Subject: Trip report #2 - Japan
From: "David Carlson" <[email-masked]>
To: <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 31 Aug 2001 20:48:12 -0400

August 29, 2001    Nagano, Japan (written by Sarah - it was her turn!)

Greeting friends and relatives,

We are spending our last night in Japan before heading to Beijing late
tomorrow.  The kids and David had a lazy start to the day this morning as I
forged out to find a local coin laundry.  No easy feat.  I left about 8:15
and arrived back at 11:30.  David was about to send a search party out for
me.  I had a map from the local tourist information place in Nagano and they
had circled the laundry place. but alas the map was missing a few streets
and so the circle wasn't in the right place.  None of the shops were open as
Japan doesn't seem to get going in the morning until about 10.  I asked
somebody for help but she didn't seem to want to converse in sign language
or play charades, so she moved on. I tried somebody else and she took me to
a drycleaner, which was closed.  As I sat studying the map again somebody
came up to see if they could help, he was happy to converse in sign
language.  I finally made him understand what it was I was looking for and
he went to ask a taxi driver.  Taxi driver said "no coin laundry around, try
main street".  I headed back in the direction of the hotel and found another
dry cleaner that was open.  Though the man couldn't speak English, he
summoned somebody from behind who understood.  She walked me up and around
the corner to the Laundromat.  I thanked her, began to unpack my huge bag
only to discover that the Laundromat didn't sell soap.  I packed everything
up again and walked back to the drycleaner.  He summoned the woman from the
back and she explained the problem to him and he gave me enough soap for
three loads and he wouldn't accept any payment.  That in a nutshell has been
the type of assistance that we have experienced from the Japanese people.  I
only hope that Canadians are as helpful to foreigners.  The one exception
was Hiroshima where we seem to run into several people who had obviously
seen one tourist too many.

We committed a faux pas when trying to get into the Bonsai Museum in Obuse.
We found what we thought was the door, opened it, understood from the shoes
on the shelves that we were to remove ours and so did so.  We walked up the
stairs in stocking feet through a door and I spied a woman in a room off the
hallway.  I asked her where the Bonsai Museum was.  As she was trying to
communicate with me (so that I understood) a man came running into to say
that we had come in the staff entrance.  He was most apologetic and quite
horrified that we had all removed our shoes.  He sent the woman with us to
show us the right entrance.  When we arrived around the corner everybody
seemed to know what we had done and they were all quite amused.  The Bonsai
museum was incredible and one of our highlights in Japan.  There were trees
that were as old as 1,000 years and they were beautifully taken care of.

During our two weeks in Japan we spent our first two nights in Tokyo.  We
were in a bit of a daze as we were all suffering from jet lag.  We saw the
fish market, Tsukiji on our first morning bright and early as we had all
awoken at 4:30 a.m. local time.  While in Tokyo we also toured the Ginza
area, where we visited the Sony building to see the latest Sony products, we
visited a temple and Akihabara district which is where all the electronics
are.  Tokyo is a big lively city but two days was enough.  We used our Japan
Rail Passes and took a Shinkansen train to Kyoto.  We have all been most
impressed with Japan Railways and gee do some of the trains travel quickly,
i.e.300 km/hr.  Enjoyed 4 days/nights in Kyoto, did lots of walking and
visited temples and gardens - we decided we had our fill of temples during
the first half of our stay.  We read the chapter in our Lonely Planet guide
on Buddhism and Shinto.  The kids seemed mildly interested, oh good so far
we're on track. comparative religion was one of the educational things we
hoped the kids would experience.  In Kyoto we also experienced the tale end
of a tropical storm which had been downgraded from a Typhoon (Tycoon to
Chloe) that hit other parts of Japan.  We only had one day of rain and wind
but I did laundry while the kids worked on journals and then we made our way
to another hotel that put on a Japanese tea Ceremony - all for tourists I
might add as we were told in our hotel that the vast majority of Japanese
people do not partake in this activity.

From Kyoto we boarded the Shinkansen train again for Hiroshima. We had
trouble finding a hotel ended up in two different ones for the two nights we
stayed.  Visited the A-Bomb museum and all the memorials in Peace Arch Park.
All very moving for all of us and thought provoking for the kids, lots of
discussion about bombs and war.  Other highlights in Hiroshima were the
children's museum and a public swimming complex which was really very nice.
Lots slides and a big central area had some sort of jet system that sent us
spinning round and round...!

