From Sand to Snow

After arriving back from the beaches of Thailand, we repacked our bags and headed to the mountains of Nagano, Japan for a ski weekend with friends. Erik and I actually never made it up there before so we were excited to check that box before we leave Japan.

We stopped off on Friday evening for a fire festival. Pure craziness. Every year on Jan 15, the village of Nozawa Onsen holds the Dosojin Fire Festival. The 42 year old males of the village construct a wooden shrine and sit on top and drink all evening in the snow. The 25 year old men protect the shrine at the base while other villages light torches and rush forward to try to burn the whole thing down. Lots of free sake flows around for all. One of the craziest things I've seen in Japan.



The actual fall of the shrine is a bit more controlled; they first let the 45 year old men get down first. In this video, one of the ceremonial sake stands is being fed to the fire. Don't worry - they extract the vat of sake first and continue handing that out - no alcohol was injured in the making of this video. You can also see how fast the snow was coming down - probably about 6 inches in 3 hours.



As for the ski weekend itself, I surprisingly had a good time. I'd never been skiing before and hadn't so much enjoyed earlier attempts with snowboarding over 10 years ago. But Erik was a great teacher and very very patient. After a couple hours, I finally made it down some beginner slopes, fall free. After lunch, though, I quit while I was ahead and Erik went to join friends on the more advanced slopes.

Also, a shout-out ("hey oh!") to Atsugi base's Outdoor Recreation department - we rented all of our skis and snow gear for 3 days for about a $120. I will miss these little MWR perks!

Thailand Adventures

Wow, what a great trip we had to Thailand! I'm so glad we snuck it in before we leave Japan. The first 2-3 days were spent in and around Bangkok and then flew down south to the beaches of Phuket. Everyday offered a new adventure!

Our first night was a leisurely hang out at the Suan Lum Night Bazaar. They had a nice food and beer garden in the middle of it all. This is where Erik tried his first Thai food and thankfully he really liked it! But who doesn't like pad thai? Seriously, its good stuff. This is also where we taste tested the local beer offerings and made personal allegiances. I preferred Tiger ("Its like the Miller Lite of Southeast Asia!") but Erik seemed to order the Chang a lot. I think that's just because he liked saying it.

From Thailand January 2010

The next day was spent visiting some floating markets and a tiger temple in which the monks care for orphaned tigers. They are very docile in the afternoon heat and after a nice hearty lunch - in combination with being raised by humans, this means you can pet them:

From Thailand January 2010

The rest of our days were spent on the beaches of Phuket. Our resort had a private beach which was very key - this means no one bothered us and it wasn't overcrowded. It was a nice constant rotation of read, nap, swim and repeat. Our hotel even had a baby elephant that came down to the beach in the afternoons to say hello!

From Thailand January 2010

One day we did venture out to go on a kayak adventure - also a great day, of course! We had wonderful food on the boat, saw lots of neat caves and lagoons and then ended our night with creating a "kratong" and setting our wishes to sea.

From Thailand January 2010

From Thailand January 2010

If we were ever stationed again in Japan, I would be excited to create another Thailand journey. There are so many other beaches and areas - I would love to see more!

Happy Kate Goes Nuts

Erik arrived home from his last deployment of 2009 on November 18th - woohoo! He officially took all his stuff off the USS George Washington and he isn't going to be carrier-based for a couple years, at least. This means we don't have to buy two of everything now (i.e. boat socks vs real socks, boat towels vs real towels, boat toiletries vs home toiletries, etc). Even better, it means that we are back together again.

I wasn't here for the homecoming since I was in the States for the Thanksgiving holiday, but eventually we got back to being our cozy little family on Dec 4th. If I was cute and furry and had a tail, it could have gone a little something like this:

Halloween in Hong Kong

Over the Halloween holiday weekend, I had the fabulous opportunity to visit Erik in Hong Kong. What a great city! I have to admit that prior to moving to Japan, I thought that Hong Kong was the capital of China. I guess I didn't pay too much attention in AP history. If they use the background to make a Showtime series with Jonathan Rhys-Meyers, I may be able to catch up (as I now know all about Europe in the 1500s and boy oh boy, me likey).

