Mom and Jason's visit pt.3

MOM AND JAYSON VISIT

PT.3

JOURNEY TO THE CASTLE

Hello everyone. Sorry for the delay. It's hot here...we spend most of the day complaining about the weather, so there is little time to update, or move in any way for that matter. Here though, are pictures from Himeji Castle, and the garden's next to it that we visited when Mom and Jay were here. Enjoy!

In our search for food, which was Subway incidentally, we had to make a bathroom break. And check this place out; even the toilets are welcoming to the tourists in Himeji! What a town!

Ah, sorry these are out of order. This is the view from the very top of the castle. You have to climb up a ton of narrow stairs but it's worth it.

Haha, this is Aaron doing his best impression of the creepy girl from "The Ring." Why? you may ask. Well, see the well behind him...it's called "Okiku's well." The legend goes, there was a maid in the castle named Okiku. She was in charge of guarding these 10 sacred plates. One day, she overheard a plot to destroy the Lord of the castle. She told him and saved his life. In retaliation, the man who she over heard stole one of the sacred plates. Once the Lord of the castle found out that one of the plates was missing, he killed poor Okiku and tossed her in the well...or something like that. Story goes that you can hear her sad voice counting the plates up to 9, then starting over. The Japanese novel "Ringu," of which the Japanese movies and the American movies are based, draws some inspiration from this well.

Here we are at the gardens. Cool bridge. There are hundreds of Japanese carp, koi, in the ponds here. Some are HUGE! bigger than my arm for sure.

Mom and I resting on a rock.

This is in the tea garden. Jayson is a very bad gaijin who can not read signs. (it says "keep of the grass") They clip the grass in this garden with scissors...I've seen it.

Wowie! That's pretty. The pretty hanging purply flowers are Japanese wisteria. So pretty.

This is in the garden that is famous for having these awesome black lava rocks.

Now, we are back to the castle grounds. There is the castle keep in the background. Behind that fence I am leaning on is the inner moat.

There was way too many bees hovering around us here...I ran away as soon as the picture was done. (look up info on the Japanese hornet and you'll know why)

Aaron by some cool old samurai armor.

Back at the gardens now. Jay and I lounging on a rock in the middle of the pond.

Nice little resting spot,ne?

I should have cropped this one. Jay and I are making some weird faces and pointing, but Aaron's face is the best. I'll have to post it later.

Jayson is trying to be all crouching tiger, hidden dragon or something.

Okay after we got back that night, we drank a lot of screw drivers. Jayson is brandishing a banana at me!

Looks like Aaron is putting in the Best of Christopher Walkin DVD. Nice choice. Oh and on the grill are some rice balls! yummy.

Someone is showing us some grilled chicken on a stick.It kind of looks like it is stabbing Jay in the head...Is this before or after Jay wrote that email to Andrea confessing his undying love for her?

Oh nope, he's okay! and eating cabbage...with his mouse hood on. Oh boy.

Well, that's all for now. I'll post our trip to Osaka next.
Hope all is well at home. Drop us a line on here. Anyone still reading this thing?

Mom and Jason's visit pt.2

Oh hello there. Welcome to...

MOM AND JAYSON VISIT:
THE EPIC JOURNEY
PART 2

This part of our tale finds us in Kyoto. After short rest back home in Kobe, we rode the train over to Kyoto, about an hour and a half journey. Andrea picked us up from Kyoto Station and we went back to her place before setting out. These pictures are out of order again, sorry. So, I will write under each one to tell where they are from.

This is from the dinner the first night we were in Kyoto. We went to a great modonyaki place called Fuji's. We've been there before and damn, some of the best modonyaki ever. Also really great nama-beer. We had a great time.

This is the Golden Pavilion, see because it is gold, right?
This was one of the last places we visited. If you look close on the patch of land near the bottom left corner you can see the crane! or is it a heron? some kind of Japanese bird!

This is Kiyomizu-Dera. A really famous, and beautiful, temple in the hills of Kyoto. We visited on the first day of our trip. This place is famous for having the water that is supposed to make you have eternal life.

This is the skyline view from Kiyomizu-Dera. That big tall thing is Kyoto Tower. Lots of people in Kyoto don't like it. They think it is too tall, ruins the skyline.

Here we are on the steps up to Kiyomizu-Dera.

This is at the first temple we visited called Sanjusangen-do. It is famous for several reasons: it is the longest wooden building in Japan, it hosts the very famous archery contest every year for the coming of age ceremony, and it has the mysteriously beautiful 1,000 Kannon statues. Each statue is about life size and each one is slightly different from the others. Very magnificent. In this picture I have apparently spotted something very interesting in the water...I think it was a crab or something.

