Dream Gate Maihama Urayasu

December 4, 2009



This has been a great week! I have seen some wonderful people and had a lot of smiles. There are several people who have come to see us every year. Some of them are very regular – we see them several times a week. We affectionately call these folks our "stalkers." Some of them are harmless enough, others are a little freaky. I have run (literally) into one couple at the grocery store and when I turned to ...

... if I will every tire of the kids looking at Santa with those eyes filled with wonder, enjoying the magic for maybe the first time. And of course there are those who come and lean back and settle into my beard and tummy – oh it makes me smile! I suppose it is a little taste of what I will feel with a grandbaby!

The other guys have had days off and, in our tradition, made dinner for the three of us. Mel made a dish that his mom used to make of corn, sausage, potatoes ...

... and headed out to meet Toshi for dinner. We went to Jonathan’s, a family restaurant with everything from Udon noodles to “American-style” pasta. It was tasty and fun to spend a little while with Toshi. He then dropped us back at the apartment and K.C., Mel and I headed over to the Ito Yokado (our supermarket, department store). It’s a place I love to go and shop. We find some fun different foods and occasionally try things that we don’t recognize ...

... with a loud laugh and surrounded by brightly costumed giggling creatures. It is scary! Then those caretakers who have been so protective and loving shove you into the red, fuzzy arms of the beast. It is clear now what is going on. They have been saving you, raising you for this final sacrifice. All of the small creatures like you are about being sacrificed for the large creatures' entertainment. You begin to scream! You cry! You kick and flail your ...

... to give it a go and he was a big hit with the locals. The next day we travelled from Toyko to Osaka. We failed to get cheap accomodation in Kobe so back to Osaka we go.... Accomodation is the most expensive thing about Japan. We want to go and see the castle in Himeji, so thats the reason for stopping in this area again. Tomorrow we will go and see it, tonight we plan to spend time on the internet, ring home, try to book the ferry from South Korea to China and plan for Korea.

... hub and in front of the castle. Basically heaps of lights on arches and in trees all through the gardens, performing a constant show in sync with songs from Cinderella. It doesn't make up for the Electrical Parade not running but it's better than nothing.

I've held off talking about Pooh's Hunny Hunt so I guess now is the time. Sure, Pooh is for kids and is generally not very entertaining to anybody over the age of 8. Sure, the characters can even be annoying at times and ...

... Still, wide eyed I wandered through the never ending lanes dodging motorised delivery carts skidding between the hundreds of sellers touting unknown numbers of types of fish, eels, octupus, shellfish and sea turtles, I even found some guy bagging up giant frogs or maybe toads... I dread to think what they were gonna be used for! Skipping on the fresh sushi due to a member of the crews green face(not mine though) we escaped past the fishy ...

... driver, Rochelle remembered she had Yen (picked up in the States before we left). The driver was thrilled to see the Yen and we all breathed a collective sigh of relief. The Century Hyatt is a 744 room hotel surrounded by many businesses, government buildings, entertainment zones, etc. Our room is on the 18th floor and is much larger than we expected based on what we'd researched regarding the sizes of hotel rooms in Japan. We have a great view of ...

... be something I can even continue when I get home. When I got home after aikido, Yoko had dinner ready. We had rice and vegetables and sweet potatoes, and a very spicy mixture of daikon and something else (I'm not sure what!) and a soup made of broth and onions. There were also some delicious crab rolls. It was tasty as always! After dinner, Yoko told me that Momo and Shyuuichi thought I was "stretchy." What they meant was flexible, haha, because ...

... not a day over 45, kicked off our trip in style. Giving us a full apartment to stay in, dinner with his lovely wife Yuko the night we arrived, and a straight 5,000 yen bill (about $50) apiece to just go enjoy the town the next day with, we were blown away and nearly embarrassed by the extent of his and Yuko's generosity (and Cal spirit!). The food was a recurring point of interest throughout Japan. I'm pretty open-minded about new things, even though my distaste for borscht labels me ...