Anyhooooo... Hong Kong is its own kind of republic/island. After being inhabited by the British for some time, the city is a great blend of asian business with western structure. Like the street names are all in English, for example. Brilliant!

Erik being Jackie Chan for a moment (the moment thereafter involved Purell):

From Hong Kong October 2009

Me and Hong Kong skyline, from the Kowloon side:

From Hong Kong October 2009

Looking out from Victoria Peak at night:

From Hong Kong October 2009

The city is filled with tons of hills and stairs, so that was the only uncomfortable part of the trip (considering it does have the climate of Mexico!). Some parts of the city, however, have covered escalators to help you navigate through the streets a tad less sweaty.

Overall, it was a great time! Now Erik is back on the boat for a few more weeks and I am off to the States to work and consume mass amounts of potatoes and gravy!

Big Men in Thongs

We wanted to put another check on our "Japan Bucket List" so this weekend we finally went to a sumo tournament. There are 5 tournaments a year in Japan, 2 of which are held in Tokyo.

My first impression: Its so quick! Most of the guys were able to push the other out of the ring (or have them fall over) within 30 seconds. And that's it. That's all their work for the day. The get their respective checks in the win or loss column and they come back the next day. A tournament lasts about 15 days.

Other fun facts:

• Each guy has a personal hairdresser to create and attend to the "top knot" hairdo
• Their ceremonial aprons they originally walk out in (like in the photo above) can run about $20,000 each - they were very beautiful but that's a lot of money for a glorified loin cloth!
• For some of the bigger matches, sponsors will walk around the ring with banners before the match starts as an offering for bonus money. Each banner is worth about $600, so if 5 advertisers walk around the ring for a match, the winner will pocket an extra $3000. Not bad for 30 seconds of work.
• The referee (dressed in kimono) only refs for 2 matches a day. And yes, the wrestlers can "challenge" any ref or judging calls.
• ...and much more. Talk to us about it sometime :)
  

Below is a video of one of the more "higher up" matches of the day. The wrestlers can step out of the ring a couple times before the match begins to get more salt, pump themselves up, etc. Kind of like stepping away from the plate in baseball, I suppose! The salt is used to "purify" the ring (the platform itself is made of packed dirt with sand spread on top).



We had a great time and had way more fun than we expected. I think this is because we started some friendly betting on the matches. It turns out my plan to consistently pick the smaller guys and older guys worked out well as I won in the end versus Erik! No wager, though. Darn.

Visiting Taiwan

While Erik was home between his summer and fall deployments, we visited Taiwan for 5 days in early September. Admittedly, our first choice was to visit Beijing and The Great Wall but we had some visa obstacles with that plan. So! How about Taiwan? It has Chinese culture and is a 3 hour flight from Tokyo - fits the bill!

It ended up being a lovely place and the people were very friendly. The country has a really interesting history - a neat blend of Chinese, Taiwanese, Japanese, aborginal, etc kind of thing going on. It became clear there are different opinions surrounding this (as with most pages of history) and has essentially left me with the question who does like China? Besides Mother Russia, of course. Moving on from awkward political thoughts...

Our journeys were mainly based around Taipei and a couple days in the central counties of the sub tropic country. The south of the island offers many beaches and resorts, however they are still dealing with the effects of the devastating Typhoon Morokat last month.

Here is a slideshow with some pictures set to music from our adventure!

If you'd like to view it in a larger format, click on the arrows on the lower right corner of the video. Once the screen expands, click on the upper right hand corner where it says "scaling is on" to change it to "scaling is off" to make it a reasonable, clearer size.

Food Fear Factor

I'm happy to say I've grown out of a "picky eater" phase which plagued more than a couple decades of my life; I think living in Japan has put a lid on that altogether.

Today, I ate jellyfish tentacles:


I've eaten plenty o' interesting things here, but this goes in the top 10. Along with octopus (straight up, with suction cups tentacles and all), asparagus mousse, and a variety of gelatinous deserts.

The jellyfish tasted kind of salty - and were slippery, crunchy and jelly all at the same time. Because food, after all, is not just about taste, but so much about texture.

