shinkansen

03/03/2011 (part two)

It's like Groundhog Day here.  Yesterday, when we left Japan, it was 11:30 a.m. on March 3rd.  When we arrived home in Chicago, it was 8:45 a.m. on March 3rd.  I'm just glad I get to relive the second March 3rd at home with my kitty :)  


I didn't sleep at all on the plane.  I watched Black Swan, Love & Other Drugs, Due Date and (for the second time) Social Network.  It's amazing what eleven hours does to a girl who normally doesn't watch movies.  


So, right now it's 2:26 a.m. on March 4th and I am WIDE awake...maybe because my body thinks I'm still in Japan (where it is 5:26 p.m.) or maaaybe it's because the second we got home & cuddled Presley, we both crashed.  We were in such deep sleeps that we didn't hear our neighbor drop in to check on Presley (once he saw our bags by the door, he realized we were home & quietly snuck back out).  We slept until 6:30 p.m.  We had dinner at 9 (Portillos hot dogs!) and I have all of our laundry done.  Naoto & Presley are both asleep (Presley is snoozing here by me...she hasn't really let me out of her sight since returning home!) and I think I might have to head to bed soon.  


More Japan reflections later :)  

03/03/2011 (part one)

Flight day!  Up at 7:30 (after more messed up sleep in the middle of the night), breakfast, airport, upgraded to premier economy class for free, last minute purchases, looooong flight and then HOME!


Here are pictures of our breakfasts.


Naoto:

Me:

02.03.2011

Today was our last day in Japan.  We spent most of the day traveling back to Narita to stay the night at a hotel for our flight tomorrow morning.  We started the day at Mister Donut with Hisae & Norio.  We each had noodles for lunch there, followed by donuts & coffee...many coffees.  I think we each had three refills, partly because it was warm & tasty, but also partly because leaving meant saying goodbye.  


After lunch, we drove to the train station.  We only had minutes to spare, which resulted in a mad dash to the train (carrying our extra luggage made a 'dash' more of a crawl) and quick goodbyes.  We took a local train (comparable to Chicago's Metra) to a bullet train to another train and then took a bus to our hotel...it was about an hour ride on each train which made for an exhausting trip.  We had visions of heading into the city of Narita for one last hurrah in Japan, but decided instead to eat dinner at the hotel.  The food was good and the short elevator ride up to our beds was better!  


My favorite part of dinner was dessert...sukura ice cream!  Sakura (cherry blossom) flavor was in full force during our stay in Japan--Mister Donut had the donut, Starbucks had a latte, a scone & a macaroon (I tried all three!), sakura KitKats and other candies, rice balls...anything you could think of had this sweet floral flavor.  By the end of the month, the cherry blossoms will be in full force in Japan.  Next year, I want to visit during this season :)  Anyway, back to dessert--

--yum!  

01/03/2011

We are in Mie visiting Hisae & Norio (my sister & brother in law).  Their home is in a more rural part of the country, so it is a whole different experience than Tokyo.  We took a 2-hour bullet train/local train combo from Tokyo with them.  It was fun to travel & snack on the train while catching up with them!  Once we arrived, we went to Norio's parents, the Setas, for dinner.  The Setas have an outdoor shed with fire pits & wood-burning stoves.  They prepared a feast for us that included clams, mussels, snapper, fresh (as in still moving) lobster & other seafood that comes in shells I've only seen in Florida gift shops.  We had too much sake before walking home to their apartment to sleep. 

This moring, we went to Lotteria, a Japanese fast food burger joint.  We saw Lotteria on a Japanese TV program this week and we wanted to try their specialties.  Naoto had a hamburger with a poached egg & teriyaki sauce on it and I had a shrimp burger with lettuce & tartar sauce on top.  It was soooo good!

After lunch, we went to the Ise Shrine, a large shrine in Mie.  It was pouring & chilly, but we had a fun time making a trek to the shrine and then walking through the shops and seeing the traditional Japanese crafts.  I found my favorite snack here, a toasted rice cracker coated in sugar.  It is soooo good because it is served hot & fresh and it brought back good memories of eating in Kyoto in 2008. 

