Sushi and Maple Syrup, a Canadian's perspective on life in Japan

The Reunions

2009-11-02T02:22:00.004-05:00

The next couple of days were to be spent meeting up with former students and catching up a bit. on Friday evening, I got together with a group and spent the evening at a nice little Spanish bar before moving down the road to the Lion's Head, which had always been "our" bar, with its close proximity to the school. It was a great evening to be sure.

Saturday morning, Yoshiko came down to Utsunomiya and dropped Keita and I off at Ray's place for lunch while she enjoyed her freedom from our little monster to do some shopping. Once again, proof that our little man is never happier than when he's eating... here he is with Ray's eldest daughter.

And with the Ray man himself. Keita enjoyed his time here, not only because of the easily accessible food, but the family's pet rabbit and the number of cute Japanese girls willing to spend time with him.

In the afternoon, after stopping by AEON to show off Keita, I met up with Stacy and met her little guy, 3 month old Jyouji, for the first time. Cute little feller, and he behaved quite well as we hung out at the new Tochigi Government building, which has an observatory on the top floor. Here's the view up Kencho, with the leaves well on their way.

And a view of the grounds of Futara-yama shrine, an oasis of green in the concrete jungle of Utsunomiya.

Afterwards, we headed out to Metro for my final visit this trip, and enjoyed some great coffee and mont blanc desserts. I'll miss their Vietnamese Curry! We then headed out to the Lion's Head's hopping Halloween party... Really quite sad that the changes have served to empty the place out. By the time we'd finish work on Saturdays, this place was always packed... and here is is empty on a Saturday night, and Halloween on top of that... sigh. I guess the whole economy thing also isn't helping. I noticed on Friday night that the streets were practically empty when we left the bar at 1:30AM. That was never the case before, with crowds always huddling outside the entrances of bars and karaoke places along o-dori. It was really strange to be able to see and feel a recession that we, living in a government town, just haven't felt the effects of.

I ended up leaving on a 10PM train, quite tired from the running around and with a little more of it to do!

On Sunday morning, I loaded up Keita's car seat onto our little travel dolly and took the little man to Utsunomiya for lunch with Aiichirou and Fumi. He was quite serious on the train the whole way, especially as more and more people piled on. He loves trains though, and started mooing at cows as we passed a farm, to the delight of those around us on the train. Ever the little flirt, he was all smiles when a group of high school girls started paying attention to him. My first solo train trip with the little guy went off without a hitch. We arrived to Aiichirou in the kitchen, preparing a Chinese feast for us. Keita as usual wasn't interested in waiting for all the dishes to come out, getting down to business early.

I was impressed at how well he did, since he's been acting out being out of his element the last couple of weeks. It helped that their house had lots of space and lots of places for him to run around.

And here we are on Monday, less than 48 hours from flying out. We dropped by Yoshiko's friend's noodle factory earlier, nice little place... and we made out like bandits with a bag full of noodles and soup stock fresh off the factory floor.

Now our thoughts turn to the flight back. A quick look at the seating on the flight tells me we'll have lots of empty seats around us (Yay bad economy!) which will make things easier for sure. The packing begins tomorrow.

Tokyo

2009-10-30T02:06:00.003-04:00

And here I be, back in Tokyo with now less than a week before our flight back to Canada. It's strange how almost a month has gone by both quickly and slowly, maybe depending on whether I was traveling or trying to stay warm around the kotatsu at the in-laws place.

We had a blast here in sleepy Osawa on Wednesday night. Through Mixi, a Japanese social networking site, Yoshiko had reconnected with someone she used to play with in a band some 10 years ago. The group is still together, minus a drummer who went pro, and they setup a jam session at a tiny little bar near Yoshiko's parents in our honour. We spent the evening having beers and food while listening to some tunes and Yoshiko got to catch up with the gang. To make sure we weren't the only ones there, they invited a bunch of friends, who ensured the bar didn't lose any money for putting on a show on a Wednesday night. The band was hilarious on stage, very self conscious of playing in front of a native speaker, which made for an ongoing joke of them insisting they weren't signing in English but in Scandinavian. They even tried to play me up onto the stage to sing with the band, but my mind wasn't able to put more than a couple of words together from the oldies they were signing so I declined with a promise to be prepared for our next visit. It was just a great evening, in an intimate venue, with some fun people who know how to let loose. As hard as the Japanese work, they certainly party with a certain amount of gusto, for example when the male lead signer disappeared during a solo and came back out in a short, silver sequined dress and a huge Afro wig in which he spent the rest of the set. It was a great evening out to be sure.

Thursday morning, I hopped on the Tobu line from Imaichi down to Tokyo to meet up with Doris and Andre who were arriving in Tokyo after visiting Hiroshima, Kyoto and Hakone after I left them last week. My first stop was the Kebob place in Ueno's Ameyoko where I grabbed lunch. After checking in to my hotel, we hopped on the trusty Yamanote line and headed a couple of stops down to Akihabara, Tokyo's electronics mecca, where I was looking for a camera case and new ear phones for my ipod.

Unfortunately, the case I was looking at was way overpriced at more than $80, so I'll stick with the one I've got now. Managed to find some comfortable ear phones though, and Doris and Andre got to experience the massive Yodobashi Camera in Akihabara, so a good stop all 'round.

We then headed to Shibuya where we crossed the famed crossing multiple times before wandering around immersed in the crowds of evening shoppers. Ended up at an Indian restaurant for dinner, since we'd all had quite enough of Japanese for now, and then headed back to Ueno for the night.

Friday morning, we'd hoped to make our way up Shinjuku's Tokyo Metropolitan Government building before the haze set in. The day looked great as we made our way out there, nice blue skies everywhere. Here is the behemoth of a building, which is essentially Tokyo's City Hall.

And the view from the top, with the Park Hyatt on the left. Unfortunately not as clear as I'd have liked, but better than some of the times I've been our there.

Every time I manage to get up somewhere and see the city, I'm amazed at the sheer size of it. An endless sea of buildings, houses, streets, train lines... and almost all built in the last 60 years, with very little having survived the fire bombings of WWII.

The TMG Building has observatories in both towers, on the 45th floor, and it's free... on a clear day, which I guess would mean mostly in the winter, you can get nice views of mount Fuji from up here.

And that was basically it for me. Headed on back to Ueno to pick up my bag and I was off to Utsunomiya for a well deserved nap.

Chillin' in the Prefecture

2009-10-25T02:06:00.003-04:00

Well it's been almost a week since my return from my little 2o some odd train, 1700 kilometer tour. We haven't been up to much, just relaxing and trying to get our little guy settled down some. He hasn't taken all that well to being away from home, and this is probably the worse age to travel with a child as well, since he can't understand what's going on, but it's slowly getting better.

We have had a couple of outings worth mention, just running around Northern Tochigi a bit. The day after I arrived, Wednesday, we took Keita out to a really nice park between Imaichi and Nikko. This was/will be the site of the Soba festival shortly, lots of green grass, lovely view of the mountains.

After an initial attempt at playing at the large park, where he wouldn't leave other kids' toys alone (there's that "not understanding" thing), we exiled him to the other side of the park, where there was a little play structure and a lots of space to run around. Our little man is always most happy when it's snack time, this day was no different!

Here's the structure for those who "don't play well with others"... lol Keita didn't seem to mind.

On Thursday, the whole gang packed into the car and we headed up into the hills towards Nasu, with the intention of visiting the prefectural aquarium up there. When we got there however, we were surprised to find the gates shut! Unfortunately, we'd gone and driven the hour and a half up here on the aquarium's "4th Thursday of every month" off. Lovely! We were planning on visiting Yoshiko's uncle/aunt while we were up here anyway, so we ended up there a bit early is all. After coffee with them, we hit the road again and headed to yet another nice park for a picnic. The park seemed to be an outing destination for schools as we saw quite a few groups out and about, matching hats and all.

After lunch, and having let Keita play for a bit, we headed up a little further into the park where there's a bit of a farm/petting zoo/amusement area which Yoshiko and I had visited back when we were dating. Our little guy had fun running around and mooing at all the animals. This little goat down below decided to make a break for it as we entered the enclosure, and had to be corralled back in by my father-in-law.

Keita didn't really know what to do with these goats, who quickly crowded around looking for food... one even grabbed a bite out of my shirt.

After sampling some of the farm's wonderfully creamy ice cream, we headed on back home, with plans to retry the aquarium thing another day. Kind of funny that we ended up there on the one day during our entire time we're in Japan that the place was closed... oh well.

We tried again on Saturday morning, with Yoshiko's brother coming along for the day this time. Gates were open as we came in, and the aquarium was all decked out for Halloween, complete with underwater graveyards. Keita having recently learned the word "fish", he kept running around from tank to tank pointing out that these were all in fact fish. Cute!

The aquarium included a tunnel through an aquarium in which these massive (largest freshwater fish?) were swimming, I believe they're from the amazon. Keita ended up more enthralled with the scuba diver doing the cleaning in the tank.

After a good hour in the aquarium (recommended for anyone living in the area for sure, 600 yen is on the cheap side for entry fees to these places, and it was better than the one at Shinagawa), we headed back outside into the expansive grounds of the aquarium.

And what's a visit to an aquarium without a good koi feeding? This pond was full of the buggers, and they put on quite the show as they tried to get at the food we were throwing.

While Keita enjoyed throwing food at them, his impression of the squirming mass of fish was "yack". His word, not mine...

So that was that, after a rather difficult meal at Denny's, not the same as back home, just another family restaurant... we headed on back to Yoshiko's aunt and uncle's place where their grandkids Yuna and Shuka were home from school. Keita got to play around with them for a bit, in between trips to the ubiquitous snack bowl, present during any visit to a Japanese home...

Today (Sunday), Yoshiko, Keita and I drove into Utsunomiya for lunch at Cafe Praktica (again for me) and to show off our little man. He did a surprisingly good job, thoroughly enjoyed Praktica's fabulous quiche and we got in a bit of shopping before heading on back home. He's now passed out upstairs, poor little guy is still getting over jet lag... as am I actually... toss and turn for a good part of the night, though that may be due to sleeping on the floor, can't wait to get back into my own bed!

Just a week and a half left before we fly back to cold cold Canada. Hope the snow holds off for a bit more so I can get my yard work done. And I guess I'll have to start thinking about the return to work at some point, though for the first time ever, work is in no way on my mind. Nice to be able to make a clean break for a holiday!

Nara and Osaka

2009-10-20T05:58:00.004-04:00

Turns out the choice of coming back to Yougendou was a good one. It was a fabulous place to just hang out, do some laundry and recover a bit from the relatively intense travelling we'd done thus far. Sunday, was just such a day. With Doris trying to beat a cold, I gave Andre directions onhow to get to Nara and sent him on his way. I went out for a walk for lunch on yet another lovely day and poked around the quiet Oji area. I can't say enough about Yougendou, check out their web site and you can get a feel for it. Here's the front entrance, with a sign drawing clients to their fantastic little dining bar.

And a shot of the interior, this is the breakfast area of the guesthouse.

It was interesting to talk with the boss of the place, Chris, and hear about how they got started here and all the work they've done. They have really done a fantastic job keeping the house traditional while ensuring all the proper amenities are provided to guests. Highly recommended to anyone staying in the Osaka/Kyoto/Nara area, each of which are like a 30 minute train ride away at the most. Yougendou is one stop away from World Heritage Horyuji as well, which makes an easy bike ride as we discovered on Monday morning.

After checking out, we rented a couple of bikes (500Yen per day) from the guest house, grabbed a map and were on our way.

The weather was once again cooperating and the 20 minute bike ride to Horyuji was fantastic. Of course while travelling in Japan and visiting "famous" places, you have to contend with three types of crowds. First, on weekdays there are the duo of school trips and retirees' organised bus trips, and then on weekends there's just the crush of people in general. Being a Monday, we only had to contend with the first two, as regiments of school kids descended upon Horyuji.

This temple houses the world's oldest surviving wooden buildings, dating back to the 700s, pretty impressive.

After the intensely decorated Toshogu, this temple looks decidedly conservative, but does still include some nice carvings and details, such as the dragons on the corner's of the main hall.

Once again, I got into the habit of taking these dramatic roof line/skyline shots, like how this one turned out.

After grabbing a nice lunch just outside the temple, we made our way back to Yougendou to return the bikes, collect our bags and say farewell to the great staff. If I were ever to live in Japan again, I think this is the kind of place I'd like to run or work at. Shortly thereafter, we were off and running again, leaving the ancient capital of Nara behind and heading to the massive modern metropolis of Osaka. Our hotel was located smack dab in the middle of Dotombori, the entertainment and shopping district with literally hundreds upon hundreds of restaurants and shops.

Osaka's big draw for me was the food, with Takoyaki and Oconomiyaki originating here. As dusk fell, we headed out on a quest for dinner and to look at the dazzling array of signage trying to entice passers by to eat at THIS restaurant and try THIS dish... must be difficult to ply one's trade surrounded by so many competitors, but they've certainly got the volume to make a go of it.

We settled on a restaurant serving up Osaka's signature dishes with a twist and thoroughly enjoyed our meal of fried noodles, oconomiyaki and negiyaki. Afterwards, we wandered the streets a bit more before heading back to the hotel and turning in. This was to be my last night on duty as tour guide, Doris and Andre are on their own for the next two weeks as they travel to Hiroshima, Kyoto, Hakone and Tokyo. Good luck!

So here I am on the Shinkansen, at the end of yet another bit of travelling in Japan. Went back to some places I'd been to before (Matsumoto, Kamikochi, Yougendou, Osaka) and saw some new things as well (Tsumago and Magome). This trip also helped focus my interests for our next trip to Japan, assuming my habit of buying a train pass and doing a 7 day trip every time continues. I will probably end up back at Yougendou again the next time, using it as a base to check out the Kinki region a bit more. I've visited 2 of the 3 "famous" views of Japan, may well do the 3rd the next time around. I may also head further west, and check out Shikoku or Kyushu. I haven't see anything along the north-eastern coast of the country either, so there are still lots of options open to me.

Now, time to head back home, hug my dear wife and son and chill out for a bit. Going to have to start making plans to see some people before we leave, though the parties do seem to plan themselves. We're just about at the halfway mark of our trip, 2 more weeks to go.

Magome and Tsumago

2009-10-17T08:19:00.003-04:00

On Friday morning, we left the beautiful mountains of Kamikochi behind and made our way into Gifu prefecture (another prefecture added to my list!) and the quaint little town of Magome. Magome and it's twin city Tsumago are two post towns on the Nakasendo. The mail heading for Tokyo would be relayed up the road from town to town all the way up the line to Tokyo, by foot. If this section of the Nakasendo is any indication, the whole relay thing was a good idea.

We arrived once again under clear blue skies, quite lucky with the weather so far this trip. After finding Tajimaya, dropping off our bags and dealing with a little passport/money/train pass left on a bus situation, we were off and exploring the town, which has been modelled after the original post town of the Edo period.

As the sun started setting, the colours really started to pop on all the old wooden shops, inns and homes up the slope of Magome.

When we got back to the hotel, we encountered a group of 17 seniors from Canada, the UK and Australia, checking in as part of a walking tour. Dinner was probably the best I've had, and was likely geared to the fact that all the guests were gaikokujin for the evening, the signature cricket dish I'd seen on Tajimaya's web site was glaringly absent from our table... lol

After enjoying a leisurely 3 hour meal, we turned in and did the standard jet lag wake up at 5AM thing once again, can’t wait for that to end… So needless to say we were ready for breakfast when they came knocking at 7:30, we ate and headed out the door. We used the luggage forwarding service available to hikers doing the walk between the two towns, Andre headed on down the Nakasendo and we hopped a taxi to beat him to Tsumago. With the early arrival, we had the place almost to ourselves, which was really neat.

Soon enough the buses full of visitors started unloading, but it was still a very neat place to hangout for a morning.

As the rain started falling, we hopped on a bus which eventually connected us to a train, and then another, and another, and one last one... which brought us to Nara, and the beautiful guesthouse, Yougendou. Not sure what the plan is for tomorrow, probably fairly relaxing after all that running around, we'll see.

Kamikochi

2009-10-15T04:52:00.004-04:00

Ah Kamikochi, such a beautiful place to spend some time. For someone who didn't have the chance to grow up near mountains, any trip into "real" mountains is a treat, and this area certainly doesn't disappoint in the mountain department. We were pleasantly surprised with breakfast at the hotel this morning, saved us some time and we got to start off the day easy. We headed on down to the bus terminal and hopped on our mountain-bound train for the hour and a half ride up some nasty narrow mountain roads surrounded by breathtaking scenery.

After fighting the bus traffic and arriving, we quickly found our hotel and dropped off our bags, got dressed for the walk and headed out the door. Here's Alps Sansou, nestled in the woods and surrounded by mountains... fantastic hotel!

As we were coming out the door, we spotted a couple of monkeys hanging around the building and licking the salt off the rocks of the foundation. As we came out, the couple of monkeys turned into a whole gang and we were surrounded with the docile little guys. None of them approached us, so people around here are obviously very good about not feeding the wildlife. There were quite a few wee ones with the group.

As we stood by and more and more monkeys came bumbling down the road, we spotted a few babies hitching a ride on mom.

This one would pause between fits of scratching and stare off intensely into space...

So after getting our fill of monkeys, we headed on down the trail to check out the true attraction of Kamikochi... the mountain views.

This area is absolutely gorgeous, with peaks as high as 3200 meters towering all around and a pristine river running through the valley.

Our timing was doubly good in that the leaves were well on their way, giving us some nice shots of colour as we did the 6km loop out to Myojin and back.

After resting for a bit in the sunshine and enjoying the view, we headed back to the hotel to relax, only to find our gang of primates grooming themselves all over our parking lot.

Hard life eh?

Yet another fantastic day, the weather has been amazing and certainly a highlight of the trip. We just finished up a traditional Japanese meal and are stuffed to the gills. Ready for an evening of relaxing and a good night's rest before hitting the road again tomorrow (and then the rails) on the way to Magome.

Matsumoto

2009-10-14T06:55:00.002-04:00

And we're off, 4 trains today to get us to Matsumoto, which will serve for us as a gateway to Kamikochi up in the mountains. All in all, a good day of travelling. We left in the rain this morning (at least I did, seems the rain skipped Nikko) and hopped through Utsunomiya, Omiya and Nagano stations before arriving in Matsumoto. We're staying at the Welcome Inn Matsumoto, which is very well located for the price, near the station and Matsumoto-jo. So far so good with the travelling, I'm impressing myself regularly with how much of my Japanese is coming back, especially my reading... very useful!

After checking in and dropping off our bags at the hotel, we headed on down the road to check out Matsumoto-jo, one of the few surviving original castles in Japan. Dating back to the late 1500s, the castle sits rather dramatically in the middle of a nice park.

Here are my 6 views of Matsumoto-jo, quite pleased that we got some of the warm light from the setting sun before some clouds rolled in.

Yoshiko and I came out here for Obon in 2006, but as someone who loves the mountains, I'm liking being back in the area, and the castle grounds was certainly a nice way to spend the afternoon after all those trains.

We've purchased our tickets already for our bus ride up into the mountains proper tomorrow morning. We leave for Kamikochi at 8:50AM, hope the weather holds out for us. Not sure when I will get back online again as our next couple of stops are pretty rural and the hotels probably won't have connections. And that's ok... nice to be disconnected for a bit, though I do miss Keita and Yoshiko greatly, will get on skype to them momentarily actually... Cheers!

Lake Chuzenji

2009-10-13T08:22:00.003-04:00

Another fantastic day touring the area, this time, a run up Irohazaka to lake Chuzenji. We headed on out after breakfast this morning, leaving our humble abode on a beautiful, perfect blue sky day.

The drive up went pretty well, what with it being a Tuesday and all. Very light traffic in comparison to what we saw on the weekend. Nonetheless, the parking lots and cable cars were packed, with Koyo well under way in a number of areas, but still only about 10% of the leaves having any colour.

Our first stop was the spectacular Kegon Falls, where (for the first time ever for me) we took the elevator down to the bottom of the falls for a different view.

After chasing a bored Keita around for a bit amongst throngs of school kids out on field trips, we piled back into the car for a tour of the Italian Embassy Villa, with it's gorgeous views of the lake. This area had quite a few leaves changing, and I took advantage to take a few shots.

Our little man made his way down by the water and was quite content throwing rocks into the clear blue waters of lake Chuzenji.

After pulling him forcibly away from his rocks, we managed to get back on the trail back to the car and off to lunch at the Kanaya Hotel's Yukon Cafe, a Canadian-built log building on the shores of the lake. While we waited for a table, Keita found some more rocks to throw 'round...

After lunch, we headed deeper into the mountains and along the back side of Nantai-san to have a soak in the foot onsen at Yumoto-onsen. Nice and relaxing.

The final stop of this outing was a walk 'round Ryuzu Falls, where I played around with the Neutral Density filter on my cam and came out with some nice shots of the water.

After dropping Doris and Andre off at their hotel, Yoshiko and I commandeered a vehicle and dispatched Keita with his grandparents so that we could enjoy a bit of time alone for our anniversary. Interestingly enough, the last couple of days have mirrored our first couple of dates and we've even managed to re-create a couple of photos from 4 years back... fun! To kill off some time before dinner, we walked around Nikko for a bit and ended up back in the shop of this artist I guess we've come to love. After looking around, we made our second purchase (the first being a wedding gift for a friend) and had him paint a white dragon with Keita's name in kanji for our house. Can't wait to have it framed and mounted.

Once more in a reminiscing mood, we had dinner at Yama no restaurant, where we had the lunch for our wedding. Food was as great as I remembered, went all out and had the tochigi beef. Yum!

And that was it for the day, other than the packing of course as I'm leaving tomorrow morning for a 7 day tour through 6 towns. Looking forward to hitting the rails again!

Nikko's Toshogu

2009-10-11T20:43:00.004-04:00

Sunday morning, we packed up the gang and headed up the road to Nikko once more to tour the Toshogu. Now, over the years, I'd say Nikko is probably the place I've been to the most, and it turned out to be the place Yoshiko caught my eye so to speak on a day trip up there with her and some other students. We were so lucky to live nearby, it's a gorgeous place to visit. Another reason we're up there a lot is that Yoshiko's parents are from the area, and are very eager to show it off whenever anyone comes visiting. We toured my mother through Nikko when she came down for our wedding, my family when they came in 2007 and now it was my aunt Doris and Andre's turn for the tour. They're lucky enough to be staying nearby, about 10 minutes walk from the World Heritage sites of Nikko.

Nikko is set in a beautiful spot, up in the mountains, with the volcano, Nantai-san, towering over the area at 2484 meters high.

When what we thought would be a short drive from Imaichi turned into a bit of a traffic jam (it is fall leaf viewing season after all, and a long weekend at that), we got creative and forced our way around the worst of it though some tiny residential streets. Near the Shinkyo (sacred bridge), I hopped out to meet Doris and Andre while the rest of the gang went on to find parking. After all the damage I've seen to Japan's rivers, it's refreshing to see some clear blue sparkling water once you get up in the mountains a bit.

From Shinkyo, we made our way up the many steps into the temple/shrine areas where we were to meet the rest of the gang, taking photos along the way of course.

As I'm sure I've mentioned before, the main attraction up here is the Toshogu, shrine and burial place of Ieyasu Tokugawa, the warlord who defeated all others and united Japan under his clan's rule for 300 years, effectively creating a cohesive nation where there was only strife and wars amongst the different lords before. The story goes that Tokugawa asked to be buried in a simple shrine to the North of Edo, his capital (now Tokyo) so that he could forever protect it. One of his descendants decided a while later that he was too important a man to have such a lowly burial place and undertook a massive expansion with thousands upon thousands of artisans, the result of which is the Toshogu.

Much like the head priest of the Toshogu arrives during the thousand warriors parade every year, Keita was carried up the steps in his stroller... but opted for a bit of running around before we got into the Toshogu.

The level of detail present on the buildings and gates still amazes me. These are the carvings that adorn the wall surrounding the main shrine.

It's said that the artist who carved these elephants did so without ever having laid eyes on one.

And here is where the man himself is buried, at the top of a hill, up a series of stairs surrounded by old growth forest... 3rd time I make that climb I believe, must still be in ok shape!

While we toured around with Doris and Andre, poor Yoshiko had to try and keep our little man occupied as the place was packed and bringing him inside the buildings would have been too difficult. Needless to say, by the time we were done, so was he!

We then walked on back down and had some great Chinese food before leaving Doris and Andre at their hotel and heading to the car. Unfortunately, we had some car trouble and ended up having to hang around and wait for the dealership to send a guy over to give us a boost... by the time we got home and had dinner, we were dead and turned in by 8 with a very tired Keita severely feeling the effects of jet lag. He almost slept through the night, so I think we're almost there... just need to get him into a routine. Today was spent doing a bit of shopping and then relaxing at home, company coming for dinner a bit later. Tomorrow we're heading up and up and up into the mountains to lake Chuzenji, and then Doris, Andre and I begin our travels to Matsumoto, Kamikochi, Magome, Tsumago, Nara, and Osaka. I'll then leave them to their own devices while they tour Kyoto, Hiroshima, Hakone and Tokyo.

Japan, the return... 2009 version

2009-10-10T08:53:00.008-04:00

Yes, a blog post.... my first in over a year. Why now? Well we're back in Japan, for a month this time 'round, and Japan is what this here blog has been all about, so it just seems right is all.

After quite some time without much in the way of time off, this whole month off thing seems a bit surreal. After finishing up the packing on Tuesday night, we turned in early to grab a few Zs before having to get up for our 6:47AM flight out. Now THAT was an early morning, ugh. Didn't start off all that well with the United check-in lady arguing with me about our needing visas to enter Japan, despite the fact I could see on her screen that their documentation said we didn't.... stupid people suck. We then grabbed a quick bite before hopping on our flight to O'Hare, where Arekusu-sensei was waiting for us.

The flight went well, with Keita comfortably tucked into his car seat. So far so good. We were unfortunately delayed 4 hours in Chicago (8 hours total at the airport) thanks to a big-ass typhoon about to hit Japan that we would have basically had to land into. So the extra time allowed for the storm to move along and we got to watch Keita running around the kids play area, a god-send that was! Finally our plane boarded and we were on our way, 12 hours to Tokyo!

The flight went really well, Keita did a great job and thanks to some empty seats, we set him up on a couple of seats and he slept a good 8 hours or so. The landing was the roughest I've ever had, cross winds from the typhoon I guess, it was a pretty wild ride down. As we started our descent there was this hundred foot drop in the span of a second, talk about a rude awakening! As the bumps continued, some stuff started sliding around the cabin and people kept giving each other anxious looks... finally we touched down and the flight attendants commented on how good a job the pilots did, I guess they were expecting the rough ride.

So after all that, we did the train thing out to Tokyo, exhausted as hell but glad to finally be here. Our hotel was the Hotel Sun Targas, just a couple minutes out of Ueno station, very well located... once we found it, and we crashed shortly after arriving, 'round 10 ish.

Friday morning, we got up, enjoyed our little breakfast in the lobby and did a bit of walking in Ueno as the JR ticket office didn't open until 10:30. Love the area, Ameyoko is always a nice visit and doing it so early, we got to see all the shops slowly opening up for business, and no crowds at all. After checking out of the hotel and grabbing our rail passes, we hopped on the Ginza line and headed to Asakusa, got our tickets (private compartment thank you very much) for the Tobu line up to Nikko and were on our way once again. The typhoon had cleared the air nicely and we could see the Alps off to the North and of course the mountain range around Nikko towards which we were heading.

The smiles on Yoshiko's parents faces as they saw our little man after a year and a half was well worth the trip. After dropping Doris and Andre at their hotel in Nikko, it was off to Imaichi for some down time and some grub.

Saturday morning, with Keita in a better mood despite the jet lag and lack of sleep, he got to explore the garden a bit and meet his great-grand-mother once again.

