Visiting Tokyo (and surrounding areas)

Hello everyone! I apologize that it has been so long since I have updated the blog. I didn’t write anything during our whole time in Tokyo which means you are all in for a nice, long entry.
Our impressions of Tokyo were much more favorable than our impressions of Osaka. The streets of Osaka were more crowded, buildings bunched together in one long strip of cement and brick. Tokyo felt less like a concrete maze and more like a big city. It reminded us in pieces of New York City with friendlier people and cleaner streets. Our impressions could have also been due to adjusting to Japan.
The hotel we stayed at is called Hotel Okura and it is directly across from the American Embassy. It was strange to look outside our Tokyo hotel room and see two American flags flying. A few days after we arrived, we noticed about thirty U.S. secret service agents guarding a room about three rooms away from ours, the elevators, and the front doors. We figured we were in the presence of another diplomat, although we weren’t sure who would warrant so much security. Shortly after that, we learned Condoleeza Rice was currently in Tokyo. It turned out that it was her staying just a few doors down from us. Unfortunately, we didn’t get to meet her or see her, but it was still kind-of cool to know we were that close to her.
We began our trip by exploring the districts of the enormous city. I incorrectly stated that thirty-four million people live in Tokyo. This number describes the number living in Tokyo and the surrounding suburbs. Twelve million people live in Tokyo City. Still not a small place to live!
After Dave and I settled into our new destinations (Dave was working, I was working and catching up on laundry at a nearby laundromat.), we began to explore the city. You can imagine how little territory of the city we covered. There are twenty-three wards in Tokyo and we only had the opportunity to visit about six of them.
Our first destination was Akihabara, a ward of Tokyo. This is a famed electronics district that Dave was excited to visit. I honestly believe you could have found anything you wanted in Akihabara. If I were into building DVD players or radios from scratch, I would have been in heaven. Since I am not, I didn’t know what most of the things I was looking at were. It was still neat to see such a large area devoted solely to electronics. We visited a few video game stores and a few enormous electronics stores. Dave looked in another Yodobashi Umeda, the same store we had visited in Osaka. When he had asked at the hotel if they had a Yodobashi in Akihabara, they told us there was a very small one. Clearly, an electronics store in Japan is not held to the same standards as an electronics store in America. "Small" meant only seven stories of electronics. We are going to go back to the U.S. and Best Buy is going to feel laughable compared to these enormous electronic department stores. We had a good time in this area of the city and then headed to Ginza, the "Times Square" ward of Tokyo.
If you have seen photos of the city, it is the part of Tokyo that has the huge Coca-Cola sign you normally see in photos. We first found ourselves walking through the Sony Building where there were about five floors of brand new electronics people could look at or experiment with. Dave was most excited to get on opportunity to check out the PlayStation 3 that comes out this November. We ate at a café overlooking the city and then wandered the Ginza streets. We found a lot of high end shopping, Dior and Louis Vuitton and Tiffany shops reaching to the sky with their four and five floors of merchandise. We enjoyed getting to see this area of the city before returning to our hotel. We first noticed how clean and uncrowded the streets were in this city here. We also noticed there were no trash cans to be found anywhere! We puzzled over this during our whole time in Japan until we found out on our last day in the city that the trash cans were removed after the cyanide attack that occurred in the subways in 1995. The cyanide was placed in trash cans and they have since been removed from the city.
The next day we visited Harajuku, in the Shibuya ward of Tokyo. I had heard of the shopping district before and was excited to see it. On the surface, the area seems to be rows of more luxury shopping. We began by passing Dolce and Gabbana, Dior, Louis Vuitton, Chanel, etc. Yet, as we made our way further down the street, we found ourselves in the trendy Japanese shops that I had heard defined Harajuku. These shops made Betsey Johnson look tame and now I understood why stylish celebrities like Gwen Stefani had sung the praises of Harajuku. Alas, I am about a foot and a half taller than Japanese women and the clothes were never going to fit me. It was still fun to see the glitzy shops with names translated in English like Ashes and Diamonds.
