Camping, Part II

Sunday

We swapped campgrounds for our second night of camping. The site nearest the lake, while beautiful, proved to be full of danger for Jonas. First off, the camping areas consisted of leveled-off plateaus, which gave us some nice privacy but also created steep drop-offs on all four sides of the campground, which Jonas tumbled down a couple of times. He’s tough though. So even that might have been manageable, but the slopes fed into several concrete drainage gutters about six inches deep and wide – just big enough for a small boy to fall into and wash away, forever lost in Japan’s deepest lake. The drainage system was puzzling. It seemed a little much to me, considering the campground already was built on a decently steep decline, where the water could just run downhill naturally. Our friend Andrew theorized they were built mainly to give Japanese construction workers something to do. I suspect he’s right.

The new campground was high up in the mountains, where nearly all of the photos were taken. Best of all, the campground was nice and flat, so Jonas was free to run around picking up sticks and kicking his soccer ball. We knocked the ball around for awhile with a very cheerful 5-year-old Japanese boy, whose family camped near us (he’s the kid who makes the late appearance in the video of Jonas playing soccer). The rest of the day was spent on a short hike, at an Italian restaurant in a nearby ski town (surprisingly good), and cooking some meats and vegetables on a small grill we bought on sale at the hardware store. Purchasing the grill was a special thrill for me, as it was labeled half price, yet when I took it up to the register, I was charged full price. I managed to communicate through some terribly broken Japanese and many hand gestures that this wasn’t the correct price, and after a few panicked moments from the salesman, the mix-up was cleared up. A major difference in our cultures, we’ve found, is the level of professionalism and helpfulness of the workers here (even if it is part act), whether it’s at a hardware store, gas station or pricey restaurant. They’re aghast at even the appearance of a customer slight, and literally sprint from spot to spot to correct the situation. In general, Japan has this all-around positive vibe to it that I will definitely miss when we leave.

Monday


(not actually us)

After a colder-than-expected night, we ate breakfast, packed up the camping gear and headed off to the area’s famous onsens. The region is named Nyuto, which was described to me in great detail by my co-worker, who we’ll call B-San (a science teacher who studied in America for a year and speaks impeccable English. He sits next to me on Tuesdays, and is hilarious. He swears constantly, partly I think, because he knows only I can understand him). As B-san tells it, Nyuto literally translates to nipple, “You know, the nipple. The breast. The boob,” he said while cupping an imaginary breast, as if his description didn't do the job. The hot springs here have a milky-white appearance (hence the name). It has something to do with sulfur in the water, and is supposed to be medicinal in some way, which along with their remoteness, make them a popular draw. We found a “mixed onsen” where we could all enjoy the hot spring together. It might be our last mixed onsen experience, though. I won’t go into detail, but there was an off-putting guy who enjoyed wandering around the onsen, uh, displaying himself to everyone. It wasn’t exactly threatening; just odd. Each onsen also has a male-only, and female-only bath, which is what I’ll opt for next time. Aside from that, the hot spring was amazing and refreshing, and we all loved it. After that, we headed back to Akita City.


Next week (actually, tomorrow), we’re off to Hokkaido for a week-long vacation. Among the sites we’ll visit: “Japan’s Northernmost Zoo,” as described by the travel brochure. It’s also the most popular, with the most visitors annually.
But never mind that detail.

Buddhist Temple

Today Jonas and I visited a Buddhist Temple a few minutes away from our house while Jason stayed home to clean. Jonas and I definitely got the better end of the deal. The apartment looked great when we returned home.

I hadn't planned to visit this Temple today, but when I biked by I felt compelled to stop. There are many shrines and temples here, but this one happens to be on a road that I bike on quite often. The temple was beautiful and reminded me that I'm really in Japan.

Jonas and I were the only people there. It was a beautiful time of day-about 4:30, the sun was shining, but the air was cool. It was so quiet. Jonas was intrigued by all the stone and steps to climb. There were colorful flowers and old stone. I didn't understand what I was looking at and couldn't read anything. I had to come home and look up the difference between Shinto Shrines and Buddhist Temples to decide which we visited. I decided Shinto Shrine**, but I could be wrong. Even though I had no idea what the words, symbols and statues signified, I felt moved at this place. There was something about it, that I can't quite describe. I felt peaceful and reflective. I enjoyed watching Jonas explore.

**I was wrong, so I corrected this in part of the entry. I talked to some co-workers who explained some differences to me between shrines and temples. They told me that I visited a Buddhist Temple, because there were statues there. They said that shrines do not have statues. The statues did not look like Buddha to me, but I guess they are representations of Buddha that are different than what we normally see in the states. I also found out that many families in Japan practice both Shinto and Buddhist traditions. There are different shrines for different reasons. For example, my co-worker told me that there is a specific 'learning' shrine that people visit before big exams!

