October - India

India... Where to start. This was a business trip, which kept me segregated I would say from quite a bit of what India has to offer, but luckily I was able to set aside some time; which made for an excellent, productive, and educational trip.

I flew out about 8 hours after returning from the Japan Grand Prix in Suzuka. The travel on the trip was excellent, no complaints there, business class, good service, good food, etc. My outbound flight was Tokyo to Hong Kong to Bangkok, then finally to Delhi which made for a long ride, but no problem there - the longer time in that 180 lay-flat seat with no chance for phone calls or interruptions - the better.

The arrival into Delhi was interesting; with the commonwealth games in full swing (my primary purpose for being there) security was at a maximum. Nothing like getting your documents checked at immigration with more guys with automatic weapons then actual foreign passport holders at the immigration counter. The travel from the airport to the hotel was another experience, probably best kept out of the blog, but just to say BOA does it right and safe - that's for sure.

The hotel, the Trident, wow. If there is such a class of hotel as a 5-star fortified bunker; these folks would get top honors. The hotel is only two floors, spread on a 6 acre compound with an earthen mound around the entire perimeter of the hotel. There is a security check point for vehicles upon entry into the gate, and then an outer courtyard where all drop-offs and pick-ups occur - no vehicles past that point. The friendly guards/hotel staff immediately take your luggage from there and scan it while you yourself are scanned. Once you and your belongings are found to be squeaky clean, you enter the inner courtyard by way of a passage way through the berm; which is securely and strategically not wide enough for a motor vehicle. Once in the inner courtyard, on the way to the main entrance, you're greeted by a breathtaking reflective pool which is covered with a blue tile mosaic; producing the most astonishing deep blue mesmerizing color. This process repeats itself each day as you are picked up and dropped off from the hotel by the driver - no driving yourself there. There is really too much to say about the hotel; I could go on forever. Service - A+, Room - A+, Facility - A+, Security - A+++. Check out the photos, check out their web site - stay there if you ever go to Delhi or Gurgaon. One additional item I'll mention is the breathtaking waterscapes. Directly out your room window you are presented with a two tier reflective pool/moat which is illuminated by flame during the night that appears to magically hover above the water - quite literally awesome.

Most of the trip was spent working. I met my outstanding colleague, Abhinesh. We got a lot done, and I was extremely lucky to have the opportunity to have met such an outstanding work associate on our team. I worked the most of the time out of Gurgaon. Gurgaon is incredible. You hear a lot of negatively about India, a bit chaotic, disorganized, etc.; a great example - they took a lot of flack for the commonwealth games preparation. I think critics need to take a step back and understand really what is happening there; especially in Gurgaon. It's a city that has raised out of farm fields in a decade. Western companies have literally built temples to capitalism (these aren't just buildings, each one is architected with jaw dropping aesthetics) that extend for miles in every direction. Every major western firm is there, and Gurgaon is doing everything (quite well I'd say) to keep up with the demand. I was thoroughly impressed and left with a respect for India's approach to capitalize on the opportunity at hand, focusing on the most critical elements first, and understanding that building a city virtually over night is going to result in some snags and some items of lower priority (i.e. ideal streets) having to wait a bit. Watching this country continue to grow, define it's middle class, and continue to meet market demands I think is going to be a thing of excitement for at least the next 10 years.

The food. Sadly, I worked my rear off, enjoyed my sleep, and didn't get to eat out a great deal. I did have a few excellent meals though - of exactly what I wanted - CURRY! Obviously, it was amazing. Abhinesh picked some great spots, I left taste buds satisfied, and digestive system 100% in order. I must say, if you are a non-veggie especially, Americans need to introduce more mutton in our diets; dear lord that makes for some great meat.

