Travel Day

Saturday, July 15

Today is transition day 1. I didn’t have to switch airports in Tokyo, so I ended up leaving in the afternoon. This left one last morning for play in Sapporo. Teresa and I walked to a gorgeous local park called Nakajima Park Chuo-ku and the kids rode their bikes. It was the first and only truly sunny day. The park had the original hotel from Sapporo called Hoheikan, which had been moved to this park. The emperor has stayed in this hotel in the past and now it is often used for weddings. Next door to Hoheikan was a Japanese Garden. We had a good time enjoying the tranquility and taking pictures of the kids.

Around 11am we headed out to the airport. Jeremiah rode with the adults. We got there in time to check in the luggage and then have lunch—of course, it was more delicious sushi. I’ve decided that the squid is a bit chewy for me. It’s not unpleasant, it just lasts a lot longer that one would expect when the other sushi is a melt-in-your-mouth experience. However, I’m staying in the ‘try-everything-once’ mode on this trip.

When I flew to Tokyo, it was really obvious we were heading into a storm. There is a typhoon heading to the southern part of Japan and then working its way up. There were 2 flights from my airline cancelled because of the typhoon and we flew right into the rain. I’m not in the red “danger” part on the map, but I’m in the yellow part. Hopefully, it won’t cause any problems on my flight tomorrow.

JAL planes have a camera on the nose of the plane and they show the runway and what’s in front of you on takeoff and landing. On the descent, it was clouds, rain, clouds, rain, clouds, rain, clouds, rain, runway. It’s still pretty warm, but it’s wet, wet, wet.

When I got to Tokyo, I had to figure out how to get to my hotel. Those of you who know my “I’m lost in Schipol (Amsterdam) Airport” story will realize that I learned from those mistakes. When I got to the airport today, I found the information booth and asked where to catch a shuttle to my hotel. It turns out, you have to call for this shuttle. Now I have to use a payphone in a foreign country (statistically speaking, a low probability for success). However, new calculations on the statistics will need to be done because I was successful!! I called for the shuttle, went out to stop number 26, and waited for my shuttle.

I am now at a youth hostel/hotel sitting on my bed and watching Japanese TV (baseball, talkshows, and fishing—which is just a boring in a foreign language as in English). In a few moments I’m heading out of my room to the dining room for dinner. I have a private room with twin beds and my own full bathroom. It has a nice deep Japanese tub, so I’ll be doing a little soaking in hot water tonight, now that Mike and Teresa have walked me through the process and introduced me to the pleasure.

Time for a relaxing evening and some work on my presentations. I will be teaching this first week from Tuesday through Friday so I have some work to finish. Tomorrow is the travel day to Vietnam. I wonder if it will be as much like France and Japan was like the Netherlands? However, since I’ve never been to France, I won’t know.

Herring and Chocolate

Friday, July 14

The plan for today was an adventure to Otaru, a seaside town build on the herring fishing industry (sound Dutch to anyone, else?) We went to Nishin Goten (Aoyama Fishermans’ lodging). This was a house on the hill where 120 fishermen lodged at night and then went out during the day. At one point the Okhotsk Sea was so teeming with fish that the sea shone like liquid silver. I really liked seeing the large glass “floats” that the fishermen use to mark and float the nets.

We had a lunch of herring and ramen soup. The herring is on a stick and grilled over an open fire which was being stoked by a blow dryer. We sat facing the sea and watching the boats go by. After lunch we went to Aoyama Villa, which is the home of the owner of the herring company. He is now a “gabazillionaire” according to Teresa. Then entry hall had beautiful paintings on the ceiling with one painting for each native flower in Japan. This home was beautiful with the amazing dark wood, carved wood décor, and lacquer screens.

This afternoon, when the kids came home from school, we all piled in the van and took off for the Ishiya Chocolate Factory. It was part “It’s a small world,” part art/history museum, and part amazing cookie/ice cream shop. There was a large model of the factory made out of cake and icing. There were also several other displays that were all frosting, including a “cage” with 4 large parrots. It was wonderful and a great time was had. While we were in the ice cream shop, we looked out the window and there …wait for it… was a WINDMILL!!!! My suspicion for the past 3 days has truly been confirmed…Japan IS really part of the Netherlands.

After the Chocolate Factory, we played in the park and then went to dinner at a place called Sasuke, which is a Kurukuru sushi bar where the sushi travels around a rail. We had many options that rode past, including salmon, egg, crab, eel, and squid. Happy tummies and lots of satisfaction all around. What a lovely Japanese day.

Botanical Gardens and Barnabas Sausages

Thursday, July 13

Last night, when I went to post the blogs, I connected to the Sherrill’s internet. I went over to Google and…whaala…my computer had become fluent in Japanese. It was a bit disconcerting not knowing where to click to edit or post or…really anything. However, a moment later, after a momentary cry for help, Teresa had talked me through the page enough to find the “translate to English, now, dummy” button and it was all good.