To view more photos go to:

Buddhist Temple

This post is long, but hey, I didn’t have much to do this afternoon. No classes, as the term is over today, and most of the teachers took vacation and bolted at noon.

Friday

The Subaru salesman delivered our new car, which I’ve mentioned is exactly like our old car in America, to my school, where it was waiting for me at the end of the day (yes, delivered. The process took weeks, but the dealer handled most of the paperwork, thank god, and when it was ready he drove it to our door, or rather, my school’s door). For being 10 years old, it’s in remarkable condition. The engine has 72,000 kilometers (about 44,000 miles) on it, which Tricia was suspicious of, considering its age, which made me suspicious. Tricia speculated the car actually had 172,000 km, not 72,000, and concluded that the “1” didn’t register when the car hit the century mark. Who knew she was such an Encyclopedia Brown! So, at her urging, I prodded the salesman a couple of times about the mileage (or the kilometereage), when he finally said, “Perhaps an old woman owned it. Perhaps she drove it only to the store and back.” That seemed reasonable to me. It's a week later now, and I realize it’s the same line an American car salesman once used on me. I fell for it then, too.

Saturday

Having less stuff and less space did not mean that we moved any faster on the eve of a weekend camping trip. Like usual, we were on the road later than we hoped, the car was packed tighter than I anticipated, but once we were moving, it was like visiting a whole new country. People have wondered how far we are from the mountains, and it feels like, at least in this part of Japan, that it would be harder to get away from the mountains than it would be to get to them. They surround you. Minutes outside of Akita City we’re passing through forests and rice fields -- where the harvest was in full swing -- and heading up and into the mountains. The drive is slow and stunning. The first night we camped near Lake Tazawako, incidentally, described everywhere with gusto as “the deepest lake in Japan” – as though that were the real reason tourists flock there, to waste a weekend pondering the tremendous depths of Japan’s endlessly bottomless lake. “True, the camping is overpriced, the scenery horrid and the weather crappy – but check out this lake. Is it deep, or what?” When pressed (and this is true) people would actually add, “It’s also considered the most beautiful lake in Japan.” Not that you’d want to advertise that.

Getting to the lake is a 1 ½ hour trip that we turned into a 2+ hour adventure as we ended up driving in a complete circle around the lake (thank god its not the widest in Japan) before finally spotting the campground. Had we simply glanced over to our left when we pulled up to the lake, I suspect we would have spotted the campground straight away. Instead, we missed it completely, turning right not left and heading off down a road we didn’t need to go down, reaching the same spot we had left about a half hour later, realizing, “Oh, it’s right here.”

We camped near (although not among) the other English teachers. Tricia thought I was being overcautious, but I remember what it is like to be in my mid-twenties, unattached, drunk and stupid. I had images of someone puking in Jonas’ pack-and-play, crawling into the pack-and-play, and then curling up in a ball next to Jonas and falling asleep. I figured the further away we were, the less likely this could happen. So Jonas and I called it an early night and headed back to our tent after a group dinner, while Tricia partied it up with the rest of the kids.

I leave you with the best video of Jonas yet.

… more to come …

Jonas at park part 2

So, in my last posting I said that I would write more about Jonas at the park...
I think Jason will be posting about our camping trip tomorrow. It was fun and Akita is beautiful. Since we are in the city, we do not get to fully appreciate the nearby mountains. It was nice to see the countryside.

On Friday afternoon we stopped by our neighborhood park. I was surprised by the number of people there. At one point there were over 10 kids ranging from 2 months to 13 years. The other mothers were friendly and we were able to engage in the usual mother talk - names, ages, etc. If I am by myself strangers don't talk to me, but if I am with Jonas, I get approached all of the time and have learned some of the simple phrases that I get asked typically about Jonas. I am able to answer some questions in very SIMPLE Japanese. (his age, where we are from, what we are doing here, etc) Speaking of communication, I think it is funny to watch Jonas communicate with kids his age. They make 'noises' at each other so it is not really English or Japanese, but toddler talk which is understood in all languages I guess.

Jonas loves playing at the park. He climbs up the ladder of the slide incredibly fast. I didn't anticipate that he would be playing on the slide yet, but a few weeks ago he started up the ladder so I just closely followed him.

The two pictures are from play areas - the first one was a car dealership, the second one is the play area that we frequent in our email mall. I love that kitchen area. The room next to the kitchen room is the room where the video was shot of Jonas walking up and down the soft ramp in an earlier post. One of the things that I love about Japan are the play areas. There are play areas in all kinds of stores. They are much more abundant here than I ever noticed in the states. On Monday Jonas played in the play area at the electronics store and when he squatted down to look at a book his shirt rose up to expose his back. One little girl repeatedly walked over to him and tried to pull his shirt down so you could not see his exposed back. Cute.

