Just Two Gai-Jin in Japan

Sayonara, Nippon

2007-11-15T12:16:00.000+09:00

Here we are at the end of our Japan adventure.

It is been an incredible ride, which of course is what we had hoped for.

When we made the decision to come to Japan, we were looking for many things - adventure, new friends, exposure to a new culture, and experience overseas, so we could get other work with NGOs, the UN, or international agencies.

Well, we've gotten everything we were looking for and more.

We have made some life-long friends, which in the end, is the most important part. Ancient shrines and strange food are exciting, but it's the people in your life that really matter.

We swam in the sea and hiked in the jungle on Okinawa's Ishigaki and Iriomote islands.

We sat in steaming natural hot baths (onsen) in Oita prefecture, and climbed the lovely Mt. Yufu (Yuku-dake) with dear friends from both Japan and California.

We ate strange foods like horse meat, squid, and seaweed, although my (Serenity's) school lunches likely topped them all.

We've explored the jungle of Tokyo and hiked the ancient stone steps of mountains, cheered at a SoftBank Hawks baseball game, explored ancient Buddha carvings in the forests of Utsuke, sat eye-to-eye with monkeys in Beppu, peered into ancient volcanic craters in Kirishima, rowed a canoe in the deep gorges of Takachiho, strolled the streets and experienced the remains of the atomic bombing in Nagasaki, and endured countless hours of struggling to use the Japanese language, or helping others to use ours.

Through it all, we have come away with even more love than we started with, and a courage and hope that has been cultivated in smiles and successes. Not that the last 16 months haven't been without misunderstandings, frustrations, anger, sadness and fear. But these things have helped us to stand where we do today - at the edge of adventure, peering through the eyes of growing understanding of the Earth on which we live.

For all of this I thank first and foremost our families for giving us the support we needed to take the first steps into the world both in our own lives, and together. Also, I thank everyone in Japan who has given us smiles and cheers when we needed them, listened to our gripes, and shared their own experiences with us.

That said, it's time to move on, and we can now bring the spirit of "ganbate!!" with us.

Sayonara, Nippon!

SoftBank Hawks game

2007-10-08T09:15:00.000+09:00

Thanks to our friends Keiko and Katsume, we got to go to a Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks baseball game!

Here's the Yahoo Dome in Fukuoka City

Here's Will with friends at the game!

There's more photos! Click on this link to Flickr to see them!

Go Hawks!

Japan Eats on Flickr

2007-07-22T14:31:00.000+09:00

There's now a collection of photos on Flickr of the various food encounters we've had here - just click here to see it!

Yufu-dake, monkeys & drunken samurai-wanna-bees

2007-07-08T16:55:00.001+09:00

The last weekend that my cousin Derek & my buddy Jerry were here, we all went with some friends to hike up Yufu-dake in nearby Oita-ken, which borders the Pacific Ocean on the other side of Kyushu.

Here's the group (minus Katsume, who took the photo).
Back row: (L to R) Jerry, Derek & Me
Front Row: (L to R) Keiko, Ryisuko, Misako & the giggly one is Serenity.

The trail was beautiful, first going through green forests & ferns.

Near the very top, the trees were gone and the trail wound through pink azaleas. You can see the crater (it's an old volcano) to the left, and there were two peaks to climb. The clouds/steam made a wall of white so it was hard to see into the crater.

Derek & me up on the rock, Katsume below at the summit of the easier of the two peaks.

The other peak was steeper and more challenging.

Katsume scaling up the steep walls.

Serenity had no problems.

And Derek was just showing off.

At the top, the clouds moved in.

Katsume at the edge of the world.

Serenity & I at the summit.

Derek doing his best Rocky Balboa impression at the top.

That night we all rented a big house in the town of Yufuin which sat at the bottom of the mountain.

Everyone enjoying BBQ & beer after a long hike.

Misako tending the BBQ - Japanese style. Small, thin pieces of meat and vegetables are cooked and everyone kind of picks them off and eats as they are cooked.

I think Katsume's making fun of my traditional Japanese style housecoat.

Remember what I wrote earlier about Jerry spitting up while in Japan?

Pretty sure this was taken right before he did...on the tatami mat. And his Japanese housecoat. And his bathrobe. No more sake for Jerry.

The next morning, slightly hungover, we headed out.

No, wait...that's not us. But we felt similar. Especially Jerry.

We visited a nearby mountain where wild monkeys still inhabit part of Japan.

Well, I say wild, but they are fed now by keepers. There was a problem with monkeys attacking people for food, so they've kind of cordoned off the area. But there are no cages, and these guys just run wild between your legs.

And being in Japan, of course you are subjected to second-hand smoke...even if you are a monkey.

Derek & Jerry on the opposite side of the Pacific Ocean from where they normally reside. This is about the same latitude as San Diego.

Last we visited a natural hot spring, where the extremely hot mineral water has turned the pool red. This is not for bathing - just looking.

Serenity & me in front of "Blood red Hell," as it was called.

How romantic.

The three stooges in Kyushu

2007-06-28T08:57:00.001+09:00

Thought I'd throw up some more photos of Derek & Jerry's visit. After coming back from Tokyo, I had some time off, so we toured around Kyushu. Unfortunately, Serenity had to work, so she's not in any of these photos.

Our first day back at our house the three of us headed to Homan-san, the mountain in the nearby town of Dazaifu. Dazaifu is famous for its temple, and this mountain has 300+ year old stone steps that go to the top.

We started our journey on a path many monks took hundreds of years ago.

Derek meditating on top of Homan-san next to the Shinto Shrine, looking out over the valley.

Back down at the town of Dazaifu, on the grounds of Ten-man-gu Temple (the temple is not pictured here, but off behind the trees. The spring flowers were out and because it was a weekday it was empty - so beautiful.

The next day I had to work, so I sent Derek & Jerry off to visit Nagasaki. They had a great time, but I have no pictures.

So on Thursday and Friday, we toured around Fukuoka and Kurume.

Here's Derek (left) and Jerry climbing the old Fukuoka Castle walls.

It wasn't too hot (they had excellent weather the whole trip), but after walking around Tokyo for three days, hiking up Homan-san, and walking around Nagasaki, the legs were getting tired.

We rested on the bridge over the moat to Fukuoka Castle. The moat has filled with lilly pads.

Later one night we went to a traditional Japanese izakaya, where we enjoyed some basashi, or raw horse meat.

We went to find the Sea of Japan, which even I hadn't seen yet, and found this bay surrounded by a ferris wheel, so we took a ride.

Looking out from the ferris wheel.

A beautiful view of the bay and the many islands out on the Sea of Japan.

It was so romantic, Jerry couldn't contain himself.

One of our party got swallowed up by the "Jumbo Godzilla."

Another nice meal at the Yatai stalls along the river in Fukuoka. The Ramen is famous here, but Derek also enjoyed some octopi.

After the meal we had the chef take our picture...and immediately after this picture he dropped and broke Jerry's camera. Jerry wasn't smiling after that.

The following weekend we went with some other friends to climb a mountain Yufu-dake with some friends, and stayed over night at a traditional Japanese house. But more pictures from the weekend in the next post.

Anyway, the last Monday before they left for Kyoto and eventually home Derek, Jerry & I visited Nokonoshima, one of the islands off of Fukuoka.

Derek on the ferry boat over to the island.

We just relaxed and walked along the beach. The water is extremely warm - probably in the upper 70s.

Jerry showing off his shells from the beach, with Fukuoka in the background.

The biggest city in the world

2007-06-18T11:59:00.001+09:00

The first weekend in June Serenity & I flew to Tokyo for the weekend to meet up with my friend Jerry and my cousin Derek, who were coming in for a two-week visit.

The first morning we headed out to see the Imperial Palace, home of the Emperor. Here is Jerry & Derek posing in front of the moat.

We walked around the gardens inside the palace grounds, filled with azalea and iris around the Koi ponds.

But you can't visit Tokyo without seeing the Yasukuni-jinja, the controversial shrine dedicated to the many Japanese people who have died in wars of the past.

