Crazy Town...

So, John and I just got back from our amazing Golden Week trip. For those of you that are behind this is like the big holiday time in Japan, so John gets some extra days off and all the expats take advantage.

We went on more of an "adventure vacation" if you will on a tour of Tibet, but starting in Nepal. Don't get too excited as this is more of a teaser and is only the first Kathmandu portion of events. We flew from Tokyo to Kathmandu via Hong Kong and Dhaka and got in late, but had the next day to check in with our tour company and see some of the sights. This turned out to be a very good move (the extra day I mean).

We head out the first morning and past the lovely walls of hotel I can only describe the city as pure chaos. Cars everywhere, people everywhere, trash everywhere....honking your horn is a past time and you may indeed find the world champs here in Kathmandu. John and I just had one of those moments....you look at each other and know that you are thinking the exact same thing....what in the world have we gotten ourselves into. We agreed that indeed it was one of the craziest places that we'd been to thusfar.

We saw Durbar Square and the Monkey Temple and walked around Thamel Street. It was great! Then we met up with our tour manager who gave us the low down on our Tibet visit. And I quote....well, despite the three star rating, most of the hotels are akin to Guest Houses, so don't have too high of expectations. Also if you need something or have a question even if it seems small or obvious please tell your Tibetan guide...those Tibetans are really different and they don't assume anything....oh and then can be shifty, so watch out for that. Oh and one last thing.....whatever you do, DON'T give anyone a credit card for payment here outside at any of the shops on the street below...shifty I tell you...shifty. AWESOME.

Obviously we have a million more things to share about our Tibet experience, but here's Nepal (round 1 that is). ENJOY!

Until next time...Jenn

It's a small world after all....

So, my awesome friend Annemarie had two free tickets to Disney, and was nice enough to invite me along. As John declared he would never put himself through Disney, this was the perfect opportunity to go. We went on a random Tuesday and guess what....it was ridiculously PACKED. The waits were 2-3 hours, so after an entire day we were happy to have ridden 4 rides. It was crazy.

I guess in general Tokyo Disney is cheaper to get into, so everyone and I mean absolutely everyone buys a souvenir at the very beginning and wears it throughout the day. And I'm not talking just about the kiddos. Every adult, teenager and child had Mickey ears or crazy Donald hats or something that let you know you were in Disney....it was awesome.

As always, I've attached a few pics for your viewing pleasure....enjoy.

Until next time...Jenn

Monkey Madness...

So, mom has arrived and we got our visit off to a great start. Yesterday we set off with a group of friends on an all day journey to see the snow monkeys. It was a long drive, but well worth it. There are approximately 300 monkeys in the park according to Pish our guide. They were everywhere and playing and bathing in the hot springs and having a good ole time. It was awesome!

I'm adding some pictures for you to see.

Until next time...Jenn

Iron Chef

So, long before we moved to Japan, John introduced (or coerced me into watching) Iron Chef. For those of you that like me, had no earthly idea what that was, it's an old school show that was on 15 or so years ago. It was a Japanese food competition show that they took and dubbed with English, which made it what it was...hilarious. Well, the premise is there were four chefs, dubbed the Iron Chefs. They had different food genres...Japanese, Chinese, French and Italian. Most all of them still have restaurants in Tokyo, so John and I have been saying that we wanted to try them. I've been to two, but last night was by far the most amazing experience. One of our friends here also has an affectation for Iron Chef as well so he organized a dinner at the Iron Chef Chinese's restaurant. His name is Chen Konnichi and the restaurant was amazing. Not only was the food spectacular, but he was actually there! We got to meet him, take our picture and watch him make one of our dishes.

Until next time...Jenn

Happy Belated New Year...

Okay, so I was not planning to to post any pictures from our holiday, but thought you had to see this. In addition, I wanted to wish everyone a belated Happy New Years!

Until next time...Jenn

Doggie Birthday Party....

So today, Cosmo and I attended a universal doggie birthday party. He got a fun present and a chance to chase some tail if you will.

We had the best time and, no, the other participants are doggie obsessed, which is what comes to mind when you think of throwing your dog a b-day party.

It was basically a Dog Lovers event. I had heard of the group before, but never had the opportunity to participate. So today given we were free as birds we decided to join in the fun. Cosmo is now taking his afternoon nap. Hope your Monday is going as well as ours did!

Until next time...Jenn

At Long Last...

