We began and ended our trip in Stockholm Philadelphia Copenhagen
Stockholm Malaren Baltic Sea Royal Palace
One of the high points of the trip came about from pure
serendipity. We were wandering around
the city waiting to occupy our hotel room, and suddenly I HAD TO EAT
10. The Cascade Bakery in the Gakuentoshi subway station--fine bread and pastry in a convenient place. As we waited for a train the aroma from the bakery would waft through the station..... The number of fine bakeries and dessert houses in Kobe is amazing.
9. Vending Machines. Yes,they are expensive and unattractive. But it's reassuring to know that when you are thirsty on a hot summer day, you can find a cold drink just about anywhere. And for a runner, they are a godsend. At home I have to plan my long runs around either park waterfountains or convenience stores--and you can guess how happy they are to see a dripping wet runner come in...
8. Riceballs. Small cellophane wrapped triangular rice balls, with the nori kept crisp inside the cellophane. Ingenious, cheap and delicious.
7. Service. The service in Japan in hotels, restaurants, and other service businesses is uniformly excellent. They aim to please and are paid enough that tips are not necessary.
6. Public Transportation. It is expensive, and there are some indications that the privatized lines (including JR and the Sanyo Shinkansen lines) are cutting corners on maintenance or putting too much stress on their employees. But it is reliable and efficient. I will miss the Kobe subway and wandering around Sannomiya station....
5. Magome. We had several delightful short trips around eastern Japan, including Kinosaki onsen, Shikoku and Kyushu. But I enjoyed our stay in Magome and walk along the old Nakasendo toll road the most. It is a charming place.
4 Kyoto. Still one of the world's great cities. It's not just the profusion of temples, shrines and gardens--it is a living city with a character all its own. Kobe comes in a close second thanks to its delightful location, vibrant downtown and many activities.
3. Food. A traditional Japanese meal at a banquet or ryokan is a mystery and adventure. There were a couple of things I couldn't stomach--mainly goya and uni--but everything else was delicious.
2. Onsen. There are other countries in the world with a spa tradition, including Germany and Turkey. But none have made it such an important part of day-to-day life.
1. Students, Faculty, Staff and Friends. During our stay I was able to visit old friends up in Chiba and make many new ones here in Kobe. And working with my dedicated students was very rewarding. The faculty, staff, and our neighbors here in the juutaku made us feel very welcome and helped me resolve the few problems we ran into.
Honorable mention: tatami rooms, futon, Kobe Grocers, Amazon.com.jp.
Departure time has almost arrived--tomorrow afternoon. So I've understandably been reflecting about the high and low points of this adventure, the things that irritated me and those that delighted me.
I'll start with the negatives first to get them out of the way.
Bottom....6
6. The Cash Economy and Cash Machines: or lack thereof. Foreigners in Japan are forced to live in an almost exclusively cash-only economy. Most stores, many hotels, and bank cash machines don't accept foreign credit cards. So I've become accustomed to carrying around far more cash than I ever do in the U.S. Luckily the Post Office Postal Savings system does accept US atm cards. Without them we would have been in tough shape. An interesting question is whether I/we spent more or less as a result of working from cash.
5. Low and Lower. If the statistics I've seen on the net are accurate, the average height for Japanese adults is about 5' 5". (Which is rising; the average height for 17 year olds is now about 5'7"). I am just short of 5'10". So everything in our apartment is too low: sinks, mirrors, tables, chairs, desk. For two months I just bent over when necessary, especially shaving or washing dishes. Then my back said, "Hey, that's enough!" and for about 6 weeks, for the first time ever, I had a seriously bad back. The worst moment was at the onsen in Yufuin when I sat down next to a bath and realized that I couldn't get up.
Rachel, alas, has experience with back problems and said, "Start taking Aleve (an anti-inflammatory and pain-killing drug). Now." I followed her advice and combined with better sitting posture and an absurd, legs bent position while at the sink, have brought my back almost to normal. Whew!
4. High Prices. According to a recent survey, Osaka/Kobe is the second most expensive urban area on the planet. During our first month here, a visit to the store was inevitably a breathtaking event. (And this is after a decade of deflation and declining prices....). Gradually we adapted, buying fewer foreign items (though I couldn't live without peanut butter!), browsing the 100-yen stores, eating far less meat than we do in the States.
