MA Update

See more images from our trip at http://www.flickr.com/photos/organiquephoto/ !!

This is the blog of our vacation around JP. That's right. Vaca. Never seen that word on here before, have ya? FUN!!! I'll keep editing to add more to this blog so you don't have to read backwards. Enjoy!

Day 1

Internet is sparse ‘round here. So I’ll type on word and transfer later, so excuse the long old blogs. =)

We got up at 445am and showered, ate, loaded up the car, dropped off the truck at the lemon lot, arrived at the airport at 7am. Sat around there til about 1045. Boarded the plane, flew on a rather non-eventful (thank goodness) flight to a different base in Japan, only to realize that we weren’t anywhere near where we thought we were going. Soooo, we’ve cancelled our hotels and we’ll be revamping our schedule tomorrow to suit our new locale.

The (strike that) OUR kids were really good on the flight. Do parents not realize that their kids can’t pop their ears during takeoff and descent? (When Mel was younger, she was soooo scared on planes because she thought her ears were going to pop like a balloon and so she’d hold her ears while eating her snacks because she thought her ears were going to be lost in flight.) Seriously? There were so many screaming kids it was ridiculous. I even offered the little girl sitting next to us some pretzels to eat and her mom told me no, she was fine. Really, she was fine? Sure, if fine means unbuckled, standing in the floor, kicking and screaming at the top of her 4 year old lungs that her ears are hurting, then she was fine. A note to parents: most children can not equalize on their own. Give them a drink or a snack and tell them to shut the hell up. If that doesn’t work, squeeze their nose and tell them to blow like they’re full of snot. That’ll work sometimes too. And why is it that Japanese kids are so unruly? Because they need a good spanking? This other mom sitting next to us kept asking her son to “please put on your jacket?” in a whiny begging voice. She even said “see, everyone else has their jackets on, you’re going to be cold outside. Pllleeeeaaassseee?” I mean, really people, put the damn jacket on your kid. You’re the parent. He’s 3. You’re in your 30s. Wear some pants. Your child will love you for being the parent in the relationship. You’re not their buddy. Spank your kid and put on the freaking jacket. Another little girl, while waiting for the luggage was digging for some serious gold for at least 10 minutes straight. Of course, I’m sure, I was giving her some disgusted look, as nose picking, especially all the way up to the brain, completely gives me the heeby jeebies (how on earth do you spell that?). I glanced at her mom, who saw me giving her daughter a foul look, looked at her daughter missing a finger up there and looked back at me like her daughter was sitting there knitting a masterpiece or something. I know, all kids pick their noses sometimes, but give them a tissue, huh? Ok, I’m done ranting. Let’s teach our kids, people. They’re our future, right?

We’re staying on base for tonight and tomorrow and venturing out the day after that. We’re currently in a 3 bed, 2 bath hotel which used to be an apt, so it’s really quite nice… by Japan standards, at least. Seriously, this hotel we’re in is larger than our own apartment here that we’re renting. And nicer. Way funny. And it’s only like $50 a day. Which makes it way cheaper, too. Wow. Way cheaper. And no utilities. That’s crazy. Our electric bill this month was only $76 compared to $480 in the summer months. Electricity is crazy around here for the AC.

For lunch/dinner, we went just outside of the base to find some local dining… we were pleasantly surprised to find a Thai/Indian fusion place and filled our tum tums with chicken curry, naan bread and pork and cheese rolls. More yummy food to be found tomorrow! It’s funny how much I’ve begun to absolutely love food. I’ve come so far, haven’t I?

Monkey, tonight while changing for bed, asked Daddy if he was going to “go play doctor with Mommy” tonight. Oh innocent minds!

Off to get some good shut eye!

Day 2

Last night was an adjustment. The kids were super dehydrated. Mel was scared of the painting that hung above the bed and didn’t get to sleep without me lying beside her, which was quite uncomfortable, so I didn’t get to sleep until she was asleep enough for me to sneak away. Monkey was so tired he wasn’t tired anymore and it took his a while to get to sleep, too. Luckily, there was no peeing in the bed, which was a bonus.

