Yamagata, Day 3

Here's the third and final full day of my trip north last month!

That morning, my friend Char returned to Tokyo, which meant that I had the next 24 hours or so all to myself. I put on my warmest clothes and headed for the free community bus that would take me to Mount Zao:

• Left: the bus dropped us off around 10.30am. Little did I know that there was so much fog you wouldn't be able to see a thing. I very nearly turned around to catch the bus back 45 minutes later, because I knew that the next one wouldn't come for another 4 hours, but I kept climbing until I reached the top of one of the peaks. Apart from a shrine, this was literally all you could see, and I wish I could tell you what it is, but unfortunately I cannot. I felt like I was in some kind of science fiction movie.
• Right: I had just begun to think that I had wasted my day by deciding to come to the mountain instead of doing something else--nothing was visible because of the heavy fog. Just when I decided to leave the rest house (where we'd all been keeping warm at the top of the mountain) and head back, the sun came out and this is what we saw. Earlier in the morning I had stood in almost the same spot and couldn't see more than a couple yards in front of me, so I was definitely glad that things cleared up.

• Left: Mount Zao is famous for its crater.
• Right: it was a very busy day on the mountain...

• Left: I took this photo at one of the bus stops on the trip back to town. No color enhancement for this image, folks. It really was that vibrant.
• Right: back in town, just a 10 minute walk from my ryokan (hotel) was the local castle.

And I guess that's about all of the highlights from this trip. Next up: my dad's visit!

Yamagata, Day 2

The day after arriving in Yamagata, my coworkers spent the morning doing a little exploring but then headed right back to Tokyo. My friend Char and I were the only ones who stayed behind, so after transferring our luggage to our new hotel, the two of us had all day to do whatever we wanted. We ended up going to a place called Yamadera (meaning "mountain temples").

Yamadera is a tiny town a little to the east of the main Yamagata train station, which is home to one of the most popular tourist attractions of the region. It's basically a small mountain which holds a lot of religious significance for Buddhists and you climb your way to the top up a long series of staircases. Each step towards the top (there are 1,015 stairs) is said to bring you closer to enlightenment. In my opinion, "enlightenment" must just be a euphemism for "sore muscles."

The temple at the top is not the only thing worth seeing; the whole trek to the top is about 45 minutes and takes you past more than a dozen other smaller temples as well as many religious monuments carved into the rock of the mountain. Overall, it's a pretty incredible sight!

• Left: At the base of the mountain, there are several shops mostly catering to tourists, but nonetheless offering a great variety of local produce and specialty items. We just picked up a couple apples at this place, but I thought the colors of the other fruits/vegetables were incredible.
• Right: This was taken about 2/3 of the way up the mountain...we had to stop and rest our legs.

• Left: Much closer to the top there is a view point that lets you see down the side of the mountain you have just climbed...
• Right: ...and from the other side of the balcony, you can see the entire city of Yamadera.

• Left: Victory! I had sore legs for 2-3 days afterwards, but it felt very good to reach the top.
• Right: After leaving Yamadera, Char and I continued eastwards another 45 minutes by train to reach Sendai, which is one of the larger of the cities in the northern area of Japan. We stopped there only to eat dinner (delicious Indian food!) and then turned around and went back to our hotel in Kaminoyama-onsen. We slept *very* well that night...

(See this site for other images of Yamadera.)

Yamagata, Day 1

Here is the much-delayed second installment of photos from my trip to Yamagata! (I told myself I need to get these posted so that I can follow these up with the pictures of my dad's visit...)

• Left: A few colors not easy to find in the area where I live. I was so glad to have a window seat on the bullet train to the countryside! (Sorry about the glare in the window...)
• Right: Another spectacular view was awaiting us when we arrived at our hotel! This is the view from the window in my room.

• Left: my coworkers and I were served dinner in the traditional Japanese style. You might be able to see that some of us are wearing traditional robes (called "yukata") as well. Fun, useless fact: every traditional hotel (called "ryokan" in Japan) has its own personalized pattern on the fabric of the yukata. Each guest is provided with one on arrival, and encouraged to wear it during their stay, so basically a traditional Japanese hotel is full of people all dressed identically.
  