3. Concrete. Public works projects have been a vital element of the Japanese economy in the postwar period. As I understand it, this is easing as the Koizumi administration has cut such spending to try to reduce the country's huge budget deficit. But some of the projects are mystifying, such as the Kobe Airport. KIX airport in Osaka is an hour away by bus or train--why spend billions on a facility that will inevitably be underused? (See photo of the under-construction monorail to the airport on Port Island--the new terminal is just visible in the distance). More disturbing is the vast amount of concrete used for retaining walls, dykes, etc. Engineers here seem to have a penchant for overengineering and using as much concrete as they can, and in the process have badly scarred much of the countryside. Granted, earthquakes and unstable land are a factor--but they are elsewhere in the world, too and no other country I've visited has suffered similar damage.
During our first two months here, workers worked steadily on a paved path south of our apartment house. This will link the campus and Gakuentoshi to a vast housing development being constructed just over the hill. Not visible in the photo is a huge amount of concrete that was poured over the hills to the east and west of the path.
2. The Status of Women. Recent articles in the Japanese press have described proposals by some politicians associated with the ruling party in the arena of women's rights. They are considering changing government policy to emphasize "families" and deemphasize the need to encourage more gender equality in Japan's private and public sector organizations. This is astounding. On most international measures of gender-equality Japan continues to be far back in the pack.
While this topic deserves an entire essay, here are a few observations. I've wondered for a while now about the degree to which the extended economic slump in the country is related to the limited role that women play in the workforce and economy. There is a huge amount of talent and energy that, to this outsider, could be making a much greater contribution to the economy and society. Would this harm families? It would certainly require changes, and such changes could be difficult. Though I've seen statistics in the past on the length of the Japanese workweek, during my stay I've had the chance to talk to people about their hours of work and how they like it. Uniformly, they don't like having to work such long hours. Eventually, a change in the social bargain that keeps (mostly men) working long hours, with their wives at home, may prove to provide a way forward for everyone.
1. Noise. I'm sensitive to noise. Thanks to a defective firecracker that exploded next to my ear in middle-school, I have a bothersome case of tinnitus--that ear rings loudly 24 hours a day.
Alas, urban Japan is noisy. Subway trains are noisy; shopping districts are filled with screaming men and women encouraging people to visit their shops; open public spaces near train stations are now often dominated by huge TV screens that play mostly commercials. Worst of all, our apartment house in Kobe is in a particularly loud spot on a connecting road between an expressway and a boulevard, which many students riding deafening scooters use to get to campus. So every morning at about 5:30 am, the traffic starts in. During summer when we have had the sliding doors to our apartment open for ventilation the noise has been particularly bad. So I have cherished the occasions during this stay when we have found quiet.
During my next to last class, several of my students rather shyly asked if my family and I would like to go on a sightseeing trip with the group before returning to the US. I delightedly said yes and we started trying to figure out a plan that would work for as many people as possible. The following week one of them suggested a well-known restaurant in Sannomiya named Ninnikuya that features garlic in almost every dish. Both my wife Rachel and stepson Nate are garlic fans, so that was a winner.
We met up with one student at Gakuentoshi, more joined us at Sannomiya,then we walked up the hill to the lower part of the Kitano neighborhood. The restaurant is on the 7th floor and has a nice view of downtown Kobe. We had 11 people altogether and soon the ordering and eating commenced, sharing all the dishes--fried garlic cloves, garlic pizza, crab pasta with garlic, fried chicken with garlic, seafood salad with garlic, a delicious raw beef dish--gyuniku tataki, and more, all fabulous. We chatted with the students, most of whom will work over the summer break, with some planning to do a bit of travelling. One intrepid young woman is planning to go to New Zealand--what fun!
Nate went into the bathroom and returned with a toothbrush and toothpaste--the first step to returning one's breath to social acceptability. At the end of the meal the server arrived with small packets of mouthwash, too.
