Konichiwa is the Japanese word for "Good afternoon". Tayla thought it was a fun word to say, and so she made up a little tune where she would stretch it out and sing "Ko-ni-chi-waaaaa". In our apartment, we have two bedrooms for the kids to share and they each have a door leading out to a single balcony. Tayla liked the acoustics that the neighboring homes created and so she would often go out onto the balcony and sing her little tune.
Once when she was singing the Ko-ni-chi-waaaa tune, a guy was going by on his bike. Hearing the song, he looked around trying to figure out where it was coming from and ended up crashing on his bike. Opps.
Another time, Nathan was out on the balcony singing the tune, and a gentleman who was walking by sang Ko-ni-chi-wa back to him. It was so funny!! Nathan was pretty embarrassed about it.
Sunday, June 28, 2015
From Stupid to Awesome
We've heard it said that if you want a diagram of the many lines of the Tokyo Metro, all you have to do is grab a handful of spaghetti noodles, throw them onto a map of the city, and you'll have your map of the Tokyo Metro lines. That's not too far of a reach, and when we first moved here, the metro was one of the most frustrating aspects of living in the biggest city in the world. We hated walking to a metro station, especially when it was raining. We feared being separated from each other should we not all get on before the doors closed. We missed the independence and convenience of our own car. We hated needing to study a map and figure out our route every time we needed to go somewhere. We hated getting lost and not knowing which line we needed to take to get home. We hated the crowds of people pushed into a small space. The Tokyo Metro was known as the "Stupid Metro" in our home, and for awhile, that's what we always called it.
But, like many things in Japan that were different for us, over time we began to love it. The walk to the metro stations were good exercise for us. We began to enjoy walking wherever we needed to go. Some of the kids liked to study the map, and eventually Chris even had it memorized. Whenever we would get lost or confused, all we had to do was ask Chris and he would tell us what lines we needed to take to get back home. The kids liked taking turns buying all of our tickets from the ticket machine using our Pasmo card.
Nathan and Audra were too young to need tickets, but they would use Mom's or Dad's ticket so they could put it in the machine like everyone else.
For the kids, putting the ticket in the machine was fun, and of course, we always had to use the pink ones--otherwise Audra would throw a fit.
Often, the metro stations were crowded, but over time we found ourselves enjoying the crowds because it gave us a chance to people watch. Most of the people who live in Tokyo are professional business people. They dress very nice, especially the women. The women are very feminine and they seem to enjoy dressing themselves up. They always have beautiful hair, beautiful skin/make-up, nice jewelry and hair accessories. And, the Japanese women love their heels! It seems like the best and most unique shoes in the world are found in Tokyo, both for men and women. We got so we enjoyed looking around at all the people and appreciating how they dress and take care of themselves.
We also loved that no matter how many people were around and how much of a hurry everyone was, people were respectful and courteous. Everyone would stand in line and wait for the metro to show up. As soon as the train pulled up, everyone waited a few seconds for those who needed to get off, and then there was a dash into the cars. We never saw any pushing, though. There was an order to it, and everyone followed the order.
Given our large family size, there were times when we DID get separated from each other. Given the crowds and the 30 seconds or so that the doors are open, we couldn't always ALL get on in time. This was solved by the good old-fashioned buddy system. If there were crowds, I would tell the kids to "buddy up". They would immediately grab the hand of a sibling, the older ones taking the hand of a younger one. That way, if and when we got separated, a child was never left all alone. They always had a least one sibling with them. In the five months that we have been living in Japan, we have been separated three times by doors closing too soon. This used to be Mom's biggest fear, but when it happened, we would quickly get back together and everything was always o.k.
Sometimes the cars were empty, and sometimes they were SOOO crowded that we were getting smashed against each other and couldn't hardly breathe. If we didn't like how crowded one train was, we would wait and take the next train. Usually, the next train would be less crowded.
We have had a lot of good conversations on the metro as we have traveled--both with each other and with other people. Most of the time, though, all of the Japanese people are looking at their phones.
Once, when it was really crowded and we were all standing up, Caitlin had her bottom pinched by a man standing next to her. This has become a problem in Tokyo, and something that we have tried to watch out for. It made Ray and me mad when we found out about it, but it was after the fact. Caitlin handled it well though. We were so crowded that she couldn't turn around or make a scene, so she just stomped really hard on his foot. He winced and didn't mess with her again.
