Mount Fuji!

We were fortunate enough to enjoy a beautiful day in the Mt. Fuji area on Sunday and have a lot of pictures from this trip. It turns out that Nov. 22 is the Japanese Labor Thanksgiving Day, so we also got to experience some real Japanese traffic jams on the way home Sunday night. If you think big city traffic in the states is bad, try multiplying the number of cars by 2.5 on a holiday weekend! It took us 4 hours to travel 60 km (thats only about 37 miles)! Other than the traffic we had quite an enjoyable day. The sky was clear which is not normal for that area and our tour guide told us that out of the 30 to 40 times he has done the Mt. Fuji trip this was one of the best views he had ever gotten. We stopped at a rest area complete with Starbucks (yes, they really are everywhere) and took our first couple of pictures of Mt. Fuji.
I also had my first experience with a Japanese style women's restroom on this trip. Close to base and in many department stores there are Western style toilets but apparently not way out here. So all you ladies who may come visit us better practice your squats! This toilet is basically a hole in the floor.

Our first stop was at the Mt. Fuji Peace Park. Here is a white Buddhist Pagoda, which was built with a prayer for the peace and happiness of Japan and the world. If you look closely you will notice that the Buddha statue is lying on its side which is extremely rare to see in Japan.

This park is a beautiful Japanese garden with many statues and plants. Ed thinks the trees look like something out of a Mario Brothers game! One of these statues is said to be a healing statue. You touch the part of your body that is in pain and then rub the statue and your pain should go away. My foot has been sore and I tried it but I am not sure that it helped.

On the way back down the hill from the Pagoda we had awesome views of Mt. Fuji. We captured a few of them here.

Our next stop was in an area called Eight Ponds. These ponds are formed from subterranean springs that come from the melting snow on Mt. Fuji. The water is very clear and said to be clean enough to drink from. There were many interesting things to see in this area and many street vendors selling goods and things to eat. I tried a green ball filled with something sweet and purple which I later found out was pounded rice dyed green with an herb filled with sweet beans. The center was very good, but the rice outside was bland and dry so I don't think I will try that snack again. Again we had very good views of Mt. Fuji from here, but now we were on a different side.

After Eight Ponds we went to the Sengen Shrine which honors the God of Fugi (or the volcano god). This is a Shinto shrine and you can tell the difference between a Shinto shrine and a Buddhist temple by the Tori gate that sits at the entrance of a Shinto shrine. We have noticed that many young girls visit these types of shrines in full kimonos and got some pictures of them. Ed was very polite and asked their parents for permission to take their picture unlike many of the people on the tour with us. But we didn't want to be the creepy adults taking pictures of small children! We were also able to see a ceremony that we think was honoring the trees. Shinto and Buddhism are not actually considered religions as they both honor nature. They are thought to be a way of life or thinking rather than a religion so many people in Japan practice both. Many trees at this shrine are very old and are considered sacred. We got a perfect fall picture in front of one of them!


Mt. Fuji is surrounded by five lakes that have been formed over several hundreds of years of volcanic activity. The most commercial and easily accessible of these lakes is Lake Kawaguchi which is where we ate lunch. Ed went with Curry Rice, a dish we have had many times and is quite delicious. I opted to be a little bit adventurous and ordered a deep fried shrimp and rice dish thinking of deep fried shrimp you would order in the States. Well, deep fried shrimp in Japan comes as a whole shrimp, eyes and all. Feeling like my food was staring at me kind of killed my appetite, but I managed to eat most of the meal. Lake Kawaguchi looks like a place we would like to visit again when it is not as cold. Even with the cold there were many people out in swan shaped paddleboats playing in the lake.

The final stop on our tour was at the Kubota Itchiku Art Museum. The artist, Kubota Itchiku, dedicated his life to refining the traditional tsujigahana textile-patterning technique. This technique is similar to tie-dying, however it is a much more detailed way of using many small knots to create patterns on fabric. His fabrics have been used to create many elaborate kimonos that are on display at the museum. For example, we saw a set of five or six kimonos displayed side by side to create a fire breathing dragon. Unfortunately, we could not take pictures inside of the museum, but if you have time you should try to find pictures of his work online. The had scarves for sale at the museum but a small handkerchief sized piece of fabric costs approximately $1800!

