We got up early this morning for a quick hike before heading out for the day. Kanae lead us along roads until we reached the classic, stairs up a mountain of Japan. At the top of the stairs we found a path that wound its way along the hilltops, occasionally the foliage breaking to give way to a view of Kamakura and the ocean beyond. Kamakura rests safely between mountains and hills on one side and the ocean on the other. Mount Fuji can be seen from the top of this climb on a nice day, but sadly our view was foggy. Still we were able to enjoy the hike, passing through ancient tunnels dug through the hills, and an amazing stretch of ceder woods at the end.

After breakfast back at the house, we headed to Haneda airport to pick up our cat from Krystal and Yuya, who flew down from Hokkaido with him this morning. Happily, Kanae offered to drive us to the airport on her way to the hairdresser in Tokyo. It was a quick exchange in the airport, and with a cat in a bag we headed into Tokyo. Inu-chan (our cat’s name) was dead silent, probably on account of pure shock from his airplane experience. We had been debating between taking the train back from Tokyo – about and hour and a half ride with two train changes – or waiting for their hair appointment to end and getting a ride home with Kanae. In the end we decided the crowded subway would be worse then a couple hours alone in the car, so we wandered around the Omotesando area while Kanae and the girls got their hair done.

Christophe actually stayed in Tokyo after the rest of us headed back with the cat. He went to a concert with a buddy who we had hoped to meet up with earlier in the week but who had had the flu. I took the cat back and introduced him to Kanae’s parents home. Kanae and I set about making pizzas for dinner, and by the time the dough had finished rising Inu-chan had come out from behind the couch and was happily inspecting the room. I was amazed by how quickly he adjusted to the new space. I guess he did remember me after all, since it took him no time at all to start nuzzling me and following me around meowing (you have to take the good with the bad when it comes to cats).

It was a relaxed evening of making and eating pizzas. Kanae’s brother’s family lives on the second floor of the house so they all joined us for dinner. After dinner we all took baths one by one, and just hung around until we got tired (actually until the adults got tired, Kanae’s girls and their cousins seemed to have an endless quantity of energy!). I went to bed before Christophe got back and don’t even remember his return – I guess the day had been more tiring then I realized.

Hello all,

sadly the internet is being very weird (big surprise) and we cant seem to upload pictures (but we can write and upload posts…). Hopefully we will figure it out soon, but in the meantime please enjoy these very delayed, no picture posts – yikes, things are going downhill fast at the end here!

3 days until we are on a plane for America!

After being in and out of sleep, intermittently woken up by peoples’ arrivings and coughings and other goings ons, we finally got up at 6:45 and were out of the internet cafe by 7. We hopped on the train and were at the famous Tsukiji Fish Market no later than 7:30. Although we had been to Tsukiji once before, quite early and not all there, we were determined to do it right once before leaving for what may be a good long time. Also, since we both have been reading The Sushi Economy, we thought we should give Tsukiji a second whirl with a whole lot more understanding of what goes on there.

I’d like to go into it, but well, it’s a fish market. It has fish and lots of it. We walked around, took some pictures, and headed toward to food stand and restaurant area that we had walked through earlier in the morning to dig on some delicious fresh (VERY fresh) sea food rice bowls. I had a tuna/salmon/salmon roe bowl and Meghan had a tuna/salmon. Delighted, we thanked the restaurant owner and chef and walked around a bit more to find a sushi place that would fill our desire to get a slice of each kind of cut of tuna for comparison. We found one and treated ourselves to one piece of akami, one piece of chu-toro, and one piece of o-toro each. Very satisfied, we headed away from Tsukiji to meet the Tokyo morning in Ginza.

We milled about Ginza for a while when we realized that it was only about 9 and nothing was open. Starbucks. Macha Latte and Coffee accompanied by people watching. Once the stores began opening, we headed out and were first met by the Sony building. Strongly considering the purchase of a Sony television after getting settled in back in the States, I thought we could peruse the offerings of the Sony building. Nice, unashamed consumerism. We walked the many floors of the Sony building, played with the many toys, and feasted our eyes on massive HD televisions we could, mostly, never afford.

A bit tired, we headed from Ginza to Tokyo and grabbed the next train to Kamakura – the latest place of residence with the wonderful Hitomi Family, parents to a wonderful friend of Meghan and mine from Muroran, Kanae, who would be arriving with her two girls that evening. Arriving in Kamakura, we decided to walk back to their home (which resides down a network of twisting roads and on a hill). It took us quite a while, and we did get a bit lost, but we eventually found our way. Tired and fairly stinky after both sleeping in an internet cafe and walking all about Tokyo, we grabbed naps and showers before Kanae, Riko (7) and Rio (3) showed up.

Around 7pm a small child burst into the room – the girls had arrived. Christophe and Kanae prepared the tons of fresh sashimi that Kanae had brought down from Hokkaido, while I partook in tickle wars with the girls. Dinner was another amazing meal of fresh fresh fish and two beautiful Hokkaido Kegani (hairy crabs). It was a good day of eating.

This morning I found myself in a panic about all the repacking that needed to be done before we could get on a plane, so we decided to delay running off to Tokyo until we had our bags under control. Sadly the bikes wont fit into a suitcase, so we will have to bring them in their bike bags and hope united lets us check them like normal bags. If they make us check them as “bikes” it will be $200 a piece!! We had a delicious breakfast prepared by our hosts, then after finally moving the ortleibs all into two suitcases (and a few bags of trash) we were ready to head out.

We got to Tokyo around one, grabbed some lunch then wandered around Akihabara (christophe’s favorite part of the city). After a while we worked our way up to Ueno, where we spent some time in the park and the shopping areas surrounding it. Around 7pm Mika, one of my close girlfriends from Hokkaido who moved down to Tokyo last year, met up with us and we went for dinner. We enjoyed a night of yakitori and beer, oden and beer, and finally darts and beer. It was a wonderful evening of catching up and at the end of the night it was a difficult goodbye.

Since we were planning to go to Tsukiji super early in the morning and it was already past midnight we decided to hole up in a manga-kisaten for the night (basically an internet cafe where you get a small cubical with computer, TV and sometimes video games. It’s about 4am now and we are just turning off everything (watched Da Vinci Code, played some games, ya know) so it will be a short night. We will be up at 6:45am tomorrow to get out of here by 7!

We woke up. We built the bikes. We loaded the bikes with all the bags. We biked the 10km to Shin Osaka station, enjoying the scenery of the city along the way. We took apart the bikes piece by piece. We wrapped and taped the pieces all together into the smallest package we could make then loaded each package into its bike bag. Meghan carried 6 bags; Christophe carried 2 bags and 2 bikes.

We got to the platform (three stories up) and got on the train. The shinkansen was an enjoyable 2 hour ride, very fast indeed. We spent the following 2 hours navigating between local trains and transfers to get to Kamakura station. Our shoulders ached, our feet ached, everything hurt. We got to the station and happily met Kanae’s father (Kanae being a very good friend from Muroran whose parents have so graciously offered to house us, our cat and our luggage as we prepare to leave Japan).

We even more happily loaded all the bags and bikes into the car. In a state of pure joy we enjoyed a large dinner of chicken wings, baked potatoes and carrots, pasta and rice – followed by persimmons and apples for dessert. Happy doesnt even begin to describe the feeling brought on by an offer of baths, soaking our aching bodies. Completely satisfied and exhausted we collapsed into warm futons and went to bed.