Hey everyone,
My wife (Audrey) and oldest son (Brandon) is currently on vacation in Japan. Whenever my son takes trips such as these, he keeps a written journal. In reading this I found that the more I read the more entiertaining and even educational it became. I must say that as this young man's father, I couldn't be more proud! I love the way he writes and his ability to stay on point and keep his readers (at least me, anyway) interested in the subject matter regardless of how lengthy it may become.... Not a bunch of superfluous rantings. Just right to to the point, just like his old man, only much more eloquently.
I found it to be quite interesting and I definately learned some things today. I just wanted to share this with my cyber family.
Those of you who are interested, please feel free to read. Be fore-warned that it's pretty long so read at your leisure. I hope that you will enjoy this at least half as much as I did.
Slam.
Warning: To all you grammar Nazis out there. Even though I did put some effort into making my journals sound somewhat coherent, I did not proof-read much of anything before uploading it. SORRY CHRISTINE!
I always write a journal when I go to on trips so I can capture what I was feeling at the moment and what happened throughout the day. I try to make the writing as entertaining as possible, however you may find it not that exciting. I am just writing about my vacation, not saving the world.
The Haze has Landed!
March 27th, 2008 5:30pm JPN (1:30am PST)
I have arrived fooz!! I am sitting on a train right now heading to Tokyo from Narita airport. As usual, my grandmother is making this trip more difficult than it needs to be (more on that later). The flight was pretty pleasant, even though it did take 11 hours to get here. There was this one Japanese guy; looked to be in his 20's. He had something like 4-5 different cameras and was taking shots of this one flight attendant throughout the flight. It was so blatant my mom leaned over to me and whispered these 3 words: "wow, stalker status". I could tell the flight attendant was getting uncomfortable. She was pretty cute though. Surprisingly, she let him do it. Chalk one up for the passive Japanese nature. I could understand 1 picture, but this guy busted out some hardcore professional cameras and started snappin like he was the paparazzi. WEIRD!! Alas I am here and I'm ready and excited to start my vacation!
I didn't initially feel that way when I woke up this morning. Let me explain. Work is such a large part of my life now, leaving it feels like I'm abandoning my kids. Not that I have kids, or anything like that but you get the point. I spend 12 hours a day (Or more) trying to help people reach their financial goals so they can DO things like retire, pay to educate heir kids, invest properly and (GET THIS!!) travel. Now I finally schedule some "ME time" and I feel bad. I don't know if that is a good thing or a bad thing. What types of feelings was I getting you ask? It felt like I was giving up, it felt like I should be dialing, it felt like I was letting myself down. I even told myself, "ehh, if I didn't go on this vacation it wouldn't be that bad I have stuff I have to do here." Then it hit me like a ton of bricks (or 'hit me like that samoan guy during that halloween party I went to!'): This is the exact reason why I need a vacation.
I'm looking out of the train window right now sitting next to aunt just talking about how they have "sitting" and "standing" tickets on the train systems. AND get this, if there are vacant seats and you have a standing ticket, you have to PAY the difference to sitdown EVEN if there are seats available I thought that was funny. We babbled on about The country-side and how it is beautiful The train weaves in and out of inner-city to lush, green farmland seamlessly. I'm not spending my free time talking about my clients or if I had a good week at work. I'm not conversing about what type of recommendations I made. It is nice.
I took sometime on the plane today and just wondered what people in my life are doing. "I wonder if my dad is practicing drums today?", "I wonder how my brother's paintball tournament is going." "I wonder how Michelle's 'After Lent Binge' went". "I wonder what Baskin said to tick off Christine." I always get those thoughts the first couple of days i'm over here. They will wear off. I think the rest of the day is going to be eating and relaxing. The first blog entry is always long. I will keep you guys posted. Ja nai!
Jet lag and the Grandma SPIN factor!
March 28, 2008 8:05pm JPN Time (4:05am PST)
Man I am tired. It is only 8:05 PM but it feels like it is 2:00am. I am still suffering the effects of jet lag. The human body is an amazing thing. The way it adjusts to its environment and tries to adapt. That is essentially what I have been doing today: Beginning to adapt. Being surrounded by the culture is great. However, it takes sometime to really turn off the switch from American culture and turn on the switch to Japanese culture. Riding on the other side of the street, reading things in Celsius, and even adjusting to the eating schedule all take time. So far so good.
