Birthday trip to Malaysia

I turned 40 at the end of June. In an effort to avoid even the possibility that I'd spend my 40th birthday moping alone at home, I booked a trip to Malaysia.
 
I spent the first few days in Kuala Lumpur visiting some old friends that I hadn't seen in maybe 8 years. It was good to visit with them and meet their kids. It was also good that I hadn't put it off any longer, because just before I arrived, they got another job and began the process of moving back to the States. One more proof that we don't always have the time that we think we do! (Hint hint, for those of you who said you wanted to come visit me in Japan.)

This place was a snow sculpture in Sapporo this year!

While in KL, I visited the bird park (the largest in the world) and other tourist sites around town. When my friends weren't available to play tourist with me, I got on one of those hop-on-hop-off tour buses and rode around the city. This was particularly convenient, because it was REALLY hot, and the bus allowed me to still get a view of the city attractions without melting. The first day, the city was covered in brown haze from all of the smoke created by the tree burning in Indonesia, but it cleared up in the days following.   

We also went out of town to a fort where there are (generally) nice monkeys that you can feed. If I remember correctly, the monkeys are supposed to be the souls of the soldiers who died, returning to protect the fort. After visiting the monkeys, we had dinner down by the river. It was very pretty.

Then, for my birthday, I went to Tioman Island. Tioman is on the east side of the peninsula, so it's not as touristy. In the original South Pacific movie, Tioman was Bali Hai. Once I discovered that, I had to go. It's paradise, after all! (I believe the island is also known for diving, but since I don't dive, that wasn't a big motivator for me.)

I stayed at the Japamala Resort, which was lovely. It was my second time staying at an eco-lodge/resort (the first being in the Amazon in Brazil), and I've decided I prefer staying at those types of places. Beach resorts are pretty much the same the world over, but an eco-hotel is built into the environment, so you get a sense of the uniqueness of the location. Tioman's not very developed, with no main road on the island, so the only way to get from village to village is by boat. So I took the one plane to the island, walked off the plane and waited at the stairs to the building for my luggage to be unloaded, and then I met up with the staff from the resort who took me on the boat to Japamala.

view from my boat ride to Japamala

view from my boat ride to Japamala

I had a lovely little lodge for my stay on the island. 

I went to the spa, lounged on the beach, drank pretty cocktails at the restaurant out on the dock, ate out on the dock or at the Thai/Vietnamese restaurant near one of the swimming pools, read books, played in the water… Since it's a small resort (about 13 rooms, I think), and the island isn't developed, it was a very peaceful and relaxing time on what is essentially a private beach. 

the view from my spot on the beach, hanging out under the tree

more of my view from my spot on the beach

the view from my spot at the pier's restaurant, drinking my cocktail

I have found that, anywhere I go, some of the friendliest, most fun-loving people I'll meet will be the Aussies, and that was the case here too. I met a very nice couple who were finishing up a 3-week (!!) stay at the resort. They'd been going there every year for something like six years.

All in all, it was a very nice way to turn 40!

Summer Adventures in Tokyo

So I've had a few adventures this spring/summer that I'm only now getting around to writing about. And since it has taken me so long to write about them, I'm afraid all you're going to get is a brief run down of what's been going on. Sorry about that! Part of the delay is because I had lots of pictures, and narrowing them down was a bear. Part of the delay is laziness. At any rate, like last time, this will be done in two parts! For today, it's adventures around Japan!