I headed out to Nikko to meet up with Doris and Andre and we took the JR Nikko line down to Utsunomiya. This was to serve as a bit of an orientation to trains and stations for them as the previous days' travels consisted of us just running through stations catching trains and no time to explain anything. Turned out we had a great day, weather was nice for most of it and we walked around quite a bit.

It was nice once again to see some positive changes in the city. Seems that a lot of shops/restaurants have opened up on Orion and O-dori and the beautification of the area around Futara-yama shrine is continuing with the nasty building which was still standing on the left being replaced with a new one and leaving some room for a bit of a public square.

Hit up Metro for lunch, glad to see that the Praktica fare had moved to the larger location near Aeon. I've been dreaming about their Vietnamese curry since the last time we were here, and it didn't disappoint... (drools). Ran into a bunch of students on our travels as well, word is getting around that I'm back and I'll have to start making plans for the second half of our stay to meet up with some peoplez. All in all a fantastic return to the Nomiya.

Today, with the weather promising to be in the 20s, we're heading up the road to see the shrines and temples of Nikko. More to come later.

Friends

2008-05-26T02:24:00.004-04:00

I've come to the realization that I no longer have former co-workers and former students in Japan, all I am left with are friends. Yesterday was a day set aside to get together with some of the people who made my time in Japan memorable, and helped me survive out here in a distant land. Whether it was lending an ear when I needed to whine about something, or packing up the car for a day trip out somewhere, us traveling teachers would be lost without this support structure.

Our first stop of the day was to have lunch with Ray and his family in Utsunomiya. It was a great afternoon and Keita enjoyed meeting everyone... though he is getting to be a bit hard to pin down for photos!

Here is Rina, Ray's youngest daughter, trying to hold on to a slippery Keita. It was quite funny how she quickly turned from being afraid of holding the little guy to not letting him go...

After a couple of hours of being tossed around, Keita started to get whiny so we put him down for a bit of a nap. I'm amazed at how he can sleep anywhere... almost nothing will wake him up once he's snoozing.

After eating for 4 hours at Ray's place, it was time to move on to dinner... ugh! We were meeting up with some folks at a nice place on O-dori called Kurofune Teppan. Here's the group before the festivities got underway.

Unfortunately, it was getting close to Keita's bed time, so he and Yoshiko had to make an early exit, leaving me to my devices with this bunch of hooligans. I must admit, I do not enjoy being limited to a 10:45 last train out of the city once I get together with these friends.

Here I am with Yasuko and Kyoko, whom I specifically remember from my welcome party, in fact, I seem to recall a very similar photo taken at the time, over three years ago now!

To the right of Kotaro, is the new foreign teaching crew in Utsunomiya. Dayne who replaced Matt, and Anthony who replaced me.

Apparently, my camera was circulating around the table for a while, the best way to get candid pics, ne?

As Kurofune was shutting down and kicking us out a little before ten, and my train wasn't until 10:45, I suggested we stop by another bar to kill a bit more time. A fantastic day in Utsunomiya. While I'd have liked to meet a bunch of other people, it gets pretty difficult to do so, especially when one's trip is segmented into travel time and family time. I'll try to do better next time! And there will of course be a next time. Yoshiko and Keita are my permanent link to Japan, and I am quite lucky to have that.

Now it's all over except the packing. We leave tomorrow afternoon for the long drive out to Narita and our 7PM flight, and then it's bye bye Japan. I will of course miss it, though my back will not miss the whole "floor living" thing... cheers!

Nara

2008-05-24T20:26:00.003-04:00

Well, I'm back in Imaichi, after 6 days of traveling, it's nice to be staying put for a bit! The trip all in all was great, though I did find it quite tiring, especially the last couple of days.

After I blogged on Thursday, I joined an Australian couple I met at Yougendou and we headed to an Izakaya across the street for some drinks and grub. It was really nice to be able to have a normal conversation after days of limiting myself to my meager Japanese and small talk with random people who would approach me. A couple of hours later, we wound up back at Yougendou, which has a small dinner bar on top of being an AMAZING guesthouse, and closed that place out. Yougendou (www.yougendou.com) was one of the highlights of my trip. Really nice place, great breakfast, fantastic staff and the owner was great to talk to as well, being an 11 year veteran of Japan. I highly recommend it to anyone spending time in the Nara\Osaka vicinity.

Friday morning, I reluctantly checked out of Yougendou, said my goodbyes and headed to Nara station to lock up my bags (locker fees now up to 1200 Yen for the trip, not all that bad) and begin the trek around Nara Koen.

The sights in Nara are mostly concentrated in Nara Park, which is kind of a double edged sword... on the one hand, it makes for great walking, on the other after a week of walking, I'd had enough! I should have rented a bike like I'd initially planned... dumbass... anywho. I'm going to have to cut this short and do kind of a photo dump here, we have a busy day ahead of us with a trip into Utsunomiya for lunch with Ray and his family, and dinner with some other students\staff from AEON. Cheers!

The Daibbutsu-den at Todai-ji, largest wooden structure in the world.

450+ TONS of bronze went into this massive statue.

Deer roaming Nara Koen

Little mob of elementary students who significantly slowed down my walk back to the station!

Torii! Torii! Torii!

2008-05-22T06:04:00.003-04:00

2 things, first an apology for the pun on the movie Tora! Tora! Tora! and next, please disregard my message yesterday about no longer taking photos of Torrii Gates to shrines... not like I had much choice with my destination this morning!

After checking out of my hotel and locking up my luggage at Kyoto station (JR may be giving me a discount, but the buggers got 800 yen out of me today for lockers!) I headed on down the line to Inari and the famed Fushimi Inari Taisha.

Fushimi Inari Taisha is best known for its thousands upon thousands of Torii gates, winding their way through the mountain side.

The shrine was originally established as a shrine to rice and sake I believe, but has now switched to an all encompassing business shrine, with each of these torrii being paid for by companies\individuals wishing for good fortune in business ventures. Of course, if you don't pay up, here's what happens... lol

Each gate is inscribed with the donor's name\company name and also perhaps a message or wish? I see some more elaborate carvings than others...

Now, while the path up the mountain was nice and shaded by both trees and the gates, it was still a climb up a mountain. As I sat near the peak taking a break and wondering how much further I'd be climbing up, I was immediately humbled by these gentlemen going up the hill with a log on their shoulders. Oh yeah! I guess these gates have to come up here somehow? This being Japan, I'd assumed there was some magical stair climbing machine that did all the work... apparently not.

I'd brought my mini tripod along with me today, foreseeing the need for low-lights shots in the forest... and I manged to snap a shot of myself! The first on this solo trip of mine... but not the last...

The interesting thing about walking through these gates is that they're only inscribed on the way back down hill, so on the way up, all you see is orange... but on the way down, you see all the characters.

They even had a bit of a waterfall, where I unfortunately was unable to get a good vantage point for a shot...

Now this shrine up here in the hill above Kyoto is dedicated to the fox, Inari in Japanese, which is apparently the key keeper for the rice store house... interesting. This means that every once in a while, you'll run into a statue of a fox staring out at you.

It was certainly an interesting place to walk around for the morning. After a quick train ride back to Kyoto to pick up my bag and a run down to Nara for lunch, I then decided on the spur of the moment to visit Horyiuji, which is just one stop from my hotel. This temple is home to the world's oldest building, the last reconstruction of which dates back 1300 years! This is the inner gate to the temple.

And one of the guardians within the gate, again... over a thousand years old!

According to my volunteer guide, who grabbed me on the way in, 4 of these posts were made using a single tree, which is a problem because there aren't such behemoths out here any more if something were to need replacing. The construction method used was dovetailing, which means no nails! Everything just kind of fits into place.

Here I am with my guide for the tour around the temple. This gentleman has traveled and lived abroad quite a bit, and did a great job of telling me the back story of these buildings and their cultural significance to Japan as one of the first established Buddhist temples.

One of the things I learned from my good friend is that dragons here are water guardians, and thus are used to protect buildings from fire... whoda thunk?

And finally for this evening, my view at the moment at Yougendou, an AMAZING guesthouse a couple of stops down from Nara.

And that's that! I've been invited out to dinner by an Aussie couple staying here tonight and I'll join them before grabbing a beer at the bar also run on the Yougendou grounds and turning in for the night. I've scheduled an 8AM breakfast tomorrow morning... so gotta get up early! Gnight!

A Very Temple-ish day

2008-05-21T09:21:00.003-04:00

Well day three of my little trip is done with and I am bushed. But the show must go on as they say, and I got to visit some pretty interesting places today, a few off the beaten path as well, which is nice in tourist heavy Kyoto.

My first stop this morning, after unsuccessfully looking for a place to have breakfast and settling on a sandwich from Lawson's, was To-ji temple, to check out the monthly market being held there today. The ground of the temple were definitely the highlight of the day, with beautiful gardens presided over by the tallest Pagoda in Japan.

And with all the action happening outside the inner temple area, I was free to roam in relative peace.

The market, while interesting to walk around in, didn't hold anything I was interested in... so after touring for a bit, I made my way back out into the streets of Kyoto.

One sight which followed me around today was this blimp flying over the city. I assume one can pay an exorbitant of money and be ferried around over the city for a while aboard the vehicle... such a nice contrast with the roofline of To-ji.

I came to the realization today that I have a new "signature" shot. I used to take many photos of Torii gates, but what I've been doing on this trip is more of these types of "roofline against the sky" kind of shots.

Now, I visited so many temples today (10? 15?) that I can't put a name to each picture, but here's a couple.

Ooh ooh! This one I have a name for... this is Eikan-do and it's mountain-side pagoda.

On the grounds of Eikan-do, I found this little waterfall nestled between a cemetary and a nursery school... go figure... I put the G9's electronic ND filter (which allows longer shutter speeds without blowing out the image with too much light) with some nice results.

These are some of the buildings at Nanzen-in, which has some quite extensive grounds, all shaded with lovely trees. A great place to take a rest.

Hidden up the mountainside behind Nanzen-in and known only to the local worshipers (and whoever has a guidebook) is Nanzen-ji Oku no-in, a small shrine built around a waterfall which worshipers pray under. On the climb up the mountain path, I encountered exactly 1 person who was coming back down... and he was still wet so I assume he was praying under the waterfall.

After puttering around the same temple area much of the afternoon, I decided to go a bit further afield and check out Ginkaku-ji, one of the more "famous" of all the famous Kyoto temples. Unfortunatly the temple itself is in the midst of a major restoration project and is thus under wraps, but it's beautifully manicured gardens were certainly worth the trip.

And that was that for temples for the day. I headed on back to the hotel to rest a bit and grab a shower before hitting up some Ramen for dinner. Tomorrow, Nijo castle, Fushimi-Inari-Taisha and then off to Nara!

Walking in Kyoto

2008-05-20T07:51:00.004-04:00

Ah Kyoto. Woke up relatively early this morning and ended up on the 9:55 Shinkansen out of Himeji bound for Kyoto. The weather forecast had called for rain, but when I woke up and saw clearing skies, I opted for an earlier departure than I had planned.

Upon arriving in Kyoto, one cannot help but feel small when standing in\around the massive Kyoto Station. The 12 storey behemoth is where it all starts for most visitors, as it was for me.

My first order of business was finding my apparently notoriously difficult to find hotel, which is tucked away in an alley near the station. In the end, I don't know what the fuss was all about online when I checked reviews... I found the place within minutes just by following the map from the hotel's web page... bah! The hotel certainly isn't anything to write home about, especially after staying in the Royal Park Hotel in Tokyo last week... but the room is comfortable, the rate is cheap and it's about 200 meters from the station and thus the hub of the Kyoto bus system, what more can one ask for?

After dropping off my bags, I decided to take one of the walking tours in my trusty Lonely Planet Kyoto book, which zig zags around the Higashiyama area and hits up some of Kyoto's main sights. Some of these I'd already seen during our trip here in March of last year, but since we'd come during the illumination festival, we'd visited all these streets and temples at night... much different during the day when you can go inside and visit everything.

One of the first highlights of the walk is the Kiyomizudera temple complex. I'd been warned to expect school trips but I hadn't expected the swarms of uniformed kiddies running around all over the place!

One of the great things about this place is the greenery, which stands in stark contrast to the general ugliness of the city of Kyoto.

This is Kiyomizu itself, perched on the side of the mountain with its famous veranda, an engineering marvel for its time for sure.

Part of the walking tour mysteriously mentions that one should pay the 100 yen admittance to Tainai Meguri, and only briefly mentions darkness and keeping an arm out in front of you. Intrigued, I had a go at it and was directed down a staircase leading down into the dark. I won't spoil the experience for anyone, but it was certainly interesting, and highly recommended. The entrance to Tainai Meguri is not marked in English, but here is what it looks like, just off to the left of the pagoda. There is an English info sheet available to read before heading down.

After Kiyomizu, I headed on down the old streets which lead down from the temple.

Some of the streets are quite old and narrow and are lined with shops and high end Japanese inns and restaurants.

Along the way of course, one encounters countless temples and shrines, such as Kodai-ji below.

While taking a break in Maruyama Koen, I was luck enough to spot some Maiko (apprentice Geisha) out for a stroll.

Right near the park, I checked out Yasaka-jinga, an area we had only been to at night the last time around.

One of the highlights of this walk was Chion-in temple, with it's huge 2 storey gate.

The gate only serves as an introduction to the temple building itself, which is massive.

After this four hour walk, I was more than ready for a break and quickly made my way to the nearest bus stop and headed back to the hotel to check in. After getting settled in to my 6 tatami room and relaxing for a while, I headed on back out for dinner and ended back at the top of the station in time to catch the last of the sunset.

With some brisk winds pushing all the clouds away, tomorrow promises to be a great day. Over my dinner of Tonkatsu, I planned out my day for tomorrow. I'll be starting with the Bodo-san market at To-ji temple, which only occurs on the 21st of each month, so this is pretty good timing. Then I'll head out on another walking tour, through Northern Higashiyama this time before heading back for a break at the hotel. For dinner, I've scoped out an eel restaurant I want to try out before taking another walking tour of the Pontocho and Gion districts... should be a long day but a good one!

Off and running

2008-05-19T08:15:00.003-04:00

Said goodbye to Yoshiko and Keita this morning and hopped on a 7AM train out of Imaichi, along with ten thousand high school students, to Utsunomiya. I must say, gotta love the JR PASS! Even if it wasn't such a huge discount (assuming you use it on long haul bullet train runs like I am) it'd be worth it just not to have to buy tickets... it's like VIP treatment... very cool!

From Utsunomiya, I took the Shinkansen to Tokyo station, and transferred for Himeji. Here's where I almost made a fatal (for my lungs, eyes and nose) mistake. After figuring out that trains 1-5 on the Hikari Shinkansen were non-reserved, I walked along the train and settled on car number 3, which had a slightly smaller lineup. As I stood and waited, I looked around and noticed that all the people lined up with me were grey, older men. On a hunch, I went ahead in the line a bit to get a look at the electronic sign for this car's info and didn't see the no smoking sign lit up on it. After confirming with another passenger that this was a smoking car, I quickly trundled off into another lineup... my god, almost 4 hours cooped up in a train car full of smoking people... can you imagine! Disaster averted!

The train ride went well, I got a window seat, which didn't mean much this time around with the cloudy weather... I was hoping for a glance at Mount Fuji but it wasn't meant to be... maybe Saturday on the run back... After arriving at Himeji and dropping off my bags at the Washington Hotel Plaza (hint to anyone travelling in Japan, Washington Hotels are a cheap business hotel, usually located close to the station) I headed off in search of the great little Indian place we ate at when my parents were here. Unfortunately, for the second time on this trip... my culinary dreams were dashed when I found the place was closed on Mondays... d'oh! So I sat down at a lunch place for a so so Japanese lunch set instead and headed to the castle.

Unlike our first trip here in March of last year when we were blessed with a gorgeous blue sky to frame the castle, the skies were overcast today, with a bit of a drizzle. I can thank a second typhoon moving through the area for another spate of shitty weather. Nonetheless, the castle is still breathtaking. I can't imagine being a soldier from a couple of years back tasked with taking Himeji castle... I guess that's why no one ever tried and the original castle is still standing!

With this being my second visit, I opted out of entering the main tower and took a casual stroll around the grounds instead. The park is huge, and there are a number of outer fortifications and buildings which we'd missed the first time around.

I spent a bit of time in the Western Bailey area of the castle, which include this building where one of the princesses of yesteryear took a break from the bleak stone\wooden military styling of the castle in a tower built with her dowry and outfitted with all the modern amenities of the time... as you can see, this pretty much means tatami mats...

With this being a week day and after cherry blossom season, it really wasn't crowded and I ended up alone a lot of the time. Most of the other visitors were on tours (I heard some German and Italian along with the usual Japanese tours) and so were concentrated in little packs working their way through the area.

On the way back out, I grabbed an ice cream cone and sat down to enjoy the view for a bit. This little walk turned out to take a little over two hours... surprising since the castle including climbing to the top of the main tower usually takes about 90 minutes... nice and relaxing stroll this time 'round.

After heading in to the hotel and checking in, I took a bit of a nap before heading out for dinner. I ended up in a little bar-type place which served okonomiyaki, which I am coming to think is probably my favourite Japanese food. It was great, and I washed it down with a couple of beers while planning my time in Kyoto.

With the rain coming down now and for most of the day tomorrow... I think I'll sleep in tomorrow morning before grabbing breakfast and leaving Himeji.

More tomorrow... from Kyoto!

2008-05-18T05:30:00.007-04:00

Well with this post, I'll have updated my blog more in a week than I have in the previous 6 months! Amazing what a trip to Japan will do to one's blogging laziness!

On Saturday, we hopped into the Takeshi Takahashi taxi once again and headed on up to Nasu. Our first stop was an Italian restaurant where the Imperial family had once dined, forever cementing their reputation as a reputable restaurant. Unfortunately, things have gone downhill a bit since then, and while the food was good, the service wasn't up to par... even when taking into account Japan's ridiculously high standards. Anywho, after filling up our bellies, we took to the winding mountain roads and eventually wound up here, at a Ryokan called Ebisuya nestled along a riverbank and surround by greenery.... aaaaaaaaaaaahhhhh.

This was my first stay at an authentic Ryokan, where one doth live on the floor and eat fancy Japanese meals.

Speaking of the meals, they are quite elaborate! Here is our Saturday night dinner, served on no less than 17 dishes! While I'm sure the food was quite good, I unfortunately left a good third of it there, due to being both full and less adventurous in my gastronomic adventures then I was when I first moved here.

The main activity out here is the taking of baths in the Ryokan's onsen. Unfortunately, I really need to be in the mood to bathe with countless naked old men, and the mood was not with me this weekend. I instead opted to relax and delve into a book that's remained unopened since we left Canada. Everyone else in our party indulged and were certainly refreshed... except for Keita of course... Speaking of the little guy, during dinner he decided to try out his ninja moves on grandma complete with screams and face\hair pulling, much to the amusement of everyone in the room.

Breakfast was more of the same as far as elaborateness goes... this time complete with Natto, the culinary bane of all foreign visitors to Japan.

A group of gentlemen from Tokyo were staying with us for the weekend, and I was somewhat surprised when they ordered beer to go with breakfast...

After breakfast, we posed for this shot in front of the Ryokan before hitting the road again. As we drove our way out of the mountains, we were surprised to see a real-life Inoshishi (wild boar) trounce across the road in front of us and run off into the forest. I'd heard of wild boar being out here, but none of us had ever seen one, and coincidentally, Inoshishi was one of the dishes served on Saturday night!

Our destination on this fine Sunday afternoon was Nikko and the ongoing Yabusame festival. Today was the day of the two parades, from the Toshogu in the morning and back in the afternoon. We planted ourselves in the staging area to see the parade as the groups formed and headed down the road to Toshogu. The parade included a number of folks on horses, which were lined up all over the place.

The planning, I'm sure, is quite intricate, with literally hundreds of participants, dozens of horses and a number of mikoshi (portable shrines) and props having to make the trip. I guess after having done this every year for a couple of hundred years, you get it down pat.

Here you can see a Mikoshi being man-handled out of it's temporary storage building for it's trip back home to the Toshogu.

These three Mikoshi are usually housed in a storehouse on the grounds of Toshogu and are only taken out twice a year. They are the shrines of Tokugawa Ieyasu and his successors (I believe).

Little Keita enjoyed the view, while having to be constantly moved around to avoid any poopy disasters or god forbid, a kick, from the various horses.

Once the "Procession of a Thousand Warriors" as it's called, had made its way out of the staging area, we took a shortcut and intercepted the last bunch of them as they approached the massive gate leading to the Toshogu. The origin of this procession dates back to when Toshogu's grave was moved from Shizuoka prefecture to Nikko in accordance to his wishes. He wanted to protects Edo (now Tokyo) from the evil spirits believed to comes from the North. Every year thereafter, Japanese lords from all over the country would make their way to Nikko and perform this ceremony, bringing offerings to Ieyasu's shrine.

As you can see, quite a few people turned out for the event, but it wasn't as crowded as I expected it.

This gentleman bringing up the rear of the procession is the head priest of the Toshogu.

And that was that! A great big Otsukaresamadeshita to the guys who had to cart the mikoshi, each weighing over a ton, down the mountain and back up!

Tomorrow morning, I'm up bright and early for a 3 train trip down to Himeji. I'll be checking out the massive fortification again, reliving the highlight of our trip West last year with my family. After Himeji, I'll be off to Kyoto and Nara for a couple of days each before returning Saturday.

Keita in Tokyo

2008-05-16T21:07:00.003-04:00

Well we're back after a nice couple of days in Tokyo, got a bunch of pictures I wanted to post... so here goes!

We headed to the station early-ish on Thursday morning... here's Keita at his first Japanese train station.

It's now official... Keita is a great kid to travel with... planes, trains, cars... anything ok!

After a quick train ride, due to it being an express train, we arrive at Kita Senju in Tokyo to kill a bit of time before our check-in.

From this quick trip around Tokyo, I think I can put a "kid-friendly" stamp on the big city, for which I was pleasantly surprised. Heck, this family bathroom at a department store in Kita Senju even had a mini toilet! Our only hassle was carting the stroller up and down stairs at some of the smaller and thus not escalator\elevator equipped metro stations, and the stroller was definitely worth the hassle, so it's a trade off really.

After putting around Kita Senju a bit, we hopped back on the trains for the run out to Nihombashi and the Royal Park Hotel where we were staying. The hotel was fantastic, really great service, up to and including the private tour of our hotel room by the bell boy who remembered us through both days of our stay... and all that with no need for tips! I love Japan!

After a quick feed for Keita, it was our turn for some grub and we headed on down the street. After initially passing by an Indian restaurant, we quickly turned around when the prevailing winds brought the fabulous aroma of curry to our noses. The food was great, and I came to the realization that I've only really eaten Indian food here in Japan... will have to remedy that back home...

The area we stayed in is primarily a business hub, so there wasn't much in the way of sights around the hotel. I did manage to snap a shot of this worker sleeping on the roof of his truck though... ah the lazy days of summer... erm, spring...

The construction worker wasn't the only one sleeping, Keita conked out pretty quick too...

And needless to say he was less than pleased when we'd stop at an intersection and the sounds of traffic would get to him.

We stopped by this shrine, Suitengu, on the way back to the hotel. It's a shrine where pregnant women come to ask for a healthy child and easy delivery. It's also where I seem to have gotten my photography groove back... it's been a while since I looked at one of my pictures and said: "Yup, that's a good shot"... but I thought that immediately upon reviewing this shot here.

Back in our hotel for a bit of a break, I took a few shots of the view. Here's a panoramic view, the big building right across the way is the Yomirui Newspaper head office.

It's amazing how the traffic situation can change in Tokyo. From one minute to the next, things can go from good to heavy congestion.

With me needing to change my voucher for the Japan Rail Pass, we hopped back on the trains for the short run out to Ueno where I got my hands on the coveted pass. Since I was in Japan on a work visa before, I wasn't eligible for this tourist-only pass which gives you 7 (or 14) days of unlimited travel on all JR trains, including the bullet trains, for less than the cost of a return trip by shinkansen from Tokyo to Kyoto... and no hassle with buying tickets either!

After getting my pass, we headed into the maze of shops that is Ameyoko.

A number of little restaurants spread out into the streets in the evening, to accommodate the rush of commuters grabbing a bite and a drink before heading home.

I've always loved the atmosphere in Ameyoko, with vendors trying to sell their wares and crowds of people walking around.

I was glad to see that my favourite octopus was still for sale here at this stand. I must have photographed this same place 10 times in the last few years.

Once again, here is the horribly difficult kid we had to deal with when travelling amongst these crowds... soooooo hard to travel with him!

After meeting up with a former student of mine and friend of Yoshiko's for a nice dinner at Kurofunetei, which serves up great Hayashi rice, we then headed back to the hotel for the night. When I said earlier this hotel was great, this is one example of that.... the mirror has a heated section in it which doesn't fog up when you shower... how cool is that!

After a lazy morning at the hotel on Friday, we checked out and headed off to Asakusa from where we were taking the train home. For lunch, we stopped at a great little Oconomiyaki place.

Oconomiyaki is often called a Japanese pancake or pizza, but it is quite unique... a mix of cabage and egg and flower and meat... yum!

After lunch, we headed to Nakamise dori, the shopping street which leads to Senso-ji.

Once we got to the temple, we couldn't help but notice that everyone was looking our way, but we didn't know why!

It became clear pretty quick when a procession started to make its way into the temple grounds. It seems we'd arrived smack dab in the middle of Sanja-matsuri, the shrine's huge festival.

On any other day, this would have been great timing, but with a train to catch and a stroller slowing us down, we were effectively trapped on the grounds of the temple.

Luckily the procession wasn't that long and we were able to sneak out behind the wave of people following it.

This is Nakamise on a weekday... I've only been here on a weekend once and it was REALLY wild...

On the way out, I spotted this wanted poster for the guy who killed Linsey-Ann Hawker, a British girl teaching English with Nova. She was reported missing over a year ago now, and when the police arrived to question him, he escaped, despite there being something like 9 cops around. The police then found her body in a tub of sand on his balcony, he has yet to be caught, though with any luck he's gone ahead and offed himself saving everyone the hassle... Nonetheless, until he or his body are found, the hunt goes on. I particularly enjoyed seeing the image of what he'd look like as a woman...

After our escape from Senso-ji, we headed to Tobu Asakusa station and hopped on the Kuni Express train home.

Tired from running around Tokyo with Keita, we opted to pay the 3000 yen charge for a private compartment.

It was well worth it, and made for a very comfortable ride home.

Keita even had his own seat to sleep on.

And that was our run in and around Tokyo. Today, we're heading up into the mountains around Nasu to spend the night at a Ryokan, just chilling with the family. On the way home tomorrow, we'll drop by Nikko to see the Yabusame parade, a yearly event which is well worth the trip from what I hear. Then on Monday, I'm off on my trip out West... busy!

Utsunomiya, The Return (s)

2008-05-14T18:40:00.003-04:00

This is gonna be a short one as we're running out to catch a train in to Tokyo... but I wanted to get this posted before we go!

First, a couple of baby shots... for my mom in Canada! Keita is enjoying life on the tatami mat here in Imaichi, though it has been cold and we've had to fire up the heaters to keep things cozy for the little guy.

He's also taken a liking to this ball Takeshi bought for him, I've got a video of him attacking it which I'll post later.

On Tuesday, we headed into Utsunomiya with little Keita to do some shopping and visit two of the most important places for me while I was in Japan... AEON, where I taught for almost two years, and Cafe Praktica (link on the right!), probably my favourite restaurant... anywhere... Here is the little guy on his first visit to Cafe Praktica, he seems to be enjoying it so far!

Going back to our old favourite, both Yoshiko and I went for the Vietnamese Curry... FANTASTIC! Oh how I missed Praktica!

