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Most eventful birthday ever
Last Saturday was my birthday, and although it was shaping up as a peaceful affair, things didn’t quite turn out that way.
First of all, the 2011 Sunami Beach Opening Ceremony was held in the morning. Now this would be little more than a cultural curiosity if it weren’t for the fact that Ruby (and presumably Felix, though we’ve never bothered to check) is officially prohibited by her school from swimming until such time as the beach has been officially declared open. So it was with great anticipation that we trotted down to the ceremony, not least because the Sushi on a Stick household was well represented this year. As at last year’s ceremony, Eleni’s drumming troupe was called upon to do a couple of numbers, but this year Felix also got to chip in on the drums with a bit of ancient traditional thwacking of his own.
Not only that: when we all got down there, Ruby and I found out that we too had been roped in to carrying some mini floats in the procession dressed in all the gear. Ruby was initially unimpressed, being a teenager, but she soon warmed to the idea:
Like all good Japanese ceremonies, this one started off with a succession of interminably long speeches, which gave us plenty of time to pose for photographs. Here Ruby models the traditional Fish In Net float:
Tragically Felix was off somewhere else for this one:
Finally the speeches finished up and it was time for the procession to head off, led by the dragons up the front.
We had to go through that little streamer gate on the grass, then deposit our floats all of five metres up the hill. And that was the extent of the cultural contribution of Ruby and myself. Next up was the dragon dance, with Felix and his buddies thumping away in the background:
And Eleni’s drumming group finished off the day. Tragically I forgot to take any photos of it, but you can always check out the 2010 version on this page, which looks much the same. (It might even have been the same song. The repertoire doesn’t change much.)
After the ceremony, Eleni had to go off to teach English, which she does every second Saturday, so the kids and I decided to celebrate by — why not? — going down the beach. This wasn’t actually our first swim for the year; last week we managed to spirit Ruby under a blanket in the car to a rather nice little secluded beach (well shielded from the prying eyes of passing teachers) that we discovered just five minutes down the road. But of course it’s much more civilized to simply saunter down the road with your bathers on.
And I’m pleased to report that a lovely day at the beach was had by all. After a while Ruby had to go back and do some homework so Felix and I decided to stay on. He soon met up with some of his beach friends from last year, a group of 20-something boys that he plays catch with. I even managed to get in a little nap on the sand — such luxury! — and was just thinking about collecting Felix and heading home when all of a sudden he’s running towards me screaming and this time it’s not just for show, he’s genuinely injured himself, he’s cut his leg on a rock, a huge gash that’s leaking blood everywhere and before we know it a Helpful Guy has called an ambulance and we’re off to the hospital and he’s got four stitches in his heel.
So that was a bit of birthday excitement, and finally I got to fulfil my longstanding ambition of riding in a Japanese ambulance. (Dream big, eh?) As we sped merrily through the red lights it occurred to me that in the space of 18 months in Japan, fully three-quarters of the Sushi on a Stick household has been carted off to hospital in an ambulance: first Ruby with her appendix, then Eleni with her fractured cheekbone, and now Felix. Clearly it is my destiny over the last six months to become ill or injured to the extent that I too require emergency medical attention. I just hope it isn’t that serious.
Speaking of which, it could be argued that a cut to the foot isn’t really serious enough to warrant an ambulance, but being a Saturday afternoon the hospital options were limited and Helpful Guy said that we’d get seen to more quickly that way. (Plus they’re free under the national health so who was I to argue?) And he was quite right, too; within about half an hour Felix had his foot stitched up and we were out of the hospital and free to proceed to the next and final phase of the birthday celebrations, namely, dinner down at our nice local Italian restaurant Zona Fortunato, which is the most wonderful place to eat pasta and watch the sun go down over the neighbouring islands.
Once again I forgot to take a photo of the occasion, but here’s one from a month ago, when we went there for Ruby’s birthday:
Eleni very sportingly delivered the kids home at about eight, which meant that we could all sit around chatting (for we had also invited our long-suffering friends the Nishiharas) until the outrageously grown-up time of about ten and watch the lights of passing ships shimmering in the moonlight etc etc. Highly convivial. And I think this one has to go down as the most action-packed birthday I’ve had for some time.
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Summer is here
Today the smell of summer arrived. The humidity is back. It’s a bit like the smell of wet asphalt after a summer shower in Melbourne, except it goes on for two months. I’ve been dreading this moment for a while (pretty much since last summer) but at least we are well equipped with air conditioners this year and hopefully we will be spared another record-breaking heatwave. I’m not sure what’s going to happen with the power supplies though. In Tokyo and the north they’re all on power rationing because of Fukushima of course. Here in the south, we’re not being asked to conserve power as such because north and south Japan are on different power systems (50 Hz versus 60 Hz) so we can’t send power up north even if we all did the right thing and tried to be energy-concious. However nuclear power plants across the country are being shut down until further notice (or just not started up again after scheduled maintenance) because the government has suddenly decided to improve safety standards, so we may yet have some power restrictions of our own. In addition to the humidity it has really started to heat up and can be considered beach weather, although there’s still one week to go until our local beach is officially opened and there’s in fact an excavator down there at the moment putting some extra sand on. I’m very pleased that the hot weather has held out for so long, thus sparing Ruby the ignominy of wanting to go for a swim to cool off but being forbidden to do so by the stupid School Rules.