Derek, me & Jerry in front of a Kamikaze plane.

That night we went out on the town for some good food. Derek, Serenity & Jerry looking a little lost. No worries.

The next morning we visited the Asakusa Temple near our hotel, a famous temple in Japan.

That's Derek with the sunglasses on, cleansing his hands with the fountain water. You're supposed to clean your hands and sip a little of the water to cleanse your inner soul before entering the temple.

If you click this one to enlarge, you can see Jerry spitting back into the fountain. It turns out it wasn't the only thing he spit up while visiting. More on that in another post.

After visiting the temple, we looked for something to eat.

Here's Jerry, debating whether to feast on some endangered whale.

We eventually decided on this sushi place.

Derek wondering what he just ate.

Here's what Derek just ate...any guesses?

We ventured off through the city for some more sightseeing.

We came across this traditional ceremony, a bunch of people dressed up and playing music while hauling this shrine down the street.

Some of them really got into the ceremony, traditional dress and all. (buttcheeks were optional)

Visiting a garden by the Meji-jinja later that day, making sure to photograph the wildlife.

Serenity & I in Shibuya...yet another crowded intersection.

After dinner, we enjoyed some drunken Karaoke. In Japan, Karaoke is sung in private rooms...thank God.

The next day, nursing hangovers (was it from the beer or Serenity's singing?) we headed to Tsukiji Fish Market, where the sushi comes in fresh from the polluted waters of Tokyo Bay.

Us enjoying a bit of fried squid and fishcakes on the sidewalk.

Inside Tsukiji market...where they don't sell just fish.

Anyone for a stuffed endangered Panda? A nice stuffed osprey? Polar Bear? Sea Turtle? Lynx? Tiger? (Not all pictured here)

We visited another garden next to Tokyo Bay later that day.

Good thing Jerry was there to hold up this Tori...

After a three-day weekend in Tokyo, the guys were ready to visit good ol' Tachiarai...

Mighty Morphin Power Rangers...Unite!

More photos from the rest of their visit later...

Takachiho

2007-05-31T08:33:00.000+09:00

Last weekend Serenity & I went to the mountain town of Takachiho for our first wedding anniversary. It's a small town tucked in the hills, famous for it's beautiful gorge.

A short walk from town down to the river leads to the gorge, where you are surrounded by greenery. It was definately one of the prettiest places we've seen in Japan.

We took a ride on a rowboat through the gorge past the waterfall, weaving between the many other boats (most people had no idea how to steer the boats, and there were a few traffic jams).

Serenity enjoys the boat ride while I rowed us along, careful not to row underneath the waterfall.

At the bottom of the gorge, just above the rowboats, were restaurants and plenty of fish ponds. Most of them had koi, but this one was full of Rainbow trout. We rested with a beer and watched this little girl pull one trout after another from the pond.

That night we went for some niku (meat). Some restaurants have this kind of BBQ at the table, sometimes gas (like this one) and sometimes charcoal. They serve you small strips of meat and vegetables and you cook it yourself. Delicious! (oishii!)

The next day we went to visit some more shrines in the town that were tucked away in the trees.

Here I am washing my hands before entering the shrine.

We didn't know until we sat for a while, but this shrine is for couples. The two trees are tied together with the ritual straw rope, and couples hold hands and walk around the trees three times. So, since it was our anniversary, we wrote our names on a prayer placard (hanging below on the fence) and then walked around three times for good luck. (This was after watching enough older couples to assure it wasn't a fertility shrine...)

This guy stood guard outside of Amano-Iwato-jinja, a shrine where the sun goddess used to live.

The trail to the sun-goddess' shrine went along the beautiful creek. That's Serenity standing on the bridge.
Here's the sun-goddess' shrine, sitting in a big cave right next to the creek. The entire area was covered with little piles of stacked rocks, each one a request to the goddess for a prayer to be answered.

We walked farther upstream to get away from people and found a nice section on the creek to relax in peace.

It was a perfect weekend and a beautiful area...

Next weekend, off to Tokyo...

Springtime in Fukuoka-ken

2007-05-13T11:17:00.000+09:00

Springtime in Kyushu is beautiful...the weather has been perfect.

The first weekend of April was the last of the sakura, or cherry blossom.
Serenity and I headed to Akizuki, the small town in the hills near Tachiarai, about a two hour leisurely bike ride from our house.
The town is home to ruins of an old castle, and many, many cherry trees.

There was a main path lined with blossoms, shops, food and plenty of people.

On the grounds of the old castle, people set up for picnics underneath the cherry blossoms. Most people drink plenty of alcohol while doing so. It's a Japanese tradition. We ate our picnic here, though we broke the mold and didn't sit underneath a cherry tree.

This area was selling rice wine, sake, and other beverages. After you make your purchase, this guy lets you dig your hands in the pot and pull out as much rice as you can.

Serenity underneath the trees on the main path.

This is the bridge over the old moat that surrounded the castle. The water was covered in cherry blossoms, and when the wind blew it looked like it was snowing.

Vendor selling ume-mochi (rice cakes cooked with plum filling).

We rode our bikes around the town and found some beautiful spots tucked between the hills.

This huge tree was growing right out of the old stone wall above the creek.

The shrine at the top of the old castle ruins.

Up close shot of the sakura. Looks alot like almond blossoms in Chico, but no scent.

The next weekend we spent the day in Fukuoka City with our friends Katsume & Keiko, and climbed to the top of another castle (again - just ruins...none of the castles survived World War II.)

The skyline of Fukuoka from the top of the castle ruins. The castle is actually right in the center of the city.

Serenity next to the lake at Ohori Park, which is next to the castle ruins.

We took rowboats out on the lake.

Katsume & Keiko

Serenity & Will

Walking along the outside of the castle ruins. Cherry blossom season was over, but a different species of cherry tree was blooming, much more pink and bigger.
(left to right: Serenity, Keiko & Katsume)

And here are some random findings in Japan that may only interest me...

Storefront mannequins.
Not sure why they feel its necessary to show you what the pants look
like when you're bending over.

On the the last train of the night...a weary shopper passed out, right in the middle of text-messaging someone on her cell phone.

The cat/dog man. If you look closely, you can see a cat on top of his stroller, and a dog is following him. There was another pet (cat or dog, not sure) in the stroller (no actual human children). He had just grabbed a third cat by its tail and slung it over the stroller to the ground. The cat didn't seem to mind.
The whole thing was all the more weirder because this was in the middle of a shopping mall, and no one seemed to think anything of it.

Looking out the front of the train heading home from Fukuoka.

Our view from our kitchen window. Ironically, most windows that don't have a storm shutter have bars over them...either to keep objects from crashing through in the typhoons or to keep out robbers.

I'm guessing it's the typhoon...since crime is almost non-existent (especially in Tachiarai).

The Kingdom of Thailand

2007-04-08T13:52:00.000+09:00

Serenity and I spent the last ten days of March on our first visit to Southeast Asia. Our plane left Fukuoka, stopped briefly in Taiwan, we switched planes in Hong Kong, and then landed in Bangkok around 8:30 p.m.

It was only then that we realized the Lonely Planet guide we had was outdated...five years outdated. You wouldn't think it was such a big deal, but Bangkok has opened up a new international airport since...so we started off a little lost.

But the next day we took a quick train ride to Ayutthaya - the ancient capital of Thailand, and saw our first 'wats'. Most of these Buddhist or Hindu temples date back to the 9-12th centuries.

Serenity walks up to the first of many...so immense and still so much detail left after 1,000 years. Most of them have steps and you can climb and explore - though you have to battle the 100 degree heat and extreme humidity.

At least here we're still smiling...the heat hasn't set in yet.

This is one of many new temples, but you get an idea for what the
old ruins looked like during their heyday.

Some of the ruins are right in the middle of neighborhoods.

By late afternoon we were exhausted from walking in the heat, and went back to our A/C room (which cost us @ $15 per night) and passed out, only to wake up right before sunset.

But we still had some time to explore another wat.

In a bit of irony, we stood at this Buddhist temple at dusk but could hear a minaret in the distance calling the Muslims to evening prayer. (We didn't take any photos of mosques, though some of them were just as ornate.)

