A few weekends ago we went with our friend Ringo and her friend Juri to visit Sky Tree. Sky Tree is a tower that is currently under construction but is on track to become the tallest tower in the world when it's finished later this year. And already it is a popular site to visit around Tokyo. I asked some of my 13 and 14 year old students where Brad and I should take his family when they come to visit (specifically mentioning Brad's 15 year old step-sister Lauren) and of all the places in Tokyo, Sky Tree was at the top. And I have to say that I do not understand why. It was definitely a cool site to see, and already it's amazing to see how tall it is, but if I had one day to see Tokyo I would definitely recommend something else. But regardless, we had a lot of fun talking with Ringo and her friend, taking pictures and walking around Asakusa.
Juri, Ringo, and me outside of Sky Tree
Brad and Sky Tree
Sky Tree--you really did have to look straight up to see the top. To get the whole tower in the picture we had to take the picture as low to the ground as possible. (I had to write that last sentence a couple of times so no one could leave a "that's what she said" comment--but who am I kidding, no one comments anyway! lol Thanks Mom!)
That's a random building, the Sky Tree Tower, and the Asahi Beer buildings. The gold building is supposed to look like a foamy glass of beer and who knows what the other building is supposed to look like. I can tell you what me and lots of other people think the gold thing looks like though... :)
Ringo, Brad, and Juri on the train. By the way, that is Ringo's first Starbuck's drink ever! I didn't think that was possible over the age of 2!
Then we went to take Purikura pictures. They're basically like high tech photo booths and are extremely popular here. Before you take the pictures you pick the backgrounds that you want, then you take the pictures and afterwards you have about 3 minutes to add writing and other photo shop-esque things to it. (Girls get all decked out specifically to take these pictures here.) Only girls or guys accompanied by a girl are allowed to use the purikura booths but it was fun. I have to say that I'm not the best at posing for pictures but they turned our pretty well, and is definitely a fun keepsake!
Friday the 11th was a national holiday so Brad and I decided to go on a little trip to celebrate the long weekend and Valentine's Day. We had tried to go to Hakone in fall since it is known for all the pretty colors but this was our time to do it and it was still incredibly beautiful.
Hakone is only about a 3 hour train ride from where we live so we left early Friday morning and got into Hakone around lunchtime. We couldn't check into our hotel until 2 so we walked around town and found an udon place where we decided to eat lunch. It was so good! After that we checked into our hotel. It was amazing! We had our own hot springs bath and a room with a view of the beautiful gardens out back. And Brad and I got to sleep on our first bed in almost a year. :-)
The view of the garden from our room. It was snowing like this the entire time we were there.
It doesn't snow very often in Japan, especially where Brad and I live, but now is the "snowy" season in this part of Japan. Even though it's not a lot of snow, it is still COLD! I forgot how much I hated the weather this time of year. Wet cold is the worst!
But I forgot to mention the best part; even though it snowed the whole weekend, we got to experience some of that snow while sitting in the nice hot spring baths that Hakone is famous for. Perfection! This weekend was all about spoiling ourselves and I think we achieved that goal.
Even though we had our own bath in our room we still went to check out the hot spring baths that the hotel had to offer. Hot springs are called onsen in Japan and they have very strict rules to follow when enjoying them. Ninety nine percent of the time they are separated by gender. You can't have any tattoos, you have to shower completely before entering the springs, you have to be naked (the only thing that you're supposed to have is a little hand towel which you are to keep out of the water at all times), and you must never put your head underwater. The onsen at our hotel was amazing! They had 2 indoor pools and 2 outdoor pools (per gender). Usually I can only stand to be inside for a few minutes because it's so hot but the outdoor ones were perfect. They had a beautiful garden and it was snowing these huge fluffy white flakes. I think it was probably one of the most peaceful and relaxing times I've ever experienced.
The Hot Springs tub in our room.
(This is not my photo.) These are the women's outside hot springs pools. I'm not even joking when I say it was probably one of the most beautiful and peaceful moments of my life relaxing in there and watching the snow fall...
My token foot shot--except no beach here!
Before we left the hotel we walked around the garden they had in the back. It was beautiful! I can't imagine what it would look like in spring or summer, but even in winter it was amazing!
There were so many koi in the pond! They would follow you when you walked around the pond hoping something like this would happen.
The next day we decided to go to Owakudani which is famous for its sulphur hot spring pits. Unfortunately, because of the snow, we couldn't go see them but we were still able to buy some of Owakudani's famous eggs that turn black after being cooked in the pits.
Apparently they add 7 years to your life per egg--but beware(!) don't have more than 2 and a half! (Oh, and they tasted normal by the way, just like a regular hard boiled egg.)
The train we took from our hotel to the town of Gora. From Gora we had to take a cable car up a steep mountain and then take the "ropeway" or gondola to Owakudani.
It was snowing so hard that you could hardly see anything from the gondola.