Pretty Kyoto style garden.

Here is that photo from up there, only I am looking at the camera instead of the mystery water creature.

On the subways in Kyoto...I got sleepy and took a nap on Jay. I don't think he liked it.

So he responded by attacking me!! The fiend!

After resting, the next day we went to the Falafel garden for lunch. Mom had never eaten falafels before. Tasty as always.

Here we are the Golden Pavilion.

So Kyoto was great. Good weather and Andrea was a great host/tour guide. Though mom and jay had some difficulties sleeping on the floor, they got over it...after a day or two.

Up next will be our trip to the castle at Himeji!
See you then!

Mom and Jason's visit pt.1

MOM AND JAYSON VISIT:

THE EPIC JOURNEY
PT.1

So, these pictures are out of order, sorry. I was pulling pictures from my camera, mom's camera, and Jason's camera so it got hard to keep everything in the right order. Oh well!

Mom and Jay got here on May 1st. We picked them up from the airport and went back to Kobe via the high speed ferry, which was a neat way to travel, plus it was practically empty. Of course, Mom and Jay were their wonderful selves so they were loud and crazy...so it was a good thing it was pretty empty on the ferry!
It was so great to see family after so long apart. But, let's get to the pictures! The first part will be from our 3 day trip to Tokyo. These are out of order so I will just put a note under them.




Here is Mom and Jay demonstrating the proper way to walk down the street in Tokyo (see the glowing sign above them). Great job guys. This was our first night in Tokyo. We were on our way to the Tokyo Metropolitan Government building to see the night view.

This was from our second day in Tokyo. We were in the Harajuku area and we stopped for lunch at a place called Fuji-mama's. Well, we couldn't find the place, so we just went to an open air street restaurant. It was Chinese/Thai/Japanese mix. It was cheap and very tasty. I had to get this ramen just because of the description...and the painful spice on china did indeed enter it was spicy as hell!

Here is the full spread. Mom and Jay got cashew chicken and Aaron got a kind of Nasai Goreng rice and we also got some awesome side dishes. It was top notch.

Here we are at the 3 story Daiso dollar store in Harajuku. Mom and Aaron are samuari and I think Jay is a balding Salaryman. Attractive.

This is the view from the Ryokan, Japanese Inn, that we stayed at the second night in Tokyo. It is famous for its night view of the pagoda at Sensoji temple.

Here we are on our way to Tokyo via the Shinkansen bullet train. As mom and Jay are demonstrating it is popular to drink on the train... and drink we did.

Here is the entrance to Harajuku that we visited on the second day. It was SOOO busy! It was a holiday so everyone was out shopping. We did have the fortune to see not 1, but 3 men dressed up as Lolita girls...like dressed in skirts with petticoats and lace and ribbons and blonde wigs and everything. Bizzare!

This is a shot of the Japanese style bath at the ryokan. It was lovely. Jason may or may not have accidentally broken something here...

OKay, this is out of order. This was when Mom and Jay first got here.

Here we are the first night in Japan. Katherine came over and we went to a little restaurant down the road.

Here we are looking lovely waiting for the Shinkansen to arrive. Check out Aaron's lack of moustache!

This is such a cute picture! The shinkansen is behind us, cool!

Here are some of the left-overs from Mom and Jay's drinking binge on the train.

Our first night we stayed at a youth hostel. Here we are settling in. Jay is practicing for Miss Saigon perhaps?

Here we are in front of one of the Buddha statues at Sensoji temple.

Frolicking in the rain at the park on the way to the Tokyo National Museum.

"Hey look. A fountain."

This is in Harajuku again. We are trying on some slick shades at a 300 yen store.

Haha. This is when we traveled back to Kobe and had a few drinks. We're weird.

So, part 2 will include our trip to Kyoto.
See you then!

only in japan...

I saw a middle school aged girl today on the train. Nothing crazy about that. She chatted with her friend, looked at her cell phone. Then, she started pulling up her school socks. Again, that is the style these days, socks pulled up as high as they can go. Then, to my surprise, she pulled out what looked like a giant chap stick, and put it on her leg right where her sock would come up its highest. And of course, this wasn't chap stick, but a giant stick of sock glue. Yes, sock glue. It looks like a glue stick, because, welll...that's what it is. Only you put it on your leg to keep your socks up.

I am certain it will be all the rage back home. x_x

Takarazuka Hike

Hey all! Aaron here. This is a really delayed post, but a good one, so bare with me. This was probably one of the coolest things we've done in recent times, and produced a lot of great photography, as it was a scenic hike. I've actually been very sparse with the photos, but I think you'll get a good feel for our visual and physical journey along an old abandoned railway.

