Welcome to jetlag

Our hotel is beautiful. We made it here around dinnertime, went out in
search of sushi, and barely made it to 8pm when we all crashed. We set
up some books and an iPod on the bathroom for anyone so was wakeful
during the night. Ellie was in there around 2am when Polk and I each
got into the Ambien. At 6am everyone was jumping around ready for
breakfast. But now at 8am Ellie has crashed. We introduced Trip to the
magic of the slingbox which let's him watch our home tv on the
computer - at least until tomorrow when we leave the computer at our
Tokyo apartment for the next month. It is a luxury to be here for a
long time so we can gear up slowly.

Greetings from tomorrow

Although this message won't post until we land in Tokyo, we just
wanted to say hello from tomorrow. We left Atlanta at 10am Monday and
flew west with the sun. Although it never got dark, it is now 8pm
(bedtime!) at home and 9am (good morning!) on Tuesday in Japan. We
have flown for 10 hours and have four more to go. The plane is great
and the kids are having fun. More later...

Itinerary Preview: Miyakonojo

Our last stop in the traveling around portion of our trip will be
Miyakonojo. We will spend two weeks there visiting Universe Academy,
an English immersion school where I taught for a year after college.
The kids are excited to go to school with Japanese kids who can speak
English. I am excited to visit the families with whom I've stayed in
touch all of these years.

Itinerary Preview: Kagoshima

After Hiroshima we will have a quick overnight stop in Kagoshima, a
city that is home to an active, constantly erupting volcano. This city
is about 30 minutes away from the town where I taught school 13 years
ago. Many mornings, when the wind was right, the playground would be
coated with ash. We want to see the volcano in person and we are
hoping for a great view from atop the giant ferris wheel that is atop
the main train station.

Big plane!

We've made it through security in Atlanta. Here's our BIG airplane.
We'll check in again from Tokyo.

On the way - maybe!

We got on our plane to Atlanta, only four hours late... Fortunately,
the Tokyo flight is 14 hours away. Delta can't possibly be that late,
right?

We're off...

And getting nowhere fast. We are standing in line to check in at the
airport. We are flying tonight from Philadelphia to Atlanta. We fly
tomorrow direct to Tokyo.

Itinerary Preview: Hiroshima

After Kyoto, our next stop will be Hiroshima.  In the picture above, you can see the building now known as the A-bomb Dome.  The first atomic bomb was detonated almost directly above this building and the ruins have been preserved as a reminder of the terrible destruction.  The monument in the foreground is a memorial in Peace Park and the associated museum.  You may have heard the true story or seen the children's book, Sadako and the 1000 Paper Cranes, in which a young girl develops cancer as a result of the bomb's radiation.  She believes that if she folds 1000 paper cranes then she will be cured.  She died before she reached her goal, but millions of children have continued to send origami cranes to Hiroshima as a gesture of peace.  We will visit the dome, the museum and the children's peace park, perhaps adding some cranes of our own.  It will be a difficult day, but I expect we will all remember it forever.  We will be staying at a B & B called the World Friendship Center, a traditional Japanese house staffed by American Quaker volunteers who are devoted to sharing the lessons of Hiroshima and promoting world peace.  A nearby day trip from Hiroshima is Miyajima, an island with a picturesque shrine built out over the water and tame deer who wander the streets.  It should be an interesting few days.

Meet our stow-aways

Many people have told us they would like to come along on our trip.
Here are two friends who will actually get to. Have you heard the
story of Flat Stanley, the boy who got flatened by a falling bulletin board and made the most of it by slipping into spaces where a real boy couldn't fit? Well Trip's teacher gave him a Flat Stanley to slip into our suitcase. Then Ellie's teacher gave her a Flat Simie. The two of them are already fast, flat friends. Watch this website for updates from Ellie and Trip on Stanley and Simie's adventures in Japan.

Itinerary Preview: Kyoto

After Matsumoto, our next stop will be Kyoto where we will be staying
a full five days. The truth is that I have not worked out a complete
itinerary for Kyoto yet, but I know that we'll want to have plenty of
time for exploring. Because Kyoto was spared the bombing of WWII,
there is so much to see here, but the challenge will be editing our
excursions so as to avoid temple and shrine overload with the kids.
The last time I was here, I did not have the luxury of seeing
everything I wanted to. This time, at the top of my list is Kinkaku-
ji, the Temple of the Golden Pavilion, pictured here which is,
ironically, a 1950 reconstruction. The original, built at the end of
the 14th century, was burned down by a fanatical monk who was
enraptured by its beauty. Yukio Mishima wrote a novel from the monk's
point of view which I read long ago and have been waiting to see the
temple in person ever since. Other sites on my list are a few more
temples, the old geisha and merchant districts, a large food market
area, and the bamboo forest. We will be staying in a modern ryokan
which is built in the traditional style. It has beautiful baths and
we will be served elaborate Japanese-style breakfasts and dinners in
our tatami room. Stay tuned for lots of photos from Kyoto.

Itinerary Preview: Travel by Shinkansen

Shinkansen, or Bullet Trains, are the high speed trains that will whisk us around Japan during the "traveling around" portion of our trip.  When I was in Japan after college, I didn't have the money to travel by Shinkansen, so I'm pretty excited.  And Trip, well, what's not to like about pointy fast trains if you are a four year old boy.  This time, we have Japan Rail Passes for unlimited travel and most of our travels between cities will take only 1.5 to 3 hours.  When we return to Tokyo from southern Kyushu, we will have two four hour rides - a long day, but still an amazingly fast ride considering the distance.  The inside of the train looks like a spacious airplane, but the seats turn around, so we will ideally be able to set up our own little four seat pods.  And my favorite part about long-distance train travel in Japan: bento boxes, beautiful little jam-packed lunch boxes with delicious Japanese picnic food.  I can't wait.

