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Journal
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Tuesday, December 29, 2009  This morning we left Tokyo bound for Kushiro on the island of Hokkaido. Taking off from Haneda we had a great view of the city with Mt. Fuji in the background. We arrived in snowy Kushiro and picked up our rental car, a Prius with an English navigation system. One small note, that you might say is fairly important, is that the audible directions are in English, but the buttons on the GPS, and the map shown ON the GPS, and basically the entire thing is in Japanese :) One real handy feature is that you can enter a phone number - though phone numbers do not always resolve to the right address, as we learned earlier when we wound up on the other side of the river from our hotel. (We brought our own GPS as a backup, and between the two we have been getting around ok). Cars here are right hand drive, and you drive on the left side of the road, and the roads are a little snowy and sometimes pretty hilly so it's a bit of a challenge. We found the hotel, had lunch, and then went out exploring. We visited Tancho Japanese Crane Reserve, where we saw stuffed cranes, a nice photo exhibit, and a few real live cranes off in the distance. Then we went to Kushiro Shitsungen National Park where we saw more stuffed cranes. Hmm, they're gonna make us work for it... We're back at the hotel, using the internet in our room which consisted of a tupperware container filled with a modem and assorted cables which plug in to the television and elsewhere (not complaining - happy to be using the netbook instead of the coin operated Japanese internet machine in the lobby). It started to snow, a lot, so we're headed upstairs to the "better" restaurant in the hotel. We think we are the only ones here, so hopefully no one will be offended by our attire. In lieu of crane pictures, please enjoy some cute snow monkey video (the audio is what really makes it cute, so be sure to turn up your speakers).
Monday, December 28, 2009 I'm happy to say that our trip to and from Jigokudani Wild Monkey Park was COMPLETELY flawless. It was quite a trek, but DEFINITELY worth it.  We're in Tokyo now, and depart for Kushiro tomorrow morning. Here's a quick update on the past few days. On Sunday we left Tokyo earlier than planned (thanks to the jetlag) and after four trains we arrived in Yudanaka. We decided to forego the bus and take a taxi to the "drop zone" for our guesthouse (you cannot drive directly there). When we exited the train station, we found a taxi and showed him the cheat sheet of things I'd written down (name of the town, name of the lodge, etc.) and pointed at the lodge name. He responded with "monkey park" so it seemed like there was communication so we asked "ikura des ka" (which we think means "how much" according to the iphone app I've been using) - he said 1900 Yen which was around what the guesthouse said it would be so we were good to go. About 10 minutes later he dropped us off at a snowy trailhead. We noted the time because it was supposed to be about a 15 minute walk. We soon came to a fork in the trail, and of course all of the signage was in Japanese. We stood there puzzled for a minute until a few people walked by, and of course they didn't speak English so we showed them the cheat sheet and pointed asking “wa doko des ka” and they showed us the correct path. I am beginning to think I need to speak the little Japanese that I know WAY faster for it to be at all understandable to anyone other than Andy… The trail was a little icy, and we were schlepping our luggage and camera gear (though we really did make an effort to pack light) so it took us about 20 minutes to reach the guesthouse. It is literally at the entrance to the monkey park, and we spotted our first monkeys (they are Japanese Macaques) a second after we spotted the guesthouse. The place is CRAWLING with them (supposedly there is one troupe of 200+ monkeys) - we immediately knew it was worth the trek. We checked in to the guesthouse and were given a spectacular room with a view of the rushing volcanic spring (everything is in Japanese so I don't know the name). The rice mat-covered room had three parts, a main area with a with a low table and two pillows, a sitting area behind rice paper doors with two chairs and a table, and a sleeping area with two futons (which we were cursing after the first night). The lodging is a traditional Japanese Ryokan, and we apparently missed the orientation on all of the traditions so we had to kind of wing it. You must wear slippers when inside, and the smallest size they had was still quite large on me, which meant I was shuffling around like the butler in the Birdcage, Agadore Spartacus. Also, based on what the other guests were wearing at dinner, it is also suggested that you dress in traditional attire. We were wondering where they all got their matching kimonos until after dinner when we found a platter of blue kimonos and towels in our closet late the first night. Oops. Luckily there was one other table of dissenters, and besides, it was freezing in that dining area AND my body is really not conditioned to sitting on the floor that way so I had to shift every five minutes which would have been a kimono nightmare. Did I mention the baths? Well, they are shared, with a womens bathing area, a mens bathing area, and "family bath" that can be locked from the inside. We didn’t dare try to bathing areas for fear of causing an international incident – the iphone app had no phrases to cover this situation other than “sumimosen” (sorry). And “wakari mosen” (I don’t understand). Regarding the toilet, there was one room with two urinals, and then two stalls, one with a squat toilet, and the other with one of those fancy Japanese toilets. My first visit I found the squat one, but the second visit I found the other, and I swear to you it was like finding a perfect little present on Christmas morning! When you open the stall door, the lid magically opened, and the seat was heated, and I’m sure there are a lot of other features, but the instructions are - in Japanese - and I don't want to press a button and get sprayed :) We thought that the protocol was to leave your slippers outside the bathroom as a hint that it is occupied (there are “bathroom” slippers inside the bathroom area, and interestingly those are smaller sizes and I can walk in those just fine), but