Izu, Izu, We Love You!

Cape Maihama

We arrived in Japan approximately one year ago (plus a few weeks by the time I published!). I still remember vividly getting ready to board our enormous jet in Seattle. I handed my passport to the ticket agent and looked at Tim with a huge smile and said "Here we go!" only to have her say "Oh, wait just a moment" in response to a message on her walkie talkie. After about ten minutes a pilot staggered off the jetway looking chalk white with a slight tinge of green. He was holding a handkerchief to his face. After twenty minutes or so, we sat down in the ticket line a few feet away from the jetway. After a few hours, we were taking turns walking the kids around and had made fast friends with the next family in line, the Scotts, who also had three small children. After a few more hours, our flight was...canceled.

We collected our 14 bags, three car seats, one stroller, and three extremely tired children and trekked down to baggage claim. Where we waited again for HOURS as the airline scrambled to find housing for us. Children cried. Parents took turns bottoming out with irritation and then laughing with hysteria. We'd gotten three hours of sleep the night before after arriving in Seattle from North Carolina via Chicago at midnight. We'd reported to check in at 5 AM. I asked a pregnant woman who was patiently walking her Pomeranian and her toddler "Is it always like this?" She smiled wryly and said "Always." Finally we boarded a series of shuttle buses and were taken several hours away to the Canandian border to stay at a Native American casino.

When we arrived at the casino, I immediately drew a deep bath to wash off 48 hours or so of airport grime. The jacuzzi tub flooded the room.

We again collected all our bags and moved rooms. We took a shower this time.

The next day we departed at 2 AM to make our 5 AM check in. This time, we left. Just in case, I did NOT say "Here we go!" as we handed over our boarding passes. We slept for almost the entire nine hours. We landed at Yokota Air Force base two days before a typhoon hit and a stunning level of heat and humidity enveloped us immediately, falling over our heads like a load of hot towels the instant we stepped off the plane. I will never forget arriving at TLF (Temporary Living Facility) and all of us collapsing onto the beds at 3 PM like clubbed baby seals.

It was messy and chaotic and completely unforgettable.

A year later, and this was...not that. We spent our Japanniversary on the Izu Penisula.

On the approach! The road is right beside the ocean for a lot of the drive.

Like RIGHT BESIDE it.

It is breathtaking. Ridge after ridge of mountains are pressed together like praying hands, with the villages sheltered below in narrow teardrop valleys. As our faithful van crested yet another steep climb in preparation for yet another precipitious plunge, and we looked out over a panorama of mist veiled mountain forest, I said "This is the kind of place where it wouldn't be shocking to find yourself on level with a brachiosauraus head." Tim said (of course) "I think I would actually find that pretty shocking."

The Lost World

Just your basic driveway and parking setup.

A little village squeezed into a valley.

Rice fields.

We stayed a ryokan with a private open-air onsen in our room. A ryokan is a traditional Japanese style inn, with tatami mats on the floor and futons that the staff spread for you to sleep on and put away in massive cabinets during the day.  An onsen is a Japanese style bath. "Open air" in our case meant that you were in a little glassed in porch with windows you could open up. We didn't, because small children. But we COULD have, and that felt luxurious. We also had a wonderful traditional Japanese breakfast each day, which was an experience in and of itself!

Breakfast, with the whole grilled fish and large wooden cask of rice not pictured.From top to bottom, left to right: soy sauce, some sort of fruit jelly, pickled something, coddled egg, bean sprouts, sashimi (raw fish) and hot dashi (broth) to quickly cook the fish, more pickles and more pickles. Super helpful caption, right?

Futons spread out for a nap.

A soaking tub big enough for the whole family. It's hard to get an idea of the scale without the kids in it, but I didn't want to post the pictures with them in it for obvious reasons. We could all fit and the tub is deep enough that Emilia could only barely see out of it. The kids were thrilled to take a "Totoro" bath. 

The "open air" part. 

