We interrupt your regularly scheduled program...

First of all, I have vowed to myself to finish blogging about our trip around Japan, but things got just a liiiiiitle crazy after that last post and I would be remiss if I failed to talk about why...four days after my last post, Baby Bean (here on out also referred to as Bean, Peanut, Gizmo, Nugget, etc.) rocked our world! It has been a whirlwind since then, but mostly a completely wonderful whirlwind...

I spent about seven months seeing the same OB and planning to have our baby in Japan (with my mom's help) in the middle of a Misawa winter! Then came word that Eric was selected for an eight week class at Maxwell AFB in Montgomery, AL, which overlapped my due date. We had a very short amount of time to act and by New Year's Eve, I was on a plane to the good ole USA!  Bean would be born in Alabama, not Misawa (didn't miss the Misawa winter too much on those 70 degree days in Montgomery). This huge change in itinerary was initially extremely stressful and continued to be unpredictable and ever-changing. It could have lead to an unhappy last trimester, but completely the opposite occurred. Amidst the chaos and stress, I had a happier third trimester, birth (don't get me wrong, that part was challenging like whoa!), and postpartum period than I ever thought possible. I can not say enough wonderful things about Eric's classmates, their families, and his instructors at SOS, the OB/GYN Associates of Montgomery, Baptist Medical Center East, or the Residence Inn of Montgomery.

Striped shirt picture is almost the most pregnant I got...taken on Friday night before first trip to hospital. 

The first six weeks of Eric's class were so much fun! The members of Eric's "flight" were incredible people as were their family members who had also accompanied them to Montgomery. The group felt much more like family than new acquaintances or colleagues. The love and support we received from them was invaluable and their company during the last weeks of pregnancy made the time fly. And it was time well spent. I could go on and on about these special people and I will never be able to thank them for all they did (including giving us a most generous baby gift, loaning us baby gear that we did not have, driving us *multiple times* back and forth from the hospital when d-day arrived, and surrounding us with love and tons of admiration for our new baby before and after she arrived). His instructors were great too! Staying involved and in the loop as the end of my pregnancy drew near and even as labor progressed! They all cheered us on! A bonus from our time at Maxwell was that we also got to see our friends Chris, Sarah, and Jared from Altus while we were there. Chris and Jared were also there for SOS and Sarah for a different course. Oh! And without Chris' generous gift of the use of his ride, I would not have been able to make it to all my OB appointments!

So as for the birth...

I am not going to go into all the details, but the care I received from the OB/GYN Associates of Montgomery and the nurses, techs, staff at Baptist East was second to none. I would go back to have a baby with those folks any day of the week. I was lucky to be under such amazing care. I will never forget many of those people either. The super quick version of Bean's birth story is this: I went into labor at around 4:30am on Friday, February 14th (Vaentines Day) and baby girl was born on Sunday, February 16th at 9:19am. She weighed 6 pounds 9 ounces and was 19 inches long! She was the most beautiful thing we had ever seen. I am going to cry just thinking about it...

Here are some amazing things about her timing:
- She arrived one week and one day before her due date, which gave Eric a whole extra week's worth of time to be with her before he had to go back to Japan for a month. (Yes, he had to go back to Japan for a month between two courses he had at Maxwell).
- She was born on a Sunday morning of a three-day holiday weekend. This meant Eric could spend more time with us and not miss too much class.
- She was born the day Eric's dad was in Atlanta for business and had already planned to make the two and half hour drive to Montgomery to take Eric and me to dinner. This meant that he arrived at the hospital just an hour or so after Bean entered the world.

My parents also left their house to drive to Montgomery as soon as they heard I had finally been admitted to the hospital (2am) and picked up my sister on the way. My whole family arrived at the hospital just hours after Baby Bean was born.

The whole thing was incredible.

Going "home" from the hospital today!

After she was born, we had to move out of our base housing accommodations and into an extended stay suite...we chose to stay at the Residence Inn and it was one of the best decisions we made. The staff was incredibly warm and accommodating and we had plenty of comfortable and CLEAN space. We had a two bedroom suite with a large living area and full kitchen. My mom, dad, sister, Eric, baby, and me all stayed there together for the first week, then my dad and sister went home. A week or so after they went home, Eric's mom joined us in the suite for a few days. She was able to be there for Eric's graduation from SOS (because he had still been going to class during all this time). The hotel gave us all the space we needed to surround our baby girl with love during her first weeks of life (my uncle and cousin from Atlanta were even able to make the trip over for a visit). We felt so lucky to have this opportunity. Had she been born in Misawa, it would have been months (over a year for some) before most of these people would have been able to squeeze her.

Before we knew it, it was time to say goodbye to Eric. This was the hardest part of the entire journey. It was terribly painful to separate at that precious time, but we kept reminding ourselves that so many other people we know (and don't know) make much larger, much more dangerous sacrifices. That mantra helped us get through.

