It's high time for Hanami (flower viewing) in and around Tokyo, and we are enjoying the season.
Unfortunately though, the weather has turned a bit cold. On Thurday morning while heading out on our bicycles, I to work and Sarah and Robbie to his school, a few bits of white floated down from the sky. We had a few seconds of confusion when we weren't sure whether they were cherry blossoms or snowflakes, but after a moment it was clear that we were pedaling through a snow flurry.
Last year we went to Shinjuku Gyoen for hanami and had a really good time, but we wanted to try something new this year. We met up with a couple of friends from work in Ueno to experience rowdier (by Japanese standards) hanami.
As a bonus, the major avenue of cherry trees in Ueno is right next to the zoo, so we started the day there, then found a nice place to lay down our tarp under a cherry tree. Our spot was near some playground equipment too, so Robbie had a bit more to entertain him than just cherry blossoms.
While we ate, drank, and enjoyed the view, Robbie ran around and played with the random Japanese couples who were cavorting on the various pieces of playground equipment and had a very good time. So much so that when we decided to pack it up and head back to the train, he did not want to leave!
We brought easy-to-pack food such as cheese, bread, crackers, etc., but the group next to us were more experienced hanami enthusiasts; they were making curry on a well-worn portable propane stove. After a while, they brought over a small pot of curry and offered it to us. It was delicious!
By the end of the afternoon, my colleague Ian was being proposed to by one of the ladies from the curry tarp -- evidently she had been married twice to Japanese men, but it had never worked out. It didn't seem to matter to that she didn't speak any English, and Ian doesn't speak much Japanese, she was telling him to be in Yokohama on the 30th for the wedding. At least that's what we think she was telling him. Anyhow, Ian stayed away from Yokohama at the end of March.
Friday, March 27, 2009
Monday, March 16, 2009
A Departure From Your Regularly Scheduled Programming
While in Nagano a couple of weeks ago, we missed the bus from the monkey onsen back to town by seconds, and had to wait for an hour to catch the next one. Eddie and Meredith both have 32gb iPod touches, and Eddie helped me pass the time by showing me what I've been missing in popular music over the last few years... specifically this, my new anthem:
White and Nerdy.
as well as "Don't Download This Song" with a brilliant animated video by Bill Plympton:
Don't Download This Song.
And, since I don't have access to much in the way of American media I've found myself listening to a number of podcasts. Here are some of my favorites:
The best science podcast on the web, the CBC's Quirks and Quarks with Bob McDonald.
The best personal finance podcast: Marketplace Money.
Sparkletack is a podcast dedicated to informing listeners about the colorful history of San Francisco and the bay area. The format of this podcast has recently changed from an in-depth look at a particular person or topic, to a somewhat less interesting weekly overview of the upcoming week's notable historical happenings, but there is an extensive archive of stories that I am still working my way through.
Best humorous podcast, the venerable Car Talk.
I also look forward to new audio articles from The Economist each weekend.
Please use the comments section to tell me about your favorite podcasts or blogs I ought to be reading. Thanks!
White and Nerdy.
as well as "Don't Download This Song" with a brilliant animated video by Bill Plympton:
Don't Download This Song.
And, since I don't have access to much in the way of American media I've found myself listening to a number of podcasts. Here are some of my favorites:
The best science podcast on the web, the CBC's Quirks and Quarks with Bob McDonald.
The best personal finance podcast: Marketplace Money.
Sparkletack is a podcast dedicated to informing listeners about the colorful history of San Francisco and the bay area. The format of this podcast has recently changed from an in-depth look at a particular person or topic, to a somewhat less interesting weekly overview of the upcoming week's notable historical happenings, but there is an extensive archive of stories that I am still working my way through.
Best humorous podcast, the venerable Car Talk.
I also look forward to new audio articles from The Economist each weekend.
Please use the comments section to tell me about your favorite podcasts or blogs I ought to be reading. Thanks!
Saturday, March 7, 2009
Back to the present
In the middle of January we took another day-trip to Kamakura... this time we had our fortunes told for the new year at Tsurugaoka Hachiman-gu Shrine using the Bokuzei (卜筮) method, the Japanese equivalent of Kau cim. I drew #50: Dai-Kichi, or "great blessing" and Sarah drew #19: Sue Kichi, or "minor blessing". Considering the available fortunes range from "great blessing" to "great curse", I think 2009 is going to be an excellent year. It certainly has been so far.
Toward the beginning of February we went to the Uneo zoo. Robbie got to pet an Owl:
And we waited for the penguins to start dancing, but to no avail:
Last weekend we took the Shinkansen up to Nagano. Nagano is nestled in a valley in the middle of the Japanese Alps. The mountains that you can see in this picture are the lower range; the higher range (where the '98 winter games alpine events were held) are behind me.