Speaking of school, the other day Ruby played some sort of weekend tournament up in the hills behind Onomichi and while watching the match I was suddenly accosted by the parents from one of the other teams. It turns out that they have just recently returned from Ohio after living there for 16 years and wanted to practice their English. Fair enough, I suppose. The conversation soon turned to my favourite axe-grinding topic, the evils of high school in Japan and I discovered that their 13-year-old daughter, who was born and grew up in America, is having a tough time adjusting to the good old Japanese education system. The poor thing is to all intents and purposes American yet they make her sit down and study English three times a week! (I guess Ruby’s not the only one.) I really felt for the daughter; if you grow up in Japan then at least you know what you’re in for, but for her it must have come as a tremendous shock. And unlike Ruby, she can’t just go back to civilization after two years. So I said we should get the girls together for a mutual griping session. Hopefully that will make her feel a bit better.
Felix’s annual sports day was last weekend. Luckily the threatened rain did not eventuate and a pleasant day was had by all. There were lots of events for all ages including my favourite for the lower grades, the Big Pants Race:
And a good old-fashioned Tug of War. How long is it since we’ve seen one of these?
The kids apparently practiced daily for weeks on end on endless acrobatics, which the Japanese cherish as a symbol of cooperation and teamwork. Here are some examples:
and various combinations of pyramids:
As Ruby always likes to point out, they’d never allow these sorts of things in Australia, where it would be dismissed as “far too dangerous”. Like those dangerous experiments they do in science classes. That’s right, our kids are living on the edge here in Japan. Not to mention the perpetual threat of earthquakes.
Meanwhile, last week we set a new record for the cheapest meal yet in Japan: just ¥390 (that’s $4.42 at today’s exchange rate) for okonomiyaki at a new shop we discovered just down the road. What an absolute bargain! Sadly I don’t imagine there’ll be anywhere back in Melbourne where we’ll be able to feed the entire family for under $20… sigh. Only six months to go. Better make the most of it.
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Katy Perry concert
Last week saw us beetling up the freeway to Osaka yet again, this time for the long-awaited Katy Perry concert. Instead of the entire family we had Ruby and I and Ruby’s friend Rio from soccer, who’s a big fan of western artists such as Avril, Katy Perry and Rihanna. Surprisingly, Rio’s parents were quite happy to let her take two days off school (her Dad even wrote a note to school asking for her to be excused) and her teacher was OK with it too. Maybe some Japanese schools are pretty cool. Having said that, Ruby’s school has never complained about all the days off she’s had, and there have been quite a few this year. Or maybe they’ve just given up on us and our crazy foreign ways altogether.
We left at about nine, stopped in on the way to pick up Rio, had lunch at the good old Miki Service Area on the freeway, and arrived at the hotel (carefully researched by Ruby) just after lunch. We had a couple of hours to kill so I took the girls over to the downtown area of Namba for a taste of big-city shopping and weird young-Japanese-person hairstyles.
Before long it was time to go back to the hotel and get ready, not forgetting the all-important sign, the one that would make us truly stand out from the throng so Katy would notice us and everything:
The venue was pretty small for someone of the stature of Katy Perry, only about 2,000, so we made sure to get there nice and early so that we could get a spot reasonably near the front. Imagine our surprise then, after an hour or so standing in the rain, when these two guys got up with megaphones and proceeded to call everybody IN ORDER BASED ON OUR TICKET STUB NUMBERS. Seriously. He’d say “now numbers 120 to 130, you can come in” and so on and so on. I looked at our tickets and sure enough, they were numbered.
And our numbers were a lousy 1641 to 1643. Despite the fact that Daddy had gone to the convenience store and purchased said tickets right on the dot of 11:00 a.m. when the tickets officially went on sale. It turns out that in Japan there are all these pre-ordering arrangements which I don’t really understand but obviously you have to read the right magazines or listen to the right radio stations. Or just have the right connections.
So by the time we got in there we were more than half-way back but it wasn’t too bad because the floor was properly stepped all the way down. Poor Rio couldn’t see too much but I had a great view and Ruby had taken her Fashion Heels for the occasion, which hurt so much after all that standing that she could barely walk home afterward but it was still worth it for a proper view of Katieeeeeee. The homemade sign didn’t get used much in the end but I suspect that Katy may not have noticed it anyway.
The show itself was great. Katy came complete with six dancers (Ruby informs me that this is nothing really; Pink apparently had 30), two backup singers, a band all dressed in white and a massive stage setup festooned with, er, lollipops. There were endless costume changes (including more than six during the song Hot and Cold, when she kept stepping into a little tent and emerging in a new outfit — most impressive) and little films to keep us amused during the endless costume changes.
The next day we had all morning free so we headed back to Namba for a bit more shopping, the highlight of which (for me at least) being when we came across this excellent shop selling nothing but yoghurt called — what else? — Yoghurtland. They had sixteen different flavours coming out of the Wall O Yoghurt:
and then you go and put six million toppings on at the special Toppings Bar:
(Note the dude posing at the back.)
Daddy was most impressed with the fresh fruit while Ruby couldn’t resist the choc chips, wafers, M ‘n’ Ms, sugar stars and other sweet muck as a result of which her yoghurt turned into a sea of sickly brown muck by the end. All part of the life lesson about not putting too much on your plate etc etc. Especially when it turns out you have to pay by weight. Still it was all good fun and definitely worth a commemorate photo:
This post was proudly brought to you by Katy Perry © and Yoghurtland™®.
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Weekend wrap
Another culturally enriching weekend here at Sushi on a Stick central.