The day started normal. I woke up to my Grandmother's scream to get up and eat. I was up around 8:00am which isn't too bad here. It was raining fairly hard through the night. The mat I am sleeping on is very comfortable, but the pillow that was given to me is hell. It feels like I'm sleeping on a brick. How these little Japanese people can find this comfortable is beyond my western understanding. Alas, beggars can't be choosers. I strolled to the kitchen and had some tea and toast. My aunt and mom were sitting at the kitchen table discussing what our trip itinerary for the next 4 days will look like.
The best part (and worst part) of my trips to Japan is that I do not have to make decisions on anything. I only throw wrenches in plans by saying, "I don't want to do that" or, "well, when will we be able to get something to eat?" I pride myself on being fairly decisive when it comes to my friends and the events I partake in. So when I have a chance to be the guy who doesn't make a decision until the group decides, is great. I decided (in spite of the previous sentence) to walk around and take some pictures of the home for people to see. It is very traditional Japanese, with simplistic furniture, the tatame floors and the sliding wood panel doors. It's very cozy.
Shuji-ojisan drove us to a relative's house down the street and we spent sometime there. I forgot to mention that I am staying in Shizuoka: An Ocean-side town about 2-3 hours west of Tokyo. The town is split pretty much down the middle of urban city and farm land. My cousin is a farmer by trade. In front of his house is the beach and behind his house is the mountain side. Everything in between is his land, which he farms produce (right now, green onions). The Japanese are very communal. At least in this area. Each street has a name that was picked by the family that lives on that street. At the top of each street, usually resides the MAIN home of the family. That is to say the home that started that section of the family tree. The neighbors are then usually sons, daughters, cousins, uncles and aunts (younger of course) of the people who live in the main home. This is the case with our family as well.
Today we didn't do much but get visited by family. I don't know how many times I've bowed today. After bowing enough to get head rushes (need to practice more I assume), we headed to the heart of town to exchange currency and buy our tickets for Hiroshima. We came back and my mother and aunt made dinner. I hate to sound sexist, but its great being a guy here in Japan. We are so spoiled. The women do everything around here. Cook, clean, wash, dry. You name it. The males just need to make sure they earn the moolah to keep the roof over the family's head. The most enjoyable part of the trip so far is listening and watching my grandmother. She is constantly switching back and forth between English and Japan, and sometimes so crosses those wires and speaks to me in Japanese and talks to her cousin in English. She also tends to put her own spin on things when translating between us and relatives. Especially with me, because I don't speak at normal Japanese conversation speed, she often takes it upon herself to translate what I say to them. However she is like fox news, spins everything I say. I don't know how many times I've told her "I didn't say that" after she tries to convey my message to the relatives. I suppose it would just be easier for me to talk to them.
The day was pretty uneventful, had dinner with some relatives, and took a shower. However, I am prepped and ready for the trip to Hiroshima first thing tomorrow morning.
Cherry Blossom-ness!
On a side note I want to give you a short explanation of the seriousness of the cherry blossom festival. It is celebrated on the day when the blossom is in full bloom. Right now, the blossoms are beginning to bloom. They devote a whole 10-15 mins on their news stations telling you how far along the cherry blossoms have bloomed in each area of Japan. It will say something of the sort like "Shizuoka blossom 15% open, expected blossom day, March 31st." They will do that for at least, 20 different areas. The goal is to be around when the tree blossoms. If you time it right, you can be in multiple areas and witness the event over and over in different areas of the country (obviously due to the timing of when each area's trees blossom.)
19 Stories High in Hiroshima
March 29th 2008 7:38pm JPN time (3:38am PST)
Peace and quiet. I am 19 stories up in a western style hotel (Crown Plaza) in my own personal hotel room. My mother, aunt, and grandmother are 3 doors down (like the band!). So I figured I would take this time to write a little in the journal. Let's start at the beginning.
Once again, my 83 year old alarm clock went off at 5:00am today telling me to get ready for our trip to Hiroshima. Luckily, I'm still jet lagged so I got to bed at 8:00pm here (4:00am PST time). Waking up at 5:00am this morning was a lot easier than I thought. Today was our first day doing the tourist stuff. We took off to the shinkansen (bullet train) after having some bread and butter. The weather in Shizuoka is very much like San Jose. That is one less thing I need get adjusted to which is always nice. The ride to the station was pleasant. Absolutely no traffic and the skies were clear, which gave us the opportunity to see Mt. Fuji on the ride over to the station. Shuji-ojisan and Takashi-san were our chauffeurs for the day as usual and dropped us off at the train station. My goal today was to figure out how to withdraw money from my account. I have not been able to find any sort of ATM at all. While we waited for our train to arrive, I took a stroll to look for some atms. Apparently, ATMs are locked up until business hours. That was disappointing. So with only the cash I brought with me on hand, I headed to the tracks and awaited for the arrival for the train. The train ride was uneventful but relaxing. It lasted about 4 hours or so. Leaving at 6:42am and arriving somewhere around 10 – 11:00pm. I used the time to catch up on some sleep. The latter part of the trip (the section approaching Hiroshima) was nice, as we were mainly in the countryside. Rolling hills, bamboo forests, and farmlands all zoomed by at 200 mph. Before long, we were at Hiroshima.
