June 25 – Trains, Planes, and Singapore

The rest of Japan. There's a quite bit more we could say about Japan but there just isn't time for it all. We have a few more pics posted on our galleries. Check out these sections:

Food
Signs
Everything Else


Today was a bit tough. We got up really early to catch a train to Narita to fly to Singapore. We had to travel through Tokyo rush hour on the train. Those people are nuts. I would never commute 1-2 hours on the Tokyo trains every day. I’m pretty sure I would kill myself.

Imagine the DC Metro on its worst day. Now add about 100 people to that train car and you get Tokyo rush hour. I really wanted to see one of those guys that are paid to shoe-horn more people into the train, but I didn’t. Perhaps it was because I was too busy getting crushed.

Anyways we made it to the airport in one piece. We had a very nice flight to Singapore on ANA airlines.

There our friend Borna met us at the Singapore airport. She promptly took us to a mall where we had our first taste of Singapore food. I had Laksa which was quite nice and Jen had chicken rice. More on malls in further posts.

Borna is another one of my friends from Purdue. Her family was quite nice letting us stay at her brand new house. Thanks B!

June 24 – Disney SHHHeea

Today we spent our last day at the Tokyo Disney resort. They have two theme parks and several hotels. Tokyo Disneyland is much like Disney World or Disney Land containing such rides as the Pirates of the Carribean, etc. We didn’t go there. Instead we went to the totally unique Disney Sea, or as they pronounced it Disney Shhheea.

I believe it’s called Disney Sea because all the areas sort of had to do with water. There was the Mediterranean Harbor, Mystery Island, etc. and everything was connected by a waterway around the park.

We had a great time here. The park was very clean and it was our first sunny day while in Japan. We also were there at a great time as there were very little lines or crowds.

The best part of the park had to be all the shows. They were all quite elaborate and had tons of great dancing and costuming.

The afternoon water parade was probably over 30 minutes.

Anyone know if this is Chip or Dale? I can tell you that the girl next to him is Jen.

Thanks Mickey – good times.

June 23 – A Lesson in Directions!

Today was quite fun as we went to Jeremy’s school in Oisa just a train stop down. Here he teaches a wide range of kids from elementary school age through Junior High, and then also at the high school across town.

We arrived at the elementary school and it was nothing like we have ever seen before. We arrived at recess or something and when we walked in there were children running all over the building. We could hardly see any adults. The kids just ran wild up and down the floors, stairways, outside, all over the place. It looked like a great day to be a kid.

Then some little bell chimed and amazingly all the kids ran straight to their appropriate places. I don’t know how they get them to do that.

We observed Jeremy teaching two classes about “Directions”. He sang a little song and did a little dance on LEFT, RIGHT, FORWARD, BACK, etc. We also joined in the fun. We were part of a demonstration where we were given blow up swords and blindfolded. Put across the room from each other, Jen and I were given directions by the kids on which way to go and when to STRIKE. It was a little hard to make out the directions of dozens of screaming kids. Also Japanese do not end their words with consonants, only vowels. So by mistake they have a tendency to say RIGHT-O and LEFT-O.

Jeremy also warned us to guard our butts. One of the thing the little boys like to do is run up behind and stick their fingers in your butt. I forget the name for that, but I think we avoided it successfully. Jeremy got a couple though and had kids hanging on him most of the time.

After class we joined the kids for lunch. We brought our own lunch, but the kids actually serve each other. A group of them put on aprons, gloves, and chefs hats. They pushed little carts around that had the food and everyone got served and cleaned up after. We also sat down with the kids to interact with them. This was a little challenging as they only knew a few things in English. A typical conversation went like this:

ME: Hello.

KID: Harro!

ME: My name is Josh. What is your name?

KID: @#$@#$@#???

ME: Thank you very much.

Jen managed to strike up a conversation about baseball with her table. It is a very popular sport there.

And speaking of cleaning, that was next. There was a time called Soji where they CLEAN. Everyone there, 6-year olds up had some sort of cleaning task. They sweeped the floors, wiped down the stairs, and whatever else you can think of. Again it was quite amazing and I’m convinced that students in our schools are lazy and worthless.

We also stopped by the high school where we nearly put a standstill to the classes. As we walked by the classrooms that were in session you could see heads popping up in surprise by the unexpected white people in the building. When they had a break Jeremy tried to get them to practice their English with us. They were mostly very shy, but we had a little more involved conversations. When we mentioned that we were married they would all scream and freak out. It was pretty funny.

