Tag Archives: family travel

The Kanazawa Files

Kanazawa is a small city on the west coast of Japan. It was spared from bombing in WWII and its architecture remains intact. Small, captivating canals meander through the walkable city. After navigating Tokyo and Kyoto, it was nice to be in a small, manageable city.

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Sleep

The highlight of our trip was our stay at Pongyi Guesthouse. Read about it here and you’ll see why: https://greenleycoffeebreak.com/2013/10/02/can-a-44-year-old-stay-in-a-youth-hostel/

Sights

Our Favorite Activities in Kanazawa:

  • Oyama Shrine: While not spectacular, we loved the humbleness of this shrine. It is set in a slightly overgrown garden and so approachable. We had found that some well manicured gardens in Japan are to admire from afar, e.g. an inviting bridge that you are not allowed to cross. But the Oyama Shrine garden allowed for a game of frisbee and uno as we sat and watched the koi swim by. The shrine is known for its stained glass, rare in Japanese shines.
  • Kanazawa Castle: The Castle is a woodworkers dream. Recently rebuilt and completely empty except for…wood! Multiple displays regarding the joinery and building method. Needless to say, Kyle was in heaven.
  • Children’s Library: Yes, really! This was a lovely space to knock out homeschooling….bright and light with many corners to dig into math and writing.
  • Kenrouken Garden: Called one of the three best gardens in Japan, Kenrouken was sprawling and beautiful. We saw it following the shrine and castle so the garden didn’t get the full meandering attention from us that it required. A gorgeous must see.
  • Ninjadera: This is a shogun house that has many “ninja” features including trap doors and false walls. We all enjoyed it very much…feels much more historical than Hollywood. The tour must be reserved in advance and is in Japanese. There is a comprehensive English guide to use during the tour. Young or restless kids are not allowed…we sedated ours before entering (kidding…we just got lucky, they were well behaved that day!).
  • 21st Century Art Museum: HIGHLIGHT. I was blown away by this museum. It’s known for a swimming pool exhibit in which people standing under the pool appear to be in the pool water. But there was so much more! I was entranced by the In-Habit Project exhibit by Isabel and Alfredo Aquilizan. Thousands of reused cardboard boxes built into a sprawling community meant to represent a floating village off the coast of Borneo.
  • Nagamachi: Beautiful traditional home in the Samurai district with the sweetest garden. We encountered a group of touring Japanese men who clearly had a bit too much to drink. One asked Sean to sit and participate in a team ceremony. I watched like a hawk while Sean sat cross legged, sipping his tea and conversing quite comfortably.
  • Confectionary: On our last day in Kanazawa, we sat with a friend from our guesthouse and dozens of middle aged Japanese ladies learning how to make rice based confections from a master chef. It’s such an art form, its hard to imagine even eating these beauties. Our resulting product however…
  • Omicho Market: I loved this market…it was 99% authentic…vegetables and seafood. The largest snow crabs I’ve ever seen, so many fresh vegetables (I ate more salads in Kanazawa than anywhere else). The kids and I had our first taste of a nashi there, a yummy fruit reminiscent of a pear-apple, or as Sean named it, a papple.
  • Woodworking: Kyle spent time in Kanazawa in local woodworking shops, seeing the local methods, perusing the tools and making future contacts. He had a few serendipitous moments that will certainly influence his work back home.

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Eat

Sushi, Sashimi, Sake…oh my! The freshest seafood and an increasing understanding of sake led to some yummy meals in Kanzawa and some failures…pointing to a picture of a fish netted me a fish head. We also tried out first conveyor belt sushi restaurant, which was tastier and more economical than U.S. versions.

But our best meal with the one we made and ate side by side with our hosts at Pongyi Guesthouse…sagayaki and the best of company.

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An Eleven Year Old’s Guilt

What do you say to your child when you ask her what her primary feeling was after a visit to Hiroshima and she looks at you with tears in her eyes and says, “Guilt.”

Born 57 years after atom bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and an eleven year old carries the guilt of an act that killed approximately 140,000 people.

This tricycle was initially buried with the three year old child riding it when the bomb dropped.

This tricycle was initially buried with the three year old child riding it when the bomb dropped.

War strategy is chilling.  I won’t stand on a pulpit and declare it unnecessary.  But we all know the cost of black and white conversation is invariably not military assets, but civilians.

Hiroshima Before

Hiroshima Before

And after...