Most of the wats that were open had thousands of bats inside, and after dusk...

These weren't no little things, either. We watched for five minutes
while they made their way out to feed.

Speaking of food, this was the night market (the only time of day that you could really stand to be outside for long anyway). We stopped by for a delicious dinner.

We headed out early the next morning to beat the heat and meditate among the ancients.

Most of the Buddhas are missing their heads...if you want to see the heads, just go to your local Western European or American museum...

Though grave-robbers might have a hard time removing this one.

Before lunch we took the train once again, this time into the
mountains for a few days in the jungle.

Quite a difference from the "safe 'n' sane" train system of Japan.
Thailand's idea of train platforms was to run across the tracks to
the other side before the train arrived.

The train cars (at least the ones we were in) had no air conditioning, just windows.
It was a sweltering 2+ hour ride.

But once we got to Pak Chong, near Khao Yai National Park, we found a place to eat,
where Kodi just happened to show up!

The next day we set out for a 10+ mile hike with a private guide through the jungle
in search of wildlife.

But even along the road the Rhesus Macaques are everywhere,
oblivious to the cars that pass.

Serenity with her au-natural jungle hat, made from a big leaf, by our guide.

We were in search of elephants, which roam wild in the park,
and our guide took us off trail quite a bit, but alas...

This was as close as we got to the elephants...
we ran into several piles and footprints, but never saw any live ones.

This is a tree that grows from the top down, its roots 'strangling' the original tree until it takes over and kills the host tree. Serenity is demonstrating her skills at sign language.
Notice her 'leech socks' above her shoes...what she needed was a 'tick cover.' She found a nice one lodged on her stomach that night.

The next morning we headed out bright and early to take a 5 hour bus ride
to the border with Cambodia.

This was looking out our bus window at a local market near the border.

And here is a sampling of the typical local artwork. Pictures of Thailand's King are EVERYWHERE, as well as these photos of some old monk.

The following post covers our travels in Cambodia...

On to Cambodia...

2007-04-07T14:47:00.000+09:00

We were dropped off the bus at the border, where we had to walk across and find our own transportation the next 90 miles through Cambodia, on a dirt road surrounded by fields that are still infested with land mines.

Here is the border, where 'touts' await your arrival to try and talk you into getting into their car, bus, van, or wooden cart.

Dinner on its way to the market. It was still alive, squealing.
More on the life pigs can look forward to in Cambodia later...

Cambodia is quite a bit poorer than Thailand. In fact, it sometimes made the slums of Tijuana look like middle-class suburbia. (Only Laos is poorer in Asia) This is a shot looking forward in the bus that took six hours to go 90 miles. (Not to mention the driver had to "fix" his suspension on the side of the road in the pitch black of night with a belt -
yes, like the one you use to keep your pants up.)

But after barely escaping the lowly guest house that the bus driver wanted us to stay in (and nearly gated us inside at 9:30 at night to keep us there), we found this beautiful secluded hotel.

The first morning we hired Nok, our tuk-tuk driver, to be our personal escort between the many temples of Angkor Wat, which are miles apart.
(That's the tuk-tuk in the back, pulled by a small motorcycle/moped.)

Our first temple, and the massive roots that have overgrown the ancient city, once home to more than 1 million people in the 11th century.

Serenity monkeying around.

The town of Siem Reap is near the temples, now a tourist hub, but still chaotic. People drive on whatever side of the road they want, and fit as many people as they can on little mopeds. (We saw families of four balanced precariously on one bike.)

The view from our tuk-tuk.

The local petrol station.
Johnny Walker bottles filled with gasoline. $1 USD per bottle.

Eerie...there was a painting in one of the temples that looked just like Serenity...

The roads are shared with mopeds, bicycles, tuk-tuks, cars, vans, buses, pedestrians...and elephants. (That's the back of Nok, our driver, on the left.) He was a very safe driver...he had a beep for signaling a left turn (which usually meant he was just going to drive on the opposite side of the road against traffic for a block before turning).

One of the temples from the entrance.
Each temple was usually kind of buried in the jungle, with roads connecting each one. Although it's a heritage site, many people live on the side of the road and in the temples themselves.

Deep inside Angkor Thom.

The entrance to Angkor Wat.

As I said, temples are still inhabited, and not just by people.

Early morning fisherman (or maybe algae collectors?) on the moat that surrounds the gigantic temple of Angkor Wat.

The top of the temple Pre Rup, nearing sunset.

That night we headed back for a shower (Khmer style...dump water from the clay jar over your head), before heading to a traditional Khmer dance.

My beautiful wife enjoying one of the two local beers.

The Khmer dancers. Most in the audience barely watched or listened, and then all the Japanese and Chinese tourists rushed the stage for photos as soon as it was over, like the dancers were animals in a zoo. Embarrassing.

The top of Angkor Wat.

There were carvings in the stone EVERYWHERE. This is just one of many examples I photographed.

Me in the early morning in front of Angkor Wat.

Looking out the top of Angkor Wat.

Old and new...the Buddhist monks coming, the backpacker going.

The river that runs through town...we watched people swim in it.

Wouldn't exactly say the temples are handicap accessible.

A couple of big smiles at Angkor Thom.

A little boy at this temple - couldn't have been more than 7 or 8 - recited the numbers 1-10 in at least a dozen different languages, trying to get us to buy his ten postcards.

Indiana Serenity at one of the smaller temples.

Pre Rup at sunset, looking down and out on the jungle that surrounds the area.

I was attacked by a 1,000 year-old elephant.

Chai (left) and Mov (right) at the top of Pre Rup. Serenity sat and talked with them for a while, then printed this picture and brought them copies the next day.

Not sure if she has to use the restroom...or already is.

Inside one of the hallways...not sure how safe some of the ceilings were.

This temple was far outside of town and empty, giving us time to relax in the shade.

The farmland outside of town.

Outside of town we crossed a rally for the elections taking place the next day.
Truckload after truckload passed by, blaring music on the megaphones with everyone
in white caps and shirts. This would be the same party that has held power since 1979, and
which Pol Pot was a member until his death in the 1990s.
Our tuk-tuk driver wasn't a supporter.

Outside of town we came across an elementary school, where the kids were celebrating the last day of school by dancing to loud music and smearing each other with baby powder.

We joined in the fun, though all I got was covered in powder...didn't have a chance to return the favor. Almost all the kids in the area spoke good English (likely because of tourists), and we were able to talk with them for a while.

Back in town we headed for the Old Market, where locals still do their shopping. It was set out under tarps in the 100+ degree heat, with little breeze.

Remember what I said about the life of a pig???

It ends here in the Old Market.

There were hundreds of pounds of beef, pork, intestines, brains, livers, feet, etc... all sitting out in 100+ degree heat and covered with flies. The smell was...well, you can guess.

One woman had her hammock set up hanging just a foot above the meat table, and would reach down to grab the meat for customers in between naps.

The last night we headed back to the main temple of Angkor Wat for sunset.

Where once again, I was reminded of how old and new have forged a path
in many parts of the world.

We dined at a nice restaurant in the French Quarter of town the last night,
having said good-bye to our friend Nok.

The trip was awesome - especially Cambodia - and we are anxious to see the rest of the country away from the hoards of tourists of Angkor Wat.

We have too many photos to put up here, so we just posted most of the ones with us in them. If you want to see more of what Thailand and Cambodia look like, we will have the rest posted at Serenity's Flickr site soon.

The Gokiburi are back

2007-03-12T15:04:00.000+09:00

[from Serenity]

I remember the first time I heard Will scream. We were staying in a cozy little guesthouse in the town of Tamarindo, Costa Rica. We were on our honeymoon, and had been taking turns getting ill for the last few days.

As I lay in bed, staring at the large wooden flying frog dangling from one corner of the room, I heard Will shout out a few uncertain, albeit uncomfortable screams from the shower. He was being joined in the small rock-wall shower by more than one almost palm-sized cockroach.

