Hello again from Japan!!!

Hello again from Japan – we’re on the bullet train back from Tokyo so thought it would be a great time to update everyone!

Well, we have had a great time here with Cam and Karleen and are sad to have our visit end. Some of the highlights of the last week are:

Shaun, Randy and I went to the aquarium in Osaka. It was amazing - note to the Poxon family – do not miss seeing this on your visit.

Later that night, We met some of their friends – Thao – who is from Australia, Josh and Chris from the U.S. and Stephen Clarkson from Sherwood Park. We went 10 pin bowling – the Jones boys suck at bowling (their father had to redeem our good name by beating everyone on the second game). We went for a quick bite to eat after and the boys headed out to party for the night or until Stephen could catch the 5:00 a.m. train back to his part of town. Shaun was happy that he finally had a party happening! They did drink all night, and stumbled in to their apartment just before 6am! They had a great time, and Shaun and Stephen were chatting up the bar girls!

The next day, Shaun wanted to rest so Randy and I went to the Golden Pavilion (Kinkaku-ji) in Kyoto. Although you cannot get really close to it as it is all roped off, it is absolutely beautiful - the entire building is painted in gold leaf. The grounds are beautiful and would be even more picturesque in the spring, fall or summer.

The next day all of us ventured out to the Arashiyama Monkey Park Iwatayama. We had to climb a mountain for about 20 minutes but it was well worth it. There are about 150 Japanese monkeys at the park and they run wild and were within touching distance of us. They would walk right past us on the path. We were informed not to look into their eyes – Karleen couldn’t help it – we escaped without any mishaps but were almost sure that they were waiting to gang up on us on the walk back.

Which one is the monkey again?

On the walk back to the train station, we saw 2 taxi cabs with approximately 6 geisha drive past us. I started running towards them as I saw that the cabs were dropping them off approximately one block away. When we got there they were standing on the sidewalk and I asked if we could take a picture – and they said okay. Karleen found out later from the local ladies she works with, that this is a very rare sight. These geisha were obviously going to a function – their functions usually consist of men who will pay up to 3000 dollars a day for entertainment. Anyway, we were pumped and very excited that we actually were able to see them, and to also get a picture as we understand, they don’t always agree to people taking pictures of them. Definitely a highlight!!

Off to Tokyo on Saturday! After a 2.5 hour bullet train ride from Osaka, we started out at Akihabara (Electronic district). What a crazy place – people everywhere! Shaun purchased a Nintendo DS so he accomplished his goal for the day. We wondered around for awhile and decided to attempt to find our hotel. Three trains later, Karleen got us there! We went out for supper to the Asakusa area, which is an area that is well known for lots of restaurants.

Can you hear me now?

The next day we went to Tokyo Disney Sea. Highlights of course are the rides – Tower of Terror, Indiana Jones, Journey to the Centre of the earth. Karleen actually got all of us to go to the Mermaid show – the boys weren’t excited about it, but had to admit that it was pretty good. Shaun said that it made him feel like an eight year old girl!

At night we went to the Hard Rock Café in Roppongi. This area is well known for entertainment and that lots of gaijin (foreigners) hang out in this area. The place was rocking! We had a great meal and they were playing great music. We also saw the Tokyo tower which lights up every night and looks very much like the Eiffel Tower in Paris. Another very successful day.

In our previous post, I mentioned the signs and how entertaining they were, but we couldn’t download our pictures from our camera which had some of the best signs. The following is a re-creation of our pictures, so everyone can see what we mean by the word order being out of whack!

“In case of monkeys are in the forest, you cannot find them”

The following is an explanation of using the internet in our hotel.

“A modem is rented for free of charge in a front, but the guantity of the modem is limited. When helping for use, please even offer a front staff rather early. Sometime, the computer you have can’t connect with a modem well”.

(yes, that is guantity not quantity)!

Anyway, it has been fun trying to figure out what they really mean.

It has been a great holiday – we will miss Cam & Karleen and are glad that we made the trip. We know they are in a safe place and are doing well and are enjoying their new home. Only 5 to 6 more months and they will be returning home after having a wonderful life experience.

We’ll see everyone back in Edmonton tomorrow!

Hi Everyone!

This is Lynn, Randy and Shaun posting from Japan!

We have many other pictures, but they are on our camera, and we completely forgot to bring our cord to transfer them to Cam's computer. Oh Well.

We went to Hiroshima on Saturday and visited the Peace Memorial Park. Karleen cried again! The museum does a good job of depicting the story of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and it is a very sad and emotional tour of the museum.

We went to a Japanese restaurant (we know - hard to believe). It was a great meal. There was a table of 15 Japanese men beside us – all smoking and drinking kegs of beer. Needless to say, we didn’t stay for a long time.