Ako-san was quite happy to have us drop by and get to see the baby, she even walked him around a bit to let us finish our meal... can't beat that service.

Luckily, Kanako-sensei was able to drop by and see Keita as well, she's one of the lucky few at AEON to have met him since there was no one around when Yoshiko and I dropped in.

And here, not the greatest group photo, but it'll do! Bye Bye Praktica! See you next time!

Yesterday, I hopped on the train by myself and headed back into the 'Nomiya to do a bit of walking and reminiscing and to have a drink with some of my dearly missed Japan friends. One big change to downtown Utsunomiya is this new building on the right near Futara-yama shrine, which has really opened up the view of the greenery up in the shrine.

They're in the process of demolishing the buildings to the left and I assume they'll do the same thing there... that's great! Nice to see some progress in beating back the concrete. They even tucked away the little lotto shop which used to be smack dab in the middle of the square, much less obtrusive.

And of course, the shrine itself is still an oasis of peace in a sea of madness...

The big disappointment of the day was when I went up to the curry shop to grab dinner and found it closed! I've been dreaming about their Sauce Katsu-don for months! I was so disappointed I didn't even bother seeking out another restaurant, and settled on a Lawson's Bento... :-(

The definite highlight of the day though was getting together with everyone at the Lion's Head for a couple of beers. It was so nice to see everyone and get updates on who's married to whom and living where now... things change quickly out here! I unfortunately had to duck out early and catch the last train at 10:45 back to Imaichi. When I got home, little Keita was still waiting up for me, which was nice... I'll miss the little guy next week on my odyssey to West Japan...

And that's that for now! Off to Tokyo for 2 days!

Roadtrip!

2008-05-11T20:24:00.003-04:00

Another cold and cloudy day in Japan.... I hear the weather back home is warm and sunny... not pleased!

Regardless, we're not letting a little rain get in the way of doing stuff. Yesterday morning we hopped into Takeshi's car and headed North out of the Kanto plain and into the mountains of Fukushima. From this rest stop, we could see some remnants of mountain cherry blossoms, though you can't really tell in this picture.

After a long but scenic drive through the mist covered mountains, we arrived at our first stop, Ouchijuku.

Ouchijuku was an important stop along the road to Aizu. They've recreated the village rather authentically (if you can disregard the towering power lines which mar the mountains which are a backdrop to the village) and the buildings house a number of shops and restaurants.

Unfortunately, we weren't prepared for this unseasonable weather, and so Keita had to make due with doubling up his clothes and hanging on to mom for heat.

On the positive side though, the rain held off pretty well and we didn't get more than a sprinkling while walking around the town.

And with the elevation, some of the cherry trees lining the streets were still flowering.

All over this village and the surrounding towns, people had these shiba-sakura growing like crazy... they end up making like a carpet which is really quite nice... wonder if I can get something similar back home?

After enjoying a quick lunch at a nice restaurant at Ouchijuku, we hit the road, heading for Aizu. Once again, I was impressed at how well the little guy held up to all this traveling. When he wasn't sleeping, he would quietly play with his toys or watch the scenery rolling by.

Our reason for hitting up Aizu was to visit Turuga-jyou, a reconstruction of what was once the largest fortification in the Tohoku region. With the rain ending and the weather warming up a bit, we opted to pull out the stroller for the little guy.

While the castle itself is a rather disappointing concrete reconstruction, it is set on some of the original foundation which are made with some massive stones.

The grounds on which the castle sits are strewn with ruins, old wells and the foundations and walls of buildings which once stood here. As recently as the early 1990s, excavations revealed that there existed a fortification on this site as early as the 11th century.

Once we'd finished our tour, we gathered around the vending machines for something warm to drink. Yes, for those of you who may not know, Japanese vending machines dole out both hot and cold canned drinks... which is fantastic on a cold day. The machine we went for was actually a slightly more advanced model, which brews the drink for you, much like you'll find in countless hospital waiting rooms back in Canada. Not to be outdone, the Japanese version serve such delicacies as hot liquid cheesecake.

Which I of course HAD to try... turned out pretty good actually...

And that was about that. For the ride home, we opted for the 40$ toll expressway to save us about an hour. On the way, the skies parted a bit and I managed a quick peak at ol' Bandai-san, which I've skied in the winter.

Nothing much going on for today, just recovering from yesterday's travels. Tomorrow, Utsunomiya, and Later this week: Tokyo!

Keita-kun in Japan

2008-05-09T21:47:00.004-04:00

Short version: We made it!

Long version:
After a very long 24 hours of traveling, we're in lovely Imaichi, relaxing and getting over jet lag. The flight went very well, Keita did fantastically well, only whining for a few minutes throughout both flights. We are so lucky to have a good little trooper!

The first leg of our trip took us to Vancouver, allowing me to lay eyes on the Canadian Rockies for the first time.

The flight from Ottawa to Vancouver went very well, with Keita sleeping through a good half of it. The real test would be the 10 hour flight to Tokyo. Offsetting the length of the flight was the fact that we had a bassinet to set the little guy down in to sleep, freeing up our arms... this flight was also uneventful, except for the drunk moron trying to pick up the Japanese girl sitting next to him. After a couple of hours of him practically yelling, I finally talked to a flight attendant and had him shushed rather strongly, and cut off from any more booze... and the rest of the flight was nice and quiet.

One great thing about travelling with a baby: NO LINES! We get special treatment, no need to wait in line for Security or at Immigration, which speeds things up significantly. Here we are on one of the many moving carpets at Narita airport, Keita first trip (of many I'm sure) to Japan!

The poor little guy was pretty zonked after all that travelling.

And here's the pay off! After all that time in planes, little Keita meets his Japanese uncle for the first time.

With the happy (to have survived the trip) parents looking on...

After a quick feed and diaper change in a really nice nursing room at the airport, we were off and running for the final leg of our trip, the 3 hours drive from Narita to Imaichi. On the way, we stopped in Sano for some Ramen, and Keita enjoyed his first Japanese restaurant experience.

Then, the meetings continued, with Keita meeting his Japanese great-grand mother, all smiles after napping during the entire drive.

And finally for the evening, the proud grandfather getting to know the little guy.

Keita was more than happy to ham it up for the crowd, doing his famous flip and spin, for the first time on tatami mat.

And then it was off to bed for the little guy. He's been sleeping a lot since we got back, getting over the jet lag in his own way I guess.

Yesterday, we went on an orgy of Japanese food buying, filling up our suitcases with the stuff we've missed out on in Canada. Little Keita was genki and up for the trip.

We got back just in time for a visit from Yoshiko's aunt and uncle with their 6 and 3 year old grand-daughters who had a great time getting to know their little cousin.

Today is nasty out, cold and raining so I think we're going to be hanging around here and relaxing. I'm looking forward to our first trip in to Utsunomiya so I can check out my old stomping grounds.

Speaking of ground... it's been moving pretty well since we arrived. I felt something like 5 quakes before breakfast yesterday, seems things are pretty active around here these days. Some of these are pretty big, 5s and 6s, but off the coast to the East, so not that strong here...

More later!

It's been one year

2008-04-22T23:17:00.005-04:00

Well folks, we've now been back in Canada for one year, and what a year it's been. We've experienced many things, had plenty of laughs and a few tears since our return to Canada. During our first weekend in the country, we found out that our lives would be changing forever. Before the new year, we would be parents. After a whirlwind Spring\Summer of (re)acquainting ourselves with life in Canada and getting used to working again, we settled in for the winter and along came Keita just before Christmas. The arrival of 2008 brought the loss of a beloved pet and the purchase of a new house. Quite the year! Here are some of the sights from our first year in Canada.

In other news, all is well and we're heading off to Japan in 2 weeks for a 3 week trip with little Keita, should be an interesting time, especially the flying with an infant thing. Luckily, we've got a really good baby, so I'm not too worried about it. The little guy has now sprouted 2 teeth, his two front bottom teeth, with little to no fussing, and is otherwise progressing nicely, playing with stuff, started laughing this week... lots of fun!

Delinquant blogger...

2008-02-10T10:59:00.001-05:00

Almost a month between posts now... how unfortunate... I guess our lives have been thrown into disaray for the last little while preparing for Keita's arrival and then adapting to it. Maybe once we get into a permanent routine, I'll be posting a bit more...

Needless to say, all is going well. Both baby and mommy are doing great, having recovered nicely from the traumas of birth. We had a little stretch where Keita wasn't gaining weight, which has passed... he's rounded the 8 pound mark and is coming up on 9! My how time flies... 2 months in a few days!

In the past week or so, he's really kicked up the cooing and smiling, which is great fun. Here he is doing his thing... wouldn't hold still AND smile at the same time though, hence the bluriness.

Luckily, his character is great, no colic or anything serious. He does tend to be fussy in the evenings though, probably just tired since he's not napping much during the day. When he's not pleased with something, he will certainly let us know! Look at that white "anger crease" in his forehead!

Grandpapa is also teaching the little guy the finer points of cooking, which the little guy certainly enjoys.

He hasn't stopped growing, if not in weight than at least in length... good piano playing fingers...

Aspiring to be Superman?

As far as nights go, he's got a pretty good routine going... down between 10 and midnight for a good 4-5 hour stretch, then up to feed and down for another 3 or more... sleep is good!

I've now returned to work, and have my first week under my belt, I think in some ways it'll be helpful to get back into that routine. In other news, we've gone and bought ourselves a house, moving the weekend of March 1st! Very exciting and it'll be nice to finally have a permanent place to call home.

Ah, and one more baby-related note.... GET A SLING! Here I am blogging, able to type with both hands with the little guy attached and looking around quite content. After trying some different styles, we opted for the Moby wrap, which is essentially just a really long piece of fabric you wrap a certain way... fantastic!

Mata ne...
M

Pinotte - April 6, 1994 to January 12, 2008

2008-01-12T11:57:00.001-05:00

Rest In Peace old friend, you will be forever loved and remembered by those whose lives you touched.

Today, we are grieving the loss of Pinotte, our beloved Lhasa Apso, who has been with us for almost 14 years. He waited for me to come back from Japan, probably because he wanted to meet Yoshiko, and then made sure everything was ok with Keita before deciding his time had come. After months of declining health and severe weight loss, he was ready to go. Not one to complain, our Pinotte stopped eating and spent his last few days lying in bed. After a blood test showed complete kidney failure, we made the difficult but necessary decision to have him euthanized and end his suffering. This morning, we took him for his last car ride to the vet and the little guy slipped away quietly while being held and comforted by those who loved him. His suffering is now over, and it is now our turn to suffer the loss of a big part of our family.

Luckily, we had our chance to say goodbye over the last few days, for which we are grateful. Pinotte had a nice, long life, surrounded by people who loved him and catered to his every need. We should all be so lucky.

We'll miss you old friend.

Keita Lafleur - A Birth Story

2007-12-22T18:23:00.001-05:00

Well now that we're all settled in at home, with a routine pretty well established and things figured out a bit, I figured I'd take the time to write down the story of little Keita's birth.

On the evening of Monday, December 10th, we had just finished dinner and were getting set to relax for the evening when Yoshiko's water broke. Of course, we didn't quite know this at the time, since there wasn't really a large volume and there were no contractions. Figuring this was only the mucous plug, or pink show, we settled in for the night with plans on a trip to see the doctor first thing in the morning. After an uneventful night's sleep, and still no contractions, we got ready and headed on out to see Dr. Finestone to see what he had to say. The good Dr., upon hearing our tale, opted to send us over to the Civic hospital for a test which would determine if it was amniotic fluid or something else. Off we went to the Obstetrical Assessment Unit where after a few examinations and a little paper strip test, we were told that Yoshiko's waters had in fact broken and that we had 2 options. Option 1: go home and wait and see if labour starts and come back in the evening (24 hour post water breaking) to be induced if it didn't. Option 2: Induce now and get this show on the road.

Now, the shock of it took a little while to settle, but we opted on option 1. Yoshiko headed on home with my mother to get ready and I went to work to clean things up and shut down my desk. Having planned on another week of work, with the baby not due until December 23rd, I was not quite where I wanted to be in my projects, but managed to shuffle them all off for others to take care of during my 6 week parental leave. After a few hours at work, punctuated by many "what the heck are you still doing here?" comments from the staff, and many a worried look out the window at the storm bringing heaps of snow down on the city, I headed on home for a quick nap and dinner with the family as my final acts before parenthood.

Around 7PM, having braved the worsening storm and made the trip to the hospital, the system's efficiency promptly swept us up. After registering at the front desk and meeting our first nurse, we were brought into room 12 in the birthing unit, which I'm told is the nicest of them all with a nice view of the Experimental Farm and plenty of room to move around in. Here is the room, or at least a section of it... say about half.

Once we got settled in and got the preliminary stuff out of the way and Yoshiko changed out of her street clothes, our night nurse came in and started the IV after one failed attempt... not bad but unfortunately a sign of things to come. Since her water had broken 24 hours previously, and no contractions had started yet, it was time to bring out the Oxytocin and get the process started. Part and parcel with being hooked up to the IV, Yoshiko had to be hooked up into a machine for constant fetal monitoring. Luckily, these are now wireless sensors which women can wear and still be mobile throughout the ward, including in the shower and everything! Very cool! Certainly much better than being stuck in bed for the duration of labour.

Within a half hour or so of starting the IV, contractions started, so at about 8PM. This is the display on the fetal monitor, top line showing baby's heart rate, bottom one showing contractions of the Uterus.

While this was going on, the snow kept on piling up outside.

So here we were, in for the long haul, contractions started and labour progressing. As the doctors came by to examine the progress every once in a while, we got to 2 centimeters dilated by the early morning hours... Yoshiko's mother's story of a fast and easy birth went right out the window! Regardless, my little Yo-chan was doing fantastically well. It was at this point that we lost our fan club, with my mother and brother heading home for some sleep, tired of playing crib out in the waiting room and waiting for my updates... quite the little troopers they were! Sebastien, in an attempt to do what he could, kept offering to get Yoshiko jello, which added some comic relief to an otherwise difficult night. As the contractions got progressively stronger and closer together, we opted for pain management and narcotics were introduced into the IV every once in a while to take the edge off the contractions. At about 4-5AM, she was 4-5 centimeters dilated and it was time to start the epidural as a more constant method of pain relief, keeping in mind it had taken over 8 hours to get this far! An anesthesiologist was called and arrived just in time as things were really starting to get rolling and quite painful. The epidural went in quite well, with Yoshiko working through a number of contractions in the process, and this is where we hit the first bump in the road.

While the anesthesiologist was putting in the epidural, Yoshiko needed to stay sitting on the bed, with her back curled outwards so that the catheter could be inserted properly. Seems that during this maneuver, the baby got into a position he didn't like and his heart rate started to cause some concern, dropping significantly during every contraction. For the next little while, nurses would come in to reposition Yoshiko to see if pressure could be relieved somehow, but in the meantime, I noticed a disturbing trend of different doctors coming in and talking to each other and mentioning a number of phone calls to Dr. Finestone. At this point, I knew we were right on the line for a c-section. Luckily, one of the positions finally worked and the baby's heart rate returned to normal. Dr. Finestone ended up coming in around 5:30 to check things out and I overheard them discussing the fact that they wouldn't burden us with how close we'd gotten to being wheeled down the hall. Funny how people assume you can't hear things... Meanwhile, the storm had moved on out of town.

Once things settled down, we were told to nap and managed a couple of hours of rest. Around 9AM I woke up to a disturbing discovery. The catheter tubing was filled with bloody urine, a new and disturbing development. We were told this was due to the baby's position and that Yoshiko's bladder was taking a beating, another flag went up in the mind of the medical staff. Another examination told us we were just about there, hovering real close to the target 10 centimeters, but the little guy threw us for another loop. Despite being face down and bum up to Yoshiko's stomach for the later part of the pregnancy, the little guy had decided he didn't want to come out into the world looking down and had proceeded to flip. He was in OPL position, which means face up and slightly tilted to the left, as opposed to face straight down to the spine. To make matters worse, he didn't have his chin down to his chest, instead having his neck tilted up thus presenting the largest possible part of his body in a very non-friendly way for labour. Again, the positions came into play as they tried to get little baby to flip back. After an hour of that, they decided it was all for naught and decided we should start pushing and warned us of a long road still ahead.

Once she got the hang of it, my little lady pushed like a trooper and the nurse was pleased to see the baby progressing past +1 and out to +2. There was still much discussion about the position and whether or not he was coming along well enough but the progress made thus far told them to keep on going. Then, all hell promptly broke loose. During one of the pushes, the IV came out of Yoshiko's arm. Initially, this was fine, and the nurse started working on getting it in again. First poke, no go. Second poke, no go. She decided to call for reinforcements, and 2 subsequent nurses had their go at it turning my wife into their personal pincushion. Finally, the team lead got a line in and the Oxycontin started flowing again. Unfortunately, 30 minutes had elapsed with no drugs to keep the labour going. We were disheartened to learn that the baby had retreated down to the spine and that the work done earlier was for nothing and a temp check on mom noted a high of 39 degrees. Then the baby's heart rate headed up quite high and the flow of doctors once again increased in the room. This was to be the last straw. Some time after 12:30PM, following over 16 hours of labour, we were told the best option was a cesarean section. The mix of observations overnight plus the baby's heart rate told everyone that both mom and baby were stressed and we needed to get this baby out now to ensure their continued health. At this point, we were both exhausted and we took the news with a mix of shock and relief, knowing it would now soon be over and we'd have our little boy in our arms. Once we tearfully nodded our acceptance, things started moving quite quickly with release papers signed and a flurry of activity. Yoshiko was quickly wheeled out and down the hall to be prepped and I was left behind in a daze gathering our things and getting them to my mother and brother who'd come back to the hospital a few hours back. A nurse threw a tray of food at me and told me to eat before I changed into scrubs and I was walked into the OR Suite where I was told not to touch a number of people and things. There was quite the crowd in there already as I came in with Yoshiko already on the table ready to go. I took my seat at her head where one arm was accessible and held her hand as the surgeons did their thing. Within a matter of minutes, they said they were after the baby and he still kept struggling and giving them a hard time, finally at 1:22PM on December 12th, they had him and he was lifted up and quickly whisked away to a table to get cleaned off and pinked up. Within moments he started to shriek and both of us burst into tears. Out little boy had finally arrived! After a quick hello to mom, he was returned to the table to get cleaned up, I cut the cord and then the pediatrician took over checking him.

As the surgeons started their work of putting my dear wife back together, baby was brought over to a scale and weighed in at 2773 grams. Here's the poor little guy wondering what the heck is going on after almost 9 months of nice, quiet warmth inside mommy!

The process of sewing everything back together was the longest part of the operation, but it eventually finished up and they wrapped Yoshiko up for the trip to the recovery room. She got to hold the baby on the way out and the doctors reported that everything went fine and both baby and mom did a fantastic job. After being rolled into recovery and cleaned up a bit, mom got to breastfeed for the first time and the little guy did a great job right from the beginning with the nurses saying we were lucky to have a natural breastfeeder. By 5PM or so, we were in our hospital room and the most stressful and intense 24 hours of our lives was over.

Gladly, the 24 hours following our entry into parenthood were TONS better than the 24 hours preceding! All in all not exactly what we had envisioned for the birth of our first child, but since the goal is a healthy mom and baby, Mission Accomplished and a great big Otsukare sama to Yoshiko for all her hard work!

Papa-san!

2007-12-13T14:39:00.002-05:00

Well, what more fitting occasion to blog for the first time in a month than to announce the birth of my little Keita on December 12th at 1:22PM! Both baby boy and mommy are doing very well.

He decided to make things a little difficult for us by switching positions at the last minute... and that contributed to Yoshiko needing a cesarian to get him out of there, but the end result ends up the same with a perfect little japanadian baby boy and 2 very happy parents.

Snow!

2007-11-21T22:44:00.001-05:00

This morning, as had been predicted by the weather gurus, Ottawa got its first real dump of snow.... and it hasn't stopped yet! This was the lovely view I stepped out to on my way to work.

The snow has started up again and before it's over we're expecting anywhere from 15 to 30 centimeters depending on who you ask... I love it! In fact, the closest ski hill to the city, Camp Fortune, is open, though admittedly with just the one run going.... but still an early open. Probably won't get out to do much skiing this year, what with the baby coming, I'm sure we'll have our hands full. On that note, the countdown continues, about a month left to our due date, which when one looks at our pre-natal class partners can mean any time... 2 have gone 3 weeks early, one of which gave birth on the bathroom floor after being turned back from the hospital and calling 911 a short time later! Looking forward to meeting this little guy, whenever and however he makes it out.

Last weekend was the Help Santa Toy Parade, which Yoshiko and I attended. Here are some pics, taken with my wife's camera as I've been feeling quite lazy about taking pictures these days.... maybe saving up for the flurry of pics when my little boy is born!

Happy Halloween!

2007-10-31T23:31:00.001-04:00

My first Halloween back in Canada, and Yoshiko's first real one! A grand ol' time was had by all, pumpkin carving was great fun of course, and here was the result of our hard work:

Yoshiko's

Mine

My brother Sebastien's

And my mom's

It's been a long time coming...

2007-10-29T22:19:00.001-04:00

What's been a long time coming? Well this blog post for one.... but allow me to step back up on to my Japanese soap box for a moment and say that it's about time the Nova behemoth comes crashing down.

For those of you who may not know, Nova is\was the largest eikaiwa (English Conversation School) in Japan. They've been taking major hits for years now, not been profitable in a loooooong time, and now their shady business practices have come back to haunt them. Over the summer, the government stopped them from signing up any students to long term contracts and that was really the beginning of the end. The lack of cash flow from new contracts, which Nova depended on to keep running, caused them to start delaying rent and salary payments for their staff and just in the past few weeks forced Nova to shut down altogether and seek bankruptcy protection.

For me, this truly is like the story of the evil kid down the road finally getting what was coming to him. My own experience with Nova was quite brief. Being one of the largest schools, I applied to them just as I did Aeon. My Aeon interview was scheduled one week earlier than the one for Nova and after speaking with my co-interviewees and really liking what I heard about Aeon, I immediately cancelled my Nova interview. Tales of Nova standing for "No Vacation", of managers at the schools not speaking English, of the company basically stealing rent-money from you and just a general feeling of yuckiness from the company as a whole were rampant amongst the experienced folks I had the luck of meeting.

Once in Japan, I got the student's side of things. People had known for years that Nova was a crap school, but with their flashy advertising and cute little bunny mascot, people kept signing up in droves. No more. Now, Aeon has its problems, like any company. But it was explained to us early on that Nova was structured around getting students in the door and locking them in to long term contracts, Aeon was structured around keeping our students happy. That's a major difference and I'm glad our side won out in the end.

I'm now sure that all of the schools in Japan are going absolutely bonkers with overflow students from the thousands of Nova schools which are no longer operating. This really sucks for the staff of the schools of course, but they knew full well who they were working for....

In other news, Fall has passed through and it seems like Winter is just about set to lock us in! Ottawa received its first snowfall this weekend, though I didn't witness it myself. Pretty much right on schedule too, though I was hoping for a bit of a reprieve. Yoshiko's family came and left rather quickly, but it was nice to spend some time with them. They were quite happy to see how Yoshiko was doing and what our lifestyle here was like. The anniversary party at Les Fougeres was a big hit, and a lot of fun.

On the baby front, things are progressing nicely. We're now into week 33, and have an ultrasound next week just to check things out. Really going to have to get into baby mode to get ready for the little one... have to re-arrange furniture and stuff. Yoshiko is doing fantastically well and I am quite proud of her. This past weekend, we treated ourselves to a night at the Carmichael Inn and Spa, complete with massage and aromatherapy bath. It was nice to unwind and spend some "us" time after the whirlwind of activity the last little while has been.

And in photography news, there hasn't been much to report lately... I've been kind of blah and am considering trading in the S3 for a G9..... maybe..... for the baby and all... lol Nonetheless, here are some shots from the last little while.

Cottage on Meech lake in Gatineau Park.

Colourful point on Meech Lake, Gatineau Park

St-Stephen's in Chelsea

Docked float planes on the Gatineau river, taken from the H.C.W. Steam train

Gatineau river, from the H.C.W. Steam train

Conductor on the 909 engine

After arriving in Wakefield, the locomotive makes its way onto a pivoting platform....

And is then manually turned by only 4 people!

Being perfectly balanced, the force needed to get it moving isn't so much. I believe this is one of the last manual turntables in use in Canada.

Old 909, 100 years old this year.

Spotted these lovely pumpkins by the side of the General store.

And of course, the famous Wakefield Covered Bridge seen over the Gatineau.

They're heeeeeeeere

2007-10-13T21:01:00.001-04:00

Just a few short hours ago, Yoshiko and I made the drive out to the airport and picked up her parents and brother, who are down for our little one-year-anniversary get-together tomorrow afternoon. Quite pleased that they made it here alright, this was their first time travelling without the help of a guide! Otsukaresama!

We've got them all tucked in to their hotel and will be picking them up in the morning for a home-cooked breakfast here. The weather for tomorrow, while quite cool, looks good! No rain, which was a worry at some points in the week. More to come later on the shindig and this week's activities.

The return of hockey... Go Sens Go!

2007-10-07T09:41:00.002-04:00

Last night marked my return to this lovely building, for the first time in 3 years or so... With the NHL season starting up again this week, I was lucky enough to score tickets to last night's game!

This was to be Yoshiko's first introduction to hockey here in Canada and it turned out to be a good game! Ottawa beat the New York Rangers 2 nothing, improving their record to 3 wins, no losses so far this year. Fantastic! Lots of hitting, pretty rough game, and we even got to see a fight just below us. The seats graciously given to us were great, in the first row of the 200 level, and came with a parking pass!

We had a great view of the net for both Ottawa goals, with the visiting team's net at our end of the rink for 2 out of the 3 periods. It was great fun!

In other news, we are now just one week away from the arrival of Yoshiko's family and our little anniversary bash down at Les Fougeres next Sunday. Looking forward to seeing my in-laws again, and we've got a nice ride booked on the Hull-Chelsea-Wakefield Steam Train to see the lovely fall colours which are coming along nicely.

And on that note, I'd better get dressed, got some stuff to do today before the stores close for tomorrow's holiday. Happy Turkey Day!

Food!

2007-09-12T21:27:00.001-04:00

Ah food... cooking is a passion which I'd let slip of late. I'd get home and be in no mood to even think of planning a meal, much less actually making it... this week, I've been better... and I think my inspiration for this was the following meal, cooked by my lovely wife Yo-chan:

Tonkatsu (fried pork cutlet) with fried kabocha squash and brocoli.... mmmmmm!

So this week, I've found myself back in the kitchen. Last night, I slapped together some great shrimp pasta, it was fantastic!

Tonight was Pad Thai, an old standby, and tomorrow will be my version of shepherd's pie. Glad to have gotten my (cooking) groove back!

Summer drawing to an end...

2007-09-03T22:03:00.002-04:00

And just like that, it's September and Labour Day Weekend is over. Oh where oh where did the summer go? As far as summers go, this certainly was not a toasty one out here in Ottawa, with very few nights staying above the 15 degree mark. This of course made for some good sleeping, but also cold mornings. In retrospect, it was quite a busy summer. Spent some time at the cottage, out on a couple of camping trips, and getting to know Ottawa again after two long years away.

We're rounding out our fifth month here since arriving from Japan. I've found myself thinking about my time over there more and more, and in many ways, I do miss Japan. We've even begun to discuss a return trip some time next Spring\early summer while the baby is still young and (relatively) easy to travel with. I'm glad I can look back on my time in Japan with a certain sense of accomplishment and longing. The ride got pretty rough at the end of my contract, and I'm glad I didn't let that negativity shape my time there too much. Leaving Japan after spending 2 months off traveling and relaxing was certainly a big help.