When we moved here to our lovely apartment in a rice paddy town in Japan, we had new suprises awaiting us, mostly in the kitchen. That was August.

Now it's March, and I heard Will let out a trembling "eeeeww!!!!!" the other day from the kitchen.

Oh, the cockroaches are coming back.

Zen gardens, Buddhist temples, ume blossoms...

2007-03-03T18:24:00.000+09:00

Last weekend we went to Bainji Temple in nearby Kurume to see the ume (plum) blossoms. Not quite cherry blossom season yet, but we caught the tail end of the plums.

First we stopped by a restaurant and ate under a phallic mask. Either that or this guy told a lot of lies.

Most (though not all) restaurants in Japan have plastic displays of many of their dishes in the front window (thank God, or ordering food could really be hard). This dish was a nice hamburger patty/sushi roll mix for the kiddies - complete with a Hello Kitty toy.

We stopped by Suitengu Temple first - the "water" temple. These are prayer cards. You give a Buddhist monk about $5 and he writes a prayer for you, then you hang it inside the temple grounds.

Here's looking back at the entrance of Suitengu Temple.

And here's a Buddhist monk talking with his friend. (The monk is the one NOT in jeans.)

Here at Bainji Temple is Miss Serenity among the beautiful plum blossoms.

Here's me, looking very cool.

Here's just a small portion of the carving on the wooden door on the front of the temple. The whole door was just as detailed with many dragons.

Here's an area with hundreds of shrines packed in together - each one is similar to a tombstone except no one is buried - they are cremated. (Not sure where the ashes go.)

Here's a zen garden - the sand is raked into designs and rows.

I thought I'd do a baseball slide into home plate across their zen garden, but somehow I thought that would give me bad karma. (I might be mixing up eastern religions...they do love baseball here.)

Here's more shrines above the temple on a hill.

Here I am meditating at the top of the stairs overlooking the temple.

The sun was starting to set as we walked along the beautiful shrines and trees.

Here's Miss Serenity next to another one of these huge Sago Palm things.

And Serenity once again, walking up to the main temple thorugh another zen garden.

It was over 70 degrees today (Saturday the 3rd of March) and we're heading out on a bike ride tomorrow to enjoy the weather. Serenity made a movie of our day today and will post it soon...

Video is here! - snow day.

2007-02-11T18:29:00.000+09:00

Here is our first posted video, taken on the snow day we had a few weeks ago! The videos are based from YouTube.com, and you can either play them right from the blog by hitting the play button on the bottom left corner, or you can click anywhere in the picture and go to the YouTube site to watch the video at a slightly bigger size.

Also, check out the link to all our YouTube videos under "Links" in the sidebar to your right.

Snow in Tachiarai-machi

2007-02-02T09:20:00.000+09:00

Somehow, the same place that was unbearably hot and humid in August...
looks like this on Groundhog Day.

This is the view from our porch looking across the street.

Here's Serenity heading off to work. I felt slightly guilty, so...

I headed out on my bike to get photos of one of the bigger local shrines.

The shrines here are kind of like parks. There was actually a swingset just to the left. This is a Shinto shrine, and while it's a bit bigger than most in Tachiarai, there are little shrines everywhere.

The deal is you go up to the steps, ring the bell by yanking on the rope, clap once, keep your hands together, bow and pray. No one here today...I wonder why. It was freezing.

Then I headed over to the river behind our house.

The skies were starting to clear, but as I write this it's dark and starting to snow again.

From our front door.

Why couldn't we be working in Okinawa?

Okinawa New Year

2007-01-06T13:17:00.000+09:00

We had a wonderful trip to Okinawa over New Year. Got out of the cold and into the nice 70 degree weather (lows were in the upper 60s, highs in the lower 70s!) We went straight past the main island and landed on a tiny airstrip on Ishigaki Island, about 80 miles east of Taiwan in the East China Sea.

We headed to the docks first, where we found the "old bike pile."

There was a nice shopping area with lots of souvineer shops and a fruit and vegtable market. It was nice to see shopping without all the crazy fashion and obsession with clothes.

This old guy was making coral-covered statues of boars and lions (some kind of lion is kind of the Okinawa mascot).

The Okinawa specialty - Habu-shu. They make a local liquor (kind of like whiskey) called Awamori, and then dump a live Habu snake into the bottle. You supposedly get the energy of the snake by drinking it. Yes, they keep the snake in there permanently. Tasted kind of spicy like cinnamon.

We visited Kabira-wan on the first day - a nice bay where they raise black pearls. No snorkeling or diving allowed - but we took a glass bottom boat and got some great views of the coral and life underneath.

A nice shrine at Kabira-wan overlooking the beach.

Serenity had to have a picture of this hotel near the docks. It's called the East China Sea Hotel. Definitely not in America anymore.

This is the nice guest house we stayed in on Ishigaki. Nice lady ran it who spoke good English. Very old wooden house - you could hear everything that went on in every room.

Time to go diving. Seiki was the dive master/boat captain/cook. He did everything. Not entirely sure it was legal - but he was very nice and seemed safe.

After a long boat trip, this area seemed good to dive. Nice water, out of the wind.

Seiki on the left, another diver next to him, and Will and Serenity.

Will, the dive master and the other diver head down. Beautiful water. Lots of bright fish, a lionfish, sea snake, coral.

After three nights in Ishigaki, we took a 45-minute ferry ride to the nearby island of Iriomote. Almost empty - lots of jungle and a little agriculture.

This was our hotel (actually the dining area, our room was off to the right on the same ledge right on the beach.)

The view from our room - right over a coral reef and looking northwest towards China.

We took a boat up this river to go hiking in the jungle. No roads - we left this bridge behind.

Some of the mangroves on the trip upriver.

Everything is bigger in the jungle.

They had these funky trees with weird roots/trunks. Big and beautiful.

Hey! It's Indiana Will!

Yup, that's him alright!

The top of the waterfalls about a 40 minute hike in.

Serenity on the trail amidst the jungle. Kind of hot and humid here.

Serenity overlooking the waterfalls.

And Serenity looking cool at the top of the falls.

Tree Ferns galore.

Here's Will next to one of those trees with the crazy roots/trunk.

More jungle - pretty cool.

We missed the boat to go back and had to wait a half an hour.

Serenity wondering why Will made her rush to get back to the docks.

The sun setting on the beach below our hotel.

The next morning looking west out from our porch.

Looking east at the sunrise back over the island.

Will getting read to snorkel out in the reef by our hotel.

The coral on the beach. So many shells and coral!

Later, we explored our small section of the island by rented bicycles.
Here's Will, at the end of the trail.

We found an old abandoned hotel high overlooking the ocean.

There were some old houses also abandoned on the same point. Everthing was overgrown and ready to collapse - kind of sad. Weird thing was there was a putting green nearby that was well maintained. The red tile roof is a signature of the Okinawan islands.

We were sad to leave Iriomote, but back on Ishigaki, we wandered about the town and found this old shrine.

Shrines usually have some kind of small park area around them - this one had this neat stone wall and gateways that was being overgrown.

Here's the lions - people put two of them to guard their doorways.
These are on someone's "fence".

Here's one of the smaller cars we've ever seen.

Goodbye Ishigaki airport!

You can see plenty more photos on Serenity's Flickr site by clicking here. Do it!

We had a great time...but of course we wish we could have been home for the holidays. The weather was nice, and it was a great change from the fashion-crazed cities and cold rice fields back in Fukuoka. We didn't want to leave!

Anyway, hope everyone is doing well!

Tachiarai Shogakko Mochi Festival

2006-12-17T17:44:00.000+09:00

We made a quick trip to Tachiarai Elementary School today, and caught the last of their Mochi Festival. Will got a taste of the swarming children I am graced with every Friday, and we both tried our hands at pounding the rice and water mixture...

Here we are!

Pretty fun stuff! The mochi was good - chewy, but tasty.

Yufuin weekend

2006-12-05T17:09:00.000+09:00

We spent last weekend in and near the town of Yufuin, in Oita prefecture. At a higher elevation, the leaves had mostly already changed, but not all of them, and it was much colder than Tachiarai.

