Number 27

Japan Chronicle 27

I am now writing this final chronicle in the series almost a year and one half after we returned. Somehow, I never quite got around to getting it done. Every time I considered it, I felt homesick for Japan and just couldn’t do it. Now, as I sit here faced with the probability of returning in January 2003, it is much easier to think about. The only problem is that my memory is less than perfect, so I will do my best and consult the rest of our travelers for their recollections as well.
Picking up Dad and Mom at the airport went really smoothly. They weren’t as tired as I feared they might be. We had a simple dinner at home.

One of the things Dad had surprised me with was a request to meet some of our Japanese friends. I had not even considered that, but it turned out to be a fun event. Our apartment, while Japanese style, was not really set up to entertain, but I figured we could make do.

I invited our Japanese club over for lunch. I made tacos and they each brought Japanese dishes to go with them. Don’t ask what Japanese food goes with Mexican food, but it was fun. Tatsu was even able to join us for a couple of days. Dad had brought some of the new American quarters from the different states and gave them as gifts and some of our friends brought gifts for them.

Later that afternoon, we went and picked Dana up from his last day at work. When we arrived at Dana’s work, we were all treated to a tour of the facility complete with group photos and profound bows and good byes. It was really neat! Some of the men that Dana worked with had taken him out to lunch earlier that week, to say goodbye. While we were all anxious to go home, I think we were also sad to be leaving.

After the tour, we took Dana’s folks to Kai Ka Te for dinner. We had a nice dinner, but Mom didn’t think too much of the sashimi! We found other good things for her to enjoy. This was also our chance to say goodbye to Machiko-san.

Saturday was our trip to Tokyo. While there were several places we wanted to take Dana’s folks, the main place was the Imperial Palace. You see, Dana’s dad had been in Tokyo at the end of the Korean War and had taken a picture at the Imperial Palace. Unknowingly, Dana had taken a picture from the same spot in 1998 on his first trip to Japan. It seemed appropriate that we take a picture of the two of them in the same location in 2000!

We did do some shopping at the Oriental Bazaar and wandered around Shinjuku. It was nice to have Tatsu along as a translator. We found a great restaurant rather like a Benihannas for lunch. The steak was good and they made a neat fried ice cream dessert right on the grill in front of us!

The end of our day in Tokyo led us to say goodbye to Tatsu and then we drove back to Mito.

Sunday morning we went to Mass at the church in Mito and said our goodbyes there. Dad and Mom wandered around the Art Tower at the center of Mito and we had lunch afterwards. Our original plans were to travel to Nikko on this day, but there was just too much to do to pack up all our stuff and get out of the apartment.

Monday was spent packing, cleaning and everything connected with vacating our apartment. Dad took the kids to the park for a while and went for a walk around the neighborhood with Mom. We spent that night at the Holiday Inn in town.

Tuesday was Mom’s birthday and we celebrated the day by driving to the place she most wanted to see in Japan, Mt. Fuji. Unfortunately the weather was a lot less than accommodating and we couldn’t see much of the mountain. We did have a very nice Japanese dinner in the restaurant at the hotel that night.

Mt. Fuji was one of the other places Dana’s dad had been while he was in Japan in the 1950’s and we were even able to stay in the same hotel as he had then. From my perspective, this was probably his greatest disappointment about Japan. When he was there before, Tokyo was a busy city and although it had grown, it was still a busy city. Mt. Fuji and the area around it was very rural and more of a village. A quiet part of Japan, if you will. Well, Fuji is a tourist area in Japan and now has many resorts and homes. I think he had hoped it would not have changed as much as it did.

We did drive up the mountain as far as you could, where most people would begin their ascent---if it weren’t snowing! We took a few pictures and went into the stores then began down the road toward Nagoya.

