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...

Ela Goes to the Fair

The base hosted a "county fair" for us a few weekends ago and Ela and I made a quick visit to check it out. I was glad I went because I ran into two of my former students checking it out, too, and they are so darn cute!

They had a good bit of fair food (we decided against eating fried twinkies, but had a coke float), and some Native American stuff. So here's Ela in front of the tee pee...

And here's one of the traditional dancers who performed.

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 New Toy

Ela is getting too big for her swing, but that doesn't mean she can't play with it any more...

Our Last Obon in Japan

I woke up on my birthday and was allowed to take a shower without worrying about how long I had until the baby was going to start crying, which is always a nice feeling. When I finished getting dressed, I was greeted by this:

Zack got me a few DVD's as a birthday present and decided a baby is better than a bow. :-)
That evening, our plan was to go out and see the Obon festivities, so we chilled inside for most of the day, saving up our energy to be out in the heat at night. Obon is a really beautiful lantern festival in honor of the ancestors. Trouble is, it's really hard to get good pictures of something like that. On our way to dinner, however, we came across a float in daylight, and I got this picture:

People parade these all over town all evening, especially after dark, setting off firecrackers around them. They are meant to attract the attention of the spirits and help them find their way, I think...
After dinner, we walked back through the park to see all the lanterns lit up. Zack did a walking video tour, I was in charge of still pictures:

Then we turned off the video so I could have my birthday snocone. :-)

Elly found this all very interesting until the people set of a firecracker too close to her stroller. Then we hurried it home and she was off to bed. It was a good birthday.

Games

My cousin got me a really cute calendar that I'm supposed to use to record the important events in the baby's life as they come along. It's nice because it requires very little effort, so I can fill it out in odd moments when Ela is actually happy on her own. At first, I kind of laughed at the section each month titled "Games/toys I like..." (I being the baby in this case.) A one month old, as it turns out, doesn't really get into toys or games. At least Ela didn't. But 5 month old Ela has come up with a few that are worth sharing.
Right now, Ela is really into touching everything. Some things go straight to the mouth, but others are just fun to run her fingers across, apparently. For example, she likes to grab at the curtains as we walk past them in the hall. She also thinks it's really fun to help me close the sliding doors when we enter or leave an airconditioned room.
On the list of really exciting things to touch is Dory. Thankfully, she hasn't yet tried to put any part of Dory in her mouth. Part of our daily routine now is some time spent sitting on the floor with the dog. Ela sits on my knee or between my legs (she can more or less sit on her own now!) and generally Dory is kind enough to come to us. If she's in a good mood, she gets close enough that Ela can reach out and touch her, which causes Ela to giggle with delight, leading Dory to kiss her face, which is Dory's way of showing similar joy. My job is to make sure that in the ensuing love-fest, no one gets scratched and Dory's tongue stays out of Ela's mouth. This requires both hands, so I haven't been able to get any pictures of them interacting.
On Dory's less cooperative days, she wants to play tug of war and all Ela gets to touch is the dog toy we're tugging on, which she inevitably wants to eat, so those days go slightly less well. But it's always cute to watch.
The other game we play is less a game and more an attempt to feed Ela. She has come to the conclusion that she should be allowed to feed herself. I've tried giving her an empty spoon (or two) to play with during meals, but she really wants to play with the one that has food on it. So now I feed her using a multi-spoon method. Step 1: Fill spoon A. Step 2: Hold it where Ela can see so she'll oper her mouth. Step 3: put in her mouth FAST before her hand closes on the part with the food on it. Step 4: Let her grab the spoon and take control. Step 5: Fill spoon B. Ela will drop spoon A as soon as she sees spoon B coming, so it's sort of like juggling getting the food to her mouth without letting the other spoon hit the floor. But it's also entertainment.

The end of this week is Obon, so I should have some fun pictures to post next week.

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...