We are sad our last day here is over.
We had a amazing time in Japan . There was so much that we saw. As we recapped our 8 days tonight over dinner at the local ramen diner, we couldn’t really pinpoint our favorite day. There were so many. We will not miss the packed subways. We experienced rush hour tonight on the way home…we were like sardines. It was nuts!

We toured the Imperial Palace grounds today and I would have to say “eh” it was ok. It was nothing compared to nikko, but cool in its own way I guess. After that we hit all the shops we wanted to visit before we headed home. Another day of putting in about 17,000 steps! We are pooped!
I hope you have enjoyed reading about our trip. I’m not the best writer, but hopefully you felt you were along for the ride with us!!

It was neat to see women in their traditional dress!

One last funny thing. We were in the grocery store near our apartment and saw this shirt! Too funny!

We took our last day trip today to Kamakura. Kamakura has a beach which, in combination with its temples and proximity to Tokyo, makes it a popular tourist destination. The Daibutsu (Buddha) is made of bronze and is 30ft tall. It was impressive.
We walked around and saw more beautiful temples and headed to the beach. Dipped our toes in the Pacific Ocean and had lunch beachside. It was a great day!
I’m keeping this short and sweet because I’m beat!!

Harajuku is known internationally as a center of Japanese youth culture and fashion. It is crazy crowded and as far as fashion goes, nothing is out! To quote Karen when we saw an acid washed long pants jumper that has elastic around the ankles “acid wash came to Japan in the 80’s and never left”. Seriously, every fad was represented. Nothing is “out”. Everyone has their own way of being unique and they commit to it! They totally accept the others style. It was great!

The streets were lined with all kinds of shops. Of coarse Karen’s favorites were the CosPlay shops. She was beside herself with giddiness! If you are unfamiliar with CosPlay, it is when you dress up as your favorite anime character or those Lolita dresses.
Like this

it is HUGE here in Japan. At one point while in a store Karen just looked around and said “what is going on!” She didn’t know where to begin to look. It was really cool.
The pictures are the only way to explain this place, so here they are!

Zoom in on the photo above. It is a sea of people stretching down the street!

The day ended with offers of free hugs. Crazy day but really fun!

Today we went to the Studio Ghibli museum. It’s a museum dedicated to animated movies from The studio of Hayao Miyazaki.

Miyazaki has attained international acclaim as a masterful storyteller and as a maker of anime feature films and, along with Isao Takahata, co-founded Studio Ghibli, a film and animation studio. The success of Miyazaki’s films has invited comparisons with American animator Walt Disney, British animator Nick Park, and American director Steven Spielberg. – Wikipedia

It was a really magical museum. They set up the rooms as if they were the animators private room where they create the ideas and characters and story board the films. The walls were covered with drawings and paintings. Boxes of used pencils lay on the floor. A coffee cup and an ashtray with what looked like used cigarettes but there was no dark ash, just broken up butts were on the desk. Anyway, it was great! Unfortunately we couldn’t take pictures inside. But we got some of the outside!

After the museum we headed to Akihabara, the electronic and anime district. It was nuts. People yelling selling goods, girls dressed up as anime characters trying to get you to go to their anime cafe, not to mention the throngs of people.

from there we headed to Tokyo Tower. Here is a typical shot in the train

Just like us… Glued to our phones!

On the way to Tokyo tower we passed a Buddhist shrine. It’s is so neat to see the very old blended alongside the new.

Nikko (“sunlight” or “sunshine”) is a city in the mountains of Tochigi Prefecture, Japan. Approximately 85 miles north of Tokyo it is a popular destination for Japanese and international tourists. Attractions include the mausoleum of shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu (Nikkō Tōshō-gū), and the Futarasan Shrine, which dates to the year 767. There are also many famous hot springs. -Wikipedia

Ok so now you have a very short synopsis of where we went yesterday. It was breathtaking! It’s no wonder it has a title of a World Heritage Site. We set out to catch the fast train at 6:30am for our 2 hour ride to Tobu-Nikko. The ride there was neat. We saw the countryside and loads of rice fields.

We got there and bought a round trip bus pass for the Nikko area. Very reasonable. Hop on and off pass that took you up into the mountains was $20 a piece! The mountain village itself is so quaint but the treasure lies up hundreds of steps in the forest. I think by far this was one of our best days.

The Shinkyo Sacred bridge was our first stop.

The water was so crystal clear. It was gorgeous.

Our trek began up these stairs into the forest!

Look closely at the carvings of the wooden shrine above. Those are the famous “hear no evil, speak no evil,see no evil” monkeys.

