I’ve been up since 2PM on Wednesday (looking at local time) and it’s 11:30PM now. I better get to sleep soon. I started out the day in Tokyo, did some shopping, headed over and now here I am. Breakfast at Tully’s in Tokyo, lunch from an airport convenience store, dinner on the plane, breakfast on the plane, breakfast at Blue Cow, and dinner at Castanga Cafe.

I better hit the hay before I keel over.

I got up this morning in time to cram a bunch of stuff into my sister’s little orange suitcase. She bought it because it’s quite cute, and I’m sure she was fearful when she lent it to my mother. My guess is that she was especially afraid that I would end up with it somehow, alone and in need of a bathroom. I’d have to roll her cute suitcase into a nasty, smelly train station men’s room, where it would be soiled for all of eternity. I guess I won’t tell her anything.

Anyway, I had breakfast with my mom and my aunt who were being silly as always, and we parted ways at Shin-Osaka station. They went off to the west, and I headed east to Tokyo. My aunt bought me a traditional bento to eat on the train, which I picked out. It turned out to be full of mushrooms, which I don’t particularly like. I’ll eat them, but I figure they’re wasted on a guy with tastes like mine.

In fact I didn’t like much of it, but I ate the whole thing. I got to Tokyo and it was pouring, and I needed to use the bathroom but that’s probably enough of that story. I made it to my hotel, which took longer than I thought, and was soaked with sweat. I knew I had to get to Akihabara so I dumped my crap and headed out. Unfortunately, I didn’t bring a map so I had to rely on memory to get there, which wasn’t so bad because it’s not had to find from Shinjuku. (Express Chuo-line to Ochanomizu, then the Sobu line one stop.) While I did forget to buy more Mac crap for myself, I did get the last item on my sister’s list: a plastic iPhone case with a hole for a Japanese strap. I even got her a dangly thing, I think, at the Glico store. Or at the Hankyu Tigers store. I can’t remember.

I rushed back to the hotel make sure my online reservations were done, and I got a call from Hiron who wanted to meet me in Akihabara. He’s an illustrator and friend of Chico’s who I end up talking for hours to about American TV shows. Chico went to high school with my sister. Anyway, I did end up meeting up with Hiron and Chico and they took me to an area of Shinjuku where they were a little afraid to go, to an Okinawan restaurant.

We had some interesting things to eat, including “sea grapes.”

On the way back I convinced them to go to Mos Burger for dessert, where Hiron had a kinpira rice burger (braised burdock root on a bun made of grilled rice formed into a round patty) and I had a Mos Burger because I love the things and I hadn’t had a chance to eat one on the trip.

So that’s about it for my last full day here. Tomorrow I head home!

I’m not sure how the morning got away from us this morning. We ended up just walking around for the heck of it. We were just waiting for noon, when my mom, my aunt, my uncle (their older brother), and their cousin from Tokyo were all going to get together for the first time in 20 years. I was there holding a seat down at the same restaurant we went to yesterday and I FORGOT TO TAKE ANY PICTURES. Sheesh. I had to listen to a lot more stories about the old days that I have no idea about.

I also helped my uncle get all the stuff we brought him back to his house. More family chit-chat, but I did see my cousin’s first grandchild who is about 13 months old now. What a cutie. Here’s a picture of great grandpa (my uncle), grandma (his daughter-in-law) and So-chan.

After I got home, it was off to see an old friend from my Mitsubishi days and we ate fried things on sticks and talked nonsense for a few hours.

It’s a nice way to pass the day, but I still have to get one last item on my sister’s wishlist. Sheesh. It’s off to Tokyo tomorrow and then back to the states the day after that. Two days of travel!

I lived in Osaka after I graduated from MIT for about five years and I liked it here. At the time I thought it was time to move back home, and it probably was, but I miss it too. I do remember always being broke when I lived here but somehow I managed to save about $12,000US which I immediately blew on trying to get into medical school. That was a bit of a mistake. I should have had more fun while I was here and I shouldn’t have wasted my timeAnyway, we’re staying at the “Hearton Hotel” which is a reputable hotel with a questionable name. This is not to be confused with the “Heart-In” which is a chain of convenience stores that are usually located in JR train stations.

