Final day in Japan

This last day in Japan was spent with all of the Tsugawa's and Takatori's.  Two car loads of us headed off towards Narita airport with the intention of  going for lunch and then stopping at a very large and popular Buddhist Temple in order to give thanks and welcome in the New Year 2014.

Tsu, Mamoru, Mr. Tsugawa, Junko, Mrs. Tsugawa

A friendship spanning decades and an ocean between us.

Lunch at a Udon restaurant on my last day in Japan

Add-ons for the ramen.  Soooo delicious!

I can't recall the name of this Temple but it may have been Naritasan as I recall it being close to Narita Airport.

I went inside the temple with Mr. and Mrs. Tsugawa.  We sat on the floor and listened to the service.  I have no clue what was going on but Monks were walking around the inside of the temple while we listened to singing and words being spoken.

Once we are finished here, we go back to our vehicles and head to the airport.  We have lots of time to spare so we park and everyone comes inside the aiport.  Shortly thereafter, Yoko shows up.  She had been at work this day but left early to take the train to the airport to wish me farewell.

When it's time for me to check in, everyone walks with me to check in.  I hug each of them:  Yoko, Junko, Emiko, Satsuki, Mamoru, Tsu, Mr. Tsugawa and Mrs. Tsugawa.  When it comes time for me to hug Mrs. Tsugawa, Mrs. Tsugawa and I each have tears in our eyes.  Despite the language barrier, our hearts connected during this week.  You don't need mutual language to show respect, appreciation and love to someone else.

As I pass through the area where only passengers are allowed to enter, all of them are waving to me through the glass.  I go up the escalator and they're all still waving madly at me until we are out of each other's sight.

I have little time to get to my gate but I want to stop at the duty free store.  I pick up a couple bottles of saki and some Japanese cookies.  They are THE best - I know this because Emiko brought me these cookies when she visited Canada.

I have a direct flight from Tokyo to Vancouver and sleep most of the way.  I awake to descending through the horizon to the rising sun. A photo is worth 1,000 words!

Descending through the horizon.

Driving back to Abiko City, Japan

It's time for us to leave the "Swiss Alps" of Japan and it's famous onsens.

This morning, we drive up Mt. Hakone whereas yesterday we took the tram up the mountain.

We took one last walk around Mt. Hakone and managed to get a couple of good photos of Mt. Fuji.  A couple of minutes later and Mt. Fuji was covered in clouds so our timing was perfect.

We drive for about 45 minutes or so to a location where Tsu drops me off with Mr. and Mrs. Tsugawa.  We three are going to sail across this lake while Tsu drives around the lake to pick us up on the other side.

Good wishes tied on awaiting the wind to carry them away.

We stop at a very nice restaurant for lunch:

Inside a restaurant

We drive back through Tokyo.  It seemed like we got home a lot faster than what it took us to get out to Mt. Hanoke.

Tsu and I go out for a drive - close to the neighbourhood.

We went out for dinner - just across the street from Tsu's house.

Mr. Tsugawa holding up the menu.

They asked, do you eat shrimp?
I do but not with the head & tail on it!
But I did, all the while telling myself "just pretend they're potato chips, they're just potato chips!"

Mt. Hakone and Mt. Fujisan

It's been a few weeks since I updated my blog and I still want to write about my last 3 days in Japan. My memory is already getting foggy and I need to get the details down for posterity.

After breakfast, we get our overnight bags ready to leave on a road trip. We're leaving around noon and it's about a 3.5 hour drive on the other side of Tokyo. I have no idea where we are going except that we're going into the mountains to a hot spring.

I mentioned to Tsu about digging out my bathing suit and he told me that bathing suits were not allowed. Surely he mustn't have understood what I was saying. What do you mean bathing suits aren't allowed in a hot spring? I guess I really didn't trust that he understood me so I asked Mrs. Tsugawa if I should bring my bathing suit. It was obvious that she didn't really understand what I was saying... I wrack my brain trying to think of other words to convey my question. Ahhh... swimming suit. Yes! I look up the word in one of the three dictionaries that have found a somewhat permanent home on the dining table since I arrived and I translate "swimming suit" into Japanese. I ask Mrs. Tsugawa if I should take my swimming suit and she affirmed that bathing suits were not allowed. Oh geez... I'm feeling a bit uncomfortable about this get-away. The only nakedness I've ever done was to change in the women's only change room area of a public swimming pool. I've certainly never lounged around in the buff with strangers.

