Back to Beppu

A week or so after my first trip to Beppu, I went back. Why? Mostly, because of these lovely ladies:

They wanted to go, and I wanted to hang out with them. Plus there was the Safari Park that I hadn't seen yet. So the three of them, plus Ela and I rented a van and headed out. It was a Japanese Holiday, so things were super crowded, but we had a good time at the aquarium again, and we visited a few of the hells as well. That's where we met this guy, who apparently only comes out on special occasions.

We spent the night at a lovely hotel, and then stopped at the Safari Park on the way home. At this zoo, the animals run free and the humans are in cages. They split the park into various areas so that they don't eat each other, and people can either take a bus or drive through and look at them all.

We were planning to take the bus, but they were all sold out, so we took our rental van through. It was quite fun to see all the animals walking around free (and being fed by the people in the buses). It was also a little scary because of all the warnings to not open any doors or windows (after all, the lions are wild).

So it was a fun little trip. Things are getting super busy here. More to come later...

To Hells and Back

In a few months, Zack and I will be moving back to the States, and I still have a few places on my "to see" list. In an effort to see some of those places, I signed up for a trip to Beppu with MWR for last weekend. It was my first trip with Ela, and as such, it was super ambitious. The bus left at 6:45 in the morning and didn't get back until 9:45 according to the schedule. It probably would have been smarter to start with something shorter, but this was the only Beppu trip before we leave, and I knew I wouldn't do it alone, so I packed double what I really thought I would need in the diaper bag and figured we'd survive.

Ela did really really really well. As if she knew exactly what she should do, she slept the full 3 hour ride from Sasebo to Beppu. When we arrived there, she woke up and was ready to smile and charm everyone on the tour. Our first stop was the Umitamago Aquarium. Umi means Ocean. Tamago means Egg. This aquarium is much bigger than the one in Sasebo and was very nice, too. We arrived just on time to catch a show featuring a walrus doing some tricks including "conversing" with it's trainer, rolling over, balancing treats on its nose, and so on. It was quite cute. Then we wandered through the various regions, checking out fish of all shapes and sizes, as well as the dolphins, seals, and otters featured.

When we were done checking out the aquarium, I had a nice Japanese lunch at the food court there. Ela had some lunch, too. Mostly she had milk, but she also indulged in a little bit of rice from my meal. She tried to talk me into giving her some of the other things on the plate, but to no avail...

Next on the agenda was Monkey Mountain. This is a mountain near the town where 1200-1600 wild monkies live. They apparently were taking over the town before they were enclosed on this mountain, and now they make a lovely tourist attraction. The experience was a strange combination of adorable and unnerving. There were guards standing at the gates checking to make sure that no one had any plastic bags or bottles out (the monkies think there's food in there and will steal them). They advise against opening any backpacks, either, while you're on the mountain, and also tell tourists not to make eye contact with the monkies, as this is a sign of aggression. I intended to make Ela wear her sunglasses, just to be on the safe side, but she has learned to take them off, so that didn't work. Rather than walking up a steep path carrying a 20lb baby, I took a monorail train to the top, where I was greeted by lots and lots of monkies.

We had a look at them all, then took the train back down to the bottom again. Ela was completely uninterested in the monkies, but a nice couple from our tour were happy to make faces at her, and that was enough to keep her happy for this portion of the tour.

Next on the agenda was a whirlwind tour of the various hotsprings in the Beppu area. Those springs are called "hells" in Japanese, hence the title of this post. Each one had some gimmic, invented or natural, to encourage tourists to come see it. We visited eight. First up was the "blood hell" which is naturally red.

Then the "spout hell," which is a gyser that goes off every 45-60 minutes for 6-10 minutes at a time.

After that we saw the "ocean hell" which is a lovely shade of blue. Then there was "mountain hell", so named for the mountain of silt that had formed around it, "monk hell" named for the bubbles in it that look like the bald top of a buddist monk's head, and "oven hell" which has mud build up that looks like little old-fashioned Japanese clay ovens. One of the hells had several exotic animals living near it (presumably to display the heat) and another was it's own little crocodile farm (using the hot water from the spring to keep them warm). At several you could buy hard-boiled eggs, sweet potatoes, or corn that had been cooked in the steam from the springs.


