A Well-Defended Park

Another geocaching story!  (Again, if you don't know what I'm talking about go here before you continue.) Don't worry, this one involves no blood-shed and disaster.  Several weeks ago I decided to look for a cache in which to drop a travelbug that I had been carrying around for some time.  I looked at the list of caches near our house to see if I could find an easy one that was big enough to hold stuff.

One immediately piqued my interest....it was called "Ruins of a Small Fortress".  Who doesn't want to go see a fortress on a lazy weekday afternoon?  And it was only about three miles from my house!

So I loaded up Cora and off we went.  After some going around in circles on one-way streets I finally got us into.....a very small neighborhood park surrounded by a moat.  It was a bit of a let-down.

This "fortress" is so small that I can't find any information about it at all on the Internet, except for these random photos that are better than mine.  You'll notice at this website that the fortress is labeled "Koizumi Castle".  That's stretching it a bit if you ask me.

iPhone photo of the moat, sorry

no idea, but it down't look old enough to be actual ruins

stone markers and the entrance to an underground cave

ducks in the moat

and the requisite carp

If you're wondering about the geocache, well, I never found it.  After we got there I checked to see if it had been found recently and it had not, so one presumes it is lost.  Let-down all around, but after our most recent geocaching experience, I call it a success that no one was harmed in the hunt. ;)

Also, I will be taking some time off from blogging throughout December but check back after the New Year for more adventures!  Happy Holidays!

Our Moldy Summer

Late summer got a little interesting for us because we had to have most of our upstairs re-wallpapered within a three-week window.  Why?  Well, I believe I've been clear about our issues with heating and cooling our house.  In the summertime it gets really hot and humid here so we run our air conditioners a lot.  This summer we ran the one in Cora's bedroom basically all the time.  It's where she sleeps and naps, you know?  And personally I believe that it wastes less energy to just leave it on all the time than it does to turn it on and off frequently.

So, anyway, there we are, running her air con constantly during really humid weather and uh....not really airing out her room much.

And then one day I was moving things around in her room and saw this.....

Now, Chad had already noticed that the wallpaper was bubbling so we weren't that surprised to find it (although I did shriek and pull my hair a little....wouldn't you?).  We had even already notified the maintenance people.  But after I found this we called them back and told them to step on it.

So Cora spent a few nights in the guest room and a dude came and re-wallpapered her room.  Everyone always asks me how he got rid of the mold.  After some lengthy and confused conversations with maintenance men, I finally learned that he sanded it off.

While he was working in her room we found a little mold in our room and ended up having it redone too.  And then we did the guest room because by that point we figured it was only a matter of time.  (For the record the guest room had no mold because we don't run the air con in it all the time.)

So, for anyone thinking about moving to Japan, or moving to a house with air conditioning difficulties, let the following be a public service announcement to you.   Don't be like us! 

1. Invest in dehumidifiers for the summertime!  They help a lot.

2. Air out your rooms regularly!

3. Give the air cons a break occasionally!

Geocache 'Til You Drop

This past weekend we all went to Tokyo to get flu shots.  We spent a night in a hotel so we would have time to eat some good food and do some sight-seeing.  While we were there we did some geocaching.  If you don't know what geocaching is, stop right now and go read this.

Alright, so we headed for a cache located in the Shinjuku Gyoen National Garden.  This garden used to be the home of a feudal lord in the 1600's- 1800's.  It eventually became Imperial Gardens for the royal family of Japan and then after that became a national garden open to the public for a small fee.  It's about 140 acres, very wooded and well-landscaped.

taken on my iPhone, hence the quality

we will refer back to this picture later

So we went to the cache location and it turned out to be one of the best kind of geocaches in that it was located exactly where you thought it would be.  It was in the edge of the woods near some old concrete rubble.  It was big enough to hold items and we dropped off a trackable travelbug that we had picked up in a cache near the Tokyo SkyTree.  We picked up a new travelbug to take to the US over the holidays.

And now....for the rest of the story.  You didn't think this was just a nice, boring tale about a garden and a geocache, did you?