On the way to Nagoya, we stopped at one of the roadside rests for lunch and a break. I’m not sure I have ever described these rest stops and since this was by far the nicest we had been to, it seems appropriate to do so. When you are traveling along a highway, the exits are few and far between. These highways also have tolls that must be paid based on how far you drive on them. Well, rather than make you get off the highway for a break, they have rest stops along them. The rest stops always have toilets, a place to get food like a convenience store and a gas station. Some of them have nice restaurants. This particular one that we stopped at had several restaurants and some shops, not to mention it was right along the ocean and had an exquisite view! It was a pleasant surprise.

The other things worthy of noting were the rows and rows of tea plants that we saw along the highway. At first we weren’t too sure of what they were, but after some careful deliberation and finding a postcard with them pictured on them, we learned what they were. They grow in rows rather like grape vines grow in California, but they are wider and are terraced up the sides of the mountains. It was quite beautiful to see.

Nagoya was the site of a beautiful castle and our first night in a Japanese style inn.

In the morning, we went to Denny’s for breakfast, the girls played in the park with Mom and Dad and then we headed for the Noritake factory. Most of you are probably familiar with Noritake porcelain. They have a large factory in Nagoya that also has a tour and museum. We all enjoyed seeing the entire process for making fine china. It was amazing to learn that some of their museum quality pieces take one person about 6 months to complete the painting.

From there, we went on to Nagoya Castle. Nagoya Castle: Built on the site of an older castle in 1610-14. It was destroyed in WWII and replaced in 1959 with a ferroconcrete replica. Look out for the three-meter-long replicas of the famous shachi-hoko, dolphin like sea creatures that stand at either end of the roof (and inside every souvenir shop in town). The interior houses a museum with armor and family treasures, which escaped the bombing.

After our time at the castle, we headed out for Kyoto. Kyoto wasn’t a very long drive, so it made for an easy day. That night, Thursday, we didn’t do much other than check-in to our inn and wander around the train station.

Friday we headed out of town to Arashiyama, where we took a train to Kameoka. In Kameoka we boarded a boat of sorts and took a ride down a section of the Hozu River. The boat was a cross between a gondola, a raft and a paddleboat. It was guided by a helmsman and when not powered by the current of the river, it was moved a long by a man using a stick and momentum to push us along. It was a great ride! As we neared the end of our trip, another boat the size of our except with a motor pulled up next to us to sell us food and drinks and then to help us pull into the dock.

We spent most of the rest of the afternoon in Arashiyama walking around the stores and enjoying the cherry blossoms. This was a great time to be there because all of the blossoms were at their peak. There were beautiful women walking around in their kimonos and the river made for an ideal setting.

In the morning, on our drive to Arashiyama, we had encountered some streets that were particularly narrow and busy---even for Japan! We decided to try to get some photos and videos of these streets so we could show them to people who didn’t quite understand what we were talking about. While we never ended up back on the same streets, we did get a few photos.

Our final stop as a tourist that day was something I had wanted to see--- a raked rock garden. It was beautiful and peaceful! It gives me some ideas for our own home. That night, Mom and Dad kept the girls for dinner and Dana and I went out for a quiet evening alone. We wandered the huge fancy train station and had a simple dinner.

Saturday, we went to the big temple nearby our inn, to the zoo and then to what was called an Arts and Crafts bazaar near another temple. At the bazaar, we were able to buy simple kimonos, called yakutas, for the girls and I to take home. We also bought a few other little goodies. We saw people doing wood block printing and several other Japanese style crafts.

Sunday, we went to Mass in Kyoto and then drove down to Kobe. Dad wanted to see how Kobe had been rebuilt after the earthquake a few years before. From the vantage point of someone who had never seen Kobe before, it was hard to tell where the damage had been and where things had been rebuilt.

From there we drove to Osaka for our last night in Japan. Our room was beautiful and had a view of the castle and surrounding grounds from the window. We wandered around from the hotel, relaxed a bit and pondered what the last seven months had meant to us and wondered if we would ever return!

Unfortunately, because I am writing this some 16 months later, I have probably missed some details; but hopefully, I have most of it accurate.