 

 

The way it works is pretty simple. You have a shower head and a little stool, and you clean yourself very thoroughly before you get into the tub: wash hair, scrub your entire body, shave if you plan to, and then you hop into the water perfectly clean. Washing this way makes a lot of sense. You can really make you sure you've lathered everything and then you're not soaking in your own dirt. There are onsens all over Japan, and most are communal affairs. And yes, you are naked in them, though they are segregated by sex. Ours was private, as I said, but there was a much bigger communal onsen at the ryokan, that we did not visit. Sometimes they also include things like "electrical shock baths" or "ramen tubs" or other oddities, but most are very relaxing experiences.

You are provided with yukata, light robes, for your wanderings about the onsen.

Tea making supplies are usually provided as well. We promptly hide these from our children. 

 

 

The view from our window. Sunset, not rise.

The ryokan and onsen itself were nice, but we also took a day trip to a nearby beach with some pretty fantastic rock formations and swim-through sea caves.

The beach, in its protected cove. The large rafts out in the bay are swimming platforms for diving and jumping.

A better view, from our actual real camera.

Tim and Addie swam through this cave and said it was filled with lots of little blue fish!

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"Look at me! Look at me! Look..ok, fine, whatever."

If you get hungry, have some "Runch".

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It was just a quick weekend trip, but it was marvelous. Just a year earlier a trip like this would have been totally overwhelming. Driving through Japan, navigating the narrow roads and tolls, staying in a traditional inn, speaking our best (still not very good!) Japanese with people who really didn't speak any English, and still managing to enjoy it all...well, it would have been unthinkable. And yet here we are, not experts by any means, but still doing it, forging ahead. I am proud of us, and so grateful for all the experiences our year has brought us, not least the opportunity to see so much of this beautiful country.

Weekly Notes #2

I've decided to try to update with weekly notes more often since finding time to nice, long, coherent posts is hard. I'm going to quit when I get to #243 or so. (Not really, that just seems like a far away and unlikely number, so I'm going with it.)

1) My fur nephew died with shocking suddenness this weekend. It was devastating for my sister and sad for my whole family. Teddy has been a constant presence in our lives and conversations for nine years, and even lived with Tim and I briefly when Des first moved to NYC. No one, most likely including Teddy, remembered that period of time with great fondness, but still, he was a big part of the family. He was a truly unique personality and was mildly famous in Phoenix, New York, and London. I know for a fact that he is being mourned with actual tears and real grief on at least three continents and not many dogs can say that. Rest well, sweet Teddy, not in peace, but in perpetual motion with the wind in your fur, the way you loved life the most.

Photo courtesy of The Dogist, one of Teddy's many moments of minor celebrity. Incidentally The Dogist is a fabilous follow, if you like dogs. 

2) This was a quiet week for us. We are currently in the midst of the Japanese festival of Obon, arguably the most important holiday of the year here. (The other rival is the New Year.) Obon lasts roughly two weeks and is the festival for the dead. People travel to their furosato (home place) and receive the spirits of their ancestors. It is a lovely thought, and a special time...but it is one where we avoid leaving base. Japan is always crowded, but holidays are unreal. The best equivalent is probably imagining your local Target parking lot during the week before Christmas. But all day long, every day, with no parking, long lines to pay, eat, and use a bathroom. In short, we tend to hunker down on base and enjoy personal space until the frenzy dies down.

3) What We're Watching: Song of the Sea. This is an absolutely beautiful movie that deals with the ideas of family ties and loss through an old Celtic folktale about selkies, creatures that are part seal/part human. It's the most visually striking kids movie that I've seen since Bookof Life, but in the completely opposite way. Book of Life is a midday feverish nap dream, and Song of the Sea is a deep, deep dark of the night dream with softer colors and faded edges. Both are unforgettable. Graydon actually cried at the end, which is the first time I've seen him have such an emotional response to a movie. Best of all, it's available for free on Amazon Prime.

I just copied this from Google.

3) Lowest Parenting Moment: I had one of those Mommy tantrums the other day caused by the relentless unending series of Sisphyean tasks that comprise motherhood. You know, the drill, laundry, dishes, wipe bums, put away toys, break up fights, forever and ever amen. Anyway, I freaked out about something, who knows what, and Addie said: "Mom, I think you should eat something."
 She knows I get "hangry". I was ashamed/proud/amused. And I did eat something. It helped.