Some interesting facts: Shinkansen travel at speeds close to 200 mph with as little as 13 minutes between trains.  The Japanese rail system has transported over 7 billion people with no fatalities even through typhoons and earthquakes. It is so precise that a train is recorded as late if it does not leave at precisely the time listed on the schedule.  When trains do run late, the average amount of lateness is 12 seconds -- that's right, SECONDS. (Chew on that, Amtrak!)

On our way back to Tokyo, we will be passing Mt. Fuji just like in this photo.  So keep your fingers crossed for a clear day and check back here for the pic we'll take just for you.

Itinerary Preview: Matsumoto

Our next stop will take us into the Alps of Japan to the town of
Matsumoto, which is near Nagano of recent Olympic fame. Matsumoto is
famous not just for fantastic mountain scenery but also for one of the
best original castles in Japan. I have visited other castles, but
they were all reconstructed after having been destroyed during WWII.
This castle is the real deal as it was built between 1592 and 1614.
The museum on the castle grounds highlights two local specialties of
interest to Ellie and Trip: handmade armor and beautiful dolls. It
will be a little early in the trip to start hauling around souvenirs
though so we will have to restrain ourselves... or find a shipping
office. We will be spending two nights in an historic ryokan (inn)
called Marumo which has been operating since 1868. They serve a
traditional Japanese breakfast of grilled fish, rice, soup, and
pickles - yum! If we have time, Matsumoto is home to a Ukiyo-e
(woodblock print) museum. It is also the birthplace of Shinichi
Suzuki and headquarters of the Suzuki Music Method, which Ellie
follows to study classical guitar. The guitar won't fit in our
suitcases, but it would be fun to visit or even see a concert here.
Mostly, we are looking forward to exploring the castle and wandering
the streets of the historic merchant's district as we transition from
modern to historic Japan.

Questions from Kids: Julia asks...

We have gotten a lot of great questions about our upcoming trip and some of the best ones have been from kids.  So I am launching a regular feature: Questions from Kids.  If you are a kid (ok, probably even if you are a grown-up) and you ask a question directly to us or in a comment on the site, we will do our best to answer it.  Our friend Julia asked two good questions to kick us off:

Julia: Good morning! But shouldn't you be going to bed right now to get ready for Japan? Don't they sleep when we're awake?

Julia is right.  Japan is on the other side of the earth so the sun is over there when it is night-time here, and vice versa.  Their time is almost directly opposite of ours.  They are 13 hours ahead of us.  So I am typing this at 11:oo at night, but in Japan, it is 12 noon tomorrow! I could call Japan right now and talk to someone tomorrow!  When we take our 13-hour flight home, we will arrive in the U.S. at about the same time we took off !  Weird, huh? Are we going to bed in the morning to prepare now?  Well, no.  We figure that the long flight over there will toss our systems into confusion and then we'll try to get lots of sunlight, water, light meals, and activity to help re-set our internal clocks.  When you go to bed, think of us because we'll be waking up to enjoy tomorrow in Japan.

Julia: Is it true that only wealthy people can eat rice in Japan?

Hmm... this is not the case now, but it sounded familiar to me too.  We did a little Google searching and learned that the Japanese have been growing rice for over 2,000 years.  Because it can be stored, powerful leaders have hoarded rice during some periods of history and at one point rice was used to pay taxes instead of money.  But now, everyone in Japan eats rice as part of pretty much every meal.  In fact, the word for rice, gohan, can also be used as a synonym for meal.  In Japan, I was often asked what was the one thing we eat with every meal. Bread? Potato?  I didn't have a good answer because we don't have a common food for every meal, but when in Japan, we will try to eat like they do. Think of us when you are eating your Cheerios because I will be serving rice for breakfast.

Itinerary Preview: Odaiba, Tokyo

This will be our first stop upon arrival in Japan. Odaiba is a man-made
island in Tokyo Bay that has been developed as a leisure and
entertainment mecca, accessed by an unmanned monorail. We are
splurging on a few nights at this hotel, the Grand Pacific Le Daiba,
to get over our jet lag and get our Japan-legs before setting off on
our travels. We'll acclimate with great views of Tokyo, lots of
natural light and a big pool. On our check list are plenty of the
fun, crazy Tokyo things we want to share with the kids such as: a hot
springs public bath with an old-Japan theme where you wander the
indoor streets of Edo (original name of Tokyo) dressed in kimono, the
Toyota MegaWeb showroom where we can climb into and virtually test
drive the latest concept cars, an entire floor of dim sum stalls
called Little Hong Kong, a faux Italianate mall called Venus Fort
where there is a fake sunrise and sunset every 30 minutes and a fake
mayor issuing proclamations from a balcony, a huge science museum, a
gigantic ferris wheel, and yes, that is the Statue of Liberty you see
on the right side of the picture.

Hamburg Happy Meal

Tonight for dinner I made the kids a common children's restaurant
entrée in Japan: Hamburg Rice. It is pretty much what it sounds like
and not all that interesting if you ask me. A plain hamburger patty on
rice (I cheated and used a wild/brown rice blend instead of white)
with some veggies and a treat. In this picture, the kids are
practicing with their chopsticks and wearing their yukata (casual
cotton kimono). I wish I were as ready to go as they appear to be.