As I walked out of the woods after replacing the cache, I banged my knee hard on a piece of the concrete sticking up out of the ground. I hit it riiiight on the bone but it was a small gash with minimal bleeding.  I came out onto the path and told Chad what I'd done.  And then I tried really, really hard to walk it off.  I'm a big fan of  "walking it off"......in theory.  I thought I was fine and over it.

And then.... I had this really good dream that I can't remember.  I was very confused when  I woke up on the ground with Chad holding me and yelling at me frantically.  I was cold and wait....oh, yeah...I'm in this park. Fortunately Chad had caught me before I hit the pavement in a dead faint.

Now those of you who know me very well said "Uh-oh." two paragraphs ago.  For the rest of you, well....I pass out easily.  Blood, needles, childbirth, intense sharp pain of the funny-bone type or any combination thereof and I will keel over in a second.  It's very annoying and seems to be getting worse as I get older.  At this point I've had enough "episodes" that I know I'm supposed to lie down.  But the park was chilly and there was no place to lie down (refer to the photo above) so I was just going to walk it off.

As Chad was trying to get me to wake up a nice man came by and tried to help.  There was a language barrier but he was trying.  I told him I was fine (in Japanese, no less!) and sent him on his way.  Because clearly I was fine, right?  I was just walking it off.

Chad left me kneeling on the ground and went to see to poor Cora who by this time was crying in her stroller.  I was drinking some water and then....I had another great dream that I can't remember. This time when Chad woke me up I was much less confused and Chad was much more frantic.  Let's stop here and appreciate his dilemma.  He didn't want to leave me lying on the ground and go for help yet he couldn't move me and handle the stroller.  And I'd sent away the only person who had offered to help.

At that point I managed to get it together and get up and walk out of the park.  We took a taxi the half mile back to where we'd left the car and just went home.  I'd like to say it ended there but apparently my digestive system had been compromised and I polished off the morning with some carsickness on the drive out of the city.  And now Chad I both have bum knees because he wrenched his catching me as I fell.

But now we're home, safe and mostly sound with another geocache found and a (hopefully) entertaining story to tell.

The end! :D

Meiji Jingu Shrine

A month or so ago (when we had a visitor from home) we took a trip into Tokyo and explored the area around Yoyogi Park more thoroughly.  We went there once before but we didn't actually go see the main feature of Yoyogi Park which is the Meiji Jingu shrine.

Meiji Jingu is a massive Shinto shrine dedicated to the spirits of the Meiji Emperor (he ruled 1867 to 1912) and his wife.  It's in the middle of Yoyogi Park which is 175 acres of huge trees smack in the middle of Tokyo.  The trees were donated from all over Japan and the world and installed when the shrine and park were constructed in 1920.

Two interesting things about Meiji Jingu:

First, it was completely destroyed in the Tokyo air raids during WWII.  Public funds were raised to reconstruct it in the late 50's.

Second, world leaders (I use that term loosely) like to visit it.  Hillary Clinton was there in 2009 right after she was made Secretary of State.  And, if you go to the Wikipedia page there's a photo of Nazis visiting it in 1938.*  So, yeah.

main building

panorama of the complex

exiting

this photo is from our previous visit.  if you look carefully at the bottom right of the torii you can see Chad and a
stroller with our abandoned child

*This is in no way meant to compare the two.

Poppin' Tags

So here's a post about what a thrift shop is like in Japan.  Before you get all excited let me tell ya that it's pretty much like one in America. The only one I know about in these parts is a chain called Off House.

Off House is part of a conglomerate that includes Hard Off which sells used electronics/hardware (and yeah, sorry, the name totally cracks me up), Book Off which sells used books, and the aforementioned Off House that sells housewares, clothes, toys etc.  There are a few other variations that I've never seen in person, but you can see them listed on the official website.

a local Off House

I recently went with an American friend and attempted to actually sell some things there.  I wasn't too successful in that I only made ¥400 (about $4) profit.  But the fact that we were able to manage the transaction was a success, albeit a touch-and-go one because of language difficulties.  We had to show ID and fill out a short contact form and sign that we weren't going to show up and want the stuff back.  The ladies working there pulled some poor dude out of the back and made him talk to me.   When this happens you can assume that the poor schmuck at some point let on to his co-workers that his English was better than average.  Or they grabbed him just because he was younger and had been in English classes more recently than they had.  I always feel really sorry for someone when this happens.  Anyway, they didn't want most of my clothing because it was off-season but I did sell a baby toy.  Granted, I ended up buying a baby toy while I was there but that's beside the point.