Walking off the Train we met up with one of my grandmother's friends, Captain <insert name I can't remember>. He was a big shot Captain of heavily loaded destroyer ships of the Japanese Navy. I noticed right away he is a very soft spoken and passive guy. YES he fought in WWII against the US. That's about all I got from Mom and Auntie Florence. He has known my grandmother for over 50 years now. ANYWAY, we hunted down some lockers for our bags, and met up with his wife a few mins later. She took us out to a very enjoyable lunch. MAN was she the polar opposite of him: Really Expressive and outgoing. Grandma totally shunned Captain <> the whole lunch. We felt pretty bad. After the lunch we said thank you and parted ways.
We headed over to Miyajima (Spelled right?) which is a small island off the inland sea of Hiroshima. It is only about a 15 minute ferry ride away. The Island is very touristy. There is a large temple and pagoda on it. It is also has a dense forest. The WILD deer come to the town and hang around town to try and snag free food from the people walking around the area. It's best known landmark is its large water bound gateway. I was taking in the sight and the beauty of it to bother with the history of the place. I'm bad I know. There was a wedding going on at the time, so my Aunt snapped some screens of the bride. After walking 2-3 miles up and down the place, we had our fill of the place and my grandma's feet were getting tired so we decided to head back. After bought some snacks for my co-workers Christine Kim and Teresa Tran and called it a day.
We took a local train back to the main station and grabbed a taxi to the hotel and HERE I AM!! If you watch the video, you will see my almost kill myself walking into the bathroom. That is because the only place in this room that has a 3 pronged outlet is the bathroom. So I am charging my laptop in there. I almost tripped over the wire. How embarrassing! I'm going to go get some Mos Burger in a little bit and probably call it a night. Watch some crazy Japanese TV shows and get up and go to Kyoto tomorrow.
Here are some photos:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/hazeion/
My wife (Audrey) and oldest son (Brandon) is currently on vacation in Japan. Whenever my son takes trips such as these, he keeps a written journal. In reading this I found that the more I read the more entiertaining and even educational it became. I must say that as this young man's father, I couldn't be more proud! I love the way he writes and his ability to stay on point and keep his readers (at least me, anyway) interested in the subject matter regardless of how lengthy it may become.... Not a bunch of superfluous rantings. Just right to to the point, just like his old man, only much more eloquently.
I found it to be quite interesting and I definately learned some things today. I just wanted to share this with my cyber family.
Those of you who are interested, please feel free to read. Be fore-warned that it's pretty long so read at your leisure. I hope that you will enjoy this at least half as much as I did.
Slam.
Warning: To all you grammar Nazis out there. Even though I did put some effort into making my journals sound somewhat coherent, I did not proof-read much of anything before uploading it. SORRY CHRISTINE!
I always write a journal when I go to on trips so I can capture what I was feeling at the moment and what happened throughout the day. I try to make the writing as entertaining as possible, however you may find it not that exciting. I am just writing about my vacation, not saving the world.
The Haze has Landed!
March 27th, 2008 5:30pm JPN (1:30am PST)
I have arrived fooz!! I am sitting on a train right now heading to Tokyo from Narita airport. As usual, my grandmother is making this trip more difficult than it needs to be (more on that later). The flight was pretty pleasant, even though it did take 11 hours to get here. There was this one Japanese guy; looked to be in his 20's. He had something like 4-5 different cameras and was taking shots of this one flight attendant throughout the flight. It was so blatant my mom leaned over to me and whispered these 3 words: "wow, stalker status". I could tell the flight attendant was getting uncomfortable. She was pretty cute though. Surprisingly, she let him do it. Chalk one up for the passive Japanese nature. I could understand 1 picture, but this guy busted out some hardcore professional cameras and started snappin like he was the paparazzi. WEIRD!! Alas I am here and I'm ready and excited to start my vacation!