That concluded our great tour of the Mt. Fuji area. There are several spots we will probably go see again and we would really like to visit nearby Hakone and its hot springs. In that part of the Fuji area there are many resorts where you can bathe in the hot springs and if you want to spring for it you can get a room with your own private spring just outside the sliding glass doors! As you can tell we have a lot more traveling planned for our stay in Japan!

Job Interview and Curry Festival!

As many of you know I went to Yokohama for a job interview this past week. The job is with a company called TUV Rheinland. They hire what they call free agents - basically subcontractors who are not permanent full time employees and are called in to only work as needed. They have offered to train me in the field of Electromagnetic Compatability testing where I will be testing a variety of products to verify that they meet international safety and quality standards. It will be an interesting experience as I will be working with Japanese, German, Chinese, and Korean engineers just to name a few nationalities. The picture below is outside of the subway station in Yokohama. These large ferris wheels are everywhere in Japan usually at department stores.

We also went to a Curry Festival this weekend where we had traditional Japanese Curry Rice. This meal was popular with the Japanese Navy in Yokosuka and is often called Navy Rice also. We had a mild beef curry but you can get dishes that are very spicy, too. I tried some sort of crab cake ball that had what I think was squid inside. The outside of the ball was very good...I'm not so sure about squid though. The location of the festival is also the location of the Japanese battleship, Mikasa, which is now a museum in Yokosuka.

Almost 3 weeks in Japan!

We have been in Japan for almost three weeks now. Ed is getting into the swing of things at work and I have been job hunting and doing all of the check-ins we need to get done. (I have a job interview next Thursday!) We were only in the Navy Lodge for 5 days before moving in to our apartment. We have a two bedroom highrise apartment on the 6th floor of Rokuban Tower. Rokuban sounds really cool and Japanese, but really just means 6th as in the 6th Tower. It is one of the older towers on base but the apartments have been kept up to date and it is really very nice. We have a huge balcony overlooking some townhomes and a wooded hill so it really doesn't feel like we are on a military base.

Some things we've noticed already about the Japanese culture is that they are very respectful, rarely get angry, and they are always apologizing (even when its not their fault!). I can already see why people fall in love with the culture here. Another thing I love about Japan are the vending machines. In the vending machines there is a blue row and there is a red row. Blue is for cold drinks and red is for hot...you can buy hot coffee in a can straight out of the vending machine! Ed's favorite is the Cafe Au Lait and mine is the Aloe White Grape juice with real chunks of grape!

We've noticed some of the wildlife in the area. There are crows on base that look very similar to crows back home except that they have very thick beaks. They are called Jungle Crows. There are also falcons called black kites (the Japanese call them tobis) everywhere. We have read to be careful of them because they have been fed so much by humans that they often dive toward your head.

We have had the chance to go out into town a few times. We ate dinner at a Ramen place on night and ordered by pointing at pictures on the menu. We have learned arigato (thank you) and a little bit of counting. Its tough because its not like you can sound things out and at least read it...we have no idea how to pronounce the Japanese characters! We have three train stations nearby and have discovered that they are easy to use. There is a button for English at the ticket machine and the names of the stops are also written in English letters. So as long as you know what stop you are trying to get to its fairly straightforward. We went to an oriental furniture bazaar the other day and bought a solid wood desk and home bar for what we think was a great price! We visited Kamakura and saw the Great Buddha there. It is the second largest Buddha sculpture in Japan and was cast in 1252. The body of the sculpture has survived a tidal wave and an earthquake which destroyed its base, but the base now has shock absorbers to prevent that from happening again. You can see in the picture below that the Great Buddha also has Great Slippers. :-)

While we were out we also had some tasty snacks. Soy sauce appears to be the main ingredient for street vendors. We had some sort of fried dough balls on a stick covered with soy sauce (see the stand behind me in the picture) and rice cakes dunked in soy sauce and then warmed up. The rice cakes were very good and are served with a seaweed wrap...neither of us ate the seaweed but perhaps I will try that next time. We haven't had any sushi yet, but our household goods are being delivered on Monday and I will be getting my sushi making kit so we'll give it a try!