September 2004 Update

In September Mum and Dad came to Japan to see me! They were in Okinawa from September 19th to September 25th.

I'll let them tell you in their own words.

In an email to Alastair (September 22), they wrote:

Hi, Alastair!

Just thought we'd let you know we're alive & well and having a good time with Glenn! (you can show this to Nanni, J&T etc) He's introduced us to his Nova friends, Okinawan food, 'Japanese' movies, and all the tourist sites of the area.

We went to the Office on Sunday afternoon, had a late lunch sitting in a park, went through the markets, met Len for coffee (although no-one actually had coffee!), saw the local pottery area, and had dinner at Gosso Gozzo, a modern restaurant which serves traditional food.

On Monday, we saw Shuri Castle, which because it was a public holiday (Respect for the Aged Day - appropriate that we were here for that!). included traditional dancing. At night, we met up with lots of Nova folk and went to an izakaya (traditional pub - lots of food & cheap beer) followed by a karaoke bar. Can you believe your parents were singing karaoke until 2.30am?! We got there about midnight.

Glenn here... thought I'd add my 2 cents about the karaoke. When we got to karaoke, I booked the room for 2 hours. That should be plenty of time, I thought. The staff usually give the room a phone call at the 10-minutes-left mark, but this time one of the ladies came in to take away empty glasses. She told me in Japanese we had ten minutes left, and I asked in Japanese for an extra half hour (we still had about 12 songs left to sing!). She left the room, and Mum asked what she'd said. I innocently replied "Oh, she said we have about half an hour left." He he! I confessed later to Mum and Dad what I'd done... they didn't mind, we had great fun at karaoke.

Back to their story...

Yesterday we went by ferry to Tokashiki Island (the topic of Glenn's video) - even saw the 'hardcore' log, but didn't walk across it! We had a swim - and were joined by little fish which swam around us, but Dad & Glenn couldn't catch any of them!

Today we hired a car and drove north to Nago, where we went to the Aquarium - 3 whale sharks, lots of rays, tropical fish, dolphins (they do a show) and manatees. An amazing place! We then went to the Nago Pineapple Park, which includes a 'cart' ride through the most amazing collection of bromeliads, plus a pineapple farm. There's lots of free tasting of pineapple, pineapple wine, pineapple juice, pineapple chocolate, dried pineapple, pineapple cake ... you get the idea?

We drove back down Route 58 (having gone north on the motorway - speed limit 80 kph) - along the west coast, through lots of towns, past the various American bases, and into peak hour traffic. The speed limit is 50 on that road! It took about 2 1/2 hours to do about 60 kms! The whole area reminds us of the south of Ghana - just remove the writing!

Food-wise, we've eaten Taco Rice, which is an Okinawan original, ika geso (fried squid tentacles), sushi, fried rice, om soba, Okinawa yaki soba (stir fried) & Okinawa soba (all local noodle dishes - thick), Japanese curry, and ramen (Chinese noodles - thin). I've also had a bento lunch (prepackaged rice/seaweed balls)

Tomorrow, we're hiring a car again and going south to the Peace Park & Okinawa world - seeing some of the sad history of the area plus some of the local industries.

Glenn has had us watching 'Japanese' movies - not fully subtitled versions of You Only Live Twice (set in Japan), King Kong vs Godzilla, and Last Samurai (I slept through about the last half of it! - too tired last night, after the late night plus fresh sea air coming back on the ferry!)

Note from Glenn: King Kong vs Godzilla was only in Japanese. Neither Dad or I understood enough to know what people were saying (other than "hurry, hurry!", or "no!" or "eek!") but it was one funny movie.

We leave Friday afternoon for the mainland & a train from Kansai to Kyoto. I'm onto my 4th roll of film! Dad's taken lots of photos and a few videos. and Glenn's being videoing our trip.

All for now - hi to everyone!

Love,

Mum (& Dad & Glenn!)

On the Thursday we hired a car again and drove down the south of Okinawa. We went to the former Underground Japanese Navy Headquarters (very enclosed space) first. From the lookout on top you get good views of Naha.

From there we went to Himeyuri, a former girls' high school that got turned into a field hospital during the war. A lot of student nurses were killed in the Battle of Okinawa in 1945 - mostly from crossfire.