I didn't initially feel that way when I woke up this morning. Let me explain. Work is such a large part of my life now, leaving it feels like I'm abandoning my kids. Not that I have kids, or anything like that but you get the point. I spend 12 hours a day (Or more) trying to help people reach their financial goals so they can DO things like retire, pay to educate heir kids, invest properly and (GET THIS!!) travel. Now I finally schedule some "ME time" and I feel bad. I don't know if that is a good thing or a bad thing. What types of feelings was I getting you ask? It felt like I was giving up, it felt like I should be dialing, it felt like I was letting myself down. I even told myself, "ehh, if I didn't go on this vacation it wouldn't be that bad I have stuff I have to do here." Then it hit me like a ton of bricks (or 'hit me like that samoan guy during that halloween party I went to!'): This is the exact reason why I need a vacation.
I'm looking out of the train window right now sitting next to aunt just talking about how they have "sitting" and "standing" tickets on the train systems. AND get this, if there are vacant seats and you have a standing ticket, you have to PAY the difference to sitdown EVEN if there are seats available I thought that was funny. We babbled on about The country-side and how it is beautiful The train weaves in and out of inner-city to lush, green farmland seamlessly. I'm not spending my free time talking about my clients or if I had a good week at work. I'm not conversing about what type of recommendations I made. It is nice.
I took sometime on the plane today and just wondered what people in my life are doing. "I wonder if my dad is practicing drums today?", "I wonder how my brother's paintball tournament is going." "I wonder how Michelle's 'After Lent Binge' went". "I wonder what Baskin said to tick off Christine." I always get those thoughts the first couple of days i'm over here. They will wear off. I think the rest of the day is going to be eating and relaxing. The first blog entry is always long. I will keep you guys posted. Ja nai!
Jet lag and the Grandma SPIN factor!
March 28, 2008 8:05pm JPN Time (4:05am PST)
Man I am tired. It is only 8:05 PM but it feels like it is 2:00am. I am still suffering the effects of jet lag. The human body is an amazing thing. The way it adjusts to its environment and tries to adapt. That is essentially what I have been doing today: Beginning to adapt. Being surrounded by the culture is great. However, it takes sometime to really turn off the switch from American culture and turn on the switch to Japanese culture. Riding on the other side of the street, reading things in Celsius, and even adjusting to the eating schedule all take time. So far so good.
The day started normal. I woke up to my Grandmother's scream to get up and eat. I was up around 8:00am which isn't too bad here. It was raining fairly hard through the night. The mat I am sleeping on is very comfortable, but the pillow that was given to me is hell. It feels like I'm sleeping on a brick. How these little Japanese people can find this comfortable is beyond my western understanding. Alas, beggars can't be choosers. I strolled to the kitchen and had some tea and toast. My aunt and mom were sitting at the kitchen table discussing what our trip itinerary for the next 4 days will look like.
The best part (and worst part) of my trips to Japan is that I do not have to make decisions on anything. I only throw wrenches in plans by saying, "I don't want to do that" or, "well, when will we be able to get something to eat?" I pride myself on being fairly decisive when it comes to my friends and the events I partake in. So when I have a chance to be the guy who doesn't make a decision until the group decides, is great. I decided (in spite of the previous sentence) to walk around and take some pictures of the home for people to see. It is very traditional Japanese, with simplistic furniture, the tatame floors and the sliding wood panel doors. It's very cozy.
Shuji-ojisan drove us to a relative's house down the street and we spent sometime there. I forgot to mention that I am staying in Shizuoka: An Ocean-side town about 2-3 hours west of Tokyo. The town is split pretty much down the middle of urban city and farm land. My cousin is a farmer by trade. In front of his house is the beach and behind his house is the mountain side. Everything in between is his land, which he farms produce (right now, green onions). The Japanese are very communal. At least in this area. Each street has a name that was picked by the family that lives on that street. At the top of each street, usually resides the MAIN home of the family. That is to say the home that started that section of the family tree. The neighbors are then usually sons, daughters, cousins, uncles and aunts (younger of course) of the people who live in the main home. This is the case with our family as well.
Today we didn't do much but get visited by family. I don't know how many times I've bowed today. After bowing enough to get head rushes (need to practice more I assume), we headed to the heart of town to exchange currency and buy our tickets for Hiroshima. We came back and my mother and aunt made dinner. I hate to sound sexist, but its great being a guy here in Japan. We are so spoiled. The women do everything around here. Cook, clean, wash, dry. You name it. The males just need to make sure they earn the moolah to keep the roof over the family's head. The most enjoyable part of the trip so far is listening and watching my grandmother. She is constantly switching back and forth between English and Japan, and sometimes so crosses those wires and speaks to me in Japanese and talks to her cousin in English. She also tends to put her own spin on things when translating between us and relatives. Especially with me, because I don't speak at normal Japanese conversation speed, she often takes it upon herself to translate what I say to them. However she is like fox news, spins everything I say. I don't know how many times I've told her "I didn't say that" after she tries to convey my message to the relatives. I suppose it would just be easier for me to talk to them.
