Great Hikes

After our day in Hiroshima we got up bright and early and headed to Osaka. On the agenda for Osaka: check out the aquarium (one of the few aquariums in the world to house a whale shark) and take a train to town outside the city called Nara which has, like, 7 World Heritage Sites or so.

Day 7 I only have a couple of pictures from. After all that constant going we slept in, then got on the shinkansen and headed back for Steve’s where we rested for the afternoon before meeting him after work to attend another baseball game (his home team, Chiba Marines playing this time) and after that singing karaoke. Yes, we actually sang karaoke. It’s not so bad Japanese style though, they put you and your friends in a private room with the karaoke machine, so you only have to make an idiot out of yourself in front of your friends. Those of you who know how bad of a singer I am will know that it was still not easy for me; or for Dave either but we actually did it. We enjoyed it, too, since they had to kick us out at 1:30 am when the place closed!!

Giant ferris wheel in Osaka. They claim it’s the larget in the world but I don’t think it is bigger than the London Eye….this one was probably the biggest when it was built, though.

This is him, the star of the Osaka aquarium. I hope to see one of these guys while scuba diving one day but we couldn’t pass up the chance to see one, even if he was in an aquarium. The aquarium was great, but the thousands of red and yellow hatted school kids on field trips was a little crazy. They say Japan has the lowest birth rate of any country but you wouldn’t have guessed it that day at the aquarium!

This is the most famous of Nara’s World Heritage sites. It is a huge wooden building (claims to be the largest wooden structure in the world) housing a huge Buddha statue. The building was originally built in something like 500 AD but has burned down twice and been rebuilt, most recently in the 1700’s if I remember correctly.

This is the Buddha housed in the giant wooden building. The statue was cast all as one piece and was remade around the last time the building was re-built in the 1700’s.

The gate leading into the building area. See those crazy deer? They live all over the park and harass people for food. I’m surprised they live very long, I saw one eating a plastic bag.

Huge wooden statue also in the building with the big Buddha.

The whole town of Nara is just cool. This is still inside Nara Park as it’s getting close to sunset but there is a cool traditional Japanese neighborhood near the park we walked through on our way back to the hotel. There were small traditional homes with beautiful gardens and we saw a geisha and her maiko (understudy) walking home probably after performing somewhere. They looked tired.

Dave sings karaoke!!!

Steve is actually a very good singer, and does karaoke a lot so it was a little tough for Dave and I sing with him. Since we are terrible and had never done karaoke before.

Well, Steve had to go back to work so we decided we would take the shinkansen, yes the bullet train, down to Hiroshima and Osaka and see some cool stuff along the way. From the train we finally got a good view of Mt. Fuji, but I could not take any decent pictures. Don’t worry though, I’ve kind of invited myself to go back to Japan next summer and climb Fuji-san with a group of PGS people so you’ll see photos of Fuji around August 2009.

Dave on shinkansen. If he looks tired, it is because he is. We got the 6:00 am shinkansen which meant we had to leave Steve’s at 5:00 to get to Tokyo station.

Front of the train. Everyone asks how fast they go, and I’m not sure how fast the one we were riding actually went. I think they regularly go 300kmh which is like 188mph. Test speeds have been up to about 280mph I think.

The side of the train. Yes, the conductors wear uniforms with hat and gloves.

This is the ‘carp castle’ in Hiroshima. Of course it is a reproduction of the original, but it was still pretty interesting.

Looking out at the city of Hiroshima.

This is a tree that survived the nuclear blast.

This is the A-bomb dome. This building was left standing after the blast as a memorium. It was not flattened because the explosion actually occured almost directly above it rather than to the side so it did not get any of the shear waves. Unfortunately we didn’t get to visit the museum. We planned to take a boat ride to a nearby island called Miajima and visit the museum when we returned. We spent longer on the island than we intended so by the time we got back the museum was closed.

This is what Miajima is famous for, the shrine gate. When the tide is high the bottom of it is under water making it very picturesque. Of course when we visited the tide was low so it was just out on a mud flat but it is still very beautiful and the entire island is a peaceful, natural place. A great getaway when you’ve been in big, hectic cities for a while.

Pagoda on Miajima.

Looking back at the island.

Ok, so this was kinda funny. I saw this guy walking a huge white Great Pyrenees and had to run over and ask if I could take a picture of the dog. I mean, imagine going all the way to Japan to find a Woody look-alike.

I did a good job of taking lots of pictures, so I have a lot to post. On our fourth day in Japan we really didn’t have a plan for the day but thought we’d go down by this one touristy area with a cool temple and near the bay. Well, guess what? There was a festival going on, of course. We got to eat street food including takoyaki (octopus balls), fried rice balls with mayonaise on top, sweet rice balls with bean paste inside, and other fun stuff. Another day that illustrated how you don’t really have to have a plan, in Japan fun seemed to be everywhere.

These are carp flags hanging above the canal. It was Children’s Day and the tradition is to hang up a flag for each of your kids on this day. We bought a small flag, but it has 3 fish on it. One is quite small, so I told Dave we have to get a cat.

The carp flags are very cool.

The temple where the festival was being held.

Me with some cute kids who’s parents and grandparents we were talking with — well, doing our best to talk with, Steve did most of the talking. They were very nice and insisted on buying us beer.