We’re enjoying this hotel. There’s a full kitchen, complete with stove, fridge, microwave, dishes, pots and pans, silverware, and a dishwasher (hello, dishwasher! I may never leave. I woke up this morning to find the kids playing with the buttons and drawers like it was a ship from outer space), instant hot water (to get hot water at our house, you have to turn on the heater and wait about 5 minutes, so we always just use cold water for everything but showering), 2 full bathrooms (we only have one), the clothes washer has multiple cycles on it, real warm water to wash with, an extra rinse cycle, a timer beep, and normal water pressure so it doesn’t take 30 minutes to fill up, there’s carpeting, cable, and heat! We’re living the good life here! Boy have we really had an adjustment, huh? It’s amazing the things that spoil us anymore.

Anyway, today we’re going to explore around here, stay one more night and tomorrow we’ll hit the road!

Day 3

Woo Hoo! Pics! Excited, aren't you? Are you loving my new lens as much as I am? And, bonus for all you readers out there, we found an internet room today in the hotel! Complete with uncomfortable chairs and tables that are too high so my shoulders are hurting! But, there's always a plus, right? It's 11pm and I'm the only one in here so no one else cares when I fart! HA!

Ok, on to bigger better things. We shopped today. It was fun. Actually, this morning we lazed around until lunch time, went to the ITT where people are supposed to help you get your travel plans all scheduled. Well, this ITT sucks. They were the most unhelpful supposed-to-be-helpful people I've ever met. Daddy and I figured out that our trip was going to be almost $300 cheaper if we took the train instead of our rental car, and almost did it... then realized we'd have to lug around our luggage (that's why they call it that, btw.) and the car seats that we brought all over the countryside, so decided against it. Really, $300 for 10 days, is that worth my sanity? Not really. This is a vacation, right? And, might I add that it is our first real vacation EVER. EVER people. We've never gone on a real vacation. Our closest thing to a vacation was last year when we went snowboarding overnight, or our honeymoon that lasted a 2 day, 2 night stay in a b&b.

We had some friends move to Japan a few years ago, more like 2.5 to be exact. We emailed a few times, but nothing recently. Funny last night I had asked Daddy where they live... then we parked right next to them at the PX today! What a coincidence! And, they don't even live on the base where we are! They were just here to go to the PX and buy a gift! So hopefully we'll see them again while we're here.

Daddy called someone a dill hole and a douche while driving tonight. I asked him to not say those sort of things in front of the children and he proceeded to tell the children that those were fine words. "A dill hole is a pickle hole" he tells them. "And a douche is a sort of feminine special soap." So then Monkey and Mel begin to say things that can be a pickle hole. " a jar," "a hole in the ground," "how about a cucumber hole?" and "I'm going to call someone girl soap." Great. We'll see how this one turns out. Someone's going to do something to Monkey in Sunday school and he's going to call them girl soap, the teacher's going to ask what he said and he'll reply "I called him girl soap. You know, a douche." Good going Daddy.

So back to shopping. We had Costco pizza for dinner. Yup, we're in Japan and we're eating pizza at Costco. Believe it. It was good and greazy. That's right. GreaZy like down south, baby. I had to use 4 napkins to suck up that neon-orange-artery-clogging goop. Costco was fabulous. Brands I once knew. Oversized packages of toilet paper and plastic forks that you can't use up in a lifetime, fresh flowers, and 45 TV sets playing Kung Fu Panda. It was glorious. A tiny taste of home. And, guess where else we found? Right next to Costco was an American outlet mall. Banana Republic (which is having a killer sale right now... nothing I actually wanted to purchase though, and the prices were right around my range. Of course when I have money to spend, nothing I like can I find. When I'm broke, I can find a million things I wish I had.), Nine West, Roxy, Quiksilver, Billabong, Puma, oh the stores!! It was so beautiful. A real mall. We passed another one where we'll be visiting tomorrow. Real shopping. It's so exciting. (Pathetic, aren't I?)