I enjoy the car ride through Tokyo once again. It's becoming familiar to me now as this is my 3rd trip to Tokyo in the past few days. But it's mid-day and we've never traveled the Tokyo roads mid-day: bumper to bumper and we come to a standstill for close to an hour, barely moving 1/2 mile in that time. Unfortunately we can't even take in any view as the sides of the bridge we are stopped on are walls of cement so that's what we stare at all the while. Eventually the traffic lets up and we're on our way through a myriad of tolls. We barely slow down for the tolls. Tsu picks a lane and slows down to about 30 km/hour and a split second before I think he's going to drive right through the gate, the arm lifts up, we pass through and the arm drops back down. There is a card reader on the dash of the car with a credit card looking thing sticking out of it. That is how the tolls are read. Not the greatest technology really as the card reader needs a cord to be plugged in hence there is a cord tucked in along the roof and it hangs down the side of the window. Tolls are pricey: $4, $5, $7. Sometimes we go through three tolls on one car trip, and then you have to pay on the return too. Argh!

We haven't been gone from home too long, probably two hours and we pull into a massive "truck stop" for lunch. The parking lot is vast. It appears to be the only place around for miles and there must be 200 cars in the lot. It's a really odd dining establishment: full of souvenirs, delicious looking bakery items and a restaurant fast-food type kitchen. Like most things in Japan, speaking with the worker bees is unnecessary here. We order our noodle soup from a vending machine -- yup, a vending machine! It has dozens of selections to choose from. Tsu orders for me. We find a seat, then our number is called and we go up to the kitchen window to pick up our soup. I enjoyed my ramen soup. I think it's very tasty. Mrs. Tsugawa leaves about 2/3 of her soup as she says it's too greasy. Obviously I don't know much about what constitutes tasty Japanese soup as we each ate the exact same dish. I thought to myself that perhaps this place was a cousin to an American greasy-food truck stop (do such places even still exist, who knows?).

Mr. and Mrs. Tsugawa ordering lunch from a vending machine.

Ramen ordered from the vending machine at the truck stop

We're back on the road in about 30 minutes or less. At some points we can see Mt. Fuji(san) and I snap photos through the car window (not realizing that I'll have much better photo opportunities in only a couple of hours from now). Then the bullet train whizzes past us. Man... that thing was flying down the track. A bullet train leaves Tokyo about every 15 minutes. It was neat to see it in motion. I was already thoroughly impressed with the Tokyo train system so I can only imagine how enthralled I would be if I had the opportunity to ride the bullet train.

We pass through the cities of Yokohama and Udawara and soon thereafter we're driving up the side of Mt. Hakone. There is snow on the sides of the roads and I'm getting an idea of just how high up we've driven from sea level down in Tokyo.

Tsu adjusts the GPS in order to find our hotel. The roads are very narrow and switch-backy up here. I'm thoroughly enjoying just taking in the scenery along the way. This area markets itself as "the Swiss Alps" of Japan and they aren't fibbing one iota. It really did remind me of what I imagine the Swiss Alps to look like.

The road we traveled to Mt. Hakone

We somewhat easily find our hotel: the Mt. Hakone Hotel. We check into our rooms, drop our bags, and then head back outside where the hotel's shuttle van drives us up to a tram. 

We ride the tram up the side of Mt. Hakone. WOW! We have perfect photo ops of Mt. Fujisan. I can't stop "wow'ing". Never, ever in my life did I ever dream that I would see Mt. Fuji in person. Obviously I had heard of Mt. Fuji but it never impressed me and I never longed to see it -- but my "wow'ing" doesn't even give it justice. It is monolithic and pops off the geography, way, way above the clouds, unlike anything within its vicinity. We have an excellent view of it from the glass tram. The tram ride is a good 10-12 minutes from the base. We land way up on Mt. Hakone and it is winter up here. Lots of snow. I am like a kid in a candy store. I am beyond thrilled to be up here. What an amazing surprise for me and a memorable gift that I will remember for the rest of my life.