This is such a problem in Tokyo that during certain times of the day, the last two cars in a train are for "women only". We often used these cars because the children could get on those cars as well, and this eliminated the concern of men accosting any of us.
We have come to really appreciate the Tokyo metro, but even more so every time we travel outside of Tokyo. Every other city that we have been to doesn't have anywhere close to the same system. It has been very hard to get around other cities--Tokyo is VERY easy to get around and we are so grateful for that! The metro here is reliable, efficient and fast.
People in Tokyo are very busy and have places to go. The metro system accommodates that and a train runs through a station every 1-3 minutes. We have come to love the fast pace of Tokyo in comparison to the other cities in Japan that we have visited. The lack of an extensive and well-laid metro along with much longer wait times between trains have often made us homesick for Tokyo while we have been in other cities.
Bottom line, we used to loathe the "Stupid Metro", but it has gradually become something that we love. We are so grateful for the metro, grateful for how easy it has made our life in Tokyo. The boys especially, have LOVED riding trains wherever we go, and are really going to miss it when we go back to the states. Some of the kids want to keep a map of the metro and take it home with them as a memento of our time here. Logan keeps asking if we can keep walking when we have to go somewhere once we get back to Laramie....we'll see. I wouldn't mind that at all if Laramie had a metro as extensive and awesome as Tokyo's!
Monday, June 22, 2015
The Coolest Hot Springs Water Park in the World!
Across the street from the Kowakien Hotel (where we had stayed the night) is this very large, very beautiful building. To me, it looks like something out of Europe...but we are still in Japan and inside this building is the coolest hot springs water park in the world! We were heading to Yunessun!
Up to this point, we had each experienced (except for Tayla, Nathan, and Kirstin) the traditional Japanese onsen of mineral water from a hot spring in a beautiful relaxing atmosphere, bathing as the Japanese do with no clothes. Yunessun is an onsen, but with a themepark twist. There are several hot springs pools, but each one has a different theme. We had heard a lot about this place from other American families and we were excited to go to it ourselves.
Just like other onsens in Japan, we had to shower using shampoo and soap before getting on our swimsuits to swim. That's right, this place actually allows swimsuits! Yay! No more swimming naked for us!
This was the first pool that we swam in and it was similar to what we have in America--yet it felt like hot bathwater and didn't have any chlorine. The ceiling was painted like the open sky.
Audra Mae and Mom enjoying the massage jets.
Next, we went into the Wine Pool. It was pretty warm in this small room, so it was hard to take pictures due to all of the steam. While we were here, an employee came and squirted an entire bottle of wine all over the swimmers and into the pool. I'm sure that the pool is colored with some type of dye, but they apparently use real wine as well.
The sign at Yunessun said that bathing in wine is a rejuvenation treatment for the body, and it has been said that the Queen of Egypt, Cleopatra, loved to bath in wine.
Audra went a little nuts over this pool. She thought it was the greatest thing ever to be swimming in pink water!
Then, we stood in line so that we could try out the Dr. Fish spa treatment! We had to wash our feet before sitting down next to this pool and dipping our feet in. As soon as we put our feet in, the fish swarmed around our feet and legs and got right to work eating all the dead skin off. We were allowed to have our feet "treated" by the fish for five minutes before we had to get out and dry off. I didn't get a picture of us doing this (wasn't allowed), but we all dipped our toes in with the exception of Kirstina.
We were all a little worried about doing this....it seems kind of gross to have little fish swimming all over your feet and nibbling at your toes. It wasn't as ticklish as we thought it was going to be. The parents liked it. The boys really liked it, and the girls didn't. Audra ended up pulling her feet out of the water, she disliked it so much.
Next, we moved on to the Green Tea Pool. It was a sickly green color and the pool was tiny. It was shaped to look like a tea cup.
It even had a tea bag!
Next to the Green Tea Pool was the Sake Pool. There is a constant dripping from a huge cask filled with real Japanese Sake. It is said that Sake is very good for the beauty of your skin. I thought it just smelled like straight alcohol.
We saw a few people opening their mouths and trying to drink the sake as it dripped out of the barrel. We didn't stay here long, and it wasn't one that we came back to. We didn't really care for this one.
We then moved on to the Coffee Pool! This spa contains real coffee made with hot spring water. It has been said that coffee adds beauty to the skin.