After Eric was back in Japan, my mom and I began the long road trip home to Maryland with Bean. She did amazingly well in the car. She slept the whole time waking only when she was hungry.

Side note: she is not like this in the car anymore. She now despises car seats, but that is a whole other story.

The trip from Montgomery to Columbia took us three days, but we took our time stopping to see many friends along the way. Another crazy thing about timing: one night we stayed with my mom's good friend in Hickory, NC. My sister just happened to be visiting her boyfriend's family in a nearby town about 30 minutes away. She, Clint, and his family all came over to see us and meet Bean on the night we stopped in Hickory. What luck!

Back home in Maryland, the next month was spent enjoying a steady stream of visitors. Baby Bean met so many of our favorite people (with the exception of those who were still too far away). She was loved on and snuggled by grandmas, grandpas, great grandma, aunties, great aunties, cousins, long time family friends who are like family, all my best girl friends, and more. It was wonderful. In fact, the only thing that could have made the whole time any more wonderful would have been having Eric there to experience it too. My mom took incredible care of me and I was quickly back to feeling like my old self. I only had to worry about caring for and loving Bean.

All women should be so lucky to transition into motherhood this way.

The month flew by and on April 4th, it was time to pick up Eric at the airport. He flew into Maryland to scoop up Bean and me for the trip home to Japan. He got to share a few precious hours with family (which included getting to meet our new nephew...another crazy thing about timing!!) before having to get back on the plane for yet another long flight.

Reunited and it feels so good!

On April 6th, Bean took her first international flight (out of the womb) at exactly seven weeks old. She was such a trooper on that plane. She didn't have any problems with her ears and slept for most of our journey...and it was one. long. journey.

Since we have been back in Misawa, I have been adjusting to solo motherhood...meaning mothering her without all the love, support, and company constantly surrounding me. This has been every bit as challenging as many mothers before me warned it could (would) be. But it has also been wonderful.

She is the love of our lives and we are so glad she is here.

And I will finish the dang blogs about our Japan trip! The upside of her hating car seats so much is that I am not more behind on my blogging than that...it's not like we are racking up the adventures right now. We are only on one adventure...the newborn adventure...

Three Hergs, One Adventure.

KISO VALLEY, "The Japanese Alps"

The next two days of our trip were to be spent in Kiso Valley, which is known as "The Japanese Alps." The plan was to take several trains (including our first ride on the Shinkansesn or "bullet train") and a bus from Tokyo to a town called Tsumago. From Tsumago, we would hike an 8km section of the old trade route from Kyoto to Tokyo, ending our time in Kiso Valley in a town called Magome. We had planned to spend the night in a traditional Japanese hotel, called a ryokan, which was located somewhere between Tusmago and Magome. Needless to say, with all of this foot travel, we did not want to drag our luggage around with us. We had planned to use a service called, "Black Cat," which picks up your luggage from one location and delivers it to another for an affordable fee.

My hair "blowing in the wind" on our first Shinkansen ride.

We woke up on our last morning in Tokyo, packed a small overnight bag, and went down for breakfast. After breakfast, we went to the reception desk of our hotel to work out the transfer of the rest of our luggage. Despite the language barrier, the folks at the hotel were very kind to help us fill out the Black Cat forms as they needed to be filled out in Japanese. They then told us that the fee to have our luggage moved would be $20.00. Eric pulled out a credit card, assuming that since we were in the hotel we would be able to use it, but we were told that since they were accepting payment on Black Cat's behalf they could only accept dollars or yen. Eric and I had zero dollars and were the equivalent of $3.00 short of yen (all the yen we had in the world included). At this point it was about 8:30am. We knew that we were scheduled to be on a 10:00am Shinkansen train out of Tokyo Station and that in order to get there we had to walk the almost mile to the subway station and take two separate subway trains to get there. But we had no fear! Because right across the street from the hotel was a Lawson's (a popular convenience store) with an ATM. Eric ran across the street to retrieve the cash money! He came back defeated and reported that Lawson's ATMs no longer accept Master Cards. The people at the reception desk told us that there was an ATM we could  use at the post office, which was also (conveniently) right around the corner! Eric ran out again. A few minutes later he texted me (It was about 8:40am at this point) and told me that the post office would not open until 9, but that the employees were nice enough to let him wait inside. We spent the next 20 minutes anxiously tapping our toes and watching the seconds tick by. Fortunately, right at 9am, Eric was able to get some cash and run back to the hotel. We paid for the luggage service, grabbed our bag, and RAN to the train station. Despite our delayed start to the day, we made it to Tokyo Station with about 9 minutes to spare before our Shinkansen was to depart. We asked for help and quickly found the correct train and track. Phew, what a morning!

Technical difficulties prevent me from sharing better shots of Fuji...

The train ride that morning took us through beautiful countryside, but the highlight of the trip was seeing Mt. Fuji out the window of the train. The massive mountain seems to pop up out of nowhere and is an amazing site to see. We can't wait (and really hope to be able) to plan a trip to tackle that thing! 

