An Inconvenience

Question #1: Have you noticed anything strange after reading last two blog posts?
Question #2: Have you noticed we haven’t produced a blog in a while?
Okay, so here is what happened. I received a proof of the fact that even my husband doesn’t always read my posts. I came home one night after kids were in bed, and Robert cheerfully pressed “Publish” to publish his blog about signs. I read part of it after it appeared on the blog and realized it had the same picture but a different explanation of what happened as my blog post! I guess, he forgot to read what I wrote….And then (this is the worst part) after it got published, I decided to go into my dashboard to edit his post before all of you in the states and Ukraine wake up, but for nothing was working. That leads me to another problem that’s happening in Misawa.
I don’t know if it is a base thing or just American IP addresses, but for some reason no one can access blogs or comment on blogs, or in my case edit blogs through dashboard. Something is malfunctioning, and we cannot figure out yet what. So, I have been kind of reluctant to blog because connection has been slow. Someday, we’ll do something about it.
All right. Today is Friday, I have a fun day planned—Mark has his friend over, then I’ll take them both to a park on base, then go visit big kids’ school at noon pick up “Boxtops” (yes, I collect boxtops for school money), have lunch and attempt to put Mark to nap (fails 50% of the time now), and then get ready for my date (!) tonight. We’ll eat dinner maybe at a French restaurant (well, as French as it gets in Misawa) and see some outdated movie at the base theater which is still considered to be a new release here-haha.
Sayonara.
Lyana

Hirosaki Fall Festival 2011

I am getting kind of sad realizing this is our last fall season in Misawa. I love the weather here in the fall, especially after the typhoon season. Usually end of September and October, even November are full of gorgeous days.

Well, this trip to Hirosaki did not happen on one of those gorgeous days…In fact, it was very rainy and chilly as we were driving through the mountains that we thought that we should just reroute to Aomori’s aquarium or something. The problem was that we really wanted to go to Hirosaki Chrysanthemum Festival again, but because of military exercises (they are really getting to us lately…hopefully, just one more and then we’ll get a break) and because of other trips already scheduled for other weekends, we had to go on Oct. 22nd weekend.

So we picked up a couple of cute little girls along the way, and decided to take the scenic route through Hakkodas to Hirosaki. The advantage of this route is that it’s beautiful AND we save around $20 in toll ways. The disadvantages are minor—it takes about 20 minutes longer and you have to endure many-many VERY sharp turns through the mountains (Katya’s least favorite thing to do).

Our first stop was this Japan’s longest wooden arch bridge-Jogakura bridge which is 827 feet long and 400 feet high. - It is truly an amazing sight—so high up in the mountains, with gorgeous foliage.

Frankly, these pictures cannot even remotely express how beautiful it was:).

Once we got to Hirosaki, we past this store Cub Center. We are wondering if it is the same Cub store as we used to have in Minnesota! MN friends, does it look the same?:)

October 22nd was the second day of the festival being open. Only a few flowers were blooming, which was a bummer, but everything still looked very pretty.

This is our cute gang at the entrance to the gardens.

I think I will create this composition someday in my yard with chrysanthemums.

We spent a while in the kids’ area.

Taiko drums are always a big hit!!

Of course, how could you have a festival without a mascot?

Cute birds with…Hirosaki castles on top of their heads.

Then we headed to the display area. It’s rather impressive, what they can create with flowers.

Katya and her great friend Ashley.

More beautiful compositions on the pond.

My handsome boys.

It was definitely not busy on that particular day. These are food stalls…begging for customers.

Finally we arrived to our prime destination! The Kikumaturi Station! That’s where this miniature Shinkansen takes you for a three minute ride and makes realistic sounds that the bullet train makes.

The kids went at least four times! Those Japanese workers probably thought we were crazy.

After the train ride, we visited the peacocks…

And found the bunnies!

Kids had to put on gloves and then they could pet the bunnies.

Alex was particularly fond of that black one.

Katya liked this chubby one.

Mark was just happy to hold anything soft and fuzzy.

We spent some time listening to apparently a well-known Japanese singer lady sign beautiful Japanese melodies, but the kids got bored with it, not understanding the words.

Back to Taiko drumming-haha.

I must say, I really enjoyed Hirosaki Fall Festival. In fact, I like it even more than Cherry Blossom Festival in April because they have more activities for the kids in the fall. I mean—who doesn’t like free Shinkansen rides??