We regret not having many pictures from all this, but we would have felt a little weird taking pictures of the kids at school. For this one folks, you are going to have to use your imagination.

For Lunch 2, I stopped by McDonalds. Yes I know, why go to McDonalds, but they had a unique item I had to have. It was some sort of Mega Mac that had at least four burgers on it, bacon, and a fried egg on the top. It was pretty darn good.

For dinner that night we went back to Jeremy’s Ramen place for some more great noodles.

June 22 – Tokyo, e.g. LOTS of people

Today we took the train into Tokyo and it’s time I had a little bit of commentary on that. Despite it being fairly difficult to figure out the map, the train runs extremely efficiently here. The trains are almost always on time and inside the trains there are usually digital displays showing what’s next in Japanese and in English. They are always pretty full of people. Most of the time you have to stand, so to get to Tokyo we had to stand for nearly an hour and a half. It can get a little tiresome.

We stopped in an area called Harajuku where we saw another shrine (Meiji Shrine). It was a little bit bigger than the others. I guess on the weekends there is just a non-stop train of weddings, although it can be quite expensive to get married there. The wedding parties cross each other in the main walking areas as they go from place to place. They walk in a train of people really slowly led by the bride and groom and a guy holding an umbrella type thing above them. The bride in particular had a very elaborate gown.

We also went to Yoyogi Park where most of the time you can find some the Japanese youth who dress up like Goths and other strange things mainly for the benefit of the tourists I guess. We didn’t see too many of these people though, perhaps we were too late in the day, or maybe their makeup doesn’t work with rainy days so much.

Next we took the subway to Asakusa. Here we saw the Senso-ji Temple where you can see Jen below rubbing on the Nade-Buddha’s bald head for luck.

For lunch we had Soba noodles. You can get these cold or hot. They served the cold ones on this interesting tray which we suspect they use to actually drain the noodles of their water. Getting better with the chopsticks still.

From here we went down a very busy strip for shopping where all the hip Japanese teenagers go for clothes. It was loud, busy, and crazy.

Next we went to the Electric City, or Akihabara. Here they sell every type of electronic gizmo you can think of, some old and some new. There was a ton of cool old-school video game stuff and one store in particular was really fun. It was raining quite a bit so I’m surprised we didn’t all get electrocuted.

Next we buzzed over to Shibuya, which is sort of like the Times-Square of Tokyo with huge signs and flashing lights.

This is also where you can find one of Japan’s busiest intersections.

It was even crazier when you add in the fact it was pouring and nearly everyone had an umbrella. We have never seen so many umbrellas in our lives and it was tough not to get jabbed in the eye or have someone dump the water off the top of their umbrella on you by accident. I managed to climb up above the fray and get a couple pics, as well as a shot from an overhead Starbucks.

We got some really good Indian food which satisfied us all. It was an all you can eat buffet, but you were warned if you didn’t clear your plate you would get charged more.

June 21 - Kamakura, Fujisawa

As the weekend began we got a late start to the morning and headed to Kamakura. Kamakura was Japan’s capital between 1185-1333. Here we got our first experience in Japanese Buddhist temples.

We went to the Tsurugaoka Hachiman-gu Shrine, Hase-Dera, and saw the “Great Buddha”, Diabutsu.

After we went to a few of these, they are very similar. You purify yourselves by washing off by ladling water onto your hands and such.

Then you breath in some of the incense for good luck, etc.

It is the year of the rat, so there were places where people wrote their wishes on little cards and attached them to this board. Later they are all burned and your wishes are supposed to come true.

You could also get your fortune told by these people who don’t like their pictures to be taken. You take the little slip of paper and tie it to a board where this will help the fortune to come true.

There are also many shrines here that people pray towards. I’m not sure of all what’s supposed to be going on there, but what I observed was people would come up, throw money into this thing that looks like my grill at home. Then they would clap their hands to “wake up” the God/s. Then they would pray for whatever. Each shrine usually had some sort of specific purpose either for long life, wealth, love, lost children, etc. It was interesting to watch, however it made us a little uncomfortable with all the idol “worship”.

We also walked around Fujisawa but didn’t do too much there other than eat. We went a little astray from the Japanese norm and had Fish/Chips at a pub.

