Here are a few updates on various recent posts and a hint of what’s to come.

Remember the soba noodles I made?

Our (Inter)National Margarita Day party was great fun, even barbecuing the carne in the rain.

So what’s next?  In two days we’re off to Phuket for a week of sailing around the islands off the coast of Thailand.  It looks like the lows will be in the mid-70’s and the high’s in the mid-90’s.  Can’t wait.

 

We were so pooped last night I forgot to tell you the rest of the Costco Adventure story.

After shopping at Costco we planned to have dinner at a restaurant in Hiroshima that was highly recommended by a friend.  We had a brochure of the place with a little map on the back showing a two block radius around the restaurant.  So we typed in the name of the restaurant on Chris’ iphone and set off to try to find it.

It’s dark, we’re hungry, Hiroshima is a big city with a lot of people everywhere and we’re trying to navigate our way through all of this on the “wrong” side of the street.  We eventually get to the location the phone thinks we want to be, in some little alley and I ask the little old Japanese man who seemed to be a parking attendant  where the restaurant was – by showing him the brochure.  He jumped up and grabbed our map and started jabbering very fast and pointing down the alley and . . .

Anyway, this was clearly not the right place.  So, we decided we’d had enough dodging buses, trolleys, motor scooters, pedestrians, cars and would just head for home.  In the process of getting out of downtown Hiroshima we ended up going up a ramp into a bus transit station of some sort.  There was a police man ahead of us so I jumped out of the car and ran to him, flailing my map and he started yelling at me and pointing and jumped in his car.  So I jumped back in our car and he proceeded to give us a police escort all through the bus terminal with his lights flashing.  All the people waiting for their buses turned and stared with their mouths agape.  We weren’t sure if we were headed to the police station or what.

As we finally got through and out of this massive bus complex the police man pulled over so we did the same.  Again we waived our map and begged for mercy and kept saying Iwakuni.  Again, more excited Japanese jabberings and pointing and we were off again this time the police man followed us all the way through the city until we were safely back on Highway 2 headed in the right direction.

Even when we got on the right road it was still a bit intense because of all the signs and not wanting to end up on the Expressway.  Plus the Friday night traffic on these little one and two lane highways was moving pretty slow.  But we eventually made it home safe and sound and had some delicious leftovers –  pork chops, mashed potatoes, and peas.

And that’s why I was too pooped to write all this last night.

In preparation for our (Inter)National Margarita Day Party on Sunday we made a “quick”  (45 kilometers in 1 hour 45 minutes each way) trip up to Costco in Hiroshima.  It’s very much like every Costco we’ve been to back home.  There were just a few additions we found interesting.  For example

Costco size sake

and next to the pizza,

 

 

and not just large cuts of meat

 

Other than that and lots of Japanese products mixed with our typical US products we pretty much got everything we needed plus the usual other stuff we didn’t know we needed.  Anyway, Happy (Inter)National Margarita Day – almost.

 

Day two at our ryokan started with another soak in the bath and then breakfast which consisted of many small dishes of assorted vegees and salad.  Plus an egg we could cook ourselves if we didn’t want to eat it raw.  Here’s what our breakfast spread looked like for the 5 of us.  At each place there are about 10 dishes of various surprises.

Back in our room I wanted to show you the special slipper you wear when in the bath room.  There’s hardly room to put them on and turn around.

Upon checking out we were greeted by our shoes happily lined up and waiting for their next adventure.

Today’s adventure took us to Kozan Park, home of Rurikoji, a Buddist Temple best known for it’s five storied pagoda.  It was built in 1442 and is 31 meters tall.  This pagoda is ranked among Japan’s greatest national treasures.

Images of the temple grounds.

As I researched this area I discovered a brewery not far away and since it was lunchtime off we went to check it out.

