Happy Birthday

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CadSHMpfUV4

Today is someone's big day! HAPPPY BIRTHDAY BILL! In the Chang-Berger household, we celebrate not just your birthday - but an entire birthday week. Instead of just one day - you get seven days of fun filled festivities. Of course, there are things you don't get on a daily basis: lavish gifts, cakes and such, but other than that, it's a celebration :) This year, Japan has also gotten in on the celebration by bringing in the cherry blossom festival during birthday week. Yes, I have that much pull - including Mother Nature. Also, it's a big birthday for Bill, but I'm not sure if he wants everyone to know how old he really is.. hehehe

Nikkō

On 3/21 Anne and I went to Nikkō. Nikkō is a small town near several mountains about 87 miles north of Tokyo and is very famous for tourism in Japan. It took about 3 hours to get there by bus. Normally it is quicker but we decided to go during a long holiday weekend. During this time we listened to our tour guide talk about various subjects. The most amusing was that she regularly loses people on her tours. I suppose this is important information to provide to the people you are guiding, but it is not something we wanted to hear. Our first stop was the Rinnō-ji temple, which was established in 766. After seeing several temples over the last several months it was interesting to see, but it was not one of our favorites. Part of this was due to waiting in long lines and listening to several different tour guides as the each gave their own (yet identical) description of the building and its interior. It took around 20 minutes to walk through a building that you would normally spend 5 minutes in.

The next area we went to was the Nikkō Tōshō-gū. The Nikkō Tōshō-gū is a Shinto shrine that was built in 1617. The shrine consists of several buildings that were all very impressive. One of the most famous buildings at Tōshō-gū is the Yōmei-mon, a gate that is also known as "higurashi-no-mon." According to Wikipedia that name means that one could look at it until sundown, and not tire of seeing it. I don’t know about sundown, but we enjoyed looking at the area for some time. The other 2 famous buildings involved carvings of a lazy cat and 3 wise monkeys. Unfortunately I don’t think I ever saw the lazy cat. One would expect our tour guide to mention or at least point to it, but she was too focused on trying to loose people. I mean this quite literally. She was maybe five feet tall and would walk quickly through the temples, shrines, and hordes of people without looking back to see if her tourists were following her. This did actually lose a couple people, but fortunately they were able to meet the group at the bus before it left. I was able to find the 3 wise monkeys which were more interesting than the pictures I have seen of the lazy cat. Together they embody the proverbial principle "see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil". The three monkeys are Mizaru (covering his eyes, who sees no evil), Kikazaru (covering his ears, who hears no evil), and Iwazaru (covering his mouth, who speaks no evil). The building that the monkey carvings were on was not a remarkable building (it was originally a stable for the shrine's sacred horses) but the monkey carvings were quite captivating.

We ate a traditional Japanese lunch at a near by restaurant and then headed off to see the nearby Kegon Falls. This resulting in zig zagging up a mountain taking what seemed like 50 turns and scaring Anne multiple times as it looked like our bus was going to drive off the side of the mountain. On our way we stopped by Lake Chūzenji. This lake is 4,124ft above sea level and was created as a result of a volcano eruption. The Lake provided some pretty pictures, but it was too cold to stay outside for more than a couple of minutes (probably not by Minnesota standards, but we are now pansies who can’t handle the cold anymore). We reached Kegon Falls shortly after leaving the lake. Kegon Falls is roughly 318 feet in height and is quite beautiful. The tour ended with a painfully memorable never ending bus ride home (thanks to the traffic). It took us around 4 hours before the bus dropped us of in Ginza (Ginza being about another 15 minutes from home).

Tonkatsu Tuesday

A few weeks back under strict orders from the wife to try out some of the local restaurants in the area I went to Wako Tonkatsu (Wako being the name of the restaurant chain and Tonkastsu being the food). Tonkatsu (Tone-kawt-sue) is a breaded, deep-fried pork cutlet ½ to 1 inch thick and sliced into bite-sized pieces, generally served with shredded cabbage. I had eaten it at a couple other places in Tokyo, but this restaurant was miles above the rest. The following weekend I took Anne there and it was so good we decided that it should become a weekly activity, thus starting Tonkatsu Tuesday.

On a similar topic, a few weeks back we completed our taxes and found out that would were going to get a refund. To celebrate, Anne decided that we should eat tacos for dinner. After the meal was cooked she looked at me and smiled as she handed me a taco and told me to enjoy me tax refund taco. This resulted in a good laugh and once again plans to make tax refund tacos a regular event.