We travelled in style, and took the train for 1 1/2 hours to the town of Yufuin.

This is the view from the station, and we arrived with about 2-3 hours to kill until a big bus came and picked us up at the station. We wandered and had a nice lunch. When the bus arrived, there were some other ladies on the bus, and it drove us over an hour up through a mountain pass, and down into another valley - it was really beautiful.

The valley was all low hills and meadows, surrounded on all sides by mountains. The above photo is looking back towards the mountain range we went over to get into the valley.

All the leaves had mostly all changed at that altitude, so it was at that stage just before winter, when everything's kinda brown and gray. The mountaintops even had light sprinklings of snow on them, and we got some flurries in the late afternoon.

The sun peeked through the clouds and shone rays of sunlight onto the valley here and there, but wow, it was cold. Must've been in the 20's at least, I'm just guessing, and with wind.

The place we stayed was pretty nice. Nothing too fancy - sort of a cabin-like motel feel, nothing really Japanese, except that there were hot springs.. mostly just hot water pumped into baths that you can reserve for an hour at a time. The night included dinner and breakfast, which were delicious.

Dinner
For dinner, we had lots and lots of different stuff, served seperately, one after the other. We started with a daikon salad, a small crab-cake thing, some beef shabu-shabu on our own private little burners, and a salty custard thing that Will says had chicken and squid in it, but I didn't get past the first 2 bites. Let's see.... then we had a small square of some sort of bread-beef-mix, cooked, very good, with a thin slice of duck on top, with a circle of hot mustard, which was delicious. Everything was close to bite-size. We also had a small piece of smoked fish wrapped inside cooked, hardened leaves, miso soup, a small bowl of soft tofu, rice... I must be missing something. Anyway, it was really delicious, and we had a small carafe of hot sake at the end to top it all off! "Sumimasen, sake no atsui o ippon kudasai!!" :) (Excuse me, a bottle of hot sake, please!)

Then it was off to our private onsen, which had an inside and outside place to relax in the hot water. How it works is, you take everything off in the small changing room, which has a bench, a sink, etc. Then you go into the tiled onsen room, which has an area with shower heads and faucets and 2 small buckets, plus soap and shampoo, which you use to rinse off before you get into the onsen. Then, it's into the hot water, and you're on your way to relaxation. We sat outside for an hour, staring out at the dark valley below. It was fantastic!

Also, our room had a fancy "kotatsu", which is a coffee-like table that has a blanket draped around all sides (tucked under the table top), and this one had a hole in the floor and a big heater underneath that you could put your feet on. We were nice and toasty!

Breakfast
We had breakfast the next morning before our second round of onsen:
Salad, honey-crusted "mountain potato" wedges, sausage, funky scrambled eggs, raisin bread-pastry, yogurt with strawberry sauce, miso soup, rice, and a raw egg (Will had that one, after I .... egged him on... Heehee!)

Then later that day we got back to Yufuin, and with 3 hours to kill, we found a small street lined with little touristy-shops, and packed full of... yes, tourists. Japanese tourists though. We haven't seen more than 10 European tourists yet! It was nice though, although it was really cold, and we wandered around until the warm train came and swooshed us back to Kurume.

The small neighborhood, and in fact the whole town of Yufuin, is presided over by the huge mountain, Yufe-dake.

The volcanic activity in the area is pretty obvious when you see these little natural hot-water thingys everywhere. Mmmmm... hot water.

(Close-up view, with a little jizo statue in the background. It could be a Buddha too, I'm not sure.)

Oh ruler of the town.

Us walking down into the throngs of chilly shoppers...

Oh look! Another hot water tap!

This was a wall along one of the side streets of the small neighborhood. Nice, huh?

A cluttered shop.

"Omiyage" (gifts) for all those friends and co-workers back home.

This is a typical yakitori stand I just thought you might like to see. Ah, street food is always the best!

Some pots for sale.

Yes, that's 'Europpian' Crepes... sugar pizzas!

And low and behold, let us all pray to the one and only, the infamous, all-mighty.....
HELLO KITTY!!!
Is this not consumer-mania at it's finest??

But WAIT!!!....

It's her rival!!!! Slot-machine kitty!!!! Oh, the evil-ness.

Ah, that's better. Don't we all feel much better now?

Hey! It's a REAL kitty!!! They are rarely friendly on the streets here (Sara - not like Greece!), and so Will got to pet it.. aw!

And... then he was told politely to stop. Might as well go back to worshipping Hello Kitty.

And, the last photo of the day is one of some interesting drain pipes on a house.
"Catchy", huh?! :)

Love you all!!

Marshmallows and trips

2006-12-01T17:14:00.000+09:00

Hi all! (From Serenity)

Well, I just finished my weekly Friday Elementary-school fiasco. They are getting easier, as I'm more comfortable in front of the kids, and am not in such a flurry. Recuperation time is lessening!

Today the 6th grade teachers set up a bamboo pole with strings hanging down of different lengths, and they tied marshmallows on the ends. I reviewed directions in English with the kids, ie., "Go straight, left, right", "Stop", "Down", "Go back"...

Then the kids paired up and one person in each pair was blindfolded, and their partner had to guide them to a marshmallow, and get them to eat it off the string, using English. Hilarious! They loved it, and everyone had fun. Sometimes the kids would get two different people aiming for the same marshmallow, and I tried to teach them "kiss!!". I could've sworn it was going to happen, but it didn't. At the end, there was one marshmallow left, and three different blindfolded boys were trying to get it with their mouths, and one of the kids yelled "attack!!"... well, it IS an English command!!

Fun stuff, fun stuff.

We're off to a Japanese-style "ryokan" this weekend up in the mountains, for a little retreat, and to relax in an onsen! ("hot spring" -- extremely popular here, and they're everywhere, especially on Kyushu).

It's getting colder everyday here, and the mountains are beautiful with bright colors.

Oh, and we just booked tickets to the southern-most islands of Okinawa for our New Year's holiday!!! Oh man, I'm sure it'll be rough. We're staying on the island of Ishigaki for 3 nights, then on Iriomote for 3, then back to Ishigaki for the last night. The islands are only 270km from Taiwan. Coooool.

And, it's only 2 hours to the main island (Okinawa) from Fukuoka, and another 35 minute flight from there. On Iriomote, there are no roads that go through the interior of the island, and no airstrip to speak of. Not that it keeps the droves of ferry-goers away, but it's a 50 minute ride, anyway! We're hoping to hike the 10-mile trail across the island, and/or canoe up the river, through dense jungle and lots of waterfalls. The average temperature there in late December is 61-64 degrees. Not too bad. Better than the already-45-degrees in late November here!

Love to everyone, and don't be afraid to reply or post comments on this site! Just click on "comments" at the end of this post... which is

now!!

The Other Side of the Valley

2006-11-26T15:09:00.000+09:00

We headed out on our bikes again to explore the surrounding valley yesterday, and decided to ride to the "other hills". Yes, the ones on the other side of our valley!

Luckily, the sun shone for most of the day, and the weather was just perfect for bike riding. The first picture we came across was the sun beaming down onto some greenhouses, as we neared our mountainous goal.

We also came across this old canoe in a small tributary of the Chikugo River. We thought it looked particularly Asian.

We crossed this pedestrian bridge, over the Chikugo River.

And when we arrived in a tiny little neighborhood at the base of the lovely mountains, we came across lost of pomegranite orchards!

Hey, those rock walls look a little familiar! This orchard was set among rows and rows of rock walls going up a hillside. It was really a wonderful spot.

I think...

Someone had been working there that day.

We also came across some beehives near the orchard, set against the fall colors.

And a stalk of bamboo caught our eye.

Yes, the leaves are changing.

And they're particularly interesting with small shrines amid the leaves!

We also came upon more Sego Palms -- they grow so easily here!

And so, our bike ride to the mountains made a great Saturday outing, once again.

All Japan Kinma Championship

2006-11-19T14:09:00.000+09:00

We attended the All Japan Kinma Championship last weekend, and had a great time! Will was part of "Team Gaijin", and competed with over 60 other teams in pulling 880 lbs of hay down a track around a tree, and back again! Meanwhile, there were food stalls galore, and a hearty crowd.