Mt. Fujisan

The sidewalk is cleared of snow and is bare. Mr. Tsugawa (at age 79) can't join us in going any further up the mountain as he has had open heart surgery a few years earlier and the sulphur and the by-products of the gases are dangerous for people with his condition. He waits for us in the gift shop area. It really does smell like rotten eggs up here! Tsu, Mrs. Tsugawa and I walk further up the mountain, Mrs. Tsugawa leads the way and I actually lose sight of her at times because I keep stopping to take photos. For a 76-year-old lady, she is in very good shape (did I tell you that she has been a student of Hula for 4 years now?). I am in awe. What looks like small clouds floating about are actually steam clouds from the hot bubbling water just below the rock surface. Mt. Fujisan is gorgeous! Mt. Hakone is gorgeous! I'm pretty much in awe of the entire experience. I take a bajillion photos and post some video so my friends and family can see what I'm doing at this moment.

Mrs. Tsugawa

We walk back down toward the gift shop where Mr. Tsugawa is waiting for us. I buy some souvenirs and then head back to the tram loading area. Before I know it we're back at the base of the mountain; our shuttle van is waiting for us.

Mr. Tsugawa with eggs cooked in the hotsprings.

On the tram

When we get to our hotel, Mrs. T. and I change into our "kimono-type" outfits. The hotel supplies these things that we are supposed to wear to the Onsen: it's like a kimono with a second layering of kimono overtop. I was impressed that the hotel supplied these outfits. The outfits are actually quite nice and I wished I could take one home with me. Mrs. T. ensured that I had mine on properly; we put on the house slippers (also supplied) and headed downstairs to the Onsen (hot springs). They are segregated by gender. Mrs. T. and I are the only people in the women's Onsen. We disrobe and then enter through a door. There are about a dozen or more showers.... not like our North American showers though. The shower heads are at about knee level! We get wet and then gingerly wade into the very hot, hot spring ("Onsen"). Whew... it is smoking hot but once you get used to it, it is very enjoyable. It's nice but I am completey self-conscious sitting there in my birthday suit. Ugh! Mrs. T. gets out first, after less than 10 minutes of soaking, and I follow her lead. The shower area is fully stocked with whatever high-end "Shiseido" products you could ever want and more (want a facial mask, this is the place to do it!). We exit the Onsen area into the change room. This area is also fully stocked: hairbrushes; razors; facial products; hair products; etc. I've never seen anything like it.

Dressed for the Onsen

We relax in our room for a bit before dinner but I actually take advantage of the wifi in the lobby and check Facebook to see what's going on with my friends back home. Dinner is a pre-fixe menu in the hotel's huge restaurant that only has patrons at three tables. We eat a somewhat "Western" meal... using silver utensils and Mr. and Mrs. Tsugawa are "struggling" with all the utensil options (nope, no chopsticks in this place which is obviously geared to Westerners or Europeans). I assure them it doesn't matter which forks or knives they use because the table isn't set properly any way -- all the forks are the exact same size as are the spoons and knives! Talk about confusing people who are trying to assimilate to the utensils! We eat a decent meal of beef and I can't recall what else.  Mr. T. orders some sake. I have a sip just to taste it. Not bad.... very reminiscent of wine. Tsu and Mrs. Tsugawa have a laugh when poor Mr. Tsugawa starts choking violently on his food. Laugh!?! I was actually getting concerned and here they were laughing at him... I'm thinking well they know him better than I do but I don't think it's anything to laugh at. After about 2 minutes Mr. T. finally stops choking and coughing. Crisis averted. I won't need to perform the Heimlich for the first time in my life. Whew!

After dinner we go back to our rooms. Mrs. T. returns to the Onsen but being I've just washed and dried my hair I decide to go to bed as I am pretty beat. I know tomorrow will be another full day.

Japan’s Memorable Meals & Neighbourhoods

Today was a relaxing stay-near-home kinda day for the most part.

