daily life

Super short video of some of the things I saw along the way to the bakery and market yesterday.

Hope your week is going well.

satoshi's videos

Here are Satoshi's videos...they are in German though.

He did these himself, impressive yeah?!

If you point the Google Translate's Camera at the video, it will translate from German to English while you watch it.

Enjoy!

sakura walk

Today was forecast as cloudy but it turned out to be pretty nice.

We headed out early to Shibuya to check out Sakurazaka.

A really short street, but beautiful!

Interesting looking school.

Taihu Brewing...

Lamborghini

Daikanyama

Krazy cloud

Baseball season...

Tokyo people...check out how high her shoes were...AND she ran! across as soon as it was safe to cross...

15040...it was nice to be out and about.

Made a short video if you are interested...here.

the trip back

For our trip back to Tokyo, we picked up some bento at the Kyoto station.

Satoshi's chirimen sansho bento.

My nori bento.

Loved my bento and gave some to Satoshi, he said the rice in my bento was tastier than his because it had “stuff” mixed in.

I looked at who made both of our bentos and it was the same company in Kyoto, Nomura Tsukudani.

It rained the night before and luckily it stopped when we made our way to the train station.

It was cloudy at the start of our ride but we were lucky to see Mount Fuji.

Enjoy this short video. 

Hoping we can all travel soon.

crow watching

Yesterday was raining all day long…crows scare the beejezus out of me and whenever it rains guess who takes shelter on our lanai…

I was so bored and shot a short video of the crow who called his girlfriend so they could get out of the rain…

if you are viewing this at work, turn down your sound...

wedding video

 

Back in April, I told you that we sent our wedding video out to be dubbed into a DVD, well we got it back and since some of you wanted to see it, I've attached a super short snippet of our wedding video...there is sound attached, so if you are viewing this at work, please turn down your sound...enjoy!

tokyo people

 

　no music attached to this one...enjoy!

tokyo people

 

Another video of Tokyo People...no music attached...enjoy!

tokyo people

 No music on this one...enjoy!

tokyo people

Bummed that the song I had attached to this video had some copyright claim...um, well don't allow the song on the clips app then!

Anyway...this one is silent...enjoy!

tokyo people x3

Uploading 3 of these here so I won't have a backload of them.

Sound off if you are watching this at work.

Enjoy! and thanks for watching.

tokyo people

 Sound off if you are viewing this at work.

Enjoy!

tokyo people

Turn your sound down if you are viewing this at work.

Enjoy!

p.s. V pointed out to me that you cannot view these videos from a smartphone. Please go to the bottom of the screen and click on “web version”, you should then be able to view the video...crossing fingers that it works.

 p.p.s. If you do not want to do all of that, please click on this link to go straight to youtube...

tokyo, kyoto & osaka people

Sound off if you are viewing this at work...

Enjoy!

tokyo people

 If you are viewing this at work, turn your sound down...

Enjoy!

 

danjiri matsuri

Danjiri matsuri (wooden cart festival) is one of the more famous festivals in Osaka.

This is held in Kishiwada city to be exact.

The more famous festival for this city was held in September (actually during the time we went to France). October's festival is not as popular, it is held on the outskirts of Kishiwada city and in my opinion, still very festive.

We left our house at 7-ish and got to Higashi-Kishiwada at about 9-ish.

When we arrived, a danjiri (wooden cart) was being taken to the neighborhood shrine for a prayer and blessing.

Most of the danjiri are very decorative and ornate with intricately carved deity figures and is in the shape of a shrine.

Many neighborhoods participate in this festival with danjiri representing their area.

There is one person who stands atop the danjiri, he is called "daiku-kata", and he jumps from side to side on the roof of the danjiri as the danjiri is moving.

One thing you will notice is that only men are atop the danjiri and some play the taiko drum, wooden flute and gong. Usually the higher ranking men of the neighborhood are standing on the front of the danjiri. While at the back of the danjiri, more men are there cheering on the runners/pullers.

