Tokyo Day 7

We felt that the Japanese style breakfast at our hotel doubled the value of the rooms we rented. We each had eight little tasting plates of all kinds of Japanese cuisine that none of us had ever seen before. It was disconcerting not knowing whether to expect sweet, pickled, spicy, tepid, or warm. But every time I tried something, it was delicious, fresh and so well executed (except for the one packaged item). There was grated cooked calimari on top of pulverized cabbage that was served cold. Another cold dish was a simple omelette with only green onions that had been rolled and then sliced, perfection. There were kimchi like pickled vegetables, there was a ball of caviar paste, and one of my favorite things was some julienned seaweed that tasted like it had been pickled in basalmic vinegar--very sweet and tangy. There was a small mound that looked like fried rice, but was actually a sweet almond-tasting concoction with pieces of sweet vegetables. I am noticing that Japanese really like things sweet.

The main dish was Hakone Flat Fish, a small fish that tasted like trout, that had been butterflied and flattened and pan cooked. It was delicious, and every boy ate it all and loved it. It actually fulfilled a wish that Jack had expressed the day before, that someday he would like to eat a fish that looks like a fish with the head and eyes and scales and everything! Not something that I was wishing for when I was 10 years old. :) The meal was a proud parent moment for Clint and I, as the boys sat politely in front of all these crazy dishes and acted like it was an honor, and even raved about it.

We checked out of our hotel and took the fernicular down to Gora. Can you see how the entire car is a parallelogram to accommodate the steep angle of the mountain? 

At the fernicular station: Coles dream come true-- a vending machine on every corner. Sugared beverages forever!

Then we caught a bus to the Kowakien Yunessun Hot Springs Resort. 

We wanted the boys to be able to experience one of the greatest Japanese pass times, which is sitting in hot springs (called onsen) without having to get naked in front of strangers.

This resort had a naked bathing area called "The Forest" and a family oriented swimsuit area with 25 different hot spring baths including some really crazy ones: a red wine bath, green tea baths, sake baths, black coffee baths, and even a bath where tiny "Dr. Fish" that eat the dead skin off of the bottom of your feet. Outside, there were also a number of waterslides. Being spring in Japan, it was chilly out there, but there were hot pots you could sit in while you waited in line for the water slides, which were pretty tame :-). 

Considering that half of the resort was entirely nude, I thought it was surprising how well covered the women were. It is the first time that I have seen swimsuit tights that go all the way down to your ankles. And many women were wearing rash guard shirts to their wrists. Even the young women that were in bikinis had skirts over their bottoms and blouses things over their tops--you don't display cleavage in Japan. Lisa said that it is very common for Asians to be very conservative in coed situations. After two hours we felt that we had exhausted the fun.

We took a short bus ride to the Hakone Tosan Mountain Train which took us on a 40-minute switchback journey down to the Hakone-Yumato train station where we took another train to Odawara. 

There, we ate at a food court and were all pleased with our selections. Clint got freshly made udon noodles, Cole, Trace and I got tempura shrimp and onanigiri (rice triangles wrapped in seaweed with fillings). Talmage and Jack ate sushi from the combini.

A 10-minute walk took us to the Odawara Castle where we met Mike and Willa. 

The main keep was closed for renovation but we walked around the gates and looked at a farmers market and a museum above one of the gates.

Those are fish on the corners of the roof. Can you see how gorgeous castles like this influenced the American Arts and Crafts movement?

Trace's yen was burning a hole in his pocket and he had to buy this inflatable hammer. It made him very happy.

Oh yeah, there were tiny red bum monkeys. Willa says everything is small in Japan.

Something else about Japan, everything is beautiful. It's like the Paris of Asia. Here are some sidewalk tiles and a manhole covers in Odawara.

Next, we went on a long car ride to Kamakura to see the big Buddha. Sadly we missed it by five minutes. But Clint got some pretty incredible pictures by holding my phone above his head on the top of the gate.

The boys spent some more of their yen at the souvenir shop there. And then we took another long ride to the Kawasaki district of Tokyo to eat at a kaiten sushi (conveyor-belt sushi) called Genki Sushi.

The gimmick was that every seat had its own tablet on which you ordered your sushi and then it came down the conveyor belt and parked right in front of you. I timed one order and it took 32 seconds! The boys were ecstatic.

To the left of Cole is his cousin Willa Hale.

Jack is so brave!

Did I mention at this point the jet lag was killing us? Especially Clint, myself and Jack! Mike drove us home and Clint and Trace crashed, but the other boys got a second wind and went running around the Embassy Housing Compound with Willa, catching frogs and plotting how to defend themselves from the terrorist koi fish. I brought them in about 10:30 and told him to put themselves to bed. I crashed and actually slept for seven hours straight!

