I have told Jem for years that there are two things that are never long enough for me — cruises and massages. I always wish the cruise were more days, and I always wish the massage were more minutes.
Now, I have one more thing to add to my list — visits to Japan. We were in Japan two months. We covered a lot of Japan, and crossed off several items that we wanted to do, but left with a list of things we didn’t get to that we needed to do “next time.” Here is a short list
1. Spend more weeks in an apartment in Sapporo, visiting more parks, and more museums
2. Take language classes/send kids to a school in Sapporo
3. See more of Hokkaido (this time we just saw Otaru)
4. See more of the Kerama islands
5. Spend more time in Nagano
So, of course, we are already planning our visit to Sapporo next summer. Because the hardest, most difficult part of being in Japan this summer, was saying good bye. Both Jem and I were very sad at Kansai airport, as we watched the airline staff all bow to us, and say good bye. (Try and hold that image in your mind. You are at a busy international airport. Dozens queuing at the airline counter, waiting for the counters to open. Instead of surly and frazzled, the airline staff, as they prepare to open the ticket counters, walk out in a row, in front of their counters, in their very nice uniforms, turn to all of us, smile, bow in unison. Then move behind their counter and still with a big smile, greet the first six groups in line. So patient, orderly and friendly. Have we mentioned, we love Japan? And miss it terribly?)
Now that we are home, I have started Japanese language classes. Next year, I will use our trip to perfect my Japanese. And I leave you with my two favorite Japanese words so far: すすきの and すし
(Two classes down and I know a lot of hiragana now. At least I know them for an hour or so, my long term retention is really bad.)
I probably wont be posting as much since my adventures will ease for a while…though we are planning a fall trip to Paris…so check back every few weeks there may be more adventures to follow.
Nine years ago, when Jem and I came to Japan for our honeymoon, we (of course) went to Disneyland. Jem bought a new Disney hat, and it promptly blew off on a ride. We went to lost and found, figuring, what the heck, we may as well see if anyone finds it. They didn’t find it that day, but we filled out all the forms with our address and phone number and figured oh well, it was just a hat. A few days after returning from Japan, Jem’s phone began ringing. It was Tokyo Disneyland, they had found his hat. We had a lot of difficulty understanding them over the phone, but we figured it didn’t really matter, there was no way they would ship a hat back to the U.S. Well, a few days later a DHL international package package arrived with his hat in it.
Since that moment, we knew Japan was a place where your belongings go out of their way to find their way home to you. A couple of times this summer, we got separated from the kids, at a park, in a store. Instead of panicking, we remembered that if Japan went to those lengths to return Jem’s hat, they would find our children and make sure they are returned to us. Of all the countries in the world, this is the one where we did not need to worry about where our kids were. They would find their way back to us.
We had two incidents this trip were we saw the Art of Finding Lost Objects unfold before us. The first was on our way to Okinawa from Tokyo when Amalia left her backpack full of her toys on the train to the airport. We realized it within a couple of minutes of getting off the train, and went back into the train to see where it was. It was not there. As we were debating when the last time was we saw it, a nice man came out of the train to tell us that it had been left in the train car and another passenger had taken it to the station master. Sure enough, when we got up to the station master, he had the stuffed animals and dresses for said stuffed animals out on his counter. I immediately pointed at it and us and Amalia and said “ours” … he spoke no English but understood. He handed me a form to fill out with a companion card in English spelling out what I was supposed to fill out where, asked for my passport and after the appropriate forms were completed, we had the backpack back with all the toys. That was on the early side of our trip.
Toward the end of the trip (our last night to be exact), I, silly distracted me, set my phone down on the seat next to me on the evening Shinkansen from Tokyo to Kyoto. The train was on its way to Shin-Osaka, so the Kyoto stop was one stop before, and quite brief, about 1 minute to get everyone off the train. In all the scurrying, I left my phone on the seat. I realized it once we were on our way to the hotel. I went back to the station and asked the station attendant and he told me to go to Shin-Osaka in the morning (a city about 30 minutes away) and go to lost and found there.
So, the next morning, I got up hours before we needed to check out of the hotel. Our flight out of Kansai Airport was at 6 pm, so I had some time, but it was either the Shin-Osaka lost and found or bust. If they hadn’t found it, or maybe they found it later, there would be no time to get the phone delivered to me before we left Japan. And unlike Disney, Japan Rail was clear they did not send packages outside of Japan.
I set out from the hotel at 730 am. I caught an 8 am train to Shin-Osaka. At Shin-Osaka, I wandered across the entire station before finding this tiny office of Lost and Found. I was certain my phone would never be found again. I explained in very few English words “left phone on train” and showed my ticket with the train number, seat number and date. He told me to wait a moment and vanished in the back. And…yes, indeed, he returned 2 minutes later with my phone!! I had to put in the passcode in front of him, and fill out all the forms with my passport number, but I had my phone! Japan works exactly as it is supposed to. I had had a restless night worrying about it, but I did keep saying to Jem, “this is Japan. I am annoyed that I have to go to another city to get my phone, but I know that I have a 98% chance of getting it back.” I had my phone back by 8:35 am. In a weird way, finding my phone made me even sadder to be leaving Japan later that day.