We've kept busy these past few weeks, me learning the ropes in my new job, Yoshiko studying with the LINC program, and of course both of us busy thinking about and preparing for the arrival of our little baby in less than 4 months! All is going well on that front, the little one is quite active and gives us an acrobatic show on an almost daily basis.

Another event which is just around the corner is the Canadian version of our wedding. We've gotten everything booked up and organised, just have to get those invitations out there (don't be angry if you don't get one, we've got VERY limited seating) and that'll be that. We're having it out at Les Fougeres, a quaint little restaurant out in Chelsea which serves some amazing down-home French cuisine and a good assortment of other fare. In a matter of weeks now (Oct. 14th) we'll be celebrating our 1st year anniversary surrounded by family and friends, including a contingent from ol' Nihon! Yoshiko's parents and brother are arriving on the 13th for a short stay with us to partake in the festivities, much as my mother did last October for our actual wedding.

Other than that, we've been keeping a low profile. Couple of activities this weekend filled out the time, though the highlights fizzled due to weather. Labour Day Weekend in Ottawa is synonymous with the Gatineau Hot Air Balloon Festival, the last festival of the summer. Unfortunately for us, who shelled out for tickets for last night and made a point of driving out to see the balloons tonight, everything was called off on account of the windy conditions. So a balloon festival without balloons... though in all honesty I do believe they made it up once or twice over the weekend, we just weren't privileged enough to see them. So here, the only balloon we saw all weekend... as seen on the festival's site across the Ottawa River from the lookout where we waited for the balloons tonight... grrrrr!

I don't mean to make it sound like a total wash, because we did somewhat enjoy our time on the festival grounds last night despite the cold wind, and today was a great day. We headed down to the market to walk around and enjoy a beavertail, Yoshiko's first. Then we hopped on over to the Canadian War Museum and spent a couple of hours exploring everything from native to modern warfare. Quite the museum, a must-see for sure. Then, after our failed attempt at balloon viewing, we headed down to the Kitchisippi lookout to check out the statues which are built up every year by a local artist. Here is Yoshiko checking a couple out.

And here is the artist in question, I guess he must spend a lot of his time out here stacking these rocks, as nothing holds them together but gravity. A very popular fixture in the city these have turned out to be, one of those unique things Ottawa has to offer.

We were treated to a nice warm glow from the setting sun, and even saw a paddler float on by with his dogs.

Fiddling around a bit with the camera, I tried to get a silhouette effect going, and I think it turned out nicely... don't you?

With Fall starting to poke its nose at us here, and the Winter coming right on its heels, I'm glad we're still able to enjoy these lovely late-summer evenings. Good nights!

Algonquin Park... The Return

2007-08-20T20:44:00.001-04:00

Ah Algonquin... the Gonq... a wonderful place. Over 7,700 square kilometers (bigger than the prefecture I lived in back in Japan) filled with more 2000 lakes and hundreds of kilometers of canoe routes.

This past weekend, I initiated two lucky campers to the wonders of Algonquin. This was to be my wife's second camping trip, after an initial test trip which included us sleeping in a tent when we went to visit Klaus. This time around, no facilities, no running water, no electricity... "real" camping as far as I'm concerned.... and I'm proud to say my little lady came out of it unscathed and says she truly enjoyed herself.

In order to limit my wife's exposure to the roughness of interior camping in Algonquin Park, we opted for a Saturday morning departure, meaning only one night's stay on the site. This trip marked my fourth time taking up temporary residence on the shores of Basin lake, which is just inside the south-eastern part of Algonquin, and is accessible by car. Here are Yoshiko and my brother being silly as we arrived at the lake.

My explorer did quite well getting us in there, and was satisfactorily muddied in the process... this was also to be the first real test of the newly acquired Scout 16'6 canoe which had so far only seen action at the cottage on our tiny little lake.

Shortly after unpacking and setting up our tent\hammock, I put Yoshiko to work splitting wood... and a fine job she did!

After enjoying our lunch of Dirienzo's fantastic sandwiches, we took a hike around the lake and inspected the far shore. With a rather cool and windy afternoon ahead of us, we opted for a nap in the cozy warmth of our sleeping bags upon our return, hoping for the wind to die down in the evening. Sure enough, as we were preparing dinner, the wind practically stopped and we knew we were in for a comfortable evening. After dinner, we even made a bit of a tour around the lake with the canoe, chasing a pair of loons around for a while before making our way back. We were lucky enough to time our return perfectly to catch the last of the setting sun, captured here with the wake from our canoe.

It really was calm, and once we got the canoe on shore, the lake quickly returned to it's mirror-like state.

We spent the rest of the evening around the campfire, relaxing. The night turned out not to be so cold and the critters were relatively polite, only waking us up a few times. We had the confirmed (either visual or auditory) visits of rabbits, chipmunks\squirrels, raccoons no doubt, deer and possible a moose\bear which was crashing in the bush around 8AM just before I decided to finally get up and check it out. Whatever it was, I'll use Yoshiko's words to describe its sound: "Big". It was really funny because all hell broke loose right around 6AM with a chipmunk fight in the trees above us, followed by hoof sounds and some bleats from nearby deer. This whole sleeping on the ground thing is TOTALLY not cool though... I missed my hammock!

When we finally did roll out of bed, I set to putting together a fantastic breakfast of eggs and skillet strips on English muffins.... all prepared on the handy Coleman stove of course... yum!

Throughout our weekend, we'd had repeated visits by "Steve" the chipmunk, so christened by Christian. He'd come right up to him and take food out of his hand. Well after breakfast on Sunday, as we were packing up, Steve came back and brought friends!

This marked only the third time in all my trips to Algonquin that Canada Jays were friendly enough to come and eat out of our hands. Here is Yoshiko giving it a shot before succumbing to a litany of "Itai! Itai! Itai" (it hurts!) as the bird's talons dug into her fingers.

And here be Christian with his new found friend.

At one point, we must have had 6 or seven of these guys swooping around, grabbing bread before heading off into the forest to store it. They'd then swoop right back in for more.

This little guy missed his landing spot on my hand and opted for my head instead.

I managed to get one good shot out of the bunch, with both the feeder and feedee immobile. This my friends, is Algonquin.

And so is this!

We went for one last canoe ride before leaving, exploring a little creek out behind our camp site. We then only had time for a farewell snack for Steve before we said our goodbyes and headed on down the road.

A fantabulous return to Algonquin, and I'm sure not the last for neither Christian or Yoshiko, despite the "rudimentary" toilet accommodations. lol

It's a ............ (warning, spoiler ahead)

2007-08-11T11:55:00.001-04:00

For those of you, my parents especially, who do not wish to know what Yoshiko and I are having, look away now! (you can look at the ultrasound photo though, nothing showing there...)

For the rest of us, I am pleased to report that we will be the parents of a bouncing baby boy! In a little over 4 months actually, which is right around the corner. Yoshiko is still doing very well, belly is starting to pop out a bit, but still not too much. The baby is quite active now and I've felt the little guy moving around quite a few times.

In other news, we've finally begun to plan our Canadian wedding reception, going to check out two places this weekend, should be all booked up by next week. We're looking at an October 14th date, with Yoshiko's family making the trip down...

And that's about that. Have a lovely weekend.

Shooosh, I'm just one week behind...

2007-08-04T22:26:00.001-04:00

Yeah the whole blog thing has not been at the forefront of my mind recently, as can be seen by the sparse blogs and mega-drop in incoming hits. Nonetheless, I will continue to post, probably only when I've got pictures to show off. Speaking of which, here are some pics from our second run out to Eagle's Nest since our arrival in Canada.

Last Sunday, one day later than originally planned due to some rain on Saturday, we packed up a lunch and headed on up the line to Calabogie and the fabulous Eagle's Nest hiking trail\observation point. With this being the weekend and the weather being so great, we met quite a few people once we got up there, including a couple of trail bikes who were zooming their way around.

Here are Christian and Yoshiko as we arrived on the back trail which follows the ridge and affords you some different views of the rock outcroppings and the river below.

What Christian is doing now, I've done many times. In the Fall, when I would come here bird hunting, I would often just sit here and while away an easy hour or so, depending on the weather of course.

My little Yoshiko, almost 5 months pregnant now. On that note, we will be going in for an ultrasound on Wednesday, expect an updated pic to be posted!

This lovely little thing is called a Kelly Kettle. It's main purpose is to boil water, which it does VERY well, but with some attachments, it can also serve as a stove. It is essentially a double-walled chimney with room for a fire at the bottom. You fill the outer walls with water, feed the fire in the middle through the hole in the top and voila, boiling water in a matter of minutes! The kettle allowed us to enjoy noodles on the side of the cliff, chopsticks included of course.

The nice, mature trees here are always a treat, especially when contrasted with a blue sky like this.

And of course the swamp is always a nice spot to stop and get a look at some wildlife or another. Sometimes it's ducks and geese, on this day, only frogs and minnows.

On the way back, we picked up the embarkation which will be whisking Sean and myself into excursions for years to come. A Scott Bluewater Scout Canoe in Royalite, a composite which is like Royalex but not quite as strong (or heavy). Coming in at 16'6", this bad boy should be a pleasure to cruise along with, even laden down with all our gear.

Of course, one doesn't have to go very far to experience a bit of the natural world. When we got home, I rescued this monarch butterfly which was repeatedly banging itself against the side of a tarp trying to escape. It decided to take a bit of a breather on my hand before flying off to do whatever it is butterflies do on warm summer days.

So that's that. Week 2 in the new job went well. I started to meet some of my suppliers, and things have slowed down at the office, allowing me some breathing room to continue to figure things out. With this being a long weekend, we're heading out to spend Sunday\Monday at the cottage and will be taking the canoe along for the ride. Pictures of its maiden voyage to be posted later, which will hopefully edge Sean into coming out for a quick run out somewhere sometime soon!

A Texan and his Japanese girlfriend came to Ottawa the other day...

2007-07-26T21:28:00.001-04:00

Yes indeed, I doubt many people can make the above statement, but there it is! Who was this mysterious Texan you ask? None other than Arekusu (formerly Arekusu-sensei) whom I befriended during his 5 month stay in Utsunomiya. He and Haruna, whom I'd also had the chance to meet while in Japan came up to Canada for a couple of days last week, beginning with a tour of Montreal before spending the weekend here in Ottawa with Yoshiko and I. A grand time was had by all, photos to follow...

One of the reasons I haven't posted in a while is that I've started a new job at the office... while continuing to fill the duties of my old one... making things quite hectic and tiring. Luckily, this is for a limited time only, and by the end of August, I should be able to focus on my new duties. I've taken on the roles of Assistant to the General Manager and Coordinator of the Students program for Ottawa. The first part of that has everything from accounting and budgeting to HR and administrative stuff, with some telecoms stuff, purchasing and HR stuff to go with it. All in all, a pretty wide ranging position which will keep me pretty busy. The students side of things means that I deal with the law students which come through the office, help setup the whole recruiting process and deal with all the day to day stuff relating to their becoming licensed to practice law. All of this, for now, on top of my IT role which means that I am currently a man of (too) many hats. It's all good though, I'm getting plenty of stuff done in my first week with no time to get bored, that's for sure!

Anywho, on to the pics from the weekend. Here are Alex and Haruna coming back from a run to Timmy's for some coffee.

Our first touristy thing was to attend the Changing of the Guard ceremony on Parliament Hill. I hadn't been in YEARS, and Yoshiko had never attended, so I thought that'd be a good event to partake. The weather was absolutely AMAZING after a couple of days on rain. Here, you can see the parade arriving on Parliament Hill, complete with marching band.

While this ceremony and its guards are now mostly symbolic, its roots are practical in nature. This ceremony used to be held on the grounds of Rideau Hall, the official residence of Canada's Governor General, who is the representative of the Queen of England in Canada. The ceremony essentially serves to turn over the guard of Rideau Hall from one regiment to another, kind of like a big shift change... with marching bands and guns... lol

Don't be fooled by the symbolism and tradition here however, these are not actors... these young men and women are soldiers, members of the Governor General's Foot Guards, based here in Ottawa and the Canadian Grenadier Guards which are based in Montreal.

The ceremony lasts about a half hour and includes a full inspection of the guards as well as a transfer of the keys and colours from one commander to the next. And then, the whole group marches on off the hill and down the street to their barracks. Quite the show it is, and with Parliament as a background... an added bonus.

After the Changing of the Guards, we decided to run around the market a bit, and sample some of the local fare. On the way, we saw the locks once again in full operation.

It really was a lovely day, with the flag atop the Peace Tower fluttering madly in the wind.

Here is a view of the Notre-Dame Cathedral Basilica which lies just across from the National Art Gallery. On the grounds of the gallery stands this huge statue of a spider named "Mother"... complete with an egg sack... ick... striking nonetheless.

I was surprised to see that the War Memorial is now guarded by members of the Foot Guards. Seeing as the memorial holds the remains of the Unknown Soldier, and is thus essentially a grave yard, I like the addition, though I'm sure they'll just be on for tourist season.

This memorial is, of course, dedicated to Canada's war dead, and the group of soldiers are passing through an arch which signifies the passage between war and peace.

So that was that for our downtown tour. We headed back home, slapped together some fantastic BBQ, turned in early and slept in. A good day!

Another recent development in the neighbourhood is the arrival of a family of raptors of some kind. I'm having trouble pinning them down exactly as a species. Some have called it a Merlin\Pigeon Hawk... though the Sharp-shinned hawk is also an option in my mind, and the colours match more the SSHawk than the other... hard to tell to my untrained eyes... what do you think?

Hear Ye! Hear Ye!

2007-07-15T14:55:00.002-04:00

Yoshiko and I have been keeping a bit of a secret since shortly after our arrival here in Canada. In the last few months, we've told our family and friends, and now it's time to let the rest of the world know.

We are going to be parents! Our little boy or girl will be born on or around December 23rd according to current estimates. We and our families are of course elated and are eagerly anticipating the arrival of our little Christmas baby.

Here is our most recent ultrasound picture, taken on June 13th which was a little over 13 weeks into the pregnancy. Already you can clearly see the head, spinal cord and even a hand waving to the world... very cool!

We'll be going in again shortly for another Ultrasound to check anatomy and hopefully determine whether we should be looking at boys names or girls names... we've decided to go with Japanese names, do you have any suggestions???

Niagara Falls

2007-07-14T14:11:00.001-04:00

Well on this rainy and dreary day, as I wait for the time to come to head out to Brigitte's house to hang out for the evening and enjoy her fantabluous cooking, I figured I should blog about the second part of our trip from last weekend.

Late Sunday afternoon, after saying our goodbyes to John, Sarah and the girls, we piled back into the trusted Explorer and headed on down the 402. Destination: Niagara Falls! One of the most frequent sources of shame during my stay in Japan was when this conversation occurred... multiple times:

Student: I've been to Canada!
Me: Really? Cool! Where did you go?
Student: I've been to _____ and ______ and of course Niagara Falls!
Me: Nice! I've never been to Niagara Falls.
Student: Eeeeeeeeeeeeh?

Finally, I can avoid any recurrence of this conversation in the future, since I am now once of the chosen millions to have visited The Falls.

A mere three hours drive from Sarnia, we arrived at our hotel, which promised a great view of the falls... the road it's on is named Fallsview after all, it would be quite misleading otherwise. Sure enough, as we entered our room, we were greeted to this view:

Man but that's a lot of water! at any given time, the far side of the falls are hidden behind a dense curtain of mist from the 6 million cubic feet of water which pour every minute down into the river 180 feet below. So much water!

This was our hotel, the Mariott Fallsview which, other than the great view on offer, didn't impress me all that much. Just a few little snags occurred which made our stay less than perfect, which at the prices we were paying, you expect them to be. Case in point, we noticed upon arrival that the mini-bar had not been restocked since the last guest and there was an empty bottle of wine in there. It now seems that despite my telling the front desk clerk when we checked out that this had happened, I've been charged about 60$ for the bottle of wine and god knows what else was missing from in there. Not pleased, but we'll see how their accounting department deals with this.

Since we arrived relatively late, we headed out right away for a bit of a walk and to grab a bite to eat. As we were walking around we had a hilariously frustrating encounter with a dense gentleman from south of the border. We got to a point near the Casino where a groundhog was walking around on the grass, ignoring all the passersby.

I said to Yoshiko: Look, there's a groundhog.
The gentleman standing next to us said: What is that?
Me: A groundhog.
Him: No it's not.
Me: ... Yes it is.
Him: Nah, we have those in our back yard down in Buffalo.
Me: What do you call them?
Him: I don't know.
Me: ... (Is this guy for real?)

If you don't know what it is, why are you arguing with me that it's not a groundhog.... DUMBASS! I went on to discuss the fine points of groundhogs with this moron before moving on, still not sure whether he believed me. Maybe he thought groundhogs didn't come this far North? What with the cold and everything? I know US Customs and Border Patrol are pretty tough, but come on.... Good story which I've enjoyed telling a few times already. As we got back to our hotel room, it was getting dark and we were eventually faced with this lovely view of the falls lit up for the night. To the right are the Canadian Horseshoe Falls, with the American Falls also lit up farther on the left.

Monday morning, we were up bright and early and made our way to Table Rock overlooking the falls while the rest of the tourists were still having breakfast. This gave us a nice unobstructed view of the falls and made the visit quite enjoyable.

As we made our way down the side of the river towards the dock for the Maid of the Mist, we spotted one of the tour boats in question down in the water.

They end up getting quite close to the falls, and I found it quite amusing to see at the people in their blue rain suits... like a boat full of blueberries.

Of course, we quickly turned into blueberries ourselves as we arrived at the dock and donned our suits. The ride was fantastic! Well worth the $14. We ended up making a run for the front of the ship where we were bounced around and sprayed from all directions, it was great!

On our next visit, when we'll have a bit more time, we'll definitely hit up the tour which takes you behind the falls... somewhere behind this curtain of falling water.

Seeing as we had a 6+ hour drive ahead of us still, we headed back to the hotel to check out around noon and stopped by the Taki (which means falls) Japanese Restaurant and enjoyed a very nice meal. And cheap! Good stuff for sure.

The drive back home was uneventful, with the 407 helping us avoid the stress of driving through Toronto. That's definitely the way to go from now on.

In parting, one last photo of the Horseshoe Falls.

Sarnia

2007-07-11T20:44:00.001-04:00

So finally, a few pictures from our time in Sarnia last weekend. Sarnia is right at the mouth of the second largest of the Great Lakes, Lake Huron. On Saturday, we all headed on down to the lake to check it out, my first time seeing Huron... and boy is it big. How big is it? It's surface area is more than Switzerland, or roughly the size of say, Hokkaido.... big lake!

Lake Huron is directly linked to the St-Lawrence River, which via a series of canals and channels and locks eventually connects right to the Atlantic Ocean. It is still used to this day as a shipping route for coal and salt, among other things. Large ships like this frequently make their way up and down the shipping routes, stopping at factories along the way.

The bridge you see here links the US and Canada, via the cities of Port Huron, Michigan and Sarnia, Ontario respectively. I've done the run across this bridge once before with John, quick shopping trip a couple of years back to take advantage of the lower US prices.

Of course, I didn't drive all the way down there to see lakes and bridges! I went to visit my dear friends John and Sarah and my little god-daughters Kadance:

and Simone:

Kadance is 3, and she's sprouted quite a bit during my two years away! Last time I saw her she'd just turned 1... my how time flies.

Little Simone on the other hand, was born in February, while I was still in Japan, so this was my first time meeting the little cutey. What a good baby she is, good temperament... and soooo strong!

The "official" reason for our visit was to take part in Simone's baptism, which went quite well, despite the heat and a few issues, as there always tend to be around these types of things.

It sure was great to see everyone again, and I did my best to get John and Sarah to start thinking about moving back out here again... Ottawa being the fantastic city that it is... and then our kids could grow up together!

Anywho, so that was that. Rough return to work this week after all that driving. I am so happy I managed to get Friday\Monday off to at least spread it out a bit. I'll blog again a little later this week with our photos from Niagara Falls... but that's it for now, off to bed with me!

Home Sweet Home

2007-07-09T22:02:00.002-04:00

Always nice to be back... a full report with photos will follow later this week... for now, a quick statistical look at our road trip down to Southern Ontario:

Distance driven: 1,665 km
Stops at Service Centers along the highway: 4
Iced Caps purchased from Tim Horton's: 3
Times I passed the same green Chevy Optra whose speed varied between 80 and 130kph: 6
Traffic jams encountered: 1
Toll highways taken: 1 (twice)
Cities visited: 2
Number of adorable god-daughters visited: 2
Church services attended: 1
Great Lakes admired: 2
American cities seen within spitting distance: 2
Years it took me to visit Niagara Falls: 27
Approximate distance of hotel room from the Falls: 300 meters
Photos taken: 358
Videos taken: 7

That's the general idea, a wonderful weekend, nice to meet little 4 month old Simone and see John and Sarah and Kadance again. And Niagara Falls? WOW! More later!

Cottaging and Canada Day... ing...

2007-07-03T21:24:00.001-04:00

Headed on up the line on Saturday morning to spend some relaxing time at the cottage. My grandparents have had a cottage up in Notre Dame de la Salette for many years now, and we frequently make weekend trips up there, all year long. This trip happened to be right smack dab in the middle of strawberry season, so Yoshiko and I went out for the afternoon with my grandmother, aunt and cousin for some picking. Unfortunately, the strawberries weren't cooperating in the section we were in and it took us longer than usual to fill up our baskets, which was fine as the weather was perfect for spending time outside.

We ended up picking 5 or 6 baskets and the ladies spent the rest of the day making delicious strawberry and rhubarb pies with the rhubarb picked fresh from the garden. One of the weekend's highlights for me was introducing my little Yoshiko to canoeing. She'd been kayaking before, on her trip to Vancouver some years back, but had never hopped in a canoe. Our little lake is perfect for paddling around on, the water is usually pretty calm and when it isn't it's not too hard to find some shelter from the wind. Here is Yoshiko trying her hand at paddling.

We ended up having a very nice ride, spotting some turtles and a baby beaver on this trip and the resident blue heron on our little run around the lake on Sunday. I've always loved the serenity of paddling on a quiet lake, so soothing.

Leaving from the cottage on Sunday after dinner after a day of very strange weather, we spotted one of the many rainbows which dotted the skies for this Canada Day 2007.

After taking just a few moments to unpack our things, we headed to the downtown area to take in the tail end of the Canada Day festivities, specifically to see the fireworks display, which is always great. We ended up parking on the Quebec side of the river and finding a spot behind the Museum of Civilizations from where we had a rear view of the Parliament buildings and the fireworks.

We really lucked out with our spot, allowing us plenty of room to set out all our chairs and affording us a great view of the fireworks, which are launched from the rear of the National Art Gallery (glass building on the left) and aimed right over the river in front of us.

As usual, the fireworks display did not disappoint, making the sky as bright as day at some points in the show. I even managed to get a few shots of the fireworks with Parliament lit up in the background.

A great first Canada Day for Yoshiko, next year we may brave the crowds and make our way to the hill for the party... we shall see.

This is going to be a very short week for me, as I have Friday off and we are heading 728 kilometers down to Sarnia to see my dear friends John and Sarah and my god-daughters Kadance and Simone, the latter of which was born while I was in Japan and I have yet to meet! Looking forward to the road trip, it should give Yoshiko a bit of a better idea of the scope of this here country of ours... with this 700 kilometer trip, she will have traveled the span from Quebec city, some 400 kilometers east of here, down to the western tip of Southern Ontario, a total of 1100 kilometers, and yet just a small sliver of Canada. Of course for now, I have 2 more days of work to go through... then a heck of a long drive ahead of me... but still... it'll be great to see everyone down there!

An easy return to work

2007-06-29T21:23:00.001-04:00

Well there we go... after a couple of days of work, it's just like I'd never left the place! Had a good time this week seeing everyone at OR again and reuniting with Rene, the dynamic duo is together again, which is great.

Things have come back pretty quickly to me, surprisingly so in fact. I was alone today, doing the work of 3 people and had no problems at all, I guess that's a good sign!

I even started working just in time to enjoy a long weekend, how great is that? Tomorrow morning, Yoshiko and I will be heading up to the cottage, coming back late Sunday afternoon and then heading downtown to take in some of the Canada Day festivities. Looking forward to a good weekend, and now that I'm actually working... I've earned the time off!

My last few days as a free man...

2007-06-22T15:59:00.001-04:00

Yes indeed, after just a little over 4 months of freedom from the shackles of employment, I am but a few days away to rejoining the employed masses. Monday morning, I am returning to work for Ogilvy Renault, with whom I was working before leaving on my Japanese adventure in 2005. Quite pleased to be heading back there, though I hadn't envisioned doing so until recently. Working with the firm again in Montreal was great and opened the door to a return, which I feel I may seek to make permanent over the next few months, we shall see. At the very least, it's good money while I look for a permanent position, in fact giving me 50% more than what I would have had to settle for going in somewhere through an agency, which totally rocks.

So that's one big change in our new life here in Canada, just as we're getting settled in. Another big change is that Yoshiko has begun taking language classes through the LINC program, which stands for Language Instruction for Newcomers to Canada. This is a government sponsored program which provides full time English (and French) studies for landed immigrants. She's enjoying it so far, and I think it's great because she's practicing things like reading which is something she hasn't had much exposure to in Japan's conversation based schools like AEON. Speaking of which, I have a feeling business is quite brisk at AEON these days, with the major Japanese language school, the much loathed NOVA taking a major hit in the last few weeks. Not only has the government limited their business, suspending them from signing any students up to long-term contracts, but the government's language training subsidy has also been revoked for that company due to their shady business practices. In my opinion, this has been a long time coming, NOVA has been treating their staff and students badly for years while relying on massive advertising to bring in fresh meat... now they're getting their dues. HA!

So with my last days of freedom dwindling down, I'm glad I was able to squeeze in a few more leisure activities. Yesterday, I went fishing with my brother and tomorrow morning, Yoshiko and I leave for a weekend of camping alongside my good friend and former coworker Klaus's RV out East of Ottawa.

This is my favourite little fishing spot, a place Sean introduced me to some years ago after finding out about it from someone at work. This great fishing hole is at the very beginning of this river as it flows out from a major lake west of Ottawa.

The sheer volume of fish here make any day far from boring. The variety is nice too, and yesterday in the couple of hours we spent there, we managed to hook some 14 (or more?) fish from 4 of the 5 species represented here. There's yellow perch, sunfish, bass, pickerel and pike all right here at your finger tips. Granted, some of our catch were quite tiny as you can see here.

I am pleased to report that despite having the unfortunate luck of catching the 2 smallest fish of the day, I also had the chance of catching the biggest of the day. Not the cutest thing when pictured from straight on...

...but a nice fish! Despite the fish being well past the 30cm limit imposed in the fishing regs for the area, I opted to release it and give someone else the chance to fight him in some day in the future.

Turns out the day was quite nice, despite the severe thunderstorm warnings issued all day long. We drove through rain to get here, but it cleared up nicely shortly after our arrival. This is a small bay of the lake from which the river springs, nice blue skies!

Another highlight of fishing here is the wildlife. For example, the resident Blue Heron was hanging around for most of the day, preening and cleaning himself as we fished.

When fishing here, we've also had quite a few close encounters with this old feller. As you can see by the moss on his back, he's been around quite some time now.

From what I can tell, this is a Common Snapping Turtle, a species found throughout Southern and Easter Ontario and throughout North America. I have a funny story about this one from one of our last trips. Sean and I were camping in the area one time and fishing here. I'd caught a nice bass which I decided to keep and tied it off with a rope to our minnow bucket which was full of water at the time. Some time later, while we were fishing, we noticed that our minnow bucket was moving... in fact being slowly dragged into the water. Upon further investigation, we found that this snapping turtle has grasped the tail of my bass and was proceeding to drag it off into the river, dragging the bucket along with it! Quite amusing! We promptly rescued the bass from the jaws of the greedy turtle and kept our eye on it for the remainder of the afternoon.