One thing I’m going to miss when I get back is all the salad for breakfast. We pre-bought a bunch of breakfast tickets where I get all-I-can-eat breakfast buffet for ¥1000. Too bad I haven’t been that hungry in the morning for the past few days.

My aunt (my mom’s older sister) is out from Yamaguchi Prefecture and we were also joined by Mrs. Takanaka, my sort-of-aunt, (my aunt’s late husband’s younger sister) and we had a traditional Japanese lunch at the 16th floor of the Daimaru department store. Here’s the plastic display outside of the restaurant.

And here’s my lunch.

And here’s my mom’s lunch.

We went to Yodobashi Camera again to do some shopping for my mom and everyone else (not for my sister this time) and I thought I’d get a picture of the sign in one of the elevators:

Oh, and before I forget, my mom and I decided to kill some time by having a cup of coffee. A tiny cup of coffee. A tiny $7 cup of coffee.

I spent the rest of the afternoon getting to Maeda Cycle, where I spent a few hours talking with Kozou Maeda who runs the shop. It doesn’t sound like the financial situation in Japan is all that much better than it is in the states. I got back and had dinner with my mom and my aunt and there’s my 12th day here.

One of the reasons we were at the Kawasaki’s so long was to see their daughter Sho, but Sho’s daughter Kei caught the H1N1 influenza and Dr. Kawasaki forbade the rest of their family from coming just in case they were still in the contagious incubation period. Dr. Kawasaki is a bit paranoid and makes everyone coming to his house use an alcohol hand cleaner and gargle with some awful tasting stuff. It didn’t seem to help him much, because he has a cold now that he can’t seem to shake.

Sho and her daughter Yuu were going to stay overnight, but since that was nixed by Dr. Kawasaki Sho, her husband, and her daughter Yuu got in their car for a quick visit at the mall. Dr. Kawasaki was even against this idea but no one was showing any signs of the ‘flu and we all figured that just being out in public exposed us to all sorts of people who have come in contact with the ‘flu. They made a 3+ hour drive down to see us and we ate at the incredible sushi-on-a-track restaurant in the mall. On the plus side of all this nonsense, I hadn’t seen Sho’s husband since he came to visit us in Oregon sixteen years ago and I got to see him again because of this crazy car trip.

Here’s a picture of all of us with the facemasks that Dr. Kawasaki insisted we wear.

We got back to the Kawasaki’s house and I crammed all my crap into my suitcase, which required kneeling on the bag. My sister requested one of two Uniqlo puffy jackets, and they got her both of them and boy do those take up a lot of space. We rushed off to catch an earlier train than we were initially planning to take and had no troubles getting to Osaka a little early.

We wandered around looking for dinner and went to the restaurant floor of Yodobashi Camera where there were long lines for a lot of the restaurants, including the omuraisu restaurant we were looking for. Omuraisu is fried rice wrapped in egg like an omelette, and both my mom and I hadn’t had one in years. Plus this was the first chance we had in ten days to eat a meal that didn’t include a pile of sashimi. My mom had an “SS” (super small 2-egg) omuraisu with mentaiko. I had an “S” (small 3-egg) omuraisu with a pork cutlet on top and hayashi rice sauce. Hayashi rice, or hashed beef, is an interesting flavor I haven’t tasted since I was working in Japan that is kind of like burned or carmelized ketchup. Anyway, it was pretty good.

After dinner we bought the usual silly t-shirts from my favorite Japanese t-shirt shop and I got a few for myself and a couple for my sister.

I just realized I haven’t gotten anything for my brother-in-law. I wonder what he wants.

It was another beautiful fall day here and maybe even a bit too warm. Most everyone is wearing long sleeves and fall clothing even though it was in the 20’s today. I’d say it was probably in the low 70’s if we’re talking about degrees Fahrenheit and the weather report said it was 75°F. It was another rest day though we did go shopping a couple of times. The mall near the Kawasaki’s house has most everything I would want to buy, though that’s not going to stop me from going shopping for other weird crap in Osaka and Tokyo. I have to make my pilgrimage to Akihabara after all, to the gadget stores under the train tracks.

