A Very Delayed Japanuary Post

We've been on the road more than we've been at home this year, and while we have loved every minute we've been with family and friends, we are really looking forward to a full summer at home in Bend. These last 4 months have been pretty hectic and rough, and though we weathered through it pretty well, we're ready for some down time.

That's not to say we haven't had the most awesome time traveling - we love, love, love Japan. This time around, we only spent a few days in Tokyo and we spent a majority of our time up in Hokkaido, the northernmost island of Japan, close to Russia. 

"I can see Russia from my hotel!"

Signs in Japanese, English, Chinese, Korean and Russian.

Hokkaido has some of the best snow (powder) in the world - or as Mike likes to refer to it, "Japow." Mike and our friends Ray, Tanya, and Josh all went snowboarding and skiing, while Bernice and I went to the Sapporo Beer Garden, sampled a couple bowls of local ramen, spent hours in a Japanese photo booth, and stuffed ourselves with Japanese pastries. Sure, they were snowboarding/skiing on waist deep, world class powder. But, I'd venture to say Bernice and I had more fun!

Mike, Tanya, Josh and Ray ready to shred! Photo by Ray Gilman.

Mike on the slopes. Shot by the professional photog - don't know his name

Bernice and I grabbing breakfast at the bakery.

The Japanese bakeries are some of the best in the world. They take inspiration from the French and the Scandinavians, perfect it and then package it up a thousand times cuter. I think I visited a bakery every single day we were in town - and sometimes twice.

yes, that's a soft boiled egg INSIDE a savory doughnut topped with takoyaki sauce.

Outside the Sapporo Beer Garden

Sampling Hokkaido style ramen with miso broth

One of the best things we found was a Japanese photo booth. There were literally dozens of them on one floor of a shopping plaza. Each booth did something different - you can dress yourself up, write on your pictures, smooth out your skin, add make up, whatever. One booth had some weird looking Barbie-doll faced girls on it. It turned out this booth enlarged your eyes. I couldn't stop laughing. Even though everything was in Japanese, we dumped 100 yen coins into that machine until we figured it out. It took us hours but it was like a trip to the gym - my sides and abs ached from laughing so hard. We looked like anime characters!

We had so much fun we had to bring the guys back the next day.

Mike is such a good sport!

We ended the last few days of the trip with a major bonding experience - getting naked together in an onsen, and then getting thrown out of said onsen. The Japanese are unrelenting when it comes to tattoos. UNRELENTING. If Japanese people can be rude, that was probably the closest we got to experiencing it.

photo courtesy of Japanistas.

We then took a once in a lifetime trip to see the snow monkeys at the Jigokudani Snow Monkey Park. Although it took us a whole day to travel there, it was well worth the trip. We got to experience the infamous Shinkasen (the Japanese bullet train) and pretty much every other form of public transportation on our way.

The snow monkeys keeping warm in the hot springs. Photo by Ashley DeLuca.

A mother and her baby crossing the river.

monkeys, monkeys, everywhere!

You think they're staying clean and grooming each other, but there's poop in that water.

Mike and I really love Japan, and I'm sure we'll go back sometime soon, since we still have lots of stuff on our bucket list to accomplish there, like climbing Mt Fuji! But for now, we are glad to be home and back to our pets. With spring in the air, we can't wait to fix up the yard and continue on creating our mini pseudo "homestead." Maybe this will be the year I actually grow some plants!

Sayōnara, Tokyo, until next time!

As our Tokyo trip wound down, we packed as much as we could into each day, making carefully plotted and planned itineraries, and packing our backpacks with band-aids and bottles of water. We were on a mission. 

We made a special effort to get to a Tokyo skatepark. We were totally impressed by the little kids shredding it up here! I think it made Mike and Josh feel old.

The larger skate park, with its gnarly ramps. BMX bikers used it as well.

Josh and Mike on one of the ramps they had in the back!

Another long trek took us to the Tokyo National Museum. This is where many of the most special Japanese artifacts and historical treasures are housed. It is comprised of 7 main buildings, 6 outlying buildings, and parks and gardens. Basically, it's too big to see everything all at once, so we did the best we could and tackled a couple of the main exhibits.

A whole room full of samurai swords. Wish they had more info in English!

One of the most interesting things I saw was the Buddha, in stone and sculptural pieces from early AD, from three Asian countries - China, India, and Japan. I loved seeing the similarities and differences between each country's take on their deity.

The Buddha as represented by India (almost always sitting, usually in Lotus).

Buddha carvings (statue and the reliefs in the back) in limestone from China.

Japan's take on the Buddha - with guardians.

My favorite piece was this contemporary (1881) piece by Miyagawa Kozan. Those two crabs looked so real in person, that it seemed like they were taxidermied and attached to the bowl, but they're porcelain.

This bowl is representative of Satsuma-style pottery.

I will say that America has something to learn from Asia, in terms of museums and public availability. Every museum Mike and I visited on our trip, from the Hong Kong History Museum to the Macau Museum, cost less than $6.00 to enter. In comparison, the LA Natural History Museum cost $12-$20, and the Art Institute of Chicago cost $27.00. Shouldn't we, as a society, want people to be educated and exposed to history and art? I think if our entrance fees were a little more affordable, maybe we'd have a few less ignorant people. 