The story begins on Friday, when Sunami primary school held another “come in and check out the kids in action” class visits for parents, this one combined with a Skool Gruel tasting session. With great magnanimity I decided to decline this year so Eleni took up the challenge. She reports that it was pretty tasty and quite possibly good for you, at least if the spiel from the visiting nutritionist is to be taken at face value. Here’s what the little angels got on their placemats on Friday:
After lunch it was class visit time which was home economics. I’m quite impressed with some of the stuff they get up to at primary school; they’ve done all manner of interesting science projects as well as regular wood carving sessions using scarily sharp tools, there was a no-holds-barred sex education component last year (ie in year 4!), apparently they were growing rice at one stage, there’s been a bit of cooking going on recently and then Friday was sewing class. Yes, they’re teaching all the kids to sew at school, which is something I’ve never heard of but I love the idea. Each kid has a little sewing kit with the full array of needles plus a little bit of cloth to practice on and it’s all very civilized. Felix wasn’t too bad on his first time, although this was quite possibly due to the assistance of his one-time Love Interest (sadly no more) Kotone next door:
Incredibly, no-one managed to prick themselves with a needle. Indeed, there are no accidents during the dangerous (by Australian standards) scientific experiments, nor during the wood carving or anything else for that matter. The way I see it, Japan is an altogether less litigious society which means the kids get to do more Fun Stuff at primary school.
On Saturday Felix and I hopped on the bus for a day tour to Sera, a town about an hour away up in the mountains. Sera is famous for its orchards and flower gardens and general naturefulness and it is a lovely spot indeed. Unfortunately it’s also where I managed to get horribly lost a couple of weeks ago while trying to navigate from one of the aforementioned flower gardens back to the concert hall where the band was due on stage any minute. It was such a disturbing Twilight Zone experience that I vowed never to set foot (or tyre) in the place again unless driven by a professional. Our bus driver was wearing a proper uniform so I decided I could trust him.
The first stop was at an orchard place growing all sorts of fruits. We were originally going to be picking strawberries but because of the recent rains there weren’t enough around or something like that, so instead we made strawberry pizza. Yes, you heard it right. Actually I recall from our time in Italy that the Italians themselves make sweet pizza as well — I distinctly remember seeing honey pizza and Nutella pizza on the menu at one of our favourite haunts — so perhaps the Japanese are more in tune with Italian culinary sensibilities than we give them credit for. Having said that, try to picture in your mind the combination of pizza base with custard cream then strawberries and finally chopped cheese on top. I mean, that’s just weird. Still, it was pretty tasty I have to admit. And the kids had plenty of fun making them:
The pizza (“pizze” for you purists) were cooked in a real wood-fired oven and everything:
(If you look really closely you can see the strawberries on top. Of course! Would I lie to you?)
Then we got to sit around and eat our morning tea pizza on the edges of this beautiful old farmhouse converted to a cafe:
I managed to find myself a coffee too so by this stage I was pretty happy on my little patch of verandah:
Next stop was a barbeque lunch up at another spot that was so high up it felt like we were on the very top of a mountain. There was a huge playground and a walking trail and lookouts and lakes and ponds and other bits and pieces, so I went for a nice walk and then found a flat bit of bench and promptly had a little nap in the midday sun while Felix and his friends roamed around the enormous playground on the roof of the world:
Luckily there was an announcement over the ubiquitous loudspeakers when it was time to leave (courtesy of the highly professional bus driver) otherwise I might have become Lost in Sera yet again, only this time without a means of transport just to add to the fun and excitement.
Speaking of excitement, on Saturday night Eleni and the kids spotted a wild boar crossing the road on the hill just above our house, the road that the kids use to go to school. There’s a bit of wildlife around these parts apparently; a few months back I myself saw a wild monkey sitting nonchalantly on a rooftop but I’d really like to see a wild boar, although not up too close thank you very much. Tragically I was out on Saturday night at a soccer function so I missed the sighting, but Eleni called me straight away to fill me in and the other soccer parents thought this was brilliant and we all drank a toast to the Wild Boar of Sunami.
On Sunday I was feeling much the worse for wear after one too many toasts to the Wild Boar of Sunami but we’d arranged to catch up with Yusuke and Yoko and kids for the first time in many months so I heroically dragged myself out of bed and down to Takehara, a cute town about 30 minutes further down the coast with a beautifully preserved Old Bit that is wishfully referred to as Little Kyoto in the tourist brochures:
And I’m glad I did because Y&Y took us to an Okonomiyaki restaurant that was possibly the best we’ve eaten to date. It was just what I needed in my hungover state, too, like a big fry-up of bacon and eggs only more interesting. Eleni and I are starting to tire of our regular okonomiyaki places and are always on the lookout for new ones. Half an hour is a fair way to go for dinner but we may just have to make the effort; it really was that good.
And on the way back we stopped in for a quick coffee at Cafe Hoxton, which appears to be run by a jazz enthusiast and has this dinky little sculpture on the balcony:
While gazing out at the islands we started thinking about all the seaside day trips we’re going to do this summer. Last year we did all sorts of enrichment activities during the stinking heat of summer, even going up to Nagoya and Kyoto for heaven’s sake, so this year we’re going to keep it nice and local. Nothing more than an overnighter. There are so many islands and beaches and cafes and hot springs to explore and we’re determined to fulfil our touristic duty in exploring it all. Well, a fair bit of it anyway.
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Neighbourhood cleanup
This morning (Sunday morning) the loudspeakers went off at 7:10 a.m. And that’s an important cultural difference right there: in Australia you’re not allowed to mow the lawn or make noise until 10 o’clock on a Sunday morning because people like to sleep in, but in the land where Nobody Sleeps In there’s no such thing as Sunday morning.
