Domo Arigato Japan

Yesterday was my last full day in Japan. I had a quiet morning for reading while Misty and the kids went to VBS. After VBS, the kids were in desperate need of a nap after three days of not having naps. When they woke up from their naps, we strolled down to the train station to go to Kamakura. Kamakura started as a little fishing village and then became the capital of Japan in the 12th century until about 1333.

Can I just say, I love that there are so many trains that network through Japan! It sure does make traveling around here a lot easier. When we got off the train, we walked up the road and decided that we needed a cool and refreshing treat.

Take a look at the flavor options here! Sweet Potato and Soda, Lychee and Green Tea, what's a girl to do?

Is it bad karma to eat ice cream while visiting the great Buddha of Kamakura? Well, regardless of karma, I wasn't about to put down my lychee ice cream...besides, I saw a little Japanese lady eating a sno-cone walk in before me.

This is the 2nd largest Buddha in Japan. The largest is in Nara. This Buddha, Daibutsu, was cast in 1252 and was originally housed in a big temple. After the building had been destroyed a few times in typhoons, he's been kickin' it outside (since about 1495).

As we were walking back, we stopped in this cute little pottery shop, where a man was working on some little plates, tea pots, and all sorts of other fun stuff. I couldn't resist picking up some handmade pottery for my house.

Next, we had to find some dinner and what better for my last full day than a great sushi bar. This was Deiter's first experience eating sushi and even though he was a little apprehensive, he was pleasantly surprised.

So, today I'm packing my bags and when Misty and the kids get back from VBS, we're going to take the navy shuttle bus back to the airport. It's been a lot of fun traveling through the Philippines with Katy and her family and Japan with Misty and her family. I've learned a lot from my variety of experiences in each country and I'm sad to see this trip come to an end, but I guess that's the way it is with most good things in this life.

Miso Happy to Be in Tokyo!

You get two days in one blog post today. I was excited that my cold was just a little 24 hour one so we've been having fun ever since.

Day 2 in Tokyo:

After a hearty hotel breakfast, we went to a grocery store down the street to check things out and see what this one is like. It's always interesting to visit a grocery store when you are traveling someplace new. This one had the most imported products that Misty had ever seen in a grocery store. It was a little out of the norm in her book. It was set up kind of a lot like Trader Joe's. After the market, we went to a little park. This park had a very large pond, or maybe it was a small lake...who really knows? The old men were fishing along one edge.

The turtles were swimming as happy as can be and the dads were teaching their sons how to fish. Here's a new little fisherman now:

Afterwards, we hopped an afternoon bus tour. Misty and I decided it would be a good way of seeing a lot of things in a small amount of time and a lot easier with two kids than trying to read the map and navigate the streets while pushing an umbrella stroller and holding the hand of a three-year-old. Our starting point was the World Trade Center Observatory. It was a nice panoramic view of Tokyo from 152 meters high. It was a similar experience to taking in the view on the top of the Empire State Building in NYC but without the lines. Here is a view of the Tokyo Tower behind us, Davis and Evie's favorite site in Tokyo.

Our next stop was to get on a boat for a cruise up the Sumida River. Here is our cruise boat:

When we disembarked from our cruise, the tour guide pointed out the buildings in the photo below:

The one on the left was made to look like a glass of beer. The one on the right, if I'm remembering correctly was a flame of passion. As we were walking up the street we saw some in traditional clothing, although I think this was the only lady I saw wearing stilettos.

We also saw rickshaws along the streets in this neighborhood, but we passed on the ride.

Next, our tour guide pointed out Tokyo's oldest bar.

I was beginning to wonder if the only sites we'd be seeing today were for drinking, but that thought was quickly disproved when we approached a religious site next, the Asakusa Kannon Temple area. Here's our photo in front of the main gate:

This is a Buddhist temple. Mai, our tour guide, informed us of a few of the differences between Buddhist temples and Shinto shrines, the two major religions in Japan. Buddhist temples have images of their gods, like Buddha, and Shinto shrines do not because they believe their gods are spirits and so they don't create images of the spirits. Mai told us that many people practice both Buddhism and Shinto in their homes. They practice Shinto, but Shinto beliefs are that you only have one life to live and be happy so it is a good back up to also practice Buddhism which believes in multiple afterlives. If your life isn't happy and good, you can always hope that when you are reincarnated, the next life will be better for you. Here is Deiter in front of the temple.

Between the main gate and the middle gate that leads to the temple, there is the Nakamise shopping street containing all sorts of little shops for clothes, accessories, artwork, snacks and souvenirs.