Others had foot spas where you could soak your feet in water that originated in the springs but had been cooled down to a better temperature.

We had a lot of fun walking from spring to spring, chatting with people (I'm a little starved for adult interaction, apparently) and enjoying the various sights, but Ela was hot, tired and hungry by the time we got back on the bus and just about ready to throw a tantrum. She ate immediately, then slept until about half an hour before we were scheduled for dinner, at which point she blew out a diaper in her car seat and began to fuss about having to sit in it. Luckily the Japanese are a bit lax on the car seat laws, and we were actually 10 minutes from dinner, running a bit early. So I cleaned her up a bit to calm her down, then pulled her out of the seat to keep her from driving anyone nuts with crying. At dinner, I changed her and cleaned out the seat, then got some things from a bakery to eat in the bus. The rest of the ride home was uneventful.

So the trip was a great success, and I'm planning to sign up for a few more before we leave Japan. This also is good considering the looooong trip home we'll have in a few months. A little practice is just what we need.

The Aquarium

Recently, at a friend's house, Ela discovered guppies. She watched them as if she had never seen anything more interesting. I promptly decided a trip to an aquarium was important. Lucky for me, they've just renovated the aquarium in Sasebo, and it reopened last week. So a couple of us went to check it out. For a small town aquarium, it had a lot of neat stuff, like this turtle, which was bigger than Ela:

Ela was fasicnated by all the fish...

They even had 3 dolphins (two bottle nose, one other type), and they do shows every so often. This dolphin was doing a flip in mid-air.

And, since jellyfish are pretty common in the waters around Sasebo, they had a whole room devoted to jellyfish.

We had a great time, and I was delighted to discover that a year pass costs a little more than two trips, so I'll be getting a year pass next time we need something to do with our afternoon...

Golden Week Begins

Golden Week is a week of holidays in Japan, starting on April 29th. For the average Japanese person, it means a whole week of vacation. For the average American in Sasebo, it means lots of pottery sales. I've blogged before about the insane pottery sales in the area and how overwhelming all that pottery can be. This year, my dad was here to witness the insanity. So yesterday, armed with a stroller, diapers, wipes, and all the usual baby stuff, we set out to find some good deals on pretty things:

We walked through Arita for between four and five hours and didn't find the end of the shops, nor did we really pick through most of them. My find for the day was a cute fountain. The kind salesman went into great detail about how to put it together when I got home...

... of course he was speaking Japanese so... we'll see how that goes..

We worked out that we went about 3 and a half kilometers by the time our walk was done. Dad described it as Disney World of Pottery. I think that might catch the feeling of the thing. Ela was not in the best mood, but she did pretty good. I think she got tired of being in the carseat. So at the end, we put our purchases (which were many) in the stroller and I carried her. She liked this a lot better...

The Japanese people, who had been trying to see her in the stroller all day, liked it better, too. One of the salemen chatted with us and a few Japanese girls about her. He said she looked older than 2 months (his first guess was four months), and that she looked like her grandpa (which made us laugh).
When we got home, Ela worked off some steam by learning to roll over! She went from her tummy to her back... twice! Granted, she was on a chair so she had a little bit of incline to help her out, and she was not successful in repeating the achievement this morning, but she has the basic idea now, and I'm sure it's only a matter of time... Little girl is going to be mobile before we know it!

Hanami with ILC

The cherry blossoms are here again! They always kind of sneak up on me, like one minute the trees are all wintery and brown, then the next the whole world is full of blossoms flying around. That's what happened the last week or so. It's enough to make anyone want to spend some time outside, even if it's not really super warm yet.
To celebrate, ILC took us to Omura to a park to see the blossoms. Ela decided that eating was more important than walking in the cherry trees, but we did manage to see a little bit:


And of course, the Japanese ladies wanted to get in on the picture action:

Then we went to a very nice hotel for a very nice lunch. Another reason I love Japan: the staff there found out there were two infants (Ela and a 6 month old) in the group, and produced a crib for each of them:

So a good time was had by all, and in a few weeks, we get to do it again with OSC. In the mean time, I see a good bit of walking in our future...