The announcement was a call to arms for neighbourhood cleanup day, and we dutifully trooped out to do our bit to beautify our little section of Sunami Heights. It was almost exclusively older people — I reckon I was the only person there under 50 — because Sunami is rapidly growing older as all the children who grew up leave and only their parents remain. Of course, Japan as a nation is growing older but I suspect it’s happening faster in our patch. However it didn’t matter in terms of the cleanup because Japanese old people are outrageously fit and healthy and active. Much is made of longevity and the Japanese diet, but I think it has more to do with the way they whip themselves into shape from an early age (starting with having to trudge to school every day with ridiculously heavy bags and drink bottles) and just never let up. They certainly don’t sleep in. Our friend Yumi from Okayama, who has young children like us, reckons that she gets up at five every morning and often goes to bed after midnight. She couldn’t believe it when she heard that we like to sleep for eight hours or so. “What a waste!” she cried, and she has a point. But I do love my sleep.
Anyway within an hour and a quarter we had all the grass mowed, the tops of the embankments cleared and the rubbish stuffed into bags, and I got to feel virtuous and community-minded in the process. Here’s us working hard at the high embankment right in front of our house:
This week has been a bit of a bleah week, as they say. Ruby’s great friend Tess left on Monday after an action-packed two weeks of fun and giggling, so it all seemed a bit sad and lonely for a while there. In addition to visiting Universal Studios we made sure to drag Tess around the full program of Sunami delights such as ferry trips, karaoke, shopping for cute girly things and clothes with silly English written on them, and weird and wonderful Japanese foods. Here’s some evidence:
Tragically it was all over too soon and we had to send Tess back home, clutching her favourite pillow, from the bustling international terminal at Okayama airport:
That was Monday morning. On Monday night the concert ticket people rang to say that Avril Lavigne had stood us up by cancelling her concert the following week, thus throwing our planned three-day trip to the southern island of Kyushu into disarray. Then we had three days of constant rain and constant temperatures — top of 21 and overnight low of 19 sort of thing — making everything rather warm and muggy, a little reminder of summer, not that we need reminding. And to top it all off, the four of us managed to catch a nasty cold and are still feeling sick and pathetic as I write (which makes my heroics at the cleanup this morning even more impressive).
But as it turns out, Avril did us a huge favour: what with all the trips we’ve been doing recently, not to mention the aforementioned colds and feeling pathetic and run down, it was time for a little break. The Parents are officially Most Relieved. Anyway we have Katy Perry next week to look forward to (Ruby and I and Ruby’s friend Rio making yet another quick dash up to Osaka). Speaking of concerts, our PJO brass band has been very active recently: we did a concert up at Sera in the mountains last week while Tess was here, the highlight of which was getting spectacularly lost on the way back from the flower garden where we ate lunch and arriving at the concert hall with just minutes to spare, plus the Rose Festival yesterday in nearby Fukuyama, plus we have yet another concert today at some sort of local festival in town. And another big one in June! At this rate the band will suffer from overexposure and we’ll risk losing our fan base. Better have a quiet word to the manager.
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Theme park frenzy
They said we were crazy, they said it would never happen, but we did it: we finally made it to Universal Studios in Osaka.
I must say I had been dreading this trip because I had this mental image of battling through crowds and spending hours waiting in line for every ride, but in the end it all went incredibly well. We got to the entrance about three quarters of an hour before opening time (thanks to my excellent pre-planning) and managed to run straight to the rollercoaster and were on within ten minutes. Then we sauntered over to the Jurassic Park ride and found to our amazement that the wait time was just five minutes. The next one was Backdraft, and that took only 15 minutes. It all seemed so ridiculously easy that I almost started to feel foolish for having worried so much, although as I said to Ruby, it always pays to lower your expectations first so that you can be pleasantly surprised later. And as it turned out we hardly had need for our expensive Express Pass tickets at all. We ended up using them to go on a couple of favourite rides again (the roller coaster, Jurassic Park) and I have to say it is a wonderful feeling indeed to just sail regally past the queues (one hour wait time by this stage of the day) and right up to the boarding gate.
Just to backtrack a little: Ruby’s friend Tess from Australia arrived two days earlier, and Ruby and I had arranged to pick her up from Okayama airport. Since Okayama is halfway to Osaka we decided to stay the night there and continue on in the morning rather than drive all the way back to Hiroshima. The hotel turned out to be a hot spring resort so in the morning we all went and had healing hot spring baths (despite having showered the night before) and wore our ancient traditional yukatas to breakfast:
Eleni and Felix caught the bullet train up to Osaka, seeing as the Eggbeater doesn’t carry five people, at least not legally. This gave Felix the chance to try out the all-new Sakura shinkansen and pose for a commemorative photo:
On the way to the Osaka hotel Eleni and Felix came across another railway museum so they stopped in for a bit of train action:
Meanwhile the girls and I were trying out the world’s largest/highest/scariest Ferris wheel, handily located near our hotel:
The girls were far more interested in comparing electronic devices than admiring the view, which was possibly just as well as we were ridiculously high up in the air.
Then all five of us met up and checked out the acquarium, said to have the largest something-or-other in the world, although I could never work out quite what it was. Glass tank? Hammerhead shark? Marketing budget? Anyway we got to see plenty of interesting fish like this:
as well as Starship Troopers style bugs such as this:
The next day we were up early (thanks Daddy!) and off on our big adventure to Universal Studios. Our hotel was located across the river from U.S. so we got to catch this dinky little commuter ferry that, coincidentally, is used by many workers from U.S. who are housed in a big dormitory close by.
