Nagano

One of my favorite parts of the trip was our visit to Nagano.

We went to Nagano with Kevin, one of the pastors of All Nations Fellowship, and his wife Nozomi and their baby Lia. Kevin has lived in Japan for 9 or so years and know this older Japanese man named Mr. Ishi. Of course he is older and wiser than us so we all called him Ishi sensei which means master or teacher. We stayed with him in his beautiful home. I am kicking myself now for not taking a picture. Anyway, Kevin kept telling us that the most Japanese thing we would experience while we were there would be Ishi Sensei himself. He was right.

Ishi sensei and his wife worked in an orphanage for years before they built a house in a mountain community and settled in with the intention of hosting friends. His wife died of cancer only 3 or 4 years later. The man spoke almost no English, but told stories while Kevin or Rob translated. He told us about Japanese tea ceremonies, soba, ant hell bugs, and World War 2. He wasn't afraid of large bumblebees or buyos but was not eager to encounter mafia men. Understandably so. Oh, and he does carpentry and gardens. No big d.

While the boys were talking- in English or Japanese at any given time- Nozomi, Tara, and I [attempted] to get dinners ready. They included japanese barbeque with a pit in the middle of the table, japanese curry, and shabu shabu. Oh don't you know? Shabu shabu is when you boil meats and vegetables on the table over a hot plate. Again no pictures. Lame.

I don't have pictures of the food, but I do have pictures of a few other highlights (in no particular order and excluding family time which is a given):
1. Ishi Sensei
2. Hiking
3. Flower Garden


1. Ishi Sensei

He is around 75 and very kind. He played poker with us and put on sunglasses so we wouldn't see his face. He taught us about the war and matcha tea ceremonies and various kinds of plants (while Rob translated). And together we discovered spaghetti squash. This picture was taken at 5:45am so forgive us for our moderately unexcited faces.

2. Hiking
Ishi Sensei kicked our pants on this hike. I think we climbed 127 stairs. Well, I climbed. He practically ran. Slight exaggeration, but still. Anywho, It was raining on and off so we all got to wear sweet rain jackets and carry umbrellas. Only the Japanese, and their American visitors, would carry umbrellas on a hike...

3. The Flower Garden
The last day in Nagano we went outlet shopping. Don't let the word outlet deceive you though. Everything is still very expensive. I found a few Zara shirts I loved for around 4500 yen. That is about $58. Tempting, but no. After that we went to a flower garden. It was free, overgrown, and vacant, but still beautiful. There is something fun about seeing the same flowers that I have in my garden half-way around the world. Plus the views of rice and soba fields with mountains in the background were refreshing. I must be a country girl.

Our two trips to onsens did not make my list. What is an onsen, you ask? A public bath with 105 degree water and friendly people. Pre-wash here (I'll spare you of a picture with actual people bathing.)

Relax here. (Ours were gender specific, but you get the idea.)

Enough said.

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Heading home

I'm currently sitting in the airport in Tokyo. I've only seen one American woman so far. She was watching me in the mirror when I was washing my hands in the restroom. Very cheeky. #MaryPoppinsJoke #ImFunny.

I am currently wearing jeans and a 3/4 sleeve shirt. They stayed tucked away in my bag for the duration of my time here in Japan, but today they were the only clean clothes left and since I knew I would be spending my day indoors in air conditioning I figured it was safe. Don't get me wrong, I still wore a tank top until I arrived safely at the airport. Those were clean too since Japanese women only show skin on their legs, not their shoulders. And I couldn't take any chances of overheating in the taxi or on the train I took to get here.

I love to sleep through alarm clocks so I have a habit of waking up every 30 minutes to an hour the night before an early flight. So that was fun. The boys took me to the train station this morning to make sure I didn't get lost. Very kind of them to get up at 5:00 with me. Considering we got up at 5 yesterday morning (Thursday) and again at 5 today and didn't go to bed until 11 either night we are all a little tired. I'm trying not to sleep much though cause I want to be able to sleep when I get home so I can avoid jet lag. However, if I don't sleep at all it will be a long day by the time I get home. I'm using the term "day" loosely here. If my math is correct, I woke up at 3pm central time on Thursday to catch my train and after a few flights and some lenghtly layovers I'll be landing at at the airport at 11pm central on Friday.

Maybe I should sleep. Wait. Maybe that's why I'm making dumb jokes about seeing an American woman in the mirror. #SleepingOnPlanesIsFun. #NoItsNot.

Whatever I do, I should stay away from Coach, Burberry, Svarofski, Cartier and the like. There's no telling what this crazy lady might do when I'm low on sleep.