And after…

The Memorial Peace Museum was remarkably balanced in its representation of Japan’s war history, the events that led up to the bombing of Pearl Harbor and the subsequent response of the United States.  Reading Stephen Walker’s “Shockwave” prior to our visit enlightened us to the complexity and, frankly, deceit, between allies with the bomb not only being a method to stop the war but a message to an ever strengthening Stalin about American power.

Churchill, Truman, Stalin

Churchill, Truman, Stalin

Certainly the vividly graphic review of the day the bomb was dropped and the subsequent impact was terrifying.  But this was expected.  Honestly, I was most struck by the hundreds of letters of protest since written by Hiroshima’s and Nagasaki’s mayors to the heads of state of the United States, Russia, China, UK and France whenever those countries have performed a nuclear test.  You’d think as someone who grew up with atom bomb drills in school (who were they kidding?) and attended no nukes protests, I would be a bit more in tune with the state of nuclear weaponry today.  I hadn’t expected to see letters from this calendar year to President Barack Obama…there were four.

Atom Bomb Dome

Atom Bomb Dome

I led the kids to the museum shop, purchased origami paper and we sat side by side as I showed them how to fold a peace crane.  I explained that war is complex, that there are actually rules about how countries can fight a war, but that in the heat of fear and emotion and death, rules are oft forgotten (and perhaps absurd).

We discussed the concept of nuclear deterrence, the controversy of U.S.-led drone strikes, Syria’s chemical weapons…and whether there can be fair and just wars.  We did not come to a conclusion but we agreed that what happened in Hiroshima and Nagosaki should never happen again.

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The Japanese Blues

A different kind of shrine

A different kind of shrine

Our last night in Kyoto, Kyle and I perused our neighborhood for a date night local. I’d had my eye on a tiny Tapas bar but we were turned away at the door. This has happened a few times in our three weeks here…a claim that there’s no room for us when clearly there is. We weren’t offended by it — while disappointing, we understood a proprietors desire to hold some places in Kyoto gaijin-free.

Trying again, we were enthusiastically welcomed into a small sashimi restaurant where my mouth wrestled with a hunk of octopus far too big and chewy to conquer. And Kyle’s Iowa blood craved steak and potatoes in a way that raw fish would never satisfy so we simply accepted that our last Kyoto meal would lack substance but was good company.

Leaving, we noticed a discreet alleyway across from us, with a carved ice block of Jack Daniels (steadily melting) and peered in. And this is how we stumbled across a Japanese blues bar.

Gear Bar...wish I had taken the photo at night!

Gear Bar…wish I had taken the photo at night!

The bar, Gear, was so small that as patrons arrived for the show, additional stools were brought out, and people shifted mere centimeters to make room. With twenty people jammed into the slowly smoke filling space, we waited for the show. My money was on the bartender picking up a guitar — with his fedora, wild black hair and craggy face, he looked to be a Japanese Keith Richards. We spoke with the perplexingly mixed clientele squeezed in around us, learning small facts despite the language barrier.

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Two young women took the stage wearing shift dresses, pearls and pumps. We were confused. Opening act or bank tellers? Then they opened their mouths. Deep throaty classic blues…Buddy Guy, Muddy Waters…coming to us in part English, part Japanese. Head bobbing gold.

The Blues Sisters played two sets and three ovations and we squinted through the smoke, smiled at our seat mates, moved to the music and were grateful for serendipity.

The Blues Sisters

The Blues Sisters

At the end of the show, our neighbors shook hands with us and the Blues Sisters graciously thanked us with multiple “arigatou gazaimasu” and head bows as we purchased their CD. We spilled from the tiny space into the night on a high.

This was our first time in Japan that we felt entry underneath the cloak of a private culture…a cloak we’d sewed from our own stereotypes, for sure, but difficult to truly see beneath without individual interactions. Here’s to more serendipitous moments for all!

“I’d love to hear that sweet Memphis song
and that good old funky rock n roll
oh when I need some healing
the only thing I turn to
all that makes me happy is the BLUES”

Buddy Guy – All That Makes Me Happy Is The Blues

Natural Disasters & The Oblivious Tourist

Our 1st week in Japan, we sat sipping coffee when the cafe began to sway. Kyle and I looked at each other. We have quite an earthquake history between us — Seattle, Northridge, Mexico City. He said, “It’s an earthquake.” I said, “Nah, the metro tracks are right there, it’s a train.”

He was right.

