Fuji 5 Lakes trip

From certain places in our neighborhood, we can see Fuji-san in the distance. Even far away, he is a breath-catching site. On clear days, after a rain has washed the haze from the sky, we run to the tallest building in Musashisakai, the nine-floor "Swing" building, and take the elevator to the top to say hello.

In one of the many redesigns of Tokyo after fires and earthquakes, the streets were laid out to enhance the view of Mt. Fuji. It makes one realize that, before all the buildings began increasing in height, Mt. Fuji was an ever-watching "kami" (Shinto deity), looming over everyone and everything.

At the foot of Mt. Fuji are the Fuji Five lakes - "Fujigoko" - a popular destination for day trippers and hikers. Many of our visitors have asked about it and whether it is was worth a trip. So, to answer that question, we decided to take a short trip there while I still have vacation. We stayed at K's House Backpacker hostel, a chain in most big cities. We stayed last year at the K's in Kyoto with my mother and really liked their operation.

An easy highway bus trip got us to Kawakguchiko in about 1.5 hours, with lots of time to rent bikes from K's and ride around the lake and part of another. It was a great way to see the area, and the views of the mountain were fantastic.

That night we had "hou-tou" udon (a soupy dish with vegetables and meat), with the thick, wide noodles that make it a specialty in the Yamanashi prefecture. Our farmer friends had recommended we try it, and, as usual, they were right!

The next day we went for a seven-hour hike to the top of Mitsu-toge, a nearby peak with great views of Fuji (covered in clouds) and Lake Kawaguchi. Joan suffered mightily, still sore from the six-hour broccoli planting marathon on Sunday before! The uphill was long and gradual, following the ridge through forests and open meadows. The downhill portion was short, steep, and snowy, eventually dropping into a deep valley with a small stream that got larger and larger. We thought the finale of the trip was to be the waterfalls at the bottom. While they were fairly impressive, we were completely surprised and stunned by the Sengen shrine that we stumbled upon.

Among the buildings of the shrine, massive, and I mean MASSIVE, cedar trees disappeared up into their own greenery. With late afternoon sun and a quiet stillness, it was one of the most enchanting places we have found so far.

That night, we went to the onsen next door to soothe our muscles and then had "hou-tou" udon, again!

The trip was really a recon trip for future excursions and to find out details about climbing Mt. Fuji, something we hope to do this September. I can finally now say that we have been there, and we highly recommend it...

The full photo album for the trip can be seen HERE.

Back in the saddle again - the food saddle, that is!

After reacquainting ourselves with all the lovely food of Midwest America, we are back to our food adventures in Tokyo.

A recent article in the New York Times about ramen, the famous Japanese noodle/soup, recently got our taste buds quivering. It profiles some of the best and most interesting ramen shops in Tokyo, as well as exploring the whole culture of ramen. We have already found some ramen treasures out there, especially the yuzu ramen that Joan wrote about earlier.

We tracked down the closest ramen oasis and made plans to bicycle there to meet Peter, a fellow teacher who lives near the shop. Ivan Ramen was opened three years ago by a New York city chef who had made Japan his home and decided to take on an interesting challenge: could a "gaijin" (foreigner) make ramen good enough to win over natives who consider it a key element of their culture?

Well, after a 45-minute bike ride, the line of 20 people waiting outside the small shop on a sunny Saturday afternoon seemed to answer that question. As we waited for customers to duck into the shop, slurp their big bowls of noodles, and quickly clear the stool seats for the next hungry person, Ivan, himself, came out to say hello. Fluent in Japanese, he greeted everyone and thanked them for their patience. Switching over to English, he eagerly told us his story of how he ended up with a tiny noodle shop on a back street in Tokyo. He also guided us through the menu and made some recommendations. The smell filling the small alley made us salivate.

We finally ducked through the curtained doorway and took our seats, eager to order and get to work.

After a flurry of finger pointing at the menu and "Hai. Hai," one of the five busy guys behind the counter called out our order.

Soon, we received our bowls of goodness. As a change from my normal choice of traditional soupy ramen, I ordered Spicy Red Chilli Men, with a smaller volume of oily sauce on top of sautéed tomatoes and eggplant with a piece of grilled pork.