Ok, it's late and Daddy said we're up and out at 7am... so I'd better go. Night night all!!

Day 4

This day was pretty boring. We stayed out too late last night, got to bed around 1230. Got up and went to lunch at a mall restaurant, which was gooooooood. Then we found a 4 story yen store, which sucked up about an hour of our day, then walked around taking some pictures of bums and store fronts and such. By the time we went to dinner, the kids were tired and not behaving enough to sit and wait in a restaurant for food, so we headed to the commissary and got stuff to make grilled cheese, went home, ate and went to b e d, where I fell asleep promptly and dreamed about being a pro snowboarder.

Day 5

We left the base today and drove to Kyoto. The drive was nice, not a lot of great scenery, but enough to keep us enjoying the ride. The highway here is great. Pit stops about every mile or so filled with stands selling wonderfully fresh mochi with azuki beans, vending machines, and clean toilets. Finally we arrived in Kyoto, not less than 5.5 but no more than 8 hours on the road. We’re not sure, as we didn’t look at the time when we began our trip today. The toll was over $100 just for the one way trip… so those of you in PA, don’t feel bad when you have to pay $20 for your tolls on the expressway. (Woo- my kids stink. We’re sitting in the car waiting for Daddy to check into the hotel.) We’re sitting in front of a huge mall where Holiday Inn sits on top of. It’s a rather swell idea. I wish more hotels were on top of malls. Tons of food, stores, and a place to sleep… I mean, really, who could ask for more? On the way here, we counted tunnels. There were 20 that we went through. We also played the alphabet game, where we found things that began with each letter of the alphabet… except for x, we found a box for that one. And we made up a song called “the wheels on the car” about the Daddy that said shut your mouth, the Monkey that said are we there yet?, the Mel that said waa waa waa and the Mommy that complained… all through Japan. Ok, Daddy’s back so we’re heading upstairs and then out to eat… my favorite part!

Well, dinner left much to be desired. We walked in the cold to a restaurant that looked yummy and hip. It smelled nice. The staff couldn’t speak English, but were super polite and happy to be alive. The table next to us had some really good-looking food on their table, so we ordered and waited for the table to heat and the food to arrive. First came our meat entrees. One, which we were told was chicken and tako (octopus) was actually about 4 tiny bites of chicken, octopus, and something we couldn’t tell what it was (mostly this). Chicken livers? Hearts? Something we didn’t like. The other entrée was a beef dish. Mostly made up of cubed beef fat. Seriously. No meat attached to the fat. Just fat. Couldn’t eat that either. Then came the large dish- which looked oh so yummy on the neighbor’s table. Ramen, onion, pork and an egg on top. What we missed with our eyes was the layer of fried fat in the middle and the layer of not-so-tasty miso/fish paste that covered the food and the other flavors. It was so bad that neither Daddy nor i could/would eat it (and I can still taste the fishiness in my mouth). We paid and walked a bit further to look for a restaurant. We didn’t find anything that was appealing, so we walked back to the hotel. On the way, we saw a Mr. Donut. Upon entering, we ordered the kids some corn soup (yummy, but seriously, corn soup. Like cream corn through a blender), I got a piece of cake with cream and chocolate frosting, and Daddy got a cup of coffee (which the cashier told me was decaf. We found out later after the coffee was gone that it was regular), and 6 doughnuts. What a healthy dinner.

So now we’re at a hotel. It’s the smallest hotel room I’ve ever been in. There are 2 full beds, Japanese, of course, so they’re only about a foot off the floor and only have 2 pillows. But, there’s internet service, which is nice, even though I have to connect to the wall to use it. Tomorrow is looking up, though… we found a café to try tomorrow and we’re right by a really cool river which is promising for photos.