when I was in there this morning I learned this was indeed not the case because someone came right in and joined me :O Meals have definitely exceeded our expectations. For lunch we had soba noodles in a broth of soy and maybe sake. Dinner can only be described as a Japanese smorgasbord. We sat on pillows at a low table and cooked most of our food in a boiling pot in the middle of the table. We began with wild boar, then added mushrooms and cabbage, and finished my making the remains into a kind of soup with egg, rice, and udon noodles. There was also a yummy pork chop, and they did great accommodating my advance onion allergy request, as well as the probably more difficult "no fish please." We are the only people having the “western” breakfast, which consists of an omelet, salad, spiced apples, GIANT toast, and tang. I’m glad I asked for the western, because the traditional involves a raw egg and numerous fish products that I would not have been able to “do”. But I'm sure you want to hear about the monkeys, and I can definitely say that they too have exceeded our expectations. There are dozens, and dozens, and dozens of them at any given time – sitting in the hot springs, scampering about, and scavenging in the snow for soybeans and barley that is put out for them twice a day. The more you look at them, the more they look like little old men in big fluffy snow suits, and the babies are adorable little round balls of fluff. They also have no fear of humans, well, I did see them swat at a few stupid tourists (who deserved it), and some don’t care for the fisheye lens too much (I think they can see themselves and it freaks them out). After several trips to Africa, we’re used to elusive cats, moving vehicles, and balancing in canoes - this seems blissfully zooish. You actually don’t need a long lens for most shots !  (That's me in the black jacket and blue hat) Today we spent the morning with the monkeys and then hiked down to the park entrance where we rendezvoused with a prearranged taxi for the 10 minute drive to the Yudanaka train station. The local train from Yudanaka to Nagano took about 45 minutes, then we transfered to a Shinkansen to Tokyo that took a little under 2 hours, and THEN we transfered to a local Tokyo train for about 3 stops to get to the Monorail that took about 15-20 minutes. We've completely given up trying to figure out how to operate the ticket kiosks and instead try to find a human right away :) Probably the funniest experience so far was a policeman in the Monorail station who gave us pokemon stickers after helping us buy tickets and pointing us to the proper gate. So now we're at the airport hotel, content with high speed internet, CNN, and a shower with lots of bath products. Fingers crossed that the second half of the trip is photoworthy and logistically flawless as the first half !
Friday, December 25, 2009 GREETINGS from Tokyo! Please excuse any strange typing but I am on a coin operated computer in the lobby of the Shibuya Excel Hotel, the keyboard is in Japanese, and I can barely figure out how to enter text ! We?arrived in Tokyo yesterday after a blissful flight in JAL first class. The sleeper seats make all the difference in the world - the dang thing was larger than my cubicle at the office! After collecting our luggage and clearing immigration and customs, we exchanges money and found the limo bus, which might have been slightly slower than the train but delivered us non stop to the hotel door in about an hour and a half. We were WORTHLESS at that point and crashed as soon as we found our room. I am not sure how much either of us slept, but we were awake at 6 this morning so we ventured across the street to STARBUCKS, which is expectedly the same as in the US though with about no English. We walked around the hotel neighborhood for a bit and then decided to try to find the train station where we will depart tomorrow. This turned out to be quite and ordeal because 1) no one speaks English, 2) we don:t speak Japanese, 3) the only way to buy tickets seems to be from machines that are in Japanese. We finally found one with English, but you need to know what fare to purchase, and of course the map on which this needs to be calculated is in ... Japanese. After a lot of aimless wandering we finally found an office with a person who we finally found an office with a person who didn:t speak English but could understand our pointing and grunting enough to get us a ticket to where we needed to go. THEN we got there and purchased tickets for tomorrow, although only as far as Nagano because the local train tickets cant be purchased until there. Homefully we will be able to pint and grunt our way through that transaction as well, but we are leaving EARLY in the morning so we have plenty of time. As part of our wandering today, we accidentally happened upon the Imperial Palace, as well as a building that looks remarkably Imperial Palace, as well as a building that looks remarkably like the Cook County Courthouse... We are both completely obsessed with Shibuya Square (see the twitterstream for a picture shibuya Square (see the twitterstream for a picture). Pictures dont even do the people density justice !
Thursday, December 24, 2009 Another Christmas, another experience in lieu of gifts. This year we are headed to Japan, first to Tokyo, then to the mountains to see the snow monkeys, and then to Kushiro to see the crowned cranes. We made our frequent flyer reservations about 11 months in advance, though American canceled our coveted direct flight about four months ago and rerouted us through Dallas. WRONG WAY I SAY. Last week I was able to snag two first class seats on the JAL direct flight, so I type this blog entry from the JAL first class lounge (with a select few other passengers munching seaweed-wrapped rice cakes and boozing it up at 8am). I've never flown in international first class before, and I guess a 13+ hour flight is a great time to splurge with miles. So if you are on JAL #9 out of O'Hare this am, I'm the goofy one photographing the entire experience :) And in case we don't find an internet connection before Christmas, happy holidays from the Martins ! 
Monday, December 07, 2009 Awoke to those unwelcome but familiar sounds: the scrape, scrape, scrape of shovels on the sidewalk below and the buzz of snowblowers. 
Thursday, December 03, 2009 After sunrise on Wednesday... 
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