Back in May, I went to my very first rugby game with some Brazilian friends. The game was Japan vs. Hong Kong, and Japan won BIG. So that was fun. I started out rather confused - "It's like football! Wait! What was that? Why are they throwing the ball behind them? And why does the screen say "TRY!" when they get a touchdown? Didn't they already succeed? Why do they need to try? Do they mean "good try!"? Still, that doesn't make sense… And wow, that guy can jump REALLY high." But thanks to smartphones and the glory of wikipedia, we were able to learn the basic rules of the game and discover such wonderful little pieces of information like a "try" being the rugby name for a touchdown, and the guy who was jumping really high was actually being lifted up by a few other guys for whom that is part of their position descriptions. Cool! The other cool thing about that day was that it was the last event in the National Stadium before it was torn down so that Japan could build a new stadium in preparation for the 2020 Olympics. Which also meant that it was the last time that the 1964 Olympic cauldron was lit! And since it was a big deal, Ayaka - a famous, very good Japanese singer - sang the Japanese national anthem.

In June, I went to see the irises at Meiji Jingu Shrine. They were very pretty!

Not irises, but they were nearby! :)

A week later, I went with a friend and her sons to my very first Cirque do Soleil performance - Ovo. It was amazing! And it made me much more motivated to do my sit-ups and stretching! They were performing in Odaiba, where I also saw this giant robot.

A few days after that, I went to Malaysia for a week. But more about that in another post - in part, because I can't narrow down the pictures enough to incorporate it into this one. :)

A few days after I got back from Malaysia, we had our big July 4th reception at the Ambassador's residence, and I was in charge of coordinating photography. Eek! But it was a really nice event.

The following week, I went to see the Tokyo Yomiuri Giants play against their biggest rivals, the Hanshin Tigers (from Osaka), at the Tokyo Dome. I've said it before, and I'll say it again - I love going to Japanese baseball games! More particularly, I love watching the fans at Japanese baseball games. They are so enthusiastic, with great group cheers/songs. That particular night was a good opportunity to see the stereotypical differences between Osaka and Tokyo in action. People from Osaka are supposed to be a lot louder and more willing to speak their mind than people from Tokyo. That certainly seemed to be the case that night. The Giants fans were loud, but more so later in the game when they were desperate to encourage their team to a come-back. The Tigers fans were LOUD from the very beginning. They were even practicing their cheers before the game started. Of course, being Japan, the two sides were still rather polite... The huge group cheering was for the team that was at bat, so each side got their turn. I was cheering for the Giants, but I still had a great time, even though they lost. (I hear that the Giants beat the Tigers soundly the following night.)

I finished off July with seeing Godzilla just up the street at Midtown. Not the movie. Godzilla.

Also just up the street, I went to a club called Abbey Road to see a very good Beatles cover band called The Parrots. That was a blast! You can see a youtube clip of them here. These guys are so good, Paul McCartney hired them to play for his wife's birthday last fall!

Spring Flowers and a Trip to Kochi

As I mentioned last time, I've been a slacker with regard to this blog lately. So this is part 2 of My Effort to Get Caught Up - aka 2014 spring flower viewing and a trip to Kochi.

We start with hanami - cherry blossom viewing. You may remember that last year I went to Shinjuku Gyoen, which is the more family-friendly of the major cherry blossom viewing options, since there is not alcohol allowed in the park. The other famous place for hanami is Ueno Park, which is about 133 acres, containing museums and famous shrines and all sorts of stuff. Ueno Park is also where everybody goes to sit under the cherry trees during hanami and drink lots of alcohol.  


It was not what I expected, in that it wasn't everybody picnicking on a large grassy space (like at Shinjuku Gyoen). Rather, everybody marked off a piece of concrete (or dirt), put down their picnic plastic (it looks like plastic, so I don't want to mislead people into thinking of it as a "blanket") and start eating and drinking. There is everything from people just hanging out drinking a beer to groups who've taken the time to set up a picnic area - complete with small table and tons of food and alcohol. Convenience stores (conbinis) near the park STOCK UP on beer and chuhi (not sure of the correct spelling on that one…) and set up cash registers out on the sidewalk to accommodate the huge crowds of people who are heading into Ueno Park to drink under the cherry trees. And everybody is there, from little babies being held up close to the cherry blossoms to get their pictures taken to cosplay groups like these guys:

And then there were the pets.