Nighty night!

Day hmmm... Today's Christmas. I'm not sure what day it is on our trip anymore. Maybe... 8? Anyway, this Christmas is unlike most, as we're not home, surrounded by loads of family, kids, or gifts. We're not overwhelmed with Christmas decorations, lights, sales, and shopping. We're in Japan. There are Buddhists everywhere. "X-mas" signs and Santa Claus galore. Some buildings are adorned with blue and white lights, some with Santa Claus figures dangling from ladders or a few strands of tinsle from the yen store. Originally, our trip consisted of a daily drive to a temple, shrine, castle, the beach, and other sights around Japan. Upon our arrival, we realized that Google Earth had screwed us out of a good trip and we weren't in the location we believed we'd be in, therefore, we had to revamp or schedule, cutting out days of scheduling and rerouting our plans. We've found that, although beautiful to the eyes, the temples are sad to go to. We see so many people, good people, happy people, giving people, praying to the gods and their ancestors and it's sad, especially on the birthday of our Savoiur, to see so many people are not saved. Anyway, I hope that this Holiday, you've all celebrated for the birth of our Lord, celebrated that you, too, have been saved by His blood. I pray that you have been thankful for what God did for you, and have not centered your day around presents and the tree (although those are awesome parts of the holiday!).

Ok, enough of that... on to our day!

Last night, we ate dinner at that little cafe on the river. It was good. We parked in the lot of the apartments next door and jumped a cement wall to get to the restaurant. The bathroom was so stinky I thought I'd puke and there was no soap, so I asked if I could wash my hands in the kitchen inside the restaurant. The food was tasty. Simple and not 100% homemade, but tasty nonetheless. They played good music and we were the only ones in there, so that was nice. We stayed our last night in Kyoto and headed south for the day.

We drove today from Kyoto to Osaka. With no map. With no directions. We're livin' on the edge, huh? Brave, we are. We ate breakfast at Mr Donut. Then lunch at Mos Burger.

We followed signs. They led us in the right direction. It took us 4 hours to get 40 kms. If you don't realize how slow that is, let me put it this way... we could have walked faster than we drove. It was ridiculous. Points to remember for our next trip: 1. don't go anywhere without a map. 2. don't drive on the regular route if there is an expressway. Pay the toll. Don't be a cheap-ass. 3. get directions to your hotel from someone who speaks English. 4. don't always believe that the 4th stop light is really the 4th stop light. it could be the 4th... or the 14th... or maybe the 4th one in the next town... who the heck knows. they don't really know. 5. don't run out of yen. regular ATMs don't take american cards, so you'll have to walk 10 blocks to find a post office, and if its after 5pm, you're SOL.

We drove all up and down, asking directions, driving some more, asking directions. And, yes, we stopped in a 7-11 and Daddy was so good, he asked directions instead of buying a map. (We're trying to keep this trip as cheap as possible, remember?) Anyway, we're here. We checked in. We're at a very nice hotel and when I checked in, I got some interesting looks from the women in the lobby. Daddy says that they were all hanging out down there hoping to pick up some men. They were still hanging out down there when we went down later, so I'm guessing he's right. We went to dinner at a near by Thai restaurant called Ai Thai. The woman who was there was the owner, her daughter is the cook and they have one waiter/busboy. It's in the bottom of a hotel/club in a tiny room with 5 tables. They have a wide assortment of dishes and a set, which we went for. She let us choose 4 main dishes and threw in dessert. It was awesome. No wonder my old friend Nathan wanted to live in Thailand! My taste buds were in Heaven! You might notice that we're in Japan and not eating much Japanese food. You're right. But really, why eat Japanese food when they have such an abundance of really yummy food from all over?! We can get Japanese any day!