There was no panic in the cafe. Japan, sitting on the pacific ring of fire, sees over 1,500 earthquakes a year and judging by the calm with coffee, the country’s citizens are used to them.

We felt one more earthquake before leaving Tokyo. A day at the Museum of Emerging Science confirmed both. We packed up, headed to Kyoto and…walked into a typhoon.

Kyoto Typhoon (photo by Nobora Tomura)

Kyoto Typhoon (photo by Nobora Tomura)

As tourists, reality is often suspended. There’s the vacation protection bubble myth, that bodily harm couldn’t possibly happen in paradise. So the zipline company doesn’t provide helmets, so what? So the taxi has no seat belts, big deal!

Despite a sleepless night listening to house shuddering wind and rain. Despite my cellphone, now on Japanese wifi, shrieking hourly with emergency warnings (ok, in my defense, the alerts were in kanji, Japanese characters), I wasn’t concerned. When Kyle told me the next morning that he attributed the cellphone noise to neighbors ringing our doorbell trying to alert us, I at least wasn’t alone in my moronic choice of sleep over emergency response.

At some point, we actually read the news and were mortified to learn that over 250,000 people were evacuated not 15 minutes from us. But it was really this morning, when we made our way to Arashiyama, on the NE outskirts of Kyoto, that we realized we’d missed reality.

Our Photos 36 hours Post Typhoon

Our Photos 36 hours Post Typhoon

The Katsura River flooded, nearly submerging the historic Togetsukyo Bridge, and damaging the shops, restaurants and inns along the river. It’s slightly embarrassing now to admit that we had come to Arashiyama as giddy tourists to see the monkey park. Instead we saw a raging river, piles of debris, and flooded businesses with groups of people working hard to clean and recover.

Now a profound ending would be to say that we too jumped in, rolled up our sleeves and helped. We didn’t. We talked about it, assessed the situation (the press and military were on site) and determined we’d be a distraction vs a help.

Instead, we climbed small roads high above the river and visited a Buddhist temple, Otagi Nenbutsuji. There we were surrounded with 1200 rakan, stone statues representing Buddhist disciples. While built in the 8th century, the temple was hit with a…yes…typhoon in 1950 and had to be rebuilt. The rakans were thus carved in 1980s and 1990s by amateur artists. The temple brochure reads that “…the carvings have amusing or contented expressions that warm the hearts of visitors.” And that’s exactly what they did.

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Here in our suspended reality, we’d come face to face with a surreal location that had been destroyed by natural disaster and rebuilt with calm and steady resolve. As we peered into the faces of each rakan, smiling at some, laughing aloud at others, it was clear to me what an exceptional culture we were experiencing.

So imagine our surprise when we saw among the many faces, the one person in our extended family who epitomizes calm, steady philosophical resolve, who is hard working and driven by “we” vs “me.”  And who certainly would have recognized a natural disaster just a wee bit quicker than we did.

Papa Greenley

Papa Greenley

 

 

The Tokyo Files

Just a quick list of what we did, where we stayed, yadda, yadda, yadda. Admittedly, I’m not nuts about itinerary recaps or maybe I’m just Trip Advisored out, but its helpful to others and boy do we owe paying it forward.

Sleep
We booked a small apartment on flipkey: http://www.flipkey.com/tokyo-condo-rentals/p226889/ This was not fancy by any stretch but adequate and good set up for a small family with 2 bedrooms & a small pullout couch. Plus a portable wifi, which is a saving grace when you think you know how to get where you’re going but really don’t! The apartment was 3 metro stops to Shibuya and we liked being in a quiet neighborhood vs the craziness of the tourist destinations.

Sights
Day 1: Meiji Shrine, Harajuku, Arcade Fun

Meiji Shrine Prayer Tablets

Meiji Shrine Prayer Tablets

Day 2: Museum of Emerging Technology & Science — wow, this is an impressive museum…great interactive learning for tweens and teens

Asimo Robot Demonstration

Asimo Robot Demonstration

Museum of Emerging Science

Museum of Emerging Science

Day 3: Chill day…went to see the lights of Shibuya at night

Shibuya

Shibuya

Day 4: Kamakura (see previous post)

Day 5: We took a tour with Backstreet Guides, http://www.thebackstreetguides.com, to be able to see more then we could manage on our own. It was a splurge but worth it. Our guide, Rei, was wonderful. We visited the Tsukiji fish market, Sensoji temple, Nakamise dori shopping street, the Sky Tree, Akihabara (electronics district and home of the bizarro maid cafes), and the old district of Yanaka. Along the way we sampled sushi (highlight!), went on a rickshaw ride and had a traditional soba noodle lunch.