I think the men on the sides of the danjiri are there to even the weight distribution, so that the danjiri will not topple over on a turn.

Like with most Japanese festivals, women are forbidden to participate and this one is no different, they are not allowed to stand on or touch the danjiri.

Though many young children (including girls) are allowed to pull the danjiri.

One story of how this festival started was an elite asked the lower class people to do something entertaining for him. This danjiri pulling is what they came up with.

Nowadays, I think the festival is held in hopes of a good harvest for the year.

The whole danjiri including the wheels and "brakes" are made of wood. (I think the only part that is metal is the axle.)

I say "brakes" because there is a huge wooden rod that is shoved at the wheel to make the danjiri stop, kinda like a huge go-cart.

There are no gears to make the wheels turn left or right, the whole thing has to be pulled with a great force and literally dragged on a turn.

This makes pulling the danjiri very dangerous, because the only control is handled by the runners in combination with the "brakes".

I got first hand while taking photos, of how the danjiri can go out of control, and had one of the runners fly into me...luckily neither of us got hurt. (top mosaic:bottom left photo)

Many of the electric poles and corners are padded, and any open rain ducts on the side of the roads are filled with sandbags, so that the danjiri nor the runners, will fall in and get stuck or hurt.

Since there was going to be an exhibition of the various neighborhood danjiri at 1-ish, we bought some food and went to hold a place to view the exhibition.

Most of the sidewalk area had been saved by the locals, and at the last minute the place we had chosen was deemed unsafe, so we wiggled our way into the locals area.

Apparently, the locals weren't supposed to be saving seats in the first place, but if one does it then everyone follows suit...sigh.

Actually most of the locals took the shady side of the street and we actually "baked" on the opposite side of the street. Luckily I had brought my sun umbrella.

Then at about 1-ish, we watched as 11 neighborhoods ran and flew through corners with their danjiri. (Apparently the festival in September had 30-something danjiri.)

It was quite exciting to watch. Some had lots of runners and we loved how each neighborhood had their own happi (coats). Many of the girls had intricately braided hair too.

Since the various danjiri were going round and round the block, we decided to leave after about an hour and walked about a mile to check out the Kishiwada castle.

This area is where the September festival is held and the shopping arcade is one of the areas where the danjiri pass.

Most stores in the arcade have balconies so that they can watch the danjiri pass by.

We spoke to one of the shop keepers in the arcade and she said that with the amount of people from outside the city who come to watch danjiri in September, you'll almost never get a seat nor be able to see it up close.

Hearing this, we were glad to be able to see part of the festival without the massive crowds.

It was a long day, we didn't get to experience any of the local foods, but the weather was beautiful, we got a little lot darker, and we got to experience a festival that has been going on for over 300 years.

If you'd like to see a video of a couple of danjiri on their practice runs, click here and or here and here. (NOTE: the last video was a little sketchy, I rotated it using a feature on YouTube so the beginning is sideways but the rest is okay, it shows how narrow a place this danjiri goes!)

Hope you enjoyed this as much as we did.

tateyama-kurobe alpine route

The Tateyama-Kurobe Alpine Route, or TK Alpine Route as it is also called, runs from Ogisawa in Nagano prefecture, through several mountains, across the Kurobe Dam and over to Toyama prefecture.

To get from one side to another, you need to take 5 different modes of transportation--electric trolley bus, cable car (finicula), ropeway, your feet, and bus.

The thing about this route is that you need to take it from one side or the other you can't start in the middle or part of the way.

Our day started at 5:30 a.m. in order to catch the bus with everyone at 7:30 a.m. to Ogisawa in Nagano.

We then stood in line to ride the electric trolley bus, a 16 minute ride (and it is exactly 16 minutes!) from Ogisawa to Kurobe Dam.

When you reach the dam, you walk across it to get to the next mode of transportation.

The dam was finished in 1963, is 186 meters high (610 feet) and is 1470 meters above sea level.