Happy St. Paddy’s Day

Ever since I was a little boy I have loved celebrating St. Patrick’s Day. It maybe in large part due to having been born to a father who is ¾ Irish in decent, or posibbly since my birthday is in the end of March I use it as a prebirthday party warm up. Whatever the reason I always look forward to wearing green and enjoying in the merry making.

My evening started out with a class in Hakoniwa, long story short, the making of a sand/rock garden. The class was put on by our apartment which usually plans a couple activities for its residents every month. The first 20 minutes or so was basically a marketing opportunity for the artist teaching the class. The rest of the time was devoted to trying to teach us how to make our gardens. This turned out to be very entertain and comical for all involved.

After my class I met up with Anne and went to Paddy Foley’s Irish Pub in Roppongi. It is supposedly Tokyo’s oldest Irish pub and it certainly played the part. The pub was extremely busy. There was an Irish band, who sounded as though they had been celebrating much of the day. Almost ever person I saw had a pint of Guinness in hand and was trying to look and sound as Irish as

they could. I was very pleased to see so much excitement for this holiday in the middle of Tokyo, Japan.

Since the pub was way too packed to get anything to eat we stopped at our favorite burger restaurant in the area called Sasebo Burger. The burgers are obscenely good, better than most of the burgers we have had in the States and are relatively cheap by Japanese standards.

Odaiba Round 2

On 3/14 we made our second trip to Odaiba Island. We stopped briefly by the Museum of Maritime Science just to snap a quick picture. The museum is shaped like a large cruise ship. Our next stop was to the National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation. It is similar to many of the science museums in the US only with less to see. The museum’s star (well, it least to us) was Asimo. Asimo (Advanced Step in Innovative Mobility) is a 3 foot robot made by Honda. He is really cute and an engineering marvel. Along with Asimo the museum had a robot making area (for kids) and many other kid friendly exhibits & activities. One of the more amusing ones was a game where a child moved a coffee cup through a virtual world. What was amusing is that the joystick looked exactly the same as the large coffee cup that was being moved in the game.

We then took a free shuttle bus to Venus Port where we saw the History Garage. It is a small area filled with several old cars. My personal favorite was the Delorean, best known for its roll in the Back to the Future movies in the 80s. Anne found a cute little BMW that has to be one of the smallest cars I have ever seen.

After a snack in Venus Port we went to the Mega Web (the Toyota Showroom) to take a 15 minute E-com Ride. It was $2 a person to ride in a tiny (think MINI cooper, but smaller) electric powered car. We also snapped a couple more pictures of some interesting futuristic looking cars.

Next we went on the tallest Ferris wheel in Japan. This was a little on the scary side once we started reaching the top. The wind really started to pick up and would occasionally shake our little cabin much to our queasy stomach’s displeasure. After descending we went into an adjacent building which turned out to be full of video games. The highlight there was a man in his mid thirties playing DDR (a video game where you step on 1 or 2 (at the same time) of the 4 pressure plates by your feet depending on the directional arrows shown on a video monitor). This guy was using 8 pressure plates instead of 4 (as seen in the US) and was on a streak of 300 perfectly timed steps. There was also a woman in her twenties practicing his moves a couple feet behind him.

Since our stomach’s were still feeling funny after the Ferris wheel we decided to eat some crepes and spicy flavored French fries assuming that if they (being our stomachs) were distracted they would forget all about the scary swinging Ferris wheel. After eating I convinced Anne to go shopping while I took a couple more pictures of the Rainbow Bridge and the Goddess of Liberty.

Our Visitors Say Goodbye

On Wednesday 3/4 we slept in. In the afternoon we went to Shibuya. Shibuya is a very crowded place and is popular with young adults. It is worth of its own blog entry, so I won’t spend much time on it now. Mike & Court found another 5 story video game store and after a mandatory game of something with drums and Rambo we continued our tour. Lunch was at Burger King. Apparently, our guests were starting to get a little homesick, that or they needed a greasy meal to recover from the previous late night. On our way back to the apartment we stopped at a 100 yen/grocery store. One hundred yen stores are like 1 dollar stores only, the 100 yen stores tend to have items of much better quality. It was at this time that the boys decided to purchase food to bring home. This mainly consisted of rice and Qōo (a tang like drink). Oh, by the way, this Qōo goes out to you Mike!

At this point the Mike, Court, & I headed back to the apartment and the women went to Ginza to pick up dinner. After last nights memorable meal we decided on having another Kobe beef event, and to save money we cooked it at home. Once again it did not disappoint. Most of us then enjoyed a beef induced coma, but determined not to miss anything on the trip of their young lives Court & Mike decided that they wanted to see a little more of the city. At 11:30pm we left the apartment to discover Shinjuku. Once again this is a busy area worthy of its own entry so I won’t go into detail now (yes, yes, I know I am slacking on my blogging duties, but I like to say I am pacing my readers). I will say that the portion of Shinjuku that we visited doesn’t come alive until after dark. After a memorable visit by the boys we headed home at 1:30am to catch some sleep before an early morning trip to the fish market.

