Brittany and Zach Visit Japan :-)

Sorry, friends and family, you are all now official losers in the race to visit us in Japan.  First place has been taken by Brittany and Zach!   We weren't expecting them to visit, but they said until they knew for sure they were able to come, they didn't mention anything from us.  And then suddenly they were here before we knew it!

I was able to meet them at at airport without any problems and then Bryan met us after he was through with work at the Yokohama Station.  They had 8.5 days to spend with us, which is a nice amount, but they had a lot of their To Do/See list.  Despite the 13 hour time change they took advantage of almost every minute of each day!    I don't know where they got the energy, but good for them! 

My pictures of our time together aren't the best.  They had a cool lens for their camera, so they took a lot more pictures, but here's some of mine.

First thing Saturday morning we went to Hakone.  We drove around for awhile, looking for a Mt. Fuji sighting, but alas, none.  But this is us at Lake Ashinoko.

Bryan and Brittany, who both love Bryan's new outfit from the store down the street.  In case you can't tell, those are faces that have zippers for mouths and they have tongues in them that sometimes pop out depending on Bryan's mood (and sometimes sobriety). 

We visited Tokyo on Sunday.  First stop, Harajuku, where I found a hat that looked like it was from Miami University, which is in the town where Bryan's from.   Don't miss out on the other hats, including the "You Sexy" one.

Bryan found some nice shades too.

Brunch at New Sanno, the military hotel in Tokyo!  Bottomless champaigne!  Kanpai!

We found some street performers.  I don't know what he what he was saying, but he seemed like a Jack-of-all-trades kinda guy and was quite lively. 

Right beside the guy in the previous picture was this man, who had a sign saying that he will sing your country's national anthem.  Actually, I think technically the puppet "sang" it. 

We visited the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building in Shinjuku.  They have an observatory deck where all you can see for miles and miles is the city.

Apparently it is peanut season!  We were given a free peanut (just one!) and this photo opportunity on the ground floor of the Government Building.

O-H-I-O pride!  At the Meiji Jingu, a Shinto shrine in the middle of Tokyo.  It is surrounded by a park, filled with 100,000 trees, which came from all over Japan and many other countries.    It's beautiful and so quiet.  You could easily forget that you're in the middle of one of the world's busiest cities.

The sake barrels at Meiji Jingu. Doesn't it look at Japanese?

I always see sake barrels at the shrines that we visit.  I finally looked up what they're about.  Here's an interesting, but slightly lengthy, cultural lesson, courtesy of the Japan Times:

When displayed near a Shinto shrine, such barrels are called kazaridaru, which means “decoration barrels.” The barrels on display are empty, at least in physical terms. Spiritually, they’re chock full of significance.

 “In Japan, sake has always been a way of bringing our gods and people together,” Tetsuo Hasuo of the Japan Sake Brewers Association explained when I brought your question to him. “In some of this country’s oldest texts the word used for sake is miki, written with the characters for ‘god’ and ‘wine.’ People would go a shrine festival and be given rice wine to drink, and they would feel happy and closer to the gods.”

These days, the word miki (or o-miki when given its honorific prefix) is reserved for rice wine used in Shinto rites and festivals. Sipping a cup is still a prayerful act of symbolic unification with the gods. Shinto shrines and sake manufacturers maintain a symbiotic relationship, in which the shrines conduct rites to ask the gods for the prosperity of the brewers, and — this is where the barrels come in — the brewers donate the grog that shrines need for ceremonies and festivals. There is no particular season for donations, according to Hasuo.

“Shrines need more sake when they have festivals, the timing of which varies by shrine,” he said. “But festivals are most often held in the spring and fall, so those are the busiest season for donations.”

Smaller shrines usually get their o-miki from local sake companies, but two shrines, Meiji Jingu in Tokyo and Ise Jingu in Mie Prefecture, look after the entire national product by accepting donations from every rice-wine brewer in the country.

Given that there are about 1,800 sake manufacturers in Japan, that’s quite an undertaking. The logistics are handled by a special committee at each shrine called the shuzokeishinkai (brewer reverence committee), which works out who sends what.
When it comes to barrels, the committee will ask for only as many full ones as the shrine actually needs for festivals and ceremonies.

“Generally, a brewer provides just one bottle, or an empty barrel for display. It’s the kimochi (gesture) that’s important,” Hasuo said, “because asking for or giving more sake than is actually needed would be mottainai (wasteful).”

This strikes me as an example of traditional Japanese values: Shinto gods don’t make unreasonable demands of people, and people show respect for the natural world inhabited by Shinto gods by avoiding waste.