I sure wish I had written down what I ate every day but unfortunately I didn't. Mrs. Tsugawa always had breakfast at the ready whenever I came down in the morning which was usually between 7:30 and 8:30 AM. Breakfast always consisted of a plate of sliced fruit: apple, banana, kiwi, persimmon; a container of yogurt; and then either soup or salad. Imagine my surprise when one morning a bowl of hot miso soup greeted me. Another morning was steamed kale and carrot, all chopped very fine and served cold; another morning was cooked cabbage served cold with fried sliced egg. Eating soups and salads for breakfast was definitely an oddity for me but as was my mantra on this trip "When in Rome do as the Romans do" so I happily enjoyed the experience of eating soup and salad for breakfast.

Shortly after breakfast was finished Mrs. Tsugawa prepped lunch. She has a very hi-tech "Tiger" brand rice cooker which has it permanent home on the counter. She washed the rice very well and put it into the rice cooker. She added julienned carrots, shitake mushrooms, Japanese mushrooms; a can of scallops with the juice, daishe (sp?) which is a fish stock (made with little fish boiled in water, remove the fish and feed to the cat (if they had one)), and use the fish stock to cook the rice, and cooking sake. She set the timer and said lunch would be ready at 11:30.

Daishe comes in many forms: powdered, liquid, and the little dried fish that you can boil in water to make a stock. [Note: I saw a box of Daishe in the store here in Vancouver. It was $16!] Mrs. Tsugawa gave me a big box of daishe to bring home to Vancouver. Inside the box are 3 foil packages. To make about 3 cups of stock, you use 3 tsp of daishe... it'll last me forever.

I decided to go out for a walk around the community to see if I could find an ATM that would accept my Visa debit card. The day previous Tsu and I had tried two ATMs but neither worked, the latter one finally spat out a slip of paper written in Japanese and English that said my card was either expired or invalid and that I should call my bank. The night previous before bed I dialed the number on the back of the card and it wouldn't work but the error message was in Japanese so I had no idea what the voice was telling me. Tsu was already in bed so I couldn't ask him to translate. I tried dialing a couple more times and each time I got a Japanese voice, I spoke in English "Is this the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce?", an English-speaking voice came on and asked me if I wanted the Police, Fire, or Ambulance and was there anyone with me that spoke Japanese. So much for trying to contact my bank. No clue how much those calls will come to on my cell phone...argh!

At breakfast I explain to Tsu about my trying to phone my bank. He lets me use his cell phone and the call goes through. I talk with the agent for 7 minutes and am all the while cognizant of it being a long distance call on a friend's phone, all the while the CIBC agent is trying to do his sweet but long customer service chit-chat schpeel. I tell him I am calling long distance on a freind's cell phone and would rather skip the niceties! He tells me there is no valid reason why my debit card won't work so to try again.

At about 10:45 I go out for a walk and Tsu tells me to be back at 11:30 for lunch. I am looking for an ATM with the world-recognized PLUS symbol but I don't see one. I do, however, see a Police Box (similar to a community policing station). On the Tokyo tour, the tour guide had mentioned the Police Box which is a small police station with a few officers inside just waiting to answer questions and be of assistance. The tour guide said that if ever we needed any assistance the Police Box was a good place to stop in to. So I thought, "what do I have to lose". I open the door and there are three officers inside. I ask "Does anyone speak English"? An older officer says he speaks a little bit of English. I show him my Visa debit card and explain that I am looking for an ATM with the PLUS symbol. He walks me to an ATM. Despite the fact I had already tried that exact ATM yesterday I try it again. Nope. Nothing's changed overnight and it still won't work. So we walk the 1/4 block back to the police box. He speaks Japanese to the other officers and one gets out his cell phone and Googles the CIBC Debit Card and the PLUS symbol. They aren't making any progress. The older officer tells me to just wait and he'll be right back. Meanwhile I'm looking at my watch as I need to be home at 11:30. It's now 11:15. I wait about 5 minutes and the officer comes back and tells me to just wait a couple of minutes. In minutes an American opens the door to the Police Box and says "can I help you?"  I explain my dilemma. He tells me there's an American ATM in the shopping mall and "do you want me to take you there?" Sure! As we're walking to the mall (which I didn't even know was in the vicinity) I ask him how the officer got in touch with him. He said he works in the Soba Noodle Shop in the Abiko train station and that the police officer called his boss and his boss told him to go to the police station. Man, I'm blown away by the kindness. That would NEVER happen in Vancouver. I find out the guy is from Pennsylvania, has a Japanese wife and a baby. He walks me to the back of the department store in the shopping mall where the "American ATM" is situated. Eureka! I'm finally able to withdraw some Japanese Yen. By now it's 11:40 and I hustle back towards Tsu's house arriving 15 minutes late for lunch.