The last day, Friday, was excellent. This day the driver and a protective services agent accompanied me to the Delhi office. I did a couple hours of work there, then Abhinesh and I spent the rest of the day riding around Delhi, visiting breathtaking historic and government sites, and taking in some of the local scene. India has much to offer in terms of ancient culture - with many structures from 1000-1200 AD still  intact and easily accessible. It's nothing less than astonishing to take these sites in and understand the advancements that the East had made in terms of construction, engineering, etc. ahead of the west - smart cookies; that's for sure. We also had time to stop off at a local market where I was able to get some nice local hand crafted souvenirs and gifts. Abhinesh, with his superior bargaining skills, I'm pretty sure got me at least a 50% discount on every item with the best being 20 inr for an originally priced 150 inr item - AWESOME; way to go Abhinesh.

From October - India

My trip ended with saying goodbye to Abhinesh at his train station, then heading on to the new international terminal at Delhi airport. I was able to find some nice chocolate omiyage for the folks back in Tokyo and picked up the new Tony Blair book as I had just watched the excellent Special Relationship movie on the flight out. The flight back was on JAL. JAL I love you, I really love you - please teach U.S. airlines how things are supposed to be done. This flight was a bit quicker, being a direct into Tokyo. I selected the Japanese dinner over the Western, fully embracing my enthusiasm to head back to home, sweet home. I woke up around 6 AM, an hour before landing, to a sunrise at 11k meters. Looking out my window on the left side I was welcomed home by the towering Fuji-san above the clouds (you can barely see it in a couple of the photos - blasted IPhone camera). I was the first to spot it, and let the flight attendant know who announced it over the system. That was kind of fun/humorous; the gaijin being the first to spot Fuji-san; can't say I wasn't a bit proud of myself there.

From October - India

The site was breathtaking.  There is something special about that mountain that chokes you up, and at least for me symbolizes the larger indescribable grip this country gets on your heart; which makes leaving one day down right painful to consider. It was my first trip away from Japan since being here, my first chance to use my gaijin card at immigration (which was slightly a proud moment for me).

Being my first trip away, it was also obviously my first return; of which I can honestly say it was a return home. I really like it here. I know it is temporary, and for the much foreseeable future will stay that way, but that is something I do try to consistently block out of my mind and for the time being simply continue to enjoy this amazing adventure.

October - Suzuka

(Note: there are some excellent video clips of the F1 race in the slideshow, click the photos and find them in the Picasa album - amazing!)

Well it has been awhile since I've written. Thought awhile why that was. Did I lose interest, did I get busy (-ier), what was it? While busier is probably true, I don't think that was it - I think it was just that Japan became normal life. At first every turn, every day was something new, something outside the norm. Now, unique people, unique fashion, constant confusion and half-understandings is just standard protocol. Anyway, since the last time I wrote I hit the half way mark of my stay here. That is something that weighs heavy on you; the realization that you're on the bottom half of the tank, that the time on this blessing is winding down. I try to push that thought aside and ensure I do something every day so when I look back I won't feel I've wasted time.

This past week was pretty action packed. Last weekend was the Formula 1 Japan Grand Prix in Suzuka and less than 8 hours after returning to Tokyo from the race I had to be on a plane to Delhi, India.

Anyone who knows me well, knows I love Formula 1; after all it is the pinnacle of speed, power, and engineering in racing form. As we don't have Formula 1 in the U.S. (I'll keep my economic conspiracy theories as to why that is out of this post), soon as I confirmed in early 2010 I'd be headed to Japan literally the first thing I did was buy two excellent tickets to the Suzuka Grand Prix. Well finally, the weekend of October 8 had arrived, and it was racing time. In standard form, Sae and I worked most of the early morning hours, packed in about 20 minutes, and darted out the door with fury as to not miss the Shinkansen out of Tokyo. We opted for a cab to Tokyo station this time as we cut it a bit too close to take the local train. We made it on the bullet train, and were on our way to Nagoya. From Nagoya we had to get on a local train to head towards Suzuka. We were SO LUCKY this trip, as Sae's friends were kind enough to host us all WEEKEND in their fabulous condo just outside of Suzuka. This allowed us to balance racing with great friend time, and not to mention save us a ton on lodging as the hotel rates are insane when F1 comes to town.