I Peeled an Orange About an Hour Ago, Why?

Summers in Japan are... interesting. I can honestly say I'm appreciative of this time in my life where if I want to spend hours a day reading and watching DVDs, I can. Although I maintain a part time job, it becomes awfully difficult to work in solitude for more than a few hours each day.

When people think of not having to work, I think visions of childhood summer vacations dance through their heads and they draw up feelings of a permanent long lazy weekend. Hammock naps, hiking in the afternoon and barbecues at night. But I don't think many people in their adult life (without children to tend to) understand what it would be like to permanently have nothing but time on your hands.

What would you do with a permanent vacation where none of your family or friends from home were with you? This is not a "woe is me" blurb but rather one girl's perspective.

If I'm not careful, I stay in my house for days and go without hearing a real human voice (although I have dreamy characters like Mr. Darcy, Chuck, Titus Pollo, Jacob Black, etc to keep me in very good company). So I purposefully do things like only get one book from the library at a time or get groceries that will last only a day or two - reserved actions that essentially force me to get out of the house. The fact that I have to calculate such maneuvers is a testament to feeling caged at times, but my hermit-like tendencies are no one's burden but my own. There are plenty of lovely people and opportunities around here and I take advantage of such things regularly. Its the "in between time" that makes time pass so slowly and yet so quickly.

Its easier to question these feelings and actions in the hot muggy months of summer here - the kind where your movements are sluggish as your limbs try to slice through the heavy air. Enjoying the outdoors would ease the caginess, but its difficult when beads of sweat form upon opening my front door. It reminds me of a favorite line from comedian Kevin James:

You know, when you're a fat guy you don't need a reason to sweat. Guys come up to me and go "Jeez... what have you been doing - jumping rope in the attic or something?"..."Umm, no... I peeled an orange about an hour ago, why?"

Replace the fat guy stuff with "You know your living in Japan in the Summer when you don't need a reason to sweat..." Feelings are different in the Spring and the Fall when I can comfortably get back to long walks along the back roads and neighborhoods of Japan, exploring the differences... and appreciating the similarities.

Swing Batta Batta, Swiiiing!

When Erik was "visiting" our home this past weekend, we finally got to see a Japanese baseball game. This is likely our last spring here in Nippon, so definitely needed to cross this of our list! We hopped on the train to see the local Yohohama Baystars, up against the Chiba Mariners. The Baystars' mascot has a star for a head, which of course I found super endearing.

The rules are pretty much the same, although the playing field, strike zone, etc are scaled down just a little bit. The interesting thing is that the home team's crowd continually cheers while the home team is at bat. That's a little different since in the States, things are usually quiet so the 'roid runners can focus better.

Here is the crowd doing a cheer while Yoshimura (popular player) is at bat. Coincidentally, we just happened to catch his home run on film while we were actually just trying to film the crowd.

Overall the experience was a lot of fun - we got to drink beer and eat hot dogs and cheer with the local crowd. We even caught on enough to join in the cheers in Japanese, although this skill diminished over time with beer consumption (meanwhile, rate of enthusiasm increased exponentially!).



Another Japanese item checked off our list!

McDonarudo's

I'd like to take the high road and claim I eat only local foods while living in Japan, alas I cannot avoid the temptation of McDonald's. Of course the fast food giant uses enough artificial seasonings to make a beef patty to taste the same in Toledo as it does in Tokyo. Sure, there are regional variations such as shrimp burgers and copious amounts of mayonnaise, but I appreciate the consistency of the basic menu items - when I want a McD's cheeseburger, I want a McD's cheeseburger.

"This one is the cheeseburger."

The main difference lies in the service, I think. The other day, they actually bowed after handing over my bag o' deliciousness. How courteous! And I don't think I've ever waited more than a minute for food. In the States, I once waited 3 minutes for a soda. However, I can't say its a fair comparison because the amount of staff in a Japanese McDs versus an American one supports my theory that everyone in Japan has a job.


This is the amount of staff on a weekday at my local suburban Zama McDonald's. And yes, all the women are wearing skirts. But if you work the fryer, make sure you wear some knee highs!