners in the process of opening shop. We went up and sat down in what turned out to be a bar. Luckily, we got there before everybody showed up to drink. The bar served tacos, quesadillas, fajitas, and all sorts of other meals. The dimly lit bar was adorned with sombreros, ponchos, and other typical Mexican decorations, with salsa music booming in the background.
The owners didn't speak Spanish, but they sure knew how to cook Mexican food. We got some shredded chicken tacos, a shredded chicken quesadilla, some gourmet-style nachos, and a plate of eggs and chorizo with corn tortillas. We were forced to order one drink per adult (a sort of cover charge for the bar), so I got mango juice and Stef got some Jamaica drink. In all, the food cost over 5000 yen, but was worth every
While it seems complicated, rule number 6 is quite simple: don't get your hopes up, make sure the place really exists, get directions from an English speaker, have a backup plan, and stay in a good mood, and you may just stumble across the Holy Grail of Restaurants.
We capped the night off with some ice cream, which we ate on the subway ride back to our hotel.
The third day, our only plans were to go to Costco and return to the hotel. We accomplished both goals. Costco was fantastic. After renewing my membership, we walked up and down the aisles, carefully making note of everything they were selling. We got two cases of Dad's Root Beer, some corn bread mix, a gigantic sack of tortilla chips, and a few other things. What we really wanted, though, was the food from the food court. Costco dogs. Pickle relish. Churros. Heaven.
Costco was packed—much more than any Costco I've ever seen in America. Stef saw some people complaining about the size of the shopping carts, which were the same size as the carts at Costco in America. They had no idea what to do with such a beast. In Japan, shopping carts are just a regular shopping basket that you put on a frame with wheels. One Costco shopping cart equals ten or twelve of the other shopping carts. This does not make it easy to navigate the store. Imagine the busiest subway station in Tokyo, with shoulder-to-shoulder foot traffic clogging the grounds. Now give each of those people their own hippopotamus-sized shopping cart and watch as nobody gets anywhere. At one point, my stomach dropped as I watched a family, only ten feet away, swoop in to grab the beef jerky samples, with me trapped in a sea of shopping carts. All I could do was
That evening, after a nice nap, we had no plans. We walked around a cool electronics district, where I bought some headphones. Well, one side of it was cool. The other side was littered with porn shops. The night before, I took Mia out for a walk, and explored a nearby restaurant district. I turned a corner and looked up, only to realize that I had stepped into the red light district. Humongous murals of naked women covered the facades of the buildings. I took my baby and promptly headed in the other direction. I can't believe the stuff that they show in public here. I guess there are places like that in most countries. I'm glad that they don't allow that in the U.S.
Back in the restaurant district, we looked for a place to eat. Employees from the myriad restaurants begged us to patronize their restaurants. When you walk through a restaurant district, you can, at any given time, have four or five different people shouting the praises of their restaurant at you. And it's not just the invasion of personal space that's annoying. Their voices are high-pitched, nasal bleats specifically designed to cripple your defenses. It's a verbal battle royale for your business.
"Please eat here, oh beloved guest! Please enjoy our delectable cornucopia of cuisine. It's really good, I promise!"
"No! Please, please, please come eat here! You'll love it! It's a veritable smorgasbord of cornucopias!"
"I won't cut myself with a samurai sword if you find it in your heart to give us the honor of enjoying your presence in our humble establishment!"
Stef and I really wanted to eat at one restaurant, but the street screamer was so annoying that we almost walked away just to spite him. I turned around to consult with Stef, and we vocalized that we were going to eat there because the food looked good, and not let the Gilbert Gottfried of Japanese restaurant employees stand in our way. I turned and walked away from the restaurant, signaling that we were heading in another direction. At the last second, I spun around and ducked inside the doors, after which the guy followed us in and shouted to the staff that they needed to prepare a table for four. It's okay. Let him think he convinced us. We were there for the food.
I saw something that looked like tacos, and I ordered it. They were curry-flavored tacos, and they weren't half bad. Stef, craving the omusoba that we ordered the first night, got some yakisoba. Kelsey had ginger for dinner (and some noodles). She eats pickled ginger plain. We have no idea how she does it, since it's such a strong flavor, and neither of us like it very much. That night, we watched Kelsey use chopsticks, successfully, for the first time. Her form needs some work, but it was still mighty impressive.
The next morning, we went to church at the Abeno Ward in Osaka. Finding the church proved to be quite the task. A few unanswered phone calls to missionaries and one useless taxi driver later, we found ourselves in the neighborhood of the church, with no idea which side of the city block it stood on. We found the church, but we had missed the Sacrament. The Abeno Ward was like a full-sized family ward in America. It was great to see so many people at church, including three sets of missionaries. Kelsey got a dolly from the nursery leader, who was excited to have someone to watch. Unfortunately, we had to leave. One family, the Kochis, gave us a ride to the station after Sacrament Meeting, saving us an hour or so in travel time. We took the trains and were home by about 4PM. Kelsey and Mia were great.
It was great to spend a few days in Osaka. We figured out how we like to do trips—it's best to plan about two things each day, and leave the rest of the time open for whatever else you want to do. You can relax or explore, and not feel like you have to run around to get a lot done. Riding the subway, while a bit expensive, is very convenient, and reminded me of our time in Matsuyama, where we rode the city trains all the time. We were also reminded how awesome it can be to be in a place with people and restaurants. Imabari's great, but there are so many more things to do in Osaka. It's nice to live in a laid-back place like Imabari, but it's important to experience city life every once in a while.
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