We left the apartment at 5am to head to Tsukiji Market. Shanna (wisely) decided to stay home. I wrote about the market back in January if you didn’t get to see it. I think it is important to note that we were allowed to watch the tuna auctions this time. Tourists where banned the last time we were there for “bad behavior”. The ban was for a couple of months and ended 2 days after our last visit. After showing Mike & Court more seafood variations then will likely see in their life again, we ate at a sushi shop right next to the market. We ate tuna, fatty tuna, scallops, fish eggs, minced tuna, salmon, and squid (all very raw and as fresh as it comes). After breakfast we headed back to the apartment. Our guests then packed and caught the airport bus to speed them on their way back home.

Thanks for visiting Shanna, Mike, & Court!!!

Another long day

On Tuesday 3/3 we went to a restaurant called Gonpachi in Roppongi. If you watched the movie Kill Bill (I personally dislike the title of the film for some reason I can’t quite put my finger on) you might vaguely recognize it. Part of the movie was filmed here. The restaurant looks traditional and to add to the feel you had to remove your shoes before sitting at a table. The food was very good and reasonable (for lunch). After our meal we briefly stopped at Ginza to show our visitors what it looked like and to check out the upscale grocery stores in the basement of one of the buildings. Checking out a grocery store? Probably doesn’t sound very interesting, but trust me you would enjoy it (I will blog about it another day). Then I left Shanna & Anne to their shopping in Ginza and took Mike & Court to Akihabara. Akihabara which I will also blog about on another day is the electric town of Tokyo. It is known for having tons of electronics, lots of anime (Japanese animation/comic books), and 5 story buildings full of video games. I can’t recall which one of the boys best described it, but his quote was “it is a nerds paradise”.

After some video games and shopping we headed home to meet up with the women. We then went back to Roppongi to have one of the best meals of our young lives. The restaurant’s name was Seryna and they serve teppanyaki (the most basic description would be a Japanese Grill – but that doesn’t really do it justice). The big players in the meal were scallops, king crap, sole, and the star of the show, Kobe beef. For those of you not familiar with Kobe beef here is why it tastes so good (and costs so much). It is raised in Japan in small groups with its family, to keep it relaxed. It is feed sake and beer, to keep it relaxed. It is massaged, yep you read correctly. Can you guess why? That’s right, to keep it relaxed. Why do you want a relaxed cow? Well, a relaxed cow builds up more fat, much more fat. The marbling (percentage of fat to lean) of a cut of Kobe looks very different than any other cut of a typical cow. The resulting favor is… well…very delicious. It melts in your mouth (literally).

After dinner we went to a club called Gaspanic. Thankfully for us the club was filled with neither gas nor panic much to our visitors relief. Though pretty empty when we first arrived it became much livelier as the night progressed. The music, despite being in Japan, was all songs you would expect to hear in a club in the States. At about 3am Court abruptly decided that we should call it a night and head home. We all agreed and thanks to a legion of cabs waiting for us just outside the club, we arrived home at 3:30am

Kyoto

Thankfully we got to sleep in a little later today(3/2). We checked-out of the hotel and started our tour at 8:45am. Our first stop for the day was the Nijo Castle. Construction on the castle was completed in 1626. The buildings purpose was to serve as the home to the Tokugawa Shoguns. After taking the tour I realized that I had been pronouncing shogun wrong. The letter “u” in Japanese is pronounced like the sound of “oo” in the US, so shogun sounds more like “show-goon”. The castle has an interesting defense mechanism called nightingale floors. Every step you take results in a squeaking/chiming sound. This was done to alert guards of intruders. This started to irritate me after a while since it reminded me of the squeaky floors in an old home. Cameras and shoes are not allowed in the castle. This turned out to be amusing for me since the slippers they provided were tailored to Japanese feet. They were a little tight and about half an inch short for my size 9 ½ US feet, but they failed miserable to even get on Mike’s size 12+ feet.

The next stop on the tour was one of my favorite. It was the Kinkaku-ji or better known as the Golden Pavilion Temple. It was originally built in 1397 to serve as a retirement villa for Shogun Ashikaga Yoshimitsu. Now it is a shrine that houses some of Buddha’s Ashes. It is called the Golden Pavilion because it is covered with pure gold leaf. A short distance for the temple is a pine tree that was prized by the same Yoshimitsu (meaning that it is over 600 years old).

