Tokyo Treasure Hunt!

We've lived in Tokyo for five years, and we're moving soon. We planned a farewell party together for a Saturday night, but I wanted to surprise him with a treasure hunt before that as an early birthday present. The planning took months, the schedule coordination took weeks, and more than 20 people took time out of their day to be a part of this.

We have some pretty great friends.

(It's a slideshow, click Next at the bottom to scroll through the images or Read More to see the whole album on Imgur.)

I sent my husband on a treasure hunt in Tokyo.

Sawtooth Mountain

Nokogiri-yama, or Sawtooth Mountain, is across the bay from Tokyo in Chiba. You can't get there by accident, it takes multiple train transfers, a ferry, and a ropeway.

There was nothing interesting enough on the train to take pictures of, but seeing this car in the ferry parking lot just about made the entire trip worth it.

That, ladies and gentlemen, is how you advertise with a car.

It was a poorly marked 10-minute walk from the ferry to the ropeway station, but all these people apparently found it just fine.

I would have taken some pictures in the cable car, but I was smashed in the middle and I'm trying to cut back on photos of the backs of peoples' heads.

The observatory, though, was quite spacious.

Note the crazy hairpin turn in the road at the bottom right.

We got a map and plotted a strategy. Husband is smart, so we went down most of the stairs instead of up.

So many stairs. The Sawtooth Mountain is hereby renamed the Kingdom of Stairs.

This is just from the observatory to the Hyaku-shaku Kannon.

The Hyakushaku Kannon is a relief carving of the Buddhist Goddess of Mercy and a memorial to those who died in WWII.

Next stop: the cliff above, the Ruriko Observatory.

Several dozen stairs later, we arrived!

This park is thoughtful and provides benches.

But you know what? I don't need to take a photo from that specific bit of rock badly enough to wait in this queue.

Moving on!

The back of the tourist map says all the stone figures were one big art project, created by an artist devoting his life and those of his 27 apprentices to carving.

Also, hilariously, it states this:

"There is another famous collection of 800 Arhats at Dazhong Temple in Huaian, China, and [is] often referred [to] as being incomparable, yet [ours] surpasses it and is renowned even overseas as the world's holiest ground."

You learn something new every day, I guess.

Many statues, the map says, were destroyed by an anti-Buddhist movement in the Meiji era, and restoration efforts only started recently.

This video ends a bit abruptly. I've compressed more than 22 minutes of video into less than 8, and I figured I had made my point (Kingdom of Stairs).

Not documented is this part:

That part of the walk was dull in comparison, but the Daibutsu of Nihon-ji (giant Buddha) is impressive. The pedestal underneath the lotus blossom alone is 2.7 meters (almost 9 ft) tall. The full height is 31 meters (just over 100 ft).

The view isn't bad, either.

Having seen the daibutsu, it was time to work our way out. Rather than go back up all those stairs, we opted for what seemed like the sensible route to a train station, so we could take the train back to the ferry:

We walked along a stone walkway around a lovely pond

The little red building is a gate used at shrines and temples, complete with some rough-looking god statues (to scare evil spirits away).

Evil spirits, BE AFRAID!

As it turns out, that bit on the map from the grounds gate to the train station? Not to scale. Not even a little. It looks like a quick 5-10 minute walk, but it was closer to 30, through neighborhoods and farmland.

We're going the right way, aren't we?

Someone else is walking this way, we must be on track!

We found the station! (Not pictured) And we managed to get on the train in the right direction and got back to the ferry station later than we expected, but otherwise without incident.

From the ferry parking lot, if I zoom in, I can see the ghost of Mt. Fuji through the late afternoon haze.

Adventure complete!

A Day in Roppongi

Once in a while, we go out for a day. In this case, we thought we might go to Roppongi and see the Godzilla sculpture and the new movie. You know, get all our kaiju out of the way at once.

It's been something of a photo attraction.

The detail is phenomenal.