The next day we went to Miyajima. It is an island that has a floating Torii gate, shrines, mini wild tame deer, and we took a tram up to see the monkeys. The monkeys weren’t visible as they were in the forest eating. We are getting a kick out of the English signs. The Japanese language does not consider word order, like English does therefore, when they translate their language into English, the word order is a little out of whack! It is providing lots of entertainment for us.

Scenery from the top of the rope tram at Miyajima

We went to an Irish pub – Molly Mallon’s for supper. Right next door, there was a “casino” which we had to try. You change money for medals which are used in the machines (by the way gambling is illegal in Japan). $10 gave us 80 medals. The first machine I tried, I hit the bonus which gave me 1500 medals so Karleen and I decided to cash out. Well it took awhile for the little Japanese girl to explain that we couldn’t get money back for our medals – we had to either use them in the machines or leave them. This $10 provided entertainment for the five of us for about 2 hours! The streets of Hiroshima were very busy – a lot of people out and enjoying the night life. Shaun was trying to get a party to happen but after a long day, we just wanted to get back to our hotel and get into our nightshirts provided by the hotel.

We have used all modes of transportation in the last week. Airplane, bullet train, subway train, tram, bus, taxi, ferry, and lots and lots of walking!

Some of the interesting generalizations that we have made so far about the Japanese, are: the Japanese people live to work not work to live; the Japanese men like to drink – a lot! There are not a lot of children (which we find very strange considering there are a lot of people here). If we do see children, they are dressed to the nines –really expensive clothes – all brand names. Osaka is the fashion centre of Japan – the boots and coats that women wear are to die for. Most of the coats have fur - real fur. We believe that 90% of Japanese women are pigeon toed (that’s because we have been amazed at the many wild and different boots and footwear that people wear). A lot of the young Japanese men are metro sexual (Shaun’s term!). It is cheaper to eat out at restaurants than to buy groceries (yeah!) – although we have had a few home cooked meals. The Japanese people are very polite. Everything is very, very clean – it is amazing how they keep everything so clean with all of these people living here! We feel very safe here.

We also have new nicknames. Mold and Mildew (Cam & Shaun) are now Ani and ototo (elder and younger brother). Randy is Chichi (Chico for short!), Lynn is Haha and Karleen is “giri no musume”

We’re hanging around Osaka and Kyoto for the next few days. Tokyo on Saturday, Sunday and Monday, and back home to Edmonton on Tuesday. It is going by way too fast!

Tsunami

Just a quick message to anyone who saw that a tsunami warning went out for Japan. We're fine!!! It didn't effect us although the warning was pretty close to us. Luckly we we're even farther away in Hiroshima for the weekend.
We Love and Miss you All

They're Heeeerrreeeeeeeee!

My folks finally made it last night! They were awake from 5am tuesday until 1am Japan time friday morning. So...they were a little bagged.

But they are here, save, and now well rested. Shaun has already had his first beer from the vending machine on the side of the road.

We're chilling out here for the next couple of days, while I work, and We're heading off to Hiroshima this weekend.

Keep yah posted!

New Friends, New Years

New Friends
On Dec 29th, we were invited to go over to Karleen's Co-worker's apartment for dinner. Her name is Thao and she's Australian. We jumped at the chance to, since we really haven't been out since we moved here.

She gave us directions to a place where she would meet us, since she lives in Kyoto, and we don't really know our way around that city yet. When we got to the place, there were 2 white guys there, and they asked if she was Karleen. They said they were friends of Thao and that she was looking at another spot for us. The 2 guys are Chris and Josh, both work for Nova as well. Chris is from Maine and Josh is from Washington, DC. They met while going to University in Washington, and came to Japan together. We finally found Thao and headed back to her apartment.

We all sat around a table and talked the whole night, while Thao made us dinner. It was fantastic. She started with homemade Miso Soup and it was the first time she's made it, so we were like guinea pigs. After that, she made a stir fry with onions, green peppers, meat, noodles, and chili powder...dulish! She finished off the night with desert, a box of Ferrero Rochers. Chris and Josh brought over some cheap Sake to try, so we heated that puppy up and tried it out...it was...cheap. Smelled and tasted like rubbing alcohol. My first venture into Sake territory. They said not to let it jade me, since they have tried good sake and it tastes NOTHING like this. We all looked at our watches around 11, since the last train to Osaka left at 1130. So Karleen and I, and Chris and Josh said our good byes and headed back to Osaka, where we found out that Chris lives on the 6th floor of our building. Rock on! We got back to Osaka, and were heading to a convenience store to pick up a beer or two when Chris suggested going to a bar that was close by. Why the hell not! It was just midnight, and we were so not tired. Besides...it was the weekend AND the start of our holiday!

The 4 of us ventured into a bar called Flyover. We were warmly greeted by the bartender, Yoshi, by him screaming at Chris and coming over to hug him. Apparently, Chris had been here before...a few times. The place was a little hole in the wall, but we had a great time. We drank our faces off until around 4am or so. It was definitely a crazy place.

