Mountains, marching bands and the Sea of Japan

Sunday skies were clearer and cooler than we had seen so far (mid 90s, and 50% humidity). After a nice breakfast Bill led Hannah, Emily and Cris to the ski area just above Bill and Masayo's house.

As an official Japan Ski Guide and rescue dude, Bill is friends with just about everybody in Myoko, or who works in outdoor sports or pretty much anyone who has strapped on skis anywhere in Japan.

So on a beautiful Saturday morning we headed up Mt.Myoko in the gondola. 


   

The top of the ski lift is only a small portion up Mt. Myoko.  There are hiking trails that head upwards.  (In winter, under 15-30 feet of snow, this map of hiking trails is sign is deeply buried.)

While at the top, we chatted with Bill's pals, took a try at the rope swing, and enjoyed the gorgeous views.

We even had time for a short dance interlude. 



Notice that Cris is in the background talking with Bill.  This music video is entirely a Mickey + Hannah production.



With music on our minds we headed to the northeast to Nagaoka to watch Sena perform in an all-Niigata prefecture marching band competition. 

The performances were in a beautiful new civic center building.  The performances were crisp and impressive. The rules were strict - absolutely no photography or inapproriate applause or cheering.  We arrived late and sat across from the Myoko parent cheering section.  The band was announced, an organized cheer went up, and the band began precisely on time.  They performed three songs in ten minutes.   A song I didn't know, "Time To Say Goodbye", and then a little medley from Pirates of the Caribbean.   A flurry of applause and they sprinted for the door.  The next band started immediately. 

We learned that night that Myoko City junior high school won gold - the only junior high school band to do so.   They're off to the all-Japan competition.   Your correspondents will post an update.

The small but powerful Myoko Marching Band

Masayo and Sena wouldn't be home for hours, so we made our way along the coast of the Sea of Japan.  

We stopped just west of Kashiwazaki, where the world's largest nuclear power plant is located.  While we have been here, ominous news was released from the quake-damaged Fukushima nuclear plant about hundreds of gallons of highly radioactive water leaking into the ground water and towards the Pacific Ocean.  Here on the other side of Japan we concentrated on finding beach glass. 


Powerplant in the distance.  Very barely visible offshore is a Coast Guard ship holding position.


Wandering further West we found a beautiful spot for watching the sun set.

When we drove back to Myoko that night we stopped at one of Bill and Masayo's favorite Chinese restaurants, and then headed home to celebrate Sena and her band's success.  Buster the cat also enjoyed some attention....

Tomorrow, another road trip....

Day three - Saturday means temples, silk, and barbeque

On a warm hazy morning Sena heads off on the bus for marching band practice.  More about that on Sunday.  Bill, Hannah, Emily and Cris head north to see hidden treasures off the beaten path.  Perfect.

We are headed from Myoko to the north, and then across the mountains to the east towards Uonuma.

On the way we pass miles and miles and miles of rice paddies in the mountain valleys.

Along the way we stopped at a sake brewery that unfortunately was not open.   A charming-looking building in a pretty location, no doubt filled with liquid treasures.

We drove about two and a half hours through absolutely gorgeous mountain valleys, up and through hairpin curves and along lush valleys.  Im going yo count on Hannah to post some decent pictures later.  Mine are mostly blurry green swirls shot from the car windows.  I did manage to properly document one of the hundrrds of tunnels we passed through, some of them several kilometers long.

 Stop one was the strange and beautiful Saifukuji Temple, completed recently in 1857.  Master Ishikawa Uncho was a master carver painter poet and also apparently an aficionado of women and sake.


There will be many temple pictures to follow, I guarantee, but this is one of the most unique and idiosyncratic temples I've seen in a couple of trips to Japan, due to the intricate and fresh wood carvings showing various stories of Buddhism and of individual priests and their journeys as they encountered hardships, spirits and demons.  Floating in and amongst all are animals - birds, fish, mammals.

Not one of our pictures - pinched from the internet

From the temple guide:
"This carved picture represents the scene of 'Dogen-zenji conquering a violent tiger'. Traveling to China, young Dogen happened to be attacked by a big tiger. Just then his stick changed itself into a dragon, the guardian diety of Dogen-zenji.   You can find seven little animals on this carved picture. They are owed to Master Uncho's humor. ... The tight side (panel) is based on the episode of 'kechimyaku pond'. A woman ghost appeared every night sadly and regretfully over the pond.  Dogen-zenji gave her a peace of mind, and she never appeared again. "

From there, we headed to a pretty nearby town for lunch and a visit to a silk museum.  We saw silkworms munching on mulberry leaves, the process for extracting silk fibers, how yarns are dyed and laid out to make patterns, everything.