I had purchased the three day pass with practice on Friday, qualifying on Saturday, and the main race on Sunday. Friday was excellent, after meeting up with Kazumi (Sae's friend) and visiting for awhile we headed to the track to catch the second practice session. I got a lot of great shots, especially because on practice day you're allowed to go in any seating area, not just your ticketed area. Sae and I walked the track, saw the cars from many angles, and were quite pleased when we decided our tickets offered us some of the best seats in the house (for normal folks, outside the $6k VIP seats obviously). Like all racing events food and merchandise vendors were plentiful, so we enjoyed some unhealthy track food which is a bit different here (noodle dishes, octopus balls, etc.). I did give a go at one of the more unhealthy items I've seen in Japan to date; which was an odd beef, egg, bacon burger contraption - ended up being not at all worth the calorie count. After practice, we did a bit of shopping, picked up an excellent Red Bull F1 hat, Sae got a Ferrari hat, and we picked up some ponchos as we heard reports of declining weather. Leaving the track on Friday we had misjudged the travel time due to the crowd. This caused us to miss our dinner reservation with Nito-kun and Kazumi, but we recovered with a late night dinner at a Japanese tapas place.

From October - Suzuka

Saturday... oh Saturday... Sae and I got up and headed to the track right on time. While on the way the rains started and never stopped. We got off the bus, ponchos on, hats on to keep the pounding rain off our faces. We made our way to the track and our seats. As we sat down we saw the pace car pulling in after doing a safety check, followed quickly by the announcers broadcast of a 30 minute delay for qualifying start time. 30 minutes turned into 60, turned into 90. Finally the writing was on the wall, no qualifying was happening today. Sae and I committed to this fact about 10 minutes prior to the official announcement, allowing us to leave the track ahead of most, and probably shaving at least 90 minutes off our travel time. We made it home, shoes water logged, toes pruned, and generally just soggy to the bone. We dried off, and by this time, although not seeing a single car make a lap, it was already 5 PM! So we changed and headed out for a fun dinner at a local japanese bar/eatery. It was filled with locals mostly it seemed, great little place. There was a Yakuza guy there with his pose, and his general presence and arrogance I noticed immediately. I attend to attract confrontation with such folks, so I just minded my business and enjoyed my friends. It turned out to be a great evening with great friends. We drank a ton of Sho-chu (thanks to Kazumi's reserved bottle at the place!) and laughed the hours away. After returning home we stayed up and watched "This is It" of Michael Jackson. Wow what an excellent piece, and a view into a side of MJ and the world that envelopes him I had never seen.

SUNDAY, SUNDAY, SUNDAY!

From October - Suzuka

Finally, the day had arrived, last nights weather cleared earlier than expected and the sky was a bright blue with a few whispy pleasant clouds. One thing I like about Formula 1, the length of the race. It's not like Daytona which takes 5 hours, or Indy 500 which is a day long investment. Formula 1 is full bore, pedal to the metal, packed into a nice 70-80 minute package normally. We arrived at the track, got our seats, and were ready to get the party started. The race was excellent, as expected Vetal and Weber started 1,2 and ended 1,2 with little challenge for the Red Bull team from the rest of the field. The most action happened a few positions back from Kobyashi; which was excellent as he is obviously the local favorite. i got a lot of great photos and decent video segments - definitely something I won't forget for a long, long time. I am so pleased I went and got the seats I did. It was one of those things, like most professional sports events for me, that you absolutely must do once, and when you're done you are so pleased you did it, but know that there is no better way to view the event than in your home, way too much food on the coffee table, 60+" screen, and surround sound. We left the track immediately after the race; after all we needed to get back, have dinner with Nito-kun and Kazumi; then on the Shinkansen back to Tokyo as I had to head to Delhi in the early AM.



