My Last Night In Japan

Well, the sad day has come.  Tonight is my last night in Japan.  We were good this week and actually went to church instead of sight-seeing.  I was glad we do for a couple of reasons.  I got to say good-bye to my friends Shari & Kate.  I also got to see a few of our ward members.  Brother Carter, one of our bishopric members was here for a short time, was there along with Brother Wilson & Brother & Sister Martin and their kids.  Brother Wilson & Brother & Sister Martin still have a while to hang out in Japan.  Everyone is here basically for the same reason.  It was a lot of fun to see some more familiar faces!  It's kind of funny that I could be in a strange branch in Japan and have so many familiar people from 2 different wards in Washington.

Another reason I was more than happy was it was freezing!  It wasn't raining (for which I was grateful), but it was still cold and windy.  When you are wearing a skirt, not so much fun!  Especially when we walk everywhere and I did not bring my winter coat!  Brrrrr!

Last night we had quite the entertaining evening in our motel room.  We were just hanging out watching a movie and all of a suddan our stinky smoker neighbors started yelling at each other.  It was quite exciting, if not a bit white trashy.  Tom was at the door looking through the spy hole trying to see if anything was going on in the hallway.  Tom eventually called the front desk and they said we were the 2nd people to call and they had already sent someone up.  This whole episode lasted for about 5 minutes or so.  Very entertaining, if nothing less!  The joys of motel living!

Now, most of my bags are packed and I will head to the naval base tomorrow morning to hopefully catch the bus to the airport.  If that doesn't work out we have a back-up plan, but there shouldn't be a problem with the bus!  It all depends on how many people sign up vs. how many seats are available.  But good for me, I am priority 2 our of 6 so I have a pretty good chance even if they are booked full!

Tom won't be home for about 3 1/2 weeks.  Sad for me!!!  But I'll still have Jakey to keep me company until then and lots to do to catch-up on at home.  I also have some vacation weight to loose.  I guess my vacation is over! 

Some Things I like about Japan

I've been in Japan almost a month now. I've had a lot of time to do my share of people watching and wander around the towns. I have to admit, there is a lot about Japan that I wish the United States was more like. First and foremost is their amazing respect they show one another and anybody them come in contact with. Usually, one of my biggest pet peeves is when people are disrespectful towards one another due to thoughtlessness or just general selfishness.

One story I was told was about an American that was living here. He either owned or rented a bike and every night he would lock it up in front of his house. When he came back to his bike the next time the lock would be cut from his bike, but the bike would still be there unharmed. This happened to him several times in a row until finally someone informed him what was actually happening. The local police officers were cutting it off his bike. They said that a locked bike to the locals shows a lack of respect and that you think one of them will steal your bike. In reality nobody would show disrespect to you and steal from you. My friend said that crime the majority of crime in this area is caused by the navy men and women. Isn't that sad. it makes me feel kind of sad that we're responsible for making a country worse.

I've also noticed that city streets are clean and well kept. It hit me when I was on base doing my laundry. There was garbage and laundry sheets everywhere. It made me realize what a lack of garbage there was out in the normal streets. I absolutely love that. It's so annoying to me that people can be so lazy to not pick up after themselves.

As much as I love it here as well as the wonderful people of Japan, I'm excited to return home. Living out of a suitcase and motel room has gotten a bit old. However, I will miss Tom until he returns.

Enoshima Island

On Saturday we decided we wanted to go back to Kamakura to see some of the things we missed the first time. Keep in mind there is probably enough to see in the little town of Kamakura to keep a tourist busy for a week straight. It's an absolutely beautiful and amazing town. Our original plans were to take the JR train to Kamakura and then catch another train line (Enoden) to take us in another direction to some other sights. We decided to start at the further away sight we wanted to see and work our way back into Kamakura, this was Enoshima Island. It turned out to take us a lot longer to investigate this sight then we anticipated, but it was beautiful and a lot of fun! It's a little island right off the coastline. There is a bridge that connects the two.

When we got off the train everyone started walking down a little street with markets and food stands on each side. We figured that was probably the way to head! So, we joined the throng. We stopped at a little shop along the way that had adorable jewelery and a bunch of wind chimes that Tom and I both loved (Tom liked the wind chimes, not the jewelry). The majority of Japan operates pretty much on cash system. The only people that I've run across so far that accept credit cards are in the malls. It might be a bit different though in Tokyo. We didn't have enough cash on us to buy the items we wanted in the store. We're going back this weekend for that!

Part of the attraction for me going to the island is the ocean. I love the ocean! I think the ocean is one of the most beautiful things on the earth. It was a windy day, so the waves were incredible. On the island there were street vendors and small stores lining the streets. I finally got to try the sweet potato ice-cream. I have to admit, it was a lot better than I thought it would be but I still liked the mango-apple ice-cream better. Tom preferred the sweet potato version. There were pathways and attractions all over the island. There was also an escalator you could pay additional yen to use if you were too lazy for the stairs everywhere. We toughed it out and walked everywhere.