I'm excited to sleep in my own bed, but mostly I'm really excited about this

Oh 70's. How I love you.

 

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Off to Kyoto

Warning: this post is a little scattered and the pictures are poor quality, but it's better than nothing.




Last weekend we went to Kyoto for a day. So of course I had "we're off to Kyoto, like Dorothy and Toto..." in my head the whole time. Mom and sister- you'll appreciate this:

Look! It's Big Bird!

Menus were hard to read. And I don't speak Japanese. Good thing you can just pick the food out of the cases. We'll take that one aaannnd that one.

We found the bamboo forest, but we couldn't find the princess.

Oh wait! Princesses! I snapped a quick photo while they were stopped to buy matcha (green tea) ice cream. Ick. I just got chocolate.

Okay now for to the non- Big Bird references.

We took a train to get there. Trains here are so funny. People line up neatly to get on, then sit quietly.

Everyone is very considerate so they keep bags on their laps or in front of them; they don't take up more space than they really need. It was raining outside so the quiet and the rain made for a great napping atmosphere. However, I refuse to show you the incriminating photos that my bestie took. Can you tell what this goon is doing?

When we got there, our first stop was at the Monkey Park. It was a significant hike to get to the top, but there were tons of monkeys roaming around when we finally got there, so it was worth it. You could even go inside a little hut to feed them.

(just a tid bit warm and humid in Kyoto)

Smart of them to allow food only in the hut, because otherwise the monkeys might get a little aggressive outside. I'm assuming they learned that one the hard way. Anyway, the park was up high enough that it had a great view of Kyoto. Pretty, huh?

For lunch we had okonomiyaki. Try saying that one 3 times fast. Or just try saying it at all. (All Japanese words sound like that to me). It is essentially a pancake made of a bunch of veggies, then covered in miso sauce, mayo, and fish flakes. Sounds delish, right? Well it is actually. And it is large. This one is probably 8-10 inches in diameter.

Our final stop was the golden temple. It is a zen Buddhist temple covered in gold plating and surrounded by a large garden. The garden wasn't that impressive, but the building was pretty! Too bad there were a bajillion tourists swarming me, or I could have spent more time looking at it and less time hyperventilating...

Sunday was more low key. We went to church, ate pizza, and watched Huger Games. Then Monday we went to Nagano. More to come on all of that.

Sayonara!

(PS- Pardon the crummy photos. Phone pictures with no iPad editing. I'll fix it later.)

 

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Intro to Japan

Alright let's just get the awkward out of the way: No, I don't have any pictures to show you. You're just going to have to get over it.

Sunday we made the trek to LA. We saw a candy apple red Ferrari and ate at Burger King. They have sweet potato fries now. Did you know that? Then Monday we went from LA to Tokyo. As expected, it was a long flight. Just short of 12 hours. We read, ate plane food, watched movies, ate plane food, and tried to take a short nap. No avail. I've never been one for napping. We arrived in Tokyo, made it through immigration and customs, and settled down to wait for the next flight to Nagoya.

At this point, though, I was due for a bathroom break. Toilet= hole in the floor. Right. Almost forgot about that. Meanwhile, Hubs went off to find something to drink. I know that you dont get much to drink on planes, and I brought along a large water bottle that I rationed the whole way, but nothing can prepare my body for only receiving 3 oz of water every hour or so. I just don't function that way. I needed rehydration. So as I was saying, hubs went to procure some. He got what looked like green tea. Naturally, it was barley tea. What does barley tea taste like? I thought you might ask so I tried to think of a way to describe it. There are no words. I went back and got what looked like water. Luckily, it was. We sat and waited for the next flight. Ya know what I started noticing here? Japanese women worked all the airlines, we're all the same size, and all smiled a ton. Think PanAm, but Japanese. But wait, its not just the airport staff. Everyone is the same size and is smiling a lot! There was one other American woman in the same terminal. She yelled at me. Coincidence? Don't think so.


We arrived in Naygoya and claimed my bag. First international flight without losing my bag= success! Thanks, orderly Japanese people. And then I saw the mirror image of my hubs standing outside baggage claim. I hadn't seen that face in over a year. We exchanged big hugs with Rob and Tara and ventured off to the subway and to the bus to their apartment. I've been in plenty of public transportation situations, but things are a little different here. No one pushes to get on the subway. People waitin single-file line to get on the bus. And everything is clean. Overall, it makes the experience much more positive except that people don't really talk on public transportation. So you have to be very quiet. Boring.