Here’s us before getting on the Back to the Future ride:
And here’s Ruby after the ride:
It wasn’t such a good ride, especially if you’ve eaten recently.
However the WaterWorld show was excellent. Here’s what the set looked like before it started:
The show was full of speedboat and jetski stunts, guns and explosions, water flying everywhere and even an entire plane that bursts through the wall at one stage for no apparent reason, although it certainly adds to the spectacle. The stunts were impressive and the guys (and one girl) who did them all were obviously well trained and athletic. Afterwards we got to pose with one of the Random Fighter Dudes:
The Jaws ride was pretty good too, with sharks a’plenty, although Felix was cheesed off to find himself on the wrong side of the boat where he only got to see “a few stupid fins.”
Here’s the classic in-the-teeth-of-a-plastic-shark pose:
After our second turn on the Jurassic Park ride Felix insisted on going inside the rope to stick his head in the dinosaur’s mouth. Ruby was, as always, unimpressed.
And on the ferry back home we bumped in to one of the actors from the WaterWorld show, who turns out to be from the Gold Coast. Apparently about half the crew on the show are from Australia. He gave Felix a few tips on stunt acting and then we were off on the five-hour marathon journey back to sunny Sunami, during which Daddy tried to take the sneaky back way and got hopelessly lost although we managed to make it back home before 10 p.m., exhausted but happy. The End.
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Bridge fetish
Hello all, long time no post.
It’s not as if there hasn’t been plenty happening in the Sushi on a Stick household of late, it’s just that I’ve been a little… well… lazy I guess.
But I’m back now with, er, renewed determination and vigour, and today I’d like to regale you with tales of our healthy family pursuits involving bridges.
A couple of weeks back Eleni and I found ourselves with a free day on a Wednesday. No work, kids in school and a beautiful sunny day. So on an impulse we took our bikes down to the ferry terminal and went over to the neighbouring island of Ikuchijima for lunch at a rather nice Italian restaurant that we’d spotted a few months back. After lunch we decided to do a bit of a tour of the rather excellent bike paths that have been created throughout the island chain in our area. You can cycle all the way from Onomichi on the mainland, island hopping your way over to Shikoku, Japan’s fourth-largest island, a distance of about 80 km. The paths are really well made out and there are little entrance and exit ramps to the bridges, and you get your own lane on the bridge away from the cars. This page has a bit of information about it including a handy map about half-way down. The ferry from our local terminal at Sunami goes direct to Ikuchijima, which puts us in the middle of the island chain.
Felix and I had done a test run the week before and rode over the Tatara-ohashi bridge to Omishima island, so Eleni and I decided to go the other way, towards Innoshima. As mentioned it was a glorious day and our route just happened, completely coincidentally, it wasn’t as if I’d planned it or anything, we were just riding past and there it was etc etc etc, a Really Excellent Gelato Shop. So of course we just had to pop in.
Finally we got going on our journey. Here is your classic self-portrait shot (note bridge in background);
Like a couple of excited kids on school camp isn’t it? But it’s not often that parents get to enjoy a parcel of unadulterated free time like this. (Actually there was that day we went skiing in February I suppose.)
Then we took the dinky little ramp up to the bridge. And a very fine bridge it was too:
Look mum no hands!
What a loverly day it was; and there was more bridge action to come the following week, when good old Mr. Nishihara invited us to go on one of those events where you get to walk along the road before they open it to traffic, to commemorate the opening of a new bridge to Hiroshima Airport. This bridge is 800 m long and boasts the largest single span in Japan apparently. Once again it was a glorious day and we all felt extremely healthy and virtuous.
No public event in Japan is complete without a big blow-up plastic arch at the start. Here we are with Mr and Mrs Nishihara. Ruby was absent for the day at a soccer match so her place was taken by my sister Liz who just happened to be in town.
It’s not often you get to admire the view from a road bridge, so Felix is making the most of the opportunity.
Here he is making a bit too much of the opportunity, just before being told off by the Men in Yellow Jackets.
There were lots of people (1500 to be exact; you had to pre-book) but plenty of room for gawking at the scenery below.
It was a seriously high bridge, too.
So I think we’ve satisfied our bridge fetish for the time being, and I promise not to use the word “bridge” any more in this post.
Today we are all very excited because Ruby’s Bestest Friendest Everest from Australia, called Tess, is coming over for a visit, braving multiple threats of earthquake, tsunami and radiation to be with her friend Ruby for a fun-filled action-packed culturally stimulating 12 days of madness and mayhem in the land of the economic doldrums. What’s more, she’s coming all by herself, not a parent in sight (or not ones that she knows personally anyway), but apparently the airline people have promised to feed her and look after her along the way which is nice.
Tonight Ruby and I are to pick up Tess at Okayama airport, which is about an hour and a half up the road, then we’re going to stay the night at Okayama before heading off to Osaka to fulfill a longstanding promise to take the kids to Universal Studios, which looks to have some serious rides in it. Never mind the stupid parades, I’m in for some ride action. I’ve even splashed out on some Express Pass booklets so that we don’t have to spend hours waiting in line (or so they say; it remains to be seen how the system works. After all, if everyone splashes out on Express Pass booklets won’t we all be waiting together?). We’re also planning to check out the impressive aquarium just near where we’re staying.
While the girls and I are in the car, Felix and Eleni will be travelling up to Osaka in style on the bullet train. They will be taking the brand new Sakura train, the one that travels all the way down to Kagoshima on the southern tip of the southern island of Kyushu. Felix is very excited because he has made it his mission to either see or ride on all the different types of bullet trains at some stage during our time in Japan, and the Sakura is the newest and latest one there is. I have warned him about the dangers of developing a trainspotting habit that may never leave him in adulthood; hopefully it will wear off by the time he turns 18.
