Day: July 6, 2019

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.

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.

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.