September Travels and Furlough Adventures

It’s been an unusual month and a half. I was away for most of September, and October has been full of government shutdown. Not business as usual.

Hamamatsu

My first trip in September was an overnight work trip to Hamamatsu, during which I learned all about eels and gerbera daisies. For some reason, people haven’t figured out how to breed eels in captivity to any great extent, so baby eels have to be caught out in the ocean and then raised. For various reasons, the eel population has been declining, so it’s a big issue of concern. Is it necessary to say that I was much more interested in the pretty gerbera daisies than the squirmy eels?

That was followed by a brief but fun trip back to the States, including my first trip to historical Williamsburg and Jamestown. We went on the archeological tour at Jamestown. It’s fascinating all of the things they have just started discovering in the last 20 years and are still discovering now! Also fun was taking advantage of the opportunity to get some shopping done in a place where it is accepted that not everybody has a long torso. 

The month ended with a quick trip up to Hokkaido, where I saw some dairy operations and went to a Holstein show. (I know you are all jealous!) And not to be forgotten during all of these travels – I saw both the Hello Kitty plane AND the Pokemon plane!

I was back in the office for a day and a half when I got furloughed due to the government shutdown. I wouldn’t normally say anything, but since I’m not currently getting paid by the federal government, I’ll just note that: a) I’m pretty much irritated with everybody involved in this mess, b) this shutdown is costing us millions of dollars in fees/penalties for delayed payments, and c) I thought this Washington Post editorial was pretty good.

So while I’ve been furloughed, I’ve made it a point to do something every day that gets me out of the apartment. My furlough adventures have included some lunches and shopping excursions with friends (to Akasaka, Azabu-juban, and a neighborhood whose name I can’t remember), a trip to the commissary at Yokota (so much more sane when it's not Saturday!), daytime karaoke (it’s really cheap during a weekday!), two days as an excepted employee (when we learned that we could rotate the excepted employee status of the Head of Post among the Americans) and a daytrip to Yokohama.

Yokohama, which is only about an hour out of Tokyo, has been on my list of places to see for a long time. Yokohama is the second largest city in Japan and was one of the first ports to be opened when Japan reopened to foreign trade in 1859. I need to go back some time to see the garden and the waterfront. On this trip, I went to Motomachi, which is a cute little shopping area. 

But the primary purpose of the trip was to see Chinatown and eat some yummy Chinese food. Yokohama’s Chinatown is the largest in Japan and one of the largest in the world. There are nine gates in and around Chinatown, plus the temple Kanteibyo. 

In addition, what really stood out to me were the huge number of pandas and restaurants. There were pandas and restaurants everywhere!

Tomorrow's furlough adventure will be going to the 100-yen store in Harajuku. Wednesday is my day in the rotation to be in the office. And then we'll see. At least I've got a lot of options to choose from!

Nikko

A lot has happened since my last blog post in August, including some travel for work, vacation, and now the government shutdown. But now that I'm back in Tokyo and furloughed, I have plenty of time to tell you about my day trip to Nikko in August!  

Pagoda outside Toshogu Shrine

Nikko is about 2 hours outside of Tokyo. It's lovely there, and it would be great to go back and stay the night so that I can better appreciate some of the hiking and such nearby. But in August I went with a friend on a day trip to see the most famous sites: the Toshogu Shrine and the Shinkyo Bridge.

The Toshogu Shrine, which dates back to 1617, is the mausoleum for Tokugawa Ieyasu, the founder of the Tokugawa shogunate.   

The larger shrine complex, which was built in 1634 by Ieyasu's grandson, is "lavishly" decorated with A LOT of carvings and gold leaf and is really quite stunning. It has a number of famous carvings, such as:

The monkeys!  Hear no evil; Say no evil; See no evil.

The cat

The elephants on this warehouse

You can read a small description of the symbolism behind the cat here.  

There's also a famous "crying dragon" on the ceiling of a building. I couldn't take a picture inside, but you can see it here.

Pre-restoration wall (but still in good shape)

The shrine complex is in the middle of a big restoration, and the Yomeimon Gate will be covered with scaffolding for the coming 6 years. However, there's still *plenty* to see, and from what I can tell, the restoration will be well worth it.

Post-restoration wall.  Bright, dramatic colors!

The main shrine is really pretty, but no pictures are allowed. These are of the entry gate.

And this is right next to the tomb of Tokugawa Ieyasu.

After walking around the shrine complex, we tried to find the Rinnoji Temple, but we followed the map, and I'm not sure that was the right thing to do. It led us to a big warehouse-looking building that had a temple painted on the side. Uhm, no. There was another little road that we didn't have time to walk down that may have the building that we would typically think of when going to see a temple. 