4) Speaking of observant kids, Graydon is a scamp. An observant, brilliant unmitigated rascal. I sat down for the first time in about four hours and he immediately said "Mom, why are you so lazy?" (something he hears when he refuses to put on his car seat straps). I immediately snapped and said "Excuse me, what did you just say to me, you ng man?" with the MamaAintPlayin voice and he said, without missing a beat, and with many dimples showing, "I said, 'Why are you so beautiful?'" I tried so hard not to laugh. I failed.

Weekly Notes

*Sometimes I think I am getting Japan. Then stuff like this happens, where one is invited to enter a giant ass. And I'm all like "OK, yeah, I don't even know."

http://kotaku.com/enter-a-huge-butthole-in-japan-1722184062

Is this shit for real? 

*This entry is a huge pain to type, because Emilia broke our wireless mouse. Hence we are using our old mouse which has a broken left click button. Fortunately, you only need to use that button about 15 times per minute, so it's totally no big deal. (sarcasm alert) How did she do this, you ask? By thoughtfully jerking the wireless mouse receiver piece thing (actual technical term) out of the port and hiding it over and over again. To date, I have found this tiny tiny little piece (picture a dime) in a shoe, in a cup, in her mouth, and inside a dvd drive. It beggars belief, but somehow it got warped and now, broken wireless mouse is back in effect. I suggested an actual mouse with a cord, but Tim snorted "What is this, 2011?" in response, which I think means "better to get carpal tunnel from repeated clicking than to use something out of date". 

*Every day at least one of my children is up before seven AM. In a desperate effort to get some time to myself (any time! any time at all!), I keep setting my alarm earlier and earlier. I am now getting up at or before 5:30 AM every day only to find that STILL at least one of my children is joining me before my first sip of coffee. I have room darkening shades in all their rooms. I run a fan outside in the stairway landing. I close their doors. I tiptoe. I don't flush the toilet (until they get up, at least). Next up: an operation to remove the tracking devices they left behind in my uterus. Normally they go to bed at 8 PM, but I have figured out that for every hour they stay up late, they will sleep a further five minutes in the morning and be impossible approximately four hours earlier than normal. I am no economics aficionado but I believe that is what they might call a bad deal.

Taken at approximately 5:37 AM.

 *Incidentally, the children are on summer break from youchien. I keep trying to explain the concept of vacation to them, but they cannot seem to differentiate their "normal life" from "vacation", which just proves that youth is, in fact, totally wasted on the young. If someone insisted to me that I sleep past seven, I would tell them they had me at "sleep". EXTREMELY SUBTLE HINT. I think this is what they call foreshadowing in literature, because I am almost sure that I will get an offer to sleep in this weekend. Hope springs eternal!

This is my dream. Just with none of these people in it.

"Graydon, let's pretend we're eating lunch at school! Go get your color hat and picnic mat!" Obviously when one is on vacation, one should pretend to be back at youchien.

*Speaking of vacation, we went on vacation last weekend to celebrate our "Japannniversary" (possibly spelled incorrectly, if it is possible to misspell a made up word). It deserves a long post of its own, but here is a little sneak peek.

Cape Mihama. A panoramic put together by my talented husband.

Where We Are: 5.5 Years, 3.5 Years, and 15 months

Who allowed my children to grow up so quickly? (I posed this very question to Addie, and she said "I think it was Dad?") I swear, they were all babies yesterday and yet somehow today I have a house full of teens. OK, it's not quite THAT drastic, but it feels like every day brings some new skill or challenge to the forefront. And yes, sometimes some serious attitudes, but mostly they are sweet cuddlebugs that love being with their parents.