Fish Market Sushi

Fish Market Sushi

Electronics District

Electronics District

Day 6: The boys caught up with football (go Seahawks!) while the girls checked out Shibuya 109,  9-stories of stores dedicated to the fashionable young lady (I stood out…and not in a good way…in my frumpy ex-officio outfit).

Shibuya 109 Purchase

Shibuya 109 Purchase

Day 7: Bullet train to Kyoto

Tips
Wifi / SIM Card: It’s best to arrange this at the airport when you arrive. I didn’t realize that and so we didn’t! Fortunately, I found http://www.Japan-wireless.com online — they deliver SIM cards and wireless routers for rental directly to your hotel. At the end of your trip, you pop the router into a prepaid envelope. Voila! So far its working great.

Tokyo was a great transition week. There were highs and lows as we adjusted but on the whole the city felt easy to navigate. We have many positive first impressions of the culture and the people — there’s a level of service, graciousness and respect that is rare in the U.S. That said, there is also an undercurrent of something else hard to put a finger on…perhaps a steadiness that lacks joy. It’s too soon for us to really comment and even when when we do, it will be from a meager five week perspective. We are simply grateful to be here.

Now it’s onward to Kyoto where homeschooling begins…a whole new adventure!

Temples & Tweens

Hokokuji Bamboo Forest

Hokokuji Bamboo Forest

Imagine a tall, dense bamboo forest. The stalks reach far up into the sky, creating calm shade and a light green glow. You’re walking on a stone path, feeling meditative with each step as the breeze softly rustles the bamboo leaves together. You come to a peaceful open hut serving green tea and think “what a wonderful spot to sit and reflect.”

And then behind you, a tired, cranky voice says, “It all looks the same, can we go now?”

We were so looking forward to a day in Kamakura. The small city, an hour south of Tokyo, was briefly the seat of the military government under shogun Minamoto Yoritomo starting in 1185, and dozens of temples were built during his rule.

With the heat and humidity we’d been experiencing, we curated the must see list of temples down to four. Stocked with water bottles and our Loews cooling towels, we were off!  (A side note about our cooling towels: we look like Boy Scout rejects in them, but the useful comfort they provide makes the embarrassment worthwhile.)

From the get go, the kids were having a rough day. School started back home this week and both kids were feeling sad at not being a part of it.  We know we’ve asked a lot of them (although as Julia likes to point out, we didn’t ask).  We had taken the prior day off from sightseeing to give them chill time so we put tween hormonal bad moods aside and dived into the day.

Great Buddha at Kotokuin Temple

Great Buddha at Kotokuin Temple

 

Hasedera Temple

Hasedera Temple

Shujenji Temple

Shujenji Temple

The bamboo forest was our 2nd to last stop and I was really looking forward to it. Seattle friends had described the tranquility of sitting in the forest having tea and I was hoping to experience a similarly zen moment. But with the bickering and whining increasing with each step into the stone paved forest, this was not to be.

We knew we’d have rough days. Earlier in the week, each family member came up with a “calming routine,” something we could do individually to relax when the world or our little family was driving us crazy. This was an effort to have all of us self-cope vs snapping at each other in times of stress. My calming routine was a series of arm stretches and yawns — I did a lot of them that day.

Tsurygaoka Hachimangu Shrine

Tsurygaoka Hachimangu Shrine

After a terse exchange between the kids, Kyle took Sean in another direction and I gave Julia space. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed movement and could see her practicing her calming routine, a series of yoga moves, over and over. And in that moment, the context of the day was changed for me. I saw that my kids were learning.

We’ve officially been on our adventure a week now and in that week Sean and Julia have converted currency, purchased subway tickets, identified routes, learned basic phrases, and walked into stores and made purchases on their own. I’m really proud of them. But at the end of the day, if all they learn on this trip is how to cope in a healthy way when life gets difficult, that’s called success.

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Taking Travel for Granted

Equals Access

U.S. Passport = Access

There are obvious hurdles in planning a RTW trip — time and money top the list.  But what if you had the resources and simply weren’t legally welcome to visit other countries?

Citizens of the U.S., Canada, Australia and the European Union generally can travel anywhere.   For our trip, no visas are needed for half of the countries we’re visiting, and a turnkey tourist visa will suffice for the other half.  That’s not the case for the majority of the world’s population.  If you remove the socio-economic barriers of travel, the simple FREEDOM to travel is not a given for many.