Joan does not care as much for soupy ramen, so she ordered hers "tsukemen" style, with the noodles served separately (hot or cold) to be dunked in a dish of dipping sauce. She ordered hot, rye-flour noodles that came with a creamy, spicy chilli-sesame sauce.

Wow. Let's just say we'll take you there when you come for a visit. That's all you need to know about how good it was.

And to finish it all off, Ivan followed us out of his shop and stood on the sidewalk with us for over 20 minutes, telling us all about his ramen adventures, especially becoming a TV celebrity on"ramen game shows."

We will definitely be back to try his other offerings, both traditional and not. We are also making plans to try out some of the other shops profiled in the NYT article, especially Basanova on the west side of Shibuya. Their green curry ramen sounds delicious but inconceivable!

Thank goodness for elastic waistbands!

So, it's been about four full days of eating now. I am a little apprehensive to step on the scales. Maybe later today after a run...

This is the first real meal we had on Friday for lunch: baked fish with mushroom soup sauce, baked beans with bacon, macaroni and cheese, and mashed potatoes. Please ignore all the cheese and crackers that were consumed in the late morning, plus all the homemade cookies that call to us in our sleep.

Things are good so far on our reunion tour here in Wisconsin. We have seen most of Joan's family up here in Portage and have plans to see more.

We got together with our old Madison group of friends at Karen and Thor's house. Pat Burke and family did not make a photo op for some reason. We had lovely cheese and snacks and lots of good Wisconsin beer (New Glarus, especially!)

Joan's college roommate, Laura Gillis, drove down from Green Bay to meet up with another college roomie, Michelle Gigot.

Mike Doughtery and new bride, Rocio, are back from Guatemala, and it was muy bueno to see them!

Last but not least was Clarence Olsen and his wife, Louise. Clarence was the Scout Master of the troop where I was Assistant Scout Master back in 99-00.

The Eagles Have Landed!

Well, after a 23-hour door to door trip, we have made it to Joan's mother's house. The flight from Tokyo to Dallas/Ft. Worth went well, as did the puddle jumper to Madison. It was interesting to observe the change in the mix of people as the trip progressed. In our area, it is fairly rare to see a foreigner (who we don't already know). At Narita airport, it was still most Japanese but with a healthy international mix. At our gate, it became much more American with a lot of military folks flying home from all over Asia. Then Dallas - wow. Texas is something else: lots of cowboy boots with hair, fur, skin, and scale still attached. It is always strange to come back to one's country after being away for awhile.

Dorothy met us at the airport, along with some Madison friends, Karen and Thor. While it has been almost 11 months, it really doesn't feel like we have been gone that long. It is weird: it feels like both a long time and a short time. Dorothy had driven down our Honda Fit, so we loaded up and hit the road. I was a little concerned about driving since Japan drives on the "wrong" side, but since I don't drive in Japan, it came right back.

Dorothy has already been feeding us way too much! In less that 24 hours, I feel like I have already gained weight... The seemingly endless supply of homemade cookies is not helping things. I have been looking forward to some good beer; however, there was only a classic in the fridge!

Gooby, our cat, looks good and seems to at least tolerate our affections, if not actually remember us. She slept with us last night, and that was great!

We will keep you posted as to where we will be when!

Mata ne! (See you later!)

Winter Break 2010

On New Year's day, we took the "juhachi kippu" trains all the way to Osaka to visit our friends, Seth and Haruna, in Osaka. It was a long train ride, but we saw Mt. Fuji and some places covered with snow.

Osaka is a bustling, working town and feels quite different from Tokyo: perhaps Atlanta compared to New York? We had a really interesting time walking around and getting a feel for the city. There was not enough time to see much, and we plan on returning again for a longer visit. One highlight was going to "taishi engeki" (大衆演劇), returning translated as "theater of/for the masses." It was a very strange experience and best explained by the link to the wikipedia page. The best part was the little old lady who came up to the stage during solo performances and tucked 10,000 yen ($100) bills in the belts of kimonoes. Between 20,000 and 60,000 a pop, she tucked over $3,000 worth of tips that night!

