Mt. Takao

This past weekend I met up with some neighbors of mine and we took off to Mt. Takao, a town a little less than an hour drive from here. We walked over to a “Trick Art Museum”, but it didn't open until 10, and it was only 9:30. So we walked to the entrance of Mt. Takao park. We debated whether to take the chair lift or the cable car to the top. I voted cable car but everyone else said chair lift. So off we went! At first I was really scared, but after I was on, I felt better about it. I realized that when I snow ski I ride them over and over again and I'm never afraid. Going up the mountain was just breathtaking. My camera was acting up, (aka, I couldn't hold it still) so most of my pictures did not come out right, but I'll post what I can.

Once we were to the top of the mountain we walked a little ways and then we found the main event: the Monkey Park. Score! I was SO excited about this day trip to see the monkeys! There's just something about them that I've always adored. I love that each monkey has it's own personality and they are also so stinking cute. These monkey's had red behinds, and really cute faces. The largest monkey there wasn't as big as Cheyenne, so they were all pretty small. We never learned what kind of monkey's they were. There was a guide who went into the monkey's 'habitat' (aka, big glass enclosure) and he spoke in Japanese about the monkey's. There was a point where he asked a question. Some of the children raised their hands, so I did too... hoping he was calling for a volunteer. He pointed at me and everyone kind of laughed. I felt a little foolish. I have no idea what he was saying but if there was an off chance of a possibility I was going to get to hold a baby monkey, I was going to volunteer. :) They did sell a small box of monkey food for 100 yen, about $1. So of course, I purchased one. They looked like croutons, and felt like croutons. What they really were, only God knows. We got to toss them to the monkeys which was a lot of fun to watch them scramble after them. The highlight for me was when one of them caught, and I mean, stuck out his little monkey hand and CAUGHT my crouton. I was very proud of that monkey. Unfortunately, none of my friends were there to witness this. Here is a link to the park, and it'll give you an idea of the “English” we get here so often. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate that they even have a website in English!!!

After the monkey park we walked/hiked through a very beautiful garden, with flowers growing everywhere. There were wooden planks to walk on as a path, I have a picture of them somewhere. We hiked a while more and by then we were so hot and sweaty we were ready for lunch. We found a restaurant at the top and sat in there in the nice air conditioning. We ordered, with just a bit of difficulty, got our food and chowed down. I had chicken and rice! It was served with a sweet and sour sauce that was more sweet than anything, one of the best things I've tasted so far in Japan. It was excellent! Then we heard “Hey Jude” come on the radio, not the actual Beatles version but a good try at a “muzak” Beatles song. There is little that makes me smile more than hearing a Beatles song in public, particularly in a foreign country! :)

After lunch we hiked up the mountain some more, climbing at least 1,000 stairs. My thighs are still burning, 3 days later. (and I've been running a lot lately). Anywho... we came across several shrines and/or temples. Each one was different than the last and every one was just beautiful. The details of each structure were just beautiful and I really enjoyed looking at them all. It was an experience I hadn't had yet and it was so interesting to watch as each person would go to the shrine, bow, maybe ring a bell, maybe clap their hand and whisper a little prayer. I said a prayer to my own God. It was moving and I hope to visit tons more shrines while I'm here! We hiked up and up, climbing hills and stairs as we went along. We finally reached a nice ending point, where after some research I realized it was probably where you could see Mt. Fuji, but the day wasn't clear enough so no more Fuji sightings since that first day. Bummer.

We made it back to the point where you take the chair lift of cable car back down. The cable car is the steepest one in Japan so we felt obligated to take it back down, so we were able to have both experiences, one of the chair lift and the other of the cable car. It was hot on the cable car and there was no where to sit, so we stood and made it down safely! When I originally heard cable car I imagined the cars like at Stone Mountain in GA, which I am not much of a fan of. I don't care to dangle in a car on a thread. But this one was attached to the mountain on a train track and besides the fact that it was steep, it wasn't so scary after all.

Once we were done with the park we walked back down to the “Trick Art Museum.” It was 1300 yen to get in, a rough $13. The tour guide at the beginning spoke English very well, and she taught us how to cover one eye then stare at the pictures painted on the wall and they would transform. I thought it was pretty neat. Each picture did something different, some better than others, but overall it was a neat experience, I'm glad we did it, even if it wasn't fabulous. Here are some of the pictures, my camera did something funny after I played with the settings on it and I didn't figure out how to fix it until after the museum.

George will be home in the next day or two from his trip to Okinawa/ the Philippines and I'll see if I can talk him into making a short blog about his trip. No promises though.

Can't wait to see what trip we'll take this coming weekend!