Left Hiroshima after two nights as finding a third hotel for one night was
more than we could contend with.  Moved not far away to Fukuyama and spent
two nights there with  day trips to a fishing village and to Miyajima which
is a Japanese picturesque tourist island complete with deer that roam the
streets and monkeys who run wild at the top of the gondola.  We took a ferry
to get to Miyajima.  We didn't see any other gaijin (pronounced guy-gin)
which are foreigners, while in
Fukuyama and not many people spoke English but we managed and quite enjoyed
being the only tourists in town.  We ate at the same restaurant for two
dinners in a row much to the delight of the owners who were most hospitable
and accommodating.

We are now in Nagano, still some Olympic signs around.  We are settling in
for our third night having taken day trips to Obuse where we saw the Hokusai
Museum (wood block printing), the Bonsai Museum and had a great Japanese
bath at an Onsen.  We walked through fields of peach, apple and Japanese
pear trees and lots grape vines to get to the Onsen.  The fruit looked huge
and absolutely perfect, but alas it clearly came with a price.  Upon close
inspection it was easy to see that everything had been sprayed, though don't
know with what, but being the skeptical person that I am . it was a
pesticide.  Much to everybody's dismay I couldn't bring myself to buy any
local fruit, as I was reminded of working on a kibbutz in Israel.  The
kibbutz was on the primitive side, the packing plant basic.. except for the
spraying machines which coated every piece of melon in a pesticide before
being packed into boxes.  After two days packing melons in the packing plant
I ended up in a hospital with a serious case of hives.  I was put on
steroids for two weeks and excused from working for the same period.
Needless to say I didn't speak Hebrew because if I had understood what they
were prescribing I would never have taken steroids!

Whoops..I got off track. That was the wrong adventure I was reporting on.
Back to Obuse. we also found an out-of-the-way small restaurant which had an
English speaking proprietress and we had two most enjoyable meals.  After
finally managing to get the laundry done this morning we went to Shiga kogen
to see the Monkeys enjoying their own Onsen.  Had a good walk in the
mountains near the ski hill and snowboarding park that was part of the 1998
Olympic site.

We have really enjoyed Japan and traveling with the family for the most part
has been great.  There have been the odd moments but by and large the kids
have
proven to be great travelers and the sibling rivalry is getting less and
less every day.  We are surprised what interests them and while it may not
be what interests David and I, we seem to have developed a routine which
takes into account everybody's needs.  We consider Japan to be the "trial
run".

The only thing that we have found to be really expensive in Japan is the
accommodation.  The rooms are tiny and apart from the Century Hotel in Kyoto
we have taken two rooms or had a traditional Japanese room with 5 mats
squished on the floor.  The Century Hotel had one reasonably sized room with
two double beds and one pull out single sofa which fitted us all just fine,
hence we stayed for 4 nights at a cost of about $190.00 Cdn per night. This
was very reasonable compared to other places we have stayed and it was a
very nice hotel, though Western style, not Japanese.  Oh and the other
costly thing in Japan is Melons, as much as $100.00 each!!

Amazed at how little we are traveling with, o.k. that's after having sent a
big box home from Kyoto in order to save our backs.  We probably still look
like a traveling circus when moving ourselves around! We bought wheels for
the large duffle bag in Kyoto and this has made us quite portable and moving
around much easier.  Traveling light is a necessity, all the guide books are
right on that front.  David has his pack, I have a pack/duffle bag on
wheels, we have a large duffle bag (all from MEC) and Mark has his blue soft
athletic bag.  All the kids have backpacks, I have a camera bag and D. is
carrying the laptop and papers in another bag.

I find myself being the gatekeeper of the laundry bag, everything has to be
worn for at least two days (ok not underpants and socks!) and longer if it
doesn't look dirty.  The kids who in the past notoriously wore something for
five minutes and then dumped it in the laundry basket to avoid folding and
putting it back in a drawer, seem to have settled quite happily into this
new laundry routine.  Okay maybe not happily but they have learnt the
meaning of compliance!

Life is good.... and yes you can live very comfortably with a lot less than
we have become accustomed to living with in Canada.  Two loads of laundry a
week is ample.  I'm really looking forward to this year, which alas I know
is going to absolutely fly by.

Sayonara Japan,

Sarah