We got off the train in Kiso Valley and had a little time to kill before the bus we had to take to Tsumago departed. We were starving by this time and walked around a little to look for a place to eat lunch...but there wasn't much in the way of restaurants at this little bus stop town. We ended up finding a grocery store and collected a few items for lunch from there. We got apples, fresh gyoza, and a bag of chips and took it back to the train station to find a spot to sit and eat. As we enjoyed our picnic, we watched the people of the town go about their daily lives and enjoyed the beautiful views from the valley to include soaring mountains peppered with the colors of fall, waterfalls, and a river. There were groups of school children arriving home by train. We waved at them and they practiced their English on us saying, "Hi!" or "Hello!" and "How are you?" There were plenty of smiles and giggles to go around. 

After lunch, we walked over to the bus stop to wait for our ride. As we stood there, we were approached by a rugged traveler. He handed each of us a warm can of coffee, which he had purchased from a vending machine (yes, you can purchase hot drinks, among many other crazy things, from vending machines). In broken English, he told us all about himself. He told us that he was hitch-hiking from his university in Hokkaido (which is the northernmost island of Japan) where he studied veterinary medicine. He told us that he was Muslim (to explain why he was sporting a beard) and that he was happy to be able to practice his English. He was absolutely convinced that Eric was an Air Force pilot despite our best attempts to explain otherwise and thought that being able to fly planes was super cool. He loved Eric's teeth and showed us his own indicating that he would love to trade with Eric. He said that I was beautiful (by congratulating Eric on having a nice looking wife). He was an incredible person! He was very kind, animated, and memorable. The thing we loved most about him was that each time he told us something about himself, he would point to himself on the nose and say, "I" or "me." Our conversation ended with the arrival of our bus. As we parted ways, he told us that he loved us both, pointing to his nose and saying, "I love you and goodbye."

After about a 10 minute bus ride, we hopped off in Tsumago and began our hike. It was starting to get really cold and I was starting to realize that, per the usual, I was under-prepared for the cold temperatures in the Japanese Alps in November. Eric has learned to laugh at me for this quirk (and keep one eye open for the things I may need to survive the elements). In this case, what I needed was a long pair of pants. All I had with me were capri length leggings. Oops! Tsumago was an absolutely beautiful old post town full of small homes and businesses. It was so well preserved that it looked like it came right out of an old post card. The only things around to remind us that we were in fact in the present were the cars parked under car ports.

We took a lot of time exploring the town because we thought we were closer to the ryokan than we were. As we neared the end of the town, we saw an information center. We stopped to ask for a map and for directions to our hotel. The woman there pulled out a map, indicated where we were on the map, ran her finger along the path all the way across the map, flipped it over and than ran it over about a third of the other side of the map. She stopped and told us that our hotel was there. Eric and I were shocked by how much farther we had to go and a little alarmed by the setting sun and drizzling rain. We picked up the pace a little! We ran into some friendly English speaking people along the way to our hotel. They told us the tiiiiiny town we were looking for was close, but noted they had not noticed our particular ryokan when they passed through that town. We thanked them and kept on moving. Finally, over a little hill, we saw a tiny stream of smoke rising out of a chimney. As we came around the side of the hill, we saw the sign for our ryokan. We made it inside just before the rain really picked up and the sun really set. 

Our first challenge in the ryokan was to take off our shoes and put on indoor slippers. After doing that, we could ascend the steps and ring the bell at the front desk for service. Eric was paralyzed by a difficult decision. There were two types of slippers: medium and very large. He did not know whether the size difference indicated male and female slippers or if he was allowed to chose the pair that would actually fit him best. Always a staunch rule follower, he did not want to make the wrong choice. As he agonized, jumping back and forth between the two options, I slipped on a pair and rang the bell. Despite my encouragement to chose the slippers that fit best, Eric was unable to do anything but wait until the person came to the desk and he could ask. He was told he could wear any pair he wanted. Mission accomplished. This was just the first crisis of "how to behave in a ryokan" that we faced and endured together.

Our host gave us a tour of the ryokan along with a brief overview of how it is operated. He explained that there were two other couples sharing the ryokan with us that night. He showed us where the hot bath was and briefly explained how to know and indicate that the shared bathroom was in use. We were informed that dinner was served promptly at 5:30pm; breakfast at 7:30am. He told us that he would come and retrieve us from our room for both meals. He then showed us to our room. The first thing we did when we got in the room was drink the hot green tea and eat the sweets that were sitting out for us on the small table in the center of the room. We then read about how to set up the tatami mats and made our beds for the night. Next, we had to bathe before dinner and change into our robes. This was the second crisis of our stay. Let's just say, we did not have a firm grasp on the etiquette of using the hot bath. We took our robes down to the bath and found that it was occupied. This gave us a few minutes to pace the halls and debate and discuss our options. Ultimately we survived the hot bath experience and I think we enjoyed it, but it was not exactly the relaxed experience we were hoping for. I am not going to point fingers, but a certain lover-of-rules-and-boundaries could have had more fun if he had been given a more thorough briefing. We made our way back to our room in our robes to wait to be summoned for dinner. 