Here is a link to the park we went to. Enjoy looking at it!

http://www.takaotozan.co.jp/takaotozan_eng1/index.htm

Chelsea

Yokohama and My First Mt. Fuji Sighting

I've told you about my fear of not seeing everything possible while we're here in Japan... so last weekend I told George we were going to go out and see something. I did not want to spend a single weekend where we don't leave the base again! I couldn't stand it! So he told me to plan a day trip and we would take it the next day. So Friday night I spent the evening researching places we could spend our Saturday. I settled on Yokohama. It's a touristy town on the ocean. We caught the train and rode it to Yokohama. It only took about 1.5 hours. We changed trains three, maybe four times. Each time we use the trains it gets easier. I love that we are finally understanding how to do it! It makes exploring less daunting. :)

We got there and as we exited the train station we were approached and asked for money. This is something we hadn't encountered yet in Japan, as they are such a proud culture. This guy had a giant binder and asked us to sign a petition and money for the cause, something about a natural disaster in Northern Japan. We weren't going to sign anything because we didn't know exactly what it said, but gave him a few American dollars so he'd leave us alone.

We walked to the Landmark Tower, one of the tallest buildings in Japan. (And the tallest you can go to... I think.) We took the elevator up to the 69th floor. We could see everything. Summer is the rainy season in Japan and we have had awful rainy weather. But that Saturday was one of the clearest since we'd been there. We'd done a lap or two around the building, taking pictures of everything below us and then we saw a family pointing out the window and saying “Fuji-San!, Fuji-San!” I repeated this to them and they pointed, and said “clouds” I looked, hoping to see Mt. Fuji, but couldn't see it. “Fuji-San?” I repeated to them. “Hai, Fuji-San! Clouds!” Then all of a sudden, I saw it!!! It was SO big. It was sticking up above the clouds. I was SO excited!!! I've been told you could see it on a clear day and really since we've been in Japan we haven't had a clear day (and this is in 2 months) that you could see it from the base. George and I were so happy to have had our first “Fuji sighting”. Well... George has actually seen it, but never the top of it, only from the base of it, doing work.











After we finished looking from the top of the tower, we went back down the elevator where there was a 6 story mall. We walked around for a bit, and found a Gap and an Banana Republic. We didn't buy anything though because we didn't want to carry anything around with us! We had lunch in the food court there, at a cute little French restaurant. I had a cheesy green bean bread, and a chicken/mushroom mini sub, which kind of reminded me of a Quizno's torpedo. It was really good. George had a piece of bacon cheese bread. Also, very good. (Of course I took a bite).

We walked over to the giant Ferris Wheel next! We took a ride on it, and really enjoyed that (minus the point where George thought it would be funny to try to rock it). Then we took a ride on the roller coaster. We had to wait to sit up front, but it was worth it. Sometimes it's fun to put your hands up, scream and just take a ride on a roller coaster in the front row.

By then it was around 3:30pm and we couldn't decide what to do next. We were either going to walk to Chinatown and explore that area of Yokohama or take the train to the Kirin Beer factory. The last tour of the factory started at 4:30. We decided we could make it. We hopped back on the train but by the time we were to the next stop where we would change trains it was already 4:15pm and it was still a 15 minute walk from the train station to the factory. We decided to just head home. We were hot, sweaty and tired. We also knew that we could come back to Yokohama sometime soon and check out the beer factory and Chinatown. We took the train home, walked back to the base then decided to go to the mall for dinner and ice cream. As we were driving across the base, I turned and looked out the window and there it was... Mt. Fuji. In all her glory. Just beautiful. I'm sure in a few months I'll look at it and not be impressed at all, but for now, I like it. :) George and I “jinxed” each other and yelled, there it is! He saw it at the exact same time. What a pretty day.

We made it to the mall here near the base (which neither of us had been to yet). It has an L.L. Bean, Gap, H&M, and a few other American stores. It also has a KFC and a Coldstone! We got ice cream and tipped them, and they sang us the Flintstones theme song. Overall, it was a wonderful day!!!

As American as Japanese Baseball...

Well I guess it's time for an update... huh?

Let's see... what all has happened in a month...???

George left for 'simulator training' in Seattle, Washington for a week, then took a couple of weeks of leave and headed home to Georgia. He got to spend some quality time at his Dad's visiting with his dad, step-mom, brothers and sisters. Then he went to north GA to attend a 4 day long bachelor party at a cabin on a lake. Our friends Tray and Jessica finally tied the knot on July 3rd after several years of dating. We're so happy for them and we're so happy George was able to attend the wedding, he had a great time!

On the Fourth of July George got to spend time with my family and go to a Braves game... I'm jealous he got to do both! Then he finally came back to me here in Japan!