So, we spent a couple of weeks in an apartment in Sapporo trying to get a sense of what “Living in Japan” might be like. But we also spent a couple of days taking in the key sights of Sapporo, and there were plenty.
Famous clock tower
TV Tower, modeled after the Eiffel Tower,
To die for views
We were fortunate to catch part of the Flower festival
We made it to Mt Moira Ropeway, with its cute mascots and great views (mascots are a thing in Japan, many famous tourist sites have unique mascots. We ended up with lots of little stuffed animals from many different places.)
Susukino (which has the advantage of my being able to read the 4 Japanese hiragana that make up that word) was great. Big lights, big city. Classic Japan (like Shinjuku or Shibuya in Tokyo)
God, hot dog and rocks indeed. Sapporo is awesome. Can’t wait to come back.
Well, as is no surprise to anyone who knows us, we have too much luggage. Way too much luggage. We started out with three max capacity suitcases for the four of us and three max capacity carry-ons. We are now up to 5 suitcases. For about a week, our trip became about the suitcases. Which ones could we leave for a couple of days behind in luggage storage. Which ones could we ship to our next destination, knowing that if we sent it to a post office (common in Japan), we might find no one speaking English there at time of retrieval.
Well, we finally amassed all 5 suitcases on the evening of our Okinawa departure, and in big American cliche form (big Americans, with big voices, and big suitcases and lots of big suitcases), we made it to our flight from Okinawa to Sapporo. I am officially a cliche. I really dislike being a cliche, I am a “when in Rome” type tourist and I was the opposite of when in Rome this time.
What is in 5 suitcases you might ask? Well, everyone in the family easily rattled off multiple items that were brought “just in case” and “just for comfort.” We have a pair, and 2 spares of everything, and then a few more. I think it is time to go down to 1 pair, and 1 spare. That will shave about 1/3 off our items.
In addition, Japan is the land of gifts. We get cute little gifts everywhere we go. We got a cute little toiletry bags for the kids at two hotels = four more little bags of stuff to carry. We are given cute kid slippers to wear indoors.
We also received nice (though not as cute) adult slippers too that are great for getting out of the shower. We love the Japanese toiletries. I didnt bring much in way of toiletries so I could pick up the ones in hotels and just use those. But there are so many, now I am carrying around bags of toiletries.
And then, of course, the Chandus. You might remember this from our earlier post?
The Disney purchases that are almost half a suitcase themselves. They are soft, cute and totally unnecessary.
So then of course, we had to buy this:
We are definitely taking lessons here about how not to be cliches next time, but in the meantime, we had a real problem. So, we took care of it by shipping home three boxes of household goods/purchases. We were very lucky, and with the help of some pointing, Google Translate, and general context (e.g. walking into a Japanese Post Office with two suitcases), we were able to get the three boxes shipped home. By boat, so we will see those items in September. No problem…which in and of itself should have shown us we really didn’t really need most of that stuff in Japan.
One of our goals for the summer was to actually “live” in Japan. By which I meant get an apartment, find a grocery store, learn to get around by train or bus and just go about daily life and see what it was like. For June, since it starts getting hot elsewhere in Japan, we chose to go north to Sapporo in Hokkaido. Yes, where they make the beer. Asahi is brewed there too. It was nice and temperate there as this fancy thermometer on the side of the building told us. (The other time we saw it, it read 18. That day, we needed socks and jackets)
Our apartment was some distance from downtown Sapporo with the touristy sights (like the building with the thermometer) but that worked out very well for us. We found a condo-tel airbnb with two bedrooms, kitchen and nice bathroom. On the third floor of this building.
Northeast of the apartment about 12 minutes walking distance was a regional JR station; in the direct opposite direction (southwest), was a subway, but for convenience, we also took the bus in front of our building; it took about 20 minutes to downtown Sapporo. The apartment was excellent for the goal of “living” in Japan — it was located where people actually live, and shop, and work, and as far as we could tell, we were the only tourists for about a mile around. The place was within walking distance of not one, but two, Daiso (which are found in LA, and are like high end dollar stores). We also found two very nice grocery stores, a “Coop” and a “Big House.” It is very helpful that grocery stores use Latin/English characters for the names of their stores.
Welcome to the Big House
On the ground floor of the building next door to ours was a Ramen joint with a very friendly owner. We ate several meals there.
The suburban location of the apartment was a good 30 minutes away from the main sights, but well in line with what I wanted in terms of living in Japan. I even found a children’s library, with assistance from the Sapporo City English line. It was on the sixth floor of the Shiroishi ward city hall, at the exit of the Shiroishi subway stop. I never would have found it if I had not been able to call the City of Sapporo and ask about child friendly city services in English. They had plenty of English language books and a small play area. Great for a rainy day.
There were several, and I mean several — like half a dozen — children’s parks within five minutes walking distance from our house. The girls got daily park outings, even once in the rain wearing their swimsuits.
This is a zip line that would never be permitted in the US for safety reasonsLike the slides from the 70s! This one was wet from rain and slick and fast!