Other than the toy, I once got a maternity dress there and I've bought some cute Japanese-style appetizer dishes.  That's the kinds of things Off House is good for.

and guitars

clothing

the rather large collection of action figures is pretty "Japanese" I'd say

electronics

Roll It Up, Pat It Out...

I see a lot of "different" things here in Japan.  But after two and a half (!) years here I don't notice many of them anymore.  But there is one thing that still - after all this time - puzzles, fascinates and occasionally repulses me.

Japanese bakeries.

First, let me make clear that I am talking about bakeries and not sweet shops*.  I know in my mind they can sort of blend together sometimes but here they are very distinct.  Bakeries here are much more focused on non-sweet items than those in America.  In the average Japanese bakery (this does not include Starbucks or it's imitators) you will be hard-pressed to find cinnamon rolls, danishes, cookies, muffins or any of those other wonderful items you would expect to see. (Although, you may occasionally run across them and most bakeries will have a few dessert items available.)

Here are some of the things you can expect to see.  I've broken them down into categories that I feel best expresses the general composition of a Japanese bakery.

• Fake Hotdog Travesties

that is a really long, bad-tasting fake hotdog
in an equally disgusting "bun-like contrivance".
seriously, the bread is hard and the hotdog
is more like a sausage.

• Things With Corn

on the left is bread with a pile of creamed corn.
on the right is another hotdog monstrosity helpfully labeled "pastry frank".

• Bread With Vegetables (and Mayo)

on the left - broccoli, mushrooms and probably mayo
on the right - tomato and definitely mayo

• Things With an Egg

Japanese people will put a poached egg on anything.

• Green Bread

it's filled with a mashed soybean paste.  Yum!

Two more things of note:  One, it is virtually impossible to find empty hoagie/sub rolls in this country.  They are always filled with something.  Egg, cream, bean pastes, chocolate, peanut butter, cheese, you name it and I've probably seen it sold in a sub roll.  But if you want to buy a plain roll to take home and fill with steak or roast beef or meatballs as God intended then you're out of luck.  Two, if you see bread filled with what looks like chocolate, IT MAY NOT BE CHOCOLATE.  It may be red bean paste masquerading as chocolate.    Trust me, you do not want to bite into that thinking it's chocolate.  If you learn nothing else from this blog, learn that.


*Japanese sweet shops, on the other hand, are usually marvelous and full of wonderful shortcakes, creme brulees, tiramisus, fruit tarts, chocolate cakes, pies etc.  If not exactly what you would find in an American sweet shop (to me they have a bit of what I imagine is a French influence) they are close enough.

Tokyo Skytree

A few weeks ago, we had some family visiting so we took the train into the city for the day to visit the new-ish Tokyo Skytree.  The Skytree is a broadcasting and observation tower that when completed became the second tallest structure in the world--the tallest is some skyscraper in Dubai.  It is the tallest tower in the world, since there is a distinction between skyscrapers and towers.  If you're wondering why it's called the Skytree, it was chosen in a nationwide vote from a selection of names that were suggested by the public. The one I like that didn't get chosen is "Dream Lookout".  Catchy, huh?

The place has been open a year and a half and the lines on a weekday still looked like this:

We waited in line for forty minutes to buy tickets and get in (you can reserve tickets in advance and walk in but we weren't that smart) . Anyway, we can say we went and the views were spectacular.  First though, the tower itself:

tall, right?