Tomorrow I think we're going to stay around here and enjoy this place for one more day before heading back to Tokyo.(This is Osaka castle. Unfortunately by the time we got to it, it was closed inside. But the outside and the grounds were amazing with 2 moats and lots of tall, thick castle walls.)

Happy Birthday, Jesus, to all of you!!!

Day hmm... let's see... today's Saturday. We leave on Tuesday which is the 30th, so that makes today day... 10! Wow, math still works every time, doesn't it?
(This is in one of the subway malls. Daddy and I found it funny that inside the Whity shopping town there was a store called the "fancy lobby". )

Yesterday we had a really fun day. We got up and dressed and talked with the consierge about what to do. We hopped on the subway after a quick super healthy breakfast of mr donut and went to a garden that sounded lovely online. It was erected in 1990 for a world garden theme expo. They must have either let all of the pretty plants and flowers die, or they ran out of money while building. It was a huge park with lots of man-made little lakes and ponds and bushes. Oh- and lots of stairs that little Mel refused to climb. Daddy's shoulders got in a good workout. Then we headed back to near the hotel to take a boat ride, which unfortunately we'd missed the last trip out for the day. That was a bummer. Back to the consierge to find something else. We decided to go to the ferris wheel, which at one point was the tallest in the world. It was super high. The kids absolutely loved it. We got to walk through an underground mall to get to it, so it wasn't too cold. And we stopped and had pastries on the way!
Today we drove back to the base to stay in our pseudo-apartment for a few more nights. It feels like home. I went to the PX to get Jim Shore on sale. (This is us in front of Mt Fuji. We drove by it on the way to the base. Looks a lot like Rainier, huh?) I got a few ornaments. 50% off. I hope they go down more so I can go get a price adjustment. And while I'm on the subject of my Jewishness, let me tell you about what I've learned and what never surprises me. The Japanese, as a whole, not any one person in particular, are capitalistic. I mean, who doesn't love money, right? But really, little things, like tap water, toilet paper, and paper towels, you can get for free in most places. Not here. Paper towels are no where to be found. Sometimes neither is toilet paper (thank goodness I've never had to go poo in a public toilet yet). Tap water is non-existent to get for free in a cup with ice. Bottles only. Not even at Costco attached to the soda machine. No little water button. Nope. None. Water? 200 yen dozo! There was a launch a few days ago in Osaka at a McD's for the double quarter pounder (don't you love how America is spreading their fatness world-wide?) and they paid hundreds of customers to stand in line to attract more customers to come and buy the new burger. How pathetic! And, take for example the yen stores cross-country. They're little stores that suck you in and get you in the wallet where it hurts. "Oh, I need a new tweezer. I'll buy the kids just one toy each. Oh, those nail polishes are only Y100? I'll get two more even though I have a pink in almost that exact same shade already." You'll walk in to get some sink basket liners and walk out spending 20 bucks on junk that the kids are going to destroy within 15 minutes. And you'll go back tomorrow. It's worse than Wally world. You'll run in for one thing and come out starving cause you've missed dinner. Again. Point 3 (or 50, i forgot where I was), at our hotel for the last two nights, we had to pay to park in the parking garage. I mean, what a way to tack it on, huh? And it was a Crown Hotel... guess they figure you have enough money to waste on parking. I have a thousand other examples, but alas, none come to mind now. Ooh- except this one... when you go into most nicer restaurants, they bring you an appetizer that you won't usually eat... like a 2inx2in dish of kimchee or daicon... that is a little over $5 that you are not allowed to refuse.