Some of us love the smell of coffee, so this pool was a welcome change from the odor of the Sake Pool. It was a warm brown and fun to swim in. Again, the steam coming from the spa made pictures difficult.
We also tried out some pools that had collagen in them and was supposed to be good for your skin.
Then, we moved outside! They had a shallow kiddy pool with slides and water spraying everywhere. Audra is on the slide and Nathan is at the bottom.
Audra, Dad, and Kirstin
There were three slides that we could try. You had to be at least 4 ft. tall, so unfortunately, Nathan and the two little girls couldn't go down them. Nathan was pretty bummed about it. The lines were never long and it was fun to go down a water slide with hot water! We all went down the slides quite a bit and had races with each other. No one could beat Mom, though! Her swimsuit made her the fastest in the East! In this picture, Caitlin is in the purple suit with one of the boys behind her.
We also spent a lot of time in the Wasabi Pool. This was a fun one! It smelled kind of spicy, like wasabi. This is the upper pool, which connected to a lower pool. It was a bright green color, but the water would trickle down to the lower pool, so the employees had to regularly put more dye in the upper pool. This is right before they put more dye in, so it's not a very bright green.
Nathan is at the waterfall connecting the two pools. You can see an employee pouring more dye into the upper pool. It was a powder that felt like laundry soap. He poured it into the kids' hands so they could smear it all over themselves and then wash off in the water. They had a ball painting themselves bright green with the wasabi dye.
Below the Wasabi Pool was the Bubble Pool. It had a waterfall that you could go through and the pool had millions and millions of bubbles!
While we were in the Bubble Pool, Kirstin rested her head on her inner tube and fell right asleep! It was past her nap time, and she was warm from the hot water, so I guess she was comfortable enough to have a nap. She slept like this for over 30 minutes. Ha!
If you went under the waterfall in the Bubble Pool, you found a series of caves, all full of hot springs water.
The kids thought it was great to swim in "caves".
We spent the entire afternoon and into the early evening swimming in the different hot spas that Yunessun had to offer. Our favorites were the Wasabi, the Coffee, and the slides.
When we had only a little over an hour before the park closed, Raymond, Chris, and Logan decided to go over to the other side of Yunessun--the Mori No Yu. Yunessun is divided into two sections: the swimsuit section and the naked section. The Mori No Yu (the naked section) is divided by gender and is a traditional onsen experience. This picture is of the male side of the Mori No Yu. Since these three "men" enjoy the traditional onsen experience so much, they wanted to go check it out. Chris said the onsen was so beautiful! He said it was much better than the onsen at the hotel the night before. The rest of us were not interested at all, and instead swam some more in the Wine Pool, the Coffee Pool, and the big pool that we started with.
We left when the park closed, and began our trek back to the Hakone train station. Raymond had accidentally misread our train schedule, and we had missed our train back to Tokyo. It took some doing, but we were able to transfer our tickets to another train and got home pretty late.
Oh, what a jam-packed weekend! Hakone is beautiful! Out of all the cities in Japan that we have visited, Hakone had the least friendly people. Maybe they are sick of tourists, so that's why they are rude. However, we were able to see some amazing things and experience a traditional Japanese dinner and an onsen. It was a great Christmas present for us all!
Interestingly, the day after we returned to Tokyo, the Hakone volcano started increasing its activity. An analysis of satellite data found that the ground level rose by up to 12 cm between April 17 and May 15. We were there on April 24-25th. On April 26th, the reported number of earthquakes in a 24 hour period tripled in number compared to the normal number. As a precaution, the ropeway on the Hakone Loop was closed, as were several of the hotels and onsens in the area. We were lucky to have gone when we did, since it remained closed until long after we had returned to the United States.
Here's what the kids thought of our Hakone trip. I also asked them which Yunessun pool was their favorite, and if they could make up a new theme/flavor for a spa pool, what would it be:
Caitlin: The traditional dinner was really good, but with the whole fish and shrimp made me think of a quote from Ratatoullie. "If you can muscle your way past the gagging reflex, all kinds of possibilities open up." The ropeway was super scary. I loved being able to walk around the actual caldera of a volcano. You can't do that in America. The black eggs were not that bad. Yunessun was pretty unique. We'll never be able to do anything like that ever again. It was fun swimming in different colored water. The onsen at the hotel was very pretty inside. The outdoor one was my favorite because it was cool outside and so it helped me to not feel like I was boiling like a lobster. I'm glad I did it for the experience, but I'll never do it again.