We were retrieved from our room, as promised, promptly at 5:30pm. Our host lead us down to the dining room. When he slid open the door to the dining room, we saw three tables each beautifully set for dinner for two. We enjoyed a kaiseki (traditional multi-course Japanese) style dinner. Unlike dinner courses in the West, all of the courses in a kaiseki meal are presented simultaneously. I am unsure whether there is etiquette for the sequence in which the courses are consumed, but Eric and I went all willy nilly in our approaches. Here was the spread: smoked and salted small fish, salmon sashimi, cold soba noodles, various veggies, various pickled things, rice, bbq peanut sauce rice cake on skewer, miso soup, tempura vegetables, persimmon, something that had the texture of a sponge, green tea, and sake. The other two couples who dined next to us were significantly older. At one point during the meal, the owner of the ryokan came into the room, greeted all of us, and began facilitating conversation and (presumably) talking about the history of the ryokan. Everyone was very kind to us and curious about our story, but no one spoke more than a few words of English and, of course, our Japanese is useless. When we said we lived in Misawa, everyone knew that we were Air Force. Again, they were all convinced that Eric is a pilot and excitedly made lots of airplane noises. They also politely laughed and giggled about Eric's and my inability to sit on our knees or with our legs crossed for the duration of the meal. These 60-80 year olds sat in a single position for the entire meal while Eric and and I shifted approximately 30 times during the same time period. It was a really fun night- and one of the best meals we had on the trip!

After dinner there was not much to do but get some rest, which was fine with us because we really needed it. The room was warm and sleeping on the tatami mats was actually really comfortable. Eric and I fell asleep listening to the rain fall outside and hoping that it would clear up in time for our morning hike to Magome. 

When we woke in the morning, it was still raining outside. We got ready for breakfast and, again, the breakfast knock came promptly at 7:30am. We walked back down to the dining room and when we got to our table, were surprised to see another whole (small) fish sitting on plates in front of us...for breakfast...at 7:30am. After a brief feeling of panic, we collected ourselves and began sampling all the small dishes (another kaiseki style meal). We kept one eye on our fellow diners to see how they conquered the fish. We realized after some time that they had all eaten the whole fish: head, tail, and all. We looked at each other, took deep breaths, and went for it. We opted to leave the heads and tails, but we have to report that the fish was actually quite delicious! It tasted very much like beef jerky! Along with the fish, we had various cold veggie salads, miso soup, rice, sweet egg omelette, pickled radish, and tea. This spread was, of course, unusual for us, but it was surprisingly enjoyable and provided just the sustenance we needed for our morning hike. 

The sky had miraculously cleared sometime between breakfast and packing to leave the ryokan so we set out to finish our hike to Magome. The rest of the trail took us through one of the oldest cedar forests in Japan and past a number of beautiful waterfalls. The morning portion of the hike took us about two hours to complete and was unbelievably beautiful! Along the way we encountered lots of nature and signs of nature. There were bells all along the trail with signs posted on them that read, "Ring the bell hard Against Bears." We also learned that the information centers encourage hikers to rent hand-held bells to ring while they walk. We did not have personal bells so we took every opportunity to ring the collective ones loudly. I came across a place (in the middle of nowhere Japan) where I could recycle the empty water bottles and coffee cans we were dragging around. As I approached it I said, "hey, Eric, there is some kinda bee on this thing!" Eric responded (frantically) not to go near it because it was not in fact a bee, but a Japanese giant hornet, which is apparently the most lethal animal in Japan in terms of number of kills per year! I of course felt it necessary to recycle my recyclables anyway and survived my close call with mother nature. We had another close call later on as we crossed a little brook. We heard a noise to which Eric responded, "well, excuse you." I asked what the noise was, to which he responded, "just a little gurgley burbley." I told him I didn't think that quite explained it and a second later we heard lots of hissing and growling. We didn't stick around to inquire, we ran down the hill away from the brook.

Karate in the waterfalls. What can I say? We couldn't resist!

A few minutes later, we came upon a clearing with a few houses. As we walked past one of the buildings, a man ran out of it and said, "stop, please come in, please come in!" He explained to us that we had made it to the oldest functional tea house on the trade route. He said that travelers had been enjoying tea in this house for over 300 years. We told him that people had been drinking tea in that tea house longer than our country had been a country. That was a pretty wild fact to wrap our heads around! He invited us to sit and enjoy a cup of tea and some candy. He spoke English very well and told us about the history of the trail, the building, and asked all kinds of questions about where we were from. 

Here are some shots of the sites we saw along the way: 

It was foggy, but you can kind of see the snow caps peeking through here.