During dinner Rachel mentioned to some of the group that we hadn't yet visited a karaoke room, and wondered if there was any interest. They eagerly said yes, so afterward we walked back to Sannomiya and up the stairs to a karaoke club. You rent the rooms by the hour and they serve high priced drinks and food. The technology is amazing these days. They give you a tablet computer and a high tech remote, both of which have lists of thousands of songs catalogued by artist and title; pick your song and press a button, and boom, the music starts. So we started in--I belted out U2's Desire; later a student asked me to do September by Earth, Wind and Fire, her favorite song. I said yes and started singing, completely forgetting that it has a falsetto chorus. Luckily I didn't embarrass myself. Nate took on a few Hilary Duff and Britney Spears numbers, the two Chinese students did songs from the mainland and Taiwan, and the Japanese students did duets of several Japanese pop hits. The best songs in the other languages were immediately apparent--strong melodies and crisp choruses. Someone dialed in the Jackson 5's ABC and it was so high pitched that we gave up.
After a couple of hours we realized how late it was and wound up our session.
I was fortunate to have a delightful group of students and I greatly enjoyed working with them. I hope they keep in touch.
Here are some photos of Aichi Expo, starting with a few of the pavilions. Here is Nate with the giant platypus in the Aussie exhibit...plus one with the main expo mascot, Morizo.
The Japanese pavilion is strikingly different from the rest in form, especially on the outside with its bamboo construction. After going through the spherical theater, you walk down to a large open area that is curiously unstructured and doesn't seem to have any explanation that I could find. But at times the outside of the globe/theater is illuminated. Outside, next to this pavilion is the black monolith of the Nagoya city pavilion, a huge kaliedoscope. Uphill from these exhibits is the WonderWheel...
And these give you some idea of the overall site...this promenade links the 6 "Global Commons" areas. The sections that have dark material for flooring become scorchingly hot in the afternoons...its like walking onto an oven. Luckily, yesterday clouds from the approaching typhoon were starting to streak across Japan, so that kept the heat down a bit.
The concept of the "World's Fair" feels a bit anachronistic when access to the Internet literally brings the world to your fingertips. But we decided we couldn't miss an opportunity to see the fair, which is relatively close by, outside of Nagoya--less than 90 minutes away by Shinkansen.
Getting there was an adventure. No reasonably priced hotels could be had in Nagoya, so we wound up in nearby Gifu, a sizable city just to the north. Luckily, it has its own shinkansen station...but it's a far piece from downtown. When our taxi driver figured out what hotel we wanted to go to, his eyes lit up--jackpot! It turned out to be a Marriott, a chain I usually avoid, but it was fine for one night.
The next morning, we were up at 6 am, took a taxi to Gifu Station, zipped onto the standing-room-only express for Nagoya, then caught the 40 minute train to the expo site. We were a bit taken aback that not a word of the long narration on the train was in English. So we were nervous that we'd miss something important. The final leg to the site is on the "Linimo" maglev train the last half mile to the Expo entrance.
I could tell from the train platform that we were in for trouble. When we arrived at about 7:45 am, there were already about 10,000 people waiting at the north entrance. We wound our way out of the station and into a line at the back of the crowd, and waited....and waited....as the sun rose and the wind died. Luckily, some clouds appeared and the wind came and went. But it was hot. People fanned themselves furiously. All those people had to go individually through one of only 23 metal detectors, and all bags were being individually inspected. We inched forward. A young woman near us collapsed from the heat and security carted her away in a wheelchair. Trying to get an edge, people--mainly older men and women--would cut ahead if you left too much space ahead of you. There were no sun awnings, so everyone broiled. After an hour, we finally made it through, and were furious at the poor planning--just about tempted to turn around and go home. But we calmed down and stuck it out.
The main attractions at this Expo are the corporate pavillions sponsored by Toyota, Mitsubishi, and Hitachi, plus a thawed out frozen mammoth displayed in the Global House. If you can't get online reservations at these big pavillions, you're almost out of luck. As people ahead of us went through the gates, then would start running to get to those pavillions and a coveted space. We thought that was silly and just decided to check out the country pavillions instead. ( I was reminded of middle school--we had a dance class with the boys lined up on one side of the gym and the girls on the other, and the boys would race across the room to pair up with the cutest girls. I thought that was appalling, so I'd walk across and dance with whoever was left.)
We wandered through the main "Nagakute" site and visited lots of countries: Australia, Greece, France, Canada, the UN, Cuba, South Africa, Africa, the Andean countries, New Zealand, the Philippines. Many tried to take on the Expo theme of "listening to nature's wisdom" but in most cases it was a half-hearted attempt. (There is a huge incongruity here, of course....the site razed acres of trees and put a whole lot of concrete and asphalt in place in order to teach people about nature aand the world). Better was the Canadian approach, using film to show something insightful about the country and its people.
