A tiny ferris wheel, a godzilla made of tires, and owl poop

This post has been a long time coming.  The photos are all from a Sunday in December, but I wanted to wait until I got some photos from a friend to post along with mine.  It all started with a plan to go see some owls...

(Insert time-traveling harp music here.)

My friend Eli and I had heard about this owl cafe in our neighborhood.

"What's an owl cafe?" you ask. Well, an owl cafe is a variation on a cat cafe, which is popular in Japan.

"Ok, but what's a cat cafe?"

Pretty much it's a place where people go pay to play with cats and drink soft drinks. A lot of people can't have pets in their apartments here, but cats are just so cuuuuute, so some entrepreneurial people have decided on a way to make money while letting people get their cat fix. Or their owl fix, in this case.

Anyways, Eli and I had been pretty excited about this for a while. Because how often do you get to hang out with owls? So one sunny Sunday afternoon we walked on over. Upon discovering that we had just missed the lunch time opening and would have to wait until "cafe time", we decided to go ride the tiny little ferris wheel on top of the department store down the street.  Up until a year ago, I didn't even know there was roof access, but there's a fair share of amusement available (depending on your standards for "amusement").

Here it is:

It takes a "full three minutes" to go all the way around...

Not a bad view from the top

Proof that we enjoyed ourselves

After getting a level of enjoyment proportionate to the size of the ferris wheel, we made our way back to the owl cafe.  Only to discover that we had not come "on time", at a place where no appointments are necessary. (Japanese people...)

With more time to kill, we decided to turn ourselves into full-fledged local tourists and head over to a nearby children's playground, made entirely out of old tires.  Much more than a junk-yard, designers have been creative here:

First there was godzilla...

Then we saw some boys who *obviously* know how to enjoy themselves at a playground...

And eventually we made our way over to the robot.

I know it's meant for kids, but I liked it.

Finally, back to the owl cafe.  Where we learned we had arrived too late. Again...

This time they sent us downstairs to an oden restaurant where we ordered drinks and sat down for a 30-minute wait. But when 4pm finally rolled around, it was definitely worth the trouble. For 1,000 yen we got a tea or coffee and a full hour of owls galore.

Owls are nocturnal, so this guy humored us and let us wake him up from a nap

This one looks much more wide-awake in the photo than I remember him being...

There were four owls in the room and only two other customers.  We sat down for a brief (5 min.) explanation by the staff, and then we were essentially given the rest of the time to pet them, photograph them, and even let them sit on our heads.

Just chillin'...

In case you got tired of looking at real owls, there were owl decorations all over the room. (The one on the right is real.)

They're surprisingly light. They really liked my sweater, too. I held two of them and both just wanted to pick at it with their beaks, but I did my best to make friends:

This photo was taken moments before he jumped onto my head, pooped,
and then it all ran down the back of my hair and onto my sweater...

In spite of a setback or two (see above caption) it was a pleasant afternoon.

The variety show

I started writing this post, um, I can't even remember how many days ago.  I thought I had come up with this quick way to dash off an entry, slap up a few photos, and then forgive myself for having neglected the blog for more weeks than I'd wanted, but it just didn't happen that way.

Originally, the post began like this:

"Ok, ok...so I have a backlog of photos waiting to be posted.  Before I head off to work this morning I'm going to try to sneak in a little catching up, in a "variety show" format, of sorts..."

But I got too busy, and the next thing I knew, I was coming home from work that very same night, opening up my computer, and staring at the unfinished draft I had intended to publish that morning.  (Two weeks ago? Three?)  So without further ado, I'm finally going to give you that variety show I promised.

This first one's just for amusement: it's a shop down one of the side streets in the neighborhood near my school and church.

They sell little odds and ends like tableware, bath towels, picture frames and coffee mugs.  I award them bonus points for wearing their confidence on their sleeve.

Next up: a public service announcement.  I took this picture of a poster on the bulletin board at my local train station.  Here in Japan, we have to remind ourselves not to commit "power harassment" (abuse of power) in the workplace.  But the good news is that if we all work hard on this, every day the sky will be filled with rainbows.

What's next?  Oh, I know!  How about a picture of one of the shortest escalators you'll ever see? This one is at Yoyogi Station in Tokyo.

Why they chose to build this--rather than, you know, a ramp--is beyond me.  One day, when I remember, I'll have to get a picture of another one in the train station near my church.  You have to go up a few stairs to get to the escalator.  So basically, people who might actually need to use it still don't have easy enough access.