January OSC

This month, OSC planned to meet to see some Chinese acrobats at Hosch Ten Bosch (which I'm almost certainly misspelling). Hosch Ten Bosch is the Dutch Village Amusement Park located near here. For a (not so) small fee, you can go in and walk around in the village, feeling very much like you've left Japan and gone to Europe. Inside, you can pay extra to do things like ride a boat through the canals, see museums related to all things Dutch, or see special shows, like the acrobats we went to see. They also have restaurants serving every type of food you might desire and shops selling mostly foreign stuff, like very expensive cheese (cheese is a rare commodity in Japan). Here's what the place looks like on the inside:


So why would anyone build such a place? Well, two reasons: 1) from the Japanese perspective, it's exotic. While we Americans may not especially want to see a European Village in the middle of Japan, they love the place and go often to get away from "boring old Japanese stuff". 2) The Dutch had a major influence in this area. When the Japanese government went isolationist and closed every port except Nagasaki, they allowed the Dutch to come into Nagasaki's port to do business, no one else. (Apparently the Dutch were considered the least likely to try to convert anyone religiously, making them the most desirable business partners.) So actually, there are little Dutch-related things all over Kyushu island. Most are historical buildings like old warehouses, this one just happens to be a replication of some of the more interesting buildings from that area.
Anyway, we had lunch at a nice little Italian restaurant in the area, took the boat around the canals, and saw the Chinese acrobats. Unfortunately, no flash photograph was allowed in the actual show, so most of my pictures came out blurry, but here are two of the acts we saw:


I know that second one is hard to see, but each girl in that tower was laying on her her chin and chest with her legs bent up and around backwards so her feet would touch her shoulders... on top of another girl doing the same thing. My back is sore just thinking about it!

It was quite a nice event, and I'm glad I got the chance to see another set of acrobats (I've seen them in Beijing and Nagasaki before). It was also good to see what the whole Hosch Ten Bosch thing was all about. I can't say that I'll be investing in a year long pass any time soon, but it was good to check out.

Back to normal...

So life has returned, more or less, to normal (whatever that is). However, there are a few cute pictures to share. These are from my most recent trip to the biopark, also known as "the visit where we discovered that all monkies are dirty little thieves:

There's a baby kangarooin that pouch.


For the record: there was nothing in that cup. Some other tourists gave it to us because the monkies really are curious about what (edible) might be in there. They also were curious about the contents of Alisa's purse, and abducted some tissues to investigate. When the monkey found that the tissues were not food, he proceeded to drop them on us one at a time (tasting each one first, just in case) from the safety of a very tall tree.