One place Mike was determined to see, was the Lucky Cat Shrine, otherwise known as the Gotokuji Temple. I'm sure you've seen Lucky Cats in random Asian restaurants and stores. The original Lucky Cat's name was Tama, and he helped this particular temple flourish, and with it, his legend. Although it's a little bit outside of Tokyo, in the suburb of Setagaya, it was worth the trek.

The Lucky Cat Shrine, and many people's offerings.

The grounds of the temple are beautiful and include a cemetery and several other temples and shrines. You can purchase porcelain lucky cat statues here, to leave at the shrine as an offering (which we did), or to bring home and give yourself some luck (which we also did). Mike wanted one for Subietech HQ, so we got the largest one! He hand-carried that sucker back to the US.

Ringing the bell and leaving an offering at the temple.

Leaving another offering (can't have too many prayers!) of a little cat.

You can also purchase prayer boards, on which you write a wish/hope/prayer and leave, with an offering, at the temple. I got one and wrote a little hope for our future. I think we covered our wishing and praying for the day.

So many prayers, and ours just one of the bunch.

We continued our cat theme with a stop for drinks at a cat café! This was one of Bernice's must-dos for Tokyo, and as all of us are cat lovers, we were happy to oblige. I must say, with all the rules they have at this place (wear their provided slippers, wash your hands, don't bring in your bags, etc), these are some of the luckiest and cleanest cats alive. The room looked like a crazy cat girl exploded.

everything in this entire room is for the kitties and scratchable!

Of course the cat café was right near the Harujuku District, so that was our next stop. There are no words for the insanity here.

A shot of Takeshita Dori (Takeshita Street), stuffed with fashion stores.

We stopped in at a Daiso, one of my favorite Japanese stores, on their main street, and bought a package of 20 masks for less than $1.00! We randomly wore them around town for the rest of the trip, and amusingly, no one even took notice. I wonder what kind of looks I'd get if I did this in Bend.

Josh and Bernice going incognito on Takeshita Dori.

Next, we walked up the street to the Meiji Shrine, which was built in the early 1900's to honor the deified spirits of Emperor Meiji and the Empress Shoken. It is surrounded by over 100,000 trees, donated from all over Japan. It is a natural oasis in the middle of Tokyo.

The forested path to the Shrine.

Many sake brewers make offers each year to the Emperor and Empress.

The 40 ft tall Torii gate, made from 1,500 year old Cypress trees from Taiwan.

Cleansing our hands and mouths in the traditional way, prior to entering the shrine.

You can purchase prayer boards here, or simply write a prayer on a piece of paper, and drop it in the box with a little donation. Since we'd already spent the whole morning praying at the Gotokuji Temple, we just prayed on paper here. 

Mike, deep in thought, before the rows and rows of prayer boards.

the courtyard of the main shrine

Our final pilgrimage of the trip was to the Mecca for all Subaru lovers, the STI Gallery. This is a museum dedicated solely to Subaru STIs. In case you have no idea what I'm talking about, this is a car that is famous for excelling in rally racing (motor races along actual roads, rather than a track). If you'd like to see all the pictures from this museum, you can go to the Subietech HQ website, or "like" them on Facebook. 

To the untrained eye, this is a museum full of blue cars.

The museum is in Mitaka, which is about an hour on public transit from Tokyo. So understandably, they don't get a lot of visitors - only a few a week. The museum manager, Ken, spoke perfect English and was happy to answer questions and let Mike and Josh peek under the hoods.

Mike and Josh geeking out with the museum manager.

We had the whole museum to ourselves.

The treatment we received at the museum exemplified what we'd been experiencing all week in Japan. Everyone thanked us for liking Subarus, and acted really grateful that we had come to visit them. As a whole, the Japanese people were very polite and gracious to visitors, and we really came to appreciate and love Tokyo, despite all the communication difficulties. Next year, we will be sure to learn a lot more Japanese before we go!

It is worth mentioning that we were in these countries while some major events went down - the protests in Hong Kong, and the eruption of Mt. Ontake. While we were not physically affected, it does affect us emotionally, and I have been thinking about those whose lives were lost or changed. Life is precious and unpredictable. Be sure you are living it, enjoying it, fulfilling your purpose and experiencing everything you can - none of us know how much time we are given.

A photo of Izumi Noguchi, right before the eruption.

Admiralty protests - Photo by Bill Kwan

Admiralty protests - Photo by Bill Kwan

Tokyo is Winning! at Food

Many, many people, even people who had not been to Tokyo, warned us about the cost of food in Japan. After 6 days in this delicious city, it is my assessment that these people must have eaten only hotel food, food from restaurants with English menus, and/or Michelin-starred restaurants. 