I do recommend, however, going to this festival on the first week of November to catch all the flowers in full bloom. When we went to Hirosaki for the first time we were very impressed with how beautiful and fun it was because we went on a perfect day. I think we might have to visit Hirosaki just one more time during its Winter Lantern Festival, what do you all think?

Signs

Most signs worthy of a blogpost are pretty funny, so I should apologize that this first sign’s not actually very funny, but the back story is (a little bit).  You see, we really wanted to go to the “Tokyo Metropolitan Children’s Hall” because, well, it’s fun . . . for the kids, that is.  We knew it was near Shibuya station, but we coming from our hotel, the subway was extremely inconvenient.  We wore off the hotel receptionist’s ear asking questions, how to get there, how much is a taxi, etc.  Finally, we just left, flagged down a taxi and showed him our Japanese map and pointed to where we wanted to go (someone had circled the building for us).  Up and down hills, through a large cemetary, stop and go traffic all the way.  The whole time I’m watching the meter go up by 90 yen increments just about every block.  Yikes!! (did I ever mention that taxi meters are near the top of my list of things that cause anxiety?)  Finally, we made it, and it only cost 1100 yen, about 15 bucks, which I didn’t think was too bad for door to door service  . . . until we discovered this door wasn’t open for business.  So sad.  But not worries.  We bounced back because just up the street we found the most famous dog statue in Tokyo!!

Okay, I digress.  This post is supposed to be about signs.  Speaking of dogs (like that segue?), here’s a helpful sign about walking your dog in Yoyogi park. 

Zoom in to item #1:

I walked away from that sign utterly bewildered, and I’d still be trying to figure out its meaning if I hadn’t soon encountered another of the same sign further down the walk, where someone graciously RE-translated it: “For the consideration of others, please ensure that your dog is on a leash while inside the park grounds.”  I can sleep better now.

There’s a sign in this picture, but that’s not really why I took this photo.  We just get a kick out the busstops in Japan.  Even in the heart of one of the biggest cities in the world, the busstops are BYOC (that’s bring your own chair).

Later that day we went to Ueno Zoo where we came across this odd-looking board.  This qualifies as a ‘sign’, right?  I guess it doesn’t really matter;  it’s my blog after all. :)

Okay, on to my three favorite signs (in order), all of which were at the zoo.

3rd place:  Translation: “Don’t feed the baboons because they’ll get a migraine and indigestion.”  I feel bad for finding this sign humorous despite the seriousness of the messsage.  I guess the innocence of the green-haired boy just seems to speak to me.

2nd place:  Translation: “Danger! Hippos are known to swish their tails while doing their business.  Run away!!  Run away!!”

1st place:  This is actually two pages from a book attached to a tree.  At this zoo, the sloths have access to nearby trees outside their enclosure where they hang around while visitors can stroll beneath them.  To put us English speakers at ease, this book was created:

And there you have it.  If you’d like to see more signs like these, just visit . . . us.  Really.  Hop on a plane and come to Japan.  You can stay at our place.

See you soon,

Rob

Tokyo with kids-trip #2 (Friday)

And I am back!!!  Blogging is like exercise—if you are consistent, it’s easy, once you slip up and skip some days (weeks)—it’s hard to get back to the routine.  I am much more successful at getting back to writing posts than at getting back to the gym.

All righty…so our little family decided to visit Tokyo zoo, i.e. Ueno Zoo on our last day in Tokyo. Can you even imagine a zoo in the middle of Tokyo? Let me give you a hint about the size of their cages/houses….when you imagine Tokyo and Japan, in general, what kinds of houses do you think of? No…animals do not live in skyscrapers in Japan, but they live in very crowded conditions. So if you are one of those people who get very sad seeing animals living in tiny cages with all cement around them, don’t go to Ueno Zoo.

The good thing about the size of this zoo is that it’s easy to walk through and you can see lots of animals in a short period of time.

Here are the kids and Robert trying to make a rhinosaur’s face. ***It has been brought to my attention by Robert that there is no such thing as a rhinosaur. As I am writing this, I am dying from laughter because I meant to say "RHINOCEROS' FACE". When I was typing my original post, I kept trying to spell check it and nothing but a "dinosaur" came up, so I figured I was right, and the spell check was wrong. I even googled it but no success. Yep...that's me being Ukrainian.***

And we always have to get a picture with the flamingos.