I remember visiting Hoover Dam, but I don't think we were able to walk across it.

During the summer months, you can see the water flowing from the dam. It was something to be able to walk across it.

The next mode of transportation is a cable car (finicula) and runs from Kurobeko to Kurobedaira.

Exactly 131 passengers including the driver take the 5 minute ride...though 5 minutes seemed longer when you are packed into a vehicle as tight as sardines. (you should know that the passengers to the left of the car are all gonna fit...)

The grade was 31% though it seemed more like straight up.

One thing we tried was oyaki. This is a famous food item in Nagano prefecture made from fermented buckwheat dough.

It is filled with veggies, fruit or sweet bean paste and then roasted in a pan. After it is roasted, it is then steamed and served hot.

This particular oyaki was filled with nozawana (mustard greens), a popular vegetable in Nagano prefecture.

Piping hot, this was delicious!

From Kurobedaira, we then took a ropeway to Daikanbo.

If you notice atop the cable of the ropeway, a worker is "riding" on the wires.

He actually rode this from Daikanbo to Kurobedaira, a 7 minute ride, to check the cables. We found out that they do this once a day to make sure the cables are in check.

I wouldn't want his job!

If I am not mistaken, 120 of us rode in one car at once! I'm glad the cables were checked right before.

The view from Daikanbo is spectacular! The Alps of Japan as well as many other mountains can be seen.

From Daikanbo, you take a 10 minute electric trolley bus ride to Murodo.

Amazingly, we were able to sit on this part of the trip.

When you reach Murodo, you are 2450 meters above sea level.

One reason of going this high up is to see the yuki ootani (snow gorge). This is a man-made gorge that runs from Murodo down the winding mountain road to Bijyodaira.

The gorge is cut with snow plows and other machinery and this year the highest area reached 17 meters (56 feet). (some other years it went as high as 24 meters! (78 feet))

They allow you to walk 500 meters (1640 feet) of this gorge and boy, is it something to see!

We then took a bus down through the gorge to Bijyodaira, it was kinda scary and kinda neat to ride through the gorge (I have a little video attached at the end).

At Bijyodaira, we had to wait for our turn to ride the cable car (finicula) down, so while we waited we checked out the station.

There are two large cedar trees in front and there is a legend that Saeki Ariyori fell in love with a princess. She climbed up Tateyama (Mount Tate (ta-tay)) to see him but he said he would not see her again until he developed the land in the area. So, she made her way down the mountain and on the way, she prayed to a sugi (cedar tree). After praying to the tree, they were married.

It is said that if you pray 3 times to a cedar, your love will bloom. For this reason, cedar trees in this area are also known as "bijyosugi".

Finally it was our turn to ride the cable car down the mountain to Tateyama station.

The grade was 29% and seemed steeper than the first cable car ride.

This particular cable car route was used to haul materials for the building of the dam, and they still have a freight car attached.

From Tateyama, it was back to Osaka. Dinner was on the fly at about 9 at night! What should've taken us 5 hours, took us longer and we made it home just as the day changed to the next.

Even though the traffic was really bad, we were happy we got to experience the TK Alpine route...for all the modes of transportation (one way) it cost 8060 yen (about US$80.60).

If you get a chance to, this is one thing you shouldn't miss!

I've uploaded several videos from Murodo (the snow gorge) here, here, and here.

Hope you enjoyed our adventure as much as we did!

hagi-tsuwano

The weather on Saturday was forecast to be awful and, it was.

Blustery, rain, snow. Still, we had more to see in Hagi. We had wanted to go by bicycle but the hotel staff convinced us that it was too windy.

So instead we borrowed two of their umbrellas...and went exploring.

The wind was so strong and then there was sleet, I'm sure the locals who saw us thought, "stupid tourists".

Have you ever seen someone walking in bad weather and their umbrella flips up the other way?? That was me. I swear it felt like we were in the middle of a typhoon or hurricane that day, it was THAT windy and rainy.