So another big road/rail trip for the Sushi on a Stick household although in truth it’s only a matter of three days. May is also shaping up as a big month for road trips but I’ll leave that for another post.
bridge (oops)
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Skool holidays
Just got back from our spur-of-the-moment holiday up in Kyoto and Nagoya, and what a big week it was.
It all began when our friend Miyuki, who lives in Nagoya, rang up to say that she had a spare room for a couple of nights at a swish hotel at Kyoto (foreign guests who’d cancelled their trip to Japan) that she had managed to snare at a bargain rate and wondered if we’d like to take it off her hands. We’d been sort of planning a return trip to Kyoto so it seemed too good to pass up. The only problem was that she’d booked for two people, so we had to sneak the kids in and out through the back entrance, plus they had to sleep in the same bed. The kids were initially unimpressed at this woeful ethical behaviour by their parents but after they discovered the enormous television, the huge fluffy beds and the exclusive Guest Lounge with free hot chocolate we didn’t hear too many more complaints.
On Tuesday we headed out to beautiful Arashiyama gorge up north of Kyoto. Last time we went there we comprehensively failed to make it onto the cute little Puffing Billy type tourist train that winds its way along the river. This time we were in luck. Speaking of which, some sort of Lucky Devil got on to the train half-way along and insisted on taking a self-portrait with us, on our camera.
Emboldened with our success on the scenic train, decided to take the cute little tourist trap boat back down the river, which was even more scenic. The boat goes over a few family-friendly rapids along the way—definitely not your white-water New Zealand experience but good clean fun nevertheless.
And when the boat passed the train going up the river, the friendly rower/tour guide dudes instructed us to help them advertise their business by waving enthusiastically at the people on the train. What’s more, we did what we were told. And when they told us to be more enthusiastic, we dutifully waved even harder. The tourist mind is so pliable.
As if to reinforce this very point, towards the end of the journey another boat pulled up alongside and started selling snacks and drinks. My immediate response was to refuse on principle but it was kind of cute and we were all feeling a bit hungry and… OK, so we bought the snacks and drinks. The tourist mind is so very pliable.
Here are our guides, who did a good job of steering through the mighty rapids and manipulating our pliable tourist minds for one and a half hours:
Afterwards we had lunch at the very same restaurant as last time, which you can see here in the background:
Wednesday saw us heading back to the Shijo shopping district because Ruby was keen to sashay around dressed up in high fashion including the new shoes that she bought by mail order with her Very Own Pocket Money. Unfortunately the fashionable high heels gave her sore feet by the end but she learned a valuable lesson about the price of fashion. We also took the opportunity to take a spin through the very excellent Nishiki Food Market.
This market, which must be about a kilometre long, features hundreds of tiny stalls selling all manner of wonderful delicacies. It took considerable willpower to stop myself from trying to buy half the market and take it home although we did manage to do a bit of damage on the pretext of picking up a few things for dinner that night.
Dinner that night was taken at Miyuki’s place in Nagoya, about two and a half hours away from Kyoto. And it was quite nice to be back on futons again. The Kyoto hotel was I think the first bed I’ve slept on since leaving Australia, and it was a bit weird being so high up off the ground; Eleni and I have decided that we altogether prefer the feel of a futon on a tatami mat, so much so that we are toying with the idea of getting rid of our bed in Australia and installing some tatami mats on the floor.
Just near Miyuki’s house is the world’s thinnest building:
Apparently this building was slapped up on a tiny slice of land next to a railway embankment many decades ago. The embankment (and railway line) have long since disappeared but nobody can work out who owns the land so the building remains. It’s a ramen noodle shop downstairs and Miyuki says that people live in it upstairs although how they can possibly lay out a futon is beyond me, since it’s narrower than my handspan—without the benefit of a measuring tape, we estimate less than 1.5 metres.
On Thursday we headed out to the Maglev Railway Park, a flash new railway museum that opened just two weeks ago. Felix was in his element posing in front of hundreds of different trains:
and taking millions of photos (most of which were subsequently deleted by heartless Daddy).
Here’s a photo that Ruby took with the miniature effect on her camera:
Quite spooky isn’t it? You’d be forgiven for thinking it’s a picture of a model train with little plastic people in it. Speaking of people, the place was absolutely packed.
When we got there right at opening time there was an enormous queue already, and by the time we left after lunch the queue was only slightly less enormous. There were even queues for the men’s toilets, and on the way out people were queueing up for 20 minutes just to reach the cash register at the museum shop (this provided us the perfect excuse not to buy anything). Notwithstanding the crowds, though, it was a fantastic museum, with plenty of trains to climb on as well as panel displays, videos, a massive model railway, film theatres, historical photos, explanations of all the bits and pieces that go in a train, hands-on activities of all kinds, train driving simulators, literally everything you can think of about trains. I reckon you’d need at least a full day, if not two, to take it all in. Sadly we were there for only a few hours but Felix certainly enjoyed himself, which was after all the main point of the exercise.
What’s more, he managed to scored a turn on the Shinkansen N700 bullet train simulator. You have to put your ticket into a lottery when you go in and given the number of people there it was probably a one in one-thousand chance so he was incredibly lucky. The simulator features a huge wide screen that’s so overwhelming it can make you feel giddy, even watching from the viewing area at the back. When you’re sitting inside the capsule it is impressively realistic. So Felix got to pilot a bullet train for the first and probably only time in his life:
And even Ruby the co-pilot seemed to enjoy the experience.
