Cheers from Chiang Mai

July 9-12, 2017.  Thailand is our first stop.  Arrive in Chiang Mai from Bangkok.  We’re exhausted from our initial overseas travel and the early morning wake up calls that it took to get here.  We flew from Osaka to Bangkok and arrived around 11pm.  Then we got up early to fly to Chiang Mai.  Here we are getting on the plane for the first of our many little hops around Southeast Asia.  Before we moved here I thought using the stairway to get on the plane from the tarmac was so cool.  But taking a hot bus from the airport gate to the plane, and then dragging luggage up the stairs isn’t fun anymore.  We’ve done it too many times…

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Kimonos and Kyoto

Saturday, June 17, Avalon is signed up for a nature art camp at Ritsumeikan University, Ibaraki campus.  We are meeting her friends and her art teacher at the Starbucks on campus in the morning.  After the camp, my friend Satoko will drive Avalon and I to a kimono shop in downtown Osaka to go kimono shopping.  This is a special kimono shop that mainly rents kimonos out to customers who need a kimono for a special occasion, or who just want to take fancy keepsake photos.  I am looking for a nice used kimono or yukata (a light version that is worn in the summer heat) that I can buy for Avalon and I to share.  This shop has beautiful…

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Otaue Matsuri

June is rice planting season!  On Wednesday, July 14 we went to an annual event at Sumiyoshi Taisha called Otaue Masturi.  This translates to Rice Field Planting Festival.  Sumiyoshi Taisha (sue-me-yo-she-tie-sha) is the same Shinto shrine that we went to for hatsumode (the first shrine visit of the new year) on New Year’s Day.  The shrine has its own rice paddy where they hold the event.  We rode the train to the Sumiyoshi Taisha train station.  We got there early enough to buy a ticket for a seat in the shade.  The whole event is about 3 hours long and being in shade is critical to happiness and health!  The tickets were 1000 yen each (about $9 USD).  The tickets…

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Minoh Pet Cemetery

June 17, 2017.  This is the Minoh Pet Cemetery.  It is on the same road as the kids’ school, just a block away.  I ride the bike past it all the time, but recently I stopped to take some photos.  I’ve never been inside of a pet cemetery in the US before, but from the outside American pet cemeteries don’t look as elaborate.  Maybe it’s just because this is such a compact space.  I suppose it’s the same though, since people worldwide love their pets as their children. The website for this pet cemetery is very soothing (at least the English translation is).  There are very explicit directions on how to position the animal (when you bring it in) so…

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Silly, Strange Japan in Photos

June 13, 2017 I’ve been collecting more interesting photos to share.   Some are hilarious and some are downright strange.  The featured photo above just about sums up my trash frustrations when in the great outdoors.  I don’t mean out on a nature walk.  I mean just after setting foot outside my front door.  One day I asked some people why there were no trash cans in public places.  We had some discussion about it, but the consensus was exactly like on this sign.  Everyone just carries their trash around with them and takes it home.  I guess I need a larger purse! On another day I was talking to an expat American teacher at school and I was telling…

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Minoh Kawayuka

Back in early 2016 when we were thinking about moving to Japan, my Auntie Meiko said she and her sisters were coming to Japan on a tour in Spring 2017.  That seemed like a far way off.  But suddenly it’s Spring 2017 and she has already come and gone!  I’d been looking forward to her visit for a long time. The day finally arrived on Saturday, May 20.  I picked her up at Shin-Osaka train station.  She said it only took 13 minutes by Shinkansen (bullet train) to get from Kyoto to Osaka.  I guess that’s platform to platform.  I couldn’t believe it!  She said she was nervous about taking the train by herself, but it was a piece of…

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Flowers and Bamboo

This year Mother’s Day is Sunday, May 14.  I think that Mother’s Day is celebrated in some form in many places around the world.  In Japan, Mother’s Day mirrors the US version in May.  However, like a lot of holidays here, it really appears to just be a commercial holiday aimed at selling themed items.  Flowers, candy and cakes that say Happy Mother’s Day are promoted heavily here.  Which is nice for me because Halyard gave me a red Mother’s Day carnation with sprigs of baby’s breath.  My friend here told me that carnations are the most popular flower for Mother’s Day. Well, none of my kids claimed to have any free time for me on Mother’s Day, though I…

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Golden Week Guests

Saturday, May 6.  Two things are dictating our Saturday morning.  One, Avalon has to go see the doctor about her big toe that has been bothering her.  I may have already mentioned somewhere that she had an ingrown toenail on her other foot and she thinks it’s the same thing, different toe. Two, Jun has to catch a plane from Itami to Tokyo and on to Baltimore, Maryland later today.  We’ve been practicing how to say, “Hilton,” with him.  He said when he stayed at a Hilton in Australia, whenever he said to the taxi driver, or anyone else, that he was staying at the Hilton, no one could understand him.  It’s “hill-tuh-n” not “he-rue-toe-n.” While I’m at the doctor…

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Golden Week: Takatsuki

Golden Week is a major national holiday in Japan.  It’s a string of consecutive holidays in early May that are combined with another holiday in late April to form a solid block of time off from school and work.  Business shuts down and everyone gets an extended break.  This is our first Golden Week so we’re not really sure what to expect.  But from everything I read, it’s crowded everywhere you go.  The prices of everything having to do with travel are all jacked up.  It sounds a lot like Thanksgiving vacation in America. I was thinking about where we should go for Golden Week when I got a text message from my cousin Mayumi up in Sapporo.  She asked…

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Concert in Rome

[This post is from Halyard.  He promised to write a blog post about his school trip to Rome, Italy.  It only took him two-plus months to get around to it, and only because it’s Mother’s Day (May 14).] Well, this has been a long time waiting, about a month in the making.  Well, maybe a little more.  It’s Mother’s Day and I’ve been asked to finally complete this report, and I’m doing it out the the goodness in my heart and the love I have for my mother.  That, and I want to get back to Ace Ventura: Pet Detective. However, this paper is not about how I’d like to spend my sunday afternoon, but rather how I spent a…

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