In addition to the traditional Japanese fare they specialized in homemade sausages

 

and great beer, including a very good chocolate stout

 

Nothing like a great Italian 7-cheese pizza with German sausage and beer in a Bavarian brewery on a rainy day in Japan    . . . ahhh . . .

Here’s the view behind the brewery.

Then the long, slow drive home and time to get ready for the week ahead.

PS – Boy did I mess up with the trash today.  I forgot that Monday was a holiday and put out Monday’s trash on Tuesday – oops.

Well what a weekend we had.  We set off early Sunday morning for Yamaguchi City with friends Bill, Tracy, and their daughter Pearl.  Instead of taking the train or driving on the expressway like last weekend we took the local highway.  After about an hour and a half of driving at 50 kph we turned off the highway and headed up into the mountains to an interesting place called Chogennosato.

As I understand it, this place belonged to Chogen Shounin, an adventurous Buddhist monk.

When the great Toudai Temple in Nara City was destroyed in the Genpei battle of 1180 he provided the massive Japanese Cedar and Cypress trees for the temple to be rebuilt.  These trees stood 20 – 40 meters tall and were one and a half meters around.

Instead of chopping them down, the men dug huge holes down into the ground around the tree’s root system until the tree could no longer hold itself upright.  Next, hundreds of men had to get the trees from up on the mountain down to the stream below using block and tackle and huge amounts of manpower.

Then they would dam up one side of the river in various spots to increase the flow on the other side to get the logs down stream and out into the Seto Sea where they floated the logs north to Osaka and then many miles upstream to the city of Nara where the temple was rebuilt.  All this occurred back in the 12 century!

This park had many recreated old buildings to explore, like the traditional Japanese house, a stone sauna for the workers, a wood shop, and other support buildings for the logging activities.

The thatched roofs were amazingly thick.

Time for a delicious Soba lunch break.

After lunch we got to make our own soba noodles.  First we combined a mixture of buckwheat and soba flour with a small amount of water.  We did this in a large bowl by swirling it around with our finger tips

until it became a smooth ball.

Then we flattened it and rolled it out

and the best part – chopping up the thin noodles with this massive noodle chopping knife.

Great fun.

As we continued to explore this area we came upon some massively huge bamboo.

And this 800 year old Camellia tree.

At the highest point in the park is a playground for the kiddies.  The highlight here was the 103 meter roller slide.  We’d never seen this before.  You slide down on a little foam pad with a rope handle on all these little rollers.

From here we headed off to try our hand at Indigo dying.  This, too, was really fun.

First you choose what you want to make.  I picked a scarf, Pearl chose a handkerchief, and Tracy a table topper.  Then you can tie knots in it and/or put marbles or little balls under the cloth and tie them in with rubber bands.

Then you dunk your scarf in the indigo dye and swish it around just a few times for a few seconds, like mine – 3 times for 15 seconds each time or for really dark indigo – 5 times for 1 1/2 minutes each time.  After each dunking you take it out and untangle it and spread out the cloth exposing it to the air.  It was amazing that after the first dunking the cloth turned a lime green and as it felt the air it settled in to blue.

Once this process was complete we rinsed and rinsed and rinsed our cloth under cold water until the water ran clear.  Then we set the color by doing a 2 minutes soak in vinegar water.  Then another good long rinse and voila – a new indigo scarf for me!

Believe it or not our day was not over yet.  There was more to come.  We drove on into Yamaguchi City to a ryokhan (a Japanese Inn with hot springs) called Matsudaya.  This is like a hotel with a hot springs bath and includes dinner and breakfast.

As you enter the hotel lobby the first thing you do is take off your shoes and put on the hotel’s slippers.

Then you check in.  After checking in to our rooms

we donned our yukata (robe) and hanten (winter jacket) and headed off to the furoo (bath) and rotenburou (outdoor bath) for a soak.  Dinner was at 1830 and what’s fun about staying at these places is that you just go straight from the bath to dinner wearing your yukata to dinner and breakfast.