Hello friends - So, yes I've been really unmotivated for blog writing for some reason. I think I'm starting to think life is rather ordinary and not all that noteworthy. However, we do definitely owe you a full documentation of Cambodia, which was one of my very favorite trips I've ever been on. I'm sorry to say, this blog is not that one. I did want to share a few fun things about what's been going on with us though in case you're still reading.

As John's mentioned in our Thailand post, we went on a trip in November for John's birthday. Then as soon as we got home we hosted our 2nd annual Tokyo Thanksgiving, which was so much fun. After that, my dear friend Sandy came to visit us. She left and then we headed back to Texas for the holidays and now we're back in Tokyo and getting into our routine again.

So while Sandy was here, we hit up some great places - old and new. This pic is us at Miyajima. We also went to Hiroshima and Kyoto. My favorite part of our visit was all the yummy restaurants that we got to try and let's not forget the shopping locations that we discovered. Sandy and her friend Kathryn, who also tagged along are big foodies, which I got to benefit from.

We had the best time and you can too....is that too obvious a plug for visitors?

And now that I'm back there are few things that I'm hoping to do in this the new year. You know, along with working out and eating better and cooking more I'm going to make a bigger effort to participate in activities that are put on by this women's association that I joined last year. So, to get off to a good start I joined the hiking group - yes, go me. I figured we bought all that gear for Fuji (really just boots and backpacks), so I might as well get a bit more use out of it...impressive I know - me thinking about using my resources. Anyway, I had the best time and the landscape was amazing. John and I hadn't made it to this area (being Shimoda or the Izu Peninsula) before so it was such a nice time.

As always I'm attaching some slides for your viewing pleasure.

Until next time...Jenn

Bangkok - Outside the City

For Day 3, we elected to take a tour out to the floating market about 2 hours west of Bangkok. We (really me) are not normally tour people, but we did this a few times on this trip. First, we couldn't rent a car (you need an international drivers permit, which I don't have) and you learn more about the people, the area, etc. since we had a guide. I think we could manage the navigation (we figured out Ireland after all) but getting in/out of Bangkok would have been a nightmare with the traffic and all of the maniacs on the road. This was much more enjoyable.

So we hopped in a van and headed west. Specifically, we went to Damnoen Saduak. Once out there, we jump in another long tail boat for a trip through the canals. Once at the market itself, we switch over to a small paddle boat to maneuver through the market. There are really two different parts of the market - the people floating in small boats (usually fruit or food or souvenirs) and the stalls on the sides of the canal. If you want something, your boat either moves over to what you want or they pass it across the boats (kind of like buying a hotdog at a baseball game back home).

I say that because a good portion of the time is spent wedged into a traffic jam of long tail boats (with engines going and props being raised and lowered in the water) and paddle boats trying to push through. Like many things, it would have been a lot better with 50% of the people, but you get through it. We tried a couple of things - some spice Thai pancake things, a pomelo (kind of like a grapefruit) and I had some sweet sticky rice with the best mango ever - all right off the boats. Walking through the market later, we were stopped by a fruit lady ended up trying all sorts of crazy Thai fruits like rambutan, lychee, jackfruit, and longan among some other stuff. But no durian as it was not in season. We ended up buying a kilogram of it just because she was so nice. I hope the people in the hotel enjoyed when we left it there (as we went to Cambodia the next day).

After the time at the market, we spent some time walking around the market and buying more stuff we didn't need (a recurring theme of the trip). After the market, we stopped at another temple (or "wat"). It was big and famous and frankly I don't remember the name - wat fatigue had already set in - there are thousands of temples in Thailand and they are all big and beautifully decorated. Despite that, they all start to look the same after a while.

The next day, we headed off to Cambodia and Angkor Wat.

Bangkok - Where does Pier 1 get their stuff?

Frankly, there is not a whole lot to report from Day 2 in Bangkok. We spent most of the day at the Chatuchak Weekend Market. It's kind of difficult to describe and we didn't take a lot of pics. Wikipedia says it has over 5,000 stalls and receives 200,000-300,000 each day it is open. Based on what we saw, that's probably about right.

They really have all sorts of stuff there - furniture, clothes, paintings, ceramics, housewares, pets (probably the quintessential definition of puppy mills), jewelry, antiques, etc, etc, etc. It's pretty much a certainty that anything you have ever seen in a Pier 1 is sold there at about 10% of the cost. But it's a very cool place to spend a day walking around and we bought a bunch of stuff that we didn't need.