Here are a few of the cold treats on the menu of this snack stand:

Yes, we're in another Asian country that loves red bean desserts. I decided to pass on these tempting treats. Unfortunately, we didn't get as much time as we wanted to do all the things we wanted to in this area, but what can you do? (Like my grandma always says.)

Next, we went to the Imperial Palace. Only a quarter of the palace property is open to the public, the East Gardens. They only open the doors to the palace twice a year, in January and December, when the emperor addresses all those who enter the palace. We were able to see the watchtowers of the palace.

But Evie was more excited about the ants on the ground than she was about the tower.

Evie made a new friend on our bus tour. They were making funny faces to each other as they walked down the street...so cute!

We got off our tour at Ginza, a big shopping district in Tokyo, similar to 5th Ave in NYC.

We walked a few blocks and found a small shopping mall with a restroom for our potty training three-year-old (who did a great job all day) and stumbled upon some of these:

Yes, the squatty potty can be found in Japan too. In China, they have a star rating system for toilets (up to five stars), but I didn't see any such rating system here. Fortunately their was one western toilet, which is preferred for a potty training three-year-old.

We walked a little further to a nice little restaurant for some tempura seafood and veggies, sob noodles and miso soup. Davis is practicing his good manners by slurping up his noodles (the sign of really liking the meal).

Evie drank up every last drop of her miso soup.

The kids did a pretty good job for not having a nap all day. They were sleepy bears after dinner, so we decided to bypass the shopping (most of it was out of our price range anyway) and take the subway back to our hotel. The irony is that the kids got their second wind after a bath. So even though they were put to bed at 8:00, they didn't fall asleep until around 10:00 that night.

Day 3:

We went to Davis and Evie's favorite place, Tokyo Tower. We got off the subway and made our way down the street. It was so fun to watch their excitement grow every time the tower was spotted between buildings on our approach.

The lines to the elevators of the observatory were a little longer at this place.

Tokyo Tower is like the Eiffel Tower of the city, same design, only steel instead of iron. I took this photo from the main observatory at 150 meters high:

I took the photo in the direction that Mt. Fuji would be if it wasn't so cloudy and smoggy. Misty has only seen the mountain twice in the two years that they've lived in Japan. She climbed to the top of Mt. Fuji this month and even then, when she was climbing it, she couldn't see much of the mountain through the smog and clouds.

We headed back to the base in the afternoon because the kids had VBS on Monday. I'm staying at Dennis and Misty's apartment on the naval base in Yokosuka. It's all very official in order to stay here. I needed to have a visitor's pass with photo ID issued by the office, so we had to get there before they closed in the evening. Fortunately, traffic wasn't bad and we made it in plenty of time. I can't be anywhere on base without Misty and you have to show your ID everywhere you might want to go on base. I'd show you what my pass looks like, but I'm thinking the Navy wouldn't be down with that. These boys run a tight ship, even at the hotel we stayed at in Tokyo, we needed to show identification every time we entered the place.

Once we got the visitor's pass business accomplished, we left base to go out to dinner in the city of Yokosuka. I went with some udon noodles this time around. Yum! Afterwards, we picked up an assortment of treats for dessert. We got Evie a red bean ice cream sandwich. I tried a bite and I can honestly say I don't care for red bean ice cream. I decided to try the pastries instead.

In this photo are a few pastries I plan to eat (not in one sitting). Some red bean paste filled rolls, a curry doughnut, an apple and cream filled doughnut, and a mango rice pastry...kind of like mochi, but not quite.

Ya, you did a double take when I said curry doughnut. It tastes like it sounds. Here's a photo of the filling:

I'll be honest, I liked it for a savory treat. Tomorrow is my last full day in Japan; I can't believe my trip is so quickly coming to an end!

Tokyo, Hello

So my first day in Tokyo was pretty low key. I lost my cookies on the flight to Bangkok. It was a little embarrassing sitting there with my motion sickness bag...oh well, what are you gonna do? With 55 minutes between flights, I was a little worried that I wouldn't make my connecting flight to Tokyo, but that all worked out! Yay!

Misty and her children, Evie and Davis, met me at the airport and we drove into the city. Let me just say, it was weird driving in Japan after being in the Philippines. No jeepneys trying to cut you off, no big trucks carrying 20 people standing in the back, no hable hables carrying 3-4 people. It was calm and peaceful on the road.

Misty is married to a man in the US Navy and we are staying in a really nice Navy hotel in central Tokyo. It's a pretty sweet place. Currently, Misty's husband, Dennis, is deployed and couldn't be here with us.