Little background: This is in Takarazuka, which is a more rural town near Osaka. The whole hike is on an old railway bed, which makes it flat (not counting the countless rail ties we walked over and upon.) It cuts through a pretty awesome mountainous valley.

Believe it or not, this is actually where we got off the train. This is the station. It's on top of a bridge that crosses the very valley we would be hiking through. Convenient, huh? If you notice, I shaved my mustache off that day, for the first time in years. They told me it looked weird, so I grew it back immediately.

Here's Mana, sporting her prized panda fanny pack. She truly puts my look to shame with this most sacred and powerful of accents. I dare not comment on what's happening in the background. Anyway, this next shot is what we could see from the station. It further drove our appetites for adventure.

Pretty nice.
Here's one from a boulder that jutted out into the river a ways down the trail. Because this was a train bed, there were actually several tunnels we had to pass through, some of which grew completely pitch black at points. Here's the exit to one of them.


Ooooh, tunnely.

This was the old bridge for the train. There was an iron platform just to the right that we had to walk across. It was quite a ways down, but my problem with heights proved no problem. It was an awesome sight.

Here's the whole crew, accept for Ben Sel, who had wandered off at this point. From left to right, we have: Kendra, Ben, Ben's GF Akina, Mana, Langdon, Andrea, Abel, and Katherine. That means I took this picture. What a good looking group of nerds.

That's just creepy.

Nice shot of the valley.

We climbed down from the train tracks to the riverbed for a picnic. It was really breezy, but the food, company, and views were spectacular.

Here's a couple of them contemplating the view following our meal.

Ben is apparently the king of the world in this photo. This was actually my favorite spot on the hike. We found a way down from the bank, and climbed out onto this massive boulder. There were rapids all around it, and you could see some killer views of the river from there. What an adventure.

This is sort of random, but just as we were ending the hike, Mana found an abandoned fold-up bicycle. She decided to let me keep it, since I was devoid a bike, and the thing folded up for easy passage on the train. Plus, we didn't live all that far away. I've since fixed up the bike and find it quite useful. Anyway, here's a picture of Mana giving me the bike in exchange for the fanny pack, which we had actually already given her for Christmas. It was a fitting way to end an out of the ordinary sort of day. Hope you liked the photos!

Miiiiyaaaakoooo OoodOOOriiiiiii

Hello again. Kendra Here. For those of you who want to play along, please read this entry's tittle in a kind of high pitched whine. That is what the opening line of the "Miyako Odori" always sounds like.

For a quick explanatory video, see this, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NAde-ZZ_URw&feature=related

For those who want to read my rambling explanation...
The Miyako Odori (Dances of the Old Capital) is a public dance concert put on every year by the Geisha in the Gion district of Kyoto. There are 4 main Geisha districts in Kyoto and Gion is considered to be one of the best; particularly for producing amazing dancers. Usually you have to be part of the "inner circle" of rich, important clientelle to be invited into one of Gion's teahouses in order to see a real Geisha party. But, once a year from April1-30 they put on a public show at the Gion theatre.

Here is the garden that is part of the theatre experience. Only people with first-class tickets get to go in. I've been wanting to see this since I was 14, so I decided to go ahead and make this a big splurge and buy the expensive tickets. Well worth it!
The garden is known for its impressive weeping Sakura, although, it was past the peak of the Sakura season so this tree is not at its full bloom sadly.

After a stroll through the garden, you get to go see a tea ceremony by the Geisha.
Here the maiko-san (the standing one) is coming over to her siting spot. The Geisha sitting behind the table to making the tea. She only makes two cups per group, so only two people get tea actually made by her, but everyone gets a cup and a sweet cake. Oh, also you get to keep your plate as a keepsake!
Here is one of the rather frazzled helper ladies telling me to kindly go sit down.

So, of course you can't take pictures inside the theatre, so I don't have any pictures of the show. But, that video link up there to that youtube.com video has actual footage. The theme of this year's show was the 1,000 anniversary of The Tale of Genji, by lady Murasaki Shikibu, considered by most people to be the world's first novel. And wouldn't you know it...it's an angsty/romantic drama!
The book is getting a lot of face time this year because of the anniversary. The dances at this years Miyako Odori were based on scenes from the novel. The best one, Aaron and I agree, was the most dramatic one wherein two of the court ladies get into an argument over- get this- parking spaces for their carriages. Anywho, the one super mean lady gets all evil curse like and is so enraged at the other court lady that her malicious spirit creates a living ghost which then proceeds to attack the other woman and her ladies in waiting. The dances were so spooky and there was even strobe lights!


Here is a video I took of the tea ceremony.

Up next...our daring adventure along the abandoned railway tracks in Takarazuka!

Take care.