Tokyo 2016 Day 6

We had an ad-hock breakfast at Mike's house, then he walked us to the subway station to buy our tickets. 

On the way, we stopped at our first konbini, a 7-Eleven, and withdrew money from the ATM. And the boys got a chance to buy some konbini food, for example, Talmage got a tray of sushi rolls for 250 Yen--about two dollars. They were so fat Tal said that he could not fit them in his mouth. I asked him how he ate them, "I unhinged my jaw."

We navigated the subway system just fine to Shinjuku Station where we bought our 2-day Hakone Free Passes, which were about $200-not free for our whole family. With the passes we would be able to use eight different kinds of public transportation between Tokyo and Hokone National Park.

First, we took the train for an hour to Odawara. Clint and I were amazed that the boys didn't pull out their devices at all-- they just took it all in. Cole said, "I'm going to bring my kids to Japan, but by then I'll know Japanese." Japanese trains are so clean. You know you're on a Japanese train when you're totally stressed out when your seven-year-old eats Cheezits and gets crumbs all over his clothes and the seat around him. I'm thinking that in Philly, I wouldn't care. At Odawara we walked across the platform to continue by train to Hakone-Yumato station.

Jack took this pretty picture there.

The bus ride was a windy 50 minutes through lots of green mountainside.

We got to Hakone Machi and had just enough time to withdraw some cash from the ATM at the 7-Eleven, when we saw the pirate ship pulling in at the dock on the lake Ashi. We did not know how frequently the boat would come and so we had to abandon our plans of eating at a bakery recommended by Mike, and we hopped on the ship.

The ship was immaculate! There was an earnest man in a uniform cleaning the windows, and it looked like he did it once or twice a day. It was Disney clean!

We were going to get on a gondola or ropewsys next, but we had missed the last one, and many of the ropeways, had been "suspended because of volcanic activity." We thought it was pretty funny because rope ways are always suspended :-). There were a couple of places where the mountain looked like it was on fire because of so much steam coming out of the greenery. We got some treats, including coconut and green tea flavored ice cream-Yum!

In lieu of the ropeway, we took a bus ride to a funicular or cable car down the mountain into Gora town. Mike had hooked Clint up with some dropped pins on a Google map so we began our walk to our hotel. It turned out to be a mile and a half straight uphill. After sitting all day, the boys really needed that exercise! Trace entertained us by making ridiculous exaggerated grunts as if he was going to die the whole way. After a bit of a turn around, we found our hotel.

I highly recommend this little gem, the TPK Hotel and Resort Lectore Hokone Gora. I found it on Agoda.com for only $91 per room including breakfast! It is super clean and the owner is very nice and accommodating. The moment we walked in, we had to remove our shoes, put on slippers and put our shoes in plastic bags. We put our bags in our rooms and then we headed back down the hill for dinner. The rest of the night was quite the scramble as we knew the last funicular up the hill was an hour from the time we left our hotel. We walked halfway and took the fenicular the rest of the way down to Gora. When we looked around, we saw that nothing was open except for a tiny restaurant around the corner from the station that was full. It only had about five tables. After 20 minutes waiting outside, the lady open the door to us and asked, "How many?" I said and signed six, to which she imitated a faint and laughed hysterically. She had the same reaction every time we ordered! I guess four kids is a lot? She was the hostess, waitress, cashier and dishwasher, and her husband was the cook. You pay in advance and there are no tips at all in Japan. I love that! It removes so much stress and guilt. The price was cheap, in my mind--$45 for all of us. The boys all got fried rice, I got Curry and Clint got Katsudon (The dictation software just spelled that: cat suit on!). It was delicious and warming on a drizzly night, but we only had 10 minutes to eat it-no fun. Then we ran to the cable car station with what we thought was three minutes to spare, but it had already left, early. So we got a taxi and it only cost five dollars--again, no tips. If we had known that, we would've just relaxed and eaten and taken the taxi when we are done.

It was very easy to settle the boys down to sleep at 8 PM, even. Jet Lag, I recommend it!

I woke up at 11:30 p.m. And ahain at 1:30 a.m. At 3:00 I decided to explore the hotel. The public bath was open and deserted, so I took one! There was a funny sign that explained the correct behavior expected at an onsen. "Do not make behavior that other people cannot watch" and "Talk calmly and do not to other people impolite." The cartoons illustrating these gaffes were as funny as the Jenglish. The clandestine middle of the night bathe was so relaxing, I'm pretty sure it makes up for the sleep I lost. And I'm counting on the claimed benefit to poor circulation from the sulfur-gypsum bath. When I got back, Clint was awake so I told him to take one too. The men's side was not deserted, so I convinced him to join me in the woman's side-heck it was 3 am, who was going to catch us? But we were nervous, so we only stayed about five minutes, but still it was relaxing and rejuvenating at the same time. 