Favorite onsen: Tie between Wasabi and Red Wine
New onsen flavor: Hot Chocolate and Root Beer Float
Tayla: The Japanese dinner was awesome and I really enjoyed it. However, I was disgusted when I saw the whole fish and the whole shrimp. It was really funny when I discovered that they were whole fish and not noodles because everyone else had already eaten their's, and almost everyone was grossed out. I thought it was really cool to go on the ropeway and go into the caldera of a volcano. I liked being able to touch the water in the stream on Mount Hakone, it reminded me of Yellowstone, but we couldn't touch the water at Yellowstone. I thought the black eggs were pretty good, but I like regular hard-boiled eggs better. The Yunessun was awesome and it was one of my most favorite things that we did in Japan. Some of them were too hot, and other ones I didn't care for. The slides were really fun and it was cool to go down water slides with warm water. The Wasabi Pool tasted good, and I liked the smell of it. It tasted like mint ice cream. The Coffee was really deep, and so it was the most fun. When nobody was there, me and Chris were doing cannon balls into it.
Favorite onsen: Wasabi, followed by Red Wine and Coffee
New onsen flavor: Jello, Hot Chocolate, Ice Cream, Ramen and M & M's
Christopher: The hotel onsen was really nice. I was really embarrassed, but when I saw that no one was paying attention to me, I was o.k. I loved the traditional Japanese dinner, it was really fun! I even loved the whole shrimp and the whole fish. The dessert was the best dessert I've ever had in my life. I loved the ropeway because we were flying over the sulfur mine. Caitlin was freaking out because we were up so high, and I thought it was funny. I did not like the black eggs, oh, they tasted so gross. I loved the pirate ship because it was really neat to be on a boat and being able to look out and see the torii gates in the water. I loved Yunessun! It was cool because all the water was hot. The traditional onsen at Yunessun was so nice. It was much nicer than the hotel onsen. It was probably my favorite part of Hakone. I wasn't as embarrassed because after going to the onsen at the hotel the night before, I knew that no one would be paying attention to me. I want to go back so bad, I'm sad that it's over.
Favorite onsen: Wasabi, Coffee, the Sake
New onsen flavor: Frosting, Watermelon, and Cabbage
Logan: I thought eating an egg that was cooked in a volcano was really cool. I loved the Wasabi Pool. I loved the cable car going up the mountain. I loved the pirate ship. It was really cold, and Nathan had left his jacket at the train station. I gave him my jacket, and I was freezing. The dinner was really fancy, probably the fanciest dinner I've ever had. That was a really good dinner. I was embarrassed to swim in the onsen at the hotel. But, it was nice. I didn't know if I wanted to go to the naked part of Yunessun, but I bribed myself and went. It was nicer than the hotel. I'm kind of glad I went, but I also wish I didn't go because it was embarrassing.
Favorite onsen: Wasabi
New onsen flavor: Juice; also, they should do a soy sauce one because the Japanese use a lot of soy sauce when they cook
Nathan: I liked going on the train to get there. I also liked riding the train in the air (the ropeway). That was fun. I loved the pirate ship, but it was cold. I took a bath in a really deep bathtub. I splashed out most of the water and I tried to dive, but I'm too big. But, I did cannonballs. There was a drain on the floor, so I didn't get in trouble for splashing. I loved swimming in all of the pools. I loved the special dinner that we had. It was so nice. I liked everything.
Favorite onsen: Wasabi
New onsen flavor: Bread
Audra: I swim in pink water. I swim with Caitlin too, and I showed my bum. I didn't like that. Bums are gross. People have bums. My swimsuit is pink and purple. It has bubbles on it. We swam in bubbles.
Favorite onsen: the pink one!
New onsen flavor: Milk
Tuesday, June 16, 2015
Black Eggs and Pirate Ships.....Hakone Continued
Saturday, April 25th--After relaxing the night before in either the public onsen or private bathtub, everyone had a restful night sleep. We woke up to this lovely view out our hotel room window. As much as we enjoy living in Tokyo, it does our souls some good to be up in the mountains.
We have a jam-packed day today, so we got an early start on breakfast. The hotel puts on a HUGE buffet style breakfast, with just about anything you could imagine to choose from.
