3 Days in Tokyo!

During our visit with Melissa's dad, Steve, we went to Tokyo for 3 days. We weren't sure what to expect, but once we got there, we were positively surprised! First of all, Tokyo is amazingly clean. We would walk for blocks and blocks and never see any trash on the ground! Also, the people were all very friendly and well-dressed. We were also surprised with how few taxis were around, especially compared to the streets in New York City.

Tokyo is obviously HUGE. The metro Tokyo area is the largest in the world with just over 33 million people and metro New York coming in second with about 18 million people.

Getting There- The Bullet Train
We traveled from Gifu City to Nagoya by local train, and then took the bullet train, known as the Shinkonsen, to Tokyo. To drive would have taken over 8 hours, but it only took 2 hours on the bullet train. Speed comes with a hefty price tag though...$200 per person round trip.

While on the bullet train, we passed the tallest mountain in Japan, Mount Fuji. In the picture below, you can see the snow-capped peak above the clouds.

Day 1- Ginza and Shibuya Districts

After checking into our hotel, we decided to explore some of Tokyo on our own using the local trains and subways. The train stations were EXTREMELY crowded and hardly any signs were in English, but once we figured out how the system worked, we managed okay! We began by going to the Ginza district. This is a very upscale district in Tokyo with many designer stores and nice restaurants.

We first walked around the Sony building, which had about 6 floors of new electronics on display. We had fun looking and playing with all the new technology. We then spent an hour just walking down the streets and going into shops.

As nighttime approached, we decided to take the subway to the Shibuya and Shinjuku districts, which are known for neon lights, crowded streets, discount shops, and arcades. We loved walking around here, especially since this is what we imagined Tokyo to be like! Below is a video of a huge intersection in the Shibuya district.

Day 2- Tokyo Disney Sea

Our second day in Tokyo was spent at Disney! There are 2 parks in Tokyo: Disney Land and Disney Sea. We decided to go to Disney Sea since we don't have this park in America. We began the day by standing in line for an hour just to buy our tickets to get in... we weren't the only ones with the idea of going to Disney for Spring Break! We ended up having a great time and went on some really fun rides!

Disney Sea is only 5 years old and is really beautiful. It is located near the Sea of Japan and has hotels, gift shops, and restaurants throughout the park that resemble Europe.

After a long and fun day at Disney, Frank was able to catch up on some sleep on the train ride back to our hotel.

Day 3-Full day Tokyo Tour
On our last day, we went on a 10 hour tour of Tokyo. It began by picking us up from our hotel at 7:30am. We then went to the Tokyo Tower where we were able to have a look of the city from the observation platform.

We had a nice view of a temple surrounded by cherry blossom trees.

Next, we went to the Meiji Shrine. It was nice to get away from the big city for a while and enjoy the peacefulness of the shrine.

Our tour then took us to the Imperial Palace, which is home to the Emperor and Empress.

We weren't able to go inside the palace, but we had a nice time walking around the grounds.

After lunch, we went on a 45 minute boat ride on the Sumida River. The cherry blossoms were beautiful along the river!

The boat ride ended in the Asakusa District, where we then walked to the Asakusa Kannon Temple. This temple, unlike the first one we went to on the tour, was in the heart of the city and really crowded. This was one of the highlights of the tour!

Outside of the shrine, we were shocked to see a group of Geisha walking down the street, as well as a group of monks standing around talking!

Cherry Blossoms in Ueno Park

We ended our trip to Tokyo with a visit to Ueno Park to see the thousands of cherry blossom trees in bloom. Before we moved to Japan, we had read that Japanese people LOVE the blooming of the cherry blossoms in April and really celebrate it. Once we arrived at the park, we not only saw thousands of trees, but we also saw thousands of people! Everyone was walking around and having picnics under the trees while eating and drinking sake. This was definitely something we will never forget!

Melissa's Dad Visits Japan!

Being away from home for 7 months now, we were definitely ready to have our first visitor! Melissa's dad, Steve, arrived on March 25 and was here for a week. This was especially an exciting trip because this was his first time traveling outside of America. We were really impressed with how easily he adapted to a completely different culture... using chopsticks, bowing, sitting and sleeping on the floor, and most of all, not being able to speak the language!

The first day was beautiful outside, so we took a bike ride to Gifu Park, which is a really pretty park about 10 minutes away from our apartment. We walked around the park for a while, then traveled up Kinka Mountain on a cable car to see Gifu Castle and a view of the city.

On the top of the mountain, we also went to a squirrel park. The squirrels were adorable and apparently very hungry. We each wore a glove and each time we put food in our hand, it was only seconds before a squirrel would hop on to have a snack! Below is a video of Daddy feeding the squirrels.

