terror in a onesie

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We had an unexpected trip to Arkansas this past week due to a death in the family (that’s for a later post), and while we were there Eli and Liza discovered the joys of ponies and make up. Luckily for me it wasn’t all at the same time.

Click on the pony for more photos.

Click on the lipstick for more photos.

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Our trip to the beach.

Stay tuned! I might accidentally post something else next week.

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The English translation on signs does not necessarily tell the whole story.

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Drink Boss Coffee, or Tommy Lee Jones will cut you.

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Bubbling is preeminent.

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Hello Kitty wants you to be pretty.

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Fruits has power.

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The large towns in Japan are very blind-friendly.

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My theory of barbeque restaurant signs must be extended.

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Unborn babies are very noisy.

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Tokyo is just like New York.

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English makes everything better.

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This past week has been c-r-a-z-y! We went to Kansas City to visit Andrew and Joy and we had a great time! Eli and Sam played nonstop from the moment they woke in the mornings until we carted their tired butts to bed. I hatched evil plans to send Eli to Kansas City by himself in another couple of years — I’m sure Andrew and Joy won’t mind.

We got to see and play with the newest Granade. He’s a cutie and already quite the talker.

We also visited the T-Rex Café. We were all a bit overwhelmed by the noise and the sites but Liza learned to roar like a dinosaur while we ate dinner. We took turns taking the boys around the restaurant to see the fish and different mechanized animals.

I wanted a picture of everyone but we got separated and then it started to rain so we headed for home.

On Saturday morning we went to Kindermusik class. All the kids, even the big ones, got into it.

We played games.

We jingled.

The class was a lot of fun and reminded me that I wished our Kindermusik here in Huntsville were better.

While I was packing our suitcases, Liza decided a diaper from the stack would make a great hat.

We had so much fun and we were sad to go but we had to get back home for soccer practice and the first day of school.

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Physicists have something to be ashamed of.

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Toilets are really complex.

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Pocari Sweat’s taste matches its name.

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A lit cigarette is carried at the height of a child’s face.

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When we talked about buying presents in Japan for our family, one gift I knew ahead of time: green tea for my dad. He’s a confirmed green tea drinker, and while he has his supply of Chinese green tea from a friend, he hadn’t had Japanese green tea.

Beyond the vague shopping list of “tea, green” and a desire to avoid the Japanese equivalent of Lipton green tea, I had no plan. I was excited when we passed a specialty tea shop while we were spiraling in to our ryokan, but since we were — not lost, exactly, but not entirely found, we decided to return later.

We weren’t able to stop until the last afternoon in Kyoto, on our way to check out of the ryokan. The store looked closed, but one of the two women chatting outside was the owner, and ushered us back in.

Our Japanese-speaking friend once again had the pleasure of translating for me as we tried to figure out what kind of tea she sold, and what the difference between the foil bags of tea and the more traditional-looking packages of tea were. It turned out she sold tea powder that you mixed straight into water and drank, and tea leaves mixed with rice that you steeped using an infuser. She could tell we were confused by the difference, so, unprompted by us, she grabbed a package of both kinds from the shelves, ripped them open, and made us tea.

While she made tea and fetched cups, I boggled that she was so willing to do that for us. The second surprise came when, as she was serving the tea-and-rice combination, she said, “I’m learning English, but I don’t know it very well yet.” She had a nearly American-neutral accent.

We ended up buying both kinds of tea for my dad and some for us as well. The owner wrapped everything up in many layers of paper. As I turned to leave, she dropped several packages of green tea cookies in the bag.

So I got my present for my dad. Even better, I got a story to go with the present.

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On Thursday we drove the kids to West Memphis, AR to meet the grandparents. After lunch, we hopped back in the car and drove to Nashville, TN and spent the night with my college roommate, Terry, and her family. We had dinner with them and got our trip off to a great start by hanging with friends we haven’t gotten to spend a lot of time with lately. Friday, Terry drove us to the Nashville airport so we could fly to New York.