After the festival we took a boat ride down the river and along the bay. It was getting really cold and windy so we stayed inside the boat.

The cool-looking boat.

The view across the bay at a boat and big ferris wheel.

The view of Tokyo Tower from across the bay.

Our third day was another day of serendipity. Steve did not have to go to work since it was a holiday there so we went driving around the countryside in his amazingly cool car (pictured later). We wanted to up to this cable car thing that takes you to the top of a mountain where you are supposed to get a great view, but it was rainy and foggy all day. We headed that way thinking it would clear, but no such luck. We were driving around not knowing what to do when we saw a sign with a picture of a Buddha statue on it and an arrow. We decided to follow. We didn’t have any idea what we were headed to, it looked like a picture of a cool statue but we didn’t know. Steve said ‘I hope we are not driving around following signs to a Buddhist university or something’. But we kept following and what we found was amazing! The statue is so tall….bigger than the Statue of Liberty, possibly the biggest statue I’ve ever seen. It’s funny how we just came upon it by accident, right outside Tokyo. It’s not written up in any guidebook and Steve who’s lived there 6 months had never heard anyone mention it.

Dave and I at a shrine we stopped at.

Steve and super-cool car. Too cool for his job, apparently. 🙂

Big Buddha!

Dave and I inside a Big Buddha cut-out.

Garden area around the statue/shrine.

Me ringing the bell. At the shrines you traditionally ring the bell to get the diety’s attention before praying, but really everybody rings them for fun as well.

Some beautiful poppies in the garden area.

It really is a big statue!

Our second day in Japan we tried to go to a flea market since it was Sunday. I had heard they are great places to get cool Japanese stuff on the cheap. However, there was no flea market going on in the place it was supposed to be so we dejectedly headed over to the sumo stadium to buy tickets for the next week. Outside the sumo stadium there was a festival going on! There was music, food, young sumo wrestlers to talk to…we even participated in the traditional Japanese tea ceremony with instruction from the ladies at the temple to help us.

After the festival we then went around town and ate yummy sushi at one of those conveyor belt sushi places.

The shrine at the sumo stadium.

Dave with his head in one of those cardboard photo cutouts of sumo guys.

Drummers at the festival.

Me with a young sumo in training.

One of the rediculasly huge electronics stores all lit up at night. Why don’t we have electronics stores like this? They make Best Buy look like Dollar General. Really, they have about 100,000 times the amount of stuff that can be found in any electronics store in the States. In this nation of consumers you think they’d give us some of the best stores…

We are back from Japan, sorry I didn’t post while I was there but I decided to pack light and leave my laptop at home. It was an amazing and exciting trip, it seemed like we couldn’t turn around without seeing something very cool. The food was just as good as I imagined, possibly better. We had sushi several times, noodle dishes a few times and high-quality Japanese beef twice. Even if we just grabbed a quick bite at a roadside place or got stuff at the grocery store it was delicious. I took tons of pictures so I think I will have to break up the posts. I am going create a post for each day, almost as if I was actually posting while we were there.

We visited the Hello Kitty store where I did some shopping.

Next we visited a Shinto shrine, although most of the shrines/temples are both Shinto and Buddhist. These are sake barrels.

This is the shrine gate. Steve and Dave are at the right side.

I’m washing up at the shrine gate. It is traditional to wash your hands before entering.

The inside of the shrine.

Next we attended a baseball game! We sure had a big day our first day in Japan. This game is between the Swallows and the Giants.

Here is one of the famous beer girls at the Japanese baseball games. They have mini-kegs on their backs and come fill your cup with fresh draft beer.

Players

Well, our team needed some more members so I asked if spouses of employees could ride and guess what…they can! So I’ve now roped Dave into riding as well. He is excited about the ride but not so excited about the fundraising so if anyone out there was thinking about donating but saw I’d reached my goal, please donate to Dave! He will also be riding an antique bicycle in even more pristine condition than mine.

We have only done a couple of training rides so far but when we return from Japan we will go into serious training mode.

If you want to donate for Dave’s ride go to:

http://main.nationalmssociety.org/site/TR?px=4829500&pg=personal&fr_id=9111

We bought the tickets so long ago it’s hard to believe that our trip to Japan is now just a few weeks away. We leave May 1st and are getting pretty excited about it. Steve (our buddy in Tokyo) has already gotten us tickets to check out a Sumo match, apparently there is a big tournament while we are in town. We will also attend a baseball game or two, it is baseball season and that should be a blast. Other than those two activities, all we really have planned is eating delicious food, checking out the fish market, riding the shinkansen (bullet train) — maybe to Osaka that is still undecided, taking a trip into the mountains, and drinking sake. If anyone has any suggestions for must-do or must-see Japanese things we’d love to hear them, but I imagine Steve will have plenty of suggestions to keep us busy.

If anyone here at home wants me to bring something back from Japan, let me know. You know, like a pair of socks dispensed from a vending machine or something…:)

Seriously, though, I will try to post from Japan but if I’m having too much fun to update the blog I will definitely post as soon as we return.

We have a lot to between now and the time we leave, though. My brother and sister-in-law are coming to visit, two days after they leave we head to Dave’s cousin’s wedding in Wisconsin, then the week after we head to Japan. It’s a busy spring, and that is not even mentioning that I have to run a 5k leg of a relay race the week after we return. Lots to do, good thing it is all fun stuff.