The BIG Trip

What do you get when you add two airplanes, two bullet trains, one borrowed car, one rented car, 5 taxis, 4 buses and so many subways I can’t even count them? A fantastic trip around mainland Japan!!

Tom's brother Dave and his wife Adina came to visit us at the end of January and after a few days of enduring uncharacteristically cold weather here in Okinawa we left the kids with some very kind and generous friends and headed for the mainland! While they were here we did the best we could after canceling our plans for snorkeling and cherry blossom viewing. Instead we perused the 100 Yen Store, ate at Co-Co Ichibanya (a great Curry House that Tom had been refusing to try.... turns out he loves it!) Then we headed up north and went to the Ocean Expo Park Aquarium and saw them feed the whale sharks. The next day Dave and Adina went running while Tom took Hayden to his first Pine Wood Derby. He came in second place and had a great time. After lunch it was finally done raining and we dropped the kids with a friend and went to the Forest Adventure Park where we zip lined around the jungle.


It would have been better on a sunny warm day but we still had a great time! That night after putting the kids to bed we headed off for a great round of Karaoke at Big Echo.

After church on Sunday we drove south to Peace Prayer Park where we spent time remembering those who lost their lives in the Battle of Okinawa. It was very humbling to see the magnitude of loss that occurred during that horrible time.
That night Tom treated everyone to some of his nearly famous BBQ’d Bubba Burgers. He’s getting really great on the grill.

Monday was the big day- leaving the kids for 6 days. I was so excited for the trip and so nervous at the same time. I had pages of detailed itinerary, routines and menus and had tried to plan for everything. Thank you to wonderful friends the kids were able to stay here at the house. The first two nights a friend who has no kids and her husband is deployed, came to stay with them. After that an Okinawan friend, a young return missionary we met through church, stayed with the kids. She babysits for us a lot and can drive on base because she works at the day care here. While she was at work the kids spent time with different friends. Hayden loved it, it was like a vacation all week with friends every day and no chores. Danica and Alyssa didn’t love it quite so much, in fact Danica spent a lot of time the first few days crying any time she remembered I was gone. She wasn’t sleeping well so it was just getting worse and I was having a hard time not worrying about her. Fortunately, eventually she caught up on her sleep and started feeling better. In the end, they were fine. They spent Sunday morning in awe that we were home, Alyssa kept saying “No more wake up days!” and looking back and forth between Tom and I at church saying “mommy, daddy, mommy, daddy.” But everything is back to normal now.

Fortunately, I knew the kids were in good hands and I really didn’t have much time to worry them because we were having too much fun! We left Monday morning and flew into Fukuoka. We took a bus from the airport to Sasebo and then a taxi onto the Navy Base there. We stayed at the lodge and had a friend there help us rent a car. That night Dave and Adina took us around their old stomping ground. We went to dinner at Tonchinkan, a yakitori restaurant (like shish kabobs) and it was so good. My favorite meal of the trip. We walked the ginza before heading back for a fantastic game of Phase 10.
Tuesday morning we started off with a run in the brisk cool air around the city. I loved running passed the fruit stands, a woman carrying her baskets dangling on stick over her shoulders, a beautiful temple and the ship yard with HUGE boats being built. Then we bought a dozen donuts and took off in our rental car for Nagasaki. On the way we stopped by Hario, where Dave and Adina used to live and then Saikaibashi, a great park. At the park we couldn’t resist renting a few lawn sleds and taking some trips down this huge plastic grass hill.
It was all fun and games until Dave and Tom took Adina’s advice and tried to go down on their feet... Dave’s hip and elbow will never be the same again.
We couldn’t find a Co-Co’s so we stopped at McDonald’s and Tom and Dave had an Idaho Burger, a burger with a huge hash-brown potato and horseradish on it. Then we walked through the Atomic Bomb Museum and the Peace Park. It was intense seeing all the evidence of the destruction. It was also interesting to see that there was no information anywhere as to what happened prior to the bomb being dropped or the reason for it’s drop. But no matter the reason, the devastation was tragic and truly horrible.