Unfortunately, I didn't see much of Tokyo for two reasons. First, it was rainy; I know you're thinking, come on sissy, you live in the Washington state! But the bigger reason for not seeing more sites today is that I'm a sicky girl. Ya, losing my cookies on the plane was the precursor to being sick on my first day in Tokyo. This is about all I saw of Tokyo for today; the view from my hotel room. :(

I had enough energy to make it down to the luau in the hotel banquet room. Here we are at dinner!
We even had some fun hula dancing entertainment while we ate dinner.

Evie really got into the dancing! She is an aspiring hula dancer, so cute!

While it was a pretty mellow day, it was still a lot of fun to catch up with Misty and her kids. I'm going to sleep early and hoping that I can be ready to take on a full day of excitement in Tokyo tomorrow!

So Long Philippines, Hello Tokyo!

This is my final blog post from the Philippines before I fly out to Tokyo. I'll still post some updates while in Tokyo, but I guarantee these two countries will be night and day different.

Katy had to fly out last night and so we drove into Cebu City for dinner at her favorite restaurant, Lemongrass. On the way into town, we noticed that Naga is going to have a new "saloon" in town...for men and women. Whoops! That's supposed to read salon, because they don't serve drinks here, they cut hair.


I also wanted to give you a chance to see a small cross-section of driving in the Philippines because I've only shown you still photos. I got a great clip for you, but it isn't gonna download in time, so I'll try from Tokyo.

Lemongrass may have been the best Thai/Vietnamese restaurant I've ever been to in my life! Don't get me wrong, I love Arawan, but this was amazing! Here is a photo of my plate.

Here we have some sort of really good chicken, beef brisket red curry, pad thai, some sort of fruit salad that had grilled chicken and shrimp, and a nice, spicy tom yum soup.

This drink deserves a photo with Vance and Carol. It was a citrus herb lemonade. It was amazing! I could only drink one thing for the rest of my life, it would be this citrus herb lemonade. This was a great last supper in the Philippines!

I'm going to miss this place and the new friends I've made at the tutoring center, but I'm excited for new adventures in Tokyo.

The Water Company

In Naga, we're pretty much up to the same old yesterday. Katy and I finished painting a sign that the Surf the Nations team started. Here's a photo of Katy painting in some images along the bottom of the sign.


With two days left in the Philippines, I wanted every last day to be fruitful so we picked up some mangoes and lanzones at the fruit stand across the street from Orange Brutus. These are a few of my favorite fruits in the Philippines. I like mangosteens too, but I like lanzones more. In only took my four tries to eat lanzones right too. There's a secret to peeling the fruit so your hands don't get all sappy sticky.


The biggest commotion of the day was a private water company laying a waterline. If you recall, the neighborhood of Lote has been without water for the past 1 1/2 years and the city hasn't done anything about it. So yesterday a truck full of five people from a private water company showed up. Apparently they have a water source up in the hills that they are willing to bring down here for a price.

This private company is charging 4,500 pesos (about $100) for hookup and a monthly fee of 150 pesos ($30ish) plus fee for however much you use. When it isn't the rainy season, Vance has to pay 50 pesos every three days for someone to drive in and deliver water to the house. The sad thing is that for most of the people in the neighborhood, they still won't be able to afford the cost of having running water.

Here are the men work:

It takes one to operate the jackhammer, one to shovel a few things occasionally and the other three to stand and watch.


Notice how deep they lay the waterline in this photo above. It's pretty much going to be right on the surface with a thin layer of cement on top. Katy thinks it is so they can access it easier if it springs a leak. When they were finished for the day, they tested the line and let people in the neighborhood take home buckets of water. The guy in this photo has a rather large blue bucket of water riding shotgun in his pedicab.

It is so easy to take things for granted in America. Water is an important necessity of life it is just too bad that so few people in this neighborhood have easy access to this necessity.

Leaving a Beach Paradise

Yesterday, was our last day in Bohol. Deiter and I decided to bid the beach farewell. When you are at a place that is so relaxing and peaceful, you want to savor each minute that make up those the final moments of serenity. We watched the wind in the trees and the waves gently crashing on the beach.

While enjoying the calm of the morning, we found a new little friend scampering across the sand. To Deiter, I said, "I shall call him Calvin the crab."

Calvin was awfully cute crossing the beach. I’ve never really held a crab that wasn’t sitting lifeless on a dinner plate, so I decided that I’d try something new and pick up Calvin the crab. As my hand got closer to it, Calvin crawled back into his shell to try and hide from me. I picked up his shell and placed it on my bag. As soon as I removed my hand, he would crawl out of his shell enough to start scampering away as fast he could. We played this game a few times so I could get a photo of him walking. After I adequately blinded him with my flash, I let him go back to crossing the beach.

This was a very quiet and peaceful resort that I’m glad to have stayed at while in the Philippines. Henry, the German owner really catered divers, making a spot away from all the hustle and bustle of Alona beach.