From there it was one awesome shrine/ temple after another.

From there we hopped on the bus to take us to the mountain lake and to see Kegon falls. It was a very cute town about a half hour up the mountain. We stopped for lunch. Again no English menu, luckily they had plastic likeness’ of the food in the window so we could just point!

We returned to Tobu-Nikko station in time to catch a train back to Shinjuku. Our first day trip was over. It was awesome!

By the way, the last time I was in Nikko was with my two brothers Jay and Greg. I remember seeing the monkey shrine, but I don’t think we climbed the second set of 100+ steps to get to the other shrines! I think we were too worried we were going to miss the only train back to Tokyo… Fun times!

We left the apartment early to get to the Tsukiji fish market. Traveling in the thick of rush hour was interesting! Just when the train rolled into a station and I thought “those people on the platform are bummed. No way are they going to get on this car. It’s too full” they just stepped on the car and backed it in packing us in like sardines. Which I guess was appropriate, given where we were going!

Tsukiji Fish Market

It’s said that nearly 20% of the worlds fish go through this market everyday.
We only went into the retail part of the market. The wholesale part where they hold the tuna auctions can be toured, but you need to be there by 4am! No thanks! It was cool walking around, vendors yelling greetings in Japanese. Trying to get people to stop and buy their fish or produce.
We stopped for a brunch of sushi because we figured it couldn’t get any fresher than fresh caught! It was fantastic

Here are a few more shots of the market. Notice how large the tuna head is! That’s a bike wheel next to it! I was standing back, not up close!
Also what is with that stuffed bob cat. That was a little weird. I’m sure somehow it went!

My old hood.
From Tsukiji we went to Shibuya, which is like the Times Square of Japan. This was just a brief stop before heading to my old house

It was crowded and the whole intersection stopped to let everyone cross all sides at once!
We got back on the train and headed to my stop, Kaminoge. Walking from the train station to my house, we passed the grocery store that I used to ride my bike to. It is looking a little rundown.

Then we came to my house. It was just the three younger kids that moved with my parents to Japan. Diana, Greg and I but everyone came to visit. What a great memory! The house is looking a little beat after 28 years!

From there we walked along the canal to my school. Taking the same path that Diana and I walked everyday!

My classroom was on the top floor of the building where those large windows and balconies are. Once we came into view of the school, the image of it came flooding back. I was surprised that I had forgotten what it looked like, but then all at once it looked familiar and I remembered! Very cool!

Intimidated!

 We landed at the airport, got our train passes and headed to the apartment. That part was easy. The train system that we were on had the stop announcements in Japanese and English, which was a relief. We met our rental host, Makoto, at the station and he couldn’t have been more friendly. Pointing out different restaurants and the grocery store. Giving us the lay of the land. We got settled in our apartment and hit the streets to explore.

That was intimidating! The thought of going in and ordering at a restaurant or walking into a storefront was overwhelming. The streets were bustling! It is a very cool neighborhood loads of restaurants down every street and pachinko parlors. Which are essentially slot machine parlors. We finally did go into the supermarket. Picked up some essentials, coffee, beer a little dinner in their prepared foods section.
Today we will have to go into a restaurant. I suspect once we get into the heart of things and out of the suburb there will be more English on the menus or pictures!

For now, here is the early morning view from our apartment

Learning the basic walk around phrases is my plan for our upcoming trip to Japan. I need to know just enough to be dangerous!

When we went to France last year, I found an app that really appealed to my inner 8 year old. Mind snacks

It is a great combination of seeing, hearing and playing! The games are short and fun.

Everyone is different when it comes to learning a language. For me, I guess I haven’t progressed past the 2nd grade in learning style!

Mind Snacks is a semi free app. It’s free to download but only comes with one lesson. It’s $4.99 for all the lessons for one particular language and $17.99 for all the languages. Pretty much every language is represented. It’s well worth the $4.99 but download it for free and test drive it to make sure you like it!

So if you are traveling and want a fun way to learn a language. Check out Mind Snacks.

Ja Mata!
Good bye!

It’s official! We are headed to Japan!

It has been a dream of mine since I left Japan(1986), that one day I would return. It is going to be particularly special that I am returning with my own family, not to mention Karen will be the exact age I was the last time I was there.

We have only booked the airline tickets, but we are in the process of finding an apartment to rent while we are there. There is a website called homeway.com that hosts properties from around the world that are available to rent for vacations. This is what we did for France and it was awesome, not mention it was about $100 cheaper per night! I highly recommend it to you if you are looking to book a vacation.

Now our research and planning for our trip begins!