I am sooooooo happy to be back and in close proximity to my little spots again. In camping news, I have decided to leave the extremely loyal people who use Hennessey Hammocks (pictured here during my trip to Canada last year) and join the Clark Jungle Hammock group of users. The Hennessey is a truly fantastic design and beats sleeping in a tent any day, however I really like the design of the Clark. Most hangers, as they call themselves, initially move to hammocks to save some weight in their pack, and with the Clark being heavier, a little more cumbersome and quite a bit more expensive than the Hennessey, many people prefer not to go there. After camping with Sean who has had his Clark for a few years now, I was sold on the design for a few reasons.

First, the detachable mosquito netting is nice and allows you to exit the hammock from both the left and right. It also allows you the option of getting into the wonderful pockets which run along the underside of the hammock to get stuff out, without getting out of the hammock. With the Hennesey, I always felt far away from my gear in that I couldn't just reach out and grab something I wanted, I had to exit the hammock completely.

Second, the side entry design and the way you lie in the Clark makes getting into and staying in a sleeping bag easier. One of my biggest pet peeves about the HH was the time and effort it took to get in and out, especially when it's cold.

Finally, and the real clincher here, the Clark's 6 pockets which run along the underside of the hammock can be stuffed with clothes, gear, leaves or whatever to give you some added protection in the cold. I'm sorry to say that I have felt cold sleeping in the HH, though in its defence I never tried sleeping with an under pad since the hammock's design would have taken some major acrobatics to get that to happen. The Clark also gives me that option with the shape of it holding a pad in place better than the HH.

So yes, it's more expensive and heavier... but it's warmer and more convenient in my opinion and the extra weight is mostly carried by canoe anyway, so there!

Anywho, I've ordered it and it should be in next week. At some point in the future, Sean and I will also make a run out and have a final look at a canoe, since the ones we've borrowed are either not reliable, too heavy or not always available. We shall see. So that's that! Off to Alfred tomorrow to spend some time with Klaus and his family and to initiate Yoshiko to camping... wish us luck!

First Chosen

2007-06-17T22:03:00.001-04:00

Well another weekend is over here in Ottawa and tomorrow will mark 2 months since we arrived here from Japan... time sure does fly. We certainly have kept busy during that time, case in point, this weekend.

Saturday night, Christian and his band, First Chosen, were playing in a battle of the bands type show at Mavericks downtown on Rideau. Seeing as I'd never seen them play for a crowd, this was a good opportunity to finally do so. Unfortunately, due to some problems with the group organizing things, their set got cut down by half, to only 6 songs, but they did well with the time they were given, overcoming some annoyingly persistent obstacles which at one point had 2 of the band's 3 members unable to make it to the show at all. Luckily, an hour and a half before they were set to start playing, things came together and everybody made it in... on time... ish.

You can click on this banner to go to their site and listen to some tunes and see pictures and stuff. The recordings they have posted aren't all that great, much better to hear them live!

I also got to fiddle around with the S3 a bit trying to get some shots of them, but unfortunately the stage wasn't lit up all that well and my little camera came up short, though the videos were awesome with the S3's stereo sound recording. I think a DSLR is definitely in my future, not the near future though... Here are two of the better shots from the bunch I took... was getting jostled around pretty good by the crowd so it was hard to keep steady! Christian is on the bass and vocals with the green hat, Jer is lead singer and guitar and Phil is on the drums, good little group.

With First Chosen playing... well... first... we headed out right after and had dinner with Sherry and Adam, who I hadn't seen since we'd come back. For the first time in 2 years, I got to sample the great food served up at Pe Nan Wok on Bank street! I missed it!

After dinner, Yoshiko and I headed down by the river near the Remic Rapids hoping to see a bit of a sunset but the clouds weren't cooperating, so no go. We did see a gaggle of young geese eating along the side of the river with their parents keep a close eye on them... didn't realize geese had so many babies!

Today was of course Father's day, and the whole clan (almost) made it out to our place for an afternoon and evening enjoying the amazing weather which was served up. At some point this week, I'd like to make a run out to a nice little fishing spot where you're guaranteed some action. Yoshiko's previous fishing experience was pretty boring, I hope to liven things up a bit at this gem of a spot... location to be kept secret of course...

Quick run across the border

2007-06-14T22:15:00.001-04:00

I am pleased to announce that our immigration process is just about complete. We received Yoshiko's passport back from the Manila Embassy, where her application for Permanent Residency was being processed, last week. After calling Immigration here and asking them what the next step was, we were somewhat dismayed at the final hoop we were told to jump through. In order to confirm her permanent residency status, she would need to leave Canada, go through the proper immigration channels and re-enter as a landed immigrant. Quite annoying that we couldn't just visit an Immigration office to get this done, but luckily we have our pick of some 4 or 5 land border crossings within a few hundred kilometers of us here running up and down the St-Lawrence River.

And so it was that this morning, passports and packages of paperwork in hand, we headed on down the 416 to Prescott, a lovely little town on the river which has a bridge over to Ogdensburg, New York. Upon arriving in downtown Prescott, we made our way to the river side to have a look and get our bearings, see if the bridge was up or down river from us. Here is the mighty St-Lawrence River, the major shipping route into North America to this day.

At one time or another, I have travelled my way all the way down the St-Lawrence from Lake Ontario on up to Tadoussac, over 800 kilometers away... and that's only about 2 thirds of the river's length! As it passes by Quebec City, the river starts to really widen, first reaching 15 kilometers, the 50 and up over a hundred kilometers wide before it dumps into the Atlantic. I remember the first time I crossed it when I was around 10 years old. We took the Ferry from St-Simeon on the North Shore to Riviere du Loup, where the river is a mere 20 kilometers wide and I remember not being able to see the far shore because of the fog. At that age it was the closest I'd ever been to such a huge body of water, having never seen the ocean or any of the Great Lakes. Massive is a good word to describe it.

With the river marking the Southern border between Canada and the state of New York, border crossings in these parts are all bridges. This is the Ogdensburg-Prescott bridge, which took us to the United States. Lovely bridge it was, and a nice view from up there too... almost worth paying the 3$ toll twice.... almost....

So we got across the bridge and notified the US Customs Officer that we weren't actually entering the US, but just turning around and heading back through to clear Immigration. He said that was fine and a common occurrence, but then to our surprise he kept our passports and had us park and go inside. Turned out to be just a little paperwork, but the US officers didn't impress me very much. When we came in, our passports were laid out on the counter, left there by the officer who stopped us, and the only 2 customs officers inside were chatting away. One of them finally came to the counter and asked a few questions before asking us to sit down and proceeding to continue her chat with her coworker. After a good 5 minutes, she finally pried herself away from the in depth discussion they were having about their pets and managed to fill out the proper form and send us on our way back across the border. Upon arriving back in Canada, we were stopped by a rather gruff old timer who told us there was no one here to process our application but to go in anyway. The people inside told us an Immigration officer was on her way from the Cornwall border crossing and should be there shortly. Within 10 minutes, she arrived and after 5-10 more minutes of paperwork, we were on our way and Yoshiko was officially a Permanent Resident... yay!

Seeing as we were in the area anyway, we opted to stop in at the Fort Wellington National Historic Site to check it out as we'd driven right past it coming in. It turned out to be quite interesting. With the St-Lawrence being an important shipping route since the early days of European colonization of the New World, a multitude of military fortifications were progressively erected along its shores. With Prescott a mere stone's throw from the American settlement at Ogdensburg, Fort Wellington was originally built by the local militia when the war of 1812 broke out between the United States and Britain and her colonies. It was rebuilt and expanded over the years, with the walls remaining original and the buildings dating to 1838 when the fort was rebuilt and modernized to protect the area from Canadian Rebels and their American Sympathizers. While the fort was never attacked, it did play an important role in a few battles, during one of which Canadian and British troops crossed the frozen St-Lawrence and took Ogdensburg. All in all, it made for an interesting history lesson and the guides on hand were quite knowledgeable and dressed in period clothing, a nice stop on our journey.

Here is the main gate of the fort.

The South-West facing Canon, with the Union Jack still flying over the fort.

Here is a view of the whole interior of the Fort. The small building in the forefront was the officers' quarters, which were designed to house 2 men but ended up only housing one when the commander opted for classier digs in town. The main building was used for storage with the second and third floor used for living quarters for the soldiers and their families, totalling about 150 people.

As you can see, Fort Wellington had a good vantage point over the river and caused American commanders to think twice before trying to sail their ships up river to attack Montreal and other settlements.

By far the most interesting feature of this fort was its caponiere, a room built out in a ditch which runs along the front of the fort. The room was heavily protected from canon fire and ringed with holes from which to rain flanking fire on attackers. Very ingenious construction! It was accessed via this tunnel.

While there, we were also treated to the firing of an authentic Brunswick Rifle, which with it's percussion cap and rifled barrel, was quite advanced for its day.

Really a beautiful day, nice sun and blue skies, and the river keeping us nice and cool. Fantastic!

After a quick lunch, we headed on back to Ottawa, and that was the day. I promise at least 2 more blogs before the weekend is over, so stay tuned!

One more night in Montreal

2007-06-06T18:40:00.001-04:00

Well that's about it. Just like that, our (almost) 2 week stay in Montreal is almost at an end. Here I sit, alone in our lovely suite here on Place Square Phillips, waiting for my dear Yoshiko to return from her day trip to Quebec City, and I decided to spend the time posting to ol' S&M.

It has been quite nice to spend this time here in Montreal, even if my days were taken up with work. I'm glad to report that I am now fully functional in the technical department, just in time for the end of my contract tomorrow. Oh well, with any luck, something else might be spawned from this little séjour in Montreal. It would be really great if the Firm could find a spot for me, even if it is temporary or contract or whatever, working out of the Ottawa office... with the technology we have, it doesn't really matter where one is actually sitting, I can work on any computer across the country in our various offices. Something to ponder...

Almost every day, we've ended up strolling around Old Montreal, mostly since it has such a concentration of GREAT food... and I have an expense account! Last night, for the first time, we busted out over the 100$ mark... and neither of us are drinking! Good stuff though... here's a quick breakdown of our top picks during our stay here:
Best appetizer: Escargot, Le St-Amable, Place Jacques Quartier.
Best main course: Anything on the menu, Creperie Chez Suzette, rue St-Paul Est
Best dessert: Creme Brulee, Restaurant du Vieux Port, rue St-Paul Est
Best atmosphere: Le St-Amable, Place Jacques Quartier
Best service: Creperie Chez Suzette, rue St-Paul Est
Best bang for the buck: St-Hubert

I will certainly miss having my meals subsidized as my contract ends, we've had some REALLY fantastic food here.

Here are some more pictures I took recently.... the weather has been crap this week so I haven't taken my camera out much. This lovely building I ended up taking pictures almost every time I walked by. Just walking around the city, even in the newer part of downtown around out hotel, you'll find an old relic crammed between modern skyscrapers... the city really has a great character.

Not far away, you can find a street where the lights are on 24 hours a day. The reason for this is that the street still has its original gas lighting system.

Last Friday night, we went to a great little Creperie down in the Old Port and had some of their fantastic dinner crepes. The place is called Creperie Chez Suzette (you'll see it mentioned twice above) and this is their shrimp crepe... AMAZING!

This is the Notre Dame Basilica, which towers over the neighbourhood, standing up to the office buildings which have cropped up around it.

One of the great features of Montreal, especially in the winter or when it rains, is the network of underground tunnels which let you run around downtown while staying dry and warm... yes warm... most of the underground areas are heated. Much like Toronto, the network connects hotels, metro stations, shopping malls and office towers together, though traveling from one place to another can be quite disorienting.

Here is another example of Montreal's mix of old and new. This shot was taken from the roof of our hotel, the Square Phillips. You can see the roofline of older building right across the street with the towering skyscrapers a little further out and the beautiful Christ Church Cathedral nestled in the middle.

Montreal holds some of the most fantastic churches to be found outside of Europe. This is the inside of the massive domed Cathedrale Notre Dame.

Another thing you'll see (and often smell) when you walk around the streets of old Montreal, are these horse and buggy tour guides plying their trade. For around 40 bucks, they're run you around the neighbourhood for a half hour pointing out items of interest and telling you quick stories. I guess talking on a cell phone while driving one of these is less of an issue than a car, eh?

Coincidentally, right after snapping the last photo, Lace and her driver wheeled on by. We'd taken a ride with them earlier in the week.

On Sunday afternoon, we decided to make the run up Mont Royal to see St-Joseph's Oratory, a huge church which sits atop the mountain. Despite the cloudy conditions, the view from up here was great. I would love to come back at night some time. The building is relatively recent, even though the initial mission was established at the turn of the century. Inside the building, one can find the preserved heart of Frere Andre, the founder of the small chapel which eventually turned into this behemoth. He was known to heal those who came to seek his help and you can find crutches and other items supposedly left behind by those he healed. This is the largest church in Canada and it's dome is second in size only to St-Peter's Basilica in Rome.

Just behind St-Joseph's sits Westmount, an opulent neighbourhood filled with some lovely homes. Notably, this quaint one sits just outside the gates of the Oratory.

And that's about it for Montreal. Tomorrow night, we hop on the train and head on back to Ottawa just in time to get our shipment which we sent from Japan back in April... 2 weeks late, but so long as it's in ok shape, we don't care!

An evening in Old Montreal

2007-05-31T21:30:00.001-04:00

Well, so far it's been a good week. I was running around pretty good today, which is great actually. Nice to get back into the swing of things. Montreal is still a great city, and I am in no way bored of staying here, even though I've now probably surpassed in one trip how many nights I've ever stayed in Montreal proper. My favourite place by far is the old section of Montreal, le Vieux Port. On Tuesday night, having spotted and made reservations for a nice restaurant the night before, Yoshiko and I walked down to spend the evening in the area.

This is a shot I took near the Restaurant du Vieux Port where we enjoyed a fantastic meal. The creme brule was by far the best I've ever had... not too sweet with just enough caramelization... yum!

While we were walking around, we happened upon a movie shoot and later found out this was a Brad Pitt movie. He wasn't there at the time of course, but very cool nonetheless. Can't remember the title right now, but it's set in the 50s, as you can see by the period cars lining the street.

This is an area with such character, it's easy to understand why movies are often set/filmed here.

After a lovely 2 hour long dinner, we set out again walking along the river. This is the Marché Bonsecour, which is lit up along with the most prominent buildings in the area.

One thing we will try to do while we're here is to enter this tent. The Cirque du Soleil is in town with a show now, and from what I understand, tickets are available if you call just before the show... cross your fingers!

Part of the Montreal Skyline, as seen from the port.

And a few shots of this lovely building which I tried the other night.

And the fountain along the side of it.

So one more day of work and I'll be done for the week. Nice!

Montreal

2007-05-28T22:58:00.001-04:00

Greetings all, from the beautiful city of Montreal. I am once more (somewhat) employed, and here in the big city for 2 weeks working with Ogilvy Renault, my last employer before leaving for Japan. I sent an email to the head of the IT group last week letting her know I was back, got a phone call within 12 hours telling me they need help ASAP and an offer was made within 18 hours of that email... how's that for timing! OR was definitely the best place I've ever worked, and the group here in Montreal is a lot of fun to work with. So far, they've only taken a few shots at getting me to move here, which I have parried well. As great a place\company as this is, Yoshiko and I will need my family's continued support over the next little while to get settled in, so a move to MTL is not in the cards.

So here we are, living it up in Montreal, still my favourite city in the world. It really is a unique city, with both French and English culture and history at it's core. On the streets, you'll be walking by a statue of King Henry VII of England one minute, and a statue of a French lieutenant who fought the English the next. Yoshiko spent the day getting familiarized with the area around our hotel and my office, which are both right in the downtown core, an easy walk away from the Old Port area of Montreal, which really is a very special place. She will be lucky to have almost 2 full weeks here in the city, while I work away the days. Montreal is a great night place though, so I'm sure we'll find lots to do, and I of course have the weekend off here.

The day went well, with an early morning train ride in and then some paperwork and setting up my station and stuff. This afternoon, I actually got my hands dirty in the whole Technology World which I haven't had much exposure to in the last 2 years, and things are slowly coming back to me. I have forgotten so much, but I take solace in the knowledge that I've probably forgotten more than many people in my position ever learn... so... lol Tomorrow is another day, and promises to be busier. We've made reservations at a really nice restaurant in Old Montreal for tomorrow night, and I think we'll splurge on a horse-drawn carriage ride through the district... if the weather is ok.

Anywho, off to bed... for only the second time in 3 months, I have work in the morning!

It's good to be back...

2007-05-23T21:03:00.002-04:00

My apologies for the lack of blogging recently, but I've spent most of my online time looking for work... here's a quick injection of Sushi and Maple Syrup for you, with another one percolating as I type this.

This past weekend, as I rounded my first month since returning home from Japan, I enjoyed my first "real" camping trip in quite some time. You see, there are different versions of "camping" depending on who and how it is done. For some, it includes a fully outfitted RV complete with wide screen TV and satellite dish... for others it involves nothing more than a backpack and a tent. I find myself somewhere in between those two, but definitely closer to the latter. My most memorable trips have all included throwing all our stuff into a canoe (or 2) and heading "that way" for a while to find a place to camp.

The plan this time around was to drop in to a really fantastic little spot about just about 3 hours away from Ottawa and spend two nights on the lake, do a little fishing maybe, and just chill out and reconnect with this part of my "pre-Japan" life which was/is so important to me.

Saturday morning, at the crack of 8AM, I swung by Sean's apartment with my fully loaded (complete with canoe on the roof) truck to pick him up. We then made our only shopping stop of the morning to pick up some of Dirienzo's great sandwiches for lunch and were soon on the highway heading out of town. This was definitely one of our better organized departures, mostly due to us leaving on Saturday morning and not Friday night. It was nice not to have to setup camp in the middle of the night for once... not that it's that big of a setup what with both Sean and I camping in hammocks.

On the way out, we stopped by Ottawa Valley Canoe and Kayak and Sean had a look at what they had on offer. He's pretty much settled on Royalite as a material for its balance between weight and strength and it was great to chat with the on-site canoe expert about stuff. We then hopped back in and continued on our way up through Renfrew and up into the Ottawa Valley. Our final destination was beautiful Long Mallory Lake, which is connected (in a drag your canoe over beaver dams sort of way) with a great Bass fishing lake called Wickware. To get in there, you drive up a snowmobile trail which sees very limited maintenance and even that only sporadically. I was quite pleased with how my newly acquired vehicle took to the trail and made quick work of the dips and hills and washouts and rocks. Unfortunately, about halfway in to the lake, I made a mistake on the fly and bottomed out on a big rock which damaged my exhaust... doh! Still made it in and out ok, and I now know my truck's weaknesses, which will be eliminated with Sean's help and a few after-market modifications and shielding.

As we pulled up to the beautiful beach which runs a good half kilometer along the lake when the water is low, we were somewhat dismayed but not entirely surprised to find a variety of riff raff setup all over the place, many of which were well over "intoxicated" and running quads all over the place. With this being a long weekend, we'd expected to see some folks out here, which is why we were aiming to camp on the point at the other end of the lake. While enjoying out Dirienzo's sandwiches and enjoying the view, we struck up a conversation with a fellow who was there with his kids and he offered to help us run our stuff across the lake in his row boat. Seeing as we like to camp in comfort, we'd brought along a large cooler full of food, a BBQ, a Coleman stove and other assorted gadgets which meant 2 trips to get everything across. We gladly took him up on his offer and soon left the chaos of the beach behind as we made our way the 2km across the lake to the point. After dumping our stuff off, our helpful friend turned his boat around and headed on back to the beach.

Unfortunately for him, he had this to contend with.

We on the other hand, had only Kai for company. This little guy is an inuksuk we built the last time we were out here 3? years ago. We were quite pleased to see that it was still up, though in a different configuration than when we made it. This is a close reconstruction. An inuksuk, by the way, is a pile of stones used by the Inuit as a marker in the flat lands of the North to help with navigation. It's often used around these parts to mark the head of a trail or something along those lines.

We quickly set about getting our camp ready, which doesn't take long. For me, it's just stringing up my hammock between 2 trees and tying down 4 lines to the ground... simple! With that done, and a healthy dose of bitching about our loud though distant neighbours, I set about throwing my fishing rod around a bit. Low and behold, after less than 20 casts I reeled in a really nice Bass! This is the only shot we managed to get, it's always best not to keep them out of the water too long... for the record... I have large hands, it was a fat fish.

At some point, we got some company in the form of a beaver starting his evening of wood scavenging. While we were quite pleased with the visit, we ended up cursing this little guy as he kept splashing around all night quite loudly and waking us up frequently.

As the evening pressed on and we began dinner preparations, that magic hour arrived where everything gets still and the water is almost a mirror. Definitely my favourite time to be out on a lake.

After a wonderful dinner of steak and potatoes, we enjoyed a nice evening by the campfire and were quite pleased when the noise from the yahoos on the beach died out around midnight as we turned in for the night. Unfortunately for us, the weather turned and I was awakened at about 3AM with my rain fly flapping uncontrollably in the wind. I made the necessary adjustments and managed to get a decent amount of sleep between the howling of the wind and the splashing of the beaver. When dawn broke and I took a quick walk out in the cold, I quickly returned to the warmth of my sleeping bag. When we finally got up at 11AM and took a glance at the beach, we were quite surprised to see this:

They were all gone! The only vehicle still visible was mine off in the woods a bit. The weather was quite nasty though, and cold. With the wind whipping across the lake and us on a point, we were getting hammered pretty good. We took a decision early on to head across the lake and camp on the beach so that at least if the weather got worse, we'd be closer to the vehicle and have one of our two loads across the lake done. A window of egress appeared a little after 3PM and we quickly split our stuff into "need tonight" and "don't need tonight" and made our run across the lake. When we got to the beach, we were quite disappointed with what we found.

The beach was in horrible shape. Beer bottles and litter were strewn all over the place, used toilet paper lined the beach and broken glass was all over the place. The way we figure, the police must have come in and shut down their party early the night before. With the beach unfit to camp on, we ended up in a clearing in the woods that wasn't quite as bad, though it was outfitted with a watermelon broken in half, beer bottles and tissues everywhere and a spot or two of vomit. I've never understood people who do this kind of thing. It's one thing to go into the bush and get drunk, but quite another to leave it in this condition. Such a beautiful place when it is in the condition in which I initially found it some years ago.

In a much worse mood than the night before, and after making a second run out to get our stuff with the wind quieting down, we turned in for the night. As usually happens, our last day dawned to some gorgeous weather. Having slept in the truck and thus having nothing to take down, I took a quick walk down to the lake to remind myself of the beauty that it still holds, despite the idiots who trash it every long weekend.

This really is a great place, the beach is almost twice as wide later in the summer as it is now. You can see the difference in colour in the water where the sand it higher... that'll be dry in the next few weeks.

The drive out was uneventful in that I didn't damage anything else... lol Here is the Explorer handling a washout on a hill. You can't see much from these angles, but the trail is quite bad and any vehicle will take quite a pounding on the way in/out.

So that was the end of a great weekend, with it's shares of ups and downs. Today, Yoshiko and I took a tour on the Lady Dive, an amphibious vehicle which tours on both land and water... that's the next blog posting... off to shower now. I leave you with a few stitched shots of the lake.
From the beach: (the point we camped on is about where the tree line dips down in this pic)

From the point:

Another 20K ride

2007-05-11T14:47:00.001-04:00

Last Wednesday, Yoshiko and I decided to hop back on our bikes and make another run downtown to check out the Tulip Festival setup at Major's Hill Park. We've been doing a good amount of biking since getting here, which I hope is helping to offset the major dietary changes we've put ourselves through! This trip downtown is about 20 km, from home to Parliament, then up the Rideau Canal to Dow's Lake and back home. We take it pretty slowly, taking pictures along the way of course.

One of the great joys of being back home for me is to once more be able to hear the sound of birds chirping and singing as they go about their daily business. One of the more particular sounds around the house is of the cardinals that make their nest somewhere around here every year. While I've been unable to get a shot of the one which serenades us from the big trees in the back, I managed to get this one near the Ottawa River the other day. Beautiful birds they are...

As we biked down the river, we couldn't help but notice that the amount of waterfowl hanging around is much higher than the last time we did this 2 weeks ago. Mallard ducks and geese are everywhere!

As I've mentioned before, Ottawa has close to 200km of bike paths which wind through the city. Here is Yoshiko enjoying a small segment of it. In the distance on the left, you can see the parliament buildings downtown.

And here they are close up! After grabbing a Shawarma at the Shawarma Village on O'Connor street, we headed to Parliament Hill to check out the tulips. You can see the tulip beds running along the side of the vast expanse of well tended grass in front of the Centre Block.

The clock tower is one of the tallest buildings in Ottawa, and due to its location on the cliffs overlooking the Ottawa River, it dominates the region. Unfortunately, the weather wasn't cooperating and clouds moved in so these photos are not quite as striking as they would be with a clear blue sky.... will try again next week!

Gotta love the supermacro feature on the S3...

On the main walkway up to the Centre Block, we met the genkiest RCMP officer I've ever seen. This guy's duty while assigned here is to essentially be a tourist attraction, and he is quite good at it. RCMP stands for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police... mounted because they used to (and still occasionally do) ride horses.

And of course, the photo I took is better than that of the guy I asked to take ours.... gotta get the Peace Tower in there!

After Parliament Hill, we walked over to Major's Hill Park and weren't all that impressed with the tulips there. I guess this is more of an events location for the festival than a tulip seeing spot. The place for that is certainly along the Canal and Dow's Lake where we went the other day. Unfortunately, the pavilions we wanted to visit had yet to open, so we just did a quick walk and headed on out. This is the Sussex Cathedral by the way, you can get a better idea of the scale from this photo than my previous shots.

Finally, we headed up the canal again and up to Dow's lake where the crowds had thickened since our last visit. Seems word is getting around that the tulips are blooming. They certainly are lovely.

Interestingly enough, the Tulip Festival has its roots in World War II. Members of the Dutch Royal Family, including Princess Juliana, who eventually became Queen of the Netherlands, found refuge in Ottawa from 1940 until 1945 while their homeland was under Nazi occupation. Princess Juliana even gave birth to her daughter at the Civic Hospital just up the road from here during her exile. For the royal to give birth on Dutch soil, the hospital room in which she gave birth was declared to be sovereign Dutch territory, much as Embassies are designated that way. As a thank you to Canada for the asylum that was granted as well as for our part in liberating Holland, the Dutch Royal family sent 100,000 tulip bulbs to Ottawa in 1945. This gift became an ongoing one, with 20,000 tulip bulbs being sent to Ottawa annually to this very day. In the 1950s, the city decided to build a lasting event around this gift and so was born the Canadian Tulip Festival, the largest festival of its kind in the world. From the initial gift from the Dutch, the festival has grown to include over 3 millions flowers planted yearly throughout the National Capital Region.

And that's your bit of trivia for today... lol

Eagle's Nest

2007-05-09T21:09:00.001-04:00

There is a place, some 100 kilometers to the West of Ottawa which has been a bit of a mecca for me since my dear friend Jean took me there almost 10 years back. Time and again I've returned to that place, sometimes to hunt, sometimes to walk or snowshoe, sometimes just to be alone out there and enjoy the peace and quiet of the Great Outdoors. Many a time have I sat alone at the top of the cliff at Eagle's Nest just looking out over the rivers and endless forest and letting my mind wander. It has become a very special place for me over the years, and yesterday, I brought Yoshiko to what is probably my favourite place to get away from it all for a few hours.