All right.  Just a few more? How about the tab from a recent trip to a curry shop? My friend ordered the daily special #101, which this restaurant abbreviates as "hi 101" (sounds like hee).  I ordered the basic veggie curry, which is also listed--weirdly--as 101.  Our tab looks like the waitress was writing us messages in textese:

LOL-ing our way through some Indian curry in Omotesando

How about a little musical entertainment next?  Sometimes, South Korean boy bands can be easily confused with South Korean girl bands.  At least that's how I see it.

 

And finally, to sign off, here's what dusk looks like through the mast of the permanently docked Nippon Maru in Yokohama Harbor.  Pretty nice, if you ask me.

Thanks for stopping by!

Hokuriku: Day 3

I hate getting up early, and it's even worse when it's on vacation.  But today it was worth it.  Jigokudani Park (Hell's Valley) is so named because of its steep cliffs and natural hot springs, but the reason people go there is to see something much cuter:  bathing monkeys!

I woke up at 5 in order to catch the earliest train that would take me to Nagano. I was too tired to stay awake for the whole journey, but caught some of the breathtaking scenery from the window of the train.

From Nagano Station there's a 40-minute bus ride up into the mountains, and from the bus stop another 40-minute walk.  The Monkey Park is only accessible on foot, but at least the walk up the mountain is a pretty one:

Once inside the park, I'd imagined I would have to keep careful watch if I wanted to see any monkeys, but it turns out they were everywhere.  Take, for example, this photo.  Looks like just a regular old mountainside, right?  Nope!  Look carefully along the bottom.  All those tiny little brown spots are monkeys!

Can you see them here?

A little further up a path and you reach the main attraction: the natural hot springs where the snow monkeys (Japanese macaque) keep themselves warm in freezing temperatures.

I had expected they wouldn't allow visitors to get too close, or that I'd have to be careful not to let tiny little monkey fingers snatch away any of my belongings but, to my surprise, neither of those things were true.  You could get right in their faces with a camera and they would just go right on bathing/swimming/digging/grooming/pooping like you weren't even there...I think we weren't interesting enough for them.  There were also a lot of signs as you entered the park area warning you not to eat or offer any food to monkeys while inside, so fortunately they haven't learned to expect anything from you.

I stayed till I was too cold (and had snot running down my face...) then headed for the bus back to the city. After picking up a cup of coffee I made my way to the bullet train platform.  And without even planning it, I had chosen the very best time of day to go back: I got to watch the sunset from my nice comfy seat on the shinkansen.  And as I neared Tokyo, I even caught a glimpse of Mt. Fuji, silhouetted by the last rays of sunlight.

What a nice way to end a long weekend.  Back to work tomorrow...

Hokuriku: Day 2

Spent the day in Kanazawa.  Yesterday was a long day, so I decided to sleep in.  Once I was out and about I headed for Kenroku-en, known as one of the "Three Great Gardens of Japan" and also for the way the trees are tied with rope in winter, to help protect them from heavy snows.

In fact, trees and bushes are tied like this all around the city, but they are especially beautiful in this park.  I was a little sad I couldn't see them covered with snow, which is said to be the best time of year for viewing.

The garden is next to the castle grounds.  They have an awful lot of restoration work going on and some places were off-limits, but I took a walk around anyways and enjoyed the architecture of some of the warehouses, as well as a view of the mountains in the distance from a lookout point.

The side of the main warehouse

From an elevated spot within the castle grounds you can see the Japanese Alps

Next stop: the 'tea house' districts, which is actually just another name for the geisha entertainment areas.  I went in order to photograph the Edo-style exteriors of the buildings along the narrow streets, but didn't actually go inside any of them.

Higashi-chaya district

Supposedly you can still go there in the evenings for geisha performances but I have no doubt that it's all targeted at tourists.  Some of the remaining tea houses are like little cafes while the others tea houses have been converted into shops selling cosmetics, sweets or local handicrafts.

The exterior of one of the shops with traditional "kaga" latticework

From there I walked most of the way back to the station so that I could enjoy the scenery of the neighborhoods and the river.

The newly remodeled Kanazawa Station.  A bullet train track connecting this town with Tokyo has just been completed and trains begin running in March, shaving a couple of hours off travel time and bringing in a lot more tourism...

Exhausted after a day on my feet, it was nice to be back in my hotel room.  Now that I've had my dinner, I'm going to have a nice soak and then an early bed time.  (I've got to get up very early in the morning for an attempt at an adventure. Check in again tomorrow to see if I'm successful...)

Hokuriku: Day 1

"Welcome" posters at Toyama Station, featuring some of the local specialties or popular sightseeing spots.

My day started at 6am, which is when the overnight bus dropped me outside of Toyama Station.  Nothing--not even Starbucks--was open yet, so I spent a minute admiring their version of safety cones (see below) and then got on a train headed for the coast.