We arrived at the apartment, ate pizza, quesadillas, and Doritos (no, this is definitely not common) and crashed at 11 or so. We had woken up that "morning" at 7am pacific/ 9am central/ 11pm Nagoya time. So a full 24 hours later we were happily resting on "futons" on the floor. Futons are just thick padding. Kinda like memory foam without the bed, except it has no memory. Well, you know what I mean. Anyway, it got the job done and because we hadn't slept in so long we weren't too badly affected by jet lag. 6am wake-up, equivalent to 8pm central, is a good start to the time change. Too bad we keep waking up at the same time each morning...

Anywho, there is plenty more to tell you, but it'll have to wait cause typing on my iPad is slightly less than comfortable. Besides, I want to get some breakfast.

Over and out.

Ps- Yes, it is all like they portray in Big Bird in Japan. No joke.

Pps- I'm not proofreading so you'll just need to ignore typos and poor grammar, please and thank you,

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Montana cont'd

I'm now 98% recovered from the cold I had, and successfully made it from Montana to Minnesota and back home. I have tons to write about, but as soon as I got home I hit the ground running with work stuff again, so I'm just now sitting down to breathe.

Highlights of the trip:

1. The people. Such amazing friends coming together from KC, Wichita, St. Louis, New Jersey, New York, and soon to be Chicago and New York. We are beyond blessed by these people. 
2. Montana weather in July. 75 and sunny? Yes, please.
3. Mountains. I can't get enough. 
4. White-water rafting. Brings back wonderful memories of family trips :-) 
5. Cooking and eating all the food. Katherine almost single-handedly planned three meals a day for six days for 13 people. And we ate well- quality food and plenty of it. Her skill serves people so well.

There was plenty more along the way. Fireworks, bocce ball, eating chocolate, Quelf, drinking coffee, chopping wood, drinking wine, frisbee golf, teepee building, singing, dancing, Harry Potter watching, and ripping out the rear of my jeans. Real cute, let me tell ya.  If I were to do it all again would I still forfeit my favorite pair of Citizens*? You betcha. (Pst- They were already being held together by patches so it wasn't that big of a deal.) 

Enjoy some pictures. I hope you smile at them as much as I do :-) 

(And I apologize in advance for photo quality. Vast majority were taken with phones.)

As a bonus for sticking with me til the end, I'll allow you a sneak-peak into our silent hike. No talking was allowed, so naturally...

The end. 

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Montana- Days 1 and 2

Day 1- Whitewater Rafting

Monday morning we took it easy around the lodge. After all, we had not made it to bed until 2am mountain time the night before. So we enjoyed muffins, couches, and the views of the mountains. Then we geared up and went rafting. I hadn't been in probably 10 years or more so I was very antsy to get back on the river. The rapids weren't very strong at all (level 3) and we were in a group with 5 other [loud] boats so we didn't stand a chance at seeing any wildlife. Still, we all had a lot of fun. The photos sold by the company were over $100 and since none of us had waterproof cameras we have no documentation of the trip. Womp womp. That night we headed to town for a pig roast. The pork was 75% fat so no one ate much, but it was a fun atmosphere with live music and locals.

 

Day 2- The Hike

Tuesday morning we went on a grou hike. The trail was only 2 hours round-trip. So naturally it took us closer to 5 hours. We were hungry and sunburnt, but had a blast. One of the guys had a tripod so he has all the group shots. I'll have to post those later. For now, enjoy these. They are completely untouched (since I'm too tired)

All 13 of us.

 

The wildflowers in the hills were beautiful.

Stopping to enjoy the view

 

In the meadows we looked like the VonTrapp family crossing the alps. So I kept singing all the associated songs of course.

 

In the wooded parts we joked about running into R.O.U.S's. Name that movie.

Ill tell you about day 3 later. Today is day 4 and I have a head cold or something so this has been enough computer time for me. Over and out.

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Day 0.5

Welcome to the lodge. It is gorgeous.

Welcome to Montana. We're at 8,000 feet.

Welcome lots of water and deep breaths. You have 4 hours to prepare for rafting.

Still super excited, just trying to conquer the attitude...

 

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Montana or bust!

We're currently in the Denver airport. Soo close to arriving at Montana for Beforekin 2012. I'm super stoked! 70 degree weather, white water rafting, hot tubs, fireworks, and wood fires... not to mention 11 of our best friends gathering in one place before we're scattered across the US: St Louis, New Jersey, Chicago, NYC, Wichita... bring it on!!!

Most posts to come later. If I don't post them, it's because we're having too much fun. :-)

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St Louis Pictures... as promised

 

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