The best part was trying our hand at weaving silk fabric on looms.  Mickey wins, Hannah places, and Pother shows.

Showing our beautiful silk handiwork

That evening we had a magnificent barbecue at Chez Ross Myoko.  The hospitality, food (try the hot peppers!), beer and sake were Magnificent!

Our chef and major domo

The photo bomb makes the picture

Masayo, Sena and Mickey

Day two ends in Myokokogen

Deep in the subway maze in Tokyo Station Hannah and Mickey spot each other getting off the Maronouchi Line and greet each other casually and warmly.  Like this happens every day.

We compare notes on the adventures of the day and head off to grab some food with Zelda before she heads off.

Then we catch the shinkansen bullet train to Nagano where we will meet Bill, Masayo and Sena.  From there, they will drive us to Myokokogen, the small town in the Japanese alps where they live on the edge of a ski resort.



Our rail travels so far



Navigating the station and buying tickets is an adventure.  I'm carrying two credit cards and a debit card but only one credit card works in Japan, and it is only good to withdraw cash from an ATM.  And not any ATM, mind you...so far only the ATM at Citibank works.  Not even the ones in the ubiquitous 7-11s work.  I successfully buy shinkansen tickets from the vending machine (which we mastered on the subway lines) but when we head for the ticket turnstyles with our Giant American Suitcases we are stopped cold.  We are directed to the ticket agent office where local tickets to supplement our reserved tickets are purchased.  We run for the train and have 11 minutes to spare.  Easy!

It is great to see Bill, Masayo and Sena.  Their house is set on a hillside just downhill from a small Buddhist shrine and beside a small stream that runs fast with water off the mountains.  It also serves as Bill's office where he does writing and other creative work, and also the world headquarters of Dancing Snow - Myoko Outdoor Adventures, a ski, snowshoeing and backcountry and mountaineering adventure company.  Not a bad gig.

Domicile Ross.  The Minnesota Rosses are staying in the apartment bulling in the background



World headquarters



Our elusive but charming hosts

Hannah's Harajuku Adventures

(No pictures because I'm dumb and left my memory card in my computer)

While Pother and Mickey went off to the Studio Ghibli Museum, I got to explore Tokyo with Zelda. She describes Harajuku as "a big name for a small place" in that what you might think of as being "Harajuku" is actually confined to the small side streets, while the big streets are more mall-like.

We had decided when we were in Tokyo Station that we were going to find a cat cafe if it was the last thing we did, and Harajuku seemed like a likely place for one to be. About two and a half hours of wandering and getting lost later, we found an empty room and someone telling us the cat cafe was closed. That might have been good information to put on their official website, but they must not have thought so. Zelda thought that not getting to a cat cafe ruined the day, but I thought it was wonderful.

Wandering down the smaller streets was a lot of fun. Jingumae borders Harajuku and Shibuya, which are shopping districts, so even though we didn't go to Shibuya Crossing, we saw a lot of fashionable people and interesting stores. Some of the streets were basically empty but some of them were just as busy as the main street. In the smaller streets there were a handful of name-brand stores (including one with a celebrity endorsement by one of the actors from the heist film - YOU CAN'T BUY ME TOFU MAN) but mostly they were unmarked. They looked like small, touristy stores from the outside, but they probably paid a fortune to be in that neighborhood.

The only store we spent much time in was a toy store because if we couldn't spend time with cats, Hello Kitty was a good second. We spent far too much time with a toy that records what you say and says it back much higher. It must have been strange to see two foreigners yelling in English at a toy but we were having fun. We wanted to buy giant Rilakkuma pillows/stuffed animals to create a lazy-themed rug to sleep on, but that won't happen (this year).

Parting ways after dinner was sad, but school starts in a month and we will Orinoco Flow together then.

Mickey and Pother at Studio Ghibli Museum

Studio Ghibli is the anime film company under the principal artistic direction of Hayao Miyazaki and makes stunningly beautiful animated films.  

The studio itself is located in northeastern Tokyo in the same neighborhood as the Edo Museum.  The museum is in the very pretty Inokashira park in Mitaka, a western suburb.

The museum is delightful and charming and winsome. Just like our Miss Emily, so let's leave it to her to describe:

So after we rushed from train to train because we thought we would be late (our tickets said noon and we didn't want to be turned away because that would suck and I would maybe have cried) we finally got to Mitaka station.

We decided to get a cab, and we rode the approximate kilometer to the entrance in the park. Pother paid the taxi guy and we got out and there it was in all its glory. We came in by Totoro's reception, where Totoro was sitting at a desk with a sign that says "open!" and had all sorts of soot spirits and IT WAS MAGICAL. But we zoomed over to the offical entrance where the people let us in and gave us information packets and a map.