Graydon came down at 6 AM this morning, which I was SO THRILLED about, because obviously I get up around 5:30 AM every day in order to be by myself and get my game face on spend more time with my children. While I like my alone time to be, you know, actually spent alone, he was so cute and lovingly resistant to my attempts to bribe him into going back to his room, I had to laugh and ended up treasuring the moments cuddling in bed with him and listening to that time that he had a bad dream about Ursula the Sea Witch when we still lived in our "cake house" aka the house in Rochester. (Note: Addie created this name, and said it was because our house looked like it was made out of cream and chocolate, which was ...so true. And now I'm hungry.) 

The chances of getting a good picture decrease exponentially each time you add a child to the frame. Right now, we are basically on par with SETI discovering alien life. "So you're saying there's a chance!"

Emilia first, because she is the youngest. And also the biggest tyrant in the house right now. She has red hair. How did this happen? I don't know. I fondly refer to having children as "Darwin's Grab Bag" and THIS is why.  I happen to love this process, and insist we need to continue to have children because who knows what will come out next? White blond ringlets and big green eyes? Jet black straight hair with blue eyes and permatan? It's all in our immediate families. Anything could happen! Remember in Grey's Anatomy when a woman would produce a child of obviously different race than the father and accusations of infidelity would fly and drama would ensue only to find out that Character X had a rare genetic condition that caused dark pigment or something equally crazy? Tim and I would probably just be like "Hmmm...well, seems legit" and move on, helped along by the fact that all of children somehow manage to look exactly like their father while looking different from each other.

Anyway, Emilia. TYRANT. And yet her iron fist is concealed inside her adorably pudgy and dimpled hand so we all continue to cosset the baby and say "Oh, look at her tantrums, they're so cute!" I cannot see what could possibly go wrong with this approach. (Note to self: refer back to this post in six months when at wit's end).

The Titian Tyrant

She speaks a fair amount, mostly in mimicry of our tone so far. That said, she does around two dozen words/sounds she uses independently and many of them are in Japanese. "Emi" is a Japanese name, and it fits her. She says "Oiishe" (yummy), "Ohayo" (good morning), "Arigato" (thank you) complete with a small bow, "Sayonara" (goodbye) and "Hai, dozo" (Yes, please). In english she says many words including all our names or her approximations, her animal sounds (because Japanese onomatopoeia is different) and her favorite current demand words "Read!" and also "Read! Again!"  The number of children's books I can recite from memory at this point is slightly alarming to me.

She loves to read, to carefully remove all the shoes from our shoe bench and try them on, and to unpack various bags and boxes. She also likes to snatch toys from big brother and start running away as fast as she can. She likes to "help" by imitating various tasks and is convinced that she is just as big as Addie and Graydon. Most, if not all, of her tantrums are caused by telling her she cannot do something that the big kids are doing.

She is a decent eater, not overly picky, but very definite about what she will not tolerate, such as rice of any sort, any non firm fruit, and eggs. If you hand her anything she does not like, it goes straight onto the ground. Sometimes she will even pick it up off the floor and throw it again once the meal is over. Just to make sure you understand she does.not.like.that.thing. On the other hand, she loves pizza, pasta, hummus, corn, edamame, and any type of Japanese noodle from ramen to udon to yakisoba. And anything sweet, including Japanese sweets based on azuki beans.

Graydon is all "Stop, Hammer Time" and Emilia is being choked into submission. Addie is enjoying the power.

Graydon is hilarious and smart and is slowly becoming human again. He still has fits of aggression interspersed with extreme whining and inability to cope with any of life's tasks such as putting on his own shoes or anything else that he has been doing alone for over a year. We've come to recognize both extremes as his need for attention and to bite back our desire to snap or banish him to timeout for his various sins. Two is hard, three is harder, but the good news is that his little mind is fascinating and sharing his worldview is never dull. 

His version of the peace sign

I mentioned that he is smart, and I think that's true. We have, in all honesty, made zero effort to teach him anything and yet somehow he knows all his colors, shapes, various letters and numbers, so and so forth, often in two languages. He is our kid that is most likely to think in Japanese, by which I mean that he will instinctively reply to things with a Japanese word or phrase before he uses English. He definitely understands the concept of different languages and will always ask me before we go to play with someone new if they speak Japanese, English, or French. I'm not sure why French gets thrown in there, except for maybe overexposure to Fancy Nancy books?  It makes all the worrying I did about Addie's milestones seem like a massive waste of time. I'm not saying that knowing these things makes him a prodigy, just that apparently he picked them up without us sitting down and drilling the facts. Finally, an advantage to being the second child!