I’m not sure of how much I really weigh because I’m usually using rickety old bathroom scales, but I do know that the expensive-looking scale at the hot spring that I went to on my third day here said I weighed 75kg in the morning (just over 165lbs). The bathroom scale at the Kawasaki’s says I weigh 76kg or so but the bathroom scale at home said I weighed 163lbs the last time I checked. That was when I was going out for cheeseburgers with Sean quite regularly, so I’m not sure what it all means other than that it’s increasing my mistrust of bathroom scales.

Of course, I have been sitting around a whole lot and spending most of my non-sitting time eating. Plus I’ve been drinking more than I usually do.

The only disaster of the day is only one in my mind. I’m expecting that my trustworthy contractor left the windows open since before the recent rain/windstorm and my even more trustworthy sister hasn’t gone to check on the house yet. When I left on a Wednesday, she said she’d check on the house on Sunday. I knew that didn’t mean four days in the future, but whatever Sunday was just before my return home. Apparently the contractors left the outside light on for some reason as well and I’m not sure what else they’ve done. I’m hoping they refinished the stairs, because that’s what they were supposed to do while I’m gone. I’m not going to worry about it now, because there isn’t anything I can do about it until I get back anyway. If it’s really bad I can just sell the Uniqlo jackets I’m bringing back for her on ebay or something. That’ll pay for some light bulbs, anyway.

Not much happened today. We went shopping a couple, but mostly for food. I ended up buying a new Kurutoga pencil (one my sister already has) and looked for something she asked for: a multi-pencil with several different leads, 0.3mm, 0.5mm, and 0.7mm. I got her one last year, I think, but she wanted me to see if there are any better ones. I bought the pencil and the notebook to start thinking about how to redo the downstairs bathroom.

The main problem here is that Dr. Kawasaki has a cold and so does Mrs. Kawasaki. There’s a good chance we’re all going to come down with the same cold in the next few days. All the mask wearing, hand disinfecting, and gargling didn’t stop them from catching a cold and I doubt it will help us either. The other weird thing is that no one coughs into their arm here. They all cough straight into their hands and don’t think much about it.

The H1N1 influenza, or the “shingata virus” (new-type virus) is spreading here as well. We were expecting the Kawasaki’s daughter Sho to come to visit with their granddaughter Yuu, but their other granddaughter Kei caught the ‘flu and Dr. Kawasaki has told them all not to come even though she’s been better for several days. You’d think his specialty was communicable diseases and not otolaryngology. From what I understand, Mieko’s husband Dr. Kobayashi (an endocrinologist) is much less worried about the H1N1 virus.

In any case, I doubt we’re going to do all that much tomorrow, either, but Sunday we’re off to Osaka for three nights and then I’m off to Tokyo for a night before I head home.

No matter what my sister says, no matter how much she threatens me in email, I know that she’s all about the shopping. Sure she’ll go sightseeing, but only if it’s on the way to the store.

We went to Kanazawa today, which is only about 45 minutes from Toyama where we’re staying with the Kawasakis. Kanazawa (or a suburb) is where Hideki Matsui of the New York Yankees is from, and also has the famous Kenrokuen Garden that is one of the three most beautiful gardens of Japan (they like making lists here). It was part of the castle there and has been open to the public since 1875. I didn’t take all that many pictures of the trees or plants. That’s my dad’s life, not mine. I’m more likely to take pictures of the little old ladies picking the leaves out of the garden to make the garden more picturesque.

I did take a couple of pictures of them preparing the trees for winter. It snows pretty heavily on this side of Japan and the tree limbs are tied to a central post to keep them from breaking under the weight.

They’re just tying up the trees now both at the garden and in Toyama.

The gardens were part of the castle but were outside of the gate. The gate and castle walls are all that remain, but they’re pretty impressive and are undergoing a renovation right now.

After an expensive tourist-trap lunch, we went to a Ninja Temple, which really had nothing to do with the Ninja but had lots of hiding spaces and trickery. We also went to a shopping street which wasn’t that great, but are rapidly disappearing in Japan. The smaller stores in the central parts of town are going out of business unless they relocate to the large shopping malls that are becoming the norm.