The crowd.

TEAM GAIJIN!

THE KINMA.

THE JUDGES.

COMPETITION 1

COMPETITION 2.

"So this is it". The team investigates their Kinma.

Turning it around.

Ready, set, go!!!

!!!!!

Rounding the tree...!!!

Rounded the bend, just before one teammate went down! Unfortunately, Serenity was too busy laughing to take a picture. Ah, too bad!!!!!

The final stretch!

...and the finish line!!! Yes, it was over incredibly quickly, although maybe it didn't feel like that to the team!

Not record-breaking, but not bad, either!

TEAM GAIJIN and friends.

It was a great time, and a good laugh. For more photos of the day, make sure to go to Serenity's flickr site!

Fukuoka Costco

2006-11-19T10:28:00.000+09:00

Well, we made our first trip to Costco in Japan, and we've got enough sugar now to last us through the rest of the year. Our shopping adventure resulted in such items as...

2 very large jars of peanut butter
chocolate covered raisins
Christmas M&Ms
3 bottles of California wine
a bottle of Glennfiddich scotch
a very large pumpkin pie
cans of black beans
large frozen flour tortillas
Pace salsa
sliced ham
maple syrup
cranberry juice cocktail
50+ cans of Dr. Pepper
....

Yes, we are loaded with all the caloric intake we've been missing!!! Awful.

We even had oversized hot dogs after shopping...
We both felt slightly ill afterwards. Serenity especially so, with the oversized shopping carts and crowds of people cutting each other off!

Oh, Costco.

Akiyoshi in Style

2006-10-30T22:06:00.000+09:00

We have purchased our first couch!
Yes, the new Morat/Clerk family member is a wonderfully red sofa! It's love-seat size, which is just right. We even threw in matching pillows and curtains! What a difference it can make on our evenings, our Sunday afternoons....

Here it is in the widest view we could get with the camera. Along with putting up the inner doors between the two tatami rooms, and the green walls, it's looking pretty cool in our place. We even discovered, with the help of our Japanese friends, that the table has an electric heater underneath its top! We just need an electrical cord ... who knows what that will take.

And so, life is moving along just fine. Our first Japanese autumn is just beautiful. The air is crisp, and there's this perfect combination of warm sun and cool breeze, EVERYday! --- I never want it to end! What's so great is that the season is quite long this year. The leaves haven't really begun to change around here, but they should be anytime now.

As for me, school is getting more interesting. I had quite a lull there for awhile, but I'm starting to feel a little more comfortable, and so am also able to approach the teachers easier, and am starting to try and gauge what sorts of activities might work, and what sorts might not. I haven't started going to any club activities after school with the kids... mostly out of selfishness for wanting all my after-work time to myself! One of these days, though... one of these days. I'll show up at a Kendo class, or Judo class, or even tennis or volleyball, and try and go once or twice a week. But until then, I have a lovely couch to come home to!

Will and I went out to dinner with two of my teachers last weekend and had a nice time - they showed us around a small town nearby, with some antique shops that had all kinds of things we'd never see in the States. Old dolls, kimonos, tea sets, books... and lots of stuff that I have no idea what they were. Then we all went out to a Shabu-shabu restaurant, and what a treat!

Shabu-shabu is this:
A large pot in the middle of the table, over an internal gas burner, filled with a light dashi-stock (a few pieces of seaweed and maybe some bonito flake stock).
A large plate of fresh cabbage, carrots, greens, rice patties (can't remember their name), and tofu.
Also, a large plate of extremely thin slices of raw pork.
We each make a little sauce in our dishes -- soy sauce and vinegar, or a sesame-based sauce, with sliced green onions and a spicy red paste. Then, the shabu-shabu begins. With our chopsticks, we dip a piece of raw pork into the now-boiling water, and after a few seconds it turns white. Then we dip it in our sauce, and then into our mouths, and there you have it! A delicious, mouth-watering meal! We also dip the veggies, or sometimes just put a bunch of them into the water at once. Soooooooo good. My mouth is watering just writing about it!

And, this weekend, we had our friends over -- a woman from my Eikaiwa and her husband -- and we had a blast. Plenty of beer and shochu, with big salads with blue cheese (I found it!) and avocado, then a veggie stir fry I made... and lots of laughs and a great time. :) Oh. Shochu is a (around here, anyway), sweet-potato based light liquor. Similar to taste with whiskey, but much easier to drink. Too easy sometimes. Drunk hot or cold, we had ours in a small teapot over a fondue stove in the living room, thanks to our guests!

Oh yeah, and I got a haircut -- found a nice guy in Fukuoka who speaks lots of English, and was fun to go to.... on a particularly decent hair day just shortly after, I handed Will the camera just for you blog-readers!

Love to you all!!

-Serenity

Oita-ken!

2006-10-16T21:44:00.000+09:00

Well, thanks to our friends Jared and Steph, we explored a little bit of Oita-ken last weekend, and had a great time. --- thanks guys!!

After a great party at their house...

We headed to old Buddha carvings near the town of Usuki, which, since it's in Oita-ken, is on the eastern side of Kyushu. Most of the carvings were from the 10th - 13th centuries, and many had to be restored, as moss and water seeping through the volcanic rock eroded them over time. Apparently, the area in and around Oita-ken was the site of the beginnings of a strong Buddhist influence in Japan. Either way, the statues were pretty interesting, and the small valley they hid in was a great place to spend the afternoon.

The lovely couple!

Kermit and Serenity with the old one...

The bamboo forest surrounding the area -- Will's great shot!

Here's a good example of the erosion of these beautiful carvings --

The small valley, rice harvest and all. The carvings are all in a small ravine just to the right of those houses, out of the photo.

Statue surrounded by 12 kings.

Heehee!

Rice harvester in the small valley:

A carving holding up the ferns...

We had a great time, and hope to go back to Oita-ken for Onsen and more visits!

Uchi-yama hike

2006-10-09T20:57:00.000+09:00

We're back from another great hike here on Kyushu. This time we headed to Uchi-yama, just outside the city of Dazaifu, for a ~4 mile hike up a beautiful mountain. There were many great sights ... and stones... along the way. Let's go on a photo journey of our hike!

First, we came to some beautifully red toriis stacked together.

Then to a temple at the base of the mountain, shown here.

And now, let the hike begin!

This stood near a giant Edo-period Torii, leading the way up the mountain that, according to our English-language map, was once considered to be a holy mountain.

Can you spot the torii in this photo?

Up and up we clambered. Oh, and by the way, there was apparently a tour full of parents with their little kids, and I mean little! These kids were between 2 years old and maybe 10 yrs. old, and they all hiked this mountain --- how's THAT for motivation!?

Inscriptions on the way up the mountain. There were others much older looking than these in various places, but the light hit these ones just right.

And finally, after about 2 hours, we reached the top! And what a view it was! In this photo, you are looking out towards the Korea Strait, and, although way out of sight, the tip of South Korea, and China, somewhere out there -- cool!

The shrine at the top of the mountain - quaint, it made for the perfect setting, and a place for lunch!

The typical rope hanging in front of the shrine - it is attached to a bell, which visitors ring to awaken the gods, and then to pray, and clap. Can you see the fresh apple left there? The gods are treated well!

And here's me at the top of the mountain, tired but happy.

Some lovely growth at the top.

And, then..... what comes up, must come down. Oh, the pain!! :)

Luckily, there was a fresh water spring where we filled our bottles -- tasty!

And down and down. It was a lovely hike, with lots to see, not to mention stones hundreds of years old to climb on, toriis, ancient kanji here and there, and a rewarding view at the top.

And at the very bottom, we came across our first Kyushu big game.... deer in cages! Perry - they shouldn't be too hard to hunt!

October in Tachiarai

2006-10-05T20:07:00.000+09:00

It's October in Tachiarai (and the rest of the world, of course), and the rice fields are no longer bright green. The weather is wonderful -- a cool breeze with sunshine most days, and clouds in the afternoons. In the mornings, we usually see someone out in their field, harvesting the rice, mostly by small tractor, but there's always others in the field, picking up... really I don't know what all goes into it. Anyway, here's a photo of the rice, as of today.