Another day, we got to visit Tokyo Tower, a building modeled after the Eiffel Tower, but taller. We got to go to the observation deck in the top of the building and watch the sun set over Tokyo. We also got to visit Zojo-ji Temple that day, a temple near Tokyo Tower. You could see Tokyo Tower in the background and it was interesting to note the dichotomy between the old, religious side of Tokyo and one of the great representations of modern Tokyo side by side.
The day after we visited Tokyo Tower, we went to Asakusa, the oldest district in Tokyo. Tokyo is not a very old city since much of it was destroyed during World War II. In fact, there were more people killed in Tokyo alone from Allied bombings during WWII than there were in both Hiroshima and Nagasaki after the a-bombs were dropped. Asakusa is home to the large, beautiful Senso-ji Temple and Shin-nakamise-dori arcade. Arcade is the word the Japanese use to describe a shopping area. Shin-nakamise-dori was the first place we actually found shops that had interesting and beautiful souvenirs. Before visiting here, we could only find cheap souvenir shops. It was fun to wander through this area on our way to Senso-ji Temple. The temple was very beautiful, but we had a little mishap while we were there. Dave, who is nearly a pro railing slider, decided to slide down this really long railing outside the temple. He had some shopping bags in his hands and ended up slipping and was unable to catch himself. He fell off onto the concrete steps and scraped himself up a bit. We were in luck because there was a hospital right next door to the temple. He got himself bandaged up, but he had hurt his back pretty bad and we took the next few days pretty easy.
After exploring some of these wards of Tokyo and taking some time for Dave to heal, we decided to venture to some of the neighboring cities. The first city we visited, Kamakura, was the former capitol of Japan in the sixteenth century. The city was on the water and we ended up there on a very rainy and cold day. It wasn’t very fun to be walking around in, so we saw a few of the major sights and headed back to Tokyo. The primary thing we visited in Kamakura was Kotokuin Temple, home of the Great Buddha. The Great Buddha is nearly 45 feet tall and you could even go inside him.
We then made our way down the street to Hase Kannon Temple which was very beautiful. Dave says it was his favorite temple we had the opportunity to visit in Japan. There were really pretty gardens and a lot of different things to look at in this large temple.
The next day trip we took was to Nikko, about two hours outside of Tokyo in the mountains. Neither Dave or I realized how tired we were of city life until we got the opportunity to escape it for the day. It was a beautiful drive to Nikko, especially since the leaves were beginning to change. The first stop we made was to Toshugo Shrine and Rinnoji Temple. This may be an opportune time to explain the difference between temples and shrines, although they are often intermingled in Japan. The temples are part of the Buddhist religion and the shrines belong to the Shinto religion. Buddhists do not have a god that they worship, per se, although it appears that they are worshiping the Buddha statues. As many of you probably know, Buddhism originated in India and eventually made its way over to Japan. Buddhists work toward a state of enlightenment. This state is nearly impossible to achieve and so there are only between ten and twenty buddhas that exist. After death, these people who have become buddhas return to earth to help those still striving for enlightenment. When people visit the buddhist statues, the are asking the buddhas to help them conquer whatever struggle is hindering them from enlightenment. Shintoism began in Japan. Shintoism has two main aspects: nature worship and ancestor worship. Shintoists believe that the Japanese islands are the love child of two gods. Therefore, the island and it’s natural beauty (mountains, rivers, etc) are to be worshipped. Because of this belief, many Japanese are appalled at the Christian idea that man is ruler over the earth. They believe that the earth came first and is to be tended to like a god. They have multiple gods and each shrine represents a god. Shintoists revere their ancestors and never feel there is an appropriate time to disrespect the dead. The funeral rituals surrounding Shintoism are extremely complicated. I don’t want to explain them here because I would certainly get the facts wrong. The morality of Shintoism is sparse, but they generally operate by the principle that morality is whatever is best for the group. This would partly explain the Japanese group mentality. The two religions are both officially recognized religions of Japan and have become so intermingled in the culture that they are barely differentiated. Most Japanese considered themselves unreligious, but adhere to both Buddhist and Shintoist practices. Christians make up only .07% of the Japanese population. Both the temple and the shrine were interesting and beautiful places to visit.
