One more reason Japan is awesome: the way they handle construction projects.
They're going to replace a transmission tower around the corner from our house. The tower is about 50 years old, and the ground is sand to a depth of something like sixty feet, so they need to drill further than that in order to set a solid foundation in bedrock.
They sent a representative door-to-door to explain the project (they came back a second time to find out what language I speak and a third time with an interpreter).
They're also taking pictures of the outside walls of houses closest to the project. That way, if the vibrations from the construction damages any of the houses, they know they are responsible.
It was also explained to me that when the guy comes to take pictures, he will ring the doorbell so I know he's there, and he may also bring the interpreter in case I have any questions.
That just impresses the heck out of me.
Not the tower in question, the post just looked naked without a picture.
Several people in Husband's office went on a trip to Shimoda over a 3-day weekend and were kind enough to invite us along. Unfortunately, a typhoon was either about to come through or had just come through, so there was a lot of wind and rain.
After a four hour drive, we arrived at the hotel just before sunset. If you don't speak a lot of Japanese and are looking for a beach getaway, this is a great place. It's owned and operated by English speakers and is across the street from the beach.
It may not look like much in the picture, but two of the kids almost got swept away by deceptively powerful incoming waves. You know, the kind that are only up to your ankles or shins and are fine for adults but are strong enough to knock over a seven-year-old. Don't worry, though, the kids are fine. They didn't want to stop playing on the beach even after that.
Shimoda is mostly known for it's beaches, but the hotel had some pamphlets with attractions around the end of the peninsula. There's a teeny little place about an hour away (on harrowing, windy, crazy spiraling roads, but every road on the peninsula is like that) that boasts of monkeys. The facility has obviously seen better days, but it was a neat way to spend part of an afternoon.
Don't let the bars fool you, it's the people that are in the cage, not the monkeys. The monkeys are wild and go wherever they please. People can also walk around as long as they don't have any food (for their own safety). After paying our admission fee, we were put on a bus to go down the hill and ushered into a small cement building that contained a small seating area, two broken bathrooms, and a counter selling slices of oranges and yams.
Please, sir, I want some more.
When we had handed out all the food, we went to check out the rest of the grounds.
Check out the people exhibit! They're so exotic and mysterious.
The monkeys have a nice beach view.
Driving back to our hotel, we took a route that brought us along the coast. This was taken from a scenic rest stop.
We also stopped briefly at the Minimiizu Aloe Center. All products contained aloe, from cosmetics to soft serve ice cream (delicious) to jelly desserts. The jelly dessert in question came in a tube like a glow stick; I had a free sample and I couldn't believe how good it was. I have no idea how that place could possibly stay in business at that size with so few people around, but I wish them continued success.
Back at the hotel, we heard tales of crabs living in the woods up the hill in the tsunami evacuation area. Crabs in the woods? We must see this for ourselves! Our friend's son said he wanted to see the crabs, but didn't want to walk all the way up there. Husband told him he was going to miss out because Husband was going to find a crab and wear it as a hat and not show him the picture.
The kid did decide at the last moment to come with us and it was totally worth the trip. I'm used to seeing orange salamanders after rain in Vermont, but orange crabs? I had no idea they lived in a tree-and-dirt environment.
Also, Husband is nothing if not true to his word. He did, in fact, catch a crab and wear it like a hat.
He named it Ralph.
Here's a video in which I try to get close to a crab, but it stopped moving, and I was afraid it wouldn't show up on the video because it was pretty well camouflaged. Poking it with a stick didn't make it move, so Husband reached out to pick it up. Not only did it bolt, but it jumped on my sandal. I had a brief but terrifying vision that it could climb up my pant leg, so I did what anybody would do — shrieked like a little girl and waved the camera about like a crazy person. Enjoy.
And on the way back downhill, we saw this guy.
I just like this photo.
The next day, a walk on the beach. The waves are a little more calm, but a lot of doomed sea life has been washed up on the shore.
Small jellyfish, about the size of a bottle cap.
Barnacles on a bottle. We threw the bottle back to try to save them...is that still littering? I guess it doesn't matter because it washed back up on shore almost immediately.
Portuguese Man-O-War!
I spent probably more time than I should have trying to rescue beached critters. I didn't touch the man-o-war, but I threw several bottlecap-looking jellyfish back and a couple things covered in barnacles. By Monday, a crew had gone over the beach and removed most of the debris, so our last beach walk of the trip was significantly more scenic and less depressing.