So we did do some shopping, so the day wasn’t a complete loss in my sister’s measure of things. I ended up in a couple of goofy shops looking at traditional Japanese candies and foods that I found a bit dull, but I’m sure it was better than dragging my mom and her friends to another electronics store.

My mom complains that traveling with my sister is a big shopping spree. I’ve found this to be pretty true. She’d rather go shopping than go sightseeing. I like both and today we went up into the mountains to see the old villages of Gokayama and Shirakawa-gou which are UNESCO World Heritage Sites.

It’s a wonder that people can make a living up there and that’s probably why they charge you every time you turn around. Park in the middle of nowhere? 500 yen. Look inside the house? 1000 yen. There was a walking tunnel several thousand yards long that led to a four story elevator that got you from the parking lot down to the tiny village and someone had to pay for that, too. I know, it was taxes and the public works machine of the Liberal Democratic Party. I’m actually a big fan of public works, so I might as well enjoy them while I can, right?

Here’s a view of the village from above.

It was set in a pretty valley and I had to take some touristy pictures that may end up as my desktop.

Or is this one better?

You had to walk a ways to get down to the village.

And the houses were quite unique with thickly thatched roofs.

The houses are built for the snow, and I think the scaffolding is for snow barriers.

In case you were wondering if the houses looked flammable:

The way there was pretty uninteresting, unless you really like tunnels and the longest one we went through was 11km long (around 7 miles). We also were on the highest point in the Japanese expressway system. It was a lot nicer taking the surface roads that wound around the valleys to access all the dams they built as other parts of the public works projects.

We were able to stop on the narrow road because there was a parking lot for a pay phone.

After that we headed to Takayama in Gifu Prefecture. The old part of town was only about as long as two 100m city blocks (the long blocks in downtown Portland) and were full of tourists. The stores sold a combination of traditional crafts and usual touristy trinkets and I only bought what I could eat. I had several types of rice dumplings, which is probably what I’m going to look like before I get back. We also had some really bad coffee but I figure that’s what you get for drinking coffee in a tourist trap.

There were lots of foreign tourists in Takayama as well, though I couldn’t hear any American accents in the mix. I did hear Italian, German, and – I think – British. I’m wondering if the foreign contingent isn’t there because of the headquarters of Mahikari-kyo, one of the “new” Japanese religions.

We hit the tunnels on the way back as well, but I ended up falling asleep until we got out. As you can see, the mountains were still a little cold, though it is in the 20’s (in Celsius) in town.

The picture is a little funky, but that’s what you get when you take two pictures from a moving car and try to stitch them together.

I’m still hanging around with my mom and her friends and we made our way to a farmer’s market this morning. They were giving away half a Chinese cabbage (hakusai) for the first 200 people. I’m wondering if they didn’t have a lot more to give away because we got there late and the five of us got a total of 4 1/2 cabbages.

The farmer’s market was a little smaller than I’m used to in Oregon.

The prepared food is quite different than what we get, too. For example, there was no taco truck.

They were also selling cookies, or something like cookies. Anyone for some raisirn or frullers?

I’ve been eating like a pig since we got here, and a lot of it has been fruits and vegetables. The other item I’ve been ingesting a lot of is happoshu, or the stuff that looked like cheap but not very tasty beer when I was here last year. Turns out it’s what I’d consider beer, but it’s not taxed like beer because they make it with less malt and most of the stuff I tried last year was pretty unexciting. “Koku no Jikan” is actually pretty tasty, and is mixed with barley spirits. Here’s an example picture of how much I’ve been eating, though this wasn’t just me.

It’s a good thing we got lost on the way to the farmer’s market. It was further than we thought and I, for one, needed the exercise on the way back.

We also went shopping for random stuff today. I think I’m going to end up with a few more office supplies and computer doodads. Today I just bought a USB memory stick, not because it was interesting, but because it was surprisingly cheap. I guess no one trusts Sandisk here. I also started getting more items on my sister’s “list” including Blood Orange flavored lip balm.

Oh, and here’s some proof that it got real cold here. It’s supposed to be up in the upper 60’s tomorrow, but it snowed in the mountains. Here’s a really bad picture of a mountain with some snow. I don’t know how I took such a bad picture, other than lack of practice.