There were a few places you could pay and enter a special section. We didn't pay to enter any of these areas. There was a lighthouse and a garden that I might look into entering when we go back to the little shop. There were a couple of little shrines to look at around the island. There were also many beautiful walkways. There are several sights around the island where there were beautiful view of the ocean. We really enjoyed our little tour of the island and the train ride that took us there!

Sushi

I was not an adventurous eater as a child, but at least I wasn't picky. Unfortunately some of the things that are my favorite now, I didn't like when I was a child. I'm sure my parents would have liked it if I had. It will probably shock the people that know me now to know, I didn't really like fish, pasta, or oriental food when I was a child. I would eat them when my Mom made them, but didn't really enjoy most of them. Now days, I've done a complete 180. These are some of my favorite things to eat, especially anything with rice or an oriental flavor to it. This was one of the things I was most looking forward to in coming to Japan.

However, one of the things that I've never really been able to get the courage to try was sushi. Many years ago I was introduced to it for the first time by a good friend of mine. It was one of his favorite things to eat and he wanted to share that with me. I have to admit, I didn't really appreciate it to the level it deserved. About all I remember is being surprised that it didn't taste like any fish I had eaten before. By this time, I had developed a taste and really liked fish. I think the main problem was getting past the point of eating raw meat. My entire life I was told that was a bad thing. Even though logically, I knew this was different and completely harmless, emotionally I couldn't quite get into it.

Since then, I have really developed a liking for simplified sushi, for example things like California rolls. Barely counts, I know. When we were planning on coming to Japna, I told Tom that we had to try sushi here. Another thing that always concerned me back home was if the place we ate the sushi at actually knew how to prepare and take care of raw fish so it stayed at healthy as it started. I knew if there was one place I could count on that happening it was here. Another thing I always wanted was someone to come with Tom and me and tell us what to order. Neither of us would have the slightest idea what to order. 2 1/2 weeks into our Japan experience I was beginning to wonder if it would happen. There's no way Tom would go after I went hom since I was the one that really wanted to try it. Luckily for me, I have a couple of friends here that I had lunch with about a weeks ago. Shari offered to take me to a 100 yen sushi place she knew about. There are a lot of sushi "go-around" places here. Basically the sushi makers make up plates of various sushi dishes. These go around a conveyor belt and everybody takes off of the moving belt the plates that they want to eat. At the end of your time there, they just charge you for the number of plates you've eaten. Most of these places charge around 300-500 yen a plate. Every dollar is worth 90 yen. I usually round $1 for every 100 yen. Because the place we went to was on 100 yen per plate, that enabled us to try multiple dishes we would have never tried. It was absolutely delicious and I loved every minute.The next day I took Tom back to experience it. He admitted afterwards that he wasn't all that excited about it. He went because I was so excited about it. But afterwards he was really glad we had gone. He also really enjoyed it. The only thing we had that we regretted was squid. Can I say yuck! I bit into it and it squished and spewed. It was very salty. I've been told the little ones taste much different than the big ones and I should try the big ones. I don't think that will ever happen. Everything else we tried though was absolutely delicious! I definitely want to go back again in the next week to have more...just not the squid. I also loved some of the dessert they had. There were some tasty sweet potatoes fried in a sugary substance that I could have eaten all night. And some sticky rice that was wrapped in a sugary won-ton type wrapper. Sooooo good! Plus sushi has to be about the most beautiful food that exists!

We've since hear that there is a tasty sushi place in Port Orchard. Definitely going to be trying that! I think I've become an addict! If you're interested in Tom's spin to this subject, check out his blog by clicking here.

The Trials and Benefits of Motel living

For the past 2 1/2 weeks we have been living out of our suitcase in a motel room. I'll be doing this for another 1 1/2 weeks and Tom will be doing it for another 4 1/2 weeks. One of the benefits for Tom's stay here is he gets free breakfast every morning and his laundry done 2 times a week. Luckily we have a refrigerator, a microwave, and a hot water kettle. Enough for me to make me breakfast in the morning and have snacks available for throughout the day. Although it's never fun living out of a suitcase, it's not terrible either.

The biggest benefit for me of living out of a motel room versus at home is the maid service. As long as I leave the room once a day before 3 pm in the afternoon, they will come in and clean the room. Since I'm not a big fan of house work, but I love a clean house this fits me just fine!

The biggest pain for me of living in this particular motel is the uneven heating of the water. For a while I thought I had it figured out, but not so much any more. Taking a shower in water that constantly changes temperature is the not the funnest experience in the world. The water will be comfortable and then a second later be scalding hot. I guess it could be worse, I could be unable to get any hot water like on my mission.