Our next stop was Heiwa Kinen Koen - Peace Prayer Park. This is the site of the Prefectural Peace Museum, which gives a good overview of Okinawan history from about 1853, through the Meiji Period, World Wars, and American Occupation, to the present. The memorials here bear the names of all the people who died in the Battle of Okinawa (some American military, some British, lots of Japanese military, and lots more Okinawan civilians and civilian conscripts).

Our final destination was less sombre - Okinawa World, site of Gyokusendo, the large limestone cave. The walk through the cool, humid caves takes about 40 minutes or so. I hit my head on a stalactite while filming something else! We made it out the other side of the cave just in time to see the display of traditional Eisa dancing and Lion-dancing (where two guys dress up as a shaggy lion).

On Friday morning we went last-minute souvenir shopping in Heiwa-dori and ate lunch at a cafe owned by a Guinean drummer. After that it was off to the airport, and Mum and Dad headed off to the mainland.

Then on October 1 I got an email from them:

Hi, Glenn!

Just a quick note to let you know we're safely back in 1 Essex Close! We arrived at Bne Airport at 6.55 am and finally cleared arrivals at 8.10. Alastair & Saara drove up soon after, having driven past once.

They've already seen Dad's photos - unedited, so they know about Melissa! Lots of questions!!! Our postcard to Alastair arrived yesterday!

I had hoped to send an email from Narita last night, but there wasn't a facility in the wing we were in. Will write more about the last week later - suffice to say, it was good, interesting, surreal ... and the typhoon meant we went to Mt Fuji, but we did not see Mt Fuji - until leaving yesterday, on the bus to the airport!

Love,

Mum & Dad

Then on October 2 I got a more detailed message.

Hi, Glenn!

Got your phone message this morning - we'd left about 15 mins earlier to go to the Hyperdome to put in 6 films! I'll pick the photos up on Monday.

Our flight to Osaka was uneventful - we got a boiled lolly instead of Okinawa Bingo! We converted our railway pass at Osaka and then discovered it wasn't quite what I thought it was! We had to pay about a half fare to be able to go on the Limited Express. Kyoto Railway Station was unbelievable! Huge! We eventually found the bus stop for the hotel - they have their own spot near Maccas and go between station & hotel all day. After checking in, we went for a walk and found a food place where we could get a take-out and we chose from the picture menu - I had a beef curry & rice, Dad had a bento box with 2 pieces of fish plus rice, etc. Good food - we went back the next night & both had bento boxes.

We did the half-day tour Sat. morning, our first experience of a Japanese tour guide! - to the Golden Pavilion, a temple, and a palace, finishing at the Handicraft Centre. We were sent in a taxi back to the hotel, so I got to experience the opening door! Then, seeing we had a 2-day rail pass, we hopped on a train and went to Kobe for the rest of the afternoon. Nice place - tell Bill! I liked the physical setting with the city ringed by mountains on one side and the harbour on the other. We enjoyed the undercover market streets, and then went back on a local train to Kyoto.

On Sunday, we took a Shinkansen, unreserved seats, to Nagoya. We arrived at the hotel by 11am, so were too early for check-in. We decided to walk to the palace and have a look at it - well worth a visit! We spent over 2 hours there. We followed a tourist route back to the hotel and found an undercover market area which was very quiet. When we got to the hotel, we checked in then were going through all the info about what to see, and discovered that everything we wanted to see would be shut on Monday - so at 4pm, we raced out to visit the Noritake centre, a few streets away from the hotel. It started to rain as we were leaving there, just before 6pm. We wandered around looking at the area near the railway station, got wet (only took 1 umbrella with us) and returned to the hotel, to be welcomed with towels to dry off!

Next morning, it was still raining, so we bought a subway/bus pass and went to the port - we went up to the observation tower (one of the few places open!) just as the rain came in! We then went back on the subway to Osu, an undercover shopping area, then on to Sakae, where we explored the subterranean world of Nagoya - if we'd known about the underground shops the previous night, we wouldn't have gotten wet! We even caught a bus at one point and went to the UFJ Bank Museum and the International Design Museum. It fined up by late afternoon, so we went back to the port, just to see what it looked like in fine weather - but we didn't go up the tower again.