Right before walking into Magome, we hiked up out of the valley and onto an incredible vista point. It was extremely overcast and cloudy, but breathtakingly beautiful nonetheless. The town of Magome was a lot like Tsumago; full of houses and little shops where people sold their handicrafts. Common crafts from the area included wood work, textiles, and baskets. It had been a nice morning temperature wise, but by the time we got to Magome the sun had hidden behind the clouds and it felt like the temperature had dropped a number of degrees. We were really feeling the cold! Especially me in my capri pants... We popped into a soba noodle house for lunch and to warm up. I had hot soba noodles and Eric had a kaiseki style lunch. When we finished lunch, we went back out to explore more, but after only an hour or so were so cold we decided it was time for a cup of something hot and some dessert. Eric had matcha, I had cocoa, and we shared matcha cake. It was all delicious and we ate it as slowly as possible so that we could stay inside for as long as possible.  

After our warm drinks and dessert, we made our way to the bus stop to wait for our ride into the big town where we would catch the train for the next leg of our journey.

We both consider the two days we spent in Kiso Valley a highlight of the trip. We love hiking and being outdoors and we got to do both of those things in one of the most beautiful parts of the world either of us has ever seen. Kiso Valley seems a little off the beaten path for the standard tourist of Japan, but it is definitely worth consideration for any nature lover or lover of history. We feel very fortunate to have been able to see it with our own eyes!

Next stop: Takayama. 

"Where in the world are the Hergs?" and flashback to TOKYO

First, where in the world are the Hergs? The short answer is Montgomery, Alabama. The long answer would take me hours to write. Our "in a nutshell" answer is that we will be living in Montgomery for about 8 weeks due to Eric being selected for a course. This means that baby Bean will be joining our family in Alabama instead of Misawa. "The plan" is complicated and ever-changing, but we are thankful to be stateside because it means our families have the opportunity to be more a part of this exciting (and challenging) time in our lives! Planning for and adjusting to the changing circumstances of our situation kept me from blogging about our trip...until now...good thing I kept a paper journal during our travels! I've re-read it to help me conjure up the memories in enough detail to share them with you here.

We jumped off the overnight bus we took from Misawa to Tokyo a little before 7 am on November 11th and were met by a representative from our travel agency who escorted us to our hotel. We were unable to check in to our room until 3 pm so we dropped off our bags in the lobby and headed out for our first day in the city. I expected to be immediately overwhelmed by people and tall buildings, but it was a Sunday morning and the streets, subways, etc. were fairly quiet. Our hotel was really close to one of Tokyo's newest attractions, the Tokyo Skytree, so we walked over to check it out. The Skytree is the new "talk of the town" and a major tourist attraction for people from Tokyo, other places in Japan, and international tourists alike. In addition to being the tallest tower in the world, the Skytree is a broadcasting tower with restaurants, shops, and an observation deck. We did not visit the observation deck on this trip, but revisited the area several times during our stay in Tokyo. We enjoyed admiring the building from up close and afar, during the day and at night. Each night the tower was illuminated with different colored lights and the area around it was beautifully decorated for Christmas while we were there.

We were on our own for our first full day in Tokyo so we rolled up our sleeves and dug into the subway map selecting a few stops we knew we wanted to make. Our first destination after the Skytree was the Tokyo National Museum. The museum has a large collection of art and archaeological objects to include paintings, ceramics, calligraphy, sculptures, costumes, arms, and armor. The museum sits on a beautifully landscaped campus with a lake and Japanese gardens. Nestled within the gardens were replicas of old Japanese tea houses that you could walk through and explore. In the picture below, I am standing next to one of them and the small door to my left was a standard sized entrance of the times. We were told the purpose of the small doors was to prevent Samurai from being able to enter the tea house with the large sword on their belt. In order to enter, their large swords would have to be removed; thus, within the tea house, all were equal.

We spent a lot of time exploring the gardens and enjoying the nice day. We then stopped for a snack and a rest by the lake where we made the decision to head to Shibuya station for our next stop of the day.

Shibuya is a ward or neighborhood in Tokyo known for trendy shopping and night life. Shibuya felt every bit like we imagined Tokyo would feel: hustle & bustle, tall buildings, crowds, sounds, bright lights, and best of all, the people watching is incredible! Right outside of Shibuya Station is Shibuya Crossing, one of the busiest intersections in the world.

At Shibuya Crossing, traffic is stopped in all directions and pedestrians are able to cross in all directions simultaneously. The best way to describe what takes place is organized chaos. Somehow, a billion people (I exaggerate a little) cross the intersection without bumping into one another or getting jammed up.  Eric and I crossed the intersection several times ourselves and observed the crossing from a window in a Starbucks that sits above the intersection. We took our own video, but I feel too lazy to mess with uploading it, so click here to see someone else's!

The view as we geared up to cross at Shibuya Crossing.

