Skipping Town

I made my first holiday-shopping trip to a mall yesterday, to the Galleria in Roseville. I’ve done almost all of my shopping in Japan and online, so I needed only a couple of things; and so I bit the bullet and drove out to Roseville in the late afternoon. It’s not far from Andrew’s office, so I picked him up first and we went together. I hadn’t been to the Galleria in months. The last time I was there was in the summer sometime, and it’s since gone through a mammoth expansion—a huge new complex has been added to the mall itself, and across the street from the mall is an outdoor “shopping and lifestyle center” (an outdoor mall) called The Fountains. I don’t particularly like either of these shopping options, but last night they seemed especially terrible. The Fountains has a few good shops—Anthropologie, Whole Foods, DSW—but the layout of the complex is so desolate, so off-the-map, that as I walked around I felt like I’d dropped off the edge of the earth. It didn’t help that almost no ...

Somewhere over the Pacific last week, Andrew and I seem to have changed places. Now it’s Andrew who’s crashing at 10pm and waking up bright-eyed at 7am; now it’s me who’s slogging through my alarm in the morning, looking for any excuse to stay in bed a little longer. On Sunday, Andrew woke up early and went for a run before 7:30; I had to force myself out of bed at 9am to make it to the farmer’s market and yoga. What happened? Who are we? And will things ever return to normal? It seems crazy, but our jet lag has still not fully disappeared—it’s just changing shape. Leaving town again this coming weekend for two weeks on the East Coast will probably change it in still newer and more interesting ways.

One of the things that’s always intrigued me about Japan is the prevalence of kawaii—cuteness. It’s everywhere—from the “helping characters” that decorate almost every public sign, to the charms that dangle from everyone’s cell phones, to the stuffed animal prizes in huge “claw” arcade games. Some Japanese teenagers also go for kawaii in the way they dress, though we didn’t get to see the biggest showcase of outfits, which is apparently in Harajuku on Sundays. Next time. Hello Kitty is the biggest player; she’s everywhere, and I got used to seeing her wide-eyed, mouthless face pretty much everywhere we turned. If there was a tourist attraction, there was a Hello Kitty charm or souvenir to go with it, and we saw Kitty dressed as a rickshaw driver, a geisha, a fox (at Fushimi Inari), a deer (at Nara), a leek, a shinkansen (bullet train), a shinkansen stewardess, sitting in the lap of a Buddha, and in various other traditional garb. She graced the packages of snacks and sweets; she appear...

With only a week and a half until we leave for the East Coast for Christmas, we’d decided not to get a Christmas tree this year; on Monday, our extreme jet-lag made the idea of actually going out and selecting and decorating a tree seem impossible, even painful. But we found a small tree at the grocery store on Tuesday and decided we could handle that much. Out came my (now our) ornaments, after two years of being packed up—it was good to see them; many brought back memories. (My Icelandic sheep ornament—I remember sacrificing my meals that day to buy it!) The box also contained a few surprises, ornaments I’d purchased during our travels that somehow managed not to get lost during our move home from Spain, the big move from Connellsville, etc. Small wooden birds from Poland; a beaded egg from Romania; St. James charms from Santiago de Compostela; pieces of glass candy from Venice—all of them are making their Christmas debut. The small tree is a bit crowded—I was determined to fit every...

We stayed in some wonderful places in Japan, and I thought it’d be nice to gather descriptions and pictures in one post. Tokyo—Oakwood Apartments Shinjuku Our first place of lodging was the Oakwood Apartments Shinjuku in Tokyo, which are small efficiency apartments. This place was amazing—though it’s geared toward longer-term travelers, it’s open to short-term stays as well; we stayed for four nights. The website provides excellent written directions on how to get from the Shinjuku metro stop to the apartment building, complete with pictures of landmarks you’ll see as you walk. It was an easy 5-7 minute walk from Shinjuku station. The building is quite nice—a nice lobby with a 24-hour front desk (very helpful and English-speaking), a comfortable lounge, and computers with internet service in the quiet lower-level lounge. We didn’t get to make much use of the Sky Lounge, a top-floor lounge where you help yourself to a drink, but we did go up to enjoy the amazing view. Our room had a sma...

