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!

The rest of the farewell voyage!

We finished our time in the States by traveling about 3000 miles by car and taking a flight out to St. Louis to visit our families. We started out in NY to see Ed's parents, Alanna, AJ, and the kids for a few days. Cameron and Hannah have grown even more and we had a great time visiting with everyone. This first trip to NY was short because we wrapped up our voyage again in NY.

Our next stop was WV and we stopped to visit Molly and Fred for a night on our way down to Huntington. Unfortunately, it was a short stop and we had to head out after Molly made us breakfast and gave us a quick tour of Morgantown. We spent a few days in Huntington, visiting the State Capitol building and going to a Marshall game while we were there.

While in Huntington, we decided that since we were only three hours away, we would make the trip down to Blacksburg and meet up with Matt and Rachel for the VT homecoming football game. We arrived a couple of hours before gametime, bought tickets from some guy on Price's Fork Road, drank some Miller Lite (gross!) at Matt's tailgate, then headed to our seats. We are old now and decided to get seats in the West stands where we would be able to sit down marking our first game with seats outside of the student section! Go Hokies!

We drove back to Richmond with Matt and Rachel and stayed at their apartment for a night before heading back to RI for Ed's 6 week post-op appendectomy appointment. Their apartment is awesome, right down in Shockoe Bottom with an excellent view of downtown Richmond. We spent a couple nights in RI before heading to St. Louis for the arrival of baby Alex! He was born at 11:05am on Oct. 10 and weighed 7lb, 11 oz. (a lightweight compared to me!). While we were in St. Louis Ed and I visited the Arch, went to a Mizzou game, and spent lots of time with Megan and Sparky (Scott's nickname for Sparkles the dog). We also got a chance to have a brief visit with Becky, Barb, and little William (Barb will get mad if I call him Willy...hehe).

After St. Louis, it was back to NY to drop Ed's car off, pick up Hokie, and have his parents drive us back to RI for our flight to Tokyo. It was an adventure but we made it to Japan with no issues. It was daylight for the entire plane ride and we had some nice views of the mountians over Alaska. There ends the voyage and next time we will let you know how we are settling in!

Beginning the farewell voyage!

All the work is complete on the house except for the kitchen countertops which should be done in the next couple of weeks. After 4 truckloads of trash and old boxes went to the dump and then 3 sets of movers had taken all the rest of our stuff we were finally all ready to hit the road for NY. The contractor finished all the painted and helped get the transition pieces down for the kitchen floor. Here are some pics of the work that was done. Most of it was painting and staining the new windows which took forever and I'm glad I didn't have to do it! But for the most part, Ed and I did the kitchen floor ourselves and I think it turned out pretty well.

The Nissan was packed to the brim with all of our luggage on the way to NY. We have everything we still have in our possession in the car, including the cat! Hokie is having fun playing with the bird at Ed's parents house which is good cause she'll be stuck here while we make the trip down to WV. Finally I'll be away from New England with their pizzer and soder (pizza and soda) and back to a place where I can say "ya'll" and call soda "pop"!

So we'll be in NY until Monday and then start for Huntington. We'll be in Huntington for the Marshall game on Oct. 3. Hopefully they will beat WVU this weekend so we can strut our stuff in our Marshall gear!

Trying to Get Outta RI

We are nearing the end of our time in Westerly, RI and trying to get the house rented. We have it listed on a military by owner website and it looks like we are getting a lot of hits, but no interest so far. The base housing people are coming on Oct. 2 to take some pictures and get it listed on their website and we are hoping to have much more luck that way. The neighbor's son is going to do the property management and we really like and trust them so that is a relief. This house had been in their family for over 50 years before it was sold outside of the family so it has sentimental value to them and I know they will take care of things well. Check out the house pics.

The first set of movers are coming tomorrow morning to take our "essentials". Basically they will take most of our kitchen items and any clothes that we aren't packing and bringing with us while we travel. The other two sets of movers come on Monday and Tuesday and then we will be off to NY to start our farewell voyage. We're going to see the Red Sox at Fenway on Monday night. We decided to wear our matching green Guiness shirts so that we fit in but are not actually rooting for the Red Sux.

We have plane tickets for Oct. 18. We are flying United and our friend Jim's wife works for United so they are going to try to hook us up with some good service on the flights! That should make Ed happy since he won't be able to ride first class. United will only allow Hokie to ride with us in coach and of course, she is the boss. That will be a miserable trip with her stuffed under the seat in front of us...I feel sorry for the people seated around us!

The contractor who is doing the finishing touches on the house is coming by in a few to work, so thats all for now. Check back for pics of our farewell voyage!