A little history of the photo with all 4 of us. Dave had us wait until the last second before the timer went off on the camera and then told us to act like superheroes. So, That explains our poses. Dave said he froze up. We could not figure out what he was doing, especially since he knew what we were going to act like. We had a good laugh about it.

Driving through the country side to and from Nagasaki was one of my favorite parts of the trip. Out the window you could see rice patties everywhere and the homes were fairly large with beautiful architecture. It’s the part of Japan where I would like to live. We arrived back in Sasebo and went to Co-Co’s for dinner and then played cards again until late.
Wednesday we woke early and took a bus 2 hours back to Fukuoka where we got on the Shinkansen, a bullet train. The train was incredibly fast (and expensive!) but we had a nice ride. We spent our time through that train ride and countless others going through a set of conversation cards and learning more about each other than we probably wanted to know! Someday if you really want I can give you lots of insights into Tom, Dave and Adina... for instance, what are they willing to do for a million dollars? We got off the bullet train rested and ready to go. We caught a bus to a Japanese hotel that Adina had booked for us and got settled in. Our time was short and there was a lot to see so we took a taxi to Fushimi Ihari Shrine, where they have 1000 Torii gates!! It was an amazing sight and a great experience as we learned about the shrine and the Shintu rituals.



From there we took another taxi to the Yoshida Temple to join in the Setsuban Festival, a bean throwing ceremony the day before the beginning of spring. What an experience! We tried lots of new foods and gorged on our new favorite a little pancake stuffed with cream. We saw a huge pile of amulets and tokens from the past year that were being prepped to be burned by the monks. There was a play going on and as we tried to watch the crowd got so thick we got seperated and Adina and I were literally being moved around by the crowd and being pushed in opposite directions. Thank goodness Tom and Dave are so tall we could spot them and eventually found our way back! That night it was back to the RIGHA Royal Hotel but we weren’t ready to settle down. Another taxi ride took to the Gion District where we walked around until we were rewarded with an actual Geisha spotting! She got out of a vehicle and walked quickly down the road into a tea house where she apparently had an appointment! We felt like the paparazzi but could’t resist getting a photo!
Thursday we ate breakfast in the bus station where we enjoyed some pastries. It seemed like there was a pastry shop on every corner that we passed. In fact, as we sat here eating our breakfast there was a japanese guy taking our pictures from every angle. He was kind enough to show us his handy work and also share some of the other pictures he had taken with his cell phone camera that day. Gotta love these people. We never once felt any fear as we walked the streets in these big cities. There is something they are doing right here. We talked with our home teacher on the way home from the airport about how nice it was to be on the subway and never be worried for our safety. People are so kind. Adina made the observation that it was really difficult to find somebody that was overweight on the subway. Even with the pastry shops, they are doing something right .
Then we took the bus to one of the most beautiful places I’ve seen. It’s called the Golden Pavillioin and houses the Kinkaknji Temple, a magnificent buddhist temple plated in gold. It is surrounded by the well named mirror pond and beautiful zen gardens. As we approached an area for worship we suddenly heard drums and horns and a group of monks came and began a ceremony we were able to observe. I have such an appreciation for their dedication and the peaceful life style they portray. We should have stayed longer and walked through the grounds again. But alas, we got on the bus again and headed over to another shrine that was supposed to be having a great Setsuban festival. It wasn’t all we hoped it would be and we spent a lot of time waiting for something to start that turned out to be some sort of archery ceremony. We were still able to learn more about their beliefs and customs and appreciated the opportunity to be there. We were the only American’s there. Adina made an offering to the shrine for a happy marriage so her and Dave are pretty well set. I tried to use the bathroom and found only squat potties and a machine asking 100 yen for toilet paper. Bummers.