We spent the evening at the grocery store stocking up on our favorite snacks and then tonight we went to dinner at Douton-Bori where we grilled our own Japanese pancakes.  Norio was an excellent host who just might have a career in Beni Hana :) 

Tomorrow is our last day, so off to bed so I can make the most of it!

27/02/2011

Today, we started out with a trip to...you guessed it--Mister Donuts!  I've made the transition to calling it Misdo, the Japanese term of endearment for the yummy donut shop ;)  This Misdo was located in a tiny neighborhood just a couple of train stops away from our hotel.  And, they had a bigger variety of donuts...I tried a sakura donut.  Sakura is cherry blossom, and since Girls' Day is coming up, sakura is very popular.  It has a really nice sweet & floral taste...I really liked it :)  We explored the neighborhood for awhile, checking out the grocery store, convenience store and candy store before we hopped back on our train to start our day. 

We spent some time in a Japanese fabric store today.  I really wanted to buy some fabric here to make a quilt for our bed next month, but we didn't see anything I had in mind.  This fabric store was really wild, not at all organized like American ones, which is a little surprising since this country wrote the book on order and organization.  It was fun to look though, before we moved on to a stationery store. 

In the evening, we went to Naoko's (Naoto's younger sister) house for dinner.  Naoko lives in a neighborhood of Tokyo.  Once we got off the train, we met Naoto's other sister, Noriko, in a grocery store and she showed us the way to Naoko's.  It was fun to walk the little side streets and see the houses and little mom & pop neighborhood restaurants. 

Naoko made us a feast of pork cutlet, chicken, macaroni salad, tofu & avocado salad (with salmon roe) and she ordered sushi that was so fresh & tasty!  I was stuffed!  Naoko's house is two stories, but very tiny.  The first floor consisted of a tiny entryway & hall, a bathroom and the main room--kitchen/living/dining room.  It was quite the crowded sight with all of us--Naoko, (her boyfriend) Satoshi, (her sons) Ren & Rin, Noriko and her son, Hiroki, Naoto & me all sitting on the floor around a big table eating and drinking and talking and (Naoto) translating. 

26/02/2011

Today was our first full day in Tokyo...wow!  Is it crazy here!  After a good night's sleep (oh, hello, real bed!) we got up and went to the Ginza area where there is an amazingly large stationery store.  Itoya has NINE floors of stationery, pens, journals, rubber stamps, inks, stickers...I had to restrain myself from buying one of everything :)  During our shopping, Naoto & I stopped on the top floor for a snack:

HOT DOG!  Although it might seem like we are eating a lot of American food (with our daily trips to Mister Donut), even hot dogs & hamburgers have a Japanese twist.  This hot dog in particular had dijon mustard, tomato sauce (NOT ketchup) and lettuce and the bun was a-MAZE-ing!  It was lightly toasted and soft and fluffy...it's the little details that make Japanese foods so good :) 

I also had a lemon sukashu to drink--freshly squeezed lemon with a little bit of sugar mixed with sparkling soda...soooo gooooood! 

After Itoya (where I only spent a respectable 7,000 yen), we went to Tokyu Hands, another store with several stories of craft items, household goods, travel gadgets, people trying to sell you fancy pillows...

After all that shopping, we were ready for a trip to Mister Donut (did you think we would go a day without a stop there?)  We had our usual, a sampling of donuts & coffee, and then headed back to the hotel for some rest before dinner. 

We went to a izakaya (Japanese pub) for dinner.  At the izakaya, you order small plates of food to share while you drink your sake or beer.  We had  sashimi, noodles and tatsutage (fried patty with vegetables, seafood and tofu--once I saw the octopus tentacles, Naoto got the rest!)  It was a good experience that we might have to repeat again :) 

25/02/2011

Today was spent mostly relaxing, eating at Mister Donut and postcard writing.  We got up late and ventured out to a stationery store for some postcards, a book store for browsing (which was difficult since all of the books are in Japanese!) and then to Mister Donut for postcard writing and donut eating :)  We got the frankfurter donut, which is puffed pastry with a hot dog & ketchup baked inside.  I forgot that it's a Chicago sin to put ketchup on a hot dog because it was so tasty!  The rest of the day was spent enjoying time with my mother-in-law and getting ready for our trip to Tokyo. 