Yes, those are cats with bows on, hanging out on top of a sign. They are not strays. And they are surrounded by people looking up at them and saying how cute they are and taking their picture. The cats probably think they are merely receiving the worship that is due them, and they seem rather bored with it all.

We bought drinks at the conbini and then just walked around. It was very interesting, and also very pretty.  

There was also a section set up with festival stuff.

Which leads me to a tangent - Japanese put a lot of food on sticks for festivals! There's mochi on a stick:

And cucumbers on a stick: 

I also saw little fish on a stick and corn on the cob on a stick. And at a wisteria festival that I went to during Golden Week, there were other sea creatures on sticks.

I just find that interesting.  

Speaking of the wisteria festival, I finally went to Kameido Tenjin Shrine, which is in Tokyo near the Skytree and is famous for its wisteria and its traditional red bridges. I went during Golden Week, and although the festival was still happening - complete with singers in bright red suits - 

...the type of wisteria that they have there was done.  

But it was very pretty, and it looks like it is gorgeous when the wisteria is blooming, so I'll have to go earlier next year. And the azaleas were looking great!

This was just a pretty mural in the subway station on my way to the shrine.

Kochi castle

In April, I also went down to Kochi prefecture for a work trip. Kochi is the most mountainous of the Japanese prefectures and is located on Shikoku island. When a surplus of rice became a huge problem in Japan, a lot of people in Kochi put greenhouses on top of their tiny rice paddies. Kochi is now one of the largest producers of vegetables (eggplants, green peppers, etc.) in Japan. It's interesting to drive along, look at the tiny divisions of land, and see green house after green house with the occasional rice paddy thrown in.

Rice planting was just starting down there, and this nice farmer let me drive the tractor! (This one is pretty large by Japanese standards.) 

Unfortunately for him, he has some rather crooked rows in the middle of his field now, but he assured me that it was not a problem. 

Kochi is also famous for rice terraces (since the region is so mountainous). The area in this picture is about a month away from planting, but it was lovely. As you can imagine, those tiny little fields aren't terribly profitable, but there are ecological reasons to keep them going, so they are trying to promote them as a tourist attraction.

The area is also famous for citrus - specifically yuzu. Yuzu is becoming rather big in the U.S. now; I saw references to it in two of my Bon Appetit magazines in the last year. The town of Umaji has a lot of yuzu. The local JA (farmers' cooperative) representative saw that rice wasn't profitable in that area - which is in the middle of the mountains - so he spent years creating a market for yuzu and encouraging farmers to plant yuzu trees on their rice paddies. Now they have a production facility that creates juices and candies and marmalade and lotions/cosmetics, and they're developing even more products.  They have some shops that they sell to, and they sell over the internet. They even make a profit some years! It was very encouraging. In my opinion, it is exactly this sort of creativity and determination that will save Japanese agriculture.

We spent the night at a ryokan in Umaji. It was a lovely place. Pretty much everything that the ryokan served for dinner and breakfast was local - fish from the river, greens from the mountain - and came with a story. It was right before Children's Day (the one that celebrates the sons in the family), so all of the windsocks were out.

All told, it was a really interesting trip. And to top it off, the local KitKat is a citrus flavor that is quite tasty! (I think I've mentioned it before, but there are many different flavors of KitKat in Japan, with specific flavors only found in certain locations. I hear there is a KitKat store in Tokyo that has all of the flavors. I need to visit it!)

And now it's June, and the relocation season has begun. Yesterday, the Embassy had its Sayonara Party for the people who are leaving post this summer. It's hard to believe that I'm already half way through my tour, but it's true. I have a lot of traveling that I need to start getting serious about if it's going to get done before I leave. If you are planning to come visit me, start making those plans soon! There's less than two years left for visitors (unless you want to stay in a hotel when you come - because things will be chaotic and very busy when I start getting ready to leave), and it goes by fast.