Toyama: home of the cutest safety cones you will ever see.
These were part of a construction area.  The scarves are real, by the way...

At 8:30 my train arrived at Amaharashi, overlooking Toyama Bay.  The name, I learned, translates as "rain or shine".  It's named after a local monument: a sort of stone shelter built on the beach more than a century ago which shields occupants from rain or intense sun.

It was raining, which made me feel right at home.  For Oregonians, a rainy day at the beach is pretty much an ordinary day at the beach.  Amaharashi also takes things a couple of steps further in its resemblance of Oregon beaches, with its pine trees and famous large rocks out in the water.  But one of the most-boasted-about qualities of this particular spot is that you can also admire the Hida Mountains in the distance.

Toyama Bay and waves waving.

The large-ish rock on the right is called the "mother" rock; the smaller rocks nearby represent her children.  There is a similarly-shaped "father" rock further down the coast, not visible in this shot. The Hida Mountains are in the distance.

Next, I made my way back to Takaoka where I stopped to see Zuiryu-ji, a zen temple designated as a National Treasure.  This temple is less particular than others about letting tourists wander around inside one of the main halls, and there were few places that were off limits.  I get a kick out of taking my shoes off, lining them up neatly at the bottom of the steps, and then wandering around a centuries-old cultural property in my socks...

Zuiryu-ji's San-mon (main gate)

One of my favorite shots from today: a view of the Butsuden ("Buddha hall")
from a window in the Hattou (a hall for ceremonies, lectures, and daily services).

After the temple I was off to the other side of the town to see their "Great Buddha" statue.  I liked his mustache, but that's really all I have to say about that.

From there, off to the hotel.  Spent the afternoon kind of lazing around and then took a walk to find dinner.  I bought new rain boots when I was Stateside over Christmas and have been waiting to try them out, so I was very pleased to see that if things go as planned, I will get to wear them in both rain and snow this weekend.

A "boot selfie" in the hotel elevator.  This one's for you, Wendy. ;)

More tomorrow...

Japanese people know everything they need to know about Oregon.

As I left the ticket gate at the train station on my way to work this morning, I accidentally kicked something on the ground that make a little "clink" sound. Looking down to make sure I hadn't dropped anything, I thought I saw a bottle cap. Upon closer inspection, it turned out to be something far more spectacular: a little pin-back button. But this isn't any ordinary button; it is a concisely-worded treasure map. If you know what I mean.

I'm bragging about my dinner

Last Friday I held my annual Thanksgiving dinner party with a couple of my housemates.  I think this is the one tradition that I've done every year that I've been in Japan- it's my favorite holiday, so I like to share it.

We don't always have an easy time procuring all of the ingredients we need to make the "real" Thanksgiving dishes, but we do a pretty good job of improvising.  And this year there were new recipes!  My housemate Eli made his family recipe for cranberry-citrus compote (which we used as cranberry sauce and was also delightful when added to our pre-dinner gin and tonics) and also made poached pears in spiced red wine.

Pre-funking with Eli's "holiday" gin and tonics

Yummy poached pears

Full disclosure: we cheated with the gravy (it came from a packet), the chicken (cooked by Costco) and the dessert (also courtesy of Costco...), but everything else was prepared in our own kitchen.  By the time we were all ready to go, we had quite a spread!

Our Thanksgiving meal was complimented by sour cream and onion chips, courtesy of Jay...

 
This was, in fact, the most "American" Thanksgiving I've celebrated in Japan, meaning that I had a record three Americans in attendance, along with one of our Japanese roommates who happened to be in just the right place at just the right time. :)

My plate. Wasn't it beautiful?

The biggest short-coming of our authentic American meal was the lack of pumpkin pie.  In Japan, Costco usually carries it around this time of year, so I was feeling optimistic when I went to pick one up.  But when I finally made it to the bakery section...much to my surprise, no pie!

Hoping that I'd overlooked it, I asked one of the staff.  She took a few moments to think about it before finally suggesting that they might have had it, but had sold out.  By that time I had realized that she probably didn't know what pumpkin pie was, but she had to tell me something and "sold out" was the safest answer.

I begrudgingly settled on a cake that would have to serve as a shoddy substitute (pumpkin pie is irreplaceable...), but things turned out not to be quite as disappointing as I'd prepared myself for.  We repurposed some of the spiced wine from Eli's poached pears as a sauce, and drizzled it over the top of our slices of ricotta cheese and apple cake and it was delightful!  The spices from the wine made it taste very much like we thought a holiday cake should.  (Yay for cinnamon!)

In the end, I think we had a meal that pretty much any American expat would have been proud (read: jealous) of.  My guests have already tried reserving their places for next year. :)