June 20 -Yokohama, Yaki-niku, and Karaoke

Today we got out of the house and took a train to Yokohama, Japan’s second largest city.

It was a bit gloomy, but we wandered around town checking things out. There is a large mall, a huge ferris wheel, and Japan’s tallest building, the Landmark Tower. See how it reaches into the clouds:

We checked out the Museum of Art as well as the Mitsubishi Industrial Museum. The latter was really nicely done, having all kind of interesting interactive displays.

We also got to try a pretty life-like helicopter simulation. I was the pilot and I realized I might want to rethink my life-long dream of becoming a helicopter pilot. After a detailed instructional video, we forgot how to fly forward. We also managed to fly into a couple buildings and really muck up the landing.

We went back to Hiratsuka to meet up with Jeremy and his Japanese girlfriend.

Here we did a really fun thing called Yaki-niku. Here they place a burning charcoal grill right in the middle of the table and they bring you raw meat to cook on it. We got a 2-hour all you can eat and drink special. We ate many different kinds of meat but I managed to try something uncooked. It was raw beef covered in raw egg.

Supposedly they don’t have as many problems with Salmonella there. I had a bite and wasn’t completely repulsed, although I will never eat such a thing again.

After this we stopped by a bar to meet up with more locals and we ended up at a karaoke place. It was pretty fun, but we didn’t stay long because the place was very smoky and making us ill. Which reminds me; the Japanese smoke like chimneys. We encountered tons of cigarette smoke virtually everywhere (hack, cough, wheez…)

Anyhow, it was a great evening.

June 19 – Ok Already – Let the Japan Begin: Getting Oriented in Hiratsuka

Well after getting into Hiratsuka the night before we had our first experience with Japanese food. We had yakitori, which is basically grilled meat on a skewer. Pretty tasty. I also had some nice cold Saki which they serve in an overflowing shot glass into a little wooden box. You can also drink directly from the box which gives the saki a nice woody taste.

So today we thought we’d need a little jet lag recovery time and we’d sleep in. We woke up at 5 and noticed the bright sun outside. We panicked as we thought we had slept until 5p! However, that wasn’t the case. The sun rises somewhere around 4:45a. So we went back to sleep.

Good thing we were tired, because that town is noisy. I wasn’t even quite sure of everything we were hearing. The most consistent sound was a continuous beeping coming from the crosswalk down below us. Additionally we kept seeing these vans driving by and random Japanese gibberish being blasted from its speakers. Turns out they do campaigning by yelling at everyone in town as the vans drive around. Finally, right across the street dozens of old Japanese geezers would hang outside this shop. After a while they would let them in and, well, we really have no idea what went on in there.

So taking it easy, we started the morning by taking care of breakfast. We made our first mistake of our trip by going to the “gourmet” grocery store. Prices were a little high, but nothing unlike what we’re used to in the US. We got cereal and bananas. However, later we found out about this wonderful thing called the 99 (Yen) store. Here you could get darn near anything for 99 Yen, which is about a dollar. You could get a loaf of bread, a half dozen eggs, a pint of milk, some double A batteries, soda, frozen dinners, a fish, etc. etc. Seriously, that store rocked as far as prices go.



We took a leisurely stroll to the beach just a mile or so down the road. Here we dipped our toes in the Pacific thousands of miles from the California beaches.


After that we came back and had a long nap. Still recovering…

That night we met up with Jeremy and he took us to his favorite Ramen Noodle shop. Ramen here is a little more substantial than the 3 for a dollar junk you get in the US at Walmart. You would have thick spaghetti like noodles in a delicious broth, sprouts, veggies, and if you like some slices of pork. Here we had our first lesson in chopsticks and we caught on pretty quickly. We also realized without Jeremy we would have no idea how to order food since the menu was completely in Japanese.

I probably did not introduce Jeremy properly. He is one of my friends from Purdue that I met through the dance team. He has been in Japan in this area for about 4 years now teaching English. His Japanese was pretty good and he was quite useful.

After dinner we walked around town more and we checked out an arcade. The video game setups here were pretty elaborate. There were many virtual reality type games, DDR type games where you beat on drums, and a 4 seater Super Mario Cart game where you could actually drive the games. There were also miniature video game systems that stood about 3 feet high for the little kids. Do you know those games where you use the claw to try to pick out a prize with it? Well, here they have that concept, but you get to go for much larger and interesting prizes: a large box of Ritz Crackers, huge toys, bathroom floor mats, and other weird stuff.