In summary, the trip was excellent, I am so pleased we got to go, and yet again amazed by the wonderful friends my wife has; all over the world. A HUGE, TREMENDOUS thank you to Nito-kun and Kazumi for allowing us to stay at their place, and dedicating so much of their valuable time to visiting with us that weekend.

Mt.Fuji

I remember that Matthew's barber, Mr.Sakamoto, talked about climbing Mt.Fuji every 2 years with his friends on the very beginning of August. That gave Matthew an idea to climb Mt.Fuji before the 2010 hiking season is over. I thought he completely forgot about it, but.....

On 8/27, he came back home at 7pm and said "I wanna climb Mt.Fuji tomorrow". "Ah....excuse me??"

I made as many calls as possible until 8 pm to make bus seat reservations to go to Mt.Fuji 5th station where is the starting point for hikers, but no dice...... I thought he would give up. But Matthew said that we could take trains and taxi to the 5th station. OK the plan is still on!

As usual, I worked from midnight to 9 am, Saturday, then, we wen to Shinjuku to buy hiking supplies and hiking shoes. To make sure how crazy this idea was, I asked the guy who helped us find our hiking shoes, "We go to Mt.Fuji tonight in these shoes. What do you think about that?". He simply said...."D, D, Dangerous!!!"

We came back to our place and started packing. My mom emailed me to tell me that we were crazy. Thanks mom. But no one could stop Matthew.

I thought this would be the last picture of me smiling.

After 2 hour train ride, we came to Lake Kawaguchi station at 7pm. From this station, we could find local buses to take us to the 5th station. Actually I saw a couple who carried a baby in their backpack and it made me realize that this hiking won't be that hard. I knew I would have millions of blisters because of these new shoes, but it would be doable.

Arriving at the 5th station, we saw hundreds of ppl. Seriously hundreds of them. This also calmed me down more. "We would never get lost", "Someone would help Matthew find and pull me if I drop off of trails" etc. Get the flashlights in hands, put more clothes, tie our shoes and we were ready to go.

Mt.Fuji is Japan's highest mountain (3,776m/12,388ft) and is an active volcano. 300,000 ppl climb Mt.Fuji every year and 30-40% of hikers are foreigners (This is a very surprising number).  It is the highest mountain in my country and the Japanese ppl are precautious so that my mom, my sister, my friends, they all scared me before climbing. But Matthew was telling me that, in the US, ppl in Colorado live and do marathon at higher elevation. So I should not have worried about anything. Now, I can say he was absolutely right. (Matthew, I said/announced "you are right" to the public!)

Anyway, back to the Mt.Fuji introduction.....Ehem, the Japanese ppl love to see the sunrise from the summit. They even say that there is no sense in climbing Mt.Fuji without seeing the sunrise. Which is why, everyone starts climbing after 8pm  or even later from the 5th station (2,306m) to the summit at the sunrising time.

The hike started very easily. It was just like a recreational hiking course at the Starved Rock State Park in IL. But it got steeper and steeper and we needed to use both hands to pull up ourselves. No way to enjoy the view that spreads beautiflly below us. Well, there was no way to see actually because it was a night-hike!

When we came between the 8th and the 9th station, we decided to take a nap at the mountain hut. Reason No.1 --- We didn's sleep at all. Reason No.2 --- the traffic. Traffic? Yes, traffic! It was the last day of the official season and we literally stood at one place to move forward for 10 mins. Everyone takes a break around mountain huts so that you need to wait to get back on the trail  for 10 mins.

$60 per person at the hut. (By the way, a cup noodle was $7 up there.) Bye bye my money....I love you so much, please come back again!

The guy at the hut said we could sleep until 8 am (7 hour sleep, yay!), so I put myself in a sleeping bag and was moving around to find the most confortable position. When I was ready to say good-night to Matthew, he was already in his dream.