Here are some photos of the neighbourhood around Tsu's home.

Walking around the neighbourhood in Abiko Prefecture.

Beautiful entrance to an apartment complex

Front entrance to Tsu's home

The Tsugawa's have a long history in this neighbourhood.

The scallop rice dish "Mazegoham" smells delicious and it tastes even better than it smells. It becomes my favourite Japanese meal that I've eaten thus far. I'm thankful that I wrote down the recipe and watched Mrs. Tsugawa prepare it so I can make it in Vancouver.

Mr. and Mrs. Tsugawa have appointments so they go out and Tsu goes out to do a delivery job. Tsu also has a delivery business. I'm not sure how he gets his jobs but he gets a call and then he's gone in his van sometimes hundreds of kilometres from Abiko City. With everyone going out I take advantage of the opportunity to have a nap knowing that I want to be spry for my evening out with Emiko.

I am home alone at 5:00 PM when Emiko rings the doorbell.  I lock up the house and we walk the couple of blocks to the train at the Abiko Station and go one stop. We're in a different city now. It looks like a newer suburb with a few hi-rise apartments and a big shopping centre. We visit a lovely department store and I wish I could spend 1/2 the day in this place just looking at every floor and all the items and seeing the rest of the shopping mall. But we spend about 30 minutes here and I buy what I had on my wish list: a cast iron Japanese teapot and some chopsticks. We've waited so long for the clerk to wrap the items (they don't just throw purchases into a shopping bag like they do in North America -- the items get individually wrapped in paper and then are put into a plastic bag) that we're now late for our dinner reservation. Emiko calls the restaurant and changes our time and it's not an issue. Good thing the restaurant is less than a block from the department store.

Me and Emiko enjoying a wonderful dinner.

Emiko has made a dinner reservation at a restaurant inside the hotel where she had her wedding reception four years earlier. The restaurant is basically empty: we are one of three tables with patrons. It is a pre-fixe menu which is a good thing because I don't have a clue what most of the stuff is on the menu eventhough I have an English copy to read from. There must've been 10 courses to the menu. Oh my word, the food never stopped coming. We'd eat one plate and then another one would come. This went on for over an hour. Of course I can't remember most of what I ate but a few things were memorable. Am glad I took a photo of every course. One of the courses was a plate of a variety of seafood: there was a grouping of about a dozen little fish that were so small they obviously were not gutted and the head and tail were still on them. There were very crunchy. I ate about 3 of them and wasn't really enjoying the experience so Emiko happily took the remainder from my plate and ate them. Squid was also on the plate. Certainly not the Greek style squid I love eating with tzaziki sauce. Nope, these pieces obviously came from some gigantic 8-armed creature as we were each served a large portion of white meat with the skin on. I pulled the skin off -- eating fish skin is something I could not do in Japan despite my trying to be like a Roman. Japanese happily eat fish skin and say it is high in protein. We were both happy when we neared the end of our meal. We were getting stuffed and Emiko is 8 months pregnant and her stomach just can't consume that much food. Dessert was a very memorable beautifully presented variety of chocolate desserts. The food presentation in this restaurant was absolutely lovely.

Presentation is very important.

Dessert - one plate for each of us!

We walk to the train station. Emiko offers to get off at Abiko Station and walk me to Tsu's house - she has to go one station past Abiko. I assure her that I am familiar with the neighbourhood and that it is completely unnecessary for her to walk me home, instead she should just stay on the train and go straight home which she does.

It's 10:30 PM by the time I get home. I'm not sure if anyone is up so I use my key and let myself in. Mrs. Tsugawa greets me and she is "wowing" over all of the shopping bags I am carrying. I am excited to show her my purchases and she admires the teapot.

It's bedime now. All I know about tomorrow is we are going on an overnight road trip but I have no idea where to.