The only other excitement I had was the long-distance call I made to VISA this morning. I had to explain to them that, yes, I spent $1 at Amazon (plus $25 in a gift certificate for some toothbrushes), and yes I spent $21 at Dove Vivi for pizza. I mean, really? They stopped my account for that?

Yesterday it was 80°F until the middle of the day but it started raining and the temperature dropped. Today it’s 18°F cooler, and it’s about 40°F tonight. Add to this the pouring rain and we have the makings for it to be absolutely miserable outside. I didn’t do much today but catch up with some more of my mom’s friends. We did make it to the shopping center nearby where I searched for some shiso flavored Coke which was only on sale earlier this year. I also saw some premade coffee in the cooler cases here. The first I thought was St*rbucks.

I figured it was an imitation and looked at the Lipton branded premade coffee that looked even stranger:

It says “EXTRASHOT” but all I saw was the “TRASH” in the middle.

So what happened to yesterday’s post? I guess I thought I hit the “publish” button and just fell asleep. All the editing of photos and posting must have been lost. Oh, well.

So let me try to recreate what I did the two earlier days (Friday and Saturday). I spent most of the time in the back of a car, getting from Maebashi to a Japanese hot spring on Friday, and then from the hot spring to Toyama where we’re going to spend most of a week and I’m going to be doing much of nothing while my mom hangs out with her friends.

We started out Friday going to the Gunma prefectural office looking for a display of kokeshi dolls that my mom saw on TV. Unfortunately, they were somewhere else, though we did see them eventually since they were on the way to where we were having lunch. Some of the dolls were some pretty modern interpretations of a traditional art form and nothing that I really would want to display at home though my dad would have bought something, I’m sure. I didn’t get a picture of any of the dolls but here’s a picture from the top of the prefectural building, 17 stories up.

The picture faces the mountains we drove into. I had no idea which direction we were going most of the time. Lunch was soba somewhere seemingly far away and up a ways, but the food was worth the trip.

That’s my mom’s friend Mieko on the left and my mom on the right. We continued the trip and made a stop at Mieko’s apple tree. I guess she owns one tree in this apple orchard. I should have taken a picture of a Japanese apple. They’re really sweet and about the size of a grapefruit.

After that it was off to the hot springs where I spent a lot of time soaking in the large public baths, where we met Dr. Kobayashi, Mieko’s husband. I think it’s been nearly 20 years since I’ve seen him. It really is relaxing sitting in a pool full of hot water. I wish I could have taken a picture of the various baths, but this isn’t the blog you want if you’re looking to see a bunch of naked middle-aged Japanese men. I bet google could help you out if that’s your preference. In any case, in a Japanese hot spring you usually wash yourself off outside of the bath and then soak for a while, wash yourself again and soak for some more. There were a series of baths inside and a couple of outdoor baths where you could stand and look at the rapids below and the sound of the rushing water was an added soothing feature. I also forgot to take pictures of the food we ate because I was busy doing what most people do at a Japanese hot spring: relaxing.

The next day we were off to see Sho Shimomura and her family. Sho is the eldest daughter of the Kawasaki’s, where I’m spending most of my time this trip. I’ve seen Sho and the Kawasaki’s fairly regularly, but I hadn’t seen her husband Atsushi since their eldest daughter was 1 1/2. She’s 17 or 18 now so it’s been a while. It’s also the first time I got to visit their famous house in the rice fields. I didn’t see much of it, but I think it’s pretty large. Before we got to the house we visited Yasuhiko Jinja, a Shinto shrine, which was busy with a Chrysanthemum festival and 7-5-3 celebrations.

That’s my mom and the Shimomura’s younger daughter.

And again with the Chrysanthemums.

After the visit to the Shimomura’s house, it was off to the Kawasaki’s in Toyama. The other two weird things I saw that day were an interesting t-shirt and a cow truck. I wanted to get my minimal Halloween fix at Baskin & Robbin’s by buying some pumpkin ice cream and I saw a t-shirt that I thought was oddly appropriate for Halloween.

And here’s the cow truck.

For some reason the cows were all sideways to the direction of travel and lighted up. I dunno. It’s Japan.