Can you write several posts about a nine-day experience?
Well, I am going to, at least, I want to.
It was 2012 when Brian and I, Ed and Cherie left for a November vacation in Germany. That was memorable for so many reasons. We reconnected with many old friends from our days living in that beautiful place.
That was our last real “vacation.” Each year Brian and I said we’d do something for our November wedding anniversary, but life became complicated. We did nothing, unfortunately, for those intense years.
I must set the stage for this epic journey we just experienced. My readers have followed all the tragedy that has beset our family, but a new reader may need a setting.
This trip to Japan arose out of that chaotic past.
In the midst of Ed’s cancer he began to learn Japanese. Interested in languages for several years even before that he honed in on Japanese after learning a bit of Esperanto, then some Russian, and dabbling in German.
At that time Cherie and Margaret had discovered Korea and all its pop culture charm. A natural at foreign language, Cherie picked some Korean up.
I was late to the party, but my interest in East Asia came in the months after Brian’s death. China was as far away as I could get from my own circumstances, physically. God works in mysterious ways. The spark caught fire, and we three began a new phase.
When time and opportunity presented itself we struck our chance to actually go to East Asia, and since Ed had the best reasons to experience his language we chose Japan first. We celebrated his graduation from the University of Minnesota College of Engineering in computer engineering. This was a graduation gift, of sorts. It was also a long anticipated vacation.
Finding bargain airfare and hotel facilitated the experience! Also, the economic powers handed us a strong dollar in Japan.
We did “bargain Japan.”
So, how did it go?
All three of us look forward to going back, and Ed is going forward with a possible move to Japan.
We had some distinct advantages, for one, our son and daughter-in-law’s friends live in Japan. These two sisters have chosen to move there and pursue interesting careers. The older sister is an artist, as well as a TV personality there. She produces documentaries there.
She knows Japan, and speaks the language. She was the perfect person to guide us.
After a 13 hour flight from Montreal to Tokyo we got a taxi from Narita airport to our hotel in Koto. That was expensive, but three tired travelers and luggage justified the expense. We checked into our hotel that evening.
Sunday morning we followed our friend’s directions to the subway and found our way to Shibuya crossing, the one with the statue of the dog, Hachi. The crossing is also extremely famous in Japan. It’s one you may have seen on video clips: thousands of people criss-crossing an intersection at once. It’s ordered chaos. We did it a couple of times.
It works pretty well!
That Sunday there was a celebration of Hachi the dog being 100 years ago. You can imagine the crowds. That plaza is popular for gatherings. In the times we were there we saw protests and new pop groups, as well as the celebration event for Hachi.
Our friends took us to a hot pot restaurant in that area where we each got a bowl of boiling broth and we cooked our own meats and vegetables.
I learned something I thought interesting: Lotus root is popular in East Asia, but it was difficult to obtain in America. Water chestnuts have a similar texture and essence of lotus root. Asian cuisine in America substituted them for the traditional favorite. I got to try lotus root and I really liked it. It looks interesting in a hot pot, too.
We were blessed to have a good friend fly in from Seoul, Korea for the afternoon with us! We enjoyed a relaxing time over hot pot. I think that is the reason for this type of meal–just a time to catch up with each other over good food. It takes a bit of time to cook it so you must slow down.
Our objective in Japan was Japanese Gardens, as many as we could see in a non-frenzied way. Having a theme for the week was pivotal to our sense of accomplishment.
The first Sunday was a trial run on the subway system, Monday we walked five miles from our hotel to the Imperial gardens —-which were closed—and then took the subway “home.” Just walking the streets of Tokyo was fascinating.
We also discovered the joys of convenience stores in Japan: coffee, rice and filling wrapped in seaweed (laver) as a satisfying meal, anything needed, and so convenient! We stopped in to a grocery store for fruit, too. One of my goals was to buy a particular apple in Japan. They have the world’s largest apples. I found something that may be akin to it, an apple/pear fruit that was perfectly sweet and delicious. The large apple I eventually found was also good.
Jet lag hit us some those first two days, so we were happy to keep it light. On Tuesday we took the subway to the Imperial gardens, spent several hours walking around and then headed back to the hotel.
The gardens are free to enter on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays.
Japanese maples were just starting to turn, but we learned that the colors were “disappointing” this year. I thought the subtle color was lovely.
We ate at a sort of fast food restaurant, very inexpensive. I had udon, which is a thicker noodle soup. Ed and Cherie both had a rice dish with meat. Very satisfying.
That night we made reservations for the Shincansen, bullet train, to Kyoto and back, for Wednesday.
This was also sort of pricey, but with a shorter time span in Japan it made sense to spend the cost of quick transportation. I will cover Kyoto in the next post.
As I recover from jet lag here at home I have to get things back in order here. Dogs and cats did well with our new friends who stayed and house-sat. Still, they clearly missed us and have been sticking close to us since we returned. There is a lot to catch up on, and a Thanksgiving meal to prepare for tomorrow. I was called in to the hotel to work, too, already, so —More to come!