About Me

My husband, Sid, and I both teach history in Fayetteville, North Carolina. Sid was awarded a Fulbright lectureship in Japan for the 2010-2011 academic year and so we are moving to Japan with our two (reluctant) boys. :)

Thursday, December 23, 2010

Odds and Ends

Anime Day at Tokyo Dome.  There were hundreds of people dressed as anime characters.  It was a cold day, but many of the "characters" had on little clothing.  Most interesting was the number of men dressed as women. There were also a few women dressed as men, but many, many men dressed as women.  Also, I should note that for every cluster of three or four anime characters there was a photographer and many pictures were being taken. I'm not sure why--maybe to put on their blogs or to put in some anime magazine.


Omotesando Hills lit up for Christmas
Japan Women's University Garden--which way to go?
Anime Santa and Reindeer at Tokyo Dome.
As always, on the prowl for food.
  A sign for one of the rides at Tokyo Dome--a pretty steep price for that accompanying person, huh?


The aforementioned ride.  Sid did not, however, buy a thicket.


"Green skating" at Omotesando Hills mall.  The "ice" is made of plastic stuff that chips off and sticks to your clothes. The rink itself is tiny and has furniture in the middle.  Note the helmets, elbow pads, and knee pads--all required for skating here.  


Carmelina tries to get Eden's skates adjusted.

Melek tries to get Suheda's skates adjusted. The skates were made out of some plasticky stuff that was really, really uncomfortable. I think to keep you from really skating very fast!

Well, that's it for now. More after the holidays.  After a failed attempt to travel southern Japan and an aborted attempt to go to Seoul, we are now headed to Thailand for Christmas and New Year's Eve. So, new pictures of a new country just ahead!!!!  For all my friends, have a wonderful holiday!!!! :)

Christmas Performances

Graham on the bass.


Christmas Performances

Sam is Captain Hook in his school's version of Peter Pan.

More Peter Pan play.

Friday, December 17, 2010

Envelope Adventures

So, this is a post of frustration.  About two weeks ago, I got a couple of cards to send out to family in the US along with some little things like bookmarks.  I did not get many as everything is so expensive here and as nothing is more expensive than the postage to the US!!  At any rate, I had hoped to have these items mailed in time for Christmas, but I can't find envelopes.  I can't find envelopes anywhere!  I need a couple of those padded envelopes to mail things in, but there are none to be found. I have looked at convenience stores, card stores, department stores, grocery stores, even a Fed Ex shop.  Nobody sells them!  I once found some in the Loft a long time ago, but evidently the smaller Loft at Sunshine City does not sell them.  My envelope adventures--or envelope misadventures--sums up the frustration of living in Tokyo.  The things readily available at home are nowhere to be found here.  And, so you look and look and look and