(this is al interupting - send out group emails glenn asap! :) )

When we got back to the hotel, we read Lonely Planet to check out about food places, then took the subway to Sakae and found the restaurants underneath Sakaemachi, where we ordered ramen & fried rice, similar to what we'd had in Naha - read p332 of LP! We got our money's worth out of the subway pass!

We left Nagoya for Tokyo on Tuesday, but we hadn't booked tickets, so got unreserved seats - I managed to get a seat, Dad stood! He could've sat from Yokohama, if he'd moved into the cabin area quickly enough! I got a glimpse of Mt Fuji - through a haze. It's huge! In Tokyo, we changed trains at Shinagawa and took a local traing to the next station, and we found the hotel, and were able to check in straight away. We then had a quick look around the area and bought local food before catching the train to the next station so we could do the afternoon tour.

We had a lovely guide, Suki, whose English was quite good (she'd been to Ireland to study!) We went up Tokyo Tower, but couldn't see Fuji for cloud, but had a good view of Tokyo itself. We stopped at the Imperial Palace Plaza - and looked at the walls and moat (having seen Nagoya-jo helped!) - and we lost 3 passengers. We waited, Suki looked for them, and eventually we had to drive off!

We went to a temple in Asakusa which has a market area in front of it (Senso-ji and Nakamise-dori - just looked up LP p209) and finished the tour in Ginza. We then went to the Sony building and checked out the various displays - some amazing stuff! We walked to Tokyo station and caught a train back to the hotel.

Wed was our Fuji tour - we went to Mt Fuji, but we didn't see Mt Fuji! It was rather wet as the typhoon had arrived! However, it was still an interesting day, as the bus went out on the inland expressway, so we got to see lots of countryside, rather than cities. The drive up Fuji was interesting too as the vegetation changed as we got higher & higher. We had lunch at a hotel at the base and then went to Hakone, where we had a 15min cruise on the lake before going up in a cable car to the top of a volcano. On a fine day, we'd have had a good view of Fuji - we saw cloud! We had reserved seats to come back on the 7.15pm Shinkansen, but because we were earlier than that, the tour guide said they'd take unreserved seats - and when we saw that people would have to stand, Dad said we'd wait for the next train! We actually waited for the 7.15 and so had our reserved seats. While waiting, Dad got some video footage of express Shinkansens going through - it's one thing to ride on one, it's another thing to see one go through the station without stopping! Incredible sound & speed!

Thursday was cloudy to start, but turned into a beautifully fine day (would've been a good day to go to Fuji!!) We went to Ueno - to the Zoo, then walked to the Ameya-yokocho Arcade (LP p208), before walking on to Akihabara - that's an unreal area isn't it?! We then walked to the Stock Exchange then back to Tokyo Station, to catch a train back to the hotel, pick up our luggage, catch a train to Shinagawa and walk to one of the hotels where we'd then get the Limousine bus - it didn't pick up from our hotel in Tamachi.

We saw Fuji a couple of times from the bus, but I wasn't able to get a photo - we sat behind a couple who'd been on the Fuji tour and they said they'd gone up Tokyo Tower earlier in the day and had a good view of the mountain from there. We wandered around the airport, after checking in our luggage, thinking we'd be able to send an email to you from there (Kansai has 10 mins for 100 yen email facilities in the departure lounge, so thought Narita would also - but not in the area we were in!)

We could've taken photos of Nova signs at every place we went to - but we didn't! Just at Kyoto station and in Tamachi. Can you send me a photo of the Naha Nova office, or is there one already here in your photos?

We had a good flight home and Alastair & Saara met us. Have looked at Dad's photos, done all the washing, still have ironing to do, have put the films in, checked out the garden, watched the 3 Bill episodes Alastair taped for us ... reality will hit Monday when Dad goes to school, and I have to do some school prep - and have to have the magazine ready for the printers in 3 weeks time! Dad has 4 weeks left with the Seniors (2 weeks teaching, 2 weeks exams).

Thanks for the holiday! I'll sort out the money on Monday and will put some into your accounts.

Love,

Mum & Dad

So that was my Mum and Dad's trip to Japan!