Nagano is a large apple growing region, thus the omiyage that I brought back to my colleagues at the office was in the form of individually wrapped small apple turnovers. Unless the shopkeeper is handing out samples, purchasing omiyage always involves a bit of uncertainty, but this time I chose wisely and the treats were delicious. Enough about omiyage though, let's talk about snow monkeys!
The monkey onsen is in Jidokudani (lit. "Hell Valley"), a national park about 45 minutes by bus from Nagano Station. The hike in was just short of 2 kilometers along a trail carved out of a steep hillside with a creek running at its bottom. One of the interesting things about the hike in was that there are a number of points where you can see steaming seeps of water entering the creek.
At a convenient point where we could get down to it, we stuck our fingers in and although the water was chilly, it was nowhere near as cold as glacial run-off should be.
After climbing a set of steep and uneven (but paved) stairs, we arrived at the entrance gate to the monkey onsen. While climbing the stairs, we got our first view of the monkeys. They were on the other side of the stream, chasing each other up and down the hill. We paid our 500 yen and entered, walked around a couple of corners, and there were monkeys everywhere.
While researching the trip, I read that sometimes, especially in the summer, the troop moves out of the low country near the onsen and up into the hills; in the winter though, they're generally around. They were definitely present on the day we visited. There were monkeys on fence posts, monkeys sitting in trees, monkeys walking in the snow along the path down to the onsen, monkeys frolicking on the rocks down by the creek, and others just monkeying around.
There is a strictly observed "no feeding the monkeys" policy, so unlike many other places in Asia, these monkeys do not beg. They basically pay no mind to people whatsoever and just go about their business.
I counted 21 monkeys in this picture, but I may have missed a couple:
There were not so many monkeys in the bath when we were there, but that's all right. Judging from the live cam the best time to see a bath full of monkeys is first thing in the morning. For 7 people, including 3 children under 3, we were just glad to be able to make the trip at all -- timing the trip for peak bath time was beyond us:
So the trip to the monkey onsen took up the majority of our Saturday, though we did have a nice traditional Japanese dinner on Saturday night. On Sunday we wandered around downtown Nagano and took some pictures, including this one of the medal presentation stand for the '98 Olympics:
We also went to check out Zenkouji, a Buddhist temple and the 2nd largest wooden structure in Japan. We were fairly tired and hungry at this point though, so we basically just walked around the temple and then began slowly meandering back toward the train station while looking for lunch. We found a great Chinese-style ramen shop, and then a park to let the kiddos do some running around. After the park we headed back to the station, and home.
Toward the beginning of February we went to the Uneo zoo. Robbie got to pet an Owl:
And we waited for the penguins to start dancing, but to no avail:
Last weekend we took the Shinkansen up to Nagano. Nagano is nestled in a valley in the middle of the Japanese Alps. The mountains that you can see in this picture are the lower range; the higher range (where the '98 winter games alpine events were held) are behind me.
Nagano is a large apple growing region, thus the omiyage that I brought back to my colleagues at the office was in the form of individually wrapped small apple turnovers. Unless the shopkeeper is handing out samples, purchasing omiyage always involves a bit of uncertainty, but this time I chose wisely and the treats were delicious. Enough about omiyage though, let's talk about snow monkeys!
The monkey onsen is in Jidokudani (lit. "Hell Valley"), a national park about 45 minutes by bus from Nagano Station. The hike in was just short of 2 kilometers along a trail carved out of a steep hillside with a creek running at its bottom. One of the interesting things about the hike in was that there are a number of points where you can see steaming seeps of water entering the creek.
At a convenient point where we could get down to it, we stuck our fingers in and although the water was chilly, it was nowhere near as cold as glacial run-off should be.
After climbing a set of steep and uneven (but paved) stairs, we arrived at the entrance gate to the monkey onsen. While climbing the stairs, we got our first view of the monkeys. They were on the other side of the stream, chasing each other up and down the hill. We paid our 500 yen and entered, walked around a couple of corners, and there were monkeys everywhere.
While researching the trip, I read that sometimes, especially in the summer, the troop moves out of the low country near the onsen and up into the hills; in the winter though, they're generally around. They were definitely present on the day we visited. There were monkeys on fence posts, monkeys sitting in trees, monkeys walking in the snow along the path down to the onsen, monkeys frolicking on the rocks down by the creek, and others just monkeying around.
There is a strictly observed "no feeding the monkeys" policy, so unlike many other places in Asia, these monkeys do not beg. They basically pay no mind to people whatsoever and just go about their business.
I counted 21 monkeys in this picture, but I may have missed a couple:
There were not so many monkeys in the bath when we were there, but that's all right. Judging from the live cam the best time to see a bath full of monkeys is first thing in the morning. For 7 people, including 3 children under 3, we were just glad to be able to make the trip at all -- timing the trip for peak bath time was beyond us:
So the trip to the monkey onsen took up the majority of our Saturday, though we did have a nice traditional Japanese dinner on Saturday night. On Sunday we wandered around downtown Nagano and took some pictures, including this one of the medal presentation stand for the '98 Olympics:
We also went to check out Zenkouji, a Buddhist temple and the 2nd largest wooden structure in Japan. We were fairly tired and hungry at this point though, so we basically just walked around the temple and then began slowly meandering back toward the train station while looking for lunch. We found a great Chinese-style ramen shop, and then a park to let the kiddos do some running around. After the park we headed back to the station, and home.