And after 3 hours, the hut guy started yelling so loud to let us know that the sunrise would be set in 10 mins. That was an amazing moment. The Japanese ppl woke up like soldiers for a battle. Very quickly and seriously. You can feel that serious/intense air around you. Matthew asked me what the guy said. "The sunrise in 10 mins. I dont care, I wanna sleep", said I. But Matthew said,  "Wake up, Sae. You need to see it."

When I came out of the hut, among the Japanese having their own cellphones in hands to take a picture of the sunrise,  I saw Matthew holding his Nikon camera toward the sunrise. It was .................. funny! What was I doing at that moment? I asked Matthew to give me 200 yen. I knew that there was no one in the bathroom. "I don't need to stand in a line!"

Matthew was happy. He took great pictures. And I was happy too. The bathroom was all mine.

After the great view of the sunrise, we started climbing up again. In the dark night, we would never know but the mountain top was covered with red cinders and rocks and its steep surface had no trees or plants. Mr.Rock-Collector secretly put a few of rocks in his pocket when we took breaks, even though it was illegal.

 On that day, it was a gorgeous day and we could see the great panorama view without any clouds. On the previous night, we saw some fireworks beneath us but it was so weird because they all looked like firing on the ground. But we knew it because we were so high! We also heard some explosion sound from somewhere at the top. We couldn't figure out what that was for a while but knew that it was thunder from the clouds beneath us. It was so cool.

Yes, you see the American flag. Mt.Fuji is owned by the US :-P

When we came to the 9th station, we decided to go down. We worried about Matthew's kee. We didn't make it to the summit, but it was a great accomplishment for us.  

Now, I am wondering....what else does Matthew want to accomplish in Japan before going back to the US??

Mount Fuji: Pre-Climb

Well, Sae and I decided tonight (Friday) that we're going to climb Mount Fuji as it is the last weekend of the On Season to climb. After August it is below 0 degrees Celcius at the summit, and being two Florida folks - that doesn't sound good at all.

So... that leaves us about 24 hours to get ready and get to the base (Station 5) so we can start the climb. However, before that we have to work, go buy supplies, take three train lines and a bus or taxi up to Station 5. This should get interesting...

More to come...

July 18 - Quick Bike Around Roppongi

Sae and I took a quick bike trip this day around Roppongi. We actually hadn't been there yet as we heard it was extremely westernized with TGIF, Hard Rock, Outback, etc... not exactly why I'm here. Actually, it was a pretty cool place, near Roppongi Hills, a business and residential complex, it was ore of the high life with prada and gucci and D&G shops. We weren't there long as we couldn't really find a decent spot to chain up our bikes and go for a quick walk around. We did see more than a few nice cars while we were there so I did take a couple shots of those.

After getting back I finally hit the timing right with my camera still out. On a regular basis there is a helicopter that lands at the other Mori Building near our place and drops people off. This time I captured a few shots of it.

Anyways... back to reality. :-)

July 17 Weekend - Vacation: Hida-Takayama, Japanese Alps

So, Sae and I took Thursday and Friday off last week, then also I had Monday off due to a holiday in Japan so we had about 4 1/2 days of action. This one will be a pretty lengthy post... our time was crammed with activities and new experiences.

Thursday - July 15
We started our adventure at 6:30 AM (this is after a few hours of phone calls with the States, and Sae working from 10 PM till 6 AM of course). We left Akasaka and headed to Tokyo station to pick up the Shinkansen bullet train to Nagoya, about a 1.75 hour ride. I had my new GPS with me so I was able to clock the train, we were maintaining about 250-260 km/h the whole way - pretty cool. At Nagoya we had about 10-15 minutes to meet up with Sae's family who came from Osaka on a separate Shinkansen and get to our next train that would take us North to the Japanese Alps area on the central/western portion of Japan. The train ride was great! It was on the Takayama View line up to Hida. The train was comfortable, with very large windows. Japanese trains also have this great feature of spinning any bench around 180 degrees so people can sit together easier. So, although the ride was a solid 3+ hours up to the mountains, we had a great time together; especially with our 8 month old nephew, Huma. The ride was especially long because of all the rain that area of Japan has received recently and the trains were required to progress very slowly through some areas.