And here is where we catch the train into the world outside Tachiarai. Some autumn flowers made for a pleasant wait, for about a week.

An afternoon in Dazaifu again

2006-10-01T21:06:00.000+09:00

We headed to Dazaifu for a few hours today, to pass through the little souvineer shops and wander through the temple grounds. And here's some photos of what we saw:

The main street leading to Tenmangu Temple, lined with shops, and toriis.

Serenity and Will at the Tenmangu Temple.

Leading to the main temple.

The restaurant where we had a late lunch ~ had a beautiful garden.

See?!

Amagi City on a Sunday afternoon

2006-10-01T20:59:00.000+09:00

We hopped on the bikes last weekend and rode out towards Amagi City, and decided to head up one of the valleys to see what was there. On the way, we stopped to eat our PB&J sandwiches and bananas on a small bridge. It was a beautiful day! We actually arrived, as Serenity continued to say the neverending chant "just a little further....", at a quaint town, Akizuki, where there were castle ruins, a tree-lined walkway with lots of little shops, and a creek running through the town. We were tired and sweaty when we got there, and had failed to bring any money at all, so we have vowed to return to the place when the leaves are really changing, and make a day of it. We promise to take photos that time. But, here are two we took on our bike-ride day...

Serenity and banana on bridge.

The creek flowing through Akizuki. And a good ol' palm tree. Reminds us of home. :)

Eikaiwa night out!

2006-09-29T17:35:00.000+09:00

Here is a photo of Serenity in her Eikaiwa girls (before Will arrived) at an Izakaya in Kurume -- fun time!

Morning Quake

2006-09-26T17:24:00.000+09:00

Well, we felt our first Japanese earthquake this morning! It measured 5.2 on the Richter scale, and its epicenter was somewhere about 70 meters below the ocean floor in the sea between Kyushu and Shikoku. It woke Will up this morning, and I shook on the computer stool as I checked my email. (Here's a link to the quick story.) Cool!!! :)

~Serenity

Serenity-sensei

2006-09-23T11:19:00.000+09:00

The vice principal at the junior high school took some photos of Serenity last week as she introduced herself to two 8th grade classes!

Here she is trying to draw Japan on the blackboard. They always laugh.

Come on kids! RAISE YOUR HANDS!!

Poor kid. He murmered something in English, and the American came over to try and hear what he said. (They're so quiet!!!)

So there you have some photos of Serenity-sensei.

Typhoon Fun!

2006-09-22T17:09:00.000+09:00

Hey. How cool is this? I know, I know. It's just our names. But when the lights went out during the last typhoon (Typhoon Ju-San (13)), the flashlights and my camera were all we had to entertain ourselves! (After a few rounds of tile rummy).

Pretty good, huh? Come on. EIGHT letters! And a CROSSED T!

Around our town...

2006-09-13T09:30:00.000+09:00

It takes about 30 minutes to leisurely ride our bikes to the nearest hills/mountains - a town called Amagi. There is a nice park at the base of the hills.

The creativity of the park designers...nothing like a jungle gym with dragons.

This is looking down on the park and pond from a picnic area up on the first hill.

Here you can see the picnic area from a look-out on the top of the hill...this is facing north towards the mountains and forest...not much for towns back here...lots of thick forest.

Here's a trail to the top of one of the mountains...very thick and beautiful semi-tropical jungle.

After hiking about 2 km to the top of the 1,200 foot mountain, Will wrung his t-shirt out on the deck. I kid you not...this puddle is sweat just from my t-shirt...it's damn humid.

Here's a view looking southwest from the 1,200 ft mountain...this is the valley we live in.

And the valley looking northwest.

Beautiful butterflies are all over this area...not just in the mountains, but near our home also.

And...the huge purple earthworm thing. It was longer until I touched it, and like earthworms do, shortened himself and started wriggling around.
I've never seen an earthworm even close to this big. Bright purple and as thick as my finger...
we thought it was a snake at first.

Here's Serenity walking up the mountain. Very beautiful forest...and this day it was much cooler..perfect for hiking.

Here's me, same trail.

And here are some leftover pics from Fukuoka City...

Serenity went shopping one day and took this...this is the bay, probably the Sea of Japan out there.

This is a clock...and a fountain. There are rows of little fountains, and certain fountains spray more water than others so from across the street you can tell the time. It was, in fact, 1:03 p.m.!
(and yes, those are statues of little kids peeing in the fountain!)

This is the moat guarding an old castle (no longer really there) in Fukuoka. Covered in big lillies.)

It was raining that day, and the lillies would catch the drizzle. When enough gathered, the lilly leaf would tilt and the water would drain off. Sometimes it would drain from one leaf onto another, onto another, etc...causing a chain reaction. Very cool.

Another wonder Japanese sign...no need to be fluent. Just watch out for turtles that want to drown you in the moat.

Ruins of the old Fukuoka Castle...dated to 1600s.

Tokyo leftovers

2006-09-13T09:05:00.000+09:00

These are some photos Will took while in Tokyo...

This is the moat that surrounds the Imperial Palace...home of the Emperor (you can't get very close to his place)

This is one of the look-out towers at a corner of the moat.

And one of the bridges over the moat...I've seen this same photo in several tourism books since I took it...must be a good place to snap a photo.

This is looking back towards part of the city from one of the entrances to the palace. You're not allowed to walk on the lawn (hence, no shade).

This is one of the guards...I zoomed in.

This is a court building? (I forget now.) It was built in the late 1800s, and the plaque said it survived the huge earthquake in 1923...but was blown up in 1945. Rebuilt in the 50s.

These are views from four sides of the Tokyo Metropolitan Building...one of the taller buildings. You can see that the city just keeps on going...

This first view is looking north.

This is the west view.

Must be south...

And the east view.

This was Shinjuku...part of Tokyo where we were staying.

And a neat sign...no Japanese fluency needed.

Fukuoka City

2006-09-09T10:04:00.000+09:00

A couple of weeks ago, the day after the typhoon, we headed to Fukuoka City to see the sights.

(Will wrote this one...you can probably tell from the lack of sense of humor...Serenity is much better at this type of thing.)

Taken from the train, you can see the vast expanse of rice paddies that separate us from the city - it didn't look promising - we thought we might be in for lots of rain.

But although the clouds looked menacing, it turned out to be a perfect day...one of the few that wasn't extremely hot and humid in August.

This is taken from the underground shopping mall that runs a few blocks under Fukuoka City. It's also the transportation hub between the subway and the train station. There are two aisles like this, next to eachother. Very easy to get turned around in any shopping mall.

This is looking at the heart of Fukuoka City on the Nakagawa (Naka River).

And this is us--same spot! Nice lady offered to take picture for us.

This is taken on the same river, but from the other end looking the opposite way...standing near the red and white signs in the center of the other photo.
This was called Canal City, which was basically a big shopping mall (very big...maybe five or six floors and dozens of restaurants. You can see there is still some traditional architecture throughout these cities, no matter where you are or how modern it is. This area had old homes/buildings next to the river.

This is some crazy prize. We think it's a hat. There was an entire store of the classic "move the claw around and try to grab a prize and drop it in the hole." You know, the kind that you never win...

But when we saw the stuffed turnips(?), we had to try. Threw six bucks down the tube trying to get one of these god-awful things.

Found a moment to rest in Canal city. We'd been walking all day...and this just happened to be right next to the "Desert Museum." Talk about lots of sweets...ice cream, crepes, just about anything you can think of. Pretty nice. We had a hard time deciding.

This was the crepe store in the Desert Museum that Serenity got a blackberry and ice cream filled crepe. As you can see, on the left you have a nice "bannana and ice cream/chocolate crepe," right next to the ever-popular "pizza sauce, cream cheese and tuna crepe." The Desert Museum lost my respect after trying to pass that off as desert. I found a nice "blood orange" sherbert instead.

