Adventures with Jackie & Byron
Trip Start
Sep 15, 2007
1
18
24
Trip End
Nov 14, 2007
Tsukuba,
Japan
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
I drove to Narita airport and picked Jackie and Byron up when they arrived Thursday afternoon. I'm SO proud of myself for driving down there, finding my way around, and not getting lost! Now, if I wanted you to be truly impressed, I would neglect to mention that it's a straight shot to Narita on one highway all the way from Tsukuba, this was the middle of the day, and it's a relatively rural area. I really didn't have any major problems. Still, I spent a good couple of hours ahead of time researching maps, directions, parking, terminals, etc. on the web.
Unfortunately, it started raining Friday morning and was absolutely miserable on Saturday due to a TYPHOON off the coast
Jackie and Byron
. Our weather wasn't really all that bad ... we were pretty lucky, ... but it was windy and rained hard all day long. That can be a bit of a problem for driving and finding something interesting to do - and even for 4 people hanging around a tiny apartment. But hey, now we can all say we've been through a typhoon. We've also felt very minor earthquakes 2-3 times since we've been here. These didn't even rate a mention on the news, radio, or in the office the next day. I think I might feel pretty nervous if I lived here permanently - wondering when a big one would hit. It's taken very seriously, with emergency equipment, evacuation plans, and earthquake drills.While J&B were here, we went back to Kasama - the pottery town I talked about in an earlier entry. We spent a whole day there. There were some beautiful chrysanthemums at the Kasama Inari Shrine, as the chrysanthemum festival was on-going. Apparently during some of the festivities people actually dress in costumes made of chrysanthemums! We didn't get to see that, as it was a rainy friday morning and pretty quiet. We went through the ceramics museum, which had some nice pieces, and even bought a few things.
On Sunday, we had a beautiful, clear day - the typhoon had blown the air clean. We did a big trip that day (Jackie said it was a great tour of the Tokyo public transportation network) ..
I made it!
. a bit much for one day, but enjoyable and worked out OK. We went to Mount Takao, on the far western side of Tokyo prefecture, about 100 km from Tsukuba. This involved 3 trains, including a private line, plus a cable car. We also activated our Japan Rail passes and got reservations for our trip to Kyoto - requiring different ticket offices, etc. However, Takao-san was beautiful, with an impressive Buddhist temple and great views including ... TA DA ... a nice clear view of Mt. Fuji.Another day we went to Tsukuba-san, we had a couple of good meals, and went into Tokyo for another day trip. In Tokyo, we wandered around Tsukiji (the wholesale fish market) and the outer market where they sell other items to the general public. We walked through Ginza and the International Forum, and had a wonderful lunch at a Chinese restaurant. We had planned to attend one act of a kabuki play, but it turned out they weren't doing any more until 1 November ... of course there were no signs indicating this, and neither Jackie nor I saw any indication of it on their website. If you want to get a kick out of weird Japanese-English translations ... I dare you to figure out how to get tickets for a single act ... check out the website for the Kabuki-za theater: http://www.shochiku.co.jp/play/kabukiza/theater.