• Right: it was astonishingly well-presented (there were probably upwards of 6 courses to the meal) and everything looked so beautiful. The downside? It was basically a collection of all the things that I like the least when it comes to Japanese food. Here is a mere glimpse of how much of a picky eater I am: underneath the red box was a set of stacked trays containing assorted sushi (I don't eat fish) and strange Japanese vegetables (I know from experience which ones to avoid), I don't like the particular way that beef was meant to be eaten, the glass directly in front of me was left empty until eventually someone served some tea (I don't drink the beer that everyone else was having) and there were mushrooms in lots of stuff too (don't touch those, either). Needless to say that my two friends on either side of me got a lot of extra dinner that night...and later I was stuck eating potato chips and sneaking samples of treats from the hotel gift shop in order to fill my growling stomach. But it was probably the most beautiful meal I have ever seen, so I'll have to take solace in that.

• Left: after dinner there was a taiko (Japanese drum) performance in the hotel lobby by some of the local women. Of course there was audience participation...and since I was sitting in the front row AND I was the only white person in the room (yes, that makes you quite a novelty in Yamagata) I was literally pushed out of my seat to go join in. Don't get me wrong, taiko is something I've wanted to learn for a long time, I just wasn't excited about doing it in front of the enormous crowd of vacationing retirees that were sitting on all the other benches.
• Right: a view of the inside of my hotel room. While we were eating dinner, the hotel staff actually goes in to your room and moves the table aside in order to lay out the futon mattresses. I had a very comfortable bed waiting for me after I got back from the meal!

More to come...

My newest Kit-Kat adventure

I went on a trip to Yamagata last week, which is located in the more rural areas of Honshu (the island that I live on) and it is famous for produce, most notably fruits like grapes, pears, and cherries. Every souvenir shop and tourist attraction was full of snacks in those flavors.

Most unique, however, was a flavor that I have only seen so far in the Tohoku region (which Yamagata is part of). All over the area, there are various types of sweets or snacks that are ずんだ ("zunda") flavored. "Zunda" is a word in Japanese for edamame, or soybeans. Most places it looked kind of like a bright green, lumpy paste, but there were other places where folks had simply added that flavor to some other things I like to eat. Here's what I got:
Zunda softcream. For those of you who don't think that green soybean flavored ice cream sounds good, it actually was delicious. The flavor was just milder than I expected. It should also be said that I was eating this ice cream while at a "rest house" on top of a mountain in northern Japan in mid-October (pics to be posted later). It was *freezing* outside, literally. I definitely had an audience watching me eat this, which added a whole new element to the experience. Everybody else was drinking hot coffee and eating soup or tama-konnyaku, another Yamagata delicacy.

And next came...
Zunda Kit-Kats!! Also extremely delicious. I've had trouble keeping myself away from them. Trust me- I have shared this box of goodies with NO ONE! As some of you know (especially if you've tried any of the souvenirs that I've brought home from Tokyo), flavored Kit-Kats are a huge thing over here, so it's only natural that somebody would produce Kit-Kats in this flavor as well. Not only is it a very tasty treat, but I've now added yet another flavor to the growing list, which I should actually try to post here sometime...

This is a sign indicating directions to a mountain in one of the more rural parts of Yamagata. Translated to English, it's called "Mount Interesting." I didn't go there, though. I was too busy visiting Yamadera, or "Mountain Temples," which is literally a mountain full of different temples. Those Japanese sure don't mess around when they give names to natural landmarks. Maybe I should have visited this place after all...

The recession's been especially tough for Japanese toilets...

(Click to enlarge and read the message taped to the seat.)

Japanese Wisdom, II

Another T-shirt from Shibuya:

~~~

LOVE
and PEACE
and JFK

~~~

My Sweet Birthday Flowers:

Beautiful! I had to leave them on the table all day while I was at work, just so I could look at them while I was grading papers...