We finished off Day 2 with a trip to the Sky Bar - not your normal roof top bar and probably one of the most incredible places I have ever been. It is an open air bar located at the top of a 65 story building. The only thing separating you from the express trip to the bottom of the building is a 3.5 foot railing - if you hop over that rail that you see in the pics you are off the side of the building. I don't normally have a height thing, but when you come out of the building onto the terrace it is really hard to believe how "open" it is. There is no way you could build something like this in the US. Anyway, we spent some time there and had a few expensive cocktails (felt like we were back in Tokyo) and met some interesting guys from Germany (who had a much different Bangkok experience than we did) and enjoyed the view.

Bangkok - Do Not Trust Wily Strangers

First, we feel like we owe everybody an apology for not updating this in a while... it's been a busy couple of weeks since we got back from Thailand, mainly Thanksgiving make-up (something else we probably need to address) and a series of visitors (shout-out to Todd & Tammy and Sandy and Katherine). Jenn is down in Hiroshima/Kyoto with them this weekend so I thought I would spend a little time on the blog and get some pics loaded. I'm breaking the trip up into parts to make it easier to read (and easier for met get through).

The trip kicked off with a 7 hour flight to Bangkok (reinforcing the fact that Tokyo really isn't close to anything) on Thursday night and got going on Friday morning with a long-tail water taxi ride on the Chao Phraya River (which cuts through Bangkok) to the Grand Palace. The long tail boats are interesting - long boats made out of teak wood with car motors mounted on the back with a long shaft running to the water. The motors are mounted on a pivot for steering and to control the pitch of the prop in the water (i.e., trim). The first one we were in seemed like it was going to shatter each time we hit wake, but the rest were in pretty good shape.

"Do not trust wily strangers" is from the sign on the wall of the Palace (in the pics below). There were really only two times we felt like people were trying to take advantage of us on this whole trip and the first was here. Basically anytime a cab or tuk-tuk driver (little motorcyle taxis) saw you looking at a map, they would offer to "help." The "help" usually consisted of telling you that wherever you wanted to go was closed for some unplanned reason, but they knew somewhere better that you should go see and they could take you there. It was really pretty irritating, but fortunately we were warned by several people about this. I'll save the second story for later in the trip.

The Grand Palace is contains various temples that have been built by kings over the centuries, many containing Buddha relics (which are apparently spread all over Asia since there are Buddha relics at some of the places we have been in Japan). The place is really incredible - very opulent with colored tile and gold leaf everywhere. It's also known for its murals (one of the longest in the world) and Wat Phra Keo or the Temple of the Emerald Buddha. It's really Jade, but at 31 inches tall it is pretty amazing. The covering on the statue in the pic is a kind of robe - there is different clothing for each of the four seasons. This winter outfit went on just before we got there. This temple is used exclusively by the king.

After that, we headed for Wat Po (The Temple of the Reclining Buddha) after being told on the way it was closed. This is one of the largest and oldest temples in Bangkok and it has to be large because the Buddha is enormous (hopefully the pics give you some sense of the scale).

After that, across the river on a water taxi to Wat Arun (the Temple of Dawn). This temple was impressive for a few reasons... it's right on the river and had great views of the city. Second all of the color you see in the pics is from ceramics - either whole or broken pieces of pottery (re-used bowls, plates, etc.). The central prang (or tower) is 282 feet tall.

Finally, we capped the day off with a long-tail boat ride through the canals west of the city. These canals apparently used to be all over the city, but they are slowly being filled in as the city continues to sprawl. It was interesting to see such a different way of living.

We found us a good place for dinner that night (the food was cheap and fantastic the entire trip) and called it a day. Here are some more pics from the day...

Halloween revisited...

So I have to give a little "shout out" to my wonderful friend Elaine once again for the awesome Halloween costumes that she sent me last year. We got called away from Tokyo last year so weren't able to put them to good use, so we took advantage tonight. So Happy Halloween from Fred and Wilma!

I feel compelled to fill you in on the blow up doll that is seen in the photo. My friend Jessie's (the one in lederhosen) husband Matt got called away for business this year, so she decided to attend Terri's annual Halloween party with a "friend" instead. So she sends me a text this morning to see if I could go to our local friendly Don Quixote and find a blow up doll to be her other half....well let me just tell you that was most definitely the place. There were several floors that posed likely candidates for locating said doll, but luckily (or unluckily however you look at it) we hit the jackpot and let's just say that I'm glad for a change that I don't read Japanese because there is NO telling what was written on that box.....ewwww. But I must say the doll was a big hit at the party.