The view of Owakudani from the gondola.
So that was our short, relaxing and wonderful trip to Hakone. As always I will post all of our pictures on Picasa...check them out here. Brad and I had so much fun going on these little trips while in Japan. I'm going to miss them...
I would like to preface this post by saying this: I honestly don't know how we got so lucky as to have such an amazing family all around. I personally could not feel more loved and supported by anyone in my family as well as Brad's family. And that is probably the most difficult thing about living abroad--not being close to family.
My Uncle Pug and Aunt Doyn at our wedding.
Brad's Uncle Ron
Over the past year we have lost my Great Uncle Pug who was like a grandfather to me and most recently Brad's Uncle Ron to cancer. Being over here in Japan, I feel so disconnected from everything that is going on in the rest of the world. Yes, we talk on Skype and read the news but despite all that, there is an ere of isolation (that I feel, anyway). It is hard not to be with family in the good times and the bad and I apologize to people that we know if you feel like we've neglected or ignored you. I personally have not dealt with the death of a family member for a long time and in my world I am much better at giving hugs than writing. I never quite know what to say...
With that said though...Brad and I are coming home! Our contracts will be finished March 25th. Brad's dad, Terry will be coming to Japan around March 20th for business and then Brad's step-mom Randi and step-sister Lauren will be coming out on March 27th for a little vacation before we all fly back to the U.S. on April 2nd.
I know that Japan will always have a special place in our hearts and we will miss it a lot at times but I am so excited to be coming home! Brad and I are already making a list of things we want to eat and places we want to go when we get back home. At the top of the list: Chipotle!
As for long term plans go, I have applied to take a couple of classes at CU Denver in preparation for applying to PT school in the fall. Hopefully, I will be starting PT school in either summer or fall of 2012. Brad still isn't sure what his plans are but seems to be leaning towards going back to school in order to teach English to high school students. He still loves Japanese and would love to find a way to incorporate the language into his life in some way when he gets home though.
In the mean time Brad and I will be slowly be getting ready to leave Japan, and start our lives up in the U.S. again. Who knew there were so many things that had to happen for us to do that? Health insurance, car insurance, jobs, apartments, phones, etc. Not to mention how we're going to get everything we have here back to the U.S. And if you know of any good job openings let us know! :)
On January 9th we went to the opening day of the 1st Grand Sumo Tournament of 2011. This was the first time we had ever seen sumo wrestling so we got there early to take it all in. The tournament starts at 8am with the less experienced wrestlers and then culminates with the top bracket of wrestlers at about 6pm. We got to the stadium at about noon and stayed until the end. If you're asking "How can they sit for 6 whole hours and watch that?", I'll tell you. First, go with some good friends, second go to the conbini (convenience store) and get some snacks and drinks to last the day, and third make up names for the wrestlers and bet on who will win. I'll wait until the end to tell you who won...
One of the murals. All the sumo wrestlers live in compounds so we saw young "wrestlers in training" all over that area of Tokyo that day.
It wasn't very busy when we got there.
My bento box lunch. I'm not even sure what all was in it, but it looks pretty!
It was cold, hence the hat and jacket...
There's 2 different "leagues" in sumo. This was the top tier wrestlers from one league.
This is the board that shows all of the top tier wrestlers. The red highlights the name of the wrestler who won the match.
Depending on if they're the main event or not, a match can last a minute, or 5 minutes. Most of the time is spent before they even compete. If you want to know more, check out this or watch the full clip I posted below to see it.
McDonald's advertised at the meet. lol!
Now on to the videos! Brad and I have a very nice video camera and digital SLR but we usually just use my old point and shoot because it's a pain to be out walking all day with big bags hanging off of you. However, we were sitting most of this day and severely regret not taking either. So these are all the quality of my little point and shoot.
Chris named this guy Tomato last year, for reasons you can probably see. I think he was maybe the least athletic wrestler there.
This was Emperor Akhito's entrance. Sorry it's at an angle! I can't figure out how to fix it. But still it was very cool considering he rarely makes public appearances. Most Japanese people that I've talked to haven't seen him, and it's funny that I've seen the emperor before I've seen the President! (We won't count when Obama came to CSU because it was before he was elected and I think I only just caught a glimpse of the back of his head.)
If you watch any video, you should watch this. It really is fun to see all the rituals that go into it, but also how flexible and agile these big guys are!
I'm not sure what the specifics of this exercise were but this was the very last thing to happen before everyone left. I think the belt that he's wearing is the champion belt, so maybe he won the tournament last year? Anyway, it's not very graceful, but then again sumo wrestling really isn't a graceful sport.
Afterwards we tried to got to a chankonabe restaurant (this is the traditional meal the sumo wrestlers eat) but obviously everyone else at the tournament had the same idea so we ended up having yakiniku (Korean BBQ) instead, which was still good.