We then made our way further up the Nikko Mountains to Lake Chuzenji where we stopped for lunch. Further up the mountain, we saw Kegon Waterfall. People used to commit suicide off this waterfall and so it has since had some restrictions put on it. In fact, Japan has 30,000 suicides per year, 190 per day. This is the seventh largest suicide rate in the world (Russia is number one.) The number one reason people commit suicide is economic instability. Although Japan boasts great wealth, there is no security for young people in Japan. There are 120 million people who live in Japan, a country similar to the size of California, but they can only live in 20% of the land because of the mountains. This makes real estate very expensive. Roppongi Hills, a wealthy part of Tokyo, rents apartments for between one and five million yen (approximately between 10,000 - 50,000 U.S. dollars) per month. Clearly, these prices are unattainable for the majority of the Japanese who normally rent small living condominiums. Because the Japanese young people feel so much financial instability, they are hesitant to marry and even more hesitant to have children. When people do marry, they often still live with their parents. This has led to the rise of love hotels which rent rooms to married couples by the night or the hour. This insecurity has led to many suicides. In the past, the Japanese government has done little to counter this epidemic, although public pressure has made them look again at the problem. This natural scenery in Nikko was so welcome to both Dave and I who felt refreshed at the end of the long day.
On our last day in Japan, we visited Mt. Fuji. Climbing season was over in August and so we could only go partway up the mountain. Again, the fall colors highlighted the trip. We were fortunate to get a clear day to see the mountain. After we made it partway up the mountain, we went to Hakone National Park where we were able to take a boat in Lake Ashi and then take a gondola up to the top of Mt. Komagatake where we got a breathtaking view. (Again, if you are not getting the photos and want them, e-mail me at lindsayallison@cheatcc.com.)
We really enjoyed the incredibly friendly Japanese culture and would love to go back again someday. As a closing note on our Japanese trip, I thought I would share a joke I heard a few times while there, clearly a national favorite. When the Japanese government officials visit America, they always bring an interpreter with them. Yet Prime Minister Miyazawa wanted to be polite to President Clinton and asked his interpreter to teach him something to say in English. The interpreter taught the prime minister to say "how are you?" After the president responds, the interpreter told him, say "Me too". The prime minister practiced these words but became flustered when arriving in the presence of President Clinton.
"Who are you?" Prime Minister Miyazawa asked Clinton instead of "how are you."
Laughing, Clinton responded, "I’m Hillary’s husband."
"Me too," Miyazawa replied.
Anyway, one person described this incident as the "shame of the nation" (joking, of course) so I thought I would share it with you. I know at least my dad is laughing at this.
We arrived yesterday in Seoul, South Korea. We haven’t seen much of the city at all yet, but from the two hour bus ride to our hotel yesterday and the little walking around I have done today, it seems Seoul is much more westernized than Japan. I was surprised to discover this. I thought Japan would certainly be the most westernized of everywhere we visited in Asia. Yet, South Korea has many familiar things that we did not see in Japan. Brands we have seen here are Pizza Hut, Burger King, Uno (a pizza place near Broomfield; I don’t know that they have one in Minnesota anywhere), The Coffee Bean (a California staple), Kahunaville (a Las Vegas restaurant), and Dunkin’ Donuts. I don’t have much to share about South Korea yet, but as I learn more, I will be sure to post our findings on the blog. Stay posted!