Just as we were starting to get hungry for lunch, we stumbled upon Tokyo Food Show, which was a "must see" on Eric's list. TFS is part gourmet grocery store, part restaurant, part food theater. Food is displayed like accessories in a retail store or cosmetics in a department store. It is an assault to the senses and an incredible place for any foodie to visit. It is not a place for the indecisive. We circled and stared, calculated and evaluated for what felt like forever before finally selecting various snacks from a Chinese and Vietnamese food stand. We found a random table in the middle of the crowd where we could stand and sample our treats. The food was delicious, but we really could have spent an entire day eating our way through the TFS.

As we made our way back to our hotel for a much deserved rest (especially since we were still trying to recover from our overnight bus trip), we talked about our first impressions of Tokyo. We both agreed that we were already surprisingly enamored with this gigantic city. We felt that it was huge, but amazingly accessible and easy to navigate. We were constantly surrounded by crowds, but never felt panicked or overwhelmed by them. We celebrated our handle of the metro/subway system and the fact that we had already successfully recharged our farecards without help!

The drink on the left is the famous "Denki Bran."

For dinner on the first night, we went to Kamiya Bar, which was the first Western style bar in Tokyo. It is located in Asakusa (another ward- our hotel was also in this ward), an area that, for most of the twentieth century, was considered the major entertainment district of Tokyo. Kamiya Bar is known for a signature drink called, "Denki Bran." It is made from a mix of gin, brandy, and wine. Eric loved it, which came as no surprise, but I tried a sip and really liked it as well. It was very different. After dinner, we took in Asakusa at night and stumbled upon Sensō-ji, which is an ancient (and famous) Buddhist temple. We tried to avoid looking at it too much because we knew it was a stop on our guided tour the next day, but it was simply stunning at night! We hit the hay and slept like rocks in our twin beds (which we learned are typical of Japanese hotels). 

The next morning, before meeting our tour guide for the day, we had our first experience with breakfast in a Japanese hotel...man, was it awful!! I hate to complain, but (generally speaking from an ethnocentric perspective) if there is one thing Japan does not do well, it is breakfast...at least what we consider breakfast. I am sure the Japanese are very happy with their breakfasts. On the other hand, maybe they don't love their breakfasts so much...it could explain the absolute abundance of Denny's restaurants or the fact that people wait for HOURS in long lines to eat at two separate pancake houses...but I digress.

After breakfast, we met our private tour guide in the lobby of our hotel. She was incredible! She was warm yet professional, extremely knowledgeable, and had endless energy (which we learned we were going to need for the long day she had planned for us). Eric asked me to write in the journal that she even asked us to verify her credentials. He thought that was amazing and a perfect example of Japanese professionalism.

Our first stop of the day was the Meiji Jingu Shrine. The shrine was built to commemorate Emperor Meiji who was the highly regarded Emperor of the Meiji Era (1868-1912) and Empress Shoken, who was also well-loved and considered to be a model modern Japanese woman. The shrine was originally completed in 1920, but was lost in the fire bombings of WWII and was reconstructed in 1958. We learned that most shrines, palaces, and buildings in Japan are reconstructions. There are very few original structures to be visited in Japan. Our guide explained that tourists are often disappointed by this fact, but that the Japanese consider rebuilding structures with the care and respect to building techniques of the different times to be a way to honor the past.

While at the shrine, our guide taught us how to pay our respects and make offerings. We saw displays of Sake offerings from Sake breweries and French wine from the French government as well as Chrysanthemum offerings. We were lucky enough to see a wedding procession during our visit and before leaving we purchased a token of good luck for a happy and healthy birth for our baby Bean.

Left: wedding procession; Right: "smooth delivery" good luck charm...that is unfortunately still in Japan...

After the shrine, we went to Harajuku, a shopping district popular among pre-teens and teenagers. Harajuku can best be described as an explosion of pop culture! Crowded along an avenue were stores upon stores upon stores selling accessories, clothes, music, candy, and popular snacks. It seemed like THE hot spot for anyone under the age of 17 and looked like a haven for Katy Perry and Lady Gaga fans. It was truly a fascinating place. After walking through Harajuku, we strolled onto Omotesando, which was originally created to be the frontal approach to the Meiji Shrine and is today an avenue of upscale shops. It is known as Tokyo's Champs-Élysées. We walked through a number of malls and shopping centers and visited a beautiful rooftop garden deck, which had comfortable swings, chairs, tables and benches and boasted amazing views of the surrounding city. When we got hungry, we had a traditional Western Japanese lunch (what that means exactly, we are still trying to figure out), but it was delicious! I had a Japanese take on spaghetti and Eric had a rice omelette topped with shredded beef.