As we pulled up and parked along the side of the highway, we noticed a couple ahead of us spraying each other with insect repellent. After confirming that yes, the bugs are out, we headed down the road a bit and stopped in at Mumfords to pick up some bug spray of our own. Yoshiko proved to be a real trooper and took it all in stride, including me spraying cold insect repellent into her ears... she's a keeper! Turns out the bugs weren't that bad once we got walking and we didn't get bit.... much. The Eagle's Nest trail is a simple loop, which I've only done totally a couple of times. Most of the time I just walk in and straight back out, which is what we did today. The "road" serves as a snowmobile trail in the winter and an ATV\Hiking trail in the summer, so it is somewhat taken care of. The walk itself is great, with all kinds of little critters and birds out and about to look at. I think I went back into teacher's mode for the afternoon and kept babbling on about this kind of bird and that kind of snake and what this tree sap does when put in water... lol Love being out there in the bush again! On one of my last trips out here with Sean, I took a photo of this tree a short time after it had collapsed. 3 years on and it's still holding on... gambatte!

The definite highlight of this little hike is when you reach a pond and head right up a steep trail. At the top of the trail is a gorgeous view of the surrounding forest, complete with a river and huge rock outcroppings.

SUCH a beautiful place. Immediately upon arriving, we saw a Blue Heron gracefully flying over the river down below. Shortly thereafter, a group of hawks flew in overhead in search of prey. This is the Canada I missed so much these last few years. With the wind blowing to keep the bugs at bay and the sun shining, we set about boiling some water and enjoyed cup noodle (complete with chopsticks!) and sandwiches while taking in the view.

The windswept trees are also quite interesting, with almost no growth on the cliff side due to the constant wind.

After finishing lunch and cleaning up (Leave No Trace!) we hopped on back down the trail and spent a bit of time admiring the pond which lies alongside. No, my lens was not dirty... those are bugs flying around over the water. The whole area was covered in them and we were lucky that they were just recently hatched and not hungry for blood yet!

Here is a series of shots I put together.

On our walk back, the clouds parted and the woods took on a great colour with the red pine needles littering the forest floor and the new green leaves shooting out of the trees.

Along the way, I'd make a point of stopping in muddy areas to check for animal tracks. Spotted these... do you know what they are?

A child's hands? Almost... but no. You'll notice the little dots at the end of each finger... from the claws of the raccoon who walked by here the night before. No wonder those little guys are so good at opening coolers and doors! So that's about that. We walked back out, hopped back in the truck and explored the area's roads a bit before heading home.

I'd also like to take this opportunity to introduce you to the newest addition to the family... our lovely 2001 Ford Explorer which is performing quite well so far.

Today, we took another bike trip along the Ottawa River\Rideau Canal loop through downtown to check out the Tulip Festival and stuff... pics on that tomorrow.

Gnight!

Ottawa's version of Hanami

2007-05-08T17:13:00.001-04:00

I don't usually start a post with a picture, but damned if I didn't outdo myself on that one if I do say so myself. These lovely tulips are blooming throughout the city at the moment as the Ottawa Tulip Festival started up last weekend. Here is my dear wife next to a tulip bed.

Yesterday morning, Yoshiko and I hopped on our bikes and headed to the Dow's Lake area to check out the early blooming tulips and we weren't disappointed. About half of the tulip beds are in full bloom right now with more sure to come with the spectacular weather we're been enjoying. One of the top festivals in Ottawa (IMHO) is the Tulip Festival, about which I will post more when we travel the whole Tulip Route by bicycle tomorrow.

Here are a few more previews... some of the tulips along the canal near Dow's Lake:

These ones were so vibrantly red that they looked fake!

In other news, the job hunt is putting along. Applied for another couple yesterday, will keep an eye out for more. I may be just about ready to grab a tech support position if one comes by and I like it, just to give me a little cash to add to the reserves while I find that "perfect" job. Today, Yoshiko and I headed out into the bush in Calabogie for a bit of a hike and a picnic... quite nice to be back! Pictures from that will be posted tomorrow.

Cheers!

Spring has sprung.... again!

2007-05-03T09:44:00.001-04:00

Boy are we ever lucky! First, we managed to stay in Japan through the arrival of spring and cherry blossom season, and now we have arrived in Ottawa just in time to see things come alive here. Seeing 2 springs in one year is great!

All is going well here, we're all settled in and just about over jet lag. And we have purchased a vehicle! We are now the proud owners of a 2001 Ford Explorer XLS, which will be great for those camping trips. Of course the price of gas is ridiculously high these days, but since I won't be driving daily, it shouldn't be that big of a problem. Got a really good price on it too, which is great. Essentially, I paid the same price I got for my Ranger when I left for Japan 2 years ago... so after 2 years away, I come back with a vehicle 4 years newer for the same price.... not too shabby! No pictures yet, since it's not clean... there was construction all around where it was parked so it's pretty dusty, but there will be some later!

This time, I not only brought my camera, but I made sure to have spare batteries which were actually charged! Low and behold, I got some nice pictures of Ottawa. While at the bus stop, I looked overhead and we spotted the leaves coming out. Just in the last week, things have really started to spring to life.

For her first bus ride, Yoshiko followed the route which I usually took in to work every morning when I worked at Ogilvy downtown. Our first stop of the day was actually Ogilvy where I said hello to my former coworkers\clients and introduced a bunch of them to Yoshiko. Afterwards, we stopped by a government office to get some paperwork started, only to find out I didn't have the right paperwork and Yoshiko will need something from immigration before we get going on stuff. I will have to start working the phone today and see what can be done about moving the process forward, whether that include getting my MP involved depends on what I can do through the regular channels.

So after that, we started walking around downtown. When working downtown, especially south of Sparks or Queen Streets, it's easy to sometimes forget about ol' Parliament Hill which lies just a few blocks to the North. With the office building grouped together just to the South of the Hill, only a few choice spots afford you a view of this beautiful building and its imposing clock tower. We will be making a proper tour of Parliament Hill once the summer hits and the Changing of the Guard starts up, but I couldn't help but snap pictures of it as we made our way around the East part of downtown. Here is the Peace Tower on the left, which houses a book listing all of Canada's war dead... some names have recently been added unfortunately due to our fighting in Afghanistan.

Also located right nearby is the War Memorial, the centre of activities and tributes on Remembrance Day in November. To the left of the memorial, you can see a part of the East Block of Parliament Hill which is currently undergoing some sort of renovations. On the right is the Chateau Laurier, one of the best hotels in the city.

And grass! The grass is springing up green everywhere!

Here is my dear Yoshiko with a statue of Iberville. Iberville was born in Montreal way back when and was actually the founder of the French colony of Louisiana.

One of the many fascinating aspects of Ottawa is the Rideau Canal and its series of locks. The canal was built by hand a few hundred years ago as a means of connecting the Ottawa River to the St-Lawrence for military purposes. The British, in the ongoing war with the French for control of North America, needed a way to get supplies up into this area. Since the natural water system has a wide range of elevations, meaning many rapids and waterfalls and such, they decided to link navigable waterways with a series of man made canals. Amazing engineering feat for the time, that's for sure. These locks serve as a boat escalator of sorts. By moving a boat into these enclosures and controlling the flow of water, they can be brought up or down safely. These locks are still operated by hand and are quite busy with pleasure craft in the summer.

We then headed into the Byward Market area, which is a lot of fun as the center for restaurants, shops and touristy stuff in Ottawa. Besides all that, it is still a fully functioning farmer's market with stalls selling everything from flowers and turnips to apples and maple syrup.

As part of our loop through the market, we stopped by the Sussex Cathedral to check out the beautiful stained glass windows which line both sides of the Church.

This really is a beautiful old church and is used for important events such as the funerals of dignitaries and such.

I didn't cross the street as I would have had to walk quite far to get a shot which shows the sheer scale of this church, but here I am looking up at the very top of it. Very imposing.

Right across the street is the National Art Gallery, with it's huge spider statue out front. I believe this spider is the brother (sister?) of the one in Roppongi. This is another of Ottawa's landmarks with its glass domes lit up at night and very colourful. Incidentally, this is a great place to come to watch the fireworks on Canada day as they come right up over the gallery.

Along Sussex Drive is also the new American Embassy, which was completed just a few years ago. It's interesting to see how the embassies are laid out here, with the America, British, Mexican and a few others located quite close to Parliament Hill, no doubt showing just how important our relationship with these countries are.

After a quick scoot across Rideau Street, we were back alongside the canal where we came by bike last week. In this bed of tulip, one early bloomer stood out signaling more to come soon! To thank us for

And here is a shot of the canal up stream from the locks. It cuts right through downtown Ottawa, and in this shot is flanked by the National Arts Centre on the right and the Department of National Defence on the left further down.

And that was our afternoon. We hitched a ride home with my dear mother who works downtown and proceeded to spend the evening watching the Ottawa Senators beat the New Jersey Devils again to take a 3-1 series lead in the best of 7. 1 more win lets them advance! Woohoo!

Finally, some pictures of Ottawa

2007-04-27T19:18:00.001-04:00

Well, as promised in my last post, I have some photos! Yesterday, Yoshiko and I hopped on our bikes and headed down the river towards downtown. As we got to the bike path which runs along the river, (Ottawa has over 170km of bike paths) we spotted a little groundhog poking his head out of a hole. Yoshiko and I have really been enjoying the little critters that run around Ottawa. In our first few days, we spotted squirrels, groundhogs, a raccoon, ducks, geese, and countless little birds... all without leaving our neighbourhood!

Since I'd actually taken my camera with me this time around, I took it out, lined up a shot and snapped away.

Unfortunately, dumbass that I am, my batteries died on me after the second picture I took. Ok, no problem, dig into my bag, whip out my spare set.... DEAD! Doh! I guess that's what you get for not using or charging your batteries for a month... so I spent the rest of the day admiring the views, but not taking pictures. No biggie, since the day was overcast and I really want to showcase Ottawa under the usual blue skies... so there...

Here is a photo Yoshiko took from the side of the bike path looking out over the Ottawa river to downtown Ottawa. Those pointy buildings in the center are the Parliament buildings. The water is pretty high this time of year with the spring runoff from the melting snow upstream. Really nice bike ride with all the migratory birds flying back.

We had a very nice afternoon of biking, clocking something along the lines of 15 kilometers from our house to downtown and back up the Rideau Canal. The tulips seems to be just about ready to burst so we will definitely head back down next week with batteries fully charged this time...

Tomorrow, I plan to have a look at a very promising vehicle, and I hope everything works out! Wish me luck!

Yes, I am still alive...

2007-04-25T16:15:00.001-04:00

...just not in much of a blogging mood is all. I'm usually a late evening blogger and what with us still getting over jet lag, the evening are spent just trying to stay awake to allow us as much night time sleep as possible.

All is going well as we round the corner on our first week in Canada. We've done a lot of walking around the neighborhood and the other day we took a lovely bike ride down the river and spotted the first migratory bird arrivals of the season. The shores of the Ottawa river are full of ducks and Canada Geese this time of year as they make their way back from their winter feeding grounds. Of course, I have yet to unpack my camera and so have nothing to show you, but I promise I will take some tomorrow. We'll be biking downtown and back up the Rideau Canal and hoping to spot some early blooming tulips.

Our apartment downstairs is still coming along, we haven't done much in the last few days, kinda taking it mellow. We've gotten comfy though.

On the job front, I'm on another resume editing\application spurt... have until midnight tonight to get my resume and letter to an interesting position in the government, we shall see. The opportunity I'd spotted while still in Japan was unfortunately filled before I got here, but thems the breaks as they say.

Yoshiko is doing well so far, though she does miss the food and the word "big" seems to come out of her mouth a lot around meal times... We've taken to ordering one order of something at the restaurant and sharing, hoping to keep our weight to a manageable level. I have enjoyed getting back into the kitchen though, this week's masterpiece was a pork roast glazed with a port wine sauce... yum! Next on the menu at some point will be my trademark Beef Stroganoff which I've been telling Yoshiko about for 2 years now....

Anywho, that's about it for now. Cheers!

Canada!

2007-04-20T21:36:00.001-04:00

Well, all in all, it was an uneventful flight which brought us to Canada last Wednesday night. The only hitch we had was at Narita when the airline wouldn't issue a boarding pass to Yoshiko because she didn't have a return ticket... but that was quickly sorted out and we were on our way after saying tear-filled goodbyes at the airport.

The flight to Atlanta, while long, was relatively comfortable since the seat next to us was vacated by the passenger shortly before takeoff. He made his way to another aisle seat leaving us with a little extra room to spread out. Once the video system was up and running, I managed to run off "Blood Diamonds", "Deja Vue" and "Napoleon Dynamite" as well as a few TV shows. Great way to pass the time. Once we finally made it to Ottawa nearly 27 hours after our departure, we found the customs and immigration procedures to be fairly straightforward and the officers were very helpful and friendly, which was an added bonus. So Yoshiko is now legally in Canada, though we are still waiting on her status from Immigration.

We were quite pleasantly surprised with the setup my family put together for us over here, we will be VERY comfortable! Within 12 hours of landing, we were out in the stores and quickly snapped up a really nice mattress set. Our first evening in Canada was spent watching the Ottawa Senators drive the last nail in the coffin of the Pittsburgh Penguins with a 3-0 shutout. They now await their next opponents.

Today, we did a little more shopping, I picked up a wireless router to get our laptops all hooked into the high speed Internet here and hence this first blog post. Tomorrow we should be able to get most of the rest of the apartment finished up and get to relax a bit...

So far, it's been really great being back, and the weather has been really amazing. Considering that snow was falling last Monday, we are quite lucky to be blessed with 20+ degree weather and gorgeous sunshine. NICE!

Anywho, I am pooped, still getting over the whole jet lag thing... pics to come!

Once more, our bags are packed...

2007-04-17T07:31:00.001-04:00

On a cold, rainy evening in Imaichi, nestled under a kotatsu surrounded by my wife and her family, my time in Japan is coming to an end.

In about 12 hours, Yoshiko and I will hop in her brother's car with her family and make the drive to Narita airport where we will leave Japan at 15:30 for the 12 and a half hour flight to Atlanta. Unfortunately, we will then have to wait 5 hours for our flight to Ottawa, finally setting foot in Canada some time around 11PM after 27 hours of traveling... yikes!

Luckily, I think we are well outfitted for this long flight. I was glad to learn that the 777 we'll be taking has TVs in every seat, watching movies always makes the time go by MUCH quicker. Who knows, I may even try to get some sleep for the first time ever on a plane. Got myself a travel pillow and an eye mask, plus I can plug myself into my iPod to block out the ambient noise... we shall see.

If any of you were expecting some long goodbye to Japan filled with perspective and thoughts, it's not gonna happen... yet My head is too filled up with the practical aspects of travelling back home, getting work, a vehicle, a house, etc to be thinking too too much about the end of this fantastic 2 year journey of mine. Needless to say, it is currently the defining experience of my life, having not only traveled and learned so much but having met and married my lovely Yoshiko. As Scotto (I think, there was plenty of drinking involved so I'm sorry if I make a mistake) put it the other day, I'll be taking the best part of Japan away with me for sure.

I will take a moment to say a bit of a goodbye to some people.

To my students: Thank you for teaching me so much more than I taught you.
To Stacy, Matt, Scott and Alex: You guys were truly what made working at AEON survivable.
To the Japanese staff at the school: Gambatte!
To the new guard filling in for Matt and I as we leave: Good luck, and savour every moment of the experience that is Japan.
To the dry cleaning lady: The name is Michel, not Matt and Anthony is not Michel, I am!
To Akko-san at Cafe Praktica: Thanks for sharing such a special place with all of us.
To the curry shop guy: Thanks for all the little extras, and you should fire the smoking lady.
To Yoshiko's family: Thanks for letting me take her with me!
To my family: Thanks for not forcefully confining me to my room on the day of my flight 2 years go as had been suggested by Sebastien. Your boy is coming home...

Our last day in Japan was spent packing our things and getting set to go. We made a trip out to say goodbye to Yoshiko's 90+ year old grandfather, who I am right in love with. He is the genkiest 90 year old I've ever met, and his character reminds me a lot of my dear mother-in-law Yukiko. After the visit, we stopped by the supermarket to pickup sushi, a fitting final dinner in Japan.

And with that, my blogging from Japan is over. My next post will be from Canada.

The final weekend in Utsunomiya... and Japan!

2007-04-15T08:41:00.001-04:00

Well, just a little over 2 days left in Japan and things are still rolling along well. Saturday, we hopped into my dear wife's beloved Pajero for the last ride into Utsunomiya before we leave. The cherry trees are still doing their thing up here in cold cold Imaichi, which is nice. I am really glad I got to see another cherry blossom season here, truly the best time to be in Japan.

When I heard a little while back that Scott was coming back to the 'Nomiya, I was quite excited. It had been almost a year since he left, and he was sorely missed. Yoshiko and I met up with him at the station before Yoshiko left us to do some shopping and have lunch with a friend, leaving the two Utsunomiya vets to reminisce about old times. We quickly decided to do what we used to do all the time, walk. At least a couple of times a month, Scott and I used to wander around town shooting the proverbial shit and taking in the scenery. With cherry season just finishing up here in town, we still had plenty of scenery to take in, here are the hanging cherry blossoms which have just popped out along the river.

Since Scott had witnessed the construction of the "famed" Utsunomiya "castle", we thought we'd swing by so he could see the result of the couple of hundred million yen spent on this concrete monstrosity. As Scott put it, it's something right off the pages of "Dogs and Demons" by Alex Kerr. The very fact that they used concrete to shape the entrance way show just how much thought was put into making this an authentic reproduction... not to mention the concrete encased elevator which juts out over the wall in plain view. We did get a bit of comic relief on the walk down though, when we spotted this dog with his very own umbrella!

After a quick stop in at Mahal for some curry and nan, we decided to do one of our more frequent loops and eventually wound up in Hachimanyama park where the blossoms were falling like snow and covering everything in pale shades of pink.

And when I say falling like snow, I'm not kidding!

I think this is my favourite point in the cycle of the blossoms, as they start to fall and the leaves come out. Quite nice. And here is the Scottmeister himself.

I hadn't managed to get many decent macro shots of the blossoms so far due to lack of time and effort, so I tried my hand at it on Saturday. The wind was blowing quite a bit, but I think this one came out pretty good.

After the park, we made our way to the nearby temple where we visited these funky little guys for the last time. Very interesting little display.

We then made our ceremonial walk down to Yamaya as we often did back in the day before meeting up with Yoshiko again down by the station. After Yoshiko and I checked in to our nice room at the Roynet hotel, we headed on up to Le Metro to grab and hold a table for her and her friend Noriko. On the way there, we saw that the carp streamers had been hung over the river in preparation for Boys' Day in a couple of weeks.

After a nice little rest with Yoshiko and her friend, we headed back out to meet Isao and Tomoko who were taking us to a little Yakitori place they like. With some time to kill, we ended up again in front of the "castle" where the cherry trees which were recently planted are adding some beauty to the surrounding grounds.

Yoshiko joined us at Yakitori after getting her hair cut and we had a great time conversing with Isao and Tomoko. They really are great people. 8 o'clock came pretty fast and we had to sprint over to AEON to meet the group for the usual pre-party beer at the Lion's Head. We then headed out to Matt's farewell party at Universal Dining, a very nice place for a party, where we spent the evening eating and drinking and saying goodbyes. As has become an AEON party custom, the crazy guy (usually guys, but one couldn't come) put on a bit of a performance. This time, Masa dressed up in a friend's maid outfit... love the look on Matt's face on this one!

Alas, the party came to an end and I had to say my goodbyes (for real this time) to everyone. I've been a bit of an AEON ghost recently, as Setsuko put it so well. Gone, but not gone... running into students in the street or around the school and such. Finally, they will be rid of me!

This morning, we got up and had breakfast before making a run to Tobu to find a gift for Yoshiko's parents who have made our last week in Japan so wonderful. Here is the final view we had of the big city of Utsunomiya. Not much to look at, but beneath all that concrete and under those power lines, are some wonderful memories. This is where I made my home for the past two years, met dozens of wonderful people and the woman I married. Utsunomiya will not be forgotten, and we WILL be back... my Japanese family lives just up the road after all!

For lunch, we stopped by a little place called Saimon in Imaichi where Yoshiko had worked a long time ago and she said her goodbyes to her friends there. When we got back home, we cleaned out the Pajero as it was going to be picked up by the dealer shortly... and I got to take it for a spin! My first real driving in Japan! It was quite hilarious when Yoshiko told me to make a left turn and I immediately proceeded to turn on the windshield wipers since the controls are reversed here (along with the driver's seat and the side of the road one drives on.) I quickly got my bearings though, and it wasn't that bad, I'm sure Yoshiko will do fine in Canada.

So here we are, on the verge of leaving Japan, homeless, vehicleless and soon to be cell phoneless as well. Sheesh! As I said, it will be nice to get to Canada and get settled in.

Tonight, we hooked up the web cam that Stacy gave us at our wedding to Yoshiko's parents' computer and tested everything to make sure it worked while her computer-wiz brother was around. Tomorrow, I will get back into tech mode and teach my dear mother-in-law how to use MSN Messenger and Skype to keep in touch with us in Canada.

On another note, I have recently discovered Facebook. Very interesting! I've been able to find so many people from my past on there, and see what everyone has been up to. Very cool site! 4 friends so far! Look me up if you're on there...

Anywho, that's about it for tonight. Probably just 1 more post from Japan before I leave and this chapter of Sushi and Maple Syrup will come to a close. What a terrific journey this has been, and over 37,000 hits to this blog! Thank you very much for following me along and leaving me messages. I hope you stay with us as we start our new life in Canada!

In the middle of things...

2007-04-13T09:53:00.001-04:00

So here I am, pretty much just where I was 2 years ago at this time... neither here nor there... I'm starting to feel the strain of not having a permanent.... well anything, at the moment. Luckily, the Internet is helping to serve as a bit of a bridge back home and I'm able to scour the classifieds for a vehicle and jobs and such as the hours tick down to our Wednesday departure.

With just a little over 4 days left in Japan, we're fluttering around doing all the last minute things one needs to do before leaving. Of course, Yoshiko has a lot more to do than I, but I think we've done pretty well so far. Today, we dropped by the banks to shut down our accounts and send money to Canada. Yoshiko's mother came along and we had lunch and saw a movie together, which was nice. Tomorrow we head in to Utsunomiya for the weekend to meet up with Scott who is coming up from Nagoya and attend Matt's farewell party with Aeon. It's been a year since I last saw my ol' walking partner with whom I had so many great conversations as we wandered the streets of the 'Nomiya. A few people have left a permanent mark on me, Scott is definitely one of them. Matt and Alex are others and many of our students as well. It'll be nice to see a few of them again before we leave.

This week has of course been pretty busy, but we have managed to take some time out once in a while and smell the roses so to speak. This is our last week in Japan after all, and it'll be a while before we get back so we should try to make it a good one. Helping along with that are the sakura, which are still in full bloom out here in the cold cold countryside. Not sure what they're like in the city, but here are a couple we spotted in Kanuma when we went on Wednesday to pick up Yoshiko's International Driver's license.

While in Kanuma, we stopped by a great little Italian restaurant called Al Covo. While it certainly wasn't up to Milano Shokudo standards, the meal was some of the best Italian one can get out here, which was a pleasant surprise for a sleepy little town like Kanuma. In a yard by the restaurant, there were these gorgeous flowering trees of which we've seen a few recently. Weren't quite sure what they were since they have different coloured flowers, but Yoshiko's mother today said they are peach trees... and sure enough, the 'net just confirmed it.

On Thursday, Yoshiko's aunt and uncle came by with their grand kids for a visit to say goodbye. The little one they brought along was simply adorable and quite the handful. She didn't stay in one place for too long, so all I could get was an action shot!

I (we?) hadn't seen them since the wedding in October, and they are very nice people. The uncle is a bit of a camera freak, carries a big Canon DSLR and was quite taken with my little S3. They were asking about the best time to visit Canada, maybe thinking of coming down???

The garden out front has started coming to life with the warm weather we've been having. As I say that and look at the Ottawa weather I see 1 degree and snow... certainly not a warm Spring this year, probably goes along with the late onset of Winter this year. Here however, things are blooming...

It's interesting just how disconnected from things I've become in the last few months. I've had so many "oh yeah" moments in the last little while.... like "oh yeah, today is Easter" and "Oh yeah the Senators have started their playoff run." I think part of that is because my life has changed so much from before, not only from being in Japan but mainly because of Yoshiko. She is now the center of my universe and things which used to be there have moved to the outside. It's nice for us to have each other as a constant in the time ahead as we move from one side of the planet to the other.

Anywho, I'd better get to bed soon. Scott's Shinkansen arrives at 9:50 and I said I'd meet him at the gate. Gnight!

Settled in and feasting like kings

2007-04-10T10:42:00.001-04:00

Well that's it, we are now officially address-less in Japan. After another early-ish morning, we headed back into the city and finished things up at the apartment. A recycle shop came by and loaded up all of Yoshiko's furniture and appliances and stuff, paying us peanuts really, but we got the last laugh. The guy got a bit confused and gave us a bit more than his "estimate" was... HA! Considering they were giving us nothing for Yoshiko's 400$ bed, I figure it's just karma.

When the guys had emptied the apartment, we rode our bicycles for the last time, leaving them at AEON where Anthony has claimed mine and Mayu will claim Yoshiko's this Saturday. After dropping by the post office to change our address, we hit up the Vietnamese place for a great lunch of Pho and nama-harumaki. Yum!

We then went on back to the apartment in time to meet the lady from the rental company for the final inspection and turning over of the key. This was when the first little hiccup of the day happened. Things being as they are and companies being such as things dictate them to being, we are getting scammed out of some cash... in my humble opinion of course. It seems to be a pretty common thing for rental companies to make you sign a contract stating that you will be responsible for any damage to the apartment. This to me makes sense. If I decide on a drunken rampage to throw my toilet out my 4th floor window, the company has the right to ask me to pay for it. However, we were notified today during the inspection that they will be taking a bite out of Yoshiko's safety deposit to re-wallpaper the living room and closet because there are a few scuff marks on the walls. We're not talking about tears in the paper, or holes punched in the wall here... but cuff marks like those a shoe would make along the base of the wall. Of course, when Yoshiko moved in, the apartment was not new and it is entirely conceivable that some of those marks were made by previous tenants who were then also forced to fork over some cash. From what I understand, this is pretty common practice and most people don't fight it and just pay. Yoshiko has had the experience in the past of calling their bluff and argued with them about it, the price of repairs went from 1000$ to 100$... odd. Of course, we are in a very weak position here, what with leaving the country in a week and the estimate for repairs not being ready for a month... but we shall see what happens. Chances are, the deposit money will not be refunded, but it's not that much so no biggie. We had a bit of a funny moment at the front door of the apartment with me thinking of arguing some more. Yoshiko stated simply: "This is Japan." And I said: "And that's why we're leaving" to which we both had a bit of a giggle.

So we headed on to our temporary home here in Imaichi with our final load of stuff. We then proceeded to promptly fill up my poor parents-in-laws' house with bags of things to be sorted and handed out to anyone interested. Luckily, it shouldn't take too much time tomorrow to get everything sorted out and done with.

For our second meal here, okaa-san pulled out all the stops and laid out a yaki-niku feast for us. As you can see here, yaki-niku is quite simply meat which is grilled at the table with vegetables and dipped in a sauce. Fantastic!

Here is my little Japanese family.

I love that my mother-in-law and my mother are so much alike. Both about the same height and very easy to smile and laugh. I'm sure we will have a great time when they come down to visit us and the two ladies are reunited again. And of course, after promising to post a picture of everyone, it was only fair for Yoshiko to take up the camera and get a shot of me as well.

And that's about it for now, while we did take the scenic route along Nikko street and it's beautiful cherry trees, I didn't bring my camera along for the ride. Too bad... will bring it for sure next time. Off to bed! Gnight.