The day was pretty uneventful, had dinner with some relatives, and took a shower. However, I am prepped and ready for the trip to Hiroshima first thing tomorrow morning.
Cherry Blossom-ness!
On a side note I want to give you a short explanation of the seriousness of the cherry blossom festival. It is celebrated on the day when the blossom is in full bloom. Right now, the blossoms are beginning to bloom. They devote a whole 10-15 mins on their news stations telling you how far along the cherry blossoms have bloomed in each area of Japan. It will say something of the sort like "Shizuoka blossom 15% open, expected blossom day, March 31st." They will do that for at least, 20 different areas. The goal is to be around when the tree blossoms. If you time it right, you can be in multiple areas and witness the event over and over in different areas of the country (obviously due to the timing of when each area's trees blossom.)
19 Stories High in Hiroshima
March 29th 2008 7:38pm JPN time (3:38am PST)
Peace and quiet. I am 19 stories up in a western style hotel (Crown Plaza) in my own personal hotel room. My mother, aunt, and grandmother are 3 doors down (like the band!). So I figured I would take this time to write a little in the journal. Let's start at the beginning.
Once again, my 83 year old alarm clock went off at 5:00am today telling me to get ready for our trip to Hiroshima. Luckily, I'm still jet lagged so I got to bed at 8:00pm here (4:00am PST time). Waking up at 5:00am this morning was a lot easier than I thought. Today was our first day doing the tourist stuff. We took off to the shinkansen (bullet train) after having some bread and butter. The weather in Shizuoka is very much like San Jose. That is one less thing I need get adjusted to which is always nice. The ride to the station was pleasant. Absolutely no traffic and the skies were clear, which gave us the opportunity to see Mt. Fuji on the ride over to the station. Shuji-ojisan and Takashi-san were our chauffeurs for the day as usual and dropped us off at the train station. My goal today was to figure out how to withdraw money from my account. I have not been able to find any sort of ATM at all. While we waited for our train to arrive, I took a stroll to look for some atms. Apparently, ATMs are locked up until business hours. That was disappointing. So with only the cash I brought with me on hand, I headed to the tracks and awaited for the arrival for the train. The train ride was uneventful but relaxing. It lasted about 4 hours or so. Leaving at 6:42am and arriving somewhere around 10 – 11:00pm. I used the time to catch up on some sleep. The latter part of the trip (the section approaching Hiroshima) was nice, as we were mainly in the countryside. Rolling hills, bamboo forests, and farmlands all zoomed by at 200 mph. Before long, we were at Hiroshima.
Walking off the Train we met up with one of my grandmother's friends, Captain <insert name I can't remember>. He was a big shot Captain of heavily loaded destroyer ships of the Japanese Navy. I noticed right away he is a very soft spoken and passive guy. YES he fought in WWII against the US. That's about all I got from Mom and Auntie Florence. He has known my grandmother for over 50 years now. ANYWAY, we hunted down some lockers for our bags, and met up with his wife a few mins later. She took us out to a very enjoyable lunch. MAN was she the polar opposite of him: Really Expressive and outgoing. Grandma totally shunned Captain <> the whole lunch. We felt pretty bad. After the lunch we said thank you and parted ways.
We headed over to Miyajima (Spelled right?) which is a small island off the inland sea of Hiroshima. It is only about a 15 minute ferry ride away. The Island is very touristy. There is a large temple and pagoda on it. It is also has a dense forest. The WILD deer come to the town and hang around town to try and snag free food from the people walking around the area. It's best known landmark is its large water bound gateway. I was taking in the sight and the beauty of it to bother with the history of the place. I'm bad I know. There was a wedding going on at the time, so my Aunt snapped some screens of the bride. After walking 2-3 miles up and down the place, we had our fill of the place and my grandma's feet were getting tired so we decided to head back. After bought some snacks for my co-workers Christine Kim and Teresa Tran and called it a day.
We took a local train back to the main station and grabbed a taxi to the hotel and HERE I AM!! If you watch the video, you will see my almost kill myself walking into the bathroom. That is because the only place in this room that has a 3 pronged outlet is the bathroom. So I am charging my laptop in there. I almost tripped over the wire. How embarrassing! I'm going to go get some Mos Burger in a little bit and probably call it a night. Watch some crazy Japanese TV shows and get up and go to Kyoto tomorrow.
Here are some photos:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/hazeion/