Dinner was more than you can imagine.

The right hand picture shows 7 dishes with about 3 different things on each one – just from my place setting alone.  Plus 2 dipping sauces.

And then came the second course.  Just 3 different dishes.  Puffer fish was the specialty this night.

And dessert.  The little brown thing was really good with some gooey custardy stuff in the center.  The fruit was really good too.

When we got back to our room our table was moved to the side and two futons were laid out on the floor with big puffy comforters on top.

Wow, what a great day!

Oh, and another “interesting” observation – these pillows seem to be filled with beans or maybe buckwheat.  A little . . . different. . .

Oyasumi nasai

Now that the guest bedroom is almost set up I need to get sheets, etc. for the bed.  Many US people here do most of there purchasing through Amazon Japan so I thought I’d give that a try.  Here is a good example of my blog subtitle “Every day is an Adventure!”

I just went online to Amazon Japan and typed in “bedding.”  What did I get?  “Bedding the Biker Next Door.”   I just cracked up but had to stay focused on my task so I then typed in “sheets.”  And what did I get?  “Between the Sheets.”  This is just too funny and I had to share it.  I still haven’t found what I thought I was looking for and who knows what I’ll get when I type in “comforter.”

 

Well we got back from Sapporo on Thursday night with just enough time to wash clothes and repack for our weekend trip to Fukuoka.  Fukuoka is 251 kilometers (156 miles) south of Iwakuni on the island of Kyushu.  We took the expressway and stopped at a rest stop along the way.  This was not like any rest stop by the freeway I’ve ever seen.  The women’s restroom looked like it was lifted right out of a very fancy spa, complete with fresh flowers and toasty warm heated seats.

And check this out.  Just in case you can’t find your way around in there. . .

Another cool thing about this trip on the expressway is that we went through 35 tunnels.  I counted them all on the way back.  They ranged in length from 4 kilometers (2.5 miles) to 210 meters (1/8th of a mile).

We had two reasons for this trip.  First, one of the guys Chris works with is in a Latin band and he had a big show there Saturday night.  Nelson, who plays percussion in this band, is an interesting guy.  He grew up in Puerto Rico, lived in the US for awhile, he’s married to a Japanese woman and his father is Italian so he’s fluent in four languages – Spanish, English, Japanese and Italian.  Anyway, the twenty piece Japanese band was great.  They played a Latin Jazz style of music with lots of brass.  It was fun to watch the young Japanese salsa dancing.

Our second purpose for the trip was to go to Ikea.  Yep, even in Japan.

In an early post I mentioned that we want all of our friends and relations to come visit us so we now have a little van crammed full of your new guest room furniture.

We rented this little van and since the seats folded up along the sides there wasn’t room for the queen size mattress but Chris, the engineer, found a way to make it fit along with all the other boxes of furniture.

All in all a great new adventure traveling by car and navigating the Japanese signs and reading our Japanese maps.  Thank goodness for google maps on Chris’ phone.

 

 

 

Our last day in Sapporo.  We were on the bus by 0815 and on our way to Tsudome Site for another Snow Festival. 

This small festival was geared toward very little children.  There were lots of little slopes carved out of snow piles for children to safely slide down.

There was also some kind of snow carving event going on but I couldn’t figure out what that was about.  One person said it was local high school students.  Someone else said it was local businesses. 

Then there was this display of little snowmen created by local school children.

All in all an odd place to stop for an hour and a half on the hour plus bus ride to the airport where we had a two hour “free time” wait for our flight to Hiroshima.  Plenty of time for some local Sapporo beer with our lunch.

So, did you notice what a beautiful day it was?  Almost no wind.  Bright and sunny.  By the time our plane arrived in Hiroshima it was very windy and snow showers.  So windy, in fact, that it took the pilot three tries to get the plane on the ground due to wind sheer issues at the end of the runway.  Lucky for us, the third time was a charm and we landed without incident, grabbed our baggage and boarded the bus for the hour and a half ride down to Iwakuni.