He pops up with random non sequiturs (brought to you by the Department of Redundacy Department) all the time, which are invariably funny.  Example: Adam and Jordan and I were walking down the streets of Tokyo at night, talking about something, who knows what, when G stands up in the stroller and turns around and says "We have cereal at our house, guys!". Other examples that spring to mind from the last few days include "When you die, your soul will leave your body!" "Sometimes I throw up!" and "When I take off my pants, my penis feels free!" These statements are always announced in a tone of great importance with many dimples flashing. He also asks many questions, some of which I struggle to answer. "Can you fix my hair like Spiderman's?", "What if all the villains in the world got a fresh start but then made bad choices again?", and my personal favorite, "Do YOU ever lie to ME?" with raised eyebrows and pursed lips after being reprimanded for dishonesty. 

He loves to be read to, is beginning to be interested in art (the messier the better), and shows a lot of athletic promise, much to his father's delight. He's in the midle of a growth spurt and wants to eat approximately every five minutes. He has become a somewhat picky eater, after being a great eater as a young(er) child, but I hear that is typical for the defiant years and I hope he'll come out of that phase soon. He still loves superheros, still patiently lines up every car he owns in very OCD fashion, and still rolls over people like a small Abrams tank when he is playing with his friends. His favorite Youtube videos involve cats trying to jump on things and missing. In short, he is an Ewald male, in all his glory.

Goofs. Emi is still trying to flee.

And then there is Adelaide. She is full of imagination, and my latest struggle with her is getting her to understand that just because people will believe her stories doesn't give her license to tell blatant lies. She has a gift for fiction and is a total cleverclogs, so she essentially acts like a little puppetmaster in her group. She is basically very kind, fortunately, which offsets her diabolical genius somewhat, but I can see her and Graydon forming an elite "Pinky and the Brain" type duo in the near future with Graydon providing the muscle for her schemes. She does care deeply about other people and what they think and still remembers the one incident where she might have hurt a stranger's feeling with a tactless comment, so there is some hope. Or so I tell myself. :-) If not, then Mata Hari or an Oceans 11 like future might await, which will at least make her memoirs interesting!

Angelic face, undoubtedly plotting something

Addie is a lot of fun to hang out with recently, as she makes clever observations and is a good conversationalist. She is extremely enthusiastic about life and is very passionate about her interests. She loves art, and reading, and playing what used to be my her Kindle. We are reading the Paddington Bear books for chapter books at night, and she insisted upon picking out some marmalade to try and observed that "Adelaide and marmalade sound similar" which illustrates another new passion for wordplay and writing. She is a perfectionist and writes notes to her friends at school and gets very upset if a letter looks a little wonky and will start all over again. 

She still loves to dress up, is still interested in princesses, fairies, mermaids, unicorns, ballerinas, and anything else that might come in the shocking pink aisles of the toy stores. Addie has also become our best and most adventurous eater after a very picky start, to which I give all the credit to us basically changing everything about the way we ate food. Though to be fair, she does deserve some credit for being a good sport about all of the changes. 

Ads is also a total social animal, at her very happiest when playing with her friends. She wants to host a playdate or go on a playdate every single day, and she often invites people over to our house, or invites herself to their house, without any adult input. As I mentioned, she is enthusiastic about her interests. Fortunately, she is also enthusiastic about her parents and gives us a ton of love and kindness during the day, which never fails to touch our hearts. She will very often say to us "You are my best Mom/Dad ever, and I love more than the biggest, biggest thing you can imagine!" That never gets old. 

"OK, Addie, you don't have to wrinkle up your face to do a big smile. Just smile naturally, like you're happy!" 

