We have returned - but first - February and March update!

Hello!

Can you believe that I haven't updated this since the end of February?  Wow.  We are back on home soil, got in on May 8th, and both of us started work the following week.  Haven't had time to draw breath, but I have made a concerted effort to upload a stack of photos spanning February to May, and over the next few months, will update this blog with all of the madness and wonder that was/is Japan.

Here's what happened in February.

It snowed.  A whole lot.  Two big dumps of it, record-breaking snow, inconveniently falling over the weekends and wreaking havoc with public transport.

But oh, so pretty.  Fun to play in, scary when slippery and compacted.

The first big dump of snow fell on the 8th of February, the start of a weekend that we'd booked a hotel for.  Wonderfest was on.  I don't really feel like explaining Wonderfest in detail, but in brief, it's a big expo with craft, design, art and figures, lots and lots of figures.  The snow started to fall in the mid-afternoon, and we had already started our journey over to Makuhari, where our hotel was.  Good thing too, because trains stopped on our line a few hours later because of the snow.

Here's some shots of the snow as it fell on Saturday the 8th:

The next morning, it was absolutely beautiful overlooking the beach and the buildings below.

That afternoon, after going through the exhibitions at Wonder Fest, we played around in the snow for a while.  Couldn't resist when there's snow banks like this:

Back at work on the Tuesday after the long weekend, the snow had been cleaned up off the roads, but there was enough left for people to have some fun with.

The snow couldn't even wait a full week to start falling again, and the second big dump of snow began on Valentines day, a Friday.  We had booked time to be away again, this time not far from Akihabara, Tokyo's technological centre.  I took a half day from work and headed home to pick up our bags to head out to Tokyo.  Here's some photos to and from home that afternoon:

Overnight it rained, which made things dicy.  The snow compacted and iced up, meaning you either stepped onto black ice or into slush.  We weren't wearing shoes for snow, regrettably.

Still, there were a lot of good things to have a look at while dodging slushy puddles and black ice slicks.

Returning home on Saturday evening, it had obviously snowed pretty heavily in our area, so we got some nice stuff to walk through on our way back to the apartment.

The next day, Jason shovelled our path and the stairs up to our apartment, and while he was there, he made a snowman.  I went downstairs and got some grotty stones from the carpark to make a face, and donated a couple of crocheted reject things I'd given up on to the cause.

9 days of sunshine later:

That's the fun part of the snow, here's the less fun part of the snow.  Kofu in Japan was completely isolated by heavy snowfalls and traffic accidents along major motorways, and Japanese authorities took quite a while to get it together to help people out.  One of my colleagues wasn't able to get to work for a week because there was no way out of town.

It's hard to illustrate how massive the effects were, but here's a couple of photos of our local supermarket that was never poorly stocked until the heavy snow hit hardest.

In time, things got cleared up, and life returned to normal around Japan.

The last two months in Japan flew by for a range of reasons.  We packed up all our stuff to be sent home to Australia and also put aside things to be sold/given away/thrown out.

This took a lot of time.  I'm glossing over it because seriously, doing this kind of thing is just awful, even if you're in a country that continually excites the senses.  We have never put as much effort into any move or clean up job as the amount we put into this one.

We shifted from our lovely 3LDK (3 bedroom) apartment in residential Kawasaki, 30 minutes by train from Shinjuku.  We moved our remaining possessions and bags to a 1K (studio) apartment in Nishi-Shinjuku, 20 minutes walk from Shinjuku station, and 30 minutes walk to Yoyogi Park, 30 minutes walk to Shibuya.

Here's the view from our window.  Not bad at all.  Luckily we like each other pretty well, because the apartment took a bit of getting used to, and there was nowhere to hide!  We eased into the groove of it, and made the most of our time living in urban Tokyo.

I feel like I blathered on quite a bit there, and it might be good to break for a while, so that the next blog entry is able to have a fairly central theme.  We did other stuff in February and March too, but I'll save that for an entry not focusing on snow.

Til then, thanks for reading, more photos of the snow are here: CLICK

May madness - Golden Week getaway, Design Festa, Gyoza Town and the Sumo

Well I'm pretty sure I mentioned May was a busy month for us.  Every weekend of May we did something different, and it was fantastic, despite the exhaustion we felt at the start of June.

We did FOUR BIG THINGS in May

BIG THING NUMBER ONE - OSHIMA ISLAND

At the start of May it was Golden Week, a bunch of public holidays squeezed in together.  It's the busiest travel time in Japan, and with this in mind, I booked accommodation for our trip back in February to make sure we had a place to rest our heads.  Our destination was Oshima island, about 2 hours by ferry from Tokyo.  Oshima is the closest island to Tokyo, and is a really popular spot for Tokyoites wanting to get away.