Japanese version of a Merry-go-round
There were other restaurants, that were not used to seeing tourists, We had a lot of really nice experiences, with super friendly owners, like eating surprisingly good paella in this Spanish restaurant 3 blocks from the apartment. (The Sangria was not good, on the other hand)
With all the other travel, we ended up not allowing enough weeks to just “live” there, which was a regret since we really enjoyed “living” in Japan. We lived the life of the immigrant, trying to make our way around the requirements of daily life without understanding the language or the culture. We were 99% illiterate and unfamiliar with the norms. It was disconcerting. Yet, for me, familiar, as I still remember my first year in the U.S. and then my year in France and summer in Germany where it was similar. And now, my goal for the coming year is to actually learn Japanese and come back next summer to perfect it! I am not sure if my almost 50-year-old brain can handle it.
Snorkeling, diving and tropical waters is not the first thing that comes to mind when you think of Japan. But Japan has tropics and this trip we wanted to go visit tropical Japan, since it is pretty far away and difficult to get to during a normal “highlights of Japan” trip (especially when any Japan trip requires several Disney days). So this time, we scheduled almost a week in Okinawa. We flew ANA from Tokyo and they treated the girls very well, giving them little gifts, such as this cute ANA badge:
We landed in Okinawa (Naha) and I was instantly confused. I thought I was back in Hawaii. But with more Japanese-like structures (tall residential buildings, a monorail and of course left-hand driving cars). For the few days we were there, I did indeed often find myself thinking I was in Hawaii and I had to remind myself I was still in Japan. This disorientation made sense, once I thought about it. The obvious similarities are the weather and island living. Steamy, tropical, check. Flip flops everywhere, check. Shoes off at the door, check. But beyond that, Okinawa has a significant American influence going back to World War II. Americans have been living in Okinawa for decades. For a long time, it was an American possession, and it was returned to Japan in the early 70s. The U.S. had a large military presence there for decades, much like Oahu. Japan was a staunch U.S. ally during the Vietnam War and much of that support came at Okinawa. Hawaii is an American island that has a significant Japanese population and influence. Okinawa is a Japanese island that has a significant American population and influence. Essentially, Hawaii and Okinawa are cousins. In some ways Okinawa and Hawaii are much closer culturally than Hawaii and say, Kansas. There is a lot more English spoken in Okinawa than the rest of Japan.
One of our highlights in Okinawa, before heading out to the Kerama islands, was a nice meal in a restaurant across the street from our hotel. Our waiter had the best English, and I don’t want to stereotype or profile, but he looked half American to me. I also don’t remember much from that night, I must confess. I ordered something called an “Okinawa Mojito.” I have no idea what was in it, but it knocked me for a loop the rest of the evening. Everything is very, very vague after that. But luckily we took some pictures of the food.
The Okinawa Mojito that almost leveled meDelicious Taro ballsA fish dish we ordered that was the whole fish, bones and all, that were allegedly edible
We only had two nights in Okinawa proper (Naha city), and most of it was spent recovering from (in addition to my Mojito) our very busy four cities in seven days that was “Japan, Week 2.” The hotel had a very nice swimming pool and laundry facilities, so we spent most of our two days hotel bound, which is what we needed. On day three, we took a 45 minute ferry ride and headed to a place that, well, feels to me to be most remote place I have ever visited — the Kerama Islands. (I define remote as something that is off the beaten path, not developed, takes several modes of transport to get there, and is tiny and barely populated. 15 years ago, I would have added no cell service or wi-fi but now even the most remote places have cell service and internet.)
We spent three nights on Aka Island, the smallest of the islands with any development, though honestly at one mile across, it has almost no tourist development to speak off. There is a port, a few guesthouses, a super market, and that’s about it. I chose it because it was the island the guidebook said you could manage entirely on foot. (The other islands needed a bicycle or motorcycle, neither of which is that doable with the kids and suitcases)
Aka was essentially raw nature, with gorgeous scenery.
And very friendly locals, as usual, happy to help you out. There are some weird things, like the fact that they built a gorgeous bridge between islands that connect 200 people to the island of 50 people.
We walked across the bridge just to say we did it (since it doesn’t really go anywhere touristy, we walked over it and back)
The island also had some feral cats and deer, both of whom liked the beach (or maybe the cat was just fishing).
The scenery was stunning. We loved snorkeling just off our breach.
We saw some really good fish and coral (like this starfish), but uncannily, the first fish we saw was a humuhumunukunukuapu’aa — the Hawaii state fish! The connections between Okinawa and Hawaii are underwater as well.
Amalia and I ran into a 6-foot eel just swimming at the surface. Biggest sea snake I have seen free swimming. Previously, when snorkeling, I have seen eels safely in their caves. I was pretty freaked out. Amalia was more excited than freaked. We didn’t have the camera, and I am not sure I would have paused to take a picture anyway.
Lots to see in this area and we only hit one tiny island. Too soon, our time there was over and it was time to, finally, head to the place where we had decided to establish as “home base” for this summer — Sapporo. We really covered a lot of ground in three weeks! [Train rides in red, plane rides in purple arrows]