My mother-in-law took us to dinner at an Italian restaurant on the first floor of her apartment building.  We enjoyed pasta & salad--Japanese Italian is so refreshing because the portions are in control!  After dinner, we said goodbye to my mother-in-law and took a taxi to the shinkansen (bullet train).  The train took us to Tokyo where we had to take a subway to our hotel.  I have to say, we packed light (one suitcase for clothes, one suitcase for gifts, backpack for computer, carry-on for my nonsense) but traveling by train & subway with suitcases is tough--especially in Tokyo where people are flooding the streets as if they are at the starting gates of a marathon. 

Seriously, I have never seen so many people...Tokyo makes Christmas season on Michigan Avenue look like a ghost town!  And tomorrow, we will be in the middle of it all :)

24/02/2011

Today, the time difference was worse for me than yesterday.  I woke up several more times in the middle of the night and had a harder time falling back to sleep.  It didn’t help that I had a symphony of snoring around me.  Both Naoto & his mother are heavy snorers, and with these close quarters, it is hard to ignore the music of the night! 

We got up late and had a breakfast of buckwheat noodles in broth, agaragar with mustard and Niigata strawberries.  I’ve given up using chopsticks and have moved to a fork, otherwise, it would be impossible for me to finish. 

My mother-in-law had a doctor’s appointment today and insisted that we didn’t join her.  So we took our time getting ready, then met her at Misdo for a snack.  This time, we shared a hot dog donut & a green tea donut.  After our donuts, we went to Mitsukoshi, a large department store, to buy some handkerchiefs (for gifts & for me).  In Japan, the customer service is so good.  Sales people are patient, glad to explain anything you don’t understand and will wrap even the tiniest gift for you.  Mitsukoshi also has different food vendors.  So, alongside Tiffany’s & Louis Vuitton, there are butchers, bread shops & sweets.  We bought some Parisian breads—one with bacon & cheese inside, one giant cracker & one dough covered hot dog—and a few meat skewers for dinner tonight.  We also bought a lot of produce here.  We went home and had our bread snacks and relaxed a little bit.  

In the afternoon, my mother-in-law sent us back out to Mitsukoshi to buy a few more ingredients.  We took this opportunity to re-visit Mister Donut for a quick cup of coffee.  Days in Japan: 2, Visits to Mister Donut: 3  ;) 

For dinner, my mother-in-law made us a soup of noodles, shitake mushrooms, silkened tofu and cabbage.  We feasted on meats & potstickers from the markets we'd visited and I had the most amazing salad tonight, too :)

PS-I've updated the comment section so anyone can comment now :)

23/02/2011

On Wednesday, we started the day with broiled salmon & rice.  Maybe it was the time difference or the fact that I’ve been here before so I was expecting it, but I didn’t bat an eye at eating fish for breakfast.

After breakfast, we went to the post office, right across the street from my mother-in-law’s building.  I bought plenty of Hello Kitty stamps for my postcards.  Can you believe Hello Kitty has a stamp?!  The post office ladies might have been surprised to see a white girl buying stamps, so they gave me a blue rabbit toothpick holder—so sweet! 

Then, we went shopping to the outdoor market and the drugstore.  I have a huge weakness for Japanese Biore products that might have to be discussed in another post.

The next stop was Mister Donut, the Japanese version of Dunkin Donuts.  Japanese donuts are far superior to American ones.  They are lighter and less sweet.  I tried a cocoa donut with chocolate frosting and a glazed donut and my mother-in-law had a potato-filled donut.  She also ordered a Coke, which made me laugh.  At Mister Donut (MisDo for short), the coffee is served in tiny red cups and the donuts come on actual plates.  It’s a nice change from the paper bag my American donut comes in.  The servers also come to your table and offer you refills, too J 

After MisDo, we took Naoto to the barber for a haircut.  It was nice to take him to someone who knows how to cut his Japanese hair.  Hirase-san, the barber, offered my mother-in-law green tea while we waited for him to work his magic on Naoto.  He got a haircut, a shave and an ear-cleaning (gross, I know).  Hirase-san used many, many hot towels (seriously—about 20) through the process and made Naoto’s skin soft with lotions.  Naoto looked like a new man when we left. 