Here is a link to the youtube video of the Osaka portion of the trip: Osaka 2010

We also went to a shrine near Nara in the Kyoto area that is famous for it connection to the year of the tiger (in this case, 2010). Haruna was born in a year of the tiger, so we, along with thousands of other people, went there to pay our respects and wish for health, wealth and wisdom.

Here is a link to the youtube video of that outing: Visit to Tiger shrine.

To finish off the trip, we decided to go WWOOFing (World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms). It is an excellent way to meet people in a non-touristy way, especially if you like farming! In exchange for six hours of work, you get a place to sleep and three meals.

Since Joan is a farming junkie and writes about it, it seemed a perfect match. We found an organic tomato farm on Shikoku island, south of Osaka and arranged to stay for six days.

A five-hour bus ride got us to the island (on the bridge, we passed over the world famous Naruto whirlpools - very impressive boat eating sized whirlpools) and finally to Ikumi, a famous surfing town on the Pacific coast of Shikoku, the fourth largest island in Japan.

To read more about our WWOOOFing experience, you can read Joan's post on her blog: Farming Holiday: WWOOFing in Japan

There is also a youtube video slide show: WWOOFing in Winter!

Korea Town in Shinjuku

We had been talking for quite some time about going to the Korea Town in Shinjuku. I guess there is more than one in the Tokyo area, but the Shinjuku one seems the most famous. Shinjuku means "new inn/lodging" and gets its name from early history when it was a crossroads for the first cross country roads that connected the major cities.

Joan had talked with the Takashi's, the farmers she works with, and they proposed that we all go out for a dinner. Both of their daughters were home for the holidays. The elder is a university student here in Tokyo, and the other is a high school exchange student in Canada. Neither Takashi-san nor See-chan had been there, so it was an adventure for all of us.

We met at our newly remodeled train station and headed out. It was really nice to have Japanese friends with us as they could translate both the language and culture. Everything is so much more understandable. It is also an excellent motivator for studying Japanese!

From the Shinjuku train station (one of the busiest in the world with over 3 million people passing through a day), we walked underground for quite some distance, passing through Isetan, a massive, very high-end department store. New Year's is the cultural equivalent for Christmas in Japan, so families get together for parties and gifts are exchanged. Japan is already a gift-giving country, so at New Year's, it is even crazier. It was chaos in the store - overwhelming. Boxes of beautiful arranged food are very popular. However, sometimes they look better than they taste...

We wandered over to Korea Town and stopped in a Korean grocery store, admiring all the strange foods. See-chan and I bought a small drink box of black sesame soy milk and a bag of spicy and sweet snacks. We all tried them out on the sidewalk.

After walking around for awhile, the family chose a basement restaurant and the eating began!

There were way too many dishes to describe them all. Let's just say they were delicious and spicy! See-chan does not do well with spicy food, so she was dying throughout the whole meal.

After dinner, we walked back toward Shinjuku station, passing through Kabukicho, a famous "red light" district in Japan. It is a swirl of neon signs and people, full of thousands of restaurants, strip shows, hostess bars, massage parlors, and love hotels - quite a sight to see.

We finished off by swinging through "Shomben Yokocho," quaintly translated as "Piss Alley," a

narrow warren of alleys with tiny izakayas (drinking restaurants) serving table top grilled meats. The Takashi daughters were not done yet with eating, so we stopped for some grilled chicken

skin, meatballs, pork, and green peppers stuffed with hamburger. We finally dragged ourselves to the station and onto the train.

It was a whirlwind of sights, sounds, smells, and tastes! When you come for a visit, we'll take you there!

If you want to see a short youtube video, try this link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r6JxXQWHybM

Daikon harvest!

Joan has been trying to get to the farm the last few weeks to help our farmer friends with harvesting daikon - a Japanese radish. Every weekday morning, they pull up, clean and prepare about 60 daikon for the local supermarket. Since the weekends are big shopping days, the store wants more, so we got the chance to help with the harvest this Sunday morning.

I took a lot of video and put together this little youtube video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7qZIcJ0ubYY