So there ends the traveling pictures for this visit. But stay tuned: OSC (Officer's Spoused Club) and ILC (International Ladies Club) start back up next month, and there is definetely a visit to a limestone cave in the plans. (I'm OSC vice president now, which means I know where we're going much earlier in advance.)
Back in the real world, I've been working hard lately on a rather unpleasant assignment for my first ESL course for grad school. It's a timeline of policies relating to educating English Language Learners, or more accurately, two timelines that say more or less the same thing. It involves reading the chapter and then typing the whole thing into a chart the teacher provided, then looking online endlessly for more policies that may not have been mentioned in the book. I can see how knowing some educational policy is good, but this is a bit crazy. Luckily, it's also finished now. I'm worried about it though, because my grade in the class is not as high right now as I'd like it to be. I've been experiencing a strange lack of motivation... can't imagine why...
It's August, so it's HOT HOT HOT. Zack think's it's dryer than it was last year too (water shortages here we come). So I spend a lot of time just hiding in whichever room happens to be air conditioned. The base has been posting "black flag" warnings every single day. Black flag means no outside PT allowed because it's too hot. I don't think it's gotten over 100 yet, but it really is pretty miserable out there. The heat doesn't really seem to phase the Japanese people, who simply put on hats and use parasols and procede to throw all kinds of lovely festivals in August.
Dory especially hates August because August is the month of fireworks and thunderstorms in this country, and she hates the big booms. There were fireworks shows on the second and third, during the annual Sasebo seaside festival (I went last year and it was a lot like a fair in the states minus the rides, so I skipped it this year.) Then there have been a few thunder storms (more thunder than rain), so she's acquired a fear of going outside, and only will go to the park with extreme coaxing. When we get there, she does what she has to do and runs home as if she's certain something terrible is lurking on the other side of the grass. This suits me just fine at the moment because, as I may have mentioned, it really freaking HOT, so I don't want to be outside anyway.
I have invested (finally) in a parasol. I used to scoff at the idea that a flimsy piece of fabric could keep a person cooler. Then I went to China and got heat sick three days in a row. On the fourth day I used an umbrella and still felt super hot, but didn't end up sick, so that convinced me. Now I take my parasol with me even when I'm just going to the park (which is about the only place I go outside lately). One time I went down without it, and a little old lady in the park commented on the heat, then motioned at her head (she had a parasol) and looked worried for me, indicating that it was far to hot to go anywhere with out at least a hat. I was amused. I'm more diligent about the parasol now.
Other than being hot all the time, though, I'm really feeling pretty good. I just can't eat the way I would choose to. The baby is mostly vegetarian. I can eat the occasional meat if it's cleverly hidden in something like a lasagna or Mexican food (the baby loves anything Mexican, just like Zack). But mostly I'm eating carrots, watermelon, and crackers. Cereal is good too, and milk products are okay. Full meals, however, are a no go, and forget cooking, too. Poor Zack hasn't had a decent meal at home for like a month now. I don't know if I feel more sorry for him for the lack of good food or for me since I really do like to cook and it's just not happening now.
Zack, however, has turned into super husband. He's always been great around the house, but he's gone into overdrive lately. This weekend he swept all the floors, did the dishes, did all the laundry, and organized the desk while I worked on school work from the safety of the airconditioning and told him how nice he was repeatedly. Any time he came by, he'd grab my glass of water and refill it. It was really really sweet. He's also learned to cook steak that he assures me is delicious. So that's good.
The biggest challenge digestively so far (other than the fish market) was last night. I taught an 8:00 to 9:00 class, and last week I had told them that my birthday is coming up. One of my bosses, Mike, also has a birthday this week, so one of my students announced that she was going to make a pizza and bring it to class to celebrate. I had intended to not eat much before hand, but I forgot all about it until I arrived at class and Mike reminded me. I was not feeling especially super anyway, but I was determined to eat it, since she was making it by hand, and I just hoped that it was 1) small, so I'd only have to eat a small piece and 2) relatively topping-free. No such luck. The pizza was a 12 x 9 inch (or so) masterpiece with homemade crust topped with corn, onion, mushroom, shrimp, ham, and bacon as well as the usual cheese and sauce. We split it four ways, giving me a rather large piece to pick at. Mike knows I'm pregnant, but I'm holding off on telling my students. Luckily, this girl was very kind and told me that if I didn't like any toppings I should just pick them off, so I did a good bit of "picking off" toppings and ate mostly crust. (The crust was excellent.) I managed to keep it down and teach a lesson, then I came home, drank some ginger ale (my new favorite cure for most tummy issues), watched Zack work for awhile and crashed into bed feeling pretty icky. It was very frustrating.
Other than those occasional frustrations, though, things really are going quite well. We made our first baby purchase about two weeks ago: a crib. We were seriously considering not getting one until our next move, but several expert Moms said we would regret it, and this one was five bucks at the thrift shop on base, so we figure we can use it here then redonate it if we don't especially like it. Also, one of my friends here told me she has the exact same crib and it's excellent. She also volunteered to help us put it together and/or help me check to make sure there weren't any loose screws or anything before we actually put a child in it. She's very nice like that. So it's sitting, dismantled, in our spare room. Zack is talking about putting it together the next time he's home on a weekend.
So we're plugging along. Upcoming events you might see a post about include (but are not limited to) Obon this week, a doctor's appointment and an OSC meeting the week after that.

Nikko

After the fish market and breakfast, we headed off to Nikko, which is a national park just north of Tokyo. Upon arriving, we stopped take in the view of this lovely lake:


It's apparently very deep, and flowing from one end is the lovely water fall (I'm sorry, I've forgotten all the names for these places):


Among the many inhabitants of Nikko are these monkeys (who all seemed to be wearing what we decided must be tracking devices):