"That doesn't look happy. You look like you are in pain. Maybe try a small smile. Like you are happy, but also peaceful."

"OK, yeah, no. Just...do whatever you want."

"Perfect!"

A Postard: The Daiei and KitKats

"I grew less and less interested in explanations, because the mere moment seemed enough in itself; where I'd written 40 pages after my first two weeks here, and then 338 pages after a year, now I found I could barely write a postcard about Japan, if you'd asked me."

The author Pico Iyer wrote the above for an essay in the Washington Post, describing his time living and writing in Japan.  While I am in no way comparable to a published author, this rings completely true for me. We are coming up on the anniversary of our arrival in Japan, and I have written very little about living here. Before we moved here, I was sure I'd write a metric ton of posts about all our adventures. And while the adventures have been many, and the posts have been relatively few. It would be easy and somewhat true if I attibute this to a lack of time, but it wouldn't be the whole story.

The truth is that Japan is really hard to write about. At first, because everything is so different. The light switches are horizontal instead of vertical. You can choose two different intensities of "flush" on the toilet. Daily life immediately becomes something to figure out at every turn, and you find yourself deciphering the rules of even the simplest interactions with things. Parking meters, grocery carts, credit cards, escalators, and the direction that you walk are all subtly or completely different. And these are just the things, this is to say nothing of attempting to interact with actual people in a language that you barely speak and cannot read that happens to have very different cultural rules of behavior.

That was then, and this is now. I think I've been here long enough now that I"m no longer totally overwhelmed. At least most of the time. So while I will not be writing any books, I think I can manage a few postcards about daily life.

If you ask my children what their favorite place is in all of Japan, they will tell you it's the Daiei (die ay).  This is basically the equivalent of saying "Target" in America. Which, honestly, strikes me as completely reasonable because I was really super excited to visit Target when we went back to America.

In all its glory! Notice that everyone backs into their parking spaces in Japan.

 It's fairly standard at first. A grocery store, clothes, housewares...

 Sneakers and socks.

 

 

 

 

 

And an arcade. Which is sort of odd for America, where sometimes a Walmart will have a Family Fun Room (!!!) with two or three broken games, a rigged UFO catcher, and a miserable looking ride on animal/car.  Not so here, not so: the Japanese are serious about arcades. They are everywhere, and totally awesome. (Note: Some of the pictures below are from previous visits, because we go roughly once every two weeks.)

We see your little hobby horse, America, and raise you a bullet train and motorcycle.

A small selection of the games.

 As if the arcade was not cool enough, there is also a playspace.

Rushing towards the playspace, in case it disappears in the ten seconds it would take to walk.

 The playspace has a climbing gym with a ball pit. And there are rides, which are free. And there are swings and random giant inflatable things to play in and you can catch fish (why? for what?) and a large selection of toys, and basically it's a child's paradise for about two dollars every fifteen minutes.

Addie's favorite thing by far. 

Graydon's favorite thing in our early visits. 

...and also in our later visits.

The ball pit

 It must be said that is is also a parent paradise, so I never mind letting the children take a play break. There are really not enough massaging pieces of furniture in my life. It is not uncommon to see these chairs full of people taking naps. I don't get quite that relaxed, but I do enjoy flipping through Japanese magazines whilst being gently pummeled.

The free massage chairs facing the play area.

The reading materials including a large manga selection.

 This is one of our usual places to run errands, which makes me happy not only because of the massage chairs, but also because one of the best different things about Japan is flavored Kit Kats. And they usually have a decent seasonal selection in the grocery store.

Mint chocolate chip cookie, courtesy of my friend Jessica.

 And my personal favorite so far:

Toasted Lemon Cheesecake. Yes, you are meant to toast them though only after freezing them first. I found this out the hard way after melting a few unfrozen sticks. Illiteracy kills, y'all.

I may or may not have joined a Facebook group dedicated to hunting down different varieties of KitKats. I am only slightly ashamed of this.

Have I ever mentioned how much I love it here? I do. As postcards so often say "Wish you were here!" I might even break you off a piece of that KitKat bar.