Petting zoo was a hit with our kids. Who knew they loved goats? I think Katya and Alex sat still for ten minutes, just petting “their own” goat. Mark loved to chase them.

If you know me well, you know that I have this horrible fear/disgust of anything rodent—mice/rats especially. So as soon as I saw this exhibit, I simply ran outside and stayed there until the kids  were done. Robert seemed to enjoy it.Kids were actually playing and holding mice!!! 

Why does this picture remind me of “Three blind mice” nursery rhyme?:)

Any guesses of what this crowd is for? What animals are they looking at?

Apparently the most famous animal in this zoo is PANDA, brought from China. 

Obviously, we took a whole bunch more pictures of animals and kids, but nothing really stands out to me, so I’ll just keep going with my account of the day.

After a JR train ride and a short walk, we arrived to Hinode Pier, one of the stops on the Tokyo River Cruise line. In our previous trips to Tokyo, I have taken my mom and Lyena on a boat from Asakusa to Hamarikyu gardens. But this time, our plan was to take it from Hinode Pier to Odaiba. Don’t let me fool you, it’s all not that easy to just show up to Tokyo and figure out what to do. I do spend quite a bit of time online/going through my old brochures/asking people in order to plan a trip, especially with kids. 

Anyway, Alex and Robert wished this were our boat.  Nah, we just got a regular modern boat:) with maybe only 20 people on board. 

It was a very pleasant 35 minute ride to Odaiba. One of the highlights of the ride is the view of the famous Rainbow Bridge.

 

Ukrainian Power is everywhere. 

Believe it or not, I still don’t know how to say, “Could you please take our picture?” in English…shame… but everyone I ask understands. I point at my camera and say “kudasai”…haha

“Oh wait, let me fix my hair…”

Approaching Odaiba island. That cool building with a ball is a Fuji building, but we ran out of time and didn’t get to visit it. Oh wait, I have to tell you that Odaiba is an artificial island that was built back in 1853. But only around 1996 it started to become a “futuristic” town with some inside amusement park. Fuji building, huge mall, ferris wheel, and other entertainment.  

Once you arrive, you see a nice beach area, not swimmable, I assume. The day was just perfect for some fun in the sand. We didn’t have any extra clothes, so keeping the kids away form water was a must.

Beautiful Katya.

The view from where I was sitting.

After an hour of playing on the beach, everyone was ready to go inside and explore more. After walking through some stores at the mall and finding out more about Joypolis (inside amusement park) and its prices, we decided that we’d have to skip that as well and went to the arcades areas.
I don’t blame you if you expect a picture of Japanese arcade games here, or even better a crazy video of the sounds, noises and lights you get there, but somehow, neither Robert nor I even remembered we should capture such a prominent moment of our lives as visiting the Japanese arcade games.
Funny moment of the day: Robert figured he’d buy 1000 (about $13) worth of game coins and give them to kids to use in the machines. He put the bill inside on of very suspicious looking machines. It spit out about a hundred weird looking coins. At first we weren’t sure what to do with THOSE coins because they did not fit into any standard arcade machines. Finally, somehow with a lot of hand motions and talking to the Japanese guy who works there, I understood what happened. We got coins for a special kinds of machines in which you put in a coin and then it falls and if you have enough coins inside, the whole pile drops and you get all that money….except…that money is not real money, it’s MORE of that same kinds of coins... Anyway, I don’t know if that makes sense, but it definitely was very funny when we realized how dumb we must have looked to that guy:)
After another hour there of playing Mario carts and Katya’s tearful attempts to get a prize on one of those “claw” games (holy cow, that’s such a rip off even if you have $10 to spend), we found a place to eat. This time we ate at a cheap Italian pizza/pasta place with a fantastic view of the Rainbow bridge all lit up.

At around 7:30 pm we headed home, as we knew we still had an hour before we would finally get to bed. We took a special train that “flies” in the air and takes you from Odaiba to mainland. 

I thought this picture of what it’s like on the train says it all.

Wow, that was a full day. Glad we finally went to Ueno Zoo and explored Odaiba. The boat ride was one of my favorite activities once again. Sadly, this is probably our last trip to Tokyo, at least as a family. Although, you never know. Maybe next August, we’ll be moving to Yokota—an AF base near Tokyo. We’ll keep you posted on that.