If you're looking for a place to party all the time, party all the time, Alona is your place where the resorts are literally wall to wall and you share the beach with all sorts of people. But if you are looking for a place that is quiet in the evening, where you can get some sleep and be able to get up early to go diving, or adventuring you better stay at Bohol Sea Resort. Just look at the beautiful grounds…

And the pool and dining area isn’t too bad either…

So long Bohol Sea Resort, I will miss you!

We went out to the pier and jumped on our Supercat back to Cebu City. The seas were not so angry this time and we had no issues with motion sickness. The catamaran had a gentle enough rocking that it made for a nice super catnap.

We were expecting to take the bus home to Naga, but Katy got a text from her family that they were in the city. Vance, David, Mark, and all five members of the STN team where there to pick us up. Apparently, they needed to come to town to finish up some getting their visas and one of the girls needed some emergency dental work. The rest of the day was pretty uneventful. We came home, unpacked, shared our Bohol adventures with the family, and saw the STN team off as they head to a new island.

Katy and her family took a little photo with Brendon before he left. The only one who is missing is Mike.

Bohol

Yesterday, Katy’s dad dropped us off early in front of Pier 4 so we could catch our “Super Cat” catamaran to Bohol. I thought I had heard the guy over the loud speaker incorrectly when he said, “Please be quiet for our prayer and safety announcement, but sure enough, a prayer for safe voyage was given before we learned about the exits and life jackets. The sea was angry that day my friends. The Super Cat staff passed out bags labeled "for your motion discomfort". Fortunately, I was saved by Katy’s white flower eucalyptus oil.

We made it here to the beautiful Bohol Sea Resort. It's quite beautiful here. Right behind me is our resort…hidden in the palm trees. Our beach resort is a little further away from all the other resorts, making it very peaceful. The rest of our day consisted of swimming and reading in the shade. It was a nice relaxing day.

Here is a very nice map of the island, painted on the wall of our resort restaurant/front desk.

Today our taxi driver from the pier yesterday (who happens to guide driving tours), Ray, picked us up from our resort and took us around the island to see the sites of Bohol. First thing you need to know about Ray is that he looooves sappy 80s ballads covered by some random gal who slowed everything way down to a musical crawl. We listened to songs like I Can't Fight This Feeling Anymore, and I almost died when he started singing along with On the Wings of Love!

Our first stop was a historical site. This photo is at the site of the first Blood Compact made between the people of Bohol and the Spanish in 1565. This was the first peace treaty between the Filipinos and the Spanish made out in a boat beyond the location of this statue. Both the Spanish and tribesmen of the island slit their wrists and poured their blood into a glass of wine and drank it together. Doesn't that sound tasty?

We also saw the oldest church on Bohol…Baclayon Church…it dates back to 1596...but I think the current building structure is from the 1700s.

Next we saw the Tarsier. They look like small monkeys but they aren’t technically monkeys…but that’s more biology than I want to go into right now. There aren't too many of them, so they are a protected species.

We didn’t get to hold the Tarsier, but we were able to come pretty close to it. I guess I’ll have to be content with a lion cub being the only zoo animal I’ve gotten to hold (in Korea).

After visiting with these small primates, we drove into the center part of the island to view the Chocolate Hills. We had to climb up some stairs to a sort of observatory in the municipality of Carmen.

I guess there are around 1200 of them in all, but we didn’t bother counting. They aren’t very brown right now since we are in the rainy season, but still awesome to look at!

As cool as we would be wearing these, we decided not to get our picture on a shirt...

Ray told us that most people earn their living on this island through rice farming in the interior and by fishing along the coast. We were surrounded by fields of rice as we drove in…you can kind of see them below if you know what you’re looking for.

Next we went to a butterfly garden. It was very beautiful. We learned lots about butterflies and got to take pictures with them too!

We drove through a "man made forest" on our way to to and from Carmen...we asked what made it "man made" and Ray said it was because it was government ordered and protected. It was a whole lot of 40 year old mahogany trees...we decided not to stop and take our photo there, because it just looked like a forest. Our next stop was a bamboo suspension bridge. Katy did a pretty good job crossing it for having a slight fear of heights. Way to go Katy!

When we got to Panglao (the tiny little island on the southwest side of Bohol where most of the resorts are located), we had Ray drop us off at Alona Beach…where a lot of other restaurants and resorts were located. We enjoyed some beachfront dining and had a few cold beverages made by San Miguel and walked 40 minutes back to our hotel. It was a nice cool evening for a walk.

Tomorrow will be our last full day in Bohol before we take the Super Cat back to Cebu. We’re looking forward to a quiet and peaceful day of reading and relaxing by the water.