Upon arriving at Hida station we stretched our legs a bit, then went to the rental agency and picked up our rental vehicle. We had another 1.5 hour drive up and down 12% grade hills at breakneck speeds (I'll leave that topic right there, trust me, there is a story). One very cool portion of the ride was all the tunnels through the mountains. One tunnel was actually 11 km long... it was incredible, never-ending.(Sae: Tokushige kids have this game all the time. "Hold your breath in tunnels". Of course, my sister yelled, "Sae, here comes it!!"..... Boy, I was so glad that we weren't extremely competitive, otherwise, I am not blogging here after 11km tunnel with my breath held.) So, by the afternoon we were finally pulling into our onsen ryokan. It was in a very quaint, simple, small town in the foot hills of the mountains. There was two raging rivers that sandwiched the town, one on each side, that were literally awesome - very beautiful and powerful. OK - lots to explain at this point, I'll touch on Onsen, Ryokan, Small back country Japan towns.

Onsen: This is a hot spring that Japanese use for relaxation, bathing, etc. There are public onsens, gender separated public ones, and private ones. The water is "hot tub" hot and comes directly from the earth with zero sulfur smell, 100% clean.

Ryokan: Japanese old style, traditional hotel. Think old-time Japan meets western B&B. There were about 20 rooms and gender separated indoor and outdoor onsens. Our room consisted of an entry way, a large tatami (bamboo floor mat) room, a patio room, and then our own private onsen. The private onsen is a pretty big deal - this is considered an extremely nice place.

Small Back Country Japan Towns: Two words really here, words of wisdom - Bring Cash. I'm not talking $100, $200, i'm talking rock star drug dealer cash. They don't take plastic, they don't have ATMs that'll take your debit card, and these ryokan's are absolutely not cheap, near ritz prices because the room charges in Japan are per person, not per room and traditionally come with breakfast and dinner included.

Alright, so we basically arrived with enough time to relax for a bit (Sae and I had been going since about 3-4 AM), we collapsed on the floor for about an hour, then it was time for dinner. This is traditional Japanese style dinner (hardcore), with a Hida twist. First night's dinner included: Sashimi (full fish, deboned, sliced, placed back on the plate in original form with head...full intact), multiple pickles and radishes, crab, vegetables, flame cooked rice with miso, whole fish flame cooked (wooden stick through rear of fish and out through mouth, then stick stuck in rocks near open flame), ahi beef (basically tar-tar), then last but not least - the twist - Hida beef. This beef is so marbled it looks like an expensive counter top. The beef was thinly sliced and in a large wooden box. This box was placed a top an open flame heat source and basically smoked/steamed till ready. Once ready the box lid is removed, you take a piece with your chopsticks and eat it straight, eat it with sesame sauce, rice, seaweed strips, etc.

Friday - July 16
We were the only customers staying at this Ryokan last night. So, I strongly recommended Matthew to try the public onsen alone, but he said no. However, he tried the private onsen attached to our room. They used the beautifully cut big slate tiles on the floor and the private onsen and installed some huge river rocks on the floor. Since he loves the hottub at his parents' in Chicago, I knew he would enjoy this private onsen outside.

Breakfast. As well as dinner last night, there were tons of small plates served. Matthew's chopstick skill was amazingly improved and he could pick up tiny-tiny bits of pickles so easily. My mom and sister were clapping their hands for the Matthew's chopstick show.

Last night, before dinner, Matthew and I took a short walk around this ryokan and found a house that had 2 barrels on the roof. According to a guy working at ryokan, these neighbors keep those barrels for honey. In spring, some virgin bee queens ( Should I say princesses?) fly out of their mother's hive to establish their own kingdom. Being surrounded by tons of worker bees, princess bees take off. The guy said that it really looks like a huge black ball in the air. After they leave, human spread water over this "bee ball". Bees mistakenly think that it started raining, they keep flying low to find a shelter from the fake rain. Around where they will land, a new barrel is placed. If bees get in this barrel successfully, they will start building a new hive. 