After lunch we met up with friend Naho and her Italian partner Adamo at a place that could best be described as an Italian oasis in Nagoya. It’s a restaurant that has been done out like a real Italian bar, complete with Genuine Imported coffee machine and Real Live Italians behind the counter. It is clearly a mecca for Italians living in Nagoya, who could be seen coming and going all afternoon. The coffee was excellent and the pizza was the best I’ve had since we ate at Adamo’s restaurant last summer. A return visit to his restaurant was in fact on the itinerary for this trip but sadly the restaurant is no longer. However the Italian bar experience was even better, and I happily spent most of the afternoon sitting there ordering coffee after coffee and eating pizza and just chatting. The bar is located in a shopping mall so the kids were able to wander off and look at the shops while the rest of us just sat around. I even managed to knock back an Amaretto with Adamo (Mr Nishihara would have been proud of me, drinking during the day like that). And since Adamo doesn’t speak much English I got a chance to dust off my Italian which brought back wonderful memories of our time in Italy. Basically, I was in heaven. It was such a fantastic experience that later, on the train home, I found myself slowly readjusting to reality, like when you’ve spent the afternoon immersed in a really good book. Or maybe it was just the Amaretto wearing off.
Friday was the last day of our trip. We had to go all the way back from Nagoya to Hiroshima, a car trip of about seven hours. The equivalent, in fact, of driving to Osaka and back in a day, but who would be mad enough to do a thing like that? So we decided to break up the journey with a visit to a ninja training park located in a beautiful spot tucked away in the mountains where ninjas used to train, or so it says in the brochures. (Actually it’s true, I’ve had it independently verified.)
Our resident ninja got put through his paces on the course, which included various ninja activities including rope swinging;
log walking:
wall scaling:
target practice:
err… rock climbing:
and the best bit of all, chucking those round steel ninja blades at a wooden target:
At the end, the trainer Ken-ken distributed little certificates to all the ninja graduates.
And we finished up by going for a walk along the nearby river.
Then we drove home for five and a half hours. On the way I made the mistake of having a Starbucks coffee at a parking area on the freeway and realised just how bad they area, having been spoilt by the genuine article at that bar back in Nagoya. Such a pity it’s so far away…
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And now for something completely different
Just to prove that life goes on as usual, Eleni and I went skiing on Thursday.
Actually it wasn’t to prove anything at all; it was just a wonderful coincidence that both of us had a free day. In my case, the domestic translation industry had decided to have a little lie down for a moment, while Eleni, amazingly, had no cultural extension activities — no flower arranging, no traditional drumming and no tai chi classes — nor any English lessons in the kitchen on that day. As it happened I’d been toying with the idea of going up the slopes one last time but was about to quietly give up for the year. Eleni, meanwhile, had been forced to miss the entire season after injuring her face during a freak sporting accident in December. So the Serendipitous Day Off seemed too good an opportunity to pass up. Thus it was that we packed Felix off to school at 7:05, gave Ruby a key with strict instructions to lock the door on the way out, and shot off up the highway leaving her there to finish her breakfast in the company of her beloved iPod.
It’s so late in the season now that most ski resorts have closed, but Mizuho Highland is further up the mountain and still has plenty of snow. You have to catch a gondola from the carpark up the first bit (2.6 km) and then another lift up from there. It’s seriously high up and the views are excellent.
And because it’s so late in the season, the lift tickets are discounted and they give you the skis and snowboards for free! As if skiing in Japan wasn’t cheap enough already.
Plus, there was a snowfall the very day before so we got to slide around on (or in my case fall over on) lovely soft fresh white stuff which makes that glorious squeaky sound as you zoom over it. As you can see, I’m quite smitten with the whole idea of snow. It’s probably just as well that we didn’t end up living up in northern Japan because the record snowfalls this year would have completely turned me off snow. (Not to mention the earthquakes, power cuts, fuel shortages and lack of train services that are causing endless frustration to people who live well inland and nowhere near the tsunami-affected areas.)
In other exciting news, Ruby finally managed to make good her escape from the all-consuming after-school brass band, the one that goes until 5:30 every night after school and often on the weekends too, and sometimes in the mornings before school, and all through the “holidays” as well. She had been pestering her teacher for months and months until finally a meeting was arranged with the principal who gave his official blessing. Apparently you can be excused if you are involved in other extra-curricular activities.
Or if you’re a foreigner with an annoying Dad who perhaps rocks the boat just a bit too much. I suspect that I’m in danger of turning into one of those stubborn foreigners who refuses to accept the Natural Order of Things in their adopted country. I so desperately wanted not to be not like that, not like the supremely arrogant expats that I came across in Italy. But when it comes to all those ridiculous regulations, such as preventing the kids from taking drinks breaks during sports classes in the height of summer as a result of which they’re fainting all over the place and having to be carted off to hospital with heatstroke (this actually happened last summer), I figure that the Japanese school system could do with a bit of friendly outside advice every now and again.
In any case, Ruby is now completely, gloriously free. School now finishes at four o’clock, there’s no more nasty surprise practice sessions ruining our weekend plans, and no more traipsing up to school every day during the holidays. She felt a bit bad about leaving the band, and I’m sure it was hard to make the announcement on her last day on Thursday (coincidentally while her parents were off frolicking in the snow) but I’m proud that she was brave enough and tenacious enough to see it through. And without any intervention from me.