The Kyoto Imperial Palace was our next stop. Prior to entering we had to line up in 4 precise rows (people were physically moved ½ inches to ensure exact lines) to allow for easier counting by the security staff. We thought this was a little funny at first, but after they asked that we start to balance on one leg, hop up and down and moo like a cow we realized they were just seeing what the gaijins (foreigners) would do if you asked them to. Ok, so they did make us stand in lines but the rest I made up. The only funny movements were made by Anne & Shanna who were very cold and decided that if they walked pressing against each other's sides and walked in unison that this would warm them up. To their dismay it didn't work, but it succeeded in entertaining the rest of us.

Next was a buffet lunch at the Kyoto Handicraft Center. Lunch was a random collection of Western and Japanese foods. It’s most notable item was the beverage Qōo which Mike developed quite a liking for.

We then visited the Heian Shrine. It is one of the newest shrines we saw, only begining constructed in 1895. It was built for the 1,100th anniversary of Kyoto’s founding. Anne & Shanna can be seen celebrating Kyoto’s 1,214th anniversary with their celebratory stepping into the new year pose (or at least that is what I am calling it).

Our next stop was Sanjusangendo. It is a Buddhist temple that was completed in 1164. It has a room filled with one thousand life-size statues of the Thousand Armed Kannon. They are positioned in 10 rows and 50 columns. Once again no cameras and no shoes were allowed. Fortunately all of us remembered to wear socks! I was able to find pictures by looking at Google images if you are interested.

The last temple on the tour was the Kiyomizu-dera. This was Anne’s favorite site of the day. It is a UNESCO site (so are a couple of the temples and shrines listed above and below) and it is important to note that not even one nail was used to build this temple. The temple dates back to 798AD. This building had an ancient tradition in which if you jumped from its 43 feet stage and survive your wish would be granted. Over 234 jumpers were recorded in the Edo period most of which survived.

After a log day of touring we took the Shinkansen back to Tokyo and arrived at our apartment around 11pm.

Osaka

On Sunday 3/1 we started our trip to Osaka. It started at 3:30am for me. I let the gang sleep in a little longer. We had the difficult task of getting 3 men and 2 women looking their best and ready for 2 busy days with only 1 bathroom, 1 bedroom, and a living room to get ready in. We left the apartment around 5am and took the subway to Tokyo station. We arrived with around 10 minutes to spare before our Shinkansen (bullet train) left for Kyoto at 6am. We rode on the nozomi (limited stop) Tōkaidō Shinkansen which has a top speed of 186 miles per hour. This train is the busiest train in the world averaging 350,000 people every day. Fortunately for us it was somewhat empty this early allowing some of us to lay down. It reminded me a lot of a plane, but it was much more spacious. We arrived in Kyoto around 8:15am and headed to the New Miyako Hotel to begin our tour of Osaka at 8:45am.

Our tour began with a train ride to Osaka. It is about 40 minutes by train from Kyoto. After we arrived in Osaka we discovered that our tour guide was going to be a fast walking machine. Her first words to Shanna were “we are going to take 10,000 steps today!” I can only assume that she thought this would excite us. Here are some of her more memorable behaviors. Running everywhere only to wait (10+ minutes) until things opened, spending 10 minutes looking at a garden to see what cabbage looks like, taking us to a doll shop, after we all said we had no interest in seeing it, and the worst offense (insert condemning music here)… not giving Shanna the opportunity to shop at a Prada store we past.

Our first stop on the tour was to the Aerial Garden Observatory on the Umeda Sky building. My favorite part was watching the women go up a 3 story glass escalator (39 stories above the ground – with nothing below them). On the top (and open) floor/roof we were afforded a stunning view of the city. Our next stop was lunch at the Hotel Granvia Osaka. It was very different from the previous tour’s meal. The meal was very nice, to the point that we were the only people there not in business suits. The next stop was to the Osaka Castle. It was very beautiful, large, and historic. Originally built in 1583, the current building was rebuilt twice do to destruction by lightning, civil war, and World War II. We then walked down to a large group of plum blossom trees near the castle. These trees were very picturesque and crowded with people. After a lot of pictures we enjoyed a sightseeing water bus (boat) that took us on so many circles we had no idea where we went. During the circling we learned how to make origami cranes. After leaving the boat we walked through a Japanese fair. Court & Mike were blessed by a dragon, giving them good health and longevity. The rest of us passed as the blessing consisted on having your head bitten by the dragon. We then went back to the Hotel, checked in, got something to eat, and went to sleep.