Sadly we didn't win the prize, but we had a great time and I was just excited that John agreed to dress up...ha!

Until next time...Jenn

Octoberfest (again)

We went to Octoberfest in Yokohama again this year. And we took some pictures. Enjoy.

Fuji-san

So we've been needing to post this for sometime, but better late than never I suppose.

Way back on September 5, we set out to climb Mt. Fuji. The general plan was to set to start climbing Saturday afternoon, go all night and then catch the sunrise from the summit. So we headed down to Gotemba (near the base of Fuji) on Saturday afternoon, took a bus to the mountain, and got started around 6 PM.

By way of reference, Fuji is a little over 12,000 feet tall and we started around 5,000 feet. It is estimated that 200,000 people climb the mountain each year, most of them between July and August (the official climbing season). During this time, a series of mountain "huts" or stations are open on the mountain (we started at the 5th station). The huts provide a few different services like food and drinks, rest rooms (for 100-200 yen per use) and places to get out of the cold and even sleep. Some people elect to set out earlier in the day, sleep in one of the huts, then get up about 2-3 AM and head for the summit. There is generally a collection of huts about every 1000 feet on the way up.

We looked into the huts, but they were all booked. To tell you how many people are on the mountain any given evening, some of the huts hold 500 people... there is easily capacity for a few thousand people to sleep on the mountain. We were in one for a few minutes just to grab a bite to eat, and they are basically just big rooms with futon mats and people sleeping everywhere... kind of funny to see.

It was also interesting to see how prices changed on the way up. A bottle of water that would have been 100 yen in Tokyo, started at 250 at the beginning of the trail and was about 550 at the top. Somebody has to haul all that stuff up there though.

So we were off by 6 or so. It started off basically like a hike, though it got pretty steep pretty quick. We would stop at each of the mountain huts and rest for around 45 minutes to eat and drink something and let our bodies adjust the altitude. We were really concerned about one of our traveling party getting some sort of altitude sickness, fortunately everybody managed to avoid this. A lot of the Japanese had little cans of oxygen that were broken out the higher we got. That seemed a little overkill as long as you were smart about it.

There are a couple different ways up Mt. Fuji and we fortunately selected one of the less traveled ones. So we didn't really run into a lot of people until we got to the 9th station (probably about 1-2,000 feet below the top) where our trail merged with another more popular trail. This station also has several big mountain huts where people sleep. From this point the rest of the way up was basically a conga line - you waited for the person in front of you to go and then you went. It was also pretty steep... basically climbing up big rocks. This was also the point that I really started to notice the altitude - the lack of oxygen mainly. So that part really wasn't much fun.

But we finally made it to the top around 3:30 AM and managed to find a less crowded spot (there were already a lot of people up there) to watch the sunrise (scheduled for around 5 AM). Temperature-wise, it was probably in the mid-20's, but fortunately there was not much wind. We really lucked out with the weather... we had friends who went the next weekend and experienced rain and snow. So we all tried to stay warm and I even took a nap for about an hour.

The sunrise was really amazing to see. The pics are good, but they probably don't do it justice.

So after spending some time at the top, we decided we had our fill of Fuji and headed down. Coming down sucked... really no other way to put it. Most of the way down is on a "sand slide" which could best be compared to coming down a sand dune. But it has big rocks in it. And you come down it for a good 3.5 hours. It's really hard on your knees and quads (especially after having gone up 7000 feet already).

The whole trip was much harder than I thought it would be, but well worth it. Having said that, don't really need to do it again.

First, a few pics from the trip...

The view from the top, pre-sunrise:

A view of the crater:

Coming down the mountain... this will give you a good idea what these 3+ hours were like...

Doggie Cleaning

You can imagine my surprise when I walk outside my apartment and I see the new bandana that John's parents gave Cosmo sitting there with all the proper dry cleaning tags.  Apparently, it somehow slipped into the cleaning bag unnoticed.  This is a first....Cosmo should be styling it.  

Until next time...Jenn

Sayonara....

So, we had another first in Japan last week.  Some very good friends of ours left, which was so so sad.  However, in proper Tokyo fashion we threw them a Sayonara party to properly say good bye.  Good bye dear friends, we miss you already.  

Until next time...Jenn