We could get right up to it, and poking a little at the tail we realized it's all foam. Like, the kind that comes in a spray can that expands and then dries. I wonder two things: one, what the heck will they do with it when they take it down? And two, how do I get to be on a team that sculpts and paints things like this?

Walking through the mall to get to the theater, these were on display to showcase an artist's work (and promote a show? I couldn't read the signs).

We also passed this steakhouse. It is the Very Steak, the Big Cut of Steak.

It also has the misfortune to be right next to an Outback Steakhouse.

The Godzilla movie was fun! It was surreal to see an American version of a Japanese movie franchise while being Americans in Tokyo, but I enjoyed it.

And we went back to visit again after the movie (after dark), because we heard there was a light show.

We had to wait about 20 minutes for the next one, but luckily there was a mojito booth nearby.

There's no reason for this video to be 2 minutes long, but I'm both too lazy to crop it down and too amused by the family running away from the statue in the first ten seconds to bother editing it.

Feel free to skip around, the dramatic parts are at 1:15 and 2:00.

Bonus train advertisement for no reason:

You're welcome.

My Family Rides Dinosaurs

While doing a TV extra shoot in a park waaaaaay out in the country in Japan, I found a purple dinosaur.

Somehow my dad found an almost identical one while on a kayaking trip in upstate NY.

My sister made it her mission to find another one to complete the set of four.

I had to photoshop a new family photo. I just had to.

I am unreasonably happy with this.

Japanese Bank Account With SOFA Status

People in Japan under SOFA status:

It is possible for you to open a Japanese bank account, even if you don't have a Japanese spouse. But only if you are willing to jump through several hoops and demonstrate the patience of a saint.

If possible, bring a translator, a utility bill, your passport, your military ID, and a US driver's license. The process may be streamlined if you can also bring a letter from a superior officer stating on official stationary that you belong to your APO address. (Note: I didn't have one, so I don't know for sure that it would have helped.)

If you live on base, this may be more or less a straightforward process. We live off base, so we have a Japanese address that receives our bills, an APO address for US mail, and an address in the US where we are technically residents.

Here's my headache-inducing experience, so you can learn from it. My friends tell me that Shinsei has pretty crappy service, but foreigners don't have so much trouble opening an account. Circumstances brought me to a different bank, so I can't comment on that one with authority.

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Because I hate making posts without pictures, for all intents and purposes, this is me:

We will be marking the progress of my emotions.

I am signed up with several talent agencies, one of which insisted on my opening a Japanese bank account to be paid by direct deposit. Problem 1: I'm here under SOFA status, so I don't have a foreign residency card or a work visa. Customer service people have no idea how to deal with that. Problem 2: my Japanese is terrible and I can't explain anything. I'd made a couple attempts, but got turned away pretty quickly because of one or both of these problems.

So my agent said he'd go with me to help the process along. We met at the Shibuya branch of the bank where the agency has its accounts. A month prior, my local branch was one of the banks that refused me. We were there for an hour and a half. It turned out that my Japanese address can't be used because even though we can prove we live there, we're not residents. We don't live at our APO, and a US credit card statement or statement from a US bank aren't enough, for no reason I can fathom.

We were eventually told that I couldn't open an account at that branch because they couldn't process accounts with military IDs, but the branch near Yokosuka Naval Base would be able to. They'd also have English-speaking representatives. A call was made to the Yokosuka branch to confirm. So I went the next day, the last working day of the year.

Yokosuka isn't far on the map, but from where I live, it's about a 2-hour trip each way. The agent didn't go with me, but he was available by phone if I needed him. Which I did, almost immediately. The person that sat across the table from me spoke a little English, and said I should have gone to my local branch to open an account. I said I had, but they had refused me. She asked why, I reminded her that I don't speak enough Japanese to understand a word they had said beyond "can't." She asked a couple more questions, but between multiple days, languages, and branch locations, something was about to get lost in the translation, so I called the agent and they talked for several minutes.