We did none of these things, for many reasons - we're cheap, have a sense of adventure, we're cheap... In fact, we pretty much did the opposite, starting with our first restaurant (in the Sumida ward, on Mukojima Street), in which the poor waitress/owner had to stand on a chair to point to pictures of their food (as the entire menu was in Japanese with no pictures). See below:

Fortunately some words such as "shishito" and "shitake," are already Japanese!

We wanted to try everything, so we paced ourselves and only ate "snack" size meals, so we could stop in at any restaurant we wanted. Case in point, about 2 hours after the above meal, we popped into a conveyor belt sushi joint, called "Sushi Go Round," in the Asakusa district. It was self serve green tea, ginger, wasabi, and soy, and fish was charged by the plate. It was some of the best sushi I've ever had. I meant to only eat a couple pieces, and ended up having 4 plates.

the plate prices are listed to the left, on the wall.

so fresh and so tempting as it cruises by, and so easy to just pull off the conveyor belt.

toro (tuna belly) for only 500 yen, which is about $4.80.

We kept passing a little joint on our street (Mukojima) that had pictures of kobe beef in the windows. We took a chance and tried it. Although no one spoke a lick of English, a very kind fellow diner, who had spent a year in Australia and had perfect English, graciously helped us out.

our favorite friends to travel with, Josh and Bernice!

You can barely see it, but that bowl at the bottom of the picture above had a tiny grater and a salt rock in it, to grate onto the grill. Pretty neat. 

The gorgeous spread of beef. Unfortunately we couldn't read any of the labels!

That boat of beef melted like butter in your mouth. We couldn't stop thinking about it, especially since the meal cost less than $20/person - including our drinks, side dishes, and a huge salad with tofu so silky fresh, Mike even helped himself to seconds (and he hates tofu). Bernice swore it was just like burrata. So we went back two nights later and ordered the same thing, and then some.

One day we found ourselves in the Yokohama subway station, which is attached to an enormous, multi-level mall. The entire underground level was all restaurants and bakeries. We were starving and started deciding where we'd like to eat by staring at the fake food in the front windows. If all else fails, you can always run outside and take pictures of what you'd like to order. Katsu (food breaded in panko bread crumbs and fried) won out.

this entire meal set was only $10.00 USD!

Since the restaurant specialized in katsu, some items were unidentifiable until you bit into them. I lucked out with my order - I could tell what the shrimp and the Japanese eggplant were, but the circular thing on the left was a surprise. A pleasant surprise - it was a tender, succulent pork tenderloin medallion. YUM. The other things in the sadly over-exposed picture were shredded cabbage salad, Japanese potato salad, clam miso soup (with the cutest, tiniest mini-clams!), chawan mushi (an egg custard with mushroom, cilantro, and shrimp), and pickled Japanese veggies. 

After that meal, even though I was stuffed, I had to try Beard Papa since I was in Japan (there's several of them in Los Angeles). It tasted the same as in the States, so we're not missing out on anything!

Happy to report that the US Beard Papa is just as good!

As our confidence with communicating improved, we took more risks and ate in more dives, hole-in-the-walls, and random food stands. One late night, Bernice and I were craving ramen, and stumbled into this little place by the Sumida River.

this tiny ramen joint only had 8 seats and two choices for ramen.

Ramen topped with slivered wood ear mushroom, nori, egg, pork, and green onions.

Another day, we passed by a man selling yakitori (various meats and veggies, usually chicken, grilled on skewers over charcoal), so we stopped for a snack.

Josh and Bernice ogling the various yakitori - under $1.00 per stick!

Mike enjoying chicken grilled with leeks/onions.

We were wandering home from the subway that same day, and taking a wrong turn, we found another random stand - for sushi! Normally, I wouldn't buy sushi from a random street stand. But they had lots of customers, and hey, when in Rome, right? Besides, for 500 yen ($4.80) per roll, how could we pass it up? Although heavy on the rice, the fish was swimmingly fresh.

Yes, I wore my yoga pants around Tokyo - we were eating a lot!

Mike doing the ordering.

On one of our last days in Tokyo, we finally made it to Ramen Street, where there are dozens of little ramen restaurants, with greeters calling you at every doorway, trying to convince you to come in. When you do finally step in, they show you to the vending machine and walk away. 

I know, I was thinking the same thing - ramen from a vending machine?!?

Turns out you just order the ramen, gyoza, drinks, etc. from the machine, and it gives you a ticket, which you hand to the waitress. They bring out your food, and that's it! No money has to exchange hands, and the waitresses don't have to be bothered with people's bills. Quite clever, really.

Enjoying our meal! Yum.

I was so happy to have Bernice with me on this trip, because she loves food just as much as I do, and gets excited about things like miso-marinated beef tongue, and says "Yum!" instead of "Eww!" when I order liver skewers. I can't wait until we go back - 6 days was not enough to try everything we saw. I didn't get to try okonomiyaki (savory Japanese pancakes), takoyaki (octopus stuffed into little dough balls), mochi (rice flour treats), or the crepe cones (crepes rolled up like ice cream cones with fresh fruit and whipped cream)! There just wasn't enough room in my stomach. So until next time, Tokyo!

At a late night izakaya, where we had a private room.