Hawaii Photos

I wanted to pass along a website to everyone where they could view more photos of our time in Hawaii if they wanted the opportunity. My friend Kristen is an incredible photographer and has posted her photos of the trip on her website. Here is the URL if you want to check it out.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/kristenkopp/sets/72157594296578977/

Hiroshima

Hello everyone! We arrived safely in Tokyo last night via the train. We are staying in western Tokyo, which is primarily a business district. In fact, we are directly across the street from the American embassy. It’s a little strange because we can look out our hotel window and see two American flags flying even though we are in Japan. The only sightseeing I have done in Tokyo so far is the inside of a laundromat. Tomorrow, we hope to be able to see more of the city.
Our hotel is very nice and we are staying on a special floor called the Grand Comfort Floor. There is an enormous spa on the floor complete with oxygen and juice bar and we get free access to it. We also get one free 20-minute treatment every day which is quite nice. We have definitely taken advantage of that amenity!
Before we left Osaka, we got the opportunity to take the train down to Hiroshima for the day. The trip to Hiroshima is definitely the most memorable thing we have had the opportunity to do since arriving in Japan. There is so much history in the now prosperous city. It is especially interesting to visit the city in light of the recent North Korean nuclear test. The Japanese take a strong stance against the use of any nuclear weapon and the North Korean test is a huge deal here. The Japanese are extremely unhappy about it.
Hiroshima’s main attraction is the Peace Park, built to remember the victims of the nuclear bomb that was dropped on the city on August 6, 1945. The first thing you see when you walk into the park is the A-bomb dome, the only remaining building after the blast. I was immediately filled with emotion upon entering the park and Dave and I found ourselves mesmerized by the incredible story Hiroshima holds.
Our last stop in the park, the Peace Memorial Museum, told us the most about the history of the bomb, but the visual image of the ruins of the former Industrial Promotional Hall was incredibly powerful.
The Peace Memorial Museum was enormous. The first floor told of the history leading up to the United States’ decision to bomb Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The second floor went into details about the effects of radiation on the human body and the third floor detailed how an atomic bomb works and which countries still have atomic bombs. After looking at all this, we thought the museum had ended, but after passing an oddly cheerful gift shop, we found ourselves in a whole new section of the museum that told stories of many of the people who barely survived or died in the bombing. The exhibit had scorched school uniforms along with the stories of the children who had worn them, locks of burned hair parents had saved from their dead children, and large photos of the damage the bomb had done to the people who were in Hiroshima when the bomb was dropped.
Along the way to the museum, we had the chance to see many monuments commemorating the victims of the bomb. There was a monument for the children who were affected by the bomb. The monument is a tall and cylindrical with a girl standing on top of it with a crane flying overhead. Cranes are symbol of longevity and happiness in Japan. The story tells of a girl who was a victim of the bomb but believed if she could make 1,000 cranes she could recover from her injuries. The girl did not survive, but her story lives on. Japanese schoolchildren visit the monument and bring paper cranes to lay near it.
The Flame of Peace burns in the middle of the park. The Japanese are determined to burn the flame until all nuclear weapons in the world are destroyed.
Another interesting sight is the Phoenix trees which have interesting shapes after surviving the blast. The trees were originally a mile away from the hypocenter of the blast and are show where they are scorched from the blast.
Visiting the park humanized the bombing for us. It was a really fascinating and memorable experience for both of us.
We also had some interesting people experiences while in the park. We ended up being part of an assignment for the tons of school kids that were visiting Hiroshima that day. They recognized us (obviously) as Americans and continued to come up and ask us questions in English. And in the tradition of Dave being unable to escape the Japanese females, one schoolgirl seemed to develop a crush on him and she and her friends were very giggly in his presence. At one point, she asked him for a kiss. Dave, being the faithful husband that he is, didn’t give her one. It was definitely amusing though. After being approached by about six or seven groups of school kids, an older man engaged us in conversation. We innocently thought he was trying to just talk to us but we were wrong. You would think you could escape them halfway across the world, but the man was a Jehovah’s witness who tried to convert us.
And today I got mistaken for a famous opera singer.
We will be writing more as we explore Tokyo. Hope you are all doing well!