I can't take credit for this cool pic, Chad took it

When we finally got our tickets we rode some pretty snazzy elevators up to the observation decks.

usually when you take these pics, you see the Skytree looming over everything because it's just that tall

wait, there it is!!

another Chad shot, him looking down through the floor windows

and it wouldn't be Japanese if it didn't have a pastry
made in it's likeness (this thing looked disgusting)

 So if you're in Tokyo check it out---there's lots of restaurants and shopping nearby and inside the tower.  And they constructed a brand new train station that dumps you right out at it so getting to it is easy!

Flowers, Arrows and Falling Leaves

No, I've not taken to writing poetry.  Believe it or not, I'm talking about car decals.  We noticed that there were many cars with the same decals so eventually we asked someone what they all meant. 

Come to find out they are required by law and are an indication of the age and/or experience of the driver. 

The arrow you see below indicates that the driver has been driving for less than a year.

"child/baby in car" stickers are also really popular here

And the stylized flower you see in the upper left corner of the van below indicates that the driver is over....70 years old, I think?  How's that for age discrimination?

Funny story....in the photo below you'll also notice some stickers that look like pink and yellow raindrops (turned sideways on this car).  You see those a lot too.  Those used to be the decal for the elderly and it was supposed to be a stylized falling leaf.  But the old folks got upset that they were being called dead leaves so they changed it to the flower.

this dude doesn't seem to mind though, and  he's
covering all his bases

Our Backyard Project

Hi there, remember me?  My lame excuse for not blogging is that I've been sweating outside all summer.  Chad and I decided to tackle the most challenging aspect of our yard....the backside of it.  Off of our living room we have a small raised, fenced-area with a lovely view over the rice paddies.  Unfortunately, unlike our front yard, which came with nice landscaping, the back was a dirt and weed pit.  And by weeds, I mean dandelions which would literally reach 5' tall in the spring.  By May it was truly frightening to behold.  And if you'll recall from previous posts, the company sends some guys twice a year to beat back the worst of it but that still left a large portion of the year when it was a hot mess.

This year we waited until the yard guys showed up and pulled up the weeds, leaving a bare dirt pit.

And then we attacked.

Our plan was to cover in in Bermuda grass except for a small flower bed by the house foundation.  This led to some discussion about how to identify grass seed in the home improvement store. 

Now, I've spent my fair share of time in the local home improvement stores and I knew that I had always seen squares of sod in the summer.  And I knew that when a new house went up in the neighborhood they always laid the tiny little yard with sod squares.  I mentioned to Chad that grass seed might not be an option here but he took off to the home improvement store determined to buy bags of seed.

He came home defeated (he doesn't shop here much, bless him) and made me go back with him.  Here's where it gets interesting.....I ended up asking someone in the garden department for "grass seed".  I looked up the kanji on my phone to show him.  Long story short, it ended up with two workers scratching their heads, looking at us like we were crazy and leading us over to the sod squares.

So, the moral of the story is, if you want to create a lawn in Japan, you're probably going to have to sod it.

AND.....it's best to get in done as early as you can because we ended up having to order ten stacks of sod to finish the yard because when we went back for seconds they were out and told us they didn't carry it past May.  Chad had to get a co-worker to help him order it.

But, in the end it worked out....ta-da!

 

 

and during

The Inaka

What's the "inaka" [e-NA-ka] ?  That would be the word for "countryside" in Japanese.  As in a rural area where life is slow and the nights are quiet (well, except for the frogs).  I live in the inaka. 

And if you find yourself in the inaka there is a great website devoted to cataloging all the small-town sights you might otherwise miss.  The Inaka Project is a picture-heavy travel guide website, in English, that focuses on small town sights, restaurants, onsens and festivals.  There isn't one author, there are many, contributing from all over Japan.  I highly recommend you check it out and contribute if you live here.

P.S.  If you look hard, you might see an article or two with a familiar byline. :)

Japan's Castles

(I think it's been a month again.  <sigh>  I always hate it when bloggers slack off.)

So when you think about castles, ruined or otherwise, you probably think about Europe.  They've got all the castles, right?  Well, as it turns out, they do not.