This day we went for a pretty long car ride to see a World Heritage site, Shirakawago. Shirakawago is a village of extremely old houses, 17th century. They are high in the mountains and the area receives a great deal of snow in the winter so the roofs are extremely slanted, and made of think bushels of straw. We toured this town for a long time. Kiwa didn't bring a baby carrier with her, so holding him became very tiring. Instead we decided I'd wear my backpack backwards and then he'd sit in the front pocket. This worked out pretty well, and he was able to cruise the town in comfort. We were able to go in one of the Shirakawago houses, it was incredible. It was huge inside, and three stories. The photo album for this post has a lot of great photos of both the inside and the outside of the house.

After this we headed back again for the onsen and ryokan, had dinner, and called it a night.
Saturday - July 17
On Saturday we woke up and went into the private onsen quickly before breakfast. Breafast was at 8, so we went back into the large room where everyone in the ryokan eats together. It is basically a large hall with itami floor, very nice tables, and everyone sits on the floor to eat. This morning now there were a few more people at the hotel - the first night we were the only ones there. They put up these wood dividers though and you really never know other parties are in the room - all top notch, well done.

Breakfast was rice with miso, fish, and this sweet scrambled egg cube. I can say, being a gaijin, you never really get used to the raw fish for breakfast. You really need to wash from your mind what you think of breakfast. After breakfast we packed up as this was our last evening at the ryokan.

Today was an exciting day. We were going high up the mountains on a ropeway, or lift, then after that touring a famous cave. The ropeway was incredible. I was a bit nervous just because going way up in a ropeway extended off the ground by a cable reminds me a bit too much of roller coasters and flying - two things I know I can't survive from if something goes wrong. The ropeway was actually fine though, and the sites on the way up were amazing. There were two ropeways we had to take to get all the way up, a total of about a 12 minute ride. The second ropeway car was a two story one, huge, and everyone rushed to get into the top floor. We took the bottom floor, it was great because I was able to get a lot of great photos and the view was 100% the same as the top floor. Once atop the mountain, the view was incredible. I took quite a few photos and we stayed up there for about 30-40 minutes, taking in the sites, enjoying the cool air, and as luck would have it, watching the clouds roll in at that exact time. I was able to get some great photos of the clouds coming in and enveloping the peaks - segoy. Next stop was the cave which was very cool, but I can say that it was just that a cave. In some ways if you've seen one cave, you've seen them all. This one was nice in that they had a very nice small museum prior to going in the cave - it was the private collection of the cave owner, and then also once in the cave they used these very nice colorful lights that lit the gave up nicely and photographed great.

After touring this cave we left the area and we drove down to Takayama where our hotel was for Saturday night. We arrived at the Takayama Green Hotel and Sae, Kiwa, Huma, and I waited in the lobby while Sae's parents, Taka and Hitomi, returned the rental car. We didn't need the car any longer as the train to head out of the area on Sunday was very close to our hotel now.
We didn't have too much time after arriving so we walked around the hotel's market - it was this very large indoor market with many different types of shops and stores selling food and lacquer ware and other souvenirs. In Japan, from what I've picked up so far it seems, when you purchase your hotel room it comes with meals included that are offered at the hotel; great business move. So there were many options at this hotel but we chose the modern Chinese dinner. It was amazing, it was a seven course dinner with duck, shrimp, beef, soup, etc. It was extremely tasty.

Sunday July 18
This was our last day in the Takayama area. We toured the town and did a bit of shopping. We also saw one of the oldest government houses in Japan. It was from the Edo period when there were essentially Feudal lords managing the different regions of Japan. This house was amazing. Many different itami rooms, some of different quality depending on the social rank of the people that primarily occuppied the rooms. After seeing this house and taking the tour of the grounds we got on the train and headed home. This was about a 5 hour ride, but then we found ourselves back at Tokyo station; and closed another amazing time touring Japan.