For lunch we ate in a really smoky restaurant at the train station while we waited to board another Shinkansen. This bullet train took us to the station in Tokyo where we spent quite a while completely confused about how to find our desired subway. Turns out we needed to go outside and down into in a different station.... I don’t know if we could have figured it out even it had been in English! Fortunately after that Dave took over and flawlessly guided us through dozens of subway rides throughout the city. We checked in at the military hotel, the New Sanno and then headed out to find some food. After much indecision we finally ended up at Plates, an Italian place where we enjoyed a great japanese version of Italian food. Then is was back to the hotel where we played Hearts until way too late.

Friday we ate a delicious breakfast at the hotel and took to the subways again. First stop was the Asakusa where we did a lot of shopping at the souvenir stands and then visited a Senso-ji Temple. At the temple we decided to make an offering and receive a personal fortune. While shaking the canister of bamboo sticks we made wish and said a prayer and then pulled out the stick that would correspond to our fortune. Sadly Adina received THE worse fortune, it actually said that at the top and proceeded to tell her that everything would be bad, her request would not be granted, her patient would not get better, her lost article would not be found, the person she waited for would not come, marriage and employment would be bad, etc... it was a sad moment made worse when my fortune came and said just the opposite. It was THE best fortune and pretty much assured me everything will be great. I’ll let you know when my request comes true. Tom and Dave’s fortunes fell somewhere in between. Tom’s actually said “Half Fortune.”

Adina tried to shake off the bad news while we took another subway and went to Akihabara, the electronic district. We walked around for a while looking at odd electronics and trying to convince Dave not to pay a crazy amount for a bunch of LED lights strung like Christmas lights. After way too long there (sorry Dave) we left and took another subway to the Ginza (shopping area). We walked around for a while and then we turned a corner and I could practically hear some sort of theme music kick in as we saw the Apple Store and Tom’s honing beaker went off. But at this point we were starving so we went in search of somewhere to eat first. Happily we wandered down into some sort of club with a great buffet lunch. The place was very hip (does that make me sound really old and lame?) and we enjoyed a short respite after lunch. Then it was off for more shopping. We gaped at the Apple Store then took another subway and went to Shibuya where we saw so many people it was in sane. People were moving around like water flowing across the crosswalks! I had the luxury of shopping at H&M and bought a stellar jacket. Then we walked past a Big Echo and had to jump in for a quick hour of karaoke. For future reference, karaoke in Tokyo is very expensive.


But now we were exhausted and after taking a few subways back home we decided to try to eat at the New Sanno and enjoyed a late night dinner before another game of cards.

Saturday was bitter sweet, our last day. I was excited to go home to my kids but sad to leave such great company and the bliss of vacation. I hadn’t cooked or cleaned or card for a child in an entire week! We ate the hotel again, our new favorite place and then set off to see the Tokyo temple. It was crazy to think about how small it is in a city with so many people. Then it was back to the hotel to pack up and say good-bye. We had booked a bus to the airport and luckily I realized just before it was too late that Tom and I were actually flying out of a different airport! So we parted ways and they left on their chartered bus, an airport limousine, and we walked down the street to wait for a city bus to take us back to the train station where we caught a private train to the airport (thank you to the concierge for telling us how to get there!)

Our flight home was uneventful and quiet, just 3 hours. As we walked past the spot in the airport where we had sat waiting for our flight at the beginning of the week Tom commented on how that sight made him feel nostalgic already. He was ready for the trip to start all over again (minus the part where he dropped egg salad sandwich on his jacket.) It was funny to look over at the small store where we bought lunch while waiting for our flight out and seeing it as “foreign” again. I was back to my regular life where I didn’t eat out for every meal and most of my food comes from the American commissary. The girls were asleep when we got home but I got a big hug from Hayden. Sunday morning the girls greeted me with big hugs and snuggles and we enjoyed the day together.

Now that I’m home and everything is going well I just can’t wait for the next adventure to begin!
P.S. You can't travel with two dentists without noticing every dental clinic you pass... this one really caught our eye!