A Nap in Japan #2

I'd just like to take a moment to present the second installment of my series:

"A Nap in Japan: Japanese people can (and do) sleep anywhere."

• Left: At first glance, you might just think he's looking for something under the seat. But by the second, third, fourth and fifth glances, you realize that what's under his seat is actually not anything he's concerned about.
• Right: As you can see, the pose from the shot on the left is not particularly unique. Even though I took that picture almost three years ago, it is a sight I've seen much more often than that, as in this photo taken last week at Shinagawa train station. This guy was totally alone on the platform until my train arrived, yet he didn't even move a muscle when dozens of people got off the train and walked past him. This guy was out.

(Click here to view the first post.)

Japanese wisdom, whatever that means...

So I'm really sad I didn't have my camera with me at the time, but this is what I saw on the back of a guy's pink T-shirt at Shibuya Station last night:

~~~

"HUMILITY"

Imitate
Jesus and
Socrates

~~~

How's that for advice?

Kobe Trip (6.18.09)

In June, I took my first overnight trip in Japan and left the Tokyo area for the first time in all of my three years in this country. So glad I went! My friends Mary, Char and I had lots of fun. In addition, I had a day all to myself to do some touristy stuff (Mary was living there at the time and Char had been there before, so they went off to Osaka that day). Here are a few shots:

• Left: We took the Shinkansen (bullet train) late Wednesday evening, arriving at our hotel in Kobe just before midnight.
• Right: The next morning I woke up early to take a walk around the neighborhood. Pictured here is Kobe's main shrine. Looks nice and peaceful in the morning, right? Well, it was...until just after those monks you can see at the top of the steps had finished their chanting, and then the alarm on my mobile phone had the decency to go off, with the volume on its highest setting. Literally, it was seconds after they had finished and were standing in silent meditation, right after I took this photo. I was mortified! I wonder if monks have a sense of humor about that sort of thing...

• Left: after I had caused as much disruption as possible at the shrine, I knew that was my cue to go hit the rest of the town. One of my first stops was a tiny amusement park with a ferris wheel, which looked like the most promising spot to get a good view of the city. I arrived at 10:50, the park opened at 11. No joke, this is how seriously Japanese people are about punctuality. This kid stood there at the gate, with potential visitors ready and waiting, and just looked at his watch until EXACTLY 11am, not a second sooner.
• Right: Yes, I took this picture on purpose. No, it's not a pile of rubbish. This is the park memorializing the Great Hanshin (Kobe) earthquake of 1995, which measured a 7.2. There is almost nothing left in this city that is older than 15 years, with one notable exception being the next photo:

• Left: Kobe's Port Tower, one of the few structures to survive the quake and the mainstay of the city's skyline--especially at night.
• Right: part of Kobe's Nunobiki Herb Garden. In the background you can see the cable cars that bring visitors up the mountain from the main train station. At the cafe here, every dish is centered on an herbal theme. I tried the Rose Smile (an Italian soda made with rose-flavored syrup) and the Herb Sherbet (wild strawberry, lavender, basil and an unidentifiable orange were the four flavors--basil was my unexpected but absolute favorite).

• Left: a view of the city from the cable-car ride back from the herb garden.
• Right: rice paddies. I took this photo the next morning on the bullet train ride back to Tokyo.

In all, a very enjoyable experience and something I would definitely recommend to anyone in Japan long enough to afford the luxury of a little side-trip to Kobe for a day or two!

Miscellany

The title says it all...

• Left: went to the "Hawaii Festival" in Odaiba and got coconut bubble tea. Not that interesting in and of itself, except for the fact that the straw was more than twice the height of the cup. Weird...
• Right: Children's Day was celebrated on the 5th of May. These windsocks are hung outside of pretty much every house where children live, in addition to daycare centers, schools and this children's activity center in the building next to where I work. Admittedly, the carp windsocks look pretty lifeless in this photo, but when the wind blows through them they are meant to look like fish swimming upstream--a symbol of strength.