We also had the chance to try wasabi ice cream. I guess Shimoda is known for its wasabi, so it kind of makes sense. We had to try it once.
Not my picture, but that's what it looked like.
Least refreshing ice cream ever.
It was the taste of wasabi peas (except definitely fresh wasabi, it's like the difference between canned and fresh pineapple) with the texture of soft serve ice cream. It was spicy enough to actually be a little difficult to eat, I had to pause between bites so my tongue could stop being both frozen and on fire at the same time. It was really peculiar.
I'm going to attempt some bilingual blogging. The Japanese isn't a direct translation, but it's good practice.
I can never go back to fireworks displays in the US. Japan has set the bar so high on hanabi taikai that I'm not sure anywhere in the US can impress me unless there were a display funded by Richie Rich and produced by Las Vegas.
日本のはなびのほうが アメリカのはなびより 一ばん いい です。日本のはなびたいかいは すごいですね。
Hanabi taikai are held all over the country, but the one we went to, the Sumidagawa Fireworks Festival, is one of the largest. We met with some friends at the train station and took a bus to the event site.
私たちは すみだがわの はなびたいかいに 行きました。 えきで ともだちと あって バスで たいかいの ところに 行きました。
We climbed Fuji-san the day before, but if we weren't feeling so achy and beat up we would have dressed up in our yukata. Maybe next year.
たぶん 来年 ゆかたを きます。
Like any other fireworks display, there was a large grassy area for people to put down blankets and tarps. Vendor booths along the edges were selling meat on sticks, pickled vegetables, desserts, and yakisoba.
ろ店は やきにくや つけものや つめたい パイナップルや デザートや やきそばを うって いました。
At least before the sun set, it wasn't as crowded as I thought it might be. Later, of course, it got more crowded.
あまり こんで いませんでした。もちろん あとで、こんで いました。
I love the energy of a festival. People are dressed up and excited, it's fun to be a part of it. (No Japanese version this time, I don't know how to say any of that.)
The fireworks lasted about an hour and a half.
はなびは 一じ間と半ぐらい かかりました。
Pictures are nice, but it's really hard to capture fireworks without video.
しゃしんは いいですが、ビデオは も いい です。
You might think this is the grand finale, but it's not. It's the first segment of the show. (I can't translate that yet.)
...and another!
もういちど！
If you want to see more, you'll have to visit us in August. Or ask me to post the high-def video Husband took. (Again, my vocabulary fails me.)
In the US, if there is a festival, trash is everywhere at the end of the night. Here, there is a lot of trash, but it's almost all in bags in piles, ready for collection in the morning. That's just amazing.
日本じんは とても きれいです。
You have to do it once.
If you do it twice, you're an idiot.
The third time, you're a professional.
This was our second trip. Surprisingly, it wasn't as awful as it was last year. It still sucked, just not as much.
We met with the rest of our group early (5 people total, no triathletes this year*) and were on the road to Fuji-san by sunrise.
*Seeing someone jog up a mountain while you struggle to breathe and continue to put one foot in front of the other really makes you feel inadequate.
Too early.
Same 3-hour drive, same full parking lot, same parking spot found on the side of the road 2km (about 1.25mi) below Station 5, our first stop. A few car lengths closer than last year. It wasn't much, but I'll take victories where we can get them.
We haven't started climbing the mountain yet. This is the view from where we parked.
Husband and I made sure everybody else bought their souvenir climbing stick and New Best Friend at Station 5 and up we went.
I think part of the reason it wasn't so bad this year was that they've done some trail maintenance recently.
Helpful.
Maybe I'm ever so slightly more in shape. I'm not sure, but I moved a little faster and Husband wasn't prone to running in circles around me. We even managed to more or less stay as a group, which was nice.
We saw this random guy and he was nice enough to let me take his picture. He is my hero. We were complaining about how hard the climb was even before we got to Station 6, but this guy did the same climb at the same speed with his kid on his back!
This guy is awesome. このおとこの人はすごいですよ！
We didn't see a wide variety of butterflies this year, but we saw several of these:
What does it eat? Rocks? Clouds? There's nothing else up there.
Making progress...
Yes, these are technically steps. But they're so tall that I'm not sure if they make the climb easier or harder.
I drank enough water that I had to give in and use the restroom at one of the stations. To my surprise, they weren't at all dirty and nasty. In fact, they look like space bathrooms.
Lights and buttons! It took me a couple minutes to figure out whether or not anyone was in there based on the lights and then how to open the door. I've never been in a rest room that required safety measures. Or whatever it is that makes you press the button to open the door to get in.
