time to go.......to Japan

I thought it was about time for a trip of some sort. Ken is extremely busy with trying to get the first drillship finished, so I knew that he wouldn't be involved in this trip. So I decided to head to the closest place I wanted to go - Japan!

I am usually the sort that can navigate all the ins and outs of going to a new destination - you know, alot of reading up, comparing things and making an informed decision of some sort. However, I did this sort of on the spur of the moment, so I elected to go with a tour company. I also thought that this would be best since I was alone - but I did want some alone time to do some exploring. I elected for a package that had a morning tour in Tokyo, a day at Mt. Fuji and Lake Hakone and a day in Kyoto and Nara. It included a free day in Kyoto and I arranged for an extra free day in Tokyo. I would have liked to taken some time to go to Sagamihara (a suburb of Tokyo where I lived for 3 years when I was in grade school). We lived on an army base and so I knew that I probably would need some sort of authorization to get on base and I really didn't have the time to figure all of that out at this time. Maybe I will take a day of layover in Tokyo and do that on one of my jaunts back to the U.S. sometime.

I will go into more depth later, with pictures and such, about my trip. But I want to say that I had a wonderful time and I was so glad that I took the leap to go on my own. I have such wonderful memories of my previous time in Japan. We moved there the last part of second grade for me and left around the first week of fifth grade, so I was old enough to remember alot. (But if you really want someone with a memory, you need to ask my sister. She remembers everything.)

I remember......

ice skating outside with my girl scout troop with a view of Mt. Fuji

my wonderful bicycle I had there (I thought it was so neat because it had hand brakes)

chocolate umbrella candy and Botan candy - you could eat the rice paper wrapper

staying at a traditional Japanese hotel and sleeping on the floor

watching sumo wrestling on TV with my father

being in a Japanese play at my school in which I wore a kimono

seeing Japanese school children in their uniforms

restaurants with plastic food on plates outside to advertise what they served

I could go on and on (and I am sure my sister can fill in any gaps I may have). Surely, most of this means nothing to some people, but to me, these memories are a part of my attraction to Japan. Being that I lived there a while ago (we won't say how long ago - but another memory of mine was waking up one morning and hearing that JFK had been assassinated), I knew that things had probably changed alot. And you know how different everything looks to a child.

I was pleasantly surprised - many things hadn't changed after all.

Food was still advertised in the windows outside.

Little girls still wore kimonos.

School children still wore delightful uniforms.

And Mt. Fuji was still standing there in all it's splendor.