We'd been looking forward to a tapas meal at the Spanish pavillion....which was closed for "Spain Day." Great. There were not many foreigners--so far only about 4 percent of visitors have been from outside Japan. But once in a while people would ask where we were from and would get very excited when we said "Shiattle." That was always delightful. We walked past a famous sumo wrestler who had just finished a tournament in Nagoya.
The corporate influence on the pavilions is inescapable. The cost of this party starts at about $1.3 billion, just for site preparation and construction, not including the individual pavilions. We took a ride in the Wonder Wheel, a ferris wheel sponsored by the Japan Motor Vehicle Manufacturers, that had a truly vapid series of displays on the earth and the wonders of driving as you rose toward the heavens. Then there is the new airport near Nagoya, which also cost several billion dollars. Since most ofthe participating governments are cash-strapped, this type of event can't happen without corporate help and it undoubtedly influences the messages that go out.
The film at the US exhibit, featuring Ben Franklin, was silly at best, and brazenly included lots of rhetoric about free people and choice, etc., etc.....could have been lifted straight from one Bush II's speeches. Of course, two of the three major sponsors were the National Association of Manufacturers, and US Chamber of Commerce. Nature's only appearance was a big display on the Mars Rover, complete with photos. The tour guide at the end rode a Segway and gave it a plug. He was stopped short when someone asked him in Japanese how many were actually being used in the US. (Not very many).
The French exhibit was better. It featured an eco-dystopian film on the state of the world's environment, with vivid images and emotionally raw footage of African street kids sniffing glue. A big hall outside the theater had another film about the state of the world's economy and environment, with a Darth Vader like figure intoning, "TEN PERCENT OF THE WORLD'S PEOPLE EXPLOIT THE REST." Heretical! Another viewpoint! As you walked around, watching that film, you were followed by a large orange light. We spun around and made a Venn Diagram. That was fun.
The Japan exhibit sits in the middle of the site and looks like a smaller, bamboo and hemp version of Australia's famous Ayers Rock. We endured the hour waitf, amazed by the and once inside there are displays on aging of the Japanese population, increase in electricity use and the country's transportation grid.
Then you enter a sphere, maybe 100' in diameter, that has a high tech camera system that projects a film on the inside. Alas, the Disneyesque film doesn't build on the intro, but has nifty animation on African wildlife and the ocean and strong special effects.
By late afternoon our energies were flagging, but we kept at it until early evening and a surprisingly fine dinner at the Singapore pavilion. I'm glad we made the trek. Eventually, the site will be turned into a local park.
I'll upload more photos later.
Eisenhower, of course, I'm not. But I thought about that famous election slogan of his a couple of weeks ago. At some point during our stay, we needed to make a brief trip out of Japan, to allow Rachel and Nate to extend their tourist visas. One thing led to another, and suddenly it was mid July, and timeon their visas was running out. I wanted to go to Hong Kong (where an old friend, Prof. Garry Bruton from TCU is now teaching a course),but the timing didn't work out. The only affordable flight was on a Wednesday--when I had to be on campus to deliver my farewell/appreciation address to the U. Hyogo faculty. So we opted for Seoul--in my case, a one night stay since I wanted to return the day before my speech.
As we boarded the Asiana flight from KIX to Incheon airport, we took one of the English newspapers provided and settled in. On the front page of our Seoul-based paper: "Asiana pilots on strike." Yikes. Luckily none of our flights was cancelled. I was ambivalent about this: we had completely non transferable tickets, so we could well have been stuck in Seoul unless we shelled out a lot of money for new tickets. And although there was no picket line, even an informational one, I didn't like supporting the airline.
Incheon is still quite a new airport, about 30 miles east of Seoul. The airport bus past drove through Incheon city with vast mudflats, tall narrow apartments, the occasional huge factory. Seoul is a big, lively city with a gritty charm. It reminded me of central Mexico City. There are sidewalk vendors, little huts with cobblers, plenty of hand-pulled carts dodging between cars and pedestrians.
Our hotel was in the Insadong neighborhood in the north of the city, which is full of little craft shops and restaurants. Alas, the garbage had not been picked up for a few days...so the olfactory factor was high. We did a quick walk around before dinner and came across a few finds. One was a lovely Buddhist temple much more colorful and ornate than those in Japan. I couldn't get a good picture of the whole building, but the arch outside gives some idea. The main exhibition hall on the third floor was quiet, brightly lit and had a fantastic mural. I felt peaceful after our visit.