After a couple hours in the waiting area and a few angry phone calls from the agent to both of the bank branches (he updated me as things moved along or stalled out), I spoke with an English-speaking representative from the Shibuya branch on the phone. She said they never told me to go to Yokosuka, that I shouldn't have gone to Yokosuka, that I needed to open an account in Shibuya because it was closer to my address.

This was 20 minutes before the doors to the bank closed for the year.

Remember how I mentioned needing the patience of a saint?

She asked me if I'd like to go back to the Shibuya branch next year to try again. Insisting that I was specifically instructed to make this very inconvenient trip was getting me nowhere, so we moved on to the list of required documents.

I had a military ID and passport to prove my identity and two different bills to prove we lived at our Japanese address, but I don't know what would have been sufficient to prove that our names were connected to an APO address. She (and several other people over the last two days) didn't seem to know either. Apparently my (US) credit card and (US) bank statement weren't acceptable, and neither was our mobile phone bill (mailed from a Japanese company, in Japanese, to our APO). But they might accept some sort of letter from my husband's boss on official stationary stating our names and our APO address.

That sounded way too easy for them to refuse it later. So I asked for that list in writing.

"Can that list be emailed to me?"
"No, we're not allowed to do that."
"Can it be emailed to the agency? They are already clients."
"We're not allowed to do that, either."
"Can it be physically mailed to the agency?"
"Why? Don't you trust me?"

&$(@*#!...
No, madam, I do not.

I managed to not say anything rude, but my reply had a more complicated sentence structure than she could follow and was probably much too fast. I took a breath and rephrased, slowly, by saying I would feel better if I had a written list.

It's a little bit of a rage-filled blur, but somewhere around here I mentioned that I had a US driver's license.

Finally, she said that if I had a passport, a US driver's license, and utility bills, she could have the Yokosuka branch make an account with the Shibuya branch on my behalf.

Yes, I'd like to do that. Please! Thank you, merciful spirits of commerce.

It makes me nervous to sign contracts I can't read. Especially when some of the blanks need to be filled in kanji that I can't read, which has been helpfully written on a sticky note for me to copy. I asked several times to confirm what I was writing. If I didn't misunderstand, it was just a note stating that my primary correspondence address was my Japanese address, not my US one. That is what I wanted.

Eventually a little money changed hands and I received a bank book.

The ATM card will be mailed to me in two weeks, and I hope I'm home to sign for it. She said if I miss it twice, they destroy the card. Picking it up at the branch is not an option.

Oh good, there might be a sequel to this post.

EDIT: I was home when it arrived. I did a little dance for joy.

Monkeys, Fire, and Sightseeing in Ubud

Part 1: What's Bali like?
Part 2: Food and Sleep

Note: there are some bad words in one or two of the videos, and one photo might not be appropriate for young children that like to ask uncomfortable questions.

We hired a cab to do some sightseeing.

One of the places we went is Tegallalang, as much known for its stretch of shops as the rice paddies carved into the hillside. We made the mistake of not actually seeing any shops before we went back to the car to make contact with the driver (who had rather suddenly disappeared), and we were whisked away to another sightseeing spot. Too bad.

We also didn't expect to be charged a parking fee on the way in, but it was only a couple dollars, and hopefully goes toward a good cause.

Another place our driver brought us is a temple known as the Water Palace. Beautiful grounds, as maintained and landscaped as any temples I've seen in Japan.

I felt bad for the handful of animals caged on the grounds (especially the cockatoo), but the plants and architecture were beautiful.

I'm constantly impressed with the colors and intricate detail.

For lunch, we were brought to a restaurant that apparently all the tourists are brought to. Someone flashed our driver a thumbs up as we pulled into the parking lot, I'm still not sure how to interpret that.

This is, by far, the busiest place we'd seen all day. ALL foreigners.

We mentioned that we'd like to see a place to get wood carvings, so the driver said he knew just the place and brought us to RAI Wood Carving, where he clearly knew someone. It was kind of in the middle of nowhere, possibly on an unmarked road.