Today Teresa and I went to the Sapporo Botanical Gardens in between running children and grandma to school and appointments. There were beautiful flowers and landscaping along with old buildings that were used by one of the famous botanists. There were collections of letters, medals and other awards by the botanist. In one of the houses was a collection of taxidermy animals of all sizes. There was a giant seal and sea turtle. I also got to use my first squat toilet!

At noon, Teresa, Juanita, Sophia and I went to the 10^th (top) floor of the MaruImai department store and at the restaurant of the Sapporo Grand Hotel and had Hokkaido sushi. I had a lovely combination with at least 10 different kinds of sashimi that are native to the island. There was a GREAT view of the city. The restaurant was on top of a shopping center and we rode up all the escalators and got a quick glance of all the homewares, clothing, toys, etc. Apparently, bell bottoms are coming back in here!

For dinner we had all local Hokkaido foods—local potatoes and Barnabas sausages. After dinner, Teresa and I went to the grocery store and got lots of fun snacks. Mike showed us his warm-up games for his presentation and we were laughing our heads off when his turned around with a stuffed fish on his head. This was a definite missed photo op. In fact, we were laughing so hard that it drew the kids got up out of bed and played, “ika, ika, tako, tako, mambo, mambo” with us as a practice session for Mike.

Church and Skiing

Wednesday, July 12

This morning I was up early and ready to go. Teresa asked if I wanted to go with her to their church’s Bible study and prayer group. Since I won’t be with them this Sunday, I thought it would be a nice idea. Teresa gave me a tour of the building which has been added to a house that was renovated to be the Sunday School and youth rooms. The group that gathers for the Bible study meets a bit early and cleans the entire church.

There were 21 people gathered. It was a variety of ages (from HS to grandparents) and about ½ men and ½ women. There was a study of Matthew 15:10-20. We sang “Rock of Ages” and “Amazing Grace.” There is this cute little digital machine about the size of a phone book and they punch in the number of the hymn and it plays the music to sing with. There was also a passage that the pastor used to think about the text that was written by Wilbert Shenk. We then broke up into small groups and then gathered back together to eat our lunches. I tried natto (soybeans) in a sushi roll. We also we given some pickled veggies to try along with squid (both the body and an “arm”). It was all good!

This afternoon we picked up the kids from school and went to the Sapporo Winter Sports Museum. We took a lift up to the top of a ski jump and then looked out over the jump that they used in the 1972 Winter Olympics and now use as a training jump. There were actually a few people practicing, so we got to watch about 3 jumps from the top. We then went into the museum where we got to “practice” on things like speed skating, ice skating, bobsledding, crosscountry skiing, and hockey. The highlight was doing a virtual ski jump in a simulator machine and then seeing the “replay” on the screen.

Travel Time

There is something fascinating about traveling. As I make my way to the airport, I realize that it is the middle of the night where I am going. I’m also really interested in the idea of crossing the international date line. I leave today in the morning and, 11 hours later, it is tomorrow afternoon. I leave at 12:40pm, land at 4pm, but have lost an entire day.

The flight was great and the plane wasn’t full so I had space to stretch out. It was light the whole flight, so 2 movies and several TV shows I still wasn’t tired. As I opened the window shade to look at the view for landing, I was struck by the fact that it looked a lot like landing in the Netherlands (and it took almost the same amount of time to get there). After I went through customs, one of the first signs I could read said, “Wilkommen in Narita.” Narita is the name of the airport and the welcome was in several languages, but I still thought maybe I had landed in the Netherlands!

Other similarities to the Netherlands: Bikes everywhere, bike paths, narrow streets, Gouda cheese (yes, really), weather feels very similar

I arrived in Sapporo around 10pm. Teresa picked me up and on the way home we stopped for dinner—at 7-11!! However, here it’s called 7iHoldings. It was like a Japanese deli, so we got some sushi and a other snacks. We were home and I was in bed by 11pm, which meant that it was 7am my time and it had be about 24 hours of awake time.

The journey begins...

The summer of travel is here. I just logged about 4000 miles on a road trip to Montana and now am on the verge of my big adventure to Asia. I hope you enjoy these musings as I travel literally and figuratively through the next phase of my life.

Here is a photo of Xiao Nu and I entering Bryce Canyon National Park. We had spent most of the 4th of July week in Montana with Thea's family. I got a chance to meet up with Joyce and Bill for dinner with the kids and an opportunity to try waterskiing again. We watched fireworks from the end of Tad and Karen's driveway and were treated to an hour or so of aerial fireworks courtesy of the local fireworks stands. This was really something and not what you (legally) see in California.