Friday, March 6, 2009
Kamakura, Ueno, & Nagano, oh my!
Well, it took a while, but we finally found a new baby sitter. Her name is Jenny and she's great. I got her number from a cousin of hers (not sure if they're really cousins) that we used once when we were still staying at Oakwood. We were not overly impressed with Jenny's cousin, but as I said, Jenny's really good so we are looking forward to a few more evenings out between now and the end of our stay.
Our first break from Robbie was on a Friday evening in late January. We went to go see a band, The Presidents of the United States of America, who happened to be playing a show across the street from my office! Unbelievable, eh? They delivered a solid performance, but it was _far_ too short. Now following Phish, String Cheese Incident, Keller Williams, Yonder Mountain String Band, et. al., will definitely spoil you for going to see more hmmm... "focused" acts, but PUSA was a bit ridiculous. They came on at 6:00 and quit at 7:00. Sharp. They disappeared for about 2 minutes, then came back on and did a 23 minute encore.
Yes, that's right, the show was over at 7:25... and the tickets cost about $67 each! Grrr... but putting things in perspective, since all of PUSA's songs are 2-3 around minutes long, we got to hear about 35 songs plus a bit of banter, and their playing really was solid. As an added bonus I suppose, since the show was so short, Sarah and I ended up going out afterward and enjoying some peaceful and quiet time together over cups of Tulley's coffee and ice cream. Yum!
Our next foray into the realm of babysitter was a couple of weeks back when we went to go see Revolutionary Lane... not so much of a date movie as it turns out. However we finished up the night at Outback for some good ol' American food that more than made up for our movie selection.
Hmmm... I guess I haven't really talked about Kamakura, Ueno or Nagano yet. My bad -- instead, here's a gratuitous pic of Robbie:
What you can't see in this picture is that I am also wearing a pair of similarly silly glasses. And yes, that was intentional.
Note the igloo tent in the back ground. We got it at Ikea sometime early this year and Robert is absolutely in love with it. He goes in, tucks himself under a blanket, and looks at books. The tent is sitting on a round rug in front of our living room's window-wall, and it's got a bunch of pillows that he's moved inside as well. I figure Robbie must be naturally predisposed toward appreciating one of my favorite activities: camping. I can not wait until he's old enough to take out into the wild. In the meantime, a buddy of mine from work has just purchased a car and we're looking forward to heading out for day hikes with he and his daughter Kiyera in the spring.
Next time I'll get to Kamakura, Ueno and Nagano, I promise.
Our first break from Robbie was on a Friday evening in late January. We went to go see a band, The Presidents of the United States of America, who happened to be playing a show across the street from my office! Unbelievable, eh? They delivered a solid performance, but it was _far_ too short. Now following Phish, String Cheese Incident, Keller Williams, Yonder Mountain String Band, et. al., will definitely spoil you for going to see more hmmm... "focused" acts, but PUSA was a bit ridiculous. They came on at 6:00 and quit at 7:00. Sharp. They disappeared for about 2 minutes, then came back on and did a 23 minute encore.
Yes, that's right, the show was over at 7:25... and the tickets cost about $67 each! Grrr... but putting things in perspective, since all of PUSA's songs are 2-3 around minutes long, we got to hear about 35 songs plus a bit of banter, and their playing really was solid. As an added bonus I suppose, since the show was so short, Sarah and I ended up going out afterward and enjoying some peaceful and quiet time together over cups of Tulley's coffee and ice cream. Yum!
Our next foray into the realm of babysitter was a couple of weeks back when we went to go see Revolutionary Lane... not so much of a date movie as it turns out. However we finished up the night at Outback for some good ol' American food that more than made up for our movie selection.
Hmmm... I guess I haven't really talked about Kamakura, Ueno or Nagano yet. My bad -- instead, here's a gratuitous pic of Robbie:
What you can't see in this picture is that I am also wearing a pair of similarly silly glasses. And yes, that was intentional.
Note the igloo tent in the back ground. We got it at Ikea sometime early this year and Robert is absolutely in love with it. He goes in, tucks himself under a blanket, and looks at books. The tent is sitting on a round rug in front of our living room's window-wall, and it's got a bunch of pillows that he's moved inside as well. I figure Robbie must be naturally predisposed toward appreciating one of my favorite activities: camping. I can not wait until he's old enough to take out into the wild. In the meantime, a buddy of mine from work has just purchased a car and we're looking forward to heading out for day hikes with he and his daughter Kiyera in the spring.
Next time I'll get to Kamakura, Ueno and Nagano, I promise.
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