Probably my biggest surprise in planning things for my family to do while in Japan was how much walking is involved. I don’t think about how much walking I do every day, and especially when you throw in a bunch of sightseeing trips – it makes for some very sore legs.
My family pushed through and did a great job. When it came to sitting around a table on the floor, they sat. When it came to eating strange unidentifiable things, they ate. I was really proud of them. I was especially proud of my mom, who subjected me to a lot of “eat this, eat that” when I was a kid. She wasn’t afraid to try anything.
Kinsey flew in on Friday night, and despite a miscommunication with Kuniko we got it figured out and Lynn and I took the bus into the airport. It was a long ride, but we swapped stories and talked all about the fun we had at the soba party the night before.
When Kinsey appeared at the gate she looked like she was full of energy. She grabbed the attention of everybody waiting for her, and the attention stayed on her for most of the trip.
We came back on the bus, and lugged her hot pink luggage onto the train and all the way to Akashi. She struck up a conversation with a very surprised guy in the elevator, and I think until then it hadn’t really dawned on her that people don’t speak English. The guy rebounded nicely, though, and spoke to her in rusty English. I think he thought that she and I were on our honeymoon in Akashi.
We checked Kinsey into the hotel and then went across the street to the okonomiyaki restaurant. The master was happy to serve us up again, and I enjoyed watching everyone showing Kinsey the ropes. She ate the onion and beef tendon okonomiyaki without a problem, and Lynn had a sly grin as he let her say how much she loved it. I understand he told her what was inside the okonomiyaki the next day.
Saturday was the day before the wedding, so we took it easy. Kuniko served up a traditional oden dinner, and everyone gave us presents. We had so many presents laying around, and little did I know at that time that it was only the beginning.
Sunday was the day of the wedding, and I wrote a whole entry just on that – you should go check that out.
Monday was the day after the wedding, and I think everyone was exhausted. I had caught a cold the night before, so I was pretty miserable. We had some people come over in the middle of the afternoon to hang out, and then we bundled everyone up in two cars and drove to the Kageyama farm, just about 15 minutes away from their home in Kakogawa.
I think everyone enjoyed seeing the fresh vegetables growing, and there were lots of questions for Mr. Kageyama. He answered and Kuniko or I would translate, and then there would be more questions. It was a really challenge for the translators, but we did the best we could. After touring the farm we continued up the hill to a temple that I had never visited before. We walked around and took some pictures. Kinsey and Kuniko rang the temple bell once, but apparently it was OK to do it – nobody came running to stop them. Apparently the bell was used in the past to signal that a fire was spotted, but I think those days are gone.
From there we drove out to a yakiniku place and my family had their first experience with self-grilled meat. Everyone ate a lot – even Kinsey who usually doesn’t like the idea of mixing her chopsticks with other people’s saliva. Since everything was being cooked on the fire, it was OK. My family treated the Kageyama’s, and they gave a big protest but finally relented. It was a real battle, though.
Tuesday was an early trip to Himeji, and then on to Hiroshima on the bullet train. That was a great experience for my family – the bullet train is very expensive, so to get a chance to ride that was really cool. Kuniko organized the tickets, and we jumped on board and in an hour we arrived at Hiroshima. We were sitting in the “silent car”, which was for people that might want to get some sleep in. There was a ticket holder to hold your tickets in case you where sleeping and didn’t want to be disturbed. Kinsey and Nancy loaded up their tickets in the holder, and when they got off they left them there. Oh, no! Kuniko did some talking with the station manager who ended up letting them through, mainly because they were foreign and we all had the same tickets.
Hiroshima was a whirlwind trip, but it was awesome. Our first stop was Miyajima, a kind of sacred island full of shrines, deer, trees, and shopping. We had to take a ferry to get there, and once we arrived everyone enjoyed playing with the deer. From there we walked through a ton of shops to get to the main attraction – the view of the shrine gate on the water.
We spent some time looking around, taking pictures of the trees changing colors, we had a quick lunch with some oysters, and then headed back to the heart of Hiroshima to see the Memorial Peace Park, the Atomic Bomb Dome, and the museum. By then Kuniko and I were both pretty bushed and we had seen both things before, so we waited outside. Before long everyone came out, and so we caught a taxi back to the station for a bit more souvenir shopping, and then we caught the train back.
We ate dinner in two groups upon arriving in Akashi. There was a sushi group and a ramen group. Kuniko lead the ramen group over to a pretty good ramen place across town, and Kinsey, Ray, and Lynn followed me underground to the tiny sushi place for a full on sushi dinner. He kept us in sushi and rolls and enjoyed the attention – it is a really good atmosphere, and we ordered plenty of hot sake to keep us warm.
Kuniko came and picked me up after they finished the ramen dinner, and together we went over to get a surprise for Lynn over at her house. Finally around 11 o’clock we hit the sack.
Wednesday was spent in Kyoto. We brought the surprise to Lynn on the train, and everyone was staring more than usual at a foreigner walking around with a gigantic Japanese bow and quiver of arrows. The bow is more than 7 feet long, so we made quite an impression. Lynn loved the bow. He was talking about it for quite some time and really enjoyed playing with it, checking the angles, and asking questions. Kuniko’s dad had used the bow during his school years, and it seems they both have a big interest in archery.
Wednesday was a national holiday in Japan. There were tons of people in Kyoto. For the first time, my family could see wall-to-wall people and get a feel for what it can be like sometimes around here. We split up into two groups for lunch again, and from there took a wild cab ride across town to Kiyomizudera. It was so crowded. The road that we walked up was filled with people, and there was a huge line just to get into the temple. We ended up skipping the actual temple and walked around taking pictures of the trees and scenery. Because of the crowds and a little bit of a late start we couldn’t see very much of Kyoto at all, but I think it was enough to give everyone a taste.
Finally we headed back to the station, walking almost the whole way, and then took the train to Sannomiya. There we ate at Asian Days, a really good all-you-can-eat dim sum and shabu shabu place. I think that everyone liked it, and we all went home with our bellies full.
Thursday we got everyone packed up, checked out of the hotel, and headed to the bus stop in Sannomiya. Kuniko met us there, carrying bags of presents from her students, and we got my family tickets on the bus to the airport. There were lots of tears, lots of hugs, and lots of staring from the people walking by. Still, it was a good chance to thank everyone for coming all this way. Kuniko gave them one last gift – a CD of music from our wedding, and a stuffed Anpanman for Kinsey. After we sent them off, we traveled all the way back to our place and completely crashed out. Kuniko is getting my cold, so a lot of rest seemed like the best thing.
Friday it is back to work, at least for one day, so we’ll try to take it easy until then.