Friday evening, after a fantastic dinner with Fahmida’s family, we had the brilliant idea to stay up late so that we’d sleep on the plane on Saturday. Yeah, ok, that idea was less than brilliant, but we didn’t have our children and we really wanted to go see a movie.

We got on Japan Airlines at 11ish am on Saturday. Thirteen hours later we were in Tokyo.

We landed about an hour earlier than we were scheduled. We started by going to the Japan Railways office to redeem our JR pass. That pass was the best investment of the whole trip, btw. It allowed us to ride all over Japan on the JR line as much as we wanted to for seven days. We got on a subway-like car to take us to the station where we could catch the bullet train to Osaka.

I was thinking to myself, “10 minutes on the tram thingie and then we’re on the Shinkansen.” Nope, it was more like 45. Yeah, 45 minutes of riding through Tokyo. It’s that big. Once we got on the bullet train, I wanted desperately to watch the scenery but I could hardly stay awake. I dozed and tried to keep one eye open for my only look at the country side. I missed my only chance to see Mt. Fuji on that train ride.

About two and a half hours later we were in Osaka. Then we got on the subway for 30 minutes, carted our luggage up and down about 900 stairs and then spilled out onto the street in Osaka. We were so tired we were barely standing upright.

These are some of the first sights we saw:

We found our Ryokan and gratefully fell onto our futons and passed out.

The next morning we woke up to this:

and this:

The first day, we wandered the streets and got an idea of what city life is like in Osaka. Theater is big:

and so are castles:

The whole day felt magical. I guess that’s what you get your first day in a foreign country. I spent the better part of the day refraining from the we’re-in-Japan happy dance. I’m sure the folks in Osaka appreciated my restraint.

Click on any of the pictures to see all of the photos from Osaka.

We ended the day by bullet training to Kobe to have dinner.

It was pretty Westernized but the cachet of being able to say we took the Shinkansen to Kobe to have Kobe beef was too awesome to pass up.

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Tuesday was the hardest day. I knew intellectually what had happened at Hiroshima. But there was no way to know until I stood there. I would have thought that I’d be telling you how sad the city of Hiroshima is. How there is this cloud that hangs over it, darkening the mood. But there isn’t. It feels like an upbeat place with school children and young people everywhere.

This was the most revered spot we stood on during all the time we were in Japan. Where we were there, multiple Japanese came and bowed and prayed. And I felt as an American, I had no right to be there. It was humbling. Thinking about what I saw brings tears to my eyes now. Going through the museum made that feeling both better and worse.

I’m not really sure how to describe the museum. If I spend a lot of time talking about it, it becomes a point-by-point walking tour, which can be supremely uninteresting. I’m much more interested in giving my impressions and the feelings I had. I was fascinated by Japan’s timeline of events for the war. Having only ever read the American descriptions of World War II, seeing it from another nation’s view point was interesting. Seeing articles pulled from the rubble was amazing: glass bottles melted together, shards of glass embedded in concrete, melted and warped steel beams. The human mementos were harder to deal with: blood-stained clothing, a child’s school books with no remains of the child, a pile of skin and fingernails a mother saved from her dying son. At the end of the museum I felt emotionally rung out, dazed and empty.

Despite it all there is hope here. A Japanese legend says 1,000 folded paper cranes make a wish come true. It that were true, millions of wishes would have already been granted to Hiroshima.

After lunch, we continued on to Miyajima.

I told Fahmida that this was the Japan I was looking for. Temples, shrines and pagodas. They are the mystery and beauty of the culture I’d been reading about and seeing all of my life.

It would have been perfect, except for the 1,000% humidity. We didn’t walk around Miyajima so much as swim. But hey, we got to see some truly amazing things that day so I’m not complaining.

Click on any of the pictures to see all of the photos from Hiroshima & Miyajima.