Japan is literally covered in ancient castles.  You may recall us visiting one in Okinawa in 2011.   I mentioned a quasi-castle in my last post.  There are so many castles that there is one about 15 minutes from my house (close to the children's park I blogged about here).  Is there a castle 15 minutes from your house?  I doubt it.

My local castle is called Kanayama and is in ruins.  It was constructed on a mountaintop in 1469 by one Iwamatsu Iezumi.  It was attacked a lot in the 1500's but stood strong until it was "decommissioned" in 1590, whatever that means. It's a national historic site and one of the more famous castles in this region of Japan.  In person it's an interesting area to walk around, very nicely maintained and popular for walkers/joggers. 

this reflection pond is part of the remnants of
a rather massive irrigation system

you can't really tell, but just past that sign is a really deep ditch.  it was
designed for invading samurai armies to fall into when they charged the mountain.

there are lots of informative sign maps, all in Japanese

the irrigation system

at the top of the mountain, no idea who it is

mostly, it's a lot of stone walls

For more on Japan's castles there is a great website called J-Castle that maintains a really thorough database of them all.  I hope to visit a few more before our time here is up!

The Temple of Bannaji

A couple of weeks ago I drove over to Ashikaga to document Bannaji Temple.  Bannaji is adjacent to the Ashikaga Gakko, which I visited last spring.  I just recently learned that it's technically considered a Japanese castle (you can find it listed as Ashikagashi Yakata), although I think the term "fortified samurai residence" is more apt.  It is surrounded by a very castle-y moat with some particularly voracious carp.  It dates to the mid-1100's (have I mentioned that stuff here is really old?) and is a national historic site.




the temple main walk and main hall

not sure what this is....maybe the library?

a really old, really big gingko tree



the moat



they follow you, snapping
their jaws ominously
 



and some statuary



the bell tower

 



The area around Bannaji and the Gakko is interesting because it's kind of like an old town square.  The streets are cobblestone (poor Cora nearly got her little brains rattled out in her stroller) and there are lots of interesting (read: international) restaurants and little shops.  There are also one way streets--- I learned this the hard way by going down one the wrong way and having a little old lady on a bicycle waggle her finger at me.  When we were there it was a little hot and buggy but I really enjoy walking around that part of Ashikaga--it's very picturesque.  It's what I wish all of rural Japan looked like.  Maybe one day I'll go back and just take photos of the streets around the area.

 

 







Tomb Raider

Back when we first arrived and I was looking for local things to do and see I found mention of some burial mounds nearby.  I enthusiastically thought "Oh, wow, burial mounds-- that'll be neat to go see!".  Shortly thereafter I realized that they were very close to our house and, in fact, were right across the street from the mall.

Cut to two years later.  Last Thursday, I think it was, I wearily thought "Geez, I've got to come up with something to get us out of the house this afternoon.  Maybe I'll go see if there is actually anything at those hills across from the mall."

So, <ahem> here goes:

These two burial mounds date from about the 5th century AD.  They're called "kofun" and the period they are from is sometimes called the Kofun Period because many of these types of mounds were built then.  The Kofun period is the earliest recorded era in the history of Japan. 

These particular mounds are called the Tenjin'yama and according to Wikipedia some terracotta figurines (called haniwa) were found here and are the only haniwa to be designated as national treasures. 

The mounds are right in the middle of a commercial area.  Here is one....

exciting, no?



 And standing in the same spot (a 7Eleven parking lot) but turned the opposite direction...

squint and you can see a McDonalds

There was a sign and a little statue but the sign was faded and all in Japanese.



it probably says "Why are you standing here looking at these dumb hills when
you could be at the mall with everyone else?"

I couldn't find an easy way to climb them, although now that I think of it, that might've been rude.  They're surrounded by rice paddies and ditches that I wasn't brave enough to jump with a baby strapped to my chest.

yep, it's a hill alright

Here's the other one after I drove around and around it trying to see if there was any identifiable path to the top.  There was not.

they do stand out because they are tree covered. 
concrete or rice paddy is the groundcover of choice here.

So, another local landmark checked off the list.  Better late than never, right?