Apparently they're composting toilets. Neat.
And if you don't press the button on the inside, you can't leave.
Weird.
Onward and upward! Making more progress.
I didn't see this last time. I've seen these in cemeteries, they're sort of like statues of spirit guides for children who have died. People dress them up in red and bring them little gifts sometimes so their child will get special attention from the kami. I'm not sure what it represents in this context.
I was a little jealous of this guy taking a nap, but we had to keep going.
Still a long way to go, but we can see the tori gate at the summit! Thank goodness.
やった！ Yattaaaaaaa! We made it!
We are pretty proud of having done this twice.
We got our sticks branded to commemorate the summit (plus our second doodad to hang off the end, it's probably a good luck charm. It comes with the brand.) and decided as a group that we felt good enough to wander up to the weather station, the highest point on the summit.
There is surprisingly little to see up there, you can't even go inside the building.
There was a sign directing people to an observation platform, I thought that might be cool.
I changed my mind when I saw how sketchy this ramp was and that there was striped do-not-enter tape across the way at the end.
It was cold and raining and we needed to get a move on so we wouldn't be stuck on the mountain after dark.
There were some breaks in the rain between the top and halfway down, but the last two hours were solid rain. The last hour of that was flat out downpour.
Total time last year was (I believe) six hours up and three down. This year was more like five and a half hours up and two and a half hours down.
2km walk back to the car. Of course NOW there are parking spots.
We even made it back to the car before sunset! Go team!
That night, I was tired and Husband was nauseous and unhappy. The next day our muscles were sore, but we recovered pretty quickly. Not so bad.
It's awful, it's terrible, we'll do it again next year.
Right after we landed, we took a taxi to our hotel and asked the driver about places to eat. Without even thinking about it, he said Churrasco.
Bonus: in the same building as our hotel.
Churrasco is a Brazilian barbecue that offers a no-meat option (yay for me!) with a kickass salad bar. Very reasonably priced, too. And the desserts were fancy!
This is called Princess Cake. I'm not sure why.
Right across the street from our hotel and Churrasco is Ban Thai, an excellent and authentic (obviously) Thai restaurant.
They offer food in Mild, Medium, Spicy, and Thai Spicy.
Husband, always searching for food so spicy it will physically punish him (no joke, if it doesn't make him sweat and cry, he's disappointed), ordered Thai Spicy. The waitress was a little skeptical, but she put the order through as Thai Spicy. And so it was.
Three days later he was still suffering what became known as the Thai Gypsy Curse.
We'll probably eat there again on our next trip.
Margarita's is a Mexican restaurant one building away from Churrasco (with a spa between them). We ate there four times. It's also worth noting that they had both vegetarian and vegan options on the menu, which is pretty rare in this hemisphere.
We didn't take advantage of it because we went to dive and not fish, but if you catch some fish, they'll cook it for you.
Small lizards also hang out in the other side of the window, which delights me because I did not grow up with them and seeing one is still something exciting.
Not on the menu.
One other restaurant that everyone kept telling us about was The Beach, a bar literally on the beach.
It's not much for food, but it's a good place to get a beverage and enjoy your friends' company and the sand between your toes. Or the beds on the beach. Kind of an odd concept, but there it is.
Adventures
Every Wednesday there is a street festival called Chamorro Village. There are tourist souvenirs, flower print dresses and Hawaiian shirts, food stalls, stuff like that. We didn't stay long, but it was worth walking through.
Especially for the opportunity to see a horrible alien creat- I mean "coconut crab." This girl had a plastic strip tied to it like a handle. She is a badass.
This girl is immune to the horrors of that gigantic crab. That crab is frickin' scary.
And there was this guy! A bagpiper trying to raise enough money to get to the World Bagpipe Championship. I'm not a bagpiping connoisseur, but he seemed pretty skilled. Good luck to him!
One day we went to the Ocean Jet Club beach resort to check out parasailing, jet skiing, banana boat rides, and to chill on the beach. We didn't do a lot of activities, but we tried out parasailing (surprisingly relaxing) and a banana boat ride (sitting on an inflatable hot dog towed by a jet ski). Not really a thrill ride, but worth trying.
We made some small talk with some Japanese girls using our terrible Japanese and they asked to take our picture with them. That's when we realized we were the only Caucasians there. Everyone else was a local working or a Japanese person visiting the resort.