So then we walked down to see the famous bridge, which was built in 1636 and is considered to be one of the three best bridges in Japan.

It was a great day trip. Next time, I'll try to find that temple or hike to one of the famous waterfalls nearby.

As a parting gift, here is a picture of a snack food we found at the rest area on the way back to Tokyo - locusts!

Matsuri

It's matsuri (festival) season! A week ago, I went with some friends to a matsuri about an hour away. Unfortunately, I don't know the name of the matsuri, or even where it was - except that it was somewhere out near the American school - so I'll never be able to find it again. But it was cool!

Basically, it was a parade of lantern-type floats. It started with the taiko drums and flutes.

 They were followed by these guys. I have no idea what they represented.

They were followed by the floats, which were huge and extremely elaborate, with all sorts of drama on one side and then peaceful on the other. They were pushed/pulled down the street and turned in a circle every so often so that everybody could get a good view of all the sides.

Unlike other festivals I've been to, there wasn't a lot of festival food or anything like that, but it was a fun and beautiful neighborhood festival. 

Ninja tea!

I have now been in Japan for a year! Hard to believe how fast time goes by. I still have so many things to see and do that I decided to make a list so that I don't get to the end of my tour and have regrets. As you may remember, one of the items on my list was to go to Ninja, the ninja-themed restaurant here in Tokyo.

This restaurant is sneaky! It hides, with a simple door in a black wall. To get to your table, you have to go through "ninja training", which is basically walking through a dark, low corridor that goes up and down and around, and then you have to call out the secret ninja password to lower a bridge and then go a bit further before entering the seating area, which looks like a Japanese fortress.  

A friend's drink

Cheesecake :)

The menu is on a scroll, and the dessert menu is SECRET - i.e. it's written on a little piece of paper that they burn up after you place your dessert order. Drinks can be fun, and the food was quite good. The whole thing is a bit pricey, but it's a really fun experience.

The waiters are all dressed as ninjas, and they do a little magic show right at your table. Everything is "ninja this" and "ninja that" - including "ninja tea" with my dessert.

And when we left, our ninja waiter jumped out with the following:

All told, a great evening!

View from the Shangri-la

The following weekend, I went out to afternoon tea at the Shangri-la with a group of ladies who are getting ready to leave Tokyo at the end of the month. The Shangri-la's afternoon tea was on a list of the Top 5 afternoon teas in Tokyo. I'd been to two of the five - the Ritz Carlton and the Peninsula hotel - and this was a nice opportunity to go to a third.

The tea was quite nice, with sandwiches made with good breads, scones with clotted cream and lemon curd, and lovely sweets. When you drank all of your tea, you could choose a different tea if you wanted. And it all ended with a little cookie and a chocolate.

After tea, two of us decided on the spur of the moment to try to go see the Tokyo fireworks. Japan loves fireworks. In the U.S., we're very happy with a 20 minute firework show. The Tokyo fireworks are 90 minutes. They set off more than 10,000 fireworks. It's HUGE. Because we decided to go spur of the moment, we had a series of obstructed views, but it was still fun to see!

Late July Fun

In the latter half of July, I went to two fun events.  

The first was Brazil Day at Yoyogi Park.  We went fairly early in the day and enjoyed seeing all sorts of food that I haven't seen in a while: "spitinhos" of beef, a maracuja caipirinha, graviola juice...   

There was a stage with performances all day - and true to the Brazilian experience, it was running significantly behind schedule. There were also people performing capoeira, which was a lot of fun to watch.

What I can not figure out is why there were sombreros with "Brazil" written on them.  

This was my first time to Yoyogi Park, and I discovered that no park is complete without a mural of a giant whale flying over a city.

At the end of the month, I went to Tokyo City Keiba racetrack for the Twinkle (i.e. nighttime) races. That particular night was the Santa Anita Trophy Races, which include the (U.S.) Ambassador's Cup race. (I may be mixed up on the "trophy" and "cup" thing, but you get the point.) 

About 100 Embassy personnel and their families were invited to spend the evening in one of the fancy boxes (big room plus balcony with food and drinks and comfortable seating) and watch the races. 

Possibly my favorite moment of the night was when I watched a race, and as the horses passed the finish line in front of me, I noticed that the second place horse had no jockey. Apparently, the jockey fell off at the very beginning of the race. Bummer for him, but the horse was very happy to run the entire race without the extra weight. Too bad he was disqualified. Hope they gave him a treat with his dinner that night.

Later, our DCM presented the award to the winner of the Ambassador's Cup race.

A lot of people placed bets on the races, but I didn't. I figured I'd just lose if I did, and I would be much happier just cheering on the pretty horses. So I had a great time!