We planned to walk off our lunches in the Hama-rikyu Gardens and had to travel through the business district to get there. We quickly transitioned from a high fashion crowd to a men-in-business suits crowd. It was so interesting how throughout Tokyo the look and feel of the crowds varied noticeably depending on the ward or district. The Hama-rikyu is a typical example of the famous gardens of the Edo period (1603-1867). Within the garden, there were two duck hunting sites, a duck grave that housed the spirits of the killed ducks, a 300 year old black pine tree, bridges, seasonal gardens, and a tea house first built in 1707, which was a relaxation spot for Shoguns and other elites of the imperial court.

300 year old black pine (on left)

Tea house (upper right)

Today the tea house is still a great spot to rest, enjoy the views of the garden, and enjoy a cup of tea and a sweet treat. We visited the tea house and participated in a traditional tea ceremony. We learned how to consume the sweets and the proper etiquette to drink the tea from the cup. We tried Matcha, which is powdered green tea. It is a high quality tea and the preferred blend by Japanese tea masters. It is a little bitter (not sure if this is the right word...), but when paired and served with a sweet, it is perfection. 

After the tea ceremony, we made our way down to a dock where we boarded a boat for a 45 minute tour of the Tokyo Bay and Sumida River. The tide was extremely high during the tour and as we crossed under the numerous bridges, everyone aboard worried the boat would not clear the height of the bridges. There was one in particular that I am pretty sure the boat kissed as it passed beneath. After coming out the other side there was a collective "woohoo!" from the passengers on board. The sites of the boat cruise were really cool. Our guide pointed out places we should consider visiting in the future to include a museum dedicated to the Edo period and a famous sumo wrestling house. 

As the boat neared the end of its journey, we made our way back into Asakusa and the Asahi Beer Headquarters came into view. In the picture above, the Asahi Beer Hall is on the top right. It is famous for the "Asahi Flame," which is said to represent the "burning heart of Asahi Beer" as well as a frothy head. The flame was built to compliment the large golden structure to its left, which is supposed to resemble a beer mug. We were told by our tour guide that reactions to the Asahi Flame upon completion of construction were mixed...at best.  

We jumped off the boat in Asakusa and made our way toward Sensō-ji (the Buddhist temple we'd seen the night before). On our way, we stumbled across a visitors center for Asakusa that had an observation deck on the 8th floor. The sun was just beginning to set so we thought it would be a good time for a detour to take in a bird's eye view. From the observation deck, we could see the Skytree and Asahi Flame as well as the Sensō-ji. In the picture on the right, the approach to Sensō-ji is visible from Kaminarimon or "Thunder Gate" (in the foreground) to the actual temple (in the background). Shops and food stands, housed under the green roofs, lined the approach to the temple. Our tour guide told us that the famous lantern that sits under Kaminarimon would not be there because it had been damaged in the recent Typhoon and had been sent away for repairs. 

When we arrived at Kaminarimon, we realized (much to our surprise and delight) that the lantern had returned home sometime within the last day. We felt very fortunate to be able to see it. 

By this point, Eric and I were sure that our time with our tour guide had come to an end; however, she had other things in mind! She suggested a walk through the old Geisha district of Asakusa, which would lead us to Kappa-Bashi, which is the restaurant wholesale area of Tokyo. It was a long walk and our feet were killing us, but she was determined to show us the store that sells wax food displays. Wax food models are used by many restaurants throughout Japan to advertise the dishes on their menus. It is a pretty unique aspect of Japanese restaurant culture. 

After parting ways with our guide, we limped back to our hotel to rest up before heading back out to find dinner. It took all of our power to put our shoes back on for our walk to dinner, but we will do pretty much anything for pizza and we had spotted a pizza place we wanted to try in Asakusa. The Pizzeria San Gusto was an amazing brick oven style pizza joint. We had almost the entire restaurant to ourselves, which came as a complete surprise to us being that the food was soooo delicious! 

Breakfast on our second morning in Tokyo was a little better than the first in part because there were different options and in part because we were mentally prepared for it. After breakfast, we got on the subway and made our way to the Tsukiji Fish Market. This fish market is the largest wholesale fish and seafood market in the world in addition to being one of the largest wholesale food markets of any kind. Each morning at 5am, the largest fish auction in the world is held at Tsukiji. We, of course, were not there early enough to witness the fish auction, but there was still plenty to look at by the time we arrived. After exploring the market place, we got in line at a sushi restaurant and waited about an hour for a spot at the sushi bar. It was cheat day and sushi time for mama and baby Bean, but I was careful about the selections I made. We had eel, salmon, and shrimp sushi with miso soup. Eric enjoyed a plethora of random sea creatures that literally had come straight out of the ocean....like, right next to us. It was all delicious and ridiculously fresh. Eating sushi at Tsukiji Fish Market: check (sort of...we will have to revisit when I can be a bit more adventurous). 

With bellies full of sushi, we went on to Akihabara, a district known for electronics, manga, video games, and anime. Eric and I were really hoping to see some cosplay folks. We wanted a glimpse of the anime subculture and spent a good amount of time walking around aimlessly looking for landmarks or areas where people into cosplay congregated. We were generally unsuccessful in this mission, but found Akihabara to be interesting nonetheless. It was loud and bustling. Our ears were flooded by electronic music; our eyes blinded by blinky lights, and there were a few people in costume...maybe they come out at night? Google says they come out on Sundays...