Home at last for a delightful bottle of sake to go with Chris’ now famous cabbage salad with toasted sesame dressing and stir fried rice, onion and eggs.  Ahhh, what a life.

Today is the big Sapporo Snow Festival for us.  The festival officially starts tomorrow but if you go the day before you beat the crowds and you get cheaper hotel rooms.

The Sapporo Snow Festival, one of Japan’s largest winter events, attracts about two million people to see the many amazing snow and ice sculptures lining Odori Park, the grounds at Tsudome, and along the main street in Susukino.  Here are some of the sculptures we saw both large and small.

For seven days in February, Sapporo is turned into a winter dreamland of crystal-like ice and white snow. The Snow Festival began in 1950, with six snow statues made by local high school students in Odori Park. In 1955, the Self-Defense Force joined in and made a massive snow sculpture, the kind for which the Snow Festival is now famous.

One end of the Odori Park looked like this.  A long line of sculptures lined both sides of the park.

As we explored the sites we kept coming upon groups of little Japanese school children.  They would come up to us, say “excuse me” and then ever so properly and carefully ask us questions like “where are you from?” and “how do you like the snow festival?” and what kind of Japanese food do you like?”  They were so cute.  They all had notebooks and were taking notes.  Of course there was always a teacher or two with these children.  Here’s me answering their questions.

Here’s a snow sculpture promoting the new Star Wars movie coming up in December 2015.

Temple sculpture where they are practicing for the opening ceremony

and a couple more large sculptures.

At the far end of this long park is the TV Tower

where we took an elevator to the top for a birds eye view of Odori Park and the Snow Festival.

Time for lunch and some sake tasting so we hoofed it across town to the Sapporo Sake Museum for some tasting and purchasing.  The art work on the bottle is so simple and so striking.  This sake is made from local rice and local water and the business has been in operation for over 150 years.

In addition to all of the snow sculptures that are ready for viewing, there is the International Snow Sculpture Contest.  Twelve 3-person teams from around the world will participate.  They have 3 days to create their sculptures starting today.  The teams are from Australia, Korea, Finland, Hawaii, Indonesia, Italy, Malaysia, New Zealand, Singapore, Thailand, and bum-ba-da-dum Portland, Oregon!

All the teams start out with their own block of snow.

Here’s a member of the Portland team in front of their block.  They are creating Orcas.

In another part of town, the Susukino district, are the ice sculptures.  These were very beautiful.

Here’s one more cool sighting from today in front of an office building across the street from the snow sculptures and one of my favorites.

OK, enough ice and snow sculptures for one day.

 

Another fun day in the cold north.  This morning we took a 45 minute train ride even farther north to the port town of Otaru.

I saw this Ferris Wheel as we were nearing Otaru.  Below is a view of the rough, windy sea.

This former fishing village is now a booming tourist destination.  It’s known for it’s canals

and for it’s Music Boxes.

We wandered up and down the streets of Otaru

and came upon a fish market with this guy cooking seafood on a grill out front.

We picked out some scallops from the tank in the foreground and a sea urchin and some crab legs, handed them to the guy and watched him crack them open and cook them right before our eyes.

Check out this amazing fish in the market here.

Back on the street we wandered into several places where they had free sake tastings.

 

And then around beer-thirty we found this “brewery” where we had a Japanese version of Dunkel, a German beer.

We were back on the train by 1535 and back to our hotel by 1620.  At 1700 we met a friend and headed off on foot to the famous Sapporo Beer Garden for dinner and a beer or two or …  The Beer Garden is in a very cool old building.

The specialty of the house is mutton which we grill ourselves at the table along with cabbage and sprouts.

 

From here a brisk walk back to the hotel with a stop in the underground walkway for a Cold Stone ice cream cone.  And the end to another wonderful day in Sapporo.