Japan Day 3 Koga

This was my favorite day of the trip.  My dad and I attended church in Koga with a family he taught while on his mission.  I enjoyed church as for once I was the one being interpreted for, rather than doing it myself.  It was a valuable experience to be put in the shoes of those I serve.  I did have to laugh a little as there were times when I could tell my interpreter (a delightful young woman in her 20s who served a mission in the states and learned English here) was struggling to find the right word.  Occasionally I would feed her the word just as I would with my team at church.  Even when receiving the service, I guess I can't turn it off!

The highlight, however, was definitely meeting the Suzuki family. This family did end up joining the church in part due to my dad's efforts, and the ripple effect of that is HUGE.  Not only are their kids and grandkids members, but they have also prepared (if I understood it correctly) 800 names of their deceased ancestors for temple work!  We had dinner with the Suzuki family and one of their daughters.  She herself had 6 children, which is highly unusual in Japan.  They have a multi-generational dinner every Sunday, and the kids are always in charge of cooking.  And boy did they!  It was even worse than the plane...the food kept coming and coming and coming and coming and...and ALL of it was delicious!  I didn't want to stop eating it, although at a certain point I simply had to.  Which was a pity, really. 

Watching this family interact with my dad and seeing the impact a person can have on hundreds was something I will never forget. 

I know we took about a million pictures, and some included the entire family.  Unfortunately, they seem to be missing at the moment.  This is a post that may be updated later, as I am hoping we can get those pictures by e-mailing the family.

Japan Day 2 Nikko

(To give an idea of all the train traveling we did, I have included maps of the different stages.  This was the trip taken on Day 1, actually.  Unfortunately, I inserted all maps one day off, and it was entirely too much work to redo it.  I figure the point is still there.  :) )

The sightseeing on this day began with a trip to the Shinkyo Bridge. 

Along the way we had to cross another no-name bridge.  This was actually the first one we came to, and I was so struck by the landscape that I had to stop for a picture.  Little did I know how many more scenic pictures were to come!

mostly took place UNESCO World Heritage Centre where there is a large complex of ancient shrines and temples.  Japanese architecture is so unique!

One thing I found very interesting was the emphasis on leaving wishes/desires in various places using various methods.  In one area, the focus of these wishes seemed to be on relationships, and at the cajoling of my father, I left one of my own.  For this particular one, you start by buying a fortune.  Mine was...unexpected.

As it turns out, the love of my life is running late and I need to have some patience! 

After one buys a fortune, you tie it on to any one of a variety of places such as structures designed for that purpose, hung string, or even tree branches.  I chose to tie mine to a structure that I thought looked like a heart because why not?  However, in keeping with my romantic luck, as I was trying to make sure it was tight, I ripped it!  I don't even want to know what that means for my future!  My dad and I could not stop laughing.  A highlight of the trip for sure.

We spent the morning at the World Heritage Centre.  With the heat increasing and not much else to see in the area (at least, not without spending more money and we needed to pace ourselves), we decided to head home.  We couldn't figure out the AC for quite some time, so this was the solution.  By the time, we did, it had already started to cool down.  Oh well.  All the places we stayed in used the same kind of unit, so at least we knew going forward what to do!

Japan is hot, ya'll! Especially when you can't figure out how to use the AC.

Japan Day 1: Planes, Trains, and Automobiles

Every great adventure has a beginning, and this beginning involves hours and hours of planes, trains, and automobiles.  You pay the price to travel halfway across the globe!  We started with a 15 hour trip to Taipei.  On this leg of our travels, I learned that when you fly for that long on EVA airlines, they REALLY like to feed you.  The thing is, I always travel with food...you never know when you're going to get to eat next, and I don't want to be hangry!  Never having done this before, I didn't know about the oodles and oodles of food.  Somehow I had a real knack for eating a snack almost immediately before the food cart came calling.  For the most part, I declined the offerings, but the attendants were pretty insistent.  I absolutely ate more than I was actually hungry for.

So we did eventually arrive to Taipei, where we had a fairly short layover.  My dad had lounge privileges, (I did not know this was a thing--I might be addicted now!) where once again, they had food.  And it was free and representative of local fare.  So I had to eat some!  Then we boarded the plane, and this time it was only three hours.  With one meal.  Which I tried to decline, but ended up taking anyway.  I was pretty much rolled off the plane at this point.

Once at Narita Airport, we had to take a train to Tokyo.  That train station is INSANE!  It amazes me that anyone ends up where they are supposed to be when they are supposed to be there.  I really don't know how to explain the sheer confusion.  The signage tells you what train line/track number, but one line goes to several different cities so if you don't know the line, good luck!  By the time the trip ended, we had learned to head straight to information and ask what track number we were going to and what direction it was in.  But we didn't know that yet, so we missed a train and had to start over with getting tickets and figuring it all out.  Luckily, the trains are constantly coming, so missing it didn't put us behind too badly. 

Once we finished our train travels (there were a few connections to different lines along the way), we still had to take a taxi to our airbnb.  The driver claimed to know where he was going.  He didn't.  And honestly, we had a map to the place but didn't realize it in the mass of papers printed for our many different airbnbs.  So the taxi took longer, and cost MUCH more, than we had anticipated.  Towards the end of the drive, I noticed a woman getting out of her car.  I had the idea to stop and ask her, although of course my dad had to do it (and all other communication) as he is the one who knows the language, at least somewhat.  This ended up being the best idea that I take complete credit for, as not only did she know where it was, she walked my dad over there with the taxi following behind them. This was my first exposure to how incredible nice the Japanese are.  I'm not sure I've met a nicer people on the whole. Other than the taxi drivers.  But I'll be saving that little bit for another post.

Thanks to that sweet stranger, we made it to our place, which was a traditional Japanese house.  I loved it. Other than the fact that we couldn't figure out the AC.  More on that in the next post.  (How's that for a tease?  ;) ) It was definitely on the small side, but it was the perfect size for a single person like myself.  It was also the perfect size for me--I was greatly amused by how low all the doorways were!  So naturally I needed to take pictures.

The scenery when we first got in.  It was dusk and overcast and just beautiful.  I loved the brick streets set against the mountains.  It was the very definition of quaint, and if I could live there I would.  Straight out of a storybook!  The pictures really don't do it justice, sadly.

At any rate, that's the end of day 1.  After all that travel, I slept well that night!