Osaka and Kyoto

Since our last blog entry, Dave and I have both gotten more accustomed to the Japanese culture. We are beginning to learn how to use the public transportation better and how to figure out ways around not understanding any Japanese. We have given up on being able to read any Japanese by the time we leave Japan. They have three alphabets. The main alphabet consists of over 2,000 kanji, or letters. We don’t have much hope of learning that in four weeks. The average Japanese person only knows around 1,000 kanji.
The Japanese culture is extremely different than the American culture. The people do not have the individualistic spirit that we value so much in America. They work much more as a team. This changes a lot of things at many levels. Our hotel is across the street from the World Trade Center and Asia and Pacific Trade Center buildings and we see many people still leaving work at 10 pm. Responsibilities are taken on as a whole group rather than by one individual. This mentality works in the schools too. Japanese students spend between twelve and fifteen hours in school each day. The schools do not have a janitorial or lunch staff. The kids clean their own school and serve their own lunches. Discipline problems are rare and detention and suspension are practically unheard of. The group mentality causes the kids to behave for the behalf of the group rather than to draw attention to their individuality. The Japanese people dress similarly and you don’t see many people with unusual clothing, hairstyles, or piercings. Tattoos are still considered taboo. In fact, our guidebook warns us to watch out for people with tattoos because they are usually members or the Yakuza, similar to the mob. Tattoos and mutilated fingers (Yakuza are forced to cut their own fingers off if they screw up) are warning signs of the Yakuza. We were later told they are the ones driving Lamborghinis. We have seen two Lamborghinis parked at our hotel, but no Yakuza. Osaka is the capital for this gang.
We got the opportunity to go to Osaka Castle. The castle was originally built in 1586 and was the largest castle of the time but it has been destroyed and rebuilt several times. The last rebuilding was in 1931, but the inside is maintained only as a museum. The outside and the view from the viewing deck on the top floor of the castle were neat, but it was a little disappointing since the inside has been gutted for a museum. Leaving the castle, Dave and I found ourselves in an enormous group of about 10,000 Japanese people. After a few minutes of walking with this group, Dave pointed out that we were again in a group of only Japanese women! Sure enough, Dave was again the only man in sight (and a 6'3" Caucasian man at that). We couldn’t read any of the Japanese signs around us and didn’t have any idea what we were in the middle of. Women continued to pour out of the nearby convention center by the thousands as Dave and I found a lot of amusement in our present situation. About a quarter mile later, we saw big CD, t-shirt and poster displays featuring a young, smiling man. This is when we figured out we were leaving Osaka Castle at the same time the Koichi Domotto concert was ending. Koichi Domotto, we inferred, is the Justin Timberlake (or Keith Partridge for my Mom’s generation) of Japan. Although we were careful not to get on the Women Only subway car, we still found ourselves in the subway car with primarily women.
The next day, we went to Kyoto, a cultural mecca for the Japanese. We ended up meeting a group of men a little younger than us from New Jersey who were living in Japan to teach English (hence my understanding of the Japanese school system). We tagged along with the group for a bit since one of the men had lived in Kyoto for a while. Yet, it was hard to keep track of them because they were just as interested in inviting the Japanese girls to a Halloween party at Osaka Castle as they were in sightseeing. Kyoto was definitely an extremely cool city to visit and we hope to return once more before we leave for Tokyo.