Day 11

So in a world of capitalism, there is a beautiful wonderful flip side. There is no tipping. Which means a $40 meal really costs $40. And sometimes the owners are so nice they throw in dessert for free. And, it makes people care about doing their job properly, not just doing it in order to get a tip. They have pride in their work. Even at Mr Donut, they individually wrap each of the donuts and twist the ends of the wax paper just right before placing then inside of the box, along with the wax paper wrapped napkins and tiny fork if you need one, then they tape the box shut, even though it's one of those boxes that has a carrying handle and put the box inside a little square bag, then tape the bag shut. Seriously, if you're in a hurry, Mr Donut should not be a stop in your morning routine. Oh, and another great thing are warm toilet seats, even at rest stops on the highway. Can't beat those on a -2 C night when you are driving cross-country on a 7 hour drive and have to stop for more than a cappuccino. Maybe I'll trade the tp for a warm seat.... Oh and speaking of warm. Why the heck doesn't the US have vending machines with canned hot drinks in them? I'm totally addicted to vending machine hot cocoa. Daddy likes the coffee. (Yes, he's drinking coffee again. Like a cocaine addict.)

Today we turned in the rental car and took a taxi to the train station, took the train to the subway, took the subway to a shuttle, and ended up finally, at our destination, which was the transportation museum in tokyo. It took a long time to get there. Much longer than reading this post about how long it took, so don't complain. The museum was fun for the kids. I got a few neat shots of some old trains. The really funny thing about it was that it was 1000 Y to get into, and inside every single one of the train cars that you were allowed to go into, there was someone sitting there sleeping, as if it were a real train car and they were going somewhere. What a way to relax! I got a photo of one lady snoozing away. The bathrooms in the museum were very nice, yet lacking paper towels. When we'd finished up the museum, we were back at the train station and realized that we were out of yen. Point number 4: don't run out of yen off base. Luckily Daddy happened upon a 10 in his wallet that he'd somehow swiped from me without me noticing earlier in the week. We made it to the subway station where we could then find a bank and withdraw some cash.

After the little lack-of-money fiasco, we went to the city hall building, which i'd read had some spectacular view of tokyo and it was free. So up we went in their speedy elevator (45 floors in 55 seconds) to a pretty good view of tokyo. Unfortunately the restaurants we'd heard of below had already closed and we were starving. So after a quick 360 walk, we were back on the subway home to get some grub. A semi-italian cafe caught our tummies with an avocado and salmon salad so we stopped in, ate, and made it back to the train station around 945. Hailed a cab, which charged us the correct amount, unlike the cab this morning that was supposed to charge us 710 Y for our trip and charged us 1160 instead. (Prejudice Bastard.) By the time we got back to the base, it was 10pm and the base cab had stopped running. Uhhh... walk the 5 miles to our hotel? No freaking way, people. Do realize that it's cold here and we'd been walking all freaking day and it's 2 hours past the kids bedtimes... not that I'd walk 5 miles to our hotel even without those circumstances or anything. The gate guard was so super nice. He called one of the MPs to come get us and drive us to the hotel in his police car. I thought Monkey would have found it much more exciting, but the kids were so tired they lazed in the back trying not to fall asleep. Anyway, it's 11 now, and we're trying to make it to the fish market for lunch before they close, so I'd better get to bed!
Tomorrow is our last day out and about and we head home on Tuesday! It's surely been an adventure! It will be nice to go home and relax!! That seems so backwards! We take crazy busy vacations and relax at home. What a blessed life we live!!!

Day 12

Originally we thought we'd be travelling today. But they schedule was off by one day, so here we are! We got a really late start this morning. We crawled out of bed at 915. Got to our destination after an extremely long train ride (5 trains to be exact) around 2pm. We went to this huge fish market in tokyo. Apparently it's the place to be at 6am. Most restaurants close there by 3pm, though, so the heavy traffic and busy market were pretty calm and empty, leaving me lots of room to snap away at what was left in the place. We wandered around for a while and then headed back towards base and went to that Indian restaurant again for dinner. They had a different cook, though, so the food wasn't as good as before when we'd gone for lunch. After dinner, Daddy ran with the kids across the street and Mel tripped, fell, and Daddy got frustrated, so we headed home instead of going to get ice cream. It's bed time now, and I've been ready for it for hours. Good night all. Glad this vacation is over!!

Saionara!