On the move again

2007-04-09T09:09:00.001-04:00

Well, that's it. I've said my goodbyes to my third and final Japanese apartment and have moved in to a lovely Japanese home in the countryside within spitting distance of the mountains. A nice step up! The welcome here at the Takahashi household was fantastic, as expected. When we got here this afternoon with our second load of stuff, we found our furniture and beds setup upstairs in our very own little 2 room flat and there was some salmon cooking in the kitchen. Doesn't get much better than that! After a wonderful meal prepared by my mother-in-law, we watched a bit of TV before I called it quits, showered and headed upstairs. We've been up and going since 5AM this morning, so needless to say we are both quite knackered. It is nice to have the biggest part done though, the apartment is just about empty and it's ready to be cleaned. The shipping company came by this afternoon to pick up the 16 boxes of stuff which we'll be shipping ahead of us by sea. Keep your fingers crossed everything makes it to Ottawa ok!

Besides the move tiring me out, I didn't get to bed until midnight last night which made 5AM come up quite fast. Aiichirou and Fumi had a little get-together at their place last night, kind of a last farewell to Matt and I since we will both be leaving next week. As Aiichirou puts it: It was a "Get out of Japan" party. Other than Matt and I, the other guests were Anthony, Seiko and Kohei... at first. Aiichirou announced that a special guest would be joining us. Tied in with my visit to Ashio last week, Aiichirou had spoken of a gentleman who is running for city council and who is an activist on a whole range of fronts including trying to get the monument for the Korean workers at the mine built. Well, Aiichirou pulled some strings and had him take time out of his busy pre-election schedule to sit down and break bread with us. It was very interesting to have him along, and before he left he gave us a bit of a speech about his views and the kind of work he does. Between translation breaks from Aiichirou, his ideas sparked a very lively and entertaining conversation on all sorts of current issues in Japan. Those around us were quite impressed at how well versed I was on current issues, amazing what an Internet connection and no job will do to a guy... lol Seriously though, this whole "coming to Japan" thing for me was just as much about discovering the true and real Japan as it was about seeing the temples and travelling... oh yeah and teaching. Many people come here, do their year and leave all starry eyed about the fantastic place that Japan is, talking about how great the sushi is and happy that they learned Ikebana flower arranging. If that's all you're in it for, then fine, but those things are just the top layer of Japan. That's like coming back from a year in Europe and being happy to have visited Euro-Disney. I am glad to have met people like Aiichirou and Fumi who have opened up my eyes to a whole other side of the country, a side that most kawaii-crazed people around here don't know about, don't want to know about and couldn't care much less about. A good example of this is the re-election last night of Ishihara as governor of Tokyo. This is the moron, if you'll permit the use of the word, who said that women are useless to society after they lose the capacity to reproduce and that the foreign population in Japan (around 1-2%) is responsible for a majority of the crimes. Anywho, enough about politics.

So we have just a little less than 9 days left in Japan, hard to believe that this (almost) 2 year journey is coming to an end. Fortunately, I am bringing the best part of Japan with me. This will be a pretty busy week, without much chance to sit back and enjoy Cherry Blossom season much. Still have to finish up the move, than shut down all our accounts and cell phones and stuff, sell the car... sheesh! We do have a bit of a diversion this weekend though with Matt's farewell party, which we will be crashing.... with advance notice and tickets already purchased of course... lol An additional surprise is that Scotto will be coming to town for the weekend, looking forward to seeing him again after a year.

Anywho, I really should get to sleep. I promise to take some pictures soon, we spotted a nice tri-coloured plum tree on the drive here today I'll try to stop and get a shot of it tomorrow.

Cheers!

Final trip to Tokyo

2007-04-05T10:39:00.001-04:00

Greetings and Salutations, been a busy week. After visiting Ashio with Aiichirou on Monday, Yoshiko and I headed in to Tokyo for lunch and cherry blossoms in the rain on Tuesday, spent the night in nearby Chiba and hit Tokyo Disney Sea on Wednesday before making our way back home. As our time here gets shorter and shorter, with only 12 days left, we've started to prepare in earnest for our upcoming moves. I say moves because the first move will be from Utsunomiya to Imaichi, where we will spend our final week with Yoshiko's parents before our flight on April 18th. Our last day here in the apartment is on the 10th, leaving us with only a few more days to get everything packed/sold/shipped. In fact, we've booked our shipping company and did some box hunting today with some success. Busy couple of days ahead for sure, and then we have to start closing down our bank accounts and stuff next week too... hard work. Luckily, most of my things are already in Canada. I am only left with one bag here, so I am officially now an assistant to Yoshiko as we get stuff ready to go.

Another thing keeping me thinking and busy perusing the 'net is job searching. I've applied to a few already, and am in contact with a gentleman with an IT services company in Ottawa about an interesting position they've got opening up. I've made the decision that a front-line tech support position is only a last resort. It was good work, but it's certainly not something I'd like to do forever. We shall see what turns up in the next few weeks\months.

So, on to the story of our final trip in Japan.

Our first stop was the Village Vanguard Diner in Kichijoji which Alex showed Matt and I last Fall. They have some fantastic burgers and onion rings, and we had a great lunch. Unfortunately for us, the weather was not cooperating and it was raining, but we didn't let that stop us from our cherry blossom viewing. After lunch, we went to nearby Inogashira park where some trees were in full bloom and others were a little beyond. With the rain and wind, everything was covered in fallen blossoms and the park was really not busy which was nice.

Here is my lovely Yoshiko under the blossoms.

Cherry trees aren't the only thing in bloom out here, there were some lovely Camellias in bloom as well.

Picture wise, the flowers are much nicer with a blue sky in the background, so my pictures didn't turn out as punchy as I like them. I did get a few nice quiet\deserted shots, such as this one of benches covered in petals.

Luckily, the rain tapered off as we were walking in the park. I took a very similar picture as this when I came here last year, lovely with the trees in bloom.

After our walk, we hopped back on the trains and headed to Tokyo station where we hiked the looooooooooooooooooong underground path to the Keiyo line. Tokyo Station really is massively huge. Once on the train, we were pleased to see the clouds parting a bit as we made our way into Chiba. Our hotel was in Makuhari, a new area built on reclaimed land in Tokyo bay. We stayed at the Francs Hotel, which was very nice and well maintained. That night, we headed down to the Disney area to check out the mall and grab dinner before turning in.

Wednesday morning, we were up bright and early, had a nice breakfast at the hotel and were on the train before 8:30. As we got to Maihamba station, we were surprised to see a huge lineup for the Disney Resort Line into Tokyo Disney and Disney Sea. The wait to buy a ticket was about 40 minutes according to the lady outside, so we decided to hoof it and got there in 15-20 minutes. It was at this point that I began to fear the dreaded Tokyo Disney crowds which invade the park and turn it into a sea of unhappy, waiting people. As we got to the gate, things didn't look much better. There were huge lines of people waiting to get in to the park... and these were the ones who already had tickets!

Yoshiko headed into the ticket line while I manned the park entrance line. Amusingly, my line kept moving really fast and I quickly ended up right next to Yoshiko multiple times before the crowds thinned out and there was no point in lining up. All in all, about 40 minutes to buy tickets and get in to the park, not soooooo bad. Of course, throughout the day, I kept comparing the waiting time to my experience at Walt Disney World in Orlando where I went once in August (not so busy) and May (dead). But it turned out not to be so bad. We started our day with a quick boat ride around the resort. Tokyo Disney Sea, as the name hints to, is a water themed park set on the seaside. We started our day with a cruise around the different areas while we mapped out a plan of action on how to best use our Fast Pass and avoid the lineups. From this spot, you could just see the top of the castle in nearby Tokyo Disney.

A new addition, The Tower of Terror certainly towers over the entire park. The lineup for this thing was ridiculously long, starting inside the building itself and winding its way outside, along the front of the large ship you see on the right, over the bridge and into the neighbouring area. CRAZY!

Luckily, Disney being the expert at theme parks that it is, things are extremely well organized and seem to work out well enough. At the entrance to the park, this board shows you the waiting times for the many attractions as well as show times. This picture was taken in the afternoon as we walked by, and the leading contender is Indiana Jones with a wait time of almost 2 hours. This, as I understand it, is the way it is most of the time.... and this was a weekday! I can't imagine weekends and vacations, you wouldn't catch me here then, that's for sure. We ended up doing very well with our Fast Pass and only waiting in a "normal" lineup a couple of times, the longest of which was 40 minutes.

Another thing which Disney does very well is decor and atmosphere. The Mediterranean area of Disney Sea is really quite pretty, with gondolas running around the canals. Very Italy. The staff are also really good, right down to the cleaners who have little stickers that kids can collect if they ask for them. It think that's a great way for them to get to interact a little more with guests as they do their rounds. No real complaints about the park, very well put together.

The English is very good as well, and the only thing that made me go hmmmm was this sign on the awning of a restaurant. Table for Ladies? Really? That's one ugly lookin lady...

The big rumour about Tokyo Disney is that if you come here with your boyfriend\girlfriend, you will break up. This is probably true, with the long lineups for everything from popcorn to toilets, I can see how people might get a little abrasive. I also think that those long wait lines lead to an interesting thing called "conversation" at which point some people no doubt realize that the person they've been with is a total idiot. This guy had a defense against "conversation" called a "Nintendo DS" which his girlfriend could watch him play on. Wonder if they made it through the day?

At around 4PM as we were waiting for the little train which makes a 4 minute run to the front of the park, we were treated to a nice view over Tokyo bay. I was wondering what that thing on the left was all day, no, it's not a ship. After a bit of online research, we found that it is part of the ventilation system for a 15 kilometer bridge and tunnel system which runs from Kawasaki to Chiba on\under Tokyo Bay. From what I've read, massive cost overruns during the construction of the tunnel have forced the operation to charge a ridiculously high toll to use the tunnel and so most people don't. One more offering from Japan to the Construction gods... a tunnel nobody can afford to use... how wonderful!

One of the day's highlights was Yoshiko's reaction to Aquatopia, a water ride which threatens to get you wet but really just spins you around a lot. Here's a quick video.

With all but one of our plans complete, we were right on track.... until a massive storm rolled in. You can see it here on the right over the bay. Ironically, the building in the foreground is an attraction called Storm Rider where you board a weather control plane of the future to go take out a massive hurricane before it makes landfall.

Within a few minutes of the last picture, it started raining. A few minutes after that, it was POURING rain, complete with thunder and lightning. We abandoned all hope of riding the gondolas, which were closed for the afternoon due to waterborne shows. Knowing Yoshiko really wanted to ride them, we made a promise to ride the authentic gondolas in Venice some day in the near future. ;-)

After running from shop to shop for heat and protection from the rain and finding every nook and cranny filled with storm refugees, we decided to make a run for it and made our way out of the park and into the nearby mall where we had a great meal at the Salon de Thé Pierre Herme which we'd spotted the night before. We were then quite lucky with our trains and managed to get a seat on the long haul local train back to Utsunomiya. Certainly beats standing all the way, which I have had to do on more than one occasion when leaving Tokyo around rush hour. And that was that!

Ashio Copper Mine

2007-04-02T05:51:00.001-04:00

Today, I went on another field trip with Aiichirou, our local human rights guru here in Utsunomiya. You might recall that he took Matt and I on a tour to discuss the issue of Burakumin Discrimination last year.

Today, I was the lone traveler and our destination was the town of Ashio, site of one of the worst environmental disasters in Japan. The part that really hit home about this is just how close this horrific environmental damage was to Nikko, my favourite place in Japan. As we began our journey at 9AM this morning, Aiichirou told me that Ashio's problems is\are on two levels. First is the pollution and next is the issue of forced labourers abducted from nations occupied by Japan in the 30s.

First, a bit of history. The Ashio Copper Mine was initially exploited under the Tokugawa shogunate during the Edo period from the 1600s on. Due to the technological limitations of the time, it was only semi-productive while it remained open and was eventually shut down. With the industrial revival brought on by the Meiji Restoration, aiming to bring Japan up to par with the rest of the world, the mine was re-opened as a private venture by Furukawa company in 1871. That is when what some say the template for Japan's many environmental problems was created. With a total lack of regard for the surrounding natural environment, the population of villages surrounding the mine and kilometers downstream, production was successively ramped up at the Ashio mine to the point where it was supplying anywhere from 20-40% of Japan's total copper production. This copper was then exported in exchange for the import of iron ore and steel for use in the ever expanding industrial sector, including the massive military expansion which continued right through WWII.

The refining process of copper being what it is, it is a severely damaging enterprise. Within 15 years of the mine's reopening, all of the trees on the mountains surrounding the refinery were dead. The mountains were then left bare and with no water absorption, this led to frequent major floods. These floods brought contaminated water downstream to communities within a huge radius of Ashio spanning 5 prefectures. Hundreds of acres of farmland were contaminated over and over again with each recurring flood over the decades that the mine continued to operate. Surveys done in the late 1800s show that the mortality rates of affected area was nearly double the national average while the birthrate was substantially lower. Despite the complaints from residents and demands by local politicians that the mine be shut down, nothing was done. The mine continued to operate until 1972! And the problems resulting from it continue to this day.

There are pages and pages of information on this available online, but here are some photos which I took today which show the damage, still evident 35 years after the mine stopped production.

You can clearly see the bare mountainside, with only small grass currently growing.

You can see that concrete was used to halt erosion once the trees were killed and landslides began.

After the mine was shutdown, the focus turned to flood prevention and dams were built to keep the poison water upstream... in theory.

The damage is all the more striking when you leave the immediate area of the mine and once more find yourself in unaffected areas where the trees are still present.

Very interesting place to visit. 100 years of pollution, a lasting legacy.

The second reason for our visit here as I mentioned earlier was the use of forced labour at the mining site. It is a generally accepted fact, one even substantiated by an NHK documentary a while back, that people were abducted from Japanese occupied China and Korea and forced to work at the Ashio mine. The problem of recognition is what continues to this day. In a striking example of the power of the Japanese Right Wing, which is fighting the survivors and descendants of the forced labourers inch for inch. Here are two photos.

The first shows a monument erected by the municipality in remembrance to the Chinese labourers who worked and died here. After years of fighting, the Chinese community finally got their monument.

The second shows the monument erected by local Koreans, since their memorial has been denied to this day.

Do you see a slight difference in scale? That is because the establishment of a permanent memorial for the Koreans has been blocked at every turn by the same groups who deny such facts as the use of sex-slaves by the Japanese military and who continue to selectively censor Japanese textbooks who dare mention some of the less than honorable acts perpetrated by Japan in the past. Why were the Chinese allowed their memorial and the Koreans not? Because the Koreans have insisted on the inclusion of the words "kyosei renkou" which means "taken by force." The right wing groups insist that they chose to come work in Japan, the worker insist they were taken by force, the fight continues to this day.

Luckily, there are people like Aiichirou who are talking about this and trying to get action and make things right. Good luck!

Hanami!

2007-04-02T05:38:00.001-04:00

Yesterday morning, we headed on out on our bikes to pick up some food and drink for the hanami party which was put together at the last minute by Mayu. With AEON opting not to continue the yearly tradition of the hanami party, to the disappointment of many students, people have decided to put together their own shindigs. The party was of course in Hachimanyama park, and it turned out being a great day!

We ended up with a great turnout, about 15 people showed up, and stayed for varying periods of time. We even ran into a former student of mine and her boyfriend and had them join us. Here is the initial group.

It was nice to see ol' Motoki again... I didn't teach him for my final few months at AEON and didn't get to see him much for the last while, at least not as much as I did last year. Too bad cause he's a lot of fun.

The afternoon was very comfortable, and we ended up spending about 6 hours out there in the park among the blossoms. A lovely afternoon.

They're cooooooming....

2007-03-30T05:06:00.001-04:00

Well, a mere matter of days after my family leaves Japan, the cherry trees in Ueno Park at 100% and those in Utsunomiya are on their way. Too bad folks! But do keep an eye on the blog and you'll see what you missed.

Yoshiko and I hopped on our bikes this morning and did a bit of Sakura scouting around central Utsunomiya. Our first stop was Shoun-ji, where the trees are in fact well on their way.

The grounds of this temple also have this large tree, which was planted in the early Edo period, some 350 years ago. This old feller has survived many years and even a direct lightning strike. I missed seeing it in full bloom last year, won't make the same mistake this year.

Next, we crossed over into Hachimanyama Park to check out the progress there, and most of the trees were still very early in their blooming cycle. Nonetheless, we will be back here on Sunday for a bit of a Cherry Blossom Party... looking forward to it!

After having lunch at Yarra, near the Tochigi Prefectural Office, we continued on to Jikou-ji, where the city's earliest blossoming tree is located. Unfortunately, the clouds rolled in for a bit and I couldn't get a decent shot... a nice tree for sure.

We then made our way up to Futaarayama Shrine where a few of the trees have started up. Unfortunately, the construction of a nearby building has totally messed up the central approach to the shrine, which is quite lovely this time of year. Just in the last few weeks, they've erected a metal fence and ripped up the road right at the base of the stairs to the shrine... and just before the big cherry blossom viewing crowds come in.... bad planning desu ne? Stupid construction. At least the future views from this area promise to be better. After the demolition of two building which crowded in to the main access to the shrine, they will keep a wider avenue once the new buildings go up.

A few of the azalea trees up there were blooming quite nicely though.

There was also a man feeding pigeons, which is always amusing to watch. These birds would come right up onto his arm to get their soy beans...

Over the last few days of moving around downtown, I've noticed some additions in the form of signage and maps on the streets, in Japanese and English, which is nice.

I guess this may be part of the tourist plan with the newly built Utsunomiya "Castle" opening recently. I guess they expect an influx of visitors? Good luck with that, we happened to bike by the other day and it's nothing too too spectacular. Then again, I have seen 2 of the best castles in Japan, Matsumoto and Himeji, which are both originals... a fero-concrete reproduction just doesn't float my boat I guess.

So, with less than three weeks in Japan left, and less than two weeks left before we move in with Yoshiko's parents in Imaichi, we've started getting ready. A recycling company is dropping by tomorrow to give us a price for Yoshiko's appliances and some of the furniture she'll be getting rid of. We've also boxed up some things and are now waiting for the move date to get closer before packing in earnest. I don't really have anything left here since my folks took 5 bags of mine home, including my skis. So that's that!

Oh, and I will be needing a job when I get back in Canada... Something around the Vice-Presidential level of a company would be nice... but I'm willing to accept lower... lol Do keep your ears open for me won't you? Don't wanna go back into tech support, unless it's a Team Lead position, going to be trying to get in to the government I believe... we shall see.

And that's a wrap

2007-03-26T23:48:00.001-04:00

Well, as I've gotten a good night's rest and my family is about to land in Ottawa, I think it's time to get the final blog of this great trip sorted out and out there. Quite the busy two weeks we've had, and I am glad to report that the trip was a resounding success. Everyone had a great time and I'm sure we will all look back fondly on our time together running around Japan. It was really great for Yoshiko to get to meet and spend time with my father and brothers, and they got along swimmingly.

Before moving on to our final two days in Tokyo, I'd like to make an addendum to my previous post. While in Harajuku, we met and spoke with an interesting gentleman who was writing poems about the dancing dude. He struck up a conversation with me and Christian and moved on to my parents. I guess he could be characterized as upper class homeless, with printing resources and an email address. After looking up his name online, I now understand why he gave me a book of his writings about Afghanistan. It seems he's spent a good chunk of his life abroad, actually living in Afghanistan during the Soviet War. Very interesting fellow and I gladly bought one of his little books of Haiku. His name is Hideo Asano and it seems like many bloggers have run in to him in various parts of Tokyo and written about their encounter. Do take the time to listen to him if you have the luck of running in to him.

So, on to the final 2 days. On Sunday morning, we awoke to a relatively strong rain falling outside. Seeing as this had been forecast, it was not a surprise and merely put off our plans for an hour or so as we waited for it to slow down a bit. We ended up making a run out to a 100Yen shop for umbrellas, grabbing some breakfast at a bakery and eating on the platform at Okachimachi station. After watching a series of Yamanote line trains run by, which supplied an audience to our breakfast, we hopped on one and headed to Akihabara, the Electronics Mecca of Tokyo, and I guess the world. After bumming around a few of the stores and enjoying some geeky conversation amongst ourselves, we decided to check out the massive new Yodobashi Camera store East of the station.

This place has pretty much anything and everything one might want, though my brothers were a bit dismayed at the prices on things. I guess things here tend to stay cutting edge, with only the newest models available. I imagine that protectionist policies also stop many items from being imported from Taiwan and Korea and such, leaving prices high and limiting competition to retailers and not manufacturers so much. Prices back home at Future Shop are much better. For example, I saw my camera, which I bought not long after it came out selling at a significantly higher price than I paid 8 months ago. Anywho, an interesting place to visit nonetheless and I did purchase a quick release head for my tripod.

Finding that the rain had stopped, we headed out to the music instrument area around Ochanomizu station and the kids enjoyed poking around the multi-floor displays of guitars and other music related products. The most expensive thing we saw was a guitar going for about 100,000$! Amazing! We then decided to walk back to the station and explore the neighbourhoods on the way. Spotted this old brick wall and grabbed a shot of it.

Right by our hotel, we discovered this temple which was surrounded by stands of ema, wooden slats used to write your wishes on and hang at temples.

I have never seen so many of these in one place... anyone have any idea what's up with that?

After a quick rest at the hotel, which allowed me to research a place for dinner, we left again and dropped in to Kurofunetei where we enjoyed their amazing Hayashi Rice, the sauce of which is simmered for a week... yum! A quick peek at their web site just now reveals that John Lennon ate there some time ago, cool! With plans to wake up early to visit Tsukiji Fish Market the next morning, we turned in early, though 5:30 came up pretty quickly nonetheless.

Despite this early morning expedition occurring at the end of a very long and tiring trip, I do not regret making it. Tsukiji is an AMAZING place to visit. The sheer scale and chaos of the whole thing had us standing around in awe as carts zoomed by in every direction carrying all sorts of critters from 10,000$ Tuna to eel and shellfish I'd never even heard of. For me, this was definitely a highlight of this trip, and I may try to make it back there some time before I leave Japan. We took the Hibiya line, where I went into tour guide mode once more and rattled off some of the facts from the Tokyo Gas Attack back in 1995. The Hibiya line was one of the ones targeted, and our little track between Ueno and Tsukiji turned out to be one of the deadliest with 8 deaths.

After exiting Tsukiji station and getting our bearing, we waded into the huge market and were immediately engulfed in workers doing their thing. Some were on motorized carts, others were pulling hand carts.

The market is a wonder of organisation with over 2000 tons of seafood passing through every day with over 60,000 workers keeping things rolling from the early hours of the morning into early afternoon. Of course, ice is a hugely popular commodity here, and we saw many ice supply stations around.

The most interesting part of the market for me was the tuna operations. Early on in the morning, an auction is held for the tuna on hand some going as high as 10,000$ and being shipped everywhere in the world. Tuna which is meant for the outer market then makes it's way through where it is prepared and packaged accordingly. At any given time, you are likely to see trolleys of frozen tuna being zoomed around in any part of the market. Very cool. Here is my favourite part of the tuna, its chin, on sale for a wholesale price of a whopping 200Yen (2$)...

Here is a worker checking his paperwork while surrounded by solid tunas.

The size of the market is hard to convey in photos, unless you were to rent a helicopter and take an aerial shot. It is just huge.

Here are some halved tunas, still in the central area, which was recently made off-limits to marauding tourists, waiting to be shipped out.

Not everything here is frozen, and thanks to the freshness and cleaning that goes on here, there is no nasty funky smell floating around. Here are some fresh tuna, waiting to be sashimied no doubt.

Of course, not everything here involves tuna. There are over 400 different kinds of seafood which are sold here, including these huge scallops. Mmmmm, scallops...

Back to the tuna though... while the frozen tuna are sectioned by electric saw, the fresh ones are done by hand. Here is a video of a team working at quartering frozen tuna.

Here is a team working on quartering this big boy by hand.

After making the initial cut, they pull out this long sword and pull out a quarter of the meat.

The frozen ones are handled a little less delicately. Here a worker is hacking away at a carcass with an axe... notice how the fish is bigger than the guy holding it up... and that's without the head and tail!

I guess these guys will stay frozen for a while longer, the worker was putting blocks of dry ice on them.

Things both inside and outside of the building were quite frenzied and I must tip my hat off to the drivers of these trolleys for their driving skills. They somehow manage to skirt their way through groups of people, vehicles, carts, fish piles, boxes and other assorted obstacles and we didn't see one collision or anything close to it. They do quite well working their way around dumb tourists and photographers like us too... lol

There are traffic jams on occasion though, as we witnessed when a car needed some assistance parking.

To cap off our Tsukiji experience, we opted for a sushi breakfast at one of the on-site eateries which serve THE freshest fish anywhere.

We opted for a custom order, with Luc finally getting to try the Awabi he had his heart set on. Here are our sushi chefs doing their thing.

Here is our platter. Shrimp and Salmon on top, Tuna and Awabi in the middle and Eel along the bottom.

This wasn't just any tuna, it was Otoro... fatty tuna which simply melts in your mouth. Quite nice.

And having never tried eel, I opted to go the sushi route and it was REALLY good!

Here is Luc enjoying his Awabi, one of his stated goals for this trip.

And an unshaven Micheru gobbling down a chunk of tuna.

While Sebastien had a few and Christian tried pieces of sushi, I don't think they've quite developed a taste for raw fish yet... lol We left the fish behind and went back to the hotel to pack our bags and check out. After meeting up again with the whole original crew, with Yoshiko back in Tokyo for the final sendoff, we headed for a final walk into Ueno park to see how the cherry trees had progressed. While they weren't quite at their prime, everyone was glad to get to see some of the trees blooming.

A lovely end to a great trip.

We finally made our way to Narita with the group where we picked up my extra bags which I was sending along and said our goodbyes. This one will be a short one though, as Yoshiko and I will be in Canada in just a little over 3 weeks! Will go by very quickly!

Tokyo

2007-03-24T21:24:00.001-04:00

Wow, time certainly does fly. Here we are in Tokyo, with only a little more than 24 hours left before the end of this little cross Japan voyage of ours. And it looks like our last day in Tokyo will be a pretty mellow one judging by the rain falling outside. I had planned to take the crew out to Akihabara and the Imperial Palace, but we will have to wait and see what the weather does. Regardless, we should be departing the hotel for breakfast and our first stop of the day (a 100 yen shop for umbrellas) around 10:30.

In the meantime, here is a quick run through the last 2 days in Tokyo. After arriving and dropping our bags off at the hotel, we headed right into nearby Ueno park to see how the cherry trees were doing. Of course, Ueno Park is one of the hubs of the homeless community here in Tokyo and there are always some colourful characters about.

As far as the cherry trees go, they were right on the verge of popping. With any luck, they'll be bloomed on Monday when we will take our final walk through the park.

In fact, a few trees did have blossoms out, but nothing as spectacular as what is still to come.

After grabbing a bite to eat at the fantastic kebab stands in Ameyayokocho, we checked in to our hotel and hopped back on the trains, bound for Shibuya. As I expected, everyone was quite impressed with Shibuya crossing and the number of people flowing through the intersection every few minutes.

As usual, there are people hanging around outside of Starbucks right in front of the crossing. This following picture is a shout out to the Japan Window photo blog I have linked on the right. He has taken quite a few pictures of people here.

After bumming around for a bit, we moved on to Shinjuku where we arrived at the Observation deck of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government building in time to see a nice sunset.

And of course, after the sun went down, we were treated to a good night view.

Having brought my tripod along and doing my best to cover reflections with my coat, I managed to get a couple of good shots from up here. Here is a shot of Shinjuku station from the top.

After circling the station a bit and finding things either busy or expensive, we opted to head back to Ueno for dinner where Yoshiko headed back to Utsunomiya for a bit of a break and to write the TOEIC test today. After a tonkatsu dinner, we turned in for the night.

Saturday morning, we had a quick breakfast at a nearby bakery\cafe and took the Ginza line to Asakusa to visit Senso-ji and its shopping street.