View Larger Map

Wikipedia says that Oshima has a population of about 8,500.  Every person we came into contact with was kind, warm and friendly and went the extra mile to help us out.  We stayed in a pension, which is like a guesthouse or a bed and breakfast.  Bathroom facilities are shared and breakfast is provided, dinner too if you pay extra.  The couple running the pension were amazingly helpful, and had a really good grasp of English.  Even if we had gone to the island in May of last year with our terrible Japanese, we probably would have been A-okay.  If you ever go to Oshima, I recommend this place - here's a link.


During our stay in Oshima we checked out Habuminato harbour, on the south side of the island.

Watched some fishermen hack into a giant sunfish.

Checked out the back streets of the harbour.

After a walk around, we had Japan's equivalent to fish and chips on the beach: potato croquettes and pork cutlets by the harbour.  No pictures, but trust me, they were delicious.

We were in Oshima for a total of 4 days, and we managed to climb Mt Mihara, the island's active volcano, in the centre of the island.  The last eruption was in 1986, and the heat that emanated from the ground around the crater was obvious once we got close.

Volcano shelters:

There are two ports on Oshima island, the main port is Motomachi, where most of the shops, eateries and car hire places are.  In the gardens outside the local onsen there is a pretty great little Godzilla statue.

        

Oshima island has been the setting for a couple of Godzilla movies because of its volcano.  In one film, Godzilla is lured to Mt Mihara by a homing beacon and falls into the volcano.  Apart from the Godzilla statue, there is also a beautiful waterfront, perfect as a backdrop for looking serene at sunset.

The other port on Oshima island, Okata port, is pretty cool too.

The last big highlight of our trip was Oshima Park, with its gigantic collection of Camelia plants (not flowering unfortunately) and its surprising zoo.  The zoo was great fun.

(A lot) more photos are here.

We loved Oshima island, and would highly recommend it.  And without further ado, onto the next big thing.

BIG THING NUMBER TWO - UTSUNOMIYA TRIP

We had originally planned to go a festival over the second weekend in May - Tokyo Rocks looked like it was going to be great.  My Bloody Valentine were playing, along with a lot of Japanese bands.  Then, out of nowhere, it was cancelled, leaving a weekend free and a nice big refund on the 2 day tickets.  We decided to go Utsunomiya, locally known as "gyoza town"because of its....gyoza.  

A frog for some reason, and also Venus de Milo if she were coming out of a gyoza rather than a shell.

We ate a whole bunch of dumplings at the best place in town, Min Min.

Definitely the best gyoza we've had since we've been here, and given that it was raining the weekend we were in Utsunomiya, we needed some warming comfort food.  It delivered.

BIG THING NUMBER FOUR - TOKYO DESIGN FESTA

I know, I wrote about this last year.  This time I took a group of year 11 and 12 students out on an excursion to it, and had been in communication with some of the organisers for information beforehand.  Still had a great time, seems like the kids did too.  We went relatively early, it opened at 11 and we were there in line at 11.10.  It's a two day event, but we just went for the Saturday, and saw some great stuff.

I had my year 12 students base an assessment task on the artistic, creative and logistical ideas they came into contact with at the Design Festa, and they came up with their own ideas too in completing the task.  A great day, and one I hope to repeat when it comes around again in November.

More pictures here!

LAST BIG THING - SUMO

We went to the sumo tournament in Tokyo on the second last day, so there was still a lot at stake for the wrestlers.  The feeling from the crowd in the final bouts was incredible, and the wrestlers themselves have a lot of personality that comes through in their wrestling.

We got in pretty early and watched the second highest level of sumo wrestlers - the juuryoo.  The crowd wasn't so big at that point, but it picked up massively when the big guns came out.  The highest level sumo wrestlers - the makuuchi - came out later and the vibe in the crowd really picked up.  We were up in the nosebleed section and the calls from behind us could be heard by the people down in the thick of it.

The second last bout was between two sumo wrestlers who had both been undefeated for the entirety of the 13 preceding days of the tournament.  The crowd went mental during the bout, and as soon as the result was announced, around a quarter of the crowd started to file out.  The result of the champion was all but decided, with one day left of the tournament to go.

More photos here.

The day after the sumo we collapsed on the couch and surveyed the mess that had accumulated over the course of May.  Now that we're a bit over a week out of May, things have settled down and our apartment has become more livable.  I can't see another month like May coming up for a while, but we will keep ourselves occupied and continue to see whatever we can.

Until next time!