The restaurant we went to was an all-you-can-eat place so they had all the raw meat and vegetables sitting out and you could help yourself to whatever you wanted. Most of the meats were seasoned and they had different sauces that you could dip it in after grilling. It's really good! And I'm not even a big meat person!
Waiting for the meat to cook.
Brad picking out what he wants to eat.
All in all, another memorable experience!
And just in case anybody is curious...we only have 10 more weeks of work left! And 2 more weeks until we have officially been in Japan for 1 year. I can't believe how fast time has gone by!
As I posted before, Brad gave me a coupon for a piece of pearl jewelry to commemorate our year here for my Christmas present. Yay! So we went to Ginza to see the Mikimoto store. Mikimoto is famous because the founder, Mikimoto, was the first person to figure out how to make cultured pearls. And they have beautiful jewelry. I'm mean really, really pretty. I felt like I was in museum looking at some of the pieces of jewelry they had in there! Brad and I also commented that some of the necklaces were as much as a decent sized house. I can't believe people actually buy things like that! Crazy!
Anyway, we went and found a necklace that was not in place of our next house that we both really liked. I'm so excited! I love it so much!
The Mikimoto store in Ginza. Doesn't it look fancy?
Shopping after new years is like the American black Friday here. Lot's of sales and very busy!
The cute bag! I think this is the first (and only) time where I wasn't the only one walking around without a Chanel, Gucci or Burberry type shopping bag in Ginza. The funny thing though is that almost everyone has some sort of designer shoes or bag and they save the shopping bags that they come in for future use. It is not uncommon to see a very abused Channel shopping bag when you're out and about.
They wrapped it up so cute I almost didn't want to open it. Almost.
I love it!
And now I have a necklace to match the beautiful pearl earrings my parents gave me for my wedding, a keepsake to wear for a long time to come and hopefully pass on to my (very, very future) daughter. And isn't it just perfect that pearls are June's birthstone?
(I'll put up a picture of me wearing it later. But right now I'm in my pajamas.)
For New Year's we met up with Chris, his dad Greg who was visiting from Colorado, and Chris' girlfriend Aki in Shibuya. Shibuya is probably my favorite portion of Tokyo. It is home to the largest intersection in the world but it also has a very cool atmosphere. It's mostly popular with people our age and has a lot of restaurants and bars as well as claw games and a few shops (which I really want to go to but have been avoiding, especially after my purchase today...).
Anyway, Brad and I were really surprised when we got to the station in Shibuya how few people there were. Usually even when we're there late on a Sunday night it's pretty crowded... but not on New Years Eve! The reason is is that New Years is typically a family holiday in Japan. People take off of work around New Years and travel to their hometowns to visit family, celebrate the New Years, and travel to a shrine to pray for the upcoming year. To see what wikipedia has to say click here.
We started out at a restaurant where everything on the menu, including drinks was 270 yen. These restaurants are pretty popular here and mainly have appetizer type food on the menu. After eating our fair share we grabbed some drinks from the conbini (convenience store--also drinking in public is legal and common here.) and headed towards hachiko crossing (the big intersection). This is when we noticed that it was getting more crowded. The crazy thing was that a lot of the people were foreigners. (Usually Roppongi is foreigner central, but apparently there were a lot of tourists and Shibuya's more popular for New Years. I'm just guessing though...)
When we got close the Hachiko crossing it started getting louder and louder and definitely very crowded and a little rowdy. There were policemen up on top of cars and the Shibuya Guardian Angels were standing back to back waiting for something to happen. It was fun being surrounded by everyone for the New Years but it was also a little scary because you had to move with the crowd. There was no space to move around on your own at all. For all the hype that there was at the intersection, there was no Times Square-esque party and there was no countdown. So I'm not sure if it was exactly at midnight or not but we made our own little countdown after a few minutes and then moved a way a little bit. It was so much fun though! I have never celebrated anything like that in such a big crowd before!
The crossing
The Guardian Angels.
The crowd behind us.
New Years kiss!
After celebrating midnight, we headed to what we do best...karaoke!! (Well they did, I think I took a nap. :) )
Usually the trains stop around 1 or 2 in the morning but around Tokyo on New Years the trains run all night. Since Brad and I couldn't make it back up to our house (the trains do stop outside of Tokyo), we decided to head to Meiji Shrine after karaoke. It was amazing how many people were there at 4 am. It wasn't extremely busy but still more people than I was expecting. They had the the whole thing fully staffed too. There was a guard standing at attention, tons of police around, as well as gift shops, and a bunch of places where you can get your fortune for the new year.
These paper lanterns were all lit up. Very pretty!
The torii leading to the shrine. On New Years day it can take hours waiting in line to get to the shrine. I guess that's the benefit of going early--no waiting!
People throwing change and praying for the new year.
Here's all the videos from the night. Sorry in advance for my bad video taking skills:
