Trips to Japan

Day 12 & 13 – a trip to great grandma's

We decided to take an overnight trip to Saitama, just outside of Tokyo, where my grandmother and the family of her oldest son lives.

We rode Shinkansen (bullet train) for 100 minutes from Nagoya to Tokyo. Evan was not a happy rider, bored just about the whole way, and always fidgeting. I used to love these trains, and it used to take 20 minutes longer back then. One kid’s joy is another kid’s torture.

This is their current family situation: Teiko, my grandmother, lives on the first floor of the house. Iwao, my uncle, and his wife, Yuko, lives on the second floor. They have 1 son and 2 daughters – Katsuhiko, Yukiko, and Eriko, from oldest to youngest. Yukiko is the only married one of the three, and in fact, she’s expecting a baby this December. Her husband is from China, and his name is Chou.

Teiko came to the Omiya train station, our train ride destiny (2 trains after Tokyo station). After we met, we had a lunch, then we decided to get something to snack on. Er… that’s an understatement of the week. We stopped by at a cake shop, and bought some personal sized cakes, cheesecakes, etc. Boy, were they decorated so pretty, so meticulously, so… wasteful! I mean, they were going to be eaten. Sure, they really look pretty. Do they look delicious? Sure, but more delicious than something that’s not as pretty? I have my doubts on that one. Anyway, they were very impressive cakes.

Once we got to her house, my cousins, Yukiko and Eriko were there to greet us too. Evan, as expected, was shy at first. Yukiko and Eriko took us out for a short walk to a nearby grocery store. Evan was still quiet. Once we got home, it was about time for Eriko to leave for her aikido class. She’ll have to miss the dinner with the family – and with us.

While we were waiting for other family members to come home, Yukiko took us out again, this time to a playground. It’s been a few days since Evan has been to a playground, so she was excited. And that helped to break her ice of shyness.

The family took us out to a shabu-shabu restaurant. I seriously overate that night. And on top of that, this was the first night I had beer in Japan. It’s likely that it’ll be the only time in this trip. My family has gone from almost dry to completely dry.

By the time we got back from the restaurant, Evan was really getting along with everyone, getting everyone’s attention. She drew a picture each to everyone who were there, plus Eriko, who came back from her aikido class eventually.

The second day was just a day to hang around. We left there close to noon. My grandmother took us out to a department store. She treated Evan for more presents she can take home for everyone… which came to haunt me later.

The train ride back to home was a bit more fun. Since the distance between Omiya and Tokyo isn’t very much, we took a local train on our way out. But my grandmother bought us Shinkansen tickets to Tokyo as well. That really was a good idea – we got to ride a double-decker Shinkansen. Also, for the Shinkansen from Tokyo to Nagoya, we were able to sit on the right side of the train, relative to the direction of the train’s movement. That allowed us to see Mt. Fuji directly outside of our window. Our trip back felt shorter for all those various reasons.

And that was the good part of the past 2 days. The day ended on a somewhat sour note.

I’ve been telling my family that I wanted to perform some piano pieces for them at their church. That means most family members should be free, and the church should be open. The church is the only place we have access to a piano. They planned this family concert for tonight. But once we got there, the church was occupied. An event was planned for tonight there, but Keizo was not involved, which made him forget that the church wasn’t free tonight.

When we found that out, I was tired, and I was getting cranky. And knowing that we have another full day tomorrow, we had to pack as much as we could tonight. I was cranky and somewhat snappy. I’m sorry, my family. I didn’t mean to be snappy tonight.

At least most of the packing is done, and we’re pretty much ready to head home. We have one more full day before flying out. Like I said, it’s going to be another greatly busy day…

Day 11 – back to Nagoya

I went to pick up my new passport today.

My old passport was not machine readable, so checking in for international flights were somewhat cumbersome. This will make things easier. Furthermore, the new Japanese passports has extremely weak RFID chip, making entry/exit to/from Japan even easier and faster and error-free.

It’s pretty amazing that they can get such passport ready for all applicants in a week. It comes with a price, though. All fees and train tickets included, it costed me 18,440 yen – about $150. Le sigh.

I had one more shopping to do while in Nagoya – making a stop at Hard Rock Cafe Nagoya. I was done with my passport business at around 10AM. I remembered that the cafe opens at 11AM, so I had some time to kill.

I could take a subway. But it’s only 1.5 miles – a walking distance. So that was my plan. I killed some time at a department store, Tokyu Hands. There, I found an umbrella for Evan. It’s extremely light. And it’s pink. How long does it take for Noah and/or Alex to destroy it is anyone’s guess… See if she can keep it out of their reach…

Once I got to the cafe, the sign reads it doesn’t open until 11:30AM. Ugh.

Luckily (or not so luckily), there is Yamaha Music Center very close by. I hopped in, and started browsing for music scores. I made an unplanned 3500 yen shopping – a collection of jazz standard (many popular songs that many Japanese would know) arranged for solo piano. That’s something I need to practice before my next trip to Japan.

The cafe itself is pretty tiny. It was quite hard to find the entrance from outside. Just like everything in Japanese cities, everything is crammed as much as humanly possible. Whoa. They had a full suit worn by Mick Jagger and… sorry, I don’t remember much of anything else there. It would be a lot more fun to visit there with someone else. I don’t have enough of tourist mentality in Nagoya area.

While I was having adventure in middle of Nagoya (walking under the scorching sun), Evan was having fun of her own. When I got home, I ate onigiri (rice balls) that Evan made.

Before I could get to my lunch, though, my uncle Shinsaku came to take my mom Yoko and Evan out to Nagoya. To where? To Tokyu Hands, the very same department store I was just a few hours ago…

Well, well, did she have a blast there too… She came home with hands full of goodies. Pens, markers, tapes, etc etc…. all cute goods.

Seriously, with all the healthy diets we’re eating and the amount of walking I’m doing, I must be losing weights during this trip. If I can keep up with this once I get home, maybe I can get back to 130 to 135 lbs range again…

Day 10 – back to the church

Sunday is a church day all day long in this family. By the time we were heading home from church, it was almost 5PM. After we got home, we went out to a Chinese restaurant.

That pretty much summarizes the whole day today.

The highlight was talking with a 34-year-old pianist at the church – Iwamoto-san. He’s a hobbyist pianist, just like myself. He’s quite good though. I gave him the scores for Gershwin’s Three Preludes to break him into the world of jazz. I have a feeling that he’ll be playing the piece better than I ever could by the time I see him again.

Day 9 – more playing

We started our day by going to the World Expo 2005 Memorial Park – they opened up some of the facilities they built for the Expo to the public after the Expo ended. Manaho came along with me and Evan today. Manaho’s family goes to the same church with our family, and Evan made friends with her in our past trips here. Manaho has been to this park in the past, but apparently this is her first time going there by train.

It’s a trip I sort of wanted to make since the last time I was here – the last train we take is a magnetically elevated linear motor train, built especially for the Expo. Yes, the cars float off the track. Hopefully the kids liked that experience.

The first destination once we got there is the replica of Satsuki and May’s house from Totoro. It requires advanced reservations if we wanted to get up close to the house, and the weekend reservations are full until sometime in August unfortunately. We could still get close to it. And there’s an observation deck close by too. Evan was mesmerized for quite a while on the deck.

Another interesting spot was the Japanese garden we passed by on our way from the bus stop to the Totoro house. It was quite pretty. Manaho and Evan had some fun too, hopping from rock to rock.

Once we were done with the place, we moved to the play ground. We could only cover a few areas before it started raining. But by the time they hit the big slide, Evan and Manaho were getting along pretty well. Up to that point, they’ve been shy toward each other.

Soon after it started raining, we started hearing thunder too. We wanted to ride the ferris wheel too, but it not be safe now. We checked the status with the staff there anyway, and they confirmed our guess – they were just closing it down, as soon as everyone got off. We hanged around in the game arcade for a few minutes to see if the rain and thunder would stop in a few minutes.

It started pouring instead. Just as we were talking about going home, we found Children’s Center on the map. Boy, was that a hit. The whole place was a giant indoor play ground. It was a perfect place to wait for the rain to stop, waiting for the ferris wheel to start moving again.

In the end, the rain never stopped. We made a quick stop at the gift shop, headed home on the train again, made another quick stop at a bakery at Kasugai station (closest our home), and came home.

With all the walking we’ve been doing, I’m really starting to feel the tiredness.

For dinner, we went to have sushi. That was quite delicious. Shinsaku, my uncle, bought dinner for everyone. We went to his place after dinner, and we had more fun. Evan was fixated to Tom and Jerry DVD they were playing about the whole time we were there. I had most fun with their dogs, Sakura, Hana, and Jiro.

All in all, it was another long yet fun-filled day.

Day 8 – field trip, nose bleeding…

As I was folding the futon to be put up, I noticed Evan’s sheets had some brown spots. I thought maybe some chocolate got in the bed. Later, Evan told us that she had bloody nose during the night. Uh oh… As far as I know, sheets etc got washed pretty clean, including my white under tee shirt that she used to hold her nose.

The class that Evan is visiting went on a field trip.

The whole of second grade have about 135 students, which are split into four class rooms. Two of those were combined, then split into 12 separate groups to visit different places. Evan’s class visited a supermarket and a bakery.

We arrived at the super market at around 9:50AM, and the place does not open until 10AM. Coming from the area where the grocery store is open 24/7, this felt a bit strange. Also, there were shoppers arriving at the store before the store opening hours. So as soon as the doors opened at 10AM square, there was a rush of human traffic going into the store, including two groups of students. (Another group was supposed to visit the veterinarian’s office first, but there was an emergency patient, so they had to visit the supermarket first.)

One store clerk was there to greet the students, take questions from the students, and take the students to the tour of the store, mainly the back rooms. Bulk of big chores were already done, so the workers didn’t have too much to show. The students could still visit the fish cutting and packaging room, and they probably had some fun there.

When we arrived at the small bakery on foot, another group was just getting done, coming out of the store with a piece of bread in their hand. Evan’s group got excited when they heard that those students made those bread themselves. It was a small bread wrapped around a small hotdog. That part was already done before the kids got there. The kids did some of the finishing touch – basting eggs, spread ketchup and mayo. Bread got baked in 15 minutes. The bakers showed the kids how to make a clean, round ball of dough while they were baking.

Maybe all those excitement got to Evan’s head. Once we all got back to the classroom, and started writing down the day’s experience along with a drawing, she had another bloody nose. What amazed me is that just about every kid has a small packet of kleenex. As soon as they found it out, a mountain of kleenex was built on Evan’s desk. It was rather amusing.

Before coming home, Evan stayed at the school a bit longer so she could eat lunch together with kids, the play with them during lunch recess.

Once we got home after those, she bled again. Feeling a bit concerned, we took her temperature quickly – 36 degrees C. Quite normal. We still don’t know what’s causing her frequent bleeding from nose.

Evan’s day was over (except for playing at home with Kasumi), but my day continued. I was tasked with fixing the sliding screen doors to the back porch. Before I could do the repair, we had to get the parts. Our shopping tour wasn’t short though. We made 4 stops, buying all kinds of goods, including some under shirts, groceries, and a new camera. (Almost all of the photos on the gallery are taken with this camera, which I’ve been borrowing from Myung Joo. Yes, I bought the same thing, since I’m liking it so much, and I really needed a new one anyway.)

As I was doing the repair (one screen door only needed the wheels swapped, but the second one needed the whole thing re-screened.), it started raining quite hard, and I was getting wet from it, even with the shade above the porch. That screen door is still out there, with some excess screen dangling around. Quite ugly. I still have some more work left for tomorrow evening.

Hopefully this rain won’t linger for tomorrow. We have another big day planned.

Day 7 – school

In the morning, Evan went to Kashihara Elementary school. I tagged along. People at the education department yesterday said that they can only allow Evan to attend the age appropriate class, which would be third grade. People at Kashihara Elementary already planned to put Evan in second grade, and the teacher already had some plans. When we got there, they went with their original plan.

So we attended just the first period of the school – math. They were working on addition of 2 digit numbers. The kids in the classroom were excited to see Evan. Evan was very shy. It was a good thing that we decided to stay just for one period.

For now, the plan is to go back tomorrow for two periods, when they go out to town for a short field trip.

Yoko drove us to the school in the morning, but we were to walk home when we were done. It was a pretty nice 20-minute walk. We talked about butterflies as we walked.

After the lunch, we went to Shiki no Mori (Forest of Four Seasons) – a hybrid of a park and a garden. The place was having Hydrangea and Rose festival. Hydrangea were really pretty today. They impressed me more than the roses. There was also a section that had several blocks of traditional Japanese gardens – maybe 4- to 6-feet square each. So, that’s the garden part. Inter-sparsed with those are the play grounds for the kids.

Evan and Kasumi really had a blast there. First, we went on to the grass sledding. There’s a hill covered with fake grass. We took a plastic sled, and did a few down-hills. Kasumi rode it once on my lap. It sounded like she was excited about it.

Then we went to more traditional play ground. They spent about 20-30 minutes in the sand box. It was a chore to get Kasumi out of the sand box. The next target was the slide. As if the grass sledding wasn’t enough, they got hooked on that slide for a while again.

After a short walk later, we came to a small petting zoo. We saw couple horses and a few pigs. This section didn’t excite the kids too much. After we passed the hydrogeas, roses, the Japanese gardens, and a rock garden, we came to a walk-in water fountain. That got the kids hooked again.

It really felt like we had a day for kids today. And if you call me a kid, you’re right – I had fun too.

Day 6 – the day of rest

In the morning, we went to the city hall to see people of department of education. We talked about how we can have Evan can join the third grade classroom here temporarily. They have some strict rules about temporary studentship, but it looks like it’ll work out. More news on this later…

Day 5 – dolphins, fish, and penguins

We really haven’t done too much for Evan since we got here. We decided to change that today by making a trip to the Aquarium at Nagoya Port. We went there the last time we were in Japan (November of 2005), and we loved it.

So off we went. There were three of us today – Grandma Yoko, Evan, and myself.

When we got there (after 2 trains later), it was already 11 AM, and we were getting hungry. The area has quite a few attractions, including an amusement park, a small zoo, a garden with a collection of trees from around the world, a display of retired Antarctica explorer ship, Fuji, etc. One of the newly opened section is Villaggio Italia – a shopping district in Italian theme. We ate lunch at the pasta specialty place. It was good, but the flavor was way too overwhelming. Hmmm…

The dolphin show was scheduled for 1 PM, and they were going to let the killer whale named Koo exercise for a while at 1:30, so we headed to the aquarium to secure our seats. The waiting part isn’t too painful for most of us. It’s a totally different story for Evan. Even though they have some movie running on the big screen beyond the giant pool (for the dolphins), it’s all in Japanese. For almost 30 minutes we had to wait there, she was bored. There are many things we can do that she can really enjoy. But there are also many moments where she’s totally bored – she doesn’t say if often, but I can really tell.

The show itself was pretty fun. Those dolphins displayed some amazing tricks. The killer whale could jump pretty good too.

Of course, the highlight of this trip is the penguin display. This aquarium has emperor penguins, gentoo penguins, chinstrap penguins, and adelie penguins. I just heard that two humboldt penguins at Sedgewick County Zoo died last week from lung infection, so seeing so many penguins here made me feel better. (Of course, reading the conservation level of humboldt being “vulerable” made me sad again.)

Afterwards, we took a ride on a ferris wheel (that was pretty tall), then ate some takoyaki before coming home. That takoyaki was pretty yummy, but the flavor was a bit too overwhelming. Maybe that’s how people in Nagoya area likes it – very strong flavors.

By the way, Evan says:

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Day 4 – taking care of business

One of the things I want to do during this visit is to get a new passport. My current passport is not machine readable. It slows down the check-in process and others when I travel internationally. And it is not easy to get a machine readable Japanese passport in U.S. And because the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan just started issuing RFID enabled passport, I can renew my passport before it expires.

As far as I know, the process of passport application is rather different from U.S. The part about having to have a passport photo, having to fill in the request form, and having to pay the fee. How to file it seems to be different. I had to go visit the passport request form filing office, wait in the line, file it in person, and a few days later, I go pick it up in person. As a part of the filing, they also require an official copy of the family register.

The acquisition of the copy of family register was pretty easy. Waiting in the line at the Passport Center wasn’t too bad either – the waiting line was about an hour. The trip there is the part I always like – taking a train.

I thought about doing some shopping while I was in central Nagoya for different people, but by the time I was done with the passport business, my left knee was starting to hurt, so I cut the trip short and went home. Carrying those tree branches for couple of hours probably contributed to the pain too.

I’m supposed to be picking up the passport on June 11th, a week after the filing. If I want to do some more shopping, I shall do it then. I definitely need to pick up a Hard Rock Cafe t-shirt or two then for Doug at work. (And I must ride the train again.)

Day 3 – at the church

“Every time you come here, we have some big project going on that you end up helping us on.”

When I was here 3 years ago for Keizo’s (my younger brother’s) wedding, they were working on their front yard. They asked me to help them on it, which I did. This Sunday, they had a big spring cleaning. It’s not a bad thing. I just not the thing I’d rather do the day after I arrived.

Evan was mostly playing with other kids, I think. She helped some with cleaning windows. Majority of my part involved carrying large pile of tree branches from one location to another, mostly be hand. I just considered it as a good exercise.