By this time, our feet were again screaming at us. In three days in Tokyo, we had walked what felt like 100 miles...and we were both (at this point) still holding onto this crazy idea that we didn't want to look too touristy in our tennis shoes...as if we looked like we belonged otherwise! It seemed like the perfect time to pop into Mister Donut for an afternoon snack and to give our feet a chance to rest. We munched on a munchkin sampler and sipped cafe au laits while we conjured the strength to get back to our hotel for an afternoon nap. 

We debated how to spend our last night in Tokyo and were torn between hopping back on the subway to visit a place with a more active night life or to find something cool to do close to our hotel. We eventually decided to listen to our tired and aching bodies and stick close to "home" for the night. We told ourselves that we would be in Tokyo again one day and that we would probably stay in an entirely different ward, which would give us the opportunity to explore many new areas.

For dinner, we went back to the Skytree area and spent a lot of time looking at the different shops, specialty stores, and restaurants. The entire shopping area is visually stunning, pristine, and amazing. There were a lot of dinner options, but we finally chose to check out this really touristy spot called, The World Beer Museum. The concept was a beer tour around the world with stops at pubs in the Czech Republic, England, Germany, and America. There was a bar decorated in the style of each country and food and beer pairings from each country as well. Since it was getting close to Christmas time, Christmas music from each country took turns being played. When it was America's turn, the soundtrack of choice was American heavy metal Christmas music. It was awesome to watch the Japanese men in business suits sipping beer and talking shop with Iron Maiden screaming "We wish you a merry Christmas" in the background.

We went to bed that night completely exhausted from our whirlwind tour and feeling like there is still so much to explore in Tokyo. We are excited to plan another trip in the future...maybe with some visitors from America?? 

So that was the Tokyo leg of our journey! Holy moly! Blogging about this trip is going to keep me busy for a while...hopefully nothing new, exciting, or noteworthy happens any time soon to distract me from this project...like having a baby, for example...all the more incentive to type quickly! 

Next stop: Kiso Valley the "Japanese Alps"

Trip of a Lifetime!

On November 16, 2013, Eric and I left Misawa to make our way to Tokyo for the first stop on our 13 day/12 night adventure around Japan. We traveled to Tokyo by overnight bus, which ended up being about a 12 hour trip. Bus drivers are required by law to stop 15 minutes for every two hours of driving so the trip was a bit tedious. Besides being tedious (we thought we could deal with tedium because it was half the cost of a train or plane ticket to Tokyo), it was comfortable with the exception of one MAJOR problem...the heat had to have been cranked up to about 80 degrees!! We were so uncomfortably hot for the first four or so hours. We did not want to complain because all of the other people on the bus appeared to be comfortable; even having blankets pulled up to their chins! But I had literally started to sweat through my shirt and could only be comfortable by pressing myself up against the glass window. Eric was trying to be a trooper (I think to help prevent me from having a heat-induced meltdown complicated by pregnancy). We left Misawa at 8pm and at around midnight someone else must have finally said something because it started to feel like it was cooling off. The remaining 8 hours were just fine and we arrived safely (and promptly) in Tokyo at 7am on Novermber 17th.

Waiting for our bus at Misawa Train Station

The trip was absolutely incredible! To plan it we went through a tour company called Backyard Travel and we couldn't have been happier with their services. When we arrived in Tokyo at 7am, a representative met us at the bus station and escorted us to our hotel. Once we arrived and checked in, she sat down with us and provided a packet of train tickets and hotel information, which had all been reserved in advance. She also provided maps and suggestions of how to spend our time in each city as well as alternative day trip options based on our locations. For some cities, the company provided public transportation passes ahead of time and for others they provided information about how the local transportation system operated. They also scheduled a personal tour guide for one of our days in Tokyo and for a half day in Kyoto. Aside from our set arrival and departure times to and from each city and our 1.5 days of tour guides, the rest of the time was ours to use as we pleased. For us, it was the perfect stress-free way to travel. Here is what our final itinerary looked like:

Tokyo: 3 days/3 nights
Kiso Valley considered the "Japanese Alps": 2 days/1 night- arrived in Tsumago and hiked to Magome with an overnight stop at a traditional Japanese Ryokan in between.
Takayama: 2.5 days/2 nights
Kanazawa: 1.5 days/1 night
Kyoto: 2.5 days/3 nights
Hiroshima 1.5 days/2 nights

Backyard Travel even thought of the little things like making sure to reserve us seats in either the very front or very back of each train car so we would have extra room. They were amazing and their efforts resulted in the most amazing trip ever! I am going to blog about each stop separately because otherwise it would be the longest blog entry in the history of blogging (and I already have a track record for long entries...)!

Stay tuned!