Take Barbara Adam’s family for example.  Barbara is an Aussie married to a Vietnamese man.  Their family resides in Saigon, where they run a popular street food tour business, http://www.saigonstreeteats.com.   Barbara is well traveled and planned a vacation to France for her family.  But try as they might, France would not grant her husband a visa, believing that he presented a risk of staying in Europe to gain a “better” life.  Read her story here: http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/1451562

Or meet Mina Mahrous, a 20-something Egyptian male studying to become a pharmacist.  Mina is highly interested in seeing the world…and has been consistently turned down for visas and held to higher standards to secure visas.  He wrote an excellent blog on access to travel: http://www.somedayillbethere.com/2012/04/no-not-everyone-can-travel-a-bubble-burster/

I understand that countries need safe guards – this is not a post on the politics of immigration.  Simply, it’s recognition for yet another liberty that I have that others do not and consciousness raising for my small family that global access is currently not a freedom that everyone shares.

What We’re Leaving

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Seattle on a sunny day is a beautiful thing. Sparkling blue seas dotted with steadily gliding ferry boats. Immense craggy mountain ranges topped with snow on nearly every horizon. An expanse of the expected evergreen trees and an unexpected vast variation of green plants, bushes, grass create balance bordering the blue skies and seas.

We live in an admittedly liberal oasis, sometimes forgetting that there’s a significant part of our country that bleeds red. Our beach community is involved and idyllic with sweet surprises, like yarn “bombed” trees, and children and adults alike who stop to pet our dog. A neighborhood blog keeps tabs on all news, big and small, and makes us feel more united. The local elementary school our children attend has high parental involvement and the afternoon pick-up feels like social hour…I half expect to see a parent sipping out of a martini glass as they chat.

A year ago, we purchased and moved into my grandparents home, after painstakingly remodeling it, and its bones provide the deepest serenity…its history a foundation for our family to grow from.

So why leave? Today it’s 77 degrees in Seattle, I paddle boarded in Elliott Bay, meditating on each wave as it undulated toward me. It’s tempting to say, “Heck, let’s stay here…I could do this self-care thing for an entire year.” How decadent.

And that’s exactly it…it’s time for less decadence and more simplicity. When your child asks you to purchase Italian Soda for yet another school celebration and then complains that you purchased the wrong brand…your household is in need of a global reality check.

We cash that check on September 1st.

Sedona, Grand Canyon, Moab, Oh My!

Devils Garden in Arches

Devils Garden in Arches

I was planning our spring break trip to the Southwest National Parks at the same time as researching our fall in SE Asia.  There was something about the color and vibrancy of Thailand that made Arizona and Utah seem barren, dry, and, frankly…bland.

Wrong again.

The southwestern U.S. is akin to going to Mars (except you wear shorts instead of a space suit).  The landscape is other worldly…pillars of space age rust rock jutting up from mile after mile of dusty, rocky barren land.  The vibrant orange hue of sandstone monuments and arches against the ever reaching blue sky.

The kids and I shared hot Navajo fry bread dipped in honey after a strenuous hike through the vast Grand Canyon…peering down at the deep green Colorado River carving its way as we munched.

It’s all a reminder of the geographic and cultural diversity in my own country.  Our rtw trip is about an overseas experience but our spring break trip was a good reminder that there’s so much to explore in my own backyard.

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Shedding a New Skin

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A year off work is a gift and a luxury.

Think how I’d feel if the year had passed and all I had to show for it was a clean house and being caught up on Netflix.  I’m cognizant not to fritter away this precious time.

The rtw trip is clearly a large part of the gift of a year, however I have 3-1/2 months before lift off.  My goals:

  • Family & friend connection
  • Digital detox (yeah, I’m not quite sure how to write a blog AND have a digital detox)
  • Creative recovery…

…you can be in business and be creative and I’ve been lucky that most of my corporate roles have been about building from scratch or rebuilding…creativity abound.  However if you’re an “all-in” type of person, you can’t give it to work and give it outside of work.  It’s now time for my OWN creative recovery.  What does this look like?  Writing morning pages (3 hand-written semi-conscious pages every morning); walking, running or hiking in nature every day; and…prepare yourselves…Bollywood dance class.  Yes, really.

I can feel these simple steps…already applied…opening up my core.  And it feels …amazing.