The Occidental Tourists in Japan--Part 1

Guest Bloggers:  Sarah (aka Rosie) and Bruce (aka Papa) Jayne

Our first trip to Japan--when we first set out planning our visit to Japan there were two things we wanted to do.  First, was to spend time with Stephanie, Kevin, Ethan and Ryan and the second was to experience cherry blossom season, or Sakura as it is called in Japan.  The rest, as they say, was icing on the cake.

After a bumpy twelve hour flight across the Pacific, we were expecting to follow Stephanie's careful instructions about taking the train to the station near their home where they would meet us.  What a delightful surprise we had: to be greeted in the airport by two jumping-up-and-down little boys and their grinning mother.  An hour train ride later they led us on foot to their traditional Japanese home where we began to settle in.

Adventures with Ethan and Ryan

Consistent with our primary objective, we set out to experience something of the lives of five-and-seven-year-old boys, who've been busily adjusting to the Japanese culture for 14 months.  Despite some brief childhood illness, and some fairly frequent cold rainy weather, we covered a lot of ground:

• Visited each of them in their schools during the last week of the school term, and witnessed Ethan's soccer practice;
• Introduced them to the card game Skip-Bo;
  
• Learned how enamored they, and every other kid in Japan, are with Pokemons (strange little creatures who do amazing things), and set out to go to the Pokemon Center in Yokohama.  Turned back by violent winds and cold rain, we spent the morning at home huddled around a pretend campfire, drinking hot chocolate and playing Skip-Bo.  A week or so later, when spring weather had returned, we had a delightful day trip to Yokohama, which included not only the Pokemon Center, but a serendipitous encounter with a multi-talented street performer (juggler, balloon animal creator, and magician) who recruited Ethan to be his assistant, lunch at McDonalds, and snack time at Krispy Kreme where we sampled the speciality of the season--Sakura Doughnuts.  
  
  
   

• Enjoyed watching Ryan and Ethan cruising around a really neat bike park nearby, laid out with streets and traffic lights, and with a fleet of bikes and pedal cars for the kids to use.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Walked to a small garden center where the boys picked out flowers to plant in their yard.  We then had a fun time digging holes and planting the flowers.

• Kidzania: an amazing place, where kids can sign up to do very realistic jobs in dozens or so workplaces.  Ethan and Ryan bottled Coca-Cola, delivered packages for Black Cat (Japanese equivalent of UPS), engaged in a very sophisticated form of soccer training (complete with stop-motion video) and drew cartoons in a publishing house.  Ethan worked as a photo journalist and an auto mechanic, and Ryan worked in an ice cream shop.  In our view, it has Disneyworld beat all to heck!
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Observed an amazing degree of self-confidence and independence on the part of these two delightful little boys, who negotiate the crowded sidewalks and train stations with ease, and often served as translators for us.  

Cherry Blossoms  

What an extraordinary display of sheer beauty!  We had the misperception that we would see cherry trees blooming in only a certain area--were we ever mistaken.  They were everywhere!  They appeared to be approaching their peak when we arrived, so we soaked up the glory of their beauty as we traveled around, then witnessed the "snowfall" as the falling blossoms carpeted the ground.

The beginning of the season

They're everywhere. . . adding much to our pleasure

Our little family in front of the illuminated cherry blossoms
FYI: Ethan isn't mad; he's just tired.

Look closely and you can see the full moon peeking
through the lighted cherry blossoms

Cherry blossom "snow" as the season wanes

Picnics

We experienced the beauty of the cherry blossoms especially in the parks, where we enjoyed several picnics.  The first was at a significant Buddhist shrine, with Stephanie and the boys.  A later one was with friends of Stephanie and Kevin's (typically parents of Ethan and Ryan's friends).  Those created some special memories--children playing, jumping rope, varieties of Japanese picnic fare, cordial attempts at conversation with people whose English proficiency far exceeded our feeble efforts with Japanese.  And an especially nice small picnic was with a friend of Stephanie's, and her parents, who had graciously allowed us to use their club membership for a weekend at the Mt. Fuji Hotel.  They introduced us to some new foods, including heart of bamboo, and we enjoyed getting to know them. 

Our first cherry blossom outing, at a major shrine

New friends--lots of warmth even though it was a chilly
spring day

More new friends

Japanese Cuisine 

Wow!  What a variety of new and interesting foods we ate, many of them at Stephanie and Kevin's table, and quite a lot at various eateries as we made our rounds.  Some highlights of our food experiences: 

• Becoming fairly proficient at using chopsticks.  They work very well, even for us novices.
• Okono miyaki--a kind of cabbage-based pancake topped with meat, shrimp, cheese, or some other tasty item.  Sarah and Stephanie attended a Japanese cooking class to learn how to make them, and Stephanie then served them for dinner one night. 
  
  
  

  

  We were joined by two other "students" (one from Australia
  and one from Switzerland.  We had such a good time that no
  one thought to take pictures until AFTER we had eaten!
  
  

• Various forms of sushi.  We had our greatest exposure to sushi at the Electric Sushi restaurant, where we sat at a counter, ordered items on an electronic menu at each place and received our orders rapidly on a conveyor belt in front of us.  A quick, tasty and inexpensive meal.
  
• Items new to us, such as octopus on a stick, grilled chicken skin on a stick, meat dishes topped with a raw egg, dried fish flakes as a flavoring, fried lotus, horse meat, and a wide array of vegetable and meat items accompanying sobe (thin) or udon (thick) noodles.

  

  Octopus on a stick
  
  
  

• Another culinary delight was more French than Japanese:  the parents of a 14-year-old girl, Emo, whom Stephanie is helping to learn English, hosted us for lunch at the beautiful Happo-en gardens, where the restaurant serves a truly elegant meal.  Emo is heading to an international school near White Plains, NY, in August, and we hope to have some contact with her and her parents while she's in the U.S. 

Emo told us that she most enjoys the cherry blossoms in the
 rain and after walking through the gardens we agreed with her.

Emo, Ethan and Ryan hamming it up

•  Had our "farewell dinner" in a classic Japanese restaurant, leaving our shoes at the entrance.  That's where we had the horse meat and lotus, among other interesting delicacies.  Amusing incident:  Because it was getting late, Kevin left with the boys before Steph and we were finished.  Steph sent me running after him with the house key, and as I dashed out of the restaurant, still in my sock feet, a waitress came running after me with Sarah's and my shoes in hand!  We were both a bit sheepish as I returned to our table.  The boys had been given neat little toy airplanes, and as Steph, Sarah and I were leaving, we were given gifts as well: each of us received a bag containing a carrot, onion and potato!

A Dose of Classic Culture  

Our major high-brow experience was Stephanie's taking us to a kabuki performance.  Kabuki is the classic Japanese theatrical production, which resembles opera, but with a more stylized and formal flavor.  The performance we attended had two parts:  a dramatic story that portrayed a kind of palace intrigue, and then a tragic love story that had some elements of dance.  We followed the custom of buying bento boxes (a kind of lunch-in-a-shallow-box arrangement) and eating it in the theater during intermission.  We were surprised that no one is allowed to eat on the street but is expected to eat inside a grand theater.  As Steph adds the comment "only in Japan".                

Our intermission bento box meal

This concludes Part 1.  We're leaving in a few hours to fly back to the US and will save the rest of our report for later.  Sayonara.