July 10 Weekend - Nippori & Euno Park

This week was pleasantly light in terms of our agenda. We basically stayed in most of the day on Saturday. We visited the Bellevue mall that is across the street from our house. Definitely a ladies focused mall, like it seems about 60% of shopping is in Tokyo, with another 20% focused on confused tourists. This leaves about 20% for us men with 9 story electronic stores, business suits, and Italian sports car shops. They did have a nice bookstore and some decent looking restaurants. Later in the day we charted out our next bike trip. We decided on Nippori and the Ueno Park area and made a promise to ourselves that we wouldn't forget anything this time!

We got up bright and early on Sunday. Water bottles filled, IPhone charged, camera charged, etc. (Quick side note: IPhone is weak, Android OS, in my opinion is superior, and with the broad array of device support I think will be a tremendous threat to Apple. Msft really missed the boat on the mobile market). One of the smartest things we bought prior to leaving the U.S. were some good carrying/saddle bags for the bikes. It's 100x better than biking with a backpack. We headed North, Northeast up to Nippori, which is an older side of town about 8-9km away from Akasaka (home). It's a calmer part of Tokyo, still quite a few people considering the size of the streets, but certainly less hustle and bustle. The streets were quite skinny there, with older houses.

While there we were able to stop at Ueno station and watch the Shinkansen (bullet train) pass below us - that was pretty cool. We also parked our bikes and went into this very old shopping area - basically street vendors with small store fronts. Here we walked the small shops, grabbed a couple of bites to eat and I bought two small wood pieces to add to my collection of Japanese wood art. For food we bought (my favorite) a single crochet, and then Sae bought some interesting candied potato item. While at the crochet place we saw one of the guys working that shop aggressively yell at a photographer/passer-by and (in angered Japanese) demand that he delete the pictures of the store he had just taken. It was rather odd, I haven't seen anyone be that aggressive in about 1.5 months and also the shop is a total dive, it wasn't even the best looking crochet on the street, so I'm not sure at all what he was keeping concealed in his gem of a store.

From there we biked down to Ueno park and an old site where a shogun had built a hall and a temple (I believe, and you can see a lot of details of this in the picture slide show). Ueno park is very big, a very nice place. It is a natural park, but also has multiple museums and shops on the outskirts. The national museum is there, the Tokyo zoo is there, etc. We're planning to take a separate day, go back, and hit both of those sites. According yo our Tokyo guidebook both of those are great places to see. We biked throughout the park, saw the end of an ice sculpture competition, rested at one of the many ponds, then decided it was time to head back south for home.

On the way home both our hands were hurting from the grips on our bikes, and the shifting of my gears had been getting progressively worse since our arrival. Knowing we had a Cannondale bike shop just a couple of blocks from the house we decided to drive straight there and check it out. I walked in for grips and a quick tune up, and walked out with grips, a quick tune up, and a ridiculously overpriced garmin edge 705 gps system for the bike. With good reason though! Sae and I, given our personalities, at times have strong feelings about our direction/navigation on our bike trips and good ol' Mr. IPhone just wasn't cutting it as a third party mediator - so we decided to upgrade to a professional mediator :-). It's pretty cool though, it comes with a heart monitor sensor and also a cadence monitor that attaches to you pedals and rear wheel - all this information is fed wirelessly to the unit on the handlebars. It also came with quite a bit of software for trip planning, exercise tracking, etc. We left our bikes at the shop that night as it began to rain while we were in there.

We finished the night and weekend with a great sushi dinner at, we're trying to make that our regular sushi spot; which is already paying off as they gave us an excellent complimentary squid dish for coming in again. We wouldn't be coming back next weekend as the following weekend we were headed Northwest for a long weekend up in the mountains site seeing and enjoying onsen with Sae's family.