Jonas at the park

This is Jonas playing at our neighborhood park. I will write more about this later, but we are about to leave for our first Japan camping trip. Our car was finally delivered yesterday, so we are going to take advantage of it and go camping and get out of the city.
*Uncle Michael and Aunt Lisa, notice the sweet shoes. He loves them and still has a hint of that funny walk that the shoes caused when they were too big. I think he likes to hear them smack on the ground.
This picture was taken with my cell phone. I have hundreds of pictures on my phone. The problem is that the only way I know of to get them from my phone is emailing them from my phone email to my home email. Since the manual is in Japanese, I haven't had any luck there...
Emailing hundreds of pics to myself is not too practical...there has to be another way...

Jonas has a cold

Jonas has a cold, his first in Japan. He was congested this morning, but happy and energetic, so I thought he would be fine at daycare. They called around noon for me to pick him up. I am not sure if they thought I should pick him up or if they just wanted to let me know he had a runny nose. I also wasn't sure of the cultural norms about sending toddlers to daycare with colds. I think in the US that as long as a toddler seems to be feeling well and does not have a fever, it is okay to send him, because the germs get passed around before symptoms show up.

Anyway, he still seemed to be in a good mood when I picked him at noon and they said he ate all of his lunch, so I think he is okay. I took his temp and he does not have a fever. He is napping right now, so now I have a couple of hours to myself. I did the responsible thing and washed dishes first thing. Which caused me to reflect on the fact that having a smaller living space and fewer things does simplify life. We only have two regular size plates, so it is not possible to let the dirty dishes pile up. It is a nice change, although, I am not sure I could live like this forever.

This is so unlike a blog entry Jason would write, and that just made me laugh.

Jonas' cold has brought up one of my fears of living in a foreign country - which is maneuvering the health care system in a language I don't know. I think the health care here is good and I do have a handy English/Japanese book with all the phrases and vocabulary I need when we do go to a doctor, but still I will not be able to ask the many questions I usually ask...
There is also a nice childcare clinic less than a block from our apartment and one of my co-workers marked the emergency hospitals on a map for me in case we ever need to take Jonas to the hospital. And, if we needed it, we know people that would translate for us. My supervisor said the docs here write scripts in English, so they should know some English. I don't quite understand why they would write scripts in English...
But anyway, I am sure we would be fine, but I just have to admit that this is something that I have thought about...

My other fear was getting daycare set up for Jonas which has gone well. Today as I was trying to talk with the daycare provider about how Jonas was feeling, I noticed that they have a book called English for Childcare Providers. Jonas is the only non-Japanese at daycare, so I know they got this to work with us. They are so sweet and write daily in a notebook for Jonas, letting us know what special activity he did and the other usual stuff (lunch and nap info). They write some things in Japanese and some things in English. I know they get out the English - Japanese dictionary to write us notes, which I appreciate. The notes are cute, one day they wrote "Jonas was dances with children." He does love to dance. I think Jonas is having fun at daycare. He does love to play with other kids. At the beginning, he would only eat part of his lunch, I think as he was adjusting, but now everyday, consistently, they write that he eats his entire lunch. I think he likes Japanese food!

I like the daycare and appreciate that they work so hard to accommodate us as non-Japanese speakers. One daycare would not even consider us, because we do not speak Japanese. Enough rambling.

The picture was taken at the Subura dealership where we bought our car two weeks ago. Jonas had a great time playing with that Subura bear (the tag said Subura). Speaking of the car, it is supposed to be delivered tomorrow!

The Sushi Train, Other Stuff and Lots of Rain

It rained like mad over the weekend, which was a three-day holiday for us in Japan. To quote one of my Japanese co-workers, the holiday was to honor, "All the old people." We honored them by staying inside most of the weekend because of the torrential rain. Our car is still a couple of days from being delivered, so while the rain fell, we were pretty much apartment-bound, which got really old. We tried to brave the conditions and walk somewhere on Monday, but quickly headed home as the rain turned horizontal and Jonas got soaked.

So not much to report. We did make it to a school festival on Saturday, before the bad weather hit. We'll post some photos of that in the next couple of days.

For now, here on some videos, starting with the funniest first. You'll be able to guess what happens at the end of the first video with Jonas. The second was taken at the school festival, the third at a place called Milky Way (but also called Bob's Big Boy within the restaurant), and the fourth taken at a sushi restaurant with my friend Takashi, who helped us buy our car. His son calls this the "sushi train." When he got home that night and told his family where he ate lunch, his son demanded that they eat there again for dinner. So Takashi ate from the sushi train twice.