After a final-final-final trip to a 100-yen store this morning, Andrew and I sadly boarded a train for the airport, bags consolidated and in tow. We ate lunch once we checked our baggage; we found a food court where lots of Japanese and Korean airline staff were eating, and had small bowls of udon in broth and some tempura over rice. Our last meal in Japan. The flight was uneventful--much shorter this time, at around eight and a half hours; it went fairly quickly thanks to the seat-back TVs. We watched Bottle Shock, which we expected would be interesting since it’s based on a true story about California wine-making, but which was terrible; Ghost Town, which was good; and The Rocker, which was silly. Soon we were landing groggily in Seattle, then, eventually, flying on to Sacramento, where it was just as foggy as the day we left. We left Japan at 3pm; we arrived in Seattle at 6:30am. We were in Sacramento by noon. We had a 32-hour Saturday--we lived our whole morning and afternoon two t...

(Written Friday, posted Friday) It was our last day in Japan. We woke early and had breakfast in the hotel, then headed to Ueno Park. We visited three temples and got our last stamps for our temple book--Kiyomizu Kannon-do, where women who wish to conceive a child leave dolls for a Goddess of Mercy; Benten-do, a memorial to a patron goddess of the arts; and Tosho-gu, which features an eternally burning flame from Nagasaki in a shrine to world peace and nuclear disarmament. Near the flame hung many chains of origami cranes. We headed next to the Tokyo National Museum, where we saw artifacts dating back as far as 10,000 BC--pottery, kabuki costumes, calligraphy, painted screens. Neither of us is very interested in this kind of art--we would have preferred to see a special exhibition of Vermeer at a nearby museum--but we thought we needed to round out our Japan exploration. Satisfied with our taste of cultural history, we headed next to Ameya Yokocho, a shopping arcade--the same streets w...

(Written Thursday, posted Thursday) “Time spent at ease helps you to relax. Have more free time to keep your mind young. Please enjoy yourself.” These words of wisdom are from a paper cup that until a few minutes ago was filled with hot green tea from a vending machine at Sutton Place Hotel in Ueno, a neighborhood in northern Tokyo. Andrew and I did not really enjoy ourselves as we once again schlepped our luggage through trains and train stations--this time with the added fun of Andrew’s extendable pull handle breaking when we got off the bullet train in Tokyo on a super-crowded platform, resulting in Andrew actually having to carry the heavy suitcase. Backpacks and nothing more next time--that’s a solemn vow. Anyway, the first part of our day was lovely. We woke up in Nara with the sun filtering through the paper-paneled doors of our room at the Ryokan Seikanso. We’d bought doughnuts at the grocery store yesterday, and Andrew got us two cans of coffee from a vending machine just outs...

(Written on Wednesday, posted on Thursday) Sadly, we left Kyoto this morning. If we had the trip to do over again, I think we’d spend the entire time there--it’s a place that is so much better than any picture or book or postcard can convey. We took a very crowded train from the Shunko-in temple to Kyoto Station, where we caught another train for Nara, about thirty minutes south of Kyoto. When we arrived, we hauled our luggage to the Ryokan Seikanso, not a very far walk from the train station if you don’t have luggage to weigh you down. A note about the luggage: we packed very, very well for two weeks, just one wheeled carry-on and one purse (me) and messenger bag (Andrew) each. But we could have packed better--there are things that proved inessential; and as the trip has progressed we’ve accumulated quite a few souvenirs. So our neat n’ tidy suitcase plus shoulder bag has now expanded to two wheeled suitcases, a backpack, a messenger bag, a larger shoulder bag, and my purse. (If I cou...

(Written Tuesday, posted Thursday) Our day began with a 35-minute meditation, led by a Zen Buddhist monk who lives here at the Shunko-in temple; he’s the vice-abbott. He speaks English--he actually studied in Arizona and did an internship for John McCain (“He could not have been president,” he said)--and leads meditation sessions for foreigners interested in learning more about Zen practices. The time went quickly, though it wasn’t easy for Andrew to stay in a half-lotus position for even five minutes; I could hear him shifting around next to me. The monk suggested afterwards that practice would help him get accustomed to the position, but I don’t think Andrew’s legs will bend that way if he practiced for the rest of his life. After the meditation, the monk gave us a tour of some of the temple’s inner chambers, which were not only freezing cold but also featured beautiful painted panels that were over two hundred years old. The colors and gold leaf looked almost brand-new save for a fe...

(Written Monday, posted Thursday) Another Japanese bath awaited us this morning, and it occurred to me as I soaked that it would likely take an entire day of soaking to undo the pain the last few days have wrought on my feet and legs. Alas, this was not to be. Today we reluctantly checked out of Pension Kotomu, managing to pack up our suitcases in a reasonably compact manner despite the fact that we’re rapidly accumulating souvenirs. We left our bags at the guesthouse for a few hours and headed to Nishiki Market, a large food market full of things that we could not identify. We bought a few cute things at a store selling candy and snacks--I acquired another small hedgehog/mole creature, a purple one this time with a small flower on its head (cute!!!), a tiny Hello Kitty duffel bag (small enough for a cell phone), and a cute box of candy in the shape of a bear. After this frenzy of cuteness we wandered among the food stalls, admiring the sleek packages of pickled items, including tiny p...