• Left: this store gets my (nonexistent) award for "Weird Shop Name of the Week"
• Right: Ran across this fantastic shopping bag while browsing in Loft (pretty much one of the most awesome department stores in Tokyo...) and couldn't resist. No, it's not Japanese English, but it's definitely just as funny. :)

The biggest parfait you'll ever see...

Last weekend was pretty eventful: I took a half-day holiday from work on Saturday because my littlest Japanese friends, Keita and Kanta, invited me to watch their soccer tournament. (They are twin brothers who are 1st-graders on the team that my host family coaches.)

Followed that up the next day with a birthday celebration for my friend Char at one of my fave restaurants--Asian Kitchen. This place serves absolutely enormous parfaits for birthdays; so big, in fact, that they have to be ordered ahead of time. You may have already seen what Char and I managed to get last year, but that pales in comparison to what we got this time. (Check out last year's post here.) I guess I'll have to refer to the latest one as the "Super-uber parfait"?

Check out my weekend:

• Left: the team I came to watch is wearing green. This is the schoolyard where they practice every weekend, which also happens to be the same elementary school where my host mom works as a cook. Note that in addition to the lack of greenery throughout the entirety of Tokyo, they have also apparently decided that children would be better off playing on a gravel/sand mix rather than grass at school, too. This is what pretty much every school and park I have ever seen in Japan looks like.
• Right: Kanta got to be goalie for a little while! We won't talk in detail about how that turned out, though... :)

• Left: at the end of soccer games, instead of doing the high-five-"good game" thing that American children do, the players line up and bow to each other. Here is a shot of my little guys bowing to the coaches of the opposing team, which is also done at the end of every game. Got to give the Japanese credit for the extreme politeness...
• Right: and here they are after their third and final game in the tournament. Unfortunately, the two that I came to watch have their heads turned, otherwise I'd tell you who they are...

• Left: Char (L) and Maki (R) were the birthday girls (Maki's was the Tuesday before). No joke, ladies and gentlemen, the parfait really was as enjoyable as they make it look. The picture doesn't do it justice, either; it was bigger than it looks here. Check out the spoons that came with the parfait, too.
• Right: I, of course, was delighted to be able to join in the consumption of such deliciousness, even though it's nowhere close to my birthday. (No, I didn't get my own parfait, it's the same one from the other picture...)

• Left: This is what it looked like after we'd inflicted as much damage as our stomachs could tolerate. Not bad for just three girls, huh? This moment documents the end of nearly 45 minutes of stuffing our faces with bananas, strawberries, cherries, kiwi, mango, pineapple, whip cream, pudding, cake, ice cream, chou pastries, chocolate syrup, cornflakes, sprinkles...well, you get the idea.
• Right: Nothing to do with the other pictures from the restaurant, but this is the sign near the entrance. It's just saying that you have to go down the hall if you want to buy cigarettes or use the restroom, but that explanation still doesn't make it any less odd.

Ever wonder what little Japanese boys wear at soccer practice?

Basically it's the same as what you'd see in America...only looking a little more like a girl's uniform:
Make no mistake--there's not a single girl on that team. Ahhh, the wonders of living in Japan.
More to come in the near future...

It wouldn't be spring in Japan without...

CHERRY BLOSSOMS!!

This year, I am ashamed to admit that I let my responsibilities at work get the better of me, meaning that I lost track of time and missed Sakura season at its peak. Thankfully, I was able to take a day and go back to Shinjuku Gyo-en for my annual "hanami" (blossom-viewing). I was disappointed to see that many of the trees were nearly done blooming and were instead shedding petals everywhere, but I still enjoyed the visit.




Photos:

• Top left: the petals covering the ground near the entrance looked like snow. All afternoon, I was brushing them off myself--it was a breezy day!
  
• Top right: close up
  
• Bottom left: view from the window of the Chinese tea house
  
• Bottom right: This photo cannot do it true justice: the blue sky that day was by far the best I've seen during a visit to this garden. *Almost* equally as spectacular as the pink. :)