The next day we rented a car and drove to a large mall about 30 minutes away from our apartment. Melissa's dad was very surprised how similar it looked to the malls in America. All the signs were in English and there was a McDonald's, Starbucks, and Baskin Robins. We also found a great music store that had some high-tech pianos he was interested in. The pianos had computer screens that allowed you to download sheet music from your computer.

The next three days we spent in Tokyo! See the next blog about our trip.

After returning from Tokyo, we spent the next couple days exploring more of Gifu. We rode our bikes around some neighborhoods. Below is a picture of what a Japanese house looks like. It is usually 3 stories and quite large, but usually 3 generations live together in the same house.

Melissa's dad was very surprised how close most of the houses are together! Sometimes there is literally a 4-5 inch space between homes.

On the last day of his visit, Melissa's dad got to meet some of our Japanese friends and students! Every Sunday, Melissa has a private English lesson with four children at our apartment. The children and their mothers were all very excited to meet him and came bearing gifts...homemade banana cake and 2 bottles of Japanese Sake! After the lesson, we took pictures and played with the kids! Everyone enjoyed this very much!

Our week came to an end on April 2. It was very hard to say goodbye, but we're thankful we got to have such a great time together! We love and miss you Daddy!

Calligraphy Lesson

Last weekend we were invited to a couple's house for lunch and a calligraphy lesson. The husband is a calligraphy teacher and offered to give us a lesson using traditional Japanese ink and brushes. It turned out to be very fun and interesting.

First we had to choose what characters we wanted to learn....we decided on love, beautiful, laugh, and travel.

Frank decided to master "love." The teacher kept making us write the same character over and over until he felt we mastered it to the best of our ability.

Melissa chose to learn to write "beautiful." During the beginning of the lesson, she kept doing touch ups after each stroke...which are apparently a big no-no! The amount of brush strokes are very important when writing Japanese calligraphy and there is an order of which lines you write first. Luckily the teacher had a sense of humor and thought it was cute!

Here are our finished pieces which our teacher later matted in a book for us to keep!

Japanese Cooking Lesson

Yesterday, our Japanese teacher Mami took us to a local community center for a Japanese cooking lesson. There were many other foreigners there, mostly Middle Easterners. Even though we were the only Americans, it was still really fun talking to other foreigners. We met a really funny woman from Romania that has lived in Japan for 4 years. She's the one on the left in the picture below. The picture on the right is of some women preparing the rice for the sushi rolls we made. It was very interesting listening to women from all different countries speaking Japanese.

We learned how to make sushi rolls and tempura. Here are some pictures of us making the sushi. First, we put a dried seaweed sheet on a bamboo mat. Then we added white rice over 2/3's of it. We then put cucumber, cooked mushrooms, egg, and crab on top of the rice. After it was all on top, we used the bamboo mat to roll it and it was ready to eat. It tasted delicious!

To make the tempura, we first washed and cut all the vegetables. Next we made a batter with egg, salt, and soy sauce. After dipping the veggies in the batter, we put them in a pan full of grease and fried them until they were nice and crispy. Before eating them, we had to shred a Japanese radish in order to make a dip for the tempura. They said that the tempura is really fattening, but the radish is very healthy, so eating the two together kind of evens things out! No wonder they're all so tiny!

Here we are about to enjoy our feast!

Our Trip to Nagano!

In February, we went on a 3 day trip with Matt and Chelsea to Nagano, where the 1998 Winter Olympics were held. We rented a Mazda here in Gifu City and drove 3 1/2 hours north to Nagano. The car was great because it had a navigation system that was really helpful! Although it only spoke in Japanese, we were still able to follow the arrows on the screen.

Zenkoji Temple

Nagano is such a nice quaint city! We stayed at the Holiday Inn Express that was really close to the main area of the city that had streets filled with small stores selling Japanese pottery, paper umbrellas, snacks, etc. We bought a lot of great souvenirs here, including Frank's favorite, a traditional Japanese sword! After shopping, we went to the Zenkoji Temple. It was very crowded because it was the first night of the Lantern Festival, which honors the Nagano Olympics by lighting-up the temple with the five Olympic colors.

Snowboarding

On our second day we went snowboarding! We drove about 30 minutes into the mountains while it was snowing.

Snowboarding was really fun, but a little more challenging than we thought. We spent more time on our butts than standing up! The weather was great. It snowed some of the time but was always sunny.

Snow Monkeys
The main reason we visited Nagano was to see the snow monkeys. So on our third day, we drove an hour from Nagano to Yudinaka. We began by taking a 30 minute walk into the woods to a monkey park where the monkeys run wild and bathe in the hot springs. There were monkeys everywhere!

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