And now we are back to the familiar parenting model of shuttling the kids back and forth between a succession of stimulating activities: soccer three or four times per week, piano on a Monday and swing band on a Sunday and perhaps karate on a Wednesday starting next term — and that’s just Ruby. But I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Incidentally school has finished for the year as of Friday (the Japanese school year runs from April to March). We are now in the school holiday period, which you won’t be surprised to hear is just eleven days. (Although sometimes I think that this might actually be sufficient. There’s nothing quite so scary as a couple of bored kids in the house when you’ve got work to do.) Ruby naturally has a mountain of homework to complete before starting Year 8, although Felix happily seems to have been spared, unless he’s secretly hiding it all from us. I’m looking forward to next year because Ruby will no longer be the lowest in the pecking order at junior high, while Felix will now be one of the big kids at primary school: the grade five-sixes. Also, as a Grade 5, his soccer practice time on Wednesday nights moves to the later slot of 7:30 – 8:30, closer to Ruby’s match time of 8:00 – 9:00 which means that I won’t have to trek back and forth across town twice in the same night any more.
And to celebrate the school holidays, next week we’re off on another of our legendary Road Trips in the Eggbeater, to Kyoto and Nagoya. We’ve actually been to Kyoto twice before, the first time last summer when it was too hot to move, and again in November for the Geisha dress-up experience. Since Ruby got to have all the fun last time, we figure that now it’s Felix’s turn. Thus it is that we will be visiting the flash new just-opened-two-weeks-ago maglev railway museum in Nagoya as well as a ninja action park in the mountains of Mie prefecture on the way home. Meanwhile our friend Miyuki has promised to take Ruby out for a bit of big-city shopping action at Nagoya; Eleni is keen to ride on the scenic train at Arashiyama gorge in Kyoto; and as for me…. I’m just looking forward to popping in to one of the freeway service areas on the way up for a Starbucks caffe late.
And to be honest, I suspect I’m quite looking forward to the train museum too.
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Soccerpaths
On Tuesday the Sushi on a Stick household did a crazy thing: we drove seven hours to Osaka and back to see a soccer match.
Would we have even contemplated anything like this back in Australia? I very much doubt it. But this is Japan and even after a year and a bit, we’re still up for adventures. Even Ruby got in the spirit and was quite happy to tell school that she wasn’t coming in on Tuesday, which was pretty brave given that the end of year exams* were starting the very next day.
* Japanese school year starts in April
Thus it was that we set off at about 2 pm in the Eggbeater to lend our support to Melbourne Victory as they took on the might of Gamba Osaka. I love a good road trip, especially when it involves the Japanese freeways because they have these fantastic things called Service Areas where you can stop and get a feed. The really big ones have a whole assortment of cheap and cheerful restaurants plus a bakery and sometimes, if you’re really lucky, a Starbucks. (Not that Starbucks is my idea of a great coffee but it’s about the best you can hope for in Japan, where coffee standards are pretty low.) I’ve made it my mission to track down the key Service Areas in our area so that whenever we head off for a road trip we can plan our meals and coffee breaks for optimum satisfaction. After all, there’s nothing so disappointing as pulling in to a Service Area and discovering that it’s a pathetic small one without so much as a bakery in it.
Thanks to my excellent planning we did a good bakery hit at the Miki Service Area and arrived in Osaka bang on time at six, only to get stuck in peak hour traffic. The freeway exit was right near the stadium and we could see the light towers, but because of this weird one-way system we had to go all the way around an enormous park to get to the car park. It was just like that scene near the end of Little Miss Sunshine where they can see the venue right ahead but the freeway keeps taking them around in the other direction and there’s no exit. Ah, the exquisite frustration of the urban jungle. Then after spending a good half an hour crawling around the park in bumper to bumper traffic we managed to take a wrong turn and ended up speeding away from the stadium again.
Life in the country is so much simpler.
By this time it was getting close to start time and we were obliged to compromise our morals by doing a very naughty thing, to wit, parking in the closest 7-11. (Naughty parking is frowned upon in Japan, where there’s simply no such thing as unregulated on-street parking, not even in the country.) In a pathetic attempt to look like genuine customers, we went inside the 7-11 and bought some drinks, then we walked straight out of the car park and up the hill to the stadium, quaking in our boots the whole way. I then spent most of the match quaking in my boots at the thought of getting back to find a huge sticker on the windscreen, or a clamp on the wheel, or perhaps just a simple notice fluttering in the wind saying Your Car Has Been Towed.
The game itself was one of those ones you want to forget right away, on account of Melbourne Victory got thrashed 5-1. The score was 3-0 after just 11 minutes and we were starting to wonder why we’d bothered, and when Eleni said “if they get to ten goals I think we should go” it felt like a distinct possibility.
At least the car didn’t get towed.
On the way back there were no shenanigans with bakeries at the Service Area; we put the foot down and sped straight through to Sunami, making it back in record time of just three and a half hours. Luckily Daddy had packed pyjamas, pillows and blankets for the return trip so it was a warm ‘n’ cosy little Eggbeater that thundered down the expressway dodging all the overnight trucks. The kids were a bit tired and sorry the next day but they managed to get through unscathed, and Ruby managed to finish her exams without nodding off.
So although the game itself was a waste of time I’m glad we went. If nothing else, it makes Osaka feel a little bit closer now, which is just as well as we have a few trips planned up that way over the coming months, such as the Katy Perry concert in May. Speaking of concerts, Avril Lavigne is also coming to Japan in May, and the entire Sushi on a Stick household will be going along. Parents, don’t forget your earplugs.
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This blog is about the adventures of a family of Australian barbarians spending two years in the islands of southern Japan. Stay tuned for regular updates on the food, the culture, the earthquakes, the wacky festivals, the school system and more. 
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