What did I do while he was gone...? Well, I had my first experience with Space-A(vailable) traveling. In summary, if military aircraft are traveling from one base to the next and they have extra seats, you can go to the terminal on the base and request to get on one of those flights, and if they have room... you basically get a free ride! It's a wonderful deal if you can actually get on the flight! I tried 4 different days to take a Space-A flight back to the states and then I was going to hop on an Air-Tran flight to GA. It never happened. It was very frustrating to pack each day, go to the airport, sit, wait and then come back to the house. Oh well! I just wasn't meant to go to that wedding!

On July 3rd the base here hosted a 4th of July festival, complete with fireworks! I entered a pie in the bake-off! It was my first attempt at entering a contest for something I've baked. You all read about my magical oven so I hoped with that on my side and a delicious recipe from my Aunt Joy, I was set! I baked a trial pie (chocolate chip pecan) a day or two before, done with a homemade graham cracker crust. It looked good and tasted good too, so I was feeling pretty good about my pie. I decided that the pie didn't look like a fabulous pie, even though it definitely tasted like one! I borrowed cake decorating tools from a friend/neighbor and garnished the pie with a butter cream frosting and some raspberries (much more for the look than the taste). I showed up on time, and there were only 7 pies entered in the contest. Odds were on my side. They judged, and announced the winners. First and second place were both apple pies and third place went to a pecan pie. I didn't win but I'm really happy I entered anyways. It was a good experience and definitely made me step out of my comfort zone... something I'm trying to do more of!

My Pie


I had a great time watching fireworks with friends and neighbors (all of whom really are my family here!) I worked a lot over the last few weeks to. I'm really enjoying my job. The children are a lot of fun and seem to enjoy my company too. I've even began considering (maybe) getting a master's degree in some sort of ESOL, and teaching English as a second language. Who knows? I'm way ahead of myself at this point.

Fireworks from the roof of the squadron... C-130 tails in our view! Very Cool!


Anyway, the day after George got home, we had some friends move here to Japan from Little Rock. We took them in for about a week. They kept us busy and it was fun to play tour guide and host them. They actually moved in the apartment directly across from ours, so their kitchen faces ours. It's nice to have more friends here!

As far as exploring Japan... we did venture off base this past weekend and we went to our first Japanese baseball game! Boy, it sure was entertaining! We drove our car (which seats 7) and 7 of us went to the game! It was about a 30-45min drive and it wasn't too bad! We bought tickets and made it into the stadium. George threw his ticket away as soon was we entered because the ticket lady tore his ticket. Well... at this stadium they have 'checkpoints' and check your ticket as you pass through them. Hahaha. Silly George. We bought a general admission ticket and to our surprise the giant general admission section was completely crowded and there wasn't a spot in the crowd to stuff 7 Americans! The boys of the group got the idea to go to the ticket sales counter and try to exchange our tickets. I was pretty concerned because how on Earth would you explain that in Japanese??? Somehow... they did it!!! We got to move to the other side. It was similar to a college football game in that the visitors sat on one side of the stadium and the home team on the other. We were moved to the visitors side, and I finally fit in... I was the only person wearing a red shirt on the home side, but fit right in on the new side! The game was exciting. Each team had an (unofficial) band playing and the fans cheered constantly! I didn't know what they were saying most of the time but it was entertaining to say the least! We could clap along to the beat and make up our own words, we had a good time cheering.

My favorite part of the game was the 'Victory Balloons!!!' Two of the guys brought us balloons! They were in funny shapes and you had to blow them up really big, then hold them there and then when it was time... you let them go and they flew around and made a funny noise. Maybe you had to be there, but I think that is something that should be taken back to the states for their sporting events! At one point I argued that we couldn't do that because American's are too lazy to clean up the balloons. Someone argued back that here in Japan no one was dropping sunflower seeds, or popcorn, or peanut shells on the ground, and that they clean all of that up in the states. Touche'! Maybe American's aren't so lazy after all??? :)

"Victory Balloons... each team lets them go.. long before the end of the game and we actually know who is victorious"


The food there was great. They had noodles, rice, other traditional Japanese dishes, hotdogs, corn dogs, KFC (which is what George and I ate!!!) ice cream, beer etc. The joke is that American fast food is 100 times better in Japan... and that was our first attempt at KFC. It really was good! The batter was different and the fried chicken seemed healthier... (if that's possible). The 'beer girls' carried around small kegs on their backs and had a pump to pour beer. Here's a picture of that!

Beer Girl


We left in the 8th inning to beat traffic but are really glad we went! It was a great experience!

We want to plan a big trip somewhere extra fun soon! I've been looking around and we will let you know when we choose a destination! Asia has given us endless possibilities... China, Cambodia, the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia??? Who knows??? Maybe we'll see them all before we move... we hope so!!!

Dreaming...

Chelsea