The first place we visited was Kiyomizu-Dera. Dera means temple. I have never seen as many temples in my life as I did in Kyoto. There was one on nearly every block. We got the opportunity to learn a little more about the Buddhist faith, although not a ton since we couldn’t ask many questions. Kiyomizu-Dera was absolutely enormous and it took us at least an hour to walk through the entire thing. We began by paying 100 yen (about 85 cents) to walk down into this pitch black room where we walked around for a while before finding a spotlight shining on this spinning cement block that we had to spin while walking around it before finding our way out of the temple. I know that sounds confusing, but I have no better way of explaining it. I don’t understand the symbolism of it at all. We then wandered through the temple which was expansive and really beautiful. Each of the temples has women who are skilled in calligraphy and will write the name of the temple along with its primary meaning in a book for you. We purchased a book and had it filled out at each of the five temples we visited. We plan to set it out at home so you will all have to come visit and see it. I didn’t understand a lot of what we saw, but one temple had English literature that explained the temple’s purpose. The temple had hundreds of hanging cloth monkeys all over. The arms and legs of the monkeys were all attached and this is how they were hanging in long strands. Each monkey represents a desire. Desires like monkeys have no conscience and only want what they want whether it is good or bad for us. People are better than monkeys and desires though because we have the will to choose not to do something. Like the monkey is bound by its arms and legs, people are instructed to bind and control their desires. People are instructed to take a cloth monkey from the temple if they are struggling to rid themselves of a desire. Every time they are tempted to act on their desire, they are to take out the monkey to remind themselves not to act out. Once they have conquered their desire, they are to bring the monkey back to the temple. I am certain there is much more I could have learned if there were more English translations. It was still neat to see though.
We have been trying a few more Japanese dishes. The fried rice is good although it is slightly different than the United States. Instead of putting fried egg in the rice, they fry an egg and place it on top. Yesterday, I had a dish of ketchup rice topped with a fried egg, melted cheese, shrimp, and bacon. It was actually pretty decent. Dave and I both enjoy the green tea ice cream. A popular dessert here is red bean paste. It sounds a little strange, but it tastes pretty good.
We have been amused at some of the English translations we run into. In addition to the smiling policeman telling us to "Stay out of here!", here are a few of our other favorites.
A paper telling us they will not accept our credit card:
"Sorry, but the credit card does not descend." (This actually makes absolutely no sense, but we got the point when they wouldn't take our card.)
A sign on a gate in Yodobashi Umeda, an electronics store that makes Best Buy look minuscule (honestly, I think you could probably fit 20 Best Buys in this enormous 13 story electronics store):
"Do not lean on gate. If you lean on gate, it will fall over. It occur, you Trouble!" ((Yes, trouble really did have a capital T.)
We definitely appreciate the translations anyway and it causes us to wonder what our translations in America look like to foreigners.
I have sent out our photos from Osaka and our first trip to Kyoto. Again, if you want to receive the photos and don’t, e-mail me at lindsayallison@cheatcc.com and I will gladly send them to you.