After the hair cut, we went to eat Chinese food.  We had fried rice with pork & shrimp, cashew chicken and sweet & sour pork.  While Naoto & his mom enjoyed a beer, I had a cocktail that was lychee (a Chinese fruit that tastes kind of pear-ish but feels grape-ish) liquor, grapefruit juice and tonic water—so refreshing! 

Next, we went to a mall where there was a huge stationery store, Loft.  I have another weakness for Japanese office supplies...cute & functional.  After so much walking around, my mother-in-law was worn out, so we came back to her apartment and relaxed. 

Naoto & I ventured back out after dark to buy some drinks at Lawson’s, a convenience store.  There we found peach juice, a canned cocktail (alcohol in a can that is not beer??!!) and Happy Turn 200%.  Happy Turn is my favorite Japanese snack.  It is like nothing in the US and it is impossible to place what the taste is.  There is normal Happy Turn, Happy Turn 100% and Happy Turn 200%.  100% has one hundred percent MORE flavoring powder and 200% has two hundred percent more…you can imagine how flavorful this snack is!  Once we got home, the time difference was catching up with us, and the amount of walking was catching up with my mother-in-law.  We all were asleep by 7pm!    

22/02/2011

We didn't have internet access while we were staying with Naoto's mom, but now that we are in Tokyo, we are re-connected with the cyber world.  I think that was my longest stretch without the internet since the late 90s...

We arrived Tuesday night, after that 13 hour flight and 3 hours of train rides.  I am sure I looked like a wreck, but my mother-in-law welcomed me with a genuine smile and open arms.  She ordered sushi and made me a bath while we waited for it to arrive.  In her bathroom (which is separate from the little room with the toilet), there is a little area to shower off and cleanse first, before you get into the amazingly deep soaking tub full of hot water and aromatherapy bath salts.  There was no better way to end a long trip that with this hot bath.  I must have stayed inside a little too long though, because she thought I fell asleep in there.  Our futon was prepared for us when we got to her house, and even though sleep was tempting me, the sushi was tempting me more.  It was the most amazing sushi I’ve ever eaten—so fresh and the rice was perfectly seasoned & sticky!  I think we went to bed around 7am, and I woke up a few times throughout the night, but I slept well, even though the sleeping situation was very different than in America.  There are no guest bedrooms in Japanese apartments, just futons, several pads stacked up on the floor with giant fluffy blankets on top, on the living room floor.  It gets very cold in Japanese houses at night, so the blankets keep you nice & toasty.  It took a little getting used to, but it's almost as cozy as a bed :) 

Ok, more tomorrow.  It's only 10:30pm here, but Naoto & I are both dragging after our second marathon train trip in four days...I hope to upload some pictures, too.  Off to watch some Japanese TV! 

the night before meeting, and all through the house...

Tomorrow, after a thirteen hour flight and a three hour train ride, I will finally meet my mother-in-law.  


I've been married for five years to my Japanese husband, who has lived in America since he was twelve.  He grew up in Hawaii with a host family (whom I've met) while the rest of his family (mom & three sisters) stayed in Japan.  My mother-in-law was unable to make it to our wedding because she was ill and unable to travel such a long distance.  Fast-forward almost five very busy years (during which we each traveled to Japan separately) and we are finally, FINALLY going on a family-filled tour of Japan.  


So, today I am getting ready, packing bags full of gifts for everyone we will/might see.  I made the journal (pictured above) for my mother-in-law.  I used a beautiful tulip print because tulips are grown in her prefecture (state), Niigata.  I hope she likes it :)  


As soon as we have internet access in Japan, I will report back.  My first worry (of a long, long list of many other worries) is that I am going to be meeting her after the thirteen hour flight and the three hour train ride...I am going to feel so jet-lagged and look oh so gross!  I have an emergency-refreshening kit ready to go in my carry-on, but a comb, toothbrush & make-up can only help so much!