Spring Trip 2016 Day 5

We made it on the flight to Tokyo! Yay!!

The inside of an C-5 is a lot more utilitarian. There are few widows and the seats face the rear of the plane. This is the first flight for Trace and the first flight Jack and Cole can remember. Talmage vaguely remembers flying to Virginia to be watched by uncle Mike Hale while I spent a week with Clint in London.

Jack couldn't believe they put a Mountain Dew in his box lunch. He drank it then broke out in a sweat and was flushed and hot. I hope that convinced him that caffeine is not for kids. Twelve hours on the plane and the boys read books, ate snacks, napped (lots of empty seats) played on tablets or phones and became the best buddies of the half dozen preschoolers on the plane.

Uncle Mike and Willa had to wait an hour or two at the terminal :(. It was so nice of him to pick us up. Mike took the opportunity to shop at the commissary while he was waiting for us. He drove us home which took about an hour. Mike and Lisa's house is palatial! 3600 ft.² five bathrooms, five bedrooms two living rooms and an enormous patio overlooking the city from the fifth floor. Lisa was a total sweetheart and had prepared an Easter hunt and Easter baskets for our boys, which I have not managed to do while on our travels. Then we all shared a gorgeous Easter dinner on China with ham, scalloped potatoes, rolls and salad. We were happy to crash around 10 PM.

Spring Trip 2013 - Day 4

We did not try for the two Hawaii flights today because there were no connecting flights from Hawaii to Japan anywhere on the horizon, and we knew that there was a direct flight to Tokyo on Saturday with 73 seats, which we were told are rarely filled.

So we slept in a bit, Clint and I went on a short run around the duck pond fitness trail, then we took the boys to IHOP for breakfast. Cole had double dipped French toast--He is a breakfast man through and through. Jack, whose code name among his friends is "Baconater", had a double bacon burger, Trace had chicken strips and waffles, I had a veggie egg white omelette with added avocado, and Clint had a crepe with whipped cream cheese and pancakes.

Then we drove to Alameda and took the ferry across the San Francisco Bay to Pier 41.

There we saw Sea Lions,

And busquers, like Wilson, the one-man-band.

Very entertaining. We thought he definitely deserved a Lincoln.

Then we ate at Boudin's Bakery which has been making famous sourdough bread on the Bay since 1898. We all had the bread bowls with crab and corn bisque, except Clint, who had clam chowder.

Then we went through the museum and bakery tour where Clint searched for tips on how to better his sourdough bread making and found out that, even though he ordered sourdough starter from San Franciso, local bacillus have now taken over and it is now Utah bacillus!

Then, our favorite part of the day was a tour of the submarine USS Pampanito. It had a wonderful audio tour with many voices of Pampanito veterans. They described how it was so hot that their uniforms were permanently stowed in their mattress covers and instead they wore shorts, flip-flops and tank tops the entire cruise. The diesel fuel stench was so pervasive that submariners could be recognized by their smell. There might have been another smell as well, as water was so precious that showers were a bi-monthly treat. The diesel engines were so deafening that only sign language was used to communicate except when they submerged and switched to battery power. Here's Tal in the enlisted bunkroom which had 36 beds, four-deep.

Here are Trace and Jack at two of the four tables in the mess hall.

Man! I thought my 1940s kitchen (on Yalecrest Ave in Sugarhouse) was small! Imagine cooking for 75 in this!

And speaking of small, this is office has about 18 inches by 24 inches of working space.

They played the "awoogah" alarm and explained that the men up in the crows nest had 30 seconds to get down the hatch and sealed in. Then the sub would be 60 feet down in the following 30 seconds. 

Most of the veterans agreed that the best memory of theirv time on the sub was when they rescued 73 Australian and British POWs off their lifeboats (after the Yanks sank the ship that the Japanese were transporting them on!). 

Most people don't know that the subs were responsible for sinking over half of all the Japanese ships in the war, far more than any of our ships or planes, and 25% of the subs never made it home, but were underwater tombs for their men. It's appropriate that the submarine force is nicknamed the Silent Service.

San Francisco is a perdy perdy city. After the sub tour we took a trolley to Ferry Landing, took the ferry back to Alameda and then we drove back to Travis.