We didn't need a map. There was a whole page that was entitled "Let's Get Lost Together" and talked about how the museum was designed for exploration without a set path in any way. It was awesome.

We went to the Saturn Theater, which is the Studio Ghibli movie theater and watched the little film which was adorable in all it wanted to be in life. It was the story of a bunch of kids at a preschool and some made a boat out of blocks and then the room filled up with water and they sailed away to go fishing for whales.

Then they caught a whale and started home, but a storm blew up so the whale swam them home for them and when they got home the other kids had flower bouquets for the sailors and a giant wreath for the whale and goodness the adorabibleness.

But then we wandered around and there was stained glass everywhere of all the films, like there was a Spirited Away door, and a Nausicaa door and a Ponyo window and a Princess Monenoke window and two Kiki's Delivery Service ones and a whole lot of Totoro everywhere and there was one window that was a lot of different films and there was Chihiro riding Haku and it was so cool!

There was a whole exhibit on how cameras work and stuff, but since neither of us could read Japanese we just looked at the stuff and didn't read all the cards but it was still great. And across that there's this place that's like an artist's studio with all sorts of books and sketches and storyboards from all the films and I was pointing to them going "Look! Kiki! Look! It's Howl and Sophie! Look! Monenoke! Look! Chihiro! Look! Arietty!" And so on.

There was a whole room of animation styles and strobe light stuff and dioramas and there was a whole wall of Ghibli films and I knew almost all of them and I was so proud of myself.

After a while we broke for lunch and I had a hotdog and Pother didn't get anything but then we both had delicious ice cream. We went down to the courtyard with a pump and a super cool looking drain and a few windows with the soot spirits from Totoro and Spirited Away. There was also a doorway that was gated and it looked like the city from Kiki's Delivery Service was behind it and I was excited by that.

We also went onto the roof with a cool plant covered spiral staircase and we saw the robot from Castle in the Sky up there and I got my picture with it. Beyond the robot was this tiny path to a box which I think is also from Castle in the Sky but it's been a long time since I've seen that film.

There was also this cool spiral staircase inside that led up to about halfway up the staircase from the second to third level. We went up that too and that was one of the reasons I decided that I want a house like this museum.

We went to the gift shop last where I got three folding dioramas of the museum and two Totoro fans, which I use as Japan is HOT. But there was also this ring that looked just like Howl's ring that he gives Sophie to lead her home from Kingsbury and on the inside it said "Howl & Sophie" and it was super expensive but it was so pretty!

After that we went back, because I didn't want to lose any of the magic and I think that was a good idea because it's still magic to me now.

And that's the Studio Ghibli museum! We walked back to the station and I was slowly overheating again (it happens a lot when it's so hot as here) but then we got on the train and I was A-OK.

but that's the story, and nothing else really happened so there you have it.

The End

F

Tokyo and onwards

Hannah and Mickey's Tokyo post captured the essence of our first day in Tokyo, and in Japan. Here are a few supplementary details.

It is really hot here.

After tramping the grounds of the Imperial Palace we paused for a few minutes in front of the Meganebashi (Eyeglass Bridge)...

Style prevails over comfort

...and then we hightailed it (well, more crept from patch of shade to another) to the subway and the Edo Museum, where the girls look substantially cooler in front of a recreated Nihonbashi (Japan Bridge).

Cooler, and just as fashion forward

The Nihonbashi burned down or was destroyed by earthquakes a number of times.  One of the incarnations looked like this:

The first one burned down.  And then the seventh through ninth...

The Edo Museum is full of amazing stuff, but nothing quite as amazing as the absolutely brilliant dioramas showing the development of Edo/Tokyo.

The dioramas included some of the kabuki theater, including how they managed back stage special effects.  A perfect setup for our Thursday night at the kabuki theater, where we met Hannah's college roommate Zelda who is spending the summer in Japan.

We saw Bewitching Foxes and Badger and Tied to A Pole.  Hannah's review is the definitive version, of course. 

Outside the Kabuki Theater, Ginza

Day two in Japan: we branch off in Tokyo

Hannah is going to meet her Zelda to explore Tokyo, while Emily and Cris are aimed at the Studio Ghibli Museum.  We hunt for breakfast in the sprawling food court of the Daimaru department store attached to the Tokyo Station, which is a city to itself combining subway, bullet train and local rail lines.

Hannah is dropped off at the Louis Vuitton store to await Zelda while Mickey and Pother hustle to catch the subway for the far suburbs of Tokyo.

Here Hannah picks up the story of her Harajuku adventures and Mickey and Cris recount Studio Ghibli....