Chris, Yoshi, and Josh

New Years
On New Years Eve, we met up with the same group again at Kyoto Station. Thao invited all of us to go to a shrine.


It's called the Fushimi-Inari Taisha. It was dedicated to the gods of rice and sake by the Hata family in the 8th century. It has 5 shrines within the area and there is a pathway that goes 4 kms up a mountain and is lined with hundreds of red torii gates. This was truly a cultural experience!

Blurry Group picture taken by a friendly Policeman

The path up to the first shrine was littered with kiosks of food, games, trinkets and other goodies. So, of course, we filled our faces full of wonderful eats, like a bucket of chicken, chicken on a skewer, and Okonomyaki. There was a few types of food that were, how you say...a little strange. The first was sweet fish. It's fish on a stick that's been sweetened. Yummy.

The only one who was interested was Chris, so he went for it. We all sat around him in this tent, getting warmed up, watching him as he ate a whole fish.

It's like watching National Geographic!

The poor little bugger didn't stand a chance

We must have been the best advertisement ever, because after we got into the tent, it started filling up. Geijin brings in all the customers!

The next was, what we thought was Quail, but we were soon corrected as it was fried swallow! Thao tried this a little later, I'll get back to it.

It still had the head and everything!!!

We walked around a bit more, lookin at all the tents and booths and scoping out our next meal. We decided to head up the mountain and see what awaits us. Here we found the beginning of the torii gates.

Karleen and Thao

Josh and Chris

Beware of the dangerous, fish eating, Geijin Ninja!

We headed on through the gates and started walking. It was so surreal...this is how we are spending our New Years...on a mountain, in a shrine, in Kyoto!

We met up with someone that Thao knew, Erik, a fellow Canadian. He joined us on our adventure. So we walked...and walked. We came to an area that we realized was the first of many graveyards. A lot of them had these fox dudes on them.


The fox is considered the messenger of Inari (god of cereal grains) and the Japanese traditionally see the fox as a sacred and mysterious figure capable of possessing humans. Apparently the fox's favorite place to enter a human is under the fingernails...who knew! Also, the fox has a key in it's mouth, which is to the rice granary.

We kept walking and found ourselves at a crossroad. The path made a loop, so you could keep walking, or you could just sit around and enjoy the view. Karleen and I decided just to relax and chill out while everyone made the rest of the path. Our plan was to meet back up at 11:45 so we could celebrate New Years together. While the rest went off, we went and took some more pictures around the area.


As you may have seen in the pictures...it was quite chilly out that day. I mean, it was about 4 above, but being outside for so long, really got to us...

My wife is Darkman!

We went back to the meeting point and waited for everyone. They didn't show until almost 5 to, because they got a little lost on the path...which was a loop...don't ask me.

We all counted down (in Japanese) and brought in the new year with song. Sadly, no fire works were shot in Kyoto, which TOTALLY sucks because we were in a PRIME spot to see them... oh well.

We headed back down the mountain for more cooked meat and food. Thao and Erik decided that they wanted to try the fried swallow. Of course we were there to take pictures of the moment.

Thao and Erik

One of the New Years traditions around this shrine is that you must run, from the bottom, up to the top of the mountain, and you will have good luck for the rest of the year. Since we already went to the top of the mountain, and it was kind of crazy....
...we decided to head separate ways.

Chris and Josh headed back for Osaka (I think) to go to a bar, while Thao, Erik, Karleen and I went farther into Kyoto to a nightclub. At this point it was already 1am.

During our trip to the club we took this picture:
The club was called Metro. We had to pay 2,000 yen ($20!!!) each to get in. When we got settled it was a pretty cool place. There was a band playing, but not an average band, a band that only plays with drums. Too cool. It was almost tribal, and people were going nuts for it. There was a good number of us geijin running around the place, so we weren't the center of attention. We danced for a while, and talked some more. Another band went up around 3am, and they kicked some funky but. It was almost a Funk Jazz band, headed up by a female singer, who belted out some Japanese songs, and tore out some "Ain't No Mountain High Enough". Overall, I would love to see that band play a full set, they were just that good.

After the band got off, we looked at our watches...it was past 4am. Holy S**t! Karleen and I said bye to Thao, and we headed on home. We took a freakin long train to get home, since it was new years and they had "special" trains running. We didn't actually get back into the Shin-Osaka station until after 6am, where we saw that McDonalds was open....Breakfast time, baby!!! We grabbed some McMuffins and walked home. We ate, I posted, and we slept in until 3pm.

It was an amazing New Years, one that we won't forget. I certainly won't forget it anytime soon, mostly because I only had one beer for the whole night! That's right folks...Cam had a dry New Years...

...I gotta write that down on the calendar.