(Written Sunday, posted Monday) Our day started early but blissfully: we’d requested a “Japanese bath” in the morning in addition to a shower, and our guesthouse owner had filled the amazing bathtub for us--deep enough to allow submersion up to the neck while seated. Our aching muscles from yesterday felt fully revived. Of course, this prompted Andrew to threaten to eschew sight-seeing in favor of just going back to sleep, but he came around. We exchanged a few words with the guesthouse owner before setting out for the day. He’s always so concerned for our well-being; each morning he asks if we have any questions, tells us what the weather forecast is for the day, and ensures we have umbrellas if needed. Today he wrote down directions for us to get to the train station, even writing the name of the stop in Japanese in case we had to ask for help. After a can of coffee and a pastry from a 7-Eleven (they’re everywhere here, as well as AM/PM’s), we got on a train for Fushimi Inari, a shri...

(Written Saturday, posted Monday) Our first full day in Kyoto began at 6:30am, the time we’d chosen for our showers. (The guesthouse owner knocked on our door to wake us up and give us towels; I answered in my pj’s, which seemed to surprise him.) There’s only one bathroom in the guesthouse, outside and three flights down, and we have to pre-arrange a time to use it; getting up early was our choice, since there’s an insane amount to see here and we wanted to get an early start. Andrew was even the one to suggest the early time--evidence of how single-minded we both were about getting out there and starting our day. We had breakfast at the guesthouse--coffee, toast, slices of apple, and an omelette with a little dollop of ketchup. The omelette was hardly cooked in the middle--we both had a difficult time getting through it. If only we knew what awaited us later in the day… Kyoto would be beautiful at any time of year, but right now it’s spectacular--there are Japanese maples everywhere, ...

(Written on Friday, posted on Saturday) It poured again in Nikko today. We woke early and began the morning with a yoga class with a Zen Buddhist monk; the monk chanted at the end of the class during a brief meditation, while the rain kept pouring down outside. (Andrew had been resistant to the class, until it became clear that I was the only one in the lodge who had signed up; being the nice husband that he is, he agreed to go with me.) After breakfast, we took a brief walk in the rain to "Nikko beer," which Andrew had hoped would involve a brewery tour; but there were just a few things for sale in the shop. The walk was very moody; fog was settling over the mountaintops, and wet leaves were matted along the roads and sidewalks. It was perfectly silent except for the raindrops in the trees. We headed to the train station around eleven; the mountains we spotted in the distance were snow-capped. We saw a white loon lightly stepping its way across a small river. Along the way w...

(Written on Thursday; posted on Saturday) It was another early day. We left the Oakwood Apartments around 6am and headed to the train station to catch our train to Nikko. We didn’t need to leave that early--our train wasn’t leaving until 8:10--but our friend Atsh told us that it was not a good idea to get on the subway with our suitcases during rush hour. He told us that it’s not uncommon for people to actually be separated from their suitcases in the crush of people--and it’s also not uncommon to see "floaters," people whose feet actually don’t touch the ground because they’re crammed in so tightly. It seemed prudent to leave a bit early. As we waited for the train to arrive, we bought cans of coffee from a vending machine on the platform; our favorite, the Georgia brand cafÈ crËme, which has a can that reads "Little gift for you," was not available; so we chose Wonda brand cafÈ au lait, which promised a perfect "coexistence of roasted coffee and roasted milk...

Our day began at a normal time for once--10am--with coffee at a Starbucks-like chain called Tully's in Shinjuku, not far from our hotel. We then headed to East Shinjuku, an area that beckoned with its copious neon; we've eyed it from the subway station each time we return home. Though it was too early in the day for the neon to show its true splendor, the area was a distinct shift from the other areas of Shinjuku we'd seen: seedier, dirtier, much more Times Square circa 1989. The highlight was walking along the narrow alleys of Golden Gai, a collection of tiny bars (five or six counter stools) with doors so narrow that the majority of Americans would be unable to fit through. These bars are notorious for the after-work debauchery of Tokyo's "salarymen," and I'd read that a) not many of the bars welcome foreigners, and b) if you do go in, know what you're getting into, because it's entirely possible you'd be charged $100 for a beer. True or not,...