We stumbled upon a coconut demonstration run by a local who showed us how coconuts are husked, split, and prepared. We tasted the coconut water before he scraped out the meat and cooked it with sugar in a frying pan over a small grill. Not bad, really. Apparently if that mixture is packed properly (traditionally in leaves), it can stay good for a month.
Then he folded fish necklaces out of palm leaves.
We really went to Guam to go scuba diving, and it was great! Phenomenal visibility, water so warm we didn't need wetsuits, and lots of interesting critters. At one place we must have found the spot where the fish are fed, because a school of aptly named butterfly fish surrounded us, very much like butterflies, and all but landed in our hands. Very cool. We also saw sea slugs the length of my arm from shoulder to wrist, some covered in spikes. And a lion fish's butt. And an eel or three.
One day, I'll be comfortable enough with diving and using the equipment to divert some of my attention to operating an underwater camera. Then you guys are going to be in trouble.
I was saying that because I wanted to show you these pictures and then I got distracted. These are from a boat ride out to a dive site, through the bay.
Pretty! Also sunny and warm.
Possibly a WWII-era wreck, otherwise they probably would have moved it.
From a distance, it's easy to forget how huge industrial equipment can be. This thing looks big, yeah, but the thing that puts it in perspective is the white pickup truck to the left.
There are people sitting in front of that pickup, too.
Down the street from our hotel is a neat attraction: the Slingshot.
I don't know who came up with it (some Australian blokes, we're told), but it's brilliant. It slings you waaaaay up in the air, but then you sit there for a while and have a great view of the main street, the beach, and the ocean to the horizon. The other cool thing they do is they have a video camera attached to the ride for the benefit of the people on the ground, then they play the video back for you when you finish your ride. We had our friend videotape one of these. He narrates a little before we blast off at 0:59.
We stay in the air for a really long time and finally get lowered at 2:20, then at 2:45 our friend asks if we soiled ourselves.
The beach during the day:
I see you! You suck at hiding, small crab.
No crabs here, it's just pretty.
Twilight Beach walk:
There's a small aquarium attraction called Underwater World. We didn't really expect much from it and it wasn't in our original plans, but after our first flight out was canceled, we figured we'd go since we had some extra time on our hands. It was surprisingly worth our time.
It's not the giant awesome multi-story adventure that the Osaka Aquarium is, but I thoroughly enjoyed it. The first floor is a tunnel through a giant tank filled with rays, sharks, fish of assorted sizes, and some turtles.
I took some video just inside the entrance, but it might be disorienting. I got distracted by every new fish that entered the viewfinder.
I could have stayed there for an hour. Evidently at night they turn that area into a restaurant, so that's on our To Do list for the next trip.
The theory still holds true: every aquarium has that one giant fish that stares at the people.
This fish followed us around the whole tank. Then he got his gills cleaned by a dartfish.
We couldn't figure out if this was a genuine airplane wreck they transplanted from a coral reef or a replica for the benefit of people that have some knowledge of military equipment.
This turtle looked a little disgruntled, but it stayed still enough for me to take pictures.
Say cheese!
I know this fish's mouth is open and it's showing us its bottom teeth, but it sure looks goofy from this angle.
Derpfish.
Upstairs were more individual tanks with interesting fish. I had no idea that such a thing as "upside down jellyfish" even existed.
Flounders. You'd think Picasso designed 'em.
Lionfish! Or something similar.
Garden eels are semi-creepy wormlike critters that live in a hole in the sand. Every other display I've seen of them, they've been skittish and disappear whenever I walk up. These guys, though, weren't shy at all. In fact, two of them were having a heated argument.
Found you!
One of the anemone tanks was a little unsettling. Something about poisonous, plastic-looking, wavy things all gathered together like that is vaguely alarming.
Do NOT swim in here.
This tank also contained the least friendly anemonefish I've ever seen.
I swear they're scowling. Not cute in the slightest.
Something surprising: a fish that is really unskilled at swimming. I love frogfish because they're hideous and clumsy I bet they have personality. (Edit: It's a stonefish, not a frogfish. My bad!)
They make me giggle.
Outside the aquarium are artful turtles on the wall.
I wasn't going to bother taking pictures of all of them, but they're all worth seeing in person if you happen to be in the area.
Our flights back were hard to catch (that's the tradeoff for flying military space-available, things constantly get canceled, bumped up, or rescheduled without warning) and we spent an extra couple nights in Guam and a night in Okinawa, but it all worked out okay. We'll do this again sometime.
Dawn in Okinawa, on the way to catching a flight home