Overall, we've been pretty blessed with our room. It's in a nice hotel in a nice section of town. It's within walking distance to the main shopping section, several train stations, and the navy base. The only thing I question is why there is a floor that the elevator won't stop at (I think it's floor 18). That just makes me more curious and I need to know what is there.

Zen Temples in Kamakura

On Sunday we were hanging around in our motel room just hanging out until it was time to get ready for church. Tom opened the drapes and it was an absolutely beautiful day outside. The sun was shining, the wind was not blowing, it was the most beautiful day that had happened since we had arrived in Japan. Since weather here is kind of like in Washington, we're never sure exactly what we're going to get, we decided to rebel. We decided to use the day to go sight-seeing. Not far from us is a cool town called Kamakura. Kamakura is a town with a lot of cool things to see. There are a lot of temples, shrines, and statues.

We discovered the train line that would take us directly there (we had never used this particularly train station before....didn't even know it was there). We also discovered a water side park along the way we also had never noticed even though it was pretty close to our motel. It was actually a beautiful walk just to get to the train station. For this trip we actually thought enough in advance to bring a sandwich and a granola bar with us to eat as lunch so we wouldn't have to buy anything. So, we went on our short train ride. Tom had gotten a walking tour of a lot of the sights online. Right after we got off the train there was a map of the city (which we have actually gotten pretty good at deciphering). So, we were able to verify exactly where we were heading.

We went to two different Zen Temples and walked through a space with a shrine. We didn't actually see much of the shrine, but we still enjoyed the walk through the garden that it sits in. For some reason there were tons of people there. It was like it was a city fair that we didn't know about. While we were walking through the park area, I was even able to see a tree that had bloomed into cherry blossoms. All the other trees in the area were naked, but for some reason this one had bloomed. There was also a path down the middle of the main street that is tree lined. It will be absolutely beautiful when the trees bloom there also.

The Zen temples were really cool! Tom and I both loved them! The only Japanese temple I've ever been to was in Hawaii (does that count). This was much different. These temples have been around for a very long time. Both of the temples were still active temples too, so certain parts of the temple are inaccessible because they are being used. Both sites had multiple buildings and displays in them. The first one even had a hike of steps to climb in order to see a "National Treasure", which was an old bell. It about killed me. Yet somehow some of the older Japanese men and women seemed to have no problem at all. Yes, I am that much of a wimp. It was also funny because at the 2nd Zen Temple there was also an old bell there that was a national treasure but without the hike. There was also a cool lake with some animals. For a while I was sure the animals were made of stone, but then they would suddenly move. Very good at acting like statues.

After the temples and shrines we walked through what I'm assuming was down-town Kamakura. There were a lot of cute shops and an ice-cream shop that had sweet potato ice-cream. The thought of sweet potato ice-cream was not that exciting for me though. Although I think I want to try it before we leave. We'll see what it is like, I'll let you know. By the time the day was over my feet were so tired. It's three days later and my legs and feet have finally stopped hurting.

Yokohama China Town

On Saturday, Tom and I decided we needed to go on a road trip. We'd been here a couple of weeks and had really only seen the local area. I wanted to see some historical sites instead of just shopping areas. There is only so much window shopping I can do, I've never been much of a shopper. Unless I have money burning a whole in my pocket, which hardly ever happens except on my birthday.

We had this whole plan of where to go. Unfortunately, when we got up it was beautiful outside except for the crazy wind. The trip Tom had planned included a fair amount of walking and a boat ride. Not something you want to do on a windy day. So, we tried to think about another option of somewhere we could still go, but somewhere it wouldn't ruin the trip with wind. So, we took the train to Yokohama. Of course we had to stop at the big electric store (that they call a camera store). It says it's a camera store, but it has everything from computers to watches. Of course we stopped at the camera floor and let him salivate over the expensive camera equipment.

Afterwards we took another short train ride to China Town in another area of Yokohama. Tom and I thought it interesting that no matter where you go in the world, there's always a China town. We walked all around China town and had lunch in a little restaurant there. The food was really good, Tom thought the egg drop soup there was the best he had ever had before. I have to agree with him. There were cool stalls all over the place that I had a lot of fun walking around and looking at. We also wandered across a Temple in the middle of China Town. It was really cool! They had incense burning and the ceiling was very ornate.

Afterwards we wandered over to a park alongside the harbor. It was beautiful. There were a lot of people there enjoying the weather. There were also a lot of people with the pet dogs. We walked through the park and enjoyed the beautiful scenery and people watching. There were also birds flying everywhere. It was very entertaining and gorgeous. We also stumbled across a street performer in the middle of the park. He was absolutely amazing. He seemed to be very amusing too. Although, we wouldn't know because we couldn't understand him. But he had tons of personality and was very amusing to watch. We watched his entire hour performance, which included juggling things that were on fire.

It was an amazing day! Lots of fun had by all!