We strolled through a portion of downtown Seoul, through an underground arcade and past one of the main parks in the city: with Samsung Tower in the distance.
Though I'm usually eager to try new foods, I wasn't in the mood for spicy kimchee. So we settled for Italian food, in a restaurant featuring huge photos of classic Hollywood stars. A short night's sleep, and I was back on the bus, at the airport and back in KIX. Rachel and Nate were able to spend two more days in the city and had a wonderful time.
We managed to do one fine hike on the trip, up a mountain named Yufu-dake (about 4500 ft high) between Beppu and the nearby town of Yufuin. The bus dropped us off at the trailhead, in the middle of a meadow on a saddle below the mountain. We started up through the grass, under a nearly-perfect volcanic cone just south of the main peak. The trail proceeds through a forest of cedar and other native woods, then up to a sub-alpine zone at about 4000 ft. Just as we approached the mountain's dual summits, the clouds became heavier. I took a few quick pictures while we still had a view, and we scampered down.
The west side of the mountain had a lovely series of grass-covered ridges that couldn't help but remind us of the Alps. We made it down to Yufuin and walked directly to a nearby onsen, housed in a thatched hut. Although this is the only "mixed" (i.e., for men and women) onsen we have found, the 5-6 men inside were clearly surprised to see a woman walk in and doff her clothes. After a tough 4-hour hike, we had earned it--and a thunderstorm hit just as we started sinking into the water. Rachel couldn't resist snapping a photo as I sat on the side of the inside/outside bath.....
The next day was literally a washout. Torrential rains made it impossible to do anything outside in Beppu--this was rain that made even a native Northwesterner surrender (it eventually led to flooding and several deaths in an area west of the city). So we stuck with our original plan and took the train to Aso, hoping that we could see the Nakadake volcano. The two-car train was charming and we arrived in about 2 hours. The small town of Aso is in the northern part of the ancient volcano caldera, which is roughly 13 miles across. In the middle of the old caldera lies a still active volcano named Nakadake and several relatively dormant cones that make fine hikes. We took the bus up to the volcano museum, hoping for the best....and finding visibility of about 150 ft, driving rain and a 30-40 mile per hour wind. Hiking was not to be. After a quick tour of the museum we had dinner and started the trip back to Beppu. Seeing this volcano will have to wait for the next trip to Japan....(the picture of Nakadake is from a blown up version inside the museum).
Our "hell tour" took long enough that we left Beppu too late to catch the shinkansen we wanted...so we detoured to Hakata....where it again poured down rain for several hours. After dinner the rain finally let up and we took a walk. Fukuoka/Hakata is a fine, modern city that takes advantage of its rivers. Somehow on our stroll we wound up in the city's love hotel district, epitomized by the prepositionally named With Hotel. (Funny--we noticed that none of the love hotels had windows that could be opened). The city was in the midst of its annual matsuri or festival, and in several locations in the city huge and elaborate mikoshi (portable shrines) were on display. During the festival the young men of the city pick up these shrines and race them around a course.
The next day we made it to our last stop, Miyajima island west of Hiroshima. Our friend and colleage Brian Breshnihan (who lived in Hiroshima for several years) had suggested this stop, and I'm glad we followed his advice. After disembarking from the ferry, visitors are met by friendly but demanding deer who will take anything---they will happily munch on discarded paper. We hiked to the top of the island's peak, Mt. Misen, up thousands of weathered stone steps that would make a great set for an Indiana Jones film. The haze was so dense that we could see very little from the summit.
The island is most famous for the Itsukushima-jinga "floating torii" that is set off-shore; at high tide the arch seems to be floating above the water. For hundreds of years the island was sacred and visitors passed through the gates of the torii enroute to the temple.
The highlight of the trip was our stay at the Yamaichi Bekkan, run by the charming Shinko Yamaichi. We played with her cat, Shiro-chan, and Shinko encouraged us to speak Japanese as we chatted with her.
The northern portion of the island has several fine temples and shrines. Our favorite was the Daishoin temple, tucked into a ravine below Mt. Misen. It has a series of superb small buildings, well designed grounds with lovely foliage, and fine views of the bay. Two of the finest rooms were difficult to photograph: the inside of a small building housing 1000 6-inch high bodhisattvas, and an underground room lit by lanterns. This was a fine place to end our touring on the island.