Our first stop was the Hagi castle ruins, which we looked at from a distance. We also peeped inside of the Hagi pottery museum which wasn't open yet.

There is an area in Hagi with walls called kaimagari, they are built high on both sides to protect against enemy attacks and the corners are angled...neat!

Inside of the Kubota residence there was a beautiful hina-ningyo (Girl's Day Doll) display.

In fact, a lot of these residences were showcasing their dolls.

At this point we were sopping wet and very cold. The volunteers in the Kubota residence kindly let us stand in front of their heaters (thank you!).

We then popped next door to Seiseian to have some matcha with sweets...500 yen (about US$5)

We were still sopping wet but it was nice to get out of the sleet.

After warming up a bit, we ran across the street to the Kikuya residence and looked at their dolls and interior.

The wooden decks around the house were quite interesting...the original deck is made of keyaki (zelkova) and are only meant for samurai and honored guests, so when lower classes were around, these decks were covered with sugi (cedar) boards.

The area called Kikuya Lane, next to the Kikuya residence looks like you've slipped back into time.

Despite the blustery wind and sleet, we saw quite a bit and unfortunately ruined the two umbrellas we borrowed from the hotel (sorry!).

After changing our socks and taking out some of the moisture from our shoes with some newspaper, we took a bus from Hagi to Tsuwano. It takes about 2 hours through the mountains and this was a slightly scary ride.

Everything was white and the roads a bit slick as we crawled along the roads.

At one point, the bus driver stopped to talk to another driver about the road conditions.

I'm glad we made it safely. Tsuwano had had a lot of snow overnight and when we got there, it was still snowing off and on.

Since we couldn't check-in, we decided to look for lunch and stopped into Tsurube.

I had their curry udon & Satoshi had their sansai (mountain greens) udon with 2 musubi.

The udon surely hit the spot though our feet felt quite frozen.

Even after eating, we still had some time before check-in, so we decided to check out some of the sights.

The Tsuwano Christian church had no pews, just tatami mats. I didn't go inside because I didn't want to take off my shoes, especially since my socks were wet and feet were cold.

As we walked about, many of the residents and shop owners were shoveling their store and home fronts and were chatting with each other.

One told us to check out the koi (carp) at the rice shop, Koi no Komeya.

The carp are located in their garden pond, just tell the owner you are there to see them. Boy, did they have a lot of carp!

It was interesting to watch people shovel.

There are grates on the side of the road which they open up and push all the snow from their store/home fronts into.

The snow then runs into the waterway running underneath.

Near our hotel was a sweet shop called Sanshodo Kashinan, there we picked up some sweets including Tsuwano's famous item, Genji maki, a sweet bean paste wrapped with a thin piece of cake...delicious.

After warming up in the furo (bath), dinner was kaiseki-style and we had all sorts of dishes including this kasago (scorpionfish) which was simmered in shoyu, mirin and sake.

To tell you the truth, having a whole fish like this intimidates me, I don't know how to eat it "nicely" and tend to freak out with all the bones. But, I did my best to eat as much as I could, though I did give Satoshi a little of it to "clean-up".

Another long day and another long post.

You can also see a really short video I took while riding the bus to Tsuwano.

Seiseian
1-27 Gofukumachi
Hagi, Yamaguchi
Phone: 0838.22.3929
Days off not set

Tsurube
384-1 Ushiroda
Tsuwano, Shimane
Phone: 0856.72.2098

Sanshodo (Kashinan)
197 Ushiroda
Tsuwano, Shimane
Phone: 0856.72.3225

my first...

Thank you for all your well wishes. We hope to celebrate this weekend.

I wanted to share with you...my first YouTube video of...flurries!

Compared to all that snow falling all around the world, this was nothing.

We had a teeny flurry "storm" on Wednesday afternoon...yeah yeah shake your heads...I'm crazy to video flurries but what can you expect, I'm from Hawaii??


Hope you are keeping warm!