Pictures!

I couldn't figure out a way to post the photos on here without shutting down the website. Since I want to share multiple photos with you, I decided it would be best to e-mail them to you. I have e-mailed two albums to those of you whom I have e-mail addresses for. If I do not have your e-mail address and you would like to receive photos, e-mail me your e-mail address at lindsayallison@cheatcc.com and I will add you to the list.
Hope this finds you all well!
Lindsay

Arriving in Japan

We left the United States from Honolulu with a sea of Japanese people. We were the only Americans on the entire flight. It was a long flight (nine hours), but we were fortunate to get exit row seats so we could stretch our legs during the flight.
We arrived in Osaka around 6 pm on October 4. The airport was easy to navigate around and customs was a breeze. Once we left the airport, we found ourselves unable to understand anything around us, written or verbal. Our cab driver did not speak English, but eventually we were able to communicate where we wanted to go. Many of the signs are strictly in Japanese characters, but some are also in alphabet characters or translated into English. Most of the people at our hotel speak passable English and try very hard to accommodate us. We are picking up on a few Japanese words - thank you, excuse me, hello, yes, no - but we are also not leaving our hotel room without our Japanese dictionary.
I definitely stand out around the petite, dark haired, dark eyed, Asian women around me. The attire is much more formal here than in the United States. The men are all in business suits and the woman are all in skirts and heels. Dave’s laid-back shorts and t-shirt look definitely stand out in a crowd.
Yesterday was our first full day in Osaka. We decided to spend the day just wandering around the city. We thought this would make for a fairly relaxing day, but as culture shock set in we found ourselves exhausted by the end of the day.
Our first task was to figure out the subway system without speaking or reading any Japanese. This took a lot of lucky guesswork and fortunately each of the subway lines was subtitled in alphabet characters. We found our way to downtown Osaka which is huge! The entire city of Osaka is very large and home to 8 million people. There isn’t much natural beauty here, just a ton of tall, close buildings. It reminds us of New York City except there are no parks.
Finding our way around Osaka forced us to use a whole new set of skills for figuring things out. Dave always asks people questions to find our way around and I am always reading signs. Here, we can’t do either of those things. No one really speaks English outside our hotel, although our two encounters with English speakers happened at opportune times yesterday.
One of the first things we noticed downtown were the arcades. We knew the Japanese liked video games, but we had no idea how much. Downtown Osaka has arcades like Las Vegas has casinos. And the arcades are not the dinky ones we find in the US, but long, multi-level arcades where Japanese gather into narrow rows to play these games for what must be hours upon hours. Some of the games are familiar, but many have a Japanese twist. For instance, they have many machines where you can use the claw to dive for prizes. In the U.S., we are usually diving for stuffed animals, but here we saw prizes as odd as cans of Pringles, oversized bags of potato chips, and colorful packing tape. Most of the players are not kids or teens, but middle-aged adults donning their business clothes. It is quite a sight. We also discovered that photo booths are very popular for teenage girls. Wandering around downtown, we saw several stores containing only photo booths (around twenty to each store) where teenage girls would come in and pose for photos with their friends. Some of the booths were very elaborate with jungle gyms and other props in them.
After wandering around the city for a few hours, we started to get hungry. We couldn’t find any restaurants with alphabet words, although many of the menus had photos. We ended up seeing a man with red hair on the street and assumed he may know English. He turned out to be from America living in Osaka and he instructed us on the word for chicken and directed us toward a Japanese restaurant where they served chicken. We entered the restaurant and were directed to a table by our waiter who spoke no English. We ordered a few chicken dishes by pointing to the photos on the menu. We were the only customers at the time and we were in a small booth that was surrounded completely by bamboo curtains. Everything here is much lower than in America- beds, chairs, tables, etc. It was a neat atmosphere, but we had trouble with the food. The chicken cuts were not as good as the ones we are used to eating. There was lots of fat and bones and the chicken is very soft, almost a fishy texture. We wandered around downtown for a while longer before we decided we should try and find our way back to the subway. We stopped for a fruity looking dessert and the girl who sold them to us had spent nine months in Australia and spoke good English. She was just getting off work and walked us to the subway. Here, we ate some spaghetti at a restaurant before finding our way back to our subway line and making our way back to the hotel’s shuttle pick-up. While standing on the subway, Dave commented on how many women were taking the subway. Looking around, we realized Dave was the only man on our entire subway car. We couldn’t quite figure this out and kept suggesting theories...there are way more women than men in Japan, more women work downtown, what could it be? Then, I finally noticed tiny English print under the large Japanese characters on the door that said Women Only. The women must have been getting harassed on the subway and they created cars specifically for the women. Once we realized, we started to laugh. None of the women seemed to mind Dave’s presence though.
We made it safely back to our hotel completely exhausted from the day. Today, we are both catching up on some work and then we may go over to Universal Studios Osaka for the evening. Tomorrow, we plan to go to Kyoto for the day.

Where are pictures?

We know many of you are anxious to see photos of our trip. We are just as anxious to show them to you but are having a hard time getting them posted on the blog without the blog shutting down completely. Dave is looking into the problem and we are sure to have a solution soon.
We have also changed the requirements to post on the blog so that you do not have to be a registered user. Please be sure to write. We would love to hear from you!