Don't be fooled by their adorable appearance: this was a very bad monkey. Upon discovering that a bunch of tourists were interested in her, she jumped the fence and headed towards us. Laurie, our very brave leader from the States, was undaunted and commented on how friendly they were as the monkey carelessly approached. Then it snatched the plastic bad Laurie was carrying and made a break for it! As the monkey was climbing the fence back to safety, the bag broke and Laurie tried to recover the contents of it (a music box), but the monkey noticed and became downright violent. It rushed back down the fence and hissed at Lori before snatching the music box and heading off! Presumably, the monkey associated plastic bags with food, and was highly disappointed when the contents of this one were not edible, but then again, she looked like she could be nursing, so may be she was looking for a good lulaby for her kids. :-)

Apparently the monkeys are rather notorious theives in this area (which is especially odd because humans don't really exhibit this behavior in Japan). One storekeeper, according to the students, kept a gun (presumably a bb gun since any other kind would be illegal) in her candy shop, loaded and on the counter, in case a monkey came along. Anyway, the whole episode was pretty funny when it was all over.

Next stop in Nikko was a shrine created in honor of Tokugawa, the first shogun of Japan. This name has actually become very familiar to me because he is a super important guy in Japanese history. Here's the summed up version (don't try to pass a history test with it): In the time when samaurai ruled their own little mini-kingdoms within Japan, Tokugawa successfully beat all the other samaurai into submission and became the ruler of all of Japan. When he did, he moved the capital to Edo (now Tokyo). Apparently, though, he was very particular about how he should be buried after death. For one year, he wanted to be buried in his home prefecture (I can't remember where that is), and then he wanted to be moved to Nikko because from there he felt he could protect Tokyo from any dangers that might threaten it from the North. So now he's buried in this shrine in Nikko.

The shrine also has several other features worth noticing. One is this stone, which a weather predicting stone. The two colors of the stone are more distinct when it's about to rain and less distinct when it's sunny. Incidentally, it had just started to rain about the time I took this picture. You can decide for yourself if the stone is accurate.

This shrine is also home to several carvings by someone famous. One is a carving that has become famous all over the world. I'm sure you'll recognize it, even if you've never seen the original form:

It's actually one in a series of carvings that are meant as advice to parents about how to raise good children. This one advises parents not to allow their kids to see, hear or speak evil, obviously. The other carving of interest was this one, which shows the artist's idea of what an elephant might look like having never seen one himself. He had read about them and was facinated, so he created this image as guesswork. I've seen similar things in other countries (where artists imagine what something might look like) and I always find them interesting. This one's really quite good.

There was also a room with a dragon painted on the ceiling and when certain sounds echo in it, it's supposed to sound like the dragon roaring. The Americans were not impressed, but we were there with a group of Japanese school kids who thought the effect was really cool. We figure we just didn't know what a dragon's roar was supposed to sound like. To us, it sounded more like a very angry cricket.

And finally, there was Tokugawa's tomb:

This was placed at the top of a TON of stairs. So many stairs that you look up them and wonder, "Is this guy really so important that I want to climb all these stairs to see where they buried him?" So many stairs that it is necessary to take breaks on the way up unless you are at the peak of fitness (or Japanese). So many stairs that you give up the idea of every climbing Mount Fuji because it's just too hard! Here are the stairs:

Or at least some of them. There's a turn above and below this with about the same number of stairs again. It was quite a haul.

By this time we were all pretty toured out. Luckily, the tour was over! The group left the next day for the US and after a day of tooling around the city, Alisa, Amanda and I took the bullet train back to Sasebo. I promised them a whole week without any shrines or temples or castles, and everyone was happy.

One Fish Two Fish...

So at 5 am the morning after Asakusa, we were on our way to the subway to go see the fish market. (Note: If you are pregnant and plan to go to a fish market first thing in the morning, expect to feel sick for the rest of the day.) We wandered through this giant area that looked something like this:




... and finally came to some stalls that had interesting sea creatures in them...

But of course, the primary site of interest was the tuna auctions going on in the back. These guys were up for sale to the highest bidder:

The whole place was bustling with people selling, cutting, and transporting fish. I felt kind of bad for them trying to hurry about their business with all of us tourists meandering through, but I suppose they're used to it. Anyway, we had a nice look around then retreated home for breakfast... I'd also like to give special thanks to my personal photographer for the morning:

He left that afternoon to go back to his normal job, but we had a nice visit for a couple days there. The rest of us had a relaxed breakfast before setting off for Nikko.