Pretty cool, huh?  Well if you liked that, maybe you'll love to learn about ema too, courtesy of Wikipedia:
  

Ema (絵馬^?) are small wooden plaques on which Shinto worshippers write their prayers or wishes. The ema are then left hanging up at the shrine, where the kami (spirits or gods) receive them. They bear various pictures, often of animals or other Shinto imagery, and many have the word gan'i (願意), meaning "wish", written along the side. In ancient times people would donate horses to the shrines for good favor, over time this was transferred to a wooden plaque with a picture of a horse, and later still to the various wooden plaques sold today for the same purpose.

Ema are sold for various wishes. Common reasons for buying a plaque are for success in work or on exams, marital bliss, to have children, and health. Some shrines specialize in certain types of these plaques, and the larger shrines may offer more than one. Sales of ema help support the shrine financially.

A sampling of the ema at Meiji Jingu.

This one was one of my favorite: "...and a hedgehog."   Dear Brandon, What're you going to do with a hedgehog??  Oh, Gaijin!

I guess this sign is a product of having both Japanese "Squatter" toilets and western.   Do NOT stand/squat on the western style toilets!

I hardly consider this a good picture of me and Brittany, but Zach and Bryan were playing around with the camera settings at Shibuya Crossing/Scramble.  I feel like the blur helps understand the craziness of the crosswalk.

We found a Mexican restaurant down the street from our hotel so that we could properly celebrate Cinco de Mayo.  We were exhausted from our busy day though and I'm pretty sure this is the most excited we looked the whole dinner.

Zach and Brittany went to Hiroshima and Kyoto for a couple of days while we had to spend the days at work.  They bought the JR (Japanese Railway) tourist pass, which let them ride any of the JR lines around us and the Shinkansen (bullet train) for a week.  It's a really great deal for tourists!  When they got back, we had to resume our sightseeing and food sampling.  Several friends had told us about Nakamaru-san's sushi restaurant.  For $50, you get all the sushi and drinks you want.  You can make requests, but it's not really necessary, as Nakamaru-san keeps the sushi coming.  We had blue fin tuna, yellow tail tuna, octopus, sea urchin, baby shrimp, and more!  Oh, and we had Kobe beef, both as sashimi (thinly sliced and raw) and seared.   I enjoyed umeshu, plum wine, that Nakamaru-san made himself and the guys enjoyed a little bit of all of the alcohol choices.  Soooo oishii!

Stuffed from sushi!

We were very lucky to have seats at the counter, right in front of where Nakamaru-san works.  He talked to us and asked us how we liked the food.  Shout out to my friend Mariko,who made the reservation for us.

Tuna!

Tiny raw fish, in a soy sauce mix.   I've always been afraid of eating things that have eyes, but I did it anyway.  And it turned out they were pretty good.

We went shopping at a bunch of recycle stores (classy second hand stores).  This was at Smile Company.  They have clothing and accessories on the first floor, household items, sporting goods, and musical instruments on the second floor, and furniture on the third floor.  Japanese couches and chairs are much smaller than American ones, so we were entertained and took a picture on what we believe is a couch.  Don't  we look like we're having such a great time?  Or do we just look creepy?

We went  to our first Japanese baseball game!  We are big fans now and Bryan thinks he should buy season tickets. 

The first difference between American and Japanese baseball games:  You're allowed to bring in your own food and drinks, including alcohol.  If you bring cans, you just have to pour them into cups.  And apparently if you look like a confused non-Japanese speaker, they'll do it for you!

The most noticeable difference is the cheering.  The whole outfield section stands and cheers the entire time their team is up to bat.  They have general cheers for the team, but then they sing another cheer for each player.   This video is from another game we went to, but you get the idea.  The rest of the fans join in too.

There are cheerleaders!

Us with the Baystar's mascot, DB Starman.  And yes, we did wait in line with all the kids to get our picture taken with him.

He's got spirit, yes he does!  Perhaps after a few chu-hi ?? 

Lots of cute beer gals.

Fun times!

The game that we went to was probably one of the best that the Baystars had played in several years.  They played the Tokyo Giants, who were league champions last year, while the Baystars were near the bottom of the league.  However, after a super close game with a home run ending, the Baystars won!

We ended their visit with lunch at "the fried rice place".  The yellow around the edge is egg that they pour into the hot skillet right before they deliver it to the table.  You have to mix it up so that the egg breaks up and then it continues to cook a bit in the buttery hot skillet.  After just a minute you're left with the most delicious and crunchy fried rice.  Mmmm!

Yes, that is a slab of butter that they throw on top of the rice, garlic, onions, pork, egg, and yummy sauce.

We also spent a lot of time just visiting with each other and catching up on life.  We hit up the sushi go round and some other local stores.  We enjoyed shabu-shabu, a Japanese style of dining and hit up a local mall.  They got a quick tour of base and we had some rooftop drinks in Yokohama.   

We are very lucky to such great friends who travel across the world to come visit us!  Can't wait to see them again in August :-)

So there you have it.  You too could experience all the awesomeness of Japan, just like Zach and Brittany.   Second place is still available!