There were the usual Western type breakfast items of sausage, bacon, eggs, muffins, French toast, yogurt, and fruit. But, there were many other items available as well. Things like gyoza, rice, ramen, udon, miso soup, fish (cooked in many different ways), seaweed, a salad bar, and a lot of steamed veggies such as broccoli. They had eggs being boiled in the hot spring water. Tayla got one. When she peeled off the shell and squished the egg, it exploded. She was grossed out by how raw it was and couldn't eat it.
We all ate way too much and then were ready to begin our exciting adventures for the day!
Just about everyone we have come in contact with while in Japan has been so courteous and helpful. Often, we will be on a street corner looking at a map to get our bearings, only to have a helpful stranger come up to us and offer to help. Up to this point, we could only think of one--just one!--person (who happened to be at a metro in Kyoto) who was rude to us. Literally, everyone has been so kind and respectful. Sadly, the bus driver who drove us down the mountain to our first stop did not fit the Japanese mold. We didn't know if he just didn't get his coffee this morning or what, but he was so rude. He dumped us off at our stop and we were grateful to be done with him.
The town of Hakone is built near a still active volcano and is part of the Fuji Hakone Izu National Park. There is a famous sightseeing loop around the volcano, and this is what we were going to spend our morning doing. People will often take a day to complete this loop, but we were going to try and do it in 1/2 a day.
We were dropped/dumped off by the rude bus driver at Gora Station. At this point, we got on a cable car that climbs the mountain. The attendants that worked here were rude, also. I guess it was a little bit of a shock to us because it's not normal in Japan for people to be that rude.
We got seats in the front, so we could easily see the view as we went up.
The town of Hakone below us and we glided up the volcano.....
Some of us are afraid of heights, so as we began to climb it was a little scary.....the views were nice, though. We quickly got comfortable in the ropeway and could enjoy ourselves.
After a while, we came upon a sulfur mine.
As we continued along the ropeway, the mine was below us and we could get a bird's eye view of it all. It was pretty awesome.
I didn't take this picture, I got it from the internet. (Isn't it gorgeous? My camera isn't good enough for pictures like this.) We had more cloud cover on the day that we went. But, I just had to add it, because it is so beautiful and shows the steam vents and the beautiful shape of the mountain so well.
It was time to make our way up to the steam vents. We would be walking in a crater that was created during the last eruption of Mount Hakone some 3000 years ago.
....then we will, too! It was warm, about the temperature of bath water.
We made it to the end of the pathway, as far up the volcano as they would let us go. All around us were steam vents as well as a few bubbling pools and the smell of sulfur was very strong. Poor Kirstin was sacked out, so we can't see her sweet face.
The view of the surrounding mountains was beautiful.
This is how hot this pool of water is!
The people who work here cook many eggs everyday and load them onto this special ropeway. The eggs travel down the mountain to Owakudani Station where visitors buy them in groups of five. You could also buy them in a booth next to the bubbling pool, which we did! We paid 500 yen for 5 of them--that's about $1 an egg.
This is a sign explaining how the eggs become black.
The eggs were super hot, so we put them in the stroller and went back down the path toward the ropeway station, thinking that they would be cooled off by the time we got there. When we finally pulled them out of the bag, they were still almost too hot to touch.
Peeling the eggs.....
....it was kind of hard to peel them because of how hot they were!
Some of us liked them, some of us didn't!
The kids REALLY loved traveling around the volcano via a ropeway. It was a peaceful, quiet ride and we could enjoy the mountains view and the forest below as we glided along. It was very different from anything they have done before. At this part of the Hakone Loop, we are supposed to be able to see Mt. Fuji, but it was too overcast for that.
We had traveled halfway around the circumference of the Hakone volcano on the ropeway. It was time to travel around the other half--via ship. A pirate ship, that is!
This is the scene of Lake Ashi and Mt. Fuji that we were hoping for as we traveled on the pirate ship, but unfortunately, it was too cloudy and dreary and we could not see Mt. Fuji at all. Darn it!! Lake Ashinoko is a crater lake that was formed in the caldera of Mount Hakone after the volcano's last eruption 3000 years ago.
The kids were excited to board a "real" pirate ship!
The family on the deck of the ship.
Along the shoreline, there were still a few sakura trees in bloom. The air on the lake was misty, and there was a small wind. It was really chilly, but it was still a nice ride. It took a little over 30 minutes to cross Lake Ashi.
We passed a few red torii gates in the water, too. Reminded us of Miyajima Island.
Can you spot the red torii gate?
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