In theory, all the carving was done on site, but it's a pretty good guess that this guy wasn't spending his afternoon carving until we pulled up. A very talkative little man gave us a grand tour (and a really hard sales pitch). He started with the woodcarver, who may be an artist of considerable skill, but it's a pretty safe guess that he wasn't hard at work until our car crunched gravel in the lot out front. (Tourists! Places, everyone, it's showtime!)

Over-the-top presentation and unsolicited trivia aside, there were several enormous showrooms with beautiful carvings made of several different types of wood. Some were hand-sized, some were taller than I am. There were statues, masks, doors, and elaborately carved furniture.

It's a store, but very much like a museum, too.

Again, the detail is amazing. This statue is life-sized.

This is a door! Lots of carving for something you use to get out of the place you currently are.

I was aghast at how much they were asking for a small statue, even though I knew that the price was inflated. We ended up offering what we were afraid was an insultingly low price (compared to the sticker on the bottom), and we felt pretty awful. But they accepted, then just about jumped for joy.

We got a better-than-internet-store rate, but we could have probably started at half of what we offered and they still would have been pleased. I hate haggling.

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Monkey Forest is a tourist destination and local landmark. For a small admission fee, you can walk around the park where monkeys roam free, doing as they please. Which can include stealing your valuables if you don't keep an eye on them, or attacking you for food if you try to hide some in your pockets.

I don't trust monkeys to begin with, but they mostly seemed not to care that people were around, unless you threatened his preciousssss.

In a less-traveled part of the park was a temple setting straight out of Indiana Jones. The temple building itself was closed except for ceremonies, but the surrounding area was covered with statues and stone and creeping vines.

No monkeys here, but it was a pretty walk.

Near a different, larger temple on the grounds, there were even more statues. Statues upon statues, even!

I'm pretty sure this is a Balinese Luck Dragon.

A statue of a monkey hiding from the rain on top of a statue of a snake/luck dragon.

Some are more surprising than others.

The end of the snake is the torso of a two-headed something-or-other.
I'm sure it's a well-known story, I just don't know it.

Art imitating life, or life imitating art?

I have lunch with you, but it's like talking to a rock.

Boars and tigers also make appearances at the Monkey Forest temple.
A stylized boar and tiger are often part of ceremonies as protective spirits.

Like I said, the monkeys were pretty chill around people.

Back on foot in downtown Ubud, we strolled past a lot of small shops like this. Most stores sold linen clothing, silk scarves and dresses, art, and/or silver jewelry. It's an odd mix of tourist-fancy and what you might expect to see in a developing nation.

In the posh part of Ubud, as modern as any typical beach town (where we saw no less than four Polo stores), a street fair was happening. My snack of choice: roasted corn on the cob, smeared with some sort of mildly spicy paste.

More or less like a street fair anywhere in the world. Obvious knockoff cartoon characters included.

We got there just as a dance performance was starting. We said to ourselves, "Hey, a chance to see some traditional Balinese dance. Cool!" And indeed, the first minutes seemed to be a tribute to one of the traditional stories, complete with Monkey King costume.

Then it went in an artistic direction I can only describe as "traditional Balinese dubstep." I was particularly surprised with the language in the English-language soundtrack. (NSFW unless muted.)



Our other experience with Balinese dance was a Kecak Fire Dance at a palace. When we saw "Fire Dance," we expected something fairly dynamic, waving torches about and the like. Maybe something akin to belly dancing.

What we saw instead was a Greek-style chorus providing the soundtrack to the interpretive dance retelling of a famous story. It was a cultural experience, for sure, but it wasn't quite as lively as I thought it might be.



Following the first piece was something described as a "trance dance." I envisioned something fluid and soothing.

I definitely didn't read the description closely enough. The premise of this piece was a man who is lulled into a trance while riding a horse, and becomes a menace to himself and others until wrestled (after 20 minutes) off his horse and to the ground. Or something like that. At any rate, you can guess the moment that made sure everyone in the audience was awake.



The first time he kicks the glowing coals at the audience, you can hear several beer bottles being knocked over in surprise.

On our last night, we walked around until dark and finally saw a great sunset. I wish we'd seen more of them!