At one of the shops, this master was putting together some red bean delicacies by hand.

Many pigeons flutter around on the grounds of the temple, and there are of course the requisite signs warning against feeding them. This one was cute with the pigeon having his own message for would-be feeders.

Outside of the temple is of course the large incense urn where people congregate to rub some of the health-inducing smoke into their bodies.

Along the yatai stands to the left of the temple, I caught this little artisan doing his thing.

As the morning progressed, the crowds grew thicker and our walk back towards the station was significantly more difficult. Here is my uncle fighting the crowds.

We then moved on to Harajuku where I was dismayed to find that the cos-play folks were not putting in an appearance. We did see this guy, rocking out on the side of the street next to his girlfriend.

Unfortunately, the reason for the sparse crowds here became obvious when a police car stopped in front with lights flashing and an officer came by and had the dancing guy and a small band who was playing move along.

He even ticketed the band.

I also managed to get a look at the Free Hug people I'd read about a while back. They just stand there with a sign and hug away, trying to bring a little warmth, in contrast with the police officer who took it away.

And here is an aerial shot of the now nearly deserted area where one of Tokyo's sub-cultures once had a place to hang out. Too bad.

We walked from there down to Omotesando, where I wanted to show the folks the crowds again. It being a Saturday and with nice weather, the people certainly turned out for the occasion.

Still lots of construction going on in the area too.

Since the cos play thing turned into a bit of a bust, we decided to see how Shibuya Crossing was on the weekend... and the answer? BUSY Here is the crew crossing for themselves in the sea of people.

And that was that, after heading back to Ueno and grabbing some grub, we were done for the night.

I got a couple of good night shots of the crossing, a place I had never visited at night.

Got a got shot of our three photographers here...

As I sit here, the rain actually seems to be getting harder, so not sure what's in store for today yet. We shall see.

An "ice" day up in the mountains and a quick visit to the 'Nomiya

2007-03-22T10:13:00.001-04:00

Yesterday morning, after picking up our cool 7-seater hatchback from Toyota Leasing in Imaichi, we headed up the winding mountain roads from Nikko leading up to Lake Chuzenji. As usual, the drive was quite scenic, as can be seen here with a view of a car climbing up Irohazaka.

On the way up, we were lucky enough to encounter a group of marauding monkeys which were doing their thing along the side of the road. Some of them came quite close to the car, no doubt checking if we had any food within arm's reach. This was the first time I'd ever seen monkeys in Nikko, despite quite a few (10?) trips up here in the last two years.

Unfortunately, our first stop of the day was a bust, with the location closed for the season. We had planned on taking a stroll through the grounds of the Italian Embassy Memorial Park to get a view of the lake but found the road covered in ice and signs saying the area was closed. Too bad... we settled for the view from a nearby parking lot instead.

I had never been up here in the Winter, since for most of the season the roads are quite treacherous. Quite nice to see the mountains capped with snow surrounding the lake.
Since our first activity was not doable, we moved on down the list and dropped by Kegon Falls, which was also quite frozen up.

With plans to have lunch at a lakeside lodge, we were again disappointed to find it closed. Seems not many people make the trek up here in the winter, as the restaurant was boarded up and a sign said it would only reopen in April. Instead, we made our way down to the lake shore for a bit before checking out the Chuzenji Lakeside Kanaya Hotel whose lunch was unfortunately quite pricey.

Sooooooo we continued on up the road, convinced that we would find something to eat in the Onsen resort town of Yumoto where we also wanted to take in a nice foot onsen after so many long days of walking. Again, the drive was in vain with the restaurant and ashiyu both boarded up. Luckily, we had spotted a place which was open on the way and we stopped in there for a quick lunch of hot soba before making our final stop at Ryuzu Falls. The small shrine at the start of the trail had this iced up water surrounded with kanji.

The falls themselves were as roaring as usual, with the added feature of... ice.... of course.

So despite our planned things not working out, we had a great trip up into the mountains, with my father and brothers experiencing such amazing mountain views for the first time ever. Tacked on with our multiple (we ended up seeing them twice more) monkey sightings and a fabulous dinner at Yama no Restaurant with my in laws and I think this was one of the best days of the trip so far. The relaxing atmosphere in Nikko was a really great way to follow up the hectic trip out West.

Today, we drove back into the city and did a bit of touring downtown to show everyone the bustling metropolis that is Utsunomiya. Stopping by the school, I couldn't help but have the group pose in front of the mega poster outside of the school. Unfortunately, my ISO was set quite high from some shots of the night before and my shots from today didn't turn out... too grainy.. Too bad, but nothing new to show off really, I HAVE been living here for almost two years after all.

It certainly is nice to be home, even if it is for only 1 night. I managed to get a good picture of the silver carving which my wife thoughtfully picked out for me. I've written many times on this blog about the "elusive" Mount Fuji and it's hide and seek game with me since I got to Japan. After finally getting a good view from the Shinkansen last week, I now have a hand-made carving of the 3776 meter behemoth to bring with me to Canada.

In other news, I've also had an iPod bestowed upon me by my parents in law, which was quite surprising. I love it so far, though I've had it working less than an hour.

Tomorrow, it's off to Tokyo for the final few days of the Lafleurs (and Lemieux) tour of Japan. More to come.

A birthday in Nikko

2007-03-21T08:46:00.001-04:00

Monday was spent travelling up the Shinkansen lines from Hiroshima all the way up to Utsunomiya and finally to Nikko where we checked in to the great little Hotori An. Really nice place and we've had a great stay here so far.

On Tuesday, we headed on up the road to visit Nikko's World Heritage temples and shrines. Yoshiko's father had once more pulled some strings and we found ourselves in the possession of some passes, always good to save some money when travelling. Our first stop was of course the grandiose Toshogu where everyone was in awe over the detail and color of the decorations which adorn the various buildings and gates. It was nice to be able to connect this visit all the way back to the first day of our visit since Tokugawa Ieyasu, who built Nijo-jo in Tokyo, is the one buried here. We then moved on to the mini version of the Toshogu which serves as a burial site for Tokugawa Iemitsu, the third Shogun who built up this area for his grandfather Ieyasu. This scary guy was standing guard at the gate.

Here is one of the towers in front of the main building, I believe a drum tower, surrounded by the lovely trees which make this area a great place to visit.

After finishing up the Toshogu area, we each picked up a fortune at Rinno-ji and had Yoshiko translate for us. Interestingly enough, all of us pulled either good or really good fortunes from the box, a rare stroke of luck since we were 7 picking from the same box.

We then made our way into town where we had a ramen lunch and a nice birthday cheese cake at the Meiji no Yakata outlet by the station. Did I mention it was my birthday? The view from Nikko really is lovely when the mountains are covered in snow.

I also like this shot I got of the Asakusa bound Tobu line train waiting across from a deserted platform.

For dinner, Yoshiko was kind enough to ferry us all down to the station area by car, where we enjoyed a great meal of Indian, a first for my parents and brothers I believe. We then retired to our hotel for a good night's rest with a trip up into the mountains in store for the next day.

Miyajima and Hiroshima

2007-03-21T08:43:00.001-04:00

Sunday morning, we gathered in the hotel lobby as usual and headed out for our day of sightseeing. First up was a train and ferry ride out to Miyajima to check out the island and its famed floating Torii gate. Here is the view from the ferry as we were coming up to the island.

Upon arriving at the ferry's dock and exiting the terminal building, we were immediately surrounded by a couple of dozen deer looking for handouts from the arriving tourists. Happy to oblige, we bought some shika senbei and made them happy. My brothers had the bright idea to stand on a raised platform and bring all the deer to them.

My little Yoshiko ended up with more than she could handle, they are quite pushy once they see you've got some grub... all in good fun though.

As we made our way to Itsukushima Shrine, Sebastien spotted a fried squid stand and Luc and he decided to dig in. Here they are simultaneously biting into their tasty treat.

We were again quite lucky with the weather and the gate was framed with blue skies and water. This floating gate is one of Japan's 3 most famous views, and the second I get to see after the islands of Matsushima back in August 2005.

We visited the shrine and my family got to take in a bit of a wedding ceremony which was going on. We exited the shrine on the other side and took a bit of a rest and saw a pretty funny little scene unfold. A little boy of about 2 years was running around on the beach chasing the wandering deer. Well one deer decided he was bored with the game and headed out into the water, with the little boy in tow. Here is his father calling him back to dry land.

After touring the island a bit, we hopped back on the ferry and headed back to Hiroshima for lunch and a visit to the Peace Park and A-Bomb dome, of course a very sobering experience. The first thing we met up with was the remains which have come to be known as the A-Bomb Dome.

Since most of the buildings in the city were wooden at the time that the bomb hit, most of the 2km radius around the hypo center was instantly flattened by the force of the blast and resulting fire ball. Only buildings built of concrete were left standing, and these were severely damaged. This building was chosen, due to its unique shape and the fact that it was very close to the hypo center, to serve as a reminder of the horrors of nuclear weapons. Over the years, the building has been stabilized and steps have been taken to ensure it will stay in the same condition it was in after the bomb hit in '45. The grounds of the park and the museums were very well laid out and we had a quiet afternoon reflecting on the horror which was unleashed here some 60+ years ago. The exhibit which stands out for me are the letters which the successive mayors of Hiroshima have written over the years. With EVERY nuclear test, undertaken by any nation in the world, the mayor pens a letter outlining what happened to his city and strongly protesting the continued testing of nuclear weapons, weapons that, by the way, are now more than 1000 times more powerful than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima.

Another thing which stuck with me was the monument to the children of Hiroshima and the exhibit in the museum which outlines the story of one of these children. A little girl was exposed to the bomb's radiation and eventually developed Leukemia. Believing in the old Japanese folk tale that folding 1000 paper cranes would allow a wish to be fulfilled, she started folding. When she reached one thousand and wasn't feeling better, she kept going until she finally succumbed to the disease. Some of her cranes were given away at her funeral, and others are on display at the museum. Her story has become a bit of a symbol of the children of the bomb and to this day, thousands of paper cranes continue to flood into the memorial and are put on display.

Not a happy touristy visit, but definitely a necessary one.

Himeji

2007-03-18T09:22:00.001-04:00

I am struck by just how amazing the sights we are seeing on this trip are. I'd say they're all in the top tier of things I've seen in my life. Saturday was no exception with a quick stop at Himeji on the way to Hiroshima.

Himeji Castle was quite simply astonishing in its size and grandeur. This is now the second authentic\original\non-concrete Japanese castle that I've seen, after visiting Matsumoto-jo in August, and I'd say they are a must see for anyone coming to Japan. Himeji is especially easy to visit as it isn't that far from Kyoto where everyone stops anyway on their way through Japan.

As we arrived in Himeji and started walking towards the castle, we were surprised by these 2 futuristic police bikes that zoomed through the intersection, lights and sirens blaring. We expected to see a fancy limo or parade behind them but, there was nothing. I like the picture with the guy with the red jacket in the foreground.

And here is the castle. A mere 15 minutes of walking brings you to the front of this behemoth of Japanese fortifications. Nijo-jo, which we visited in Kyoto earlier this week, was really only used as a residence, not so much as a military fortification. Himeji-jo on the other hand, was a major military fortress, also housing the lords and their families and such. Here is the happy group, in awe over the scale of this thing.

This is a shot of the main Donjon which is set on a hill and towers over the surrounding countryside.

Another couple of angles, from some of the countless walls and gates which protect the approach to the main tower, I wouldn't have wanted to be the poor sap whose lord decides to take on this castle... every angle is covered by archer holes, rock and oil dropping gates and other assorted nastiness.

Here is a closer view of the main tower, from the field which lays right in front. At this point, we proceeded to go up to the very top of the tower, through a series of steep stairs.

This was the view from the top, overlooking one of the decorative roof ornaments.

Amazing place to visit, there aren't enough superlatives to express myself. Here is a panoramic shot I took and stitched together.

After grabbing a great lunch at a Turkish\Indian place, we hopped the Shinkansen and went down the line to Hiroshima, checked in to our hotel and walked around some to find a place to eat. Here is a shot from one of the overpasses in Hiroshima, you can see the streetcar coming up.

And that's about that for now. Today, we're off to Miyajima and possibly to visit the Peace Park and A-Bomb Dome.

Osaka, the big city

2007-03-18T09:19:00.001-04:00

One of the first things which struck me about Osaka is how big it felt, in some ways even bigger than Tokyo, though it has about 10? times less the population. Yoshiko and I talked about it and we came to the decision this was because of its concentration. Tokyo can be said to be multiple cities, spread out over a large area with each ku having its own "downtown" area of high rises around the stations and such. Osaka has but one downtown core, right at the center of a convergence of rail lines and highways. On our one afternoon in the city, we headed down to the Doutombori area to check things out and I now see why the Lonely Planet book says it has a definite "Bladerunner" feel with the neon signs and crowded streets.

At some point, we looked up and were surprised to see and odd shaped rainbow up over our heads. It seemed to be curving outwards, I guess due to our point of view. Glad I managed to get a shot of it.

With Sebastien and Luc off to enjoy some Sumo, we opted for a night view experience and headed to the massive Umeda Sky Building in the city's North area.

After climbing the 40 stories to the observation deck at the top, we got quite the view.

Here is the 5 of us, cold, but happy!

And a final parting shot.

After a little misfortune on the trains, Luc and Sebastien were quite a bit late meeting up with us, but we managed to find a fantastic place for Oconomiyaki nonetheless. Osaka style oconomiyaki is my favourite and this little shop was run by an old master with quite the character. Chatting it up with us in between taking care of the grill, he really made the experience worth it for all of us. Heck, he even gave Sebastien a little spatula to take home with him. A great end to our Osaka experience, though it was admittedly a short one.

Kyoto + Night + Lights = Ooooh, Aaaaaah

2007-03-18T09:10:00.001-04:00

Well, haven't been able to get online until now since our hotels haven't had the Internet in rooms or anything... unfortunate, but just the way it is. Been too tired to write until now anyway, but today was a (relatively) easy day so I'm in pretty decent shape.

Our final day in Kyoto on Thursday was lovely. It started out with a long bus ride out to Ryoan-ji temple, which has exquisitely manicured grounds and a Zen rock garden which was once part of someone's cottage. On the bus ride down, my family started up a conversation with a group of uniformed Junior High School kids who were on their way to Kinkaku-ji for some sightseeing. It was quite amusing to see everyone try to communicate with each other, with my mother occasionally slipping back into her Spanish and my uncle impressing the girls with Japanese vocabulary he was being fed by Yoshiko and myself. I think this little interaction was a definite highlight for everyone, including the kids. They don't get to talk much in English I'm sure, and they were quite good at getting together in groups to figure out answers and respond to everyone's queries.

We did eventually get to the temple, payed our dues and went in. The highlight of the temple was a bit of a let down, partially because mood is such a huge factor when visiting this kind of place. The whole Zen thing is about peace and tranquility, which is something hard to achieve with groups of high school students running around the grounds. But the garden was in fact very peace inducing...

The grounds were what really made the trip worthwhile, with an army of groundskeepers kept hard at work. These poor folks were busy cleaning the hundreds of square meters of moss carpeting in the surrounding gardens.

After a bit of a stroll in the residential area around Ryoan-ji and Kinkaku-ji due to us getting turned around a bit, we boarded a bus which eventually took us to Sanjusangendo, which was quite the treat. This building is the longest in Japan, and is filled with a thousand and one (exactly) statues of Buddha and some iconological depictions of various protectors and such.

On the grounds of the temple, some of the plum and cherry trees were in bloom. Got this lovely shot of a plum blossom. I've recently gotten acquainted with the Aperture Priority mode on my camera and have been playing around with different depths of field with interesting results. Glad to be back into the swing of this photography hobby of mine.

Photos were not permitted inside, which is understandable. I've never been very comfortable taking pictures inside temples anyway, so here is another outside shot of the looooooooong main building of Sanjusangendo.

For the remainder of the afternoon, we did a bit of shopping before getting some rest at the hotel, having dinner and heading back into the Higashiyama area to check out the great Hana Touro. Really amazing to walk the streets lined with paper lanterns and get a feel for what Kyoto must have been like so long ago. We've been quite lucky with the weather so far, and though we've had a few cloudy days, there have been no major rain events... though it has been pretty cold. I feel about the same now as I have all winter in Utsunomiya, not sure what little weather quirk has put Spring off for a few more weeks. My poor little Yoshiko has even come down with a bit of a cold what with all our walking in the cool night air. My parents and brothers have gotten right into the swing of taking care of her though, offering up lozenges, sweaters and anything else they can to keep the little Japanese part of our family comfortable. Here is an example of the decorated lanterns which line the streets.

The final destination for us on our night walking tour was Kiyomizu-dera which, as we could see from out hotel, was quite lit up. Here is the outer gate and one of the buildings, just fantastic.

Here is the group.

This is one of my favourite shots, very similar to one I took from about this spot during the day. This gate with the city in the background was really beautiful.

I am also getting the hang of the whole long-exposure thing too, the S3 takes great night shots. I am really pleased with the crispness of the pictures.

Finally, around shut down time, we made our way up to Kiyomizu-dera and were quite taken with the view. This temple sure is amazing, with its network of pillars and beams. I can understand why it's up for one of the New Seven Wonders of the World.

And on the walk out, we were even treated to a view of Kiyomizu's pagoda, lit up and showing up at the end of a quiet street. Of course as I setup to take the picture, a car showed up.... but nonetheless.

And that was it for Kyoto. We left our fabulous hotel and hopped a ride to Osaka on a Rapid Service JR train on Friday.

Kyoto

2007-03-14T10:04:00.001-04:00

Quite the place this here Kyoto. I've been hearing about how amazing of a place it is for two years, now I finally get it. Almost immediately after one gets off the bus and enters whichever neighborhood or temple one is visiting, you feel the weight of history upon you. It's as if the air is thick with it, different because of the events which transpired here over centuries and centuries. I am as pleased as ever to have waited until the end of my stay here to visit, as I now have a fuller understanding of Japan, its history and culture. I think Yoshiko and I are also enjoying doing the tour guide thing, while it is sometimes difficult to keep the whole group focused and on track. There are so many things to do here, and we are here for precious few days. I can't help but feel we are wasting valuable time while one looks for a toilet and another browses in a store while I see our bus drive by us... lol BUT! I did get everything I wanted done today, which is totally cool.

After breakfast at the hotel, we headed out directly to Nijo Castle, which is not so far from our hotel. Having bought a bus card at the hotel for 500 Yen, we had unlimited use of the really great bus system for the day, and figured it out relatively quickly. Nijo Castle was built in the 1600s, and is only the second castle I've visited in Japan. Here is the main palace building within the castle walls.

The detail that went into the building of the castle was astounding with ornate carvings and paintings throughout, complete with gold papered walls in some of the rooms. Here is the detail from the entrance.

While this one was more of a palace and official residence for the shogun than a military fortification, it was no less protected. For example, the hallways are covered with floors which make a squeaking noise when one walks on them, no matter how quiet you try to be. This was to prevent any would-be assassins from sneaking around the castle undetected. There are also multiple trap doors where samurai could lay in hiding while their lord conducted business within the walls of the castle, ready to jump out at a moment's notice. Very cool place to visit. The castle is surrounded by well tended gardens, which will be just breathtaking in a few weeks as the cherry blossoms pop out. Even without the sakura, they are quite nice. Here is the group, a first decent group shot from my camera. With 5 cameras in action on this trip, we're pretty much guaranteed to cover everything!

After touring the grounds of Nijo-jo, we hopped back on a bus and headed to Kinkaku-ji, one of Japan's two golden temples\halls\pavilions. I am now one of the lucky who have had the privilege of visiting both Kinkaku-ji here in Kyoto and the Konjiki-do up in Iwate Prefecture. They seem to be counterpoints to each other actually. With the Konjiki-do being housed in a protective building, one can admire the interior but not see it in the surrounding landscape. With Kinkaku-ji, you can see the golden hall surrounded by it's ponds and gardens, but not see anything inside. Interesting.

Here is some of the detail of the gold covering, which was recently redone as I understand it.

We then bused into Eastern Kyoto and hiked up the hill to Kiyomizu-dera, which is probably one of the most popular attractions in Kyoto, as could be seen by the crowds milling about the narrow street leading up to it.

The view from up here is really amazing. This is a view of the city with the gate to the temple compound in the foreground, a nice mix of the old and new Kyoto and the huge changes which have occurred over the centuries.

This one turned out a bit dark due to the difference in contrast, but I like it anyway...

Below Kiyomizu, there is a spring from which water with healing attributes flows. There was always a lineup of people waiting to grab a cup full with these cups on the end of long sticks.

And here is the main attraction, a temple which clings to the mountainside with the help of hundreds of wooden beams laid out in a lattice over a reinforced footing. Amazing that this was built hundreds of years ago.

In fact, we have a bit of a view of Kiyomizu from our hotel.

Here is a panorama I shot of all the temple building together.

After chilling out for a bit at the hotel, regrouping and putting on warmer clothes, we headed out to dinner and then to the Hana Touro which is essentially a series of illuminated streets, temples and such along a 5 km route through the Higashiyama area of Kyoto. As far as I'm concerned, this was the highlight of the day, just gorgeous.

This big boy is a cherry tree, again, you can just imagine what it will look like in full bloom.

And that was pretty much it. We made our way out of the area and back to our hotel before the lights were all shut down, possibly leaving us in the dark? A really great day.

Tomorrow, more temples of course, including Sanjusangendo which we missed out on yesterday. More to come! Good night.

And so it begins

2007-03-13T10:02:00.001-04:00

Well, so far not so bad on this little trip of ours. As I mentioned in my last blog post from my cell phone, we got quite a surprise at the airport when Yoshiko and I went to pick up my parents, uncles and aunts... In an operation any CIA operative would have been proud of, the fact that my brothers were coming to Japan was kept absolutely secret. They in fact didn't even know until a week before the departure, call it operational security. Great to see everyone here and to get to spend time with everyone after two years apart. So the group is now my parents, brothers and my uncle Luc.

The first surprise of the day was when Yoshiko and I went to check in to our hotel near Ueno park and found the two cherry trees out front in full bloom. Quite lovely to see these little guys popping out, though the weather has taken a turn for the cold and their blooming has been pushed back a bit.

After checking in to a hotel where the front desk staff were using flashlights to read the paperwork, we were a bit worried. Seems they were doing some maintenance on the electrical system but we were promised everything would be fine before we got back, and it was. Great location too, right across from the Keisei Ueno station. After the big surprise at Narita, we headed on back in to Tokyo and dropped off our bags at the hotel before grabbing a quick bite to eat. We opted on a rice bowl/meat combination place, nice and quick. Here is the group, unfortunately my dear Yoshiko turned her head at the last moment... but do notice the chopsticks... after a mere 24 hours in country, all were using them quite well today!

This morning, we hopped on the trains again, destination Kyoto. On the way down, we were blessed with a really great view of Mount Fuji from the Tokaido Shinkansen. I found an interesting coincidence while reviewing my photos tonight.... while trying to grab a shot of Fuji between building and utility poles and such, I managed to get a shot of a Fuji sign... call it fuji squared???

Sure is a lovely sight, all covered in snow. Here it is towering over a little town in... Shizuoka? I think so...

And towering over the tea plantations of Shizuoka.

And one last shot, with the secondary vent clearly showing on the right. Must have been one heck of a show when this ol' boy erupted some 300 years ago.

We arrived in Kyoto a little bit after 1PM and after dropping off our bags and checking in to the fabulous Hotel Sunroute Kyoto, we grabbed a bite to eat and made our first attempt at sightseeing. I say attempt because after we made the trek out to Sanjusangendo, making it a good hour before closing time, we found that you had to buy your ticket at least 1 hour and 30 minutes before closing time... and so the gates were shut to us. Instead, we ended up touring the MASSIVE Kyoto Station, which looks like a solid block of metal from the outside but has this huge empty area in the middle with escalators going up 11 floors. Quite the behemoth, and really quite cold... both figuratively and literally with the wind whipping around up there.

After our disappointment at the temple, we were somewhat revived by walking some of the smaller streets between the station and our hotel. We found quite a treasure trove of small traditional ryokans, as well as some newer facilities. Despite the waning light, I managed to get a shot I really like of this old wooden house.

And finally a bit of a funny shot. As I was waiting outside a store for the crew to finish up, I noticed this little guy sitting in a bike basket waiting for someone of his own.

So tomorrow, things start off in earnest with a visit to the major sights of Kyoto. We plan to hit Nijo Castle, Kinkakuji and Kiyomizudera and more. For the evening, we will be doing a bit of a walking tour admiring some of the temples which are lit up at night. Should be quite nice. Stay tuned!

Bikkuri!

2007-03-12T08:43:00.002-04:00

Big surprise as I greeted my folks off the plane and saw that the aunt and uncle I thought were coming were a hoax!

Instead, my two brothers are here! I was in shock when I saw them turn the corner, no clue this was in the works. Really great to have the whole crew out here for 2 weeks. Off to Kyoto tomorrow, pics to come.

Mobile SushiandMapleSyrup

Finally westward bound

2007-03-11T08:21:00.001-04:00

I've now been in Japan for almost two years and have experienced more than I could ever have imagined. I've skied and hiked in the Japanese Alps in Nagano, gaped in awe at the urban sprawl of Tokyo from the top of high rises, soaked in the hot mineral waters of onsen in Nasu and walked the quiet grounds of Chuson-ji temple in Iwate-ken, just to mention a few trips. Outside of Japan, I've visited the current capital of China, Beijing, and one of its most ancient capitals, Xian. I've marvelled at the grandeur of Angkor Wat and shuddered at the horrors of the Killing fields in Cambodia. I've eaten Pho on the streets of Saigon and seen the mighty Mekong river with my own eyes.

Despite having visited all these and countless other places, I have yet to travel to what for most tourists if THE must-see spot in Japan, Kyoto. Luckily, this will soon be remedied.

As I sit here typing this, a contingent of 5 French-Canadians has just taken off from Ottawa International airport on the first leg of their long journey to Japan. Tomorrow afternoon, Yoshiko and I will meet my parents, aunt and uncles at Narita Airport and begin our two week journey through Central and Western Japan and back. All told, we will be traveling over 2000 kilometers by train, which makes one quite thankful for the Shinkansen, and stopping in 7 cities. First up will be one night of rest in Tokyo for the travel weary, then off to Kyoto for 3 nights, Osaka for 1 night, an afternoon in Himeji, and 2 nights in Hiroshima. We then make the long journey from Hiroshima back up here to nearby Nikko where we stay for three nights, down to Utsunomiya for a night and then a final 3 nights in Tokyo. Quite looking forward to seeing my folks again, and Yoshiko is looking forward to meeting my father and another little piece of my huge family.

This will be my final trip before our departure next month and I am glad with its timing since I think I've finally made my peace with Japan. While I still get pissed off when I hear about stupidities such as denying the massacre perpetrated by Japanese soldiers at Nanking or the forced prostitution of women during the Japanese occupation of Asia, I take solace in the fact that there are people speaking out against these things. The bottom line is that Japan and Asia will have to come to terms with what happened in their past. Since I am leaving, my stake in the survival of Japan in the new Asia will be greatly diminished. It will be interesting to see the developments in the region as China continues to rise and the rest of Asia steps out of the shadows and directly competes with China. Of course, with my in-laws in Japan, I will still have a personal stake in the region, but it will be very different viewing the developments from abroad. I only hope that Japan will some day work its way out of the many holes it has dug for itself.

But for now, I'll focus my energies on making this trip a success for my family and my dear wife, enjoying the trip myself of course, and taking some great photos. I am glad to report that after a lull of a few months, my photography hobby is back in full swing. On our outing to Kairakuen last Thursday, I snapped over 100 photos, which is more than I'd taken with my camera since coming back to Japan in January. I'll be taking my laptop with me on the trip, so you can expect frequent posts with pictures as we make our way down to Hiroshima and back. Cheers!