In the early stages of this adventure we circled the dates in early July when we would be kid-less for a few days, hoping that we could get away for a short trip and a few hikes. Ignoring the rainy season, we decided to go south to Kyushu.
We made Beppu, a famous onsen town, our base for a few days. As soon as a train pulls into the station, a high female voice announces, "Be-PUUUUU! Be-PUUUUU!" to general merriment. We found a hotel/ryokan downtown and explored a bit. Alas, the first impressions of the city weren't great. The oceanside near downtown is a mess of concrete and garbage. Our otherwise quite comfortable hotel (complete with its own private onsen, one of which was lovely) was smack dab in the middle of the "pink zone" in the city, with hostess bars and other mysterious sexy businesses surrounding us. Many of the pink bars have hawkers outside who seem to both try to entice customers inside and keep an eye out, and the feeling of being watched as we strolled around was unnerving.
Beppu is known for its "hells" or Jigoku, open air pools of hot water in various colors, plus geysers and pits of bubbling mud. We visted the Chinoike jigoku, which features a large pool of rusty water at 150 plus degrees F. Walking on to our next destination, we found an amazing vista of the northern part of the city, which reminded me of depictions of London in the 18th century....but here it was just steam rising from the many hells and onsen.
Disneyland?!
I am skeptical at best toward Disney, which is part of the group doing their best to corporatize recreation in the U.S. But my two stepsons had been looking forward to visiting Tokyo's Disneyland (formally known as "Tokyo Disney Resort") ever since we started making plans to come to Japan. So last week, we made the trek.
Our travel preparations were a bit rushed, so we wound up staying in a vast hotel in Chiba City, several train stops down the Tokyo Bay waterfront from the theme park. The Prince Makuhari hotel is 45 stories tall and has over 1000 rooms. As we took the glass elevator up to our room after dinner, I couldn't help but think of a book I read some time ago entitled Great Planning Disasters. The hotel is across the street from a big multipurpose sports/convention center venue called the Makuhari Messe, as well as the very cute stadium where the Chiba Lotte Marines baseball team plays. The hotel felt like a huge relic of the great Tokyo property boom of the late 1980's, when it was assumed that the good times were just starting.... The rooms were comfortable, but not many people were in the hotel on a Sunday night. The view from our 36th floor room was fabulous despite the haze. But with my history of being in earthquakes, being up that high made me a bit nervous and I didn't sleep very well.
The bad news about our choice of hotel was that we had to take a Monday morning commuter train (on the Keiyo Line) toward downtown Tokyo. It was crowded when we got on...and then hordes more people pressed their way in at every stop. Our most crowded train yet. At our stop, we just had to say "sumimasen" over and over and push our way out....
Our timing turned out to be impeccable. We toured Tokyo Disneyland the day that true summer weather really arrived. By 8:30 am it was very hot and humid and the big crowds lined up to get in (including all of us) were sweating like mad. Luckily, the crowds inside were really quite reasonable and we zipped around the park from ride to ride with very little waiting. The rides were fun, especially Space Mountain. (I have great memories of riding Space Mountain with my Dad at the original Disneyland in Anaheim when he was nearly 80 years old--it scared him witless but he loved it). The kids enjoyed having their pictures taken with the "cast members" including Brer Bear. We felt for the kids working inside those heavy costumes on such a hot day. It's no wonder some of the "cast members" occasionally go over the top (the Japan Times recently had a hilarious article on some of their antics). That will be my last trip to a theme park for a while.....
After we left the park, we took the train into Tokyo to meet up with our hosts for the night. Rachel's Japanese teacher at South Puget Sound Community College (and my tutor), Aki Peebles, was kind enough to arrange for us to stay with her parents, Dr. Suzuki and his wife Reiko, at their house in northern Tokyo. Their lovely old home is amazing: somehow it managed to survive the great earthquake and fire in the city in 1923 as well as the bombing of the city during the war.
Alas, after the delightful dinner they served us that night and a quick run the next morning, I had to fly home on the Nozomi shinkansen (at least it felt like flying!) so I could teach my class the next day. Rachel and the kids were able to stay an extra 2 1/2 days and see much more of Tokyo. We greatly appreciate their kindness and hospitality.