Singapore

Made it to Singapore. Doing great. Japan update coming soon :)

Still in Japan

Just a quick post to let you know we are still alive. We have been quite busy and haven't had a lot of time to post. Soon we will share a big gallery and perhaps tell a few stories about all the crazy Japanese things we have seen.

Made It! Now in Hiratsuka.

We made it to Japan! We even managed to figure out that train map. It's not too bad once you figure out where you are actually going to, and then you just work your way back.


The flight was nice - it went by rather quickly and was pretty smooth. They fed us a lot. I think we had like 4 meals on the plane. I think if airlines want to cut back on expenses, they should cut one of these maybe instead of taking our drinks from our domestic flights. Bah!

We got there and I had a few problems with my ATM card. After some tinkering we managed to acquire some Yen. 1 dollar =~ 108 Yen.

Then we took the trains to get to Jeremy's in Hiratsuka. It is a decent ways from Tokyo actually. It's probably about as far as Springfield, VA was from DC, though, so not too bad. We haven't checked the town out too much, but here is a view from our balcony:


By the way, we are staying at the place of some guy Jeremy knows, named Eric. Eric's not even here! Thanks for the room though. Here's the bedroom. Note the Japanese style tatami flooring. No shoes allowed!


Jeremy took us to a fun little local joint where we had cold saki and yakatori, which is grilled chicken on a stick. Jen also got her first lesson in proper chop-stick usage. Apparently, if she's going to feed herself over in Asia, she's going to have to catch on quickly.

I also have to comment on the toilet here. It's a toilet/sink. When you flush the water that fills the tank comes through the top like a sink for hand washing. Pretty wild. For more info click HERE.

Here's a new feature for you to check out. Go to THIS google map link to see where we are at.

That's it for now. We are going to the beach this morning which is just down the road.

Finally caught up! And now we're turning Japanese!

Hi all,

I'm finally doing this blog properly - as in real time. How cool. We'll see how it goes :)

We're flying out to Japan today. We leave around 1p from LA and get there 11 hours later. Strangely we still arrive at just 4:30p. I'm hope we have our senses about us when we get there because we have to figure out how to get to Hiratsuka using this map:


Please pray.

June12-June16: A few more days in the US

We rolled into Lancaster, CA to stay with Jen's mom and April. We have been well spoiled. It was nice to spend time with them and we are preparing for the next journey beyond the U.S. Sorry for the brief post on this one, but I gotta get going soon!!!

June 10, 11– More driving??!? Colorado. Yet more driving…

Again on the road. This time wanting to avoid hotels altogether we planned to take a straight shot to Bob and Jen’s new place in Denver. It was about a 15 hour drive and wasn’t too unpleasant. Thanks again to Subway for the $5 footlongs!

We did notice the water rising in Iowa. Apparently I-80 is closed now so good thing we got through there when we did!

Bob and Jen are just outside of Denver and I would have to say I quite like Colorado. Perhaps we will end out here with them very soon.

Here's a picture of us with Bob and Jen at their $7 lake nearby:


Here's a picture of where they live. We were not allowed to take pictures of the inside. Go to http://codaandlola.com to see if they have properly moved in yet.

June 8-9, 2008: Sweet Home Chicago

This morning we stopped by Campus House for a nice visit of my old church. Today we drove up to my (Josh) favorite city – Chi-town. Our first stop was over at Stan and Nicole’s place in Oak Park. I hadn’t seen Stan in many many years and I ran across him on Facebook. We had a nice little afternoon visit and got to meet their a little past a year old son Shawn (Sean?) It was nice to catch up –we’ll have to visit them again sometime.

From there we drove downtown to catch the tail-end of Bluesfest. Content and food-wise this has to be one of the best street-festivals in existence. First order of business was to get some Chicago-style pizza. After putting a couple extra digits on our cholesterol numbers, we headed to the main stage to listen to B.B. King, King of the Blues.

B.B. King is amazing. He plays unconsciously almost and can sing with the best of the 82 year olds out there. It was nice to hear him, but the environment was not very pleasant. It was very muddy from quite a bit of rain. Additionally, there were people chain-smoking all around us who were generally drunk, obnoxious, and seemingly inattentive to the King. I have to say, it sort of spoiled the evening somewhat.