Departing Maui

Today we leave Maui to depart our international journey. We have had a great time here though the weather is not as nice as Kauai. Yesterday, it was 95 degrees and very humid. It was much too hot to be outside comfortably.
After we left Ka’anapali, we got the opportunity to stay at the Four Seasons in Wailea. The hotel is really beautiful with lots of fountains. It has been hot and overcast since arriving on this part of the island.
Our highlight of our time in Maui is when we got to drive the Hana Highway on Saturday with our friends Jana and Beth. The Hana Highway takes you along the north coast of Maui. Hana is the final destination, but most of the fun occurs along the way.
Our first stop was at a natural pool along the road where you could swim in icy water. Jana, Beth, and I hiked down off the road into the pool, but Dave, always the daredevil, decided to jump twenty feet from the road into the pool. Thankfully, he is still safe and sound.
Our next stop was off the Hana Highway into a town called Nahiku. After driving about five miles we reached a beautiful lookout on the ocean. It was breathtaking, but it got better. We hiked down a short path and found a natural pool right next to the ocean. You could climb into the pool and stand underneath a waterfall while watching the waves break on the rocks merely feet away. It was amazing.
Our next stop was at a place called The Blue Pool that was described as straight out of a Hollywood movie. That was no joke. After paying some locals two dollars to park on their property we hiked along the ocean for a few minutes and finally came across the Blue Pool. We regret that we didn’t bring our cameras along this hike because the pool was picture perfect and truly out of a movie. The Blue Pool was a large pool protected from the ocean by boulders. Feeding the large pool was the largest accessible waterfall we had seen thus far. The waterfall expanded about twelve feet across the rocks and was at least fifty feet high. You had to swim to the other side of the chilly pool but once you got across you could sit under the waterfall. We met some other honeymooners along our way who we walked to the pool with. Jokingly, Dave told them that we were also on our honeymoon and we had invited Jana and Beth along with us. They believed him and gave us a really strange look, but Beth was quick to correct that she and Jana lived on Maui and were just tagging along for the day. Scott and Melissa, our honeymooning friends, followed us to our next destination, Black Sand Beach.
As the name suggests, the beach is created by black pebbles getting eroded over time by the rising and falling of the tide until the pebbles turned to sand. Despite the signs warning of dangerous current, man of war, and jellyfish, Dave was the first to step into the water. Jana and I followed carefully. We only dipped our feet in though. There was a tunnel that you could walk through and see another view of the beach. Near Black Sand Beach were some caves you could swim into.
On the way to the caves was a sign telling of a Hawaiian legend. The story began "once upon a time" which led Jana and I to believe it would be a happy story. Unfortunately, the story was one of a Hawaiian princess who ran away from her cruel husband and hid in the caves. Her faithful maidservant accompanied her and fanned her in the heat. The husband saw the reflection of the fan in the still water and found the princess’ hiding place. He then killed her. Every year, shrimp come to the caves turning the water red and many Hawaiians believe it is to symbolize the innocent blood shed by the beautiful princess. Not exactly the happy ending we were looking for, but nonetheless the caves were really neat. Again, Jana and I climbed down the short trail to the water while Dave jumped ten feet into the cold water. We swam into the cave where there was a natural ledge formed in the water. We sat in there for a bit until I nearly froze to death and then we swam out into the sunshine.
Our last stop along the way was at Seven Sacred Pools. We barely made it before the sun set completely. We hiked at dusk for about ten minutes before arriving at the pools. The pools were created by a waterfall and turned into seven pools by the natural terrain. The pools ended in the ocean. Beth, Jana, and I were cold, hungry, and exhausted so we watched as Dave bounded up the rocky terrain to jump twenty feet off the waterfall into one pool and then another. We watched the sun set as it rained, but Dave continued to swim. He came back just as night set in. He was so excited about his waterfall jumping telling us that there was another waterfall forty more feet up that you could jump fifty feet into a pool of water. He can’t wait until next time we come to Maui to do that jump.
We proceeded to drive in the dark along the rest of the road. The company we rented the car from asked us to turn around at Hana since the road was gravel, but we had a three hour drive back that way and only two if we took the rest of the road. Everyone can be thankful for Dave’s skilled driving as we went along a bumpy gravel road along a cliff where we continuously saw commemorative crosses for people who must have perished off the side of the cliff and cattle milling in the road. We made it safely back to Kahului, where we began, and scarfed down dinner before calling it a night.
I had the wonderful coincidence of being in Maui at the same time as Jana’s sister, Paula, who was a very good friend of mine in high school. Paula, Jana, and I were able to go shopping while Dave golfed. It was great to spend quality time with such good friends.
I have one other funny story. When we arrived at the hotel, we started noticing men in black suits always sitting outside the elevator on our floor. Confused about why anyone would come to Maui to sit in chairs on the seventh floor of a hotel, I started joking with Dave that the FBI was after him. These men were in the chairs every single time we came or went from our room. One day, after leaving to go to lunch, we noticed one of the men sitting at a table alone a few tables away from us. The mystery was growing. Dave finally confronted one of the men about why he was spending his whole vacation sitting in a chair outside the elevator. It turns out we weren’t too far off. The men were Secret Service agents protecting a French diplomat vacationing at the hotel. We have now befriended the agents.
We have a nine hour flight to Japan today at 1 pm. We will be sixteen hours ahead of Mountain Standard Time in Japan. Our first destination is Osaka.