This was looking down just some random alley in the city. Serenity liked the very small, old building among the high-rises.

This was a zen-garden type shrine...pretty common to find these stuck here and there in cities. This one was a nice moment of respite from a day of walking on pavement. Nice big coy fish in the pond, waterfalls, lots of little bonsai trees, pagodas and benches. Nice old man let us in right before closing time. It was free, too.

This was a "turtle pond" next to the gardens at a Shinto Shrine. There were dozens of these turtles in there, and they swarmed to you when you came up to the side of the pond, waiting for food and sticking their heads up at you.
There was another guy next to us, and a turtle crawled out of the pond and just kept crawling towards the guy. He literally had to move out of the way - this turtle must have been hungry. I had never seen a turtle chase someone before...

This is one end of the yatai stalls along the river. At dusk, these little wooden huts open up and serve ramen bowls and beer. Everyone shouts at you (no idea what they were saying) trying to convince you to sit at their stall (there must have been 15 stalls, at least).

This is the stall we choose, looking from our seat. We had ramen, and some other ambiguous looking meat-substance type things. (It's very hard to describe food here--most of the time I haven't the slightest clue what it is. It's often hard to guess if it's an animal or plant.)

Our stall - you can see the food in boiling fishy-smelling water...hard boiled eggs, fat-on-a-stick, other mysterious stuff. And what's that? - That guy sitting and eating there...why, it's a non-Japanese person! Very rare!

Our cook tossing something and frying something and straining something. They were busy guys...one to cook, one to wash plates, one to take orders...and one to stand in front and yell unintelligible Japanese.

Next post...the huge 14-inch purple earthworm-looking worm/snake thing!!!

Foods!

2006-09-07T07:05:00.000+09:00

Well, we're making our way into Japanese society, but one thing we both miss is FOOD! American food! We like Japanese food, but enough is enough! Away with the fish! In with the beef!

Here is poor Serenity staring at the empty peanut butter jar. Apparently there's a Costco around somewhere, so we'll have to go hunting for it, and get ourselves a big jar of JIF, Skippy, or whatever. Just no more of this crap!
THIS is typical Japanese food -- some stuff you just can't guess what it is. Yeah, that piece in the middle is BLUE. And spotted.
The sausage-like thing had a whole in the middle with some brown stuff in it. We can only imagine.

Will likes it. More than Serenity, anyway. She is struggling with school lunches everyday though, so give her a break!

Ready-made soups aren't the same either, but really aren't bad. This is an example of the mystery prize you get when you open up a bowl. Sometimes it's mysterious flakes, sometimes it's just spices. One sort-of sweet one is a mushy fried square thing... but it's actually not bad. This one just melted into the noodles after adding the water. Tasted fine.

This is dessert. There were pictures of several nice looking crepes, with bannanas, chocolate, strawberries, ice cream, etc... and this was the photo at the end of the row. Yes, that's tuna, pizza sauce and cream cheese...for dessert. Serenity got the blackberry & vanilla ice cream crepe...Will just walked away.

More to come!

Weekend in Nagasaki

2006-09-03T10:50:00.000+09:00

Well, we had our first Japanese vacation last weekend, and had a great time in Nagasaki! It reminded us alot of San Francisco, with rolling hills right on the water, and a large bay and harbor. They even have a Chinatown, although it was smaller than the one in San Francisco. But, we tasted the local specialty there - champon, and saw most of the must-see sights...

Here is the Nagasaki harbor - the historical trading post for Japan, even in its long period of isolation.

This is the small Japanese-style inn, or ryokan, the Nishikiso, where we stayed. The service was fantastic, and the rooms were very nice...

Here is our day-time living quarters, which turns into the bedroom at night... when we went out for dinner, the innkeeper came in and made up our futon, and brought a hot thermos of water so we could make green tea.

The futons!

Here is the rest of the room. Small, but was everything we needed...

..including bathroom slippers. Almost all bathrooms have some type of these at the entrance, since you don't want to (I guess) wear your regular shoes/slippers into the bathroom.

Will and the view down a common sidestreet near our ryokan.

And here is the first temple we visited.. all along the hillsides, there are temples mixed in with apartment buildings, hotels, etc. This is Sofukuji Temple.

After entering through the above doors, you walk up some steps, and come to this... a window/door into the temple grounds.

I snuck this photo from inside the largest structure. There were many statues inside them, and you can walk up to them, and peer inside, but not go in.

And just next to the temple grounds were rows and rows and rows of gravestones up the hillside. We wandered through the nearest ones. The cicadas were really loud, and everything was pretty overgrown. Very cool.

Here's Will among some of the growth.

And, on Temple Row, there were many other...temples...

This is a hill of gravestones that we climbed all the way up to.... and climbed and climbed...

Seriously.

At Grover Garden, where a number of western traders lived and worked above the city... in quite fanciful environs! Here's me enjoying the view... wish I had a cup of ice tea!

Will next to a common old wall, overgrown with moss.

And here is the A-Bomb hypocenter. The column marks the exact spot where the atom bomb exploded, 500 meters above ground. Yea, it was kinda creepy.

This is the large statue at the Peace Park. His right arm extended upwards warns of the atomic bomb, and his left hand, lowered, calls for peace.

And finally, we headed to the Eyeglass Bridge for a Saturday night summer festival... there were food stalls, and a small entertainment venue. It was warm out, and vibrant with people. A nice ending to our weekend in Nagasaki!

The entertainment...

...and the entertained!

Our new home in the paddies

2006-08-29T15:29:00.000+09:00

Well, here we are -- Tachiarai-machi!
Small. Very small.

Here we are! And yes, that's a basket on my bike - thanks to my predecessor. We went promptly to the store to buy Will a bike this day too. Good investment, very good.

See all that rice? Can you see it?
It is pretty though... pretty hot!!

Typical weather around here for August I'd say.

And here is our new home. It's just one floor, and two rooms plus kitchen, hallway, toilet room and bathroom. That's our towel hanging outside - we have a washer, and everyone hangs their clothes out to dry here, which is nice.

Our full house.

Looking down the street.

This is the view looking left out our windows... very typical architecture of the area. Some of the end roof tiles are very detailed. Also, check out the tree in that person's yard- they all look like that in this neighborhood.

This is the view directly across the street. The view to the right looks about the same, except there's a barber shop. If you really want me to, I'll post that photo too, but let's get on with it for now!

Ta-Da! Luckily we have this lovely western-style toilet!

Here is our kitchen, right when we moved in. Since then, it's a little cleaner, but you get the point.

And here is the building where I work. Why the sign is in English, I'm not sure, but... hey, it's the Dream Center, who can complain? I will be spending alot of my time at the junior high school just down the road, but this is where I'm officially based.

And finally, two more images, and then we'll do some more posting later on.....
This impresses me. Some of them are even colored. That's right, it's a man-hole cover.

And let's all have some lime-tasting water. See where it takes you?

With love,
Serenity & Will

Arrival in Japan

2006-08-07T18:05:00.000+09:00

Our final photo before leaving the U.S.! We sat at SFO for about 3 hours after checking in, and gawked at the 747 when it pulled up. Goodbye California!!! Goodbye casual English!!!

Our view from our Tokyo hotel in the Shinjuku district... most of what Serenity saw of Tokyo! It got light outside at around 4am - which really threw us off, especially with the jet lag.

The view of Tokyo at night from one side of the Park Plaza Hotel, where we had a nice dinner. This view goes 360 degrees around -- the end is never in sight, no matter where you look! That was the amazing part about Tokyo -- it just seemed to go on and on and on...

After 3 days in Tokyo, Serenity was bussed to the domestic airport along with about 50 or so other people all going to Kyushu, and many to Fukuoka prefecture (-ken). Will was left to his own devices, and managed to find himself in Tachiarai at about the same time that she arrived... somehow!!!

Will is going to have to write about his experience with that, but as for Serenity:
All I can say, is that a co-worker was helping me into our apartment when she happened to call the Board of Education, and they told her that my husband was on his way... how they knew that, or how it was possible was totally beyond me... what a surprise!!

And on to Tachiarai...