From there we drove out to the burbs to visit with Beth and Tom in Barrington, IL. They were already asleep for the most part so we’d meet with them tomorrow.

The next day we slept in and relaxed a little. We met up with Beth and Tom in the evening and had a great night. They took us to a great place for dinner that served amazing breakfast food. I had an omelet with some fantastic Jalapeno cheese. From there we went back home and played some Lego Star Wars on the Xbox which was pretty fun. Thanks Beth and Tom! Hope to see you again real soon!

June 7, 2008: Still Boilering Up

Today we relaxed for the first half of the day. Jen saw a movie with Erin and I played Mario Kart with my bro Ben. His girlfriend had her brother’s dog over at the apartment. It is a 1 year old Great Dane and that thing is HUGE.

We had dinner with Ben and Brooke at a new place in Lafayette called Red Seven. It was actually pretty good food. The owner will probably make a fortune as that there aren’t too many classy restaurants in town.

Late at night I went for a nice 5 mile run around campus. It was a cool and pleasant evening and it was nice to have memories of things as I jogged past them.

June 6, 2008: Everybody Boiler Up

Mostly driving today as our main attraction should have been the corn fields of Iowa. I think they must have just harvested all of the corn because all of the fields were stripped bare.

But our goal today is Purdue where we’ll visit with old friend’s and the Polk brothers.

Tonight we saw most of our friends over at BW3s. I have missed those wings.

June 5, 2008: Cornhuskers

Today, we thought we would have big trouble with the weather. Tornadoes, hail, and violent thunderstorms were throughout the area. We saw this early on which was NUTS, but Jen busted a move out of that town asap!


For the rest though, we were blessed with just a bunch of rain, nothing worse really. Today we drove through the rest of South Dakota and down the border between Nebraska and Iowa down to near Omaha. On the way we stopped by the Corn Palace. It’s a giant building in South Dakota made out corn and other grains. They create murals on the building using their crops to celebrate what they grow all year. It’s sort of the Taj Mahal of corn on the cob.



From there we had dinner with my aunt/uncle who live near Omaha. He was a B-52 pilot in the Vietnam war and he had many great stories to tell. He commanded some of the B-52 bombings that helped free many POWs, including current Presidential candidate John McCain. He told us how McCain personally thanked him for his efforts.

We stayed the night at a Days Inn in Council Bluffs, IA.

June 4, 2008: South Dakota (....meh)

Today we rolled through South Dakota. Now there isn’t a whole lot of stuff in South Dakota. There are some national parks and caves in the southwest. There is also a well-known motorcycle rally in Sturgis.

But we did stop at Mt. Rushmore to see four of our greatest leaders: George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Teddy Roosevelt, and Abraham Lincoln. Although we have all seen this image many times in media, it was awesome to see the monument in person. Click below for a larger view:


We also drove past the Indian leader, Crazy Horse monument. We just looked at it as we passed by on the highway, we didn’t go up to the visitors center. This actually is a work in progress, but you can see most of the head and it’s easy to envision what the final concept will look like.

Once you get east of there, there is not much going on in South Dakota. It is so empty that a drugstore has become an attraction. Wall Drugstore, in Wall, SD is a giant country western themed set of stores. They have a few hokey things like a big animated dinosaur, fountains, and other things.


Through some GPS/Priceline confusion we got a little a little bit off track when we booked our hotel and ended up in the state capital of Pierre. Again, not much here.

June 3, 2008: Yellowstone Day2 , Grand Teton

Today we did the lower part of Yellowstone and headed to the Grand Teton National Park. Most of these photos are courtesy of Jen who can be seen here leaping for joy.



The highlights of Yellowstone were some very colorful geyser craters and hot springs, especially the Grand Prismatic Spring. We also saw Old Faithful, and faithfully as always produced a little steam show for us.


We then headed down to Grand Teton and drove past several of the highlights. We finally saw a grizzly bear!
It was quite the sideshow as many people had pulled off and there was a ranger nearby with his bear pepper spray ready in hand. Jen was actually out closer to the bear than the ranger was. Hmm. We feel our trip was completed with the sight of a bear. We also saw a moose today. Now if we could find a bear eating a moose…


Here's a better view of a buffalo. I shot this one (with my camera).


And here's another random shot I took on the colder side of the park.



We rolled in quite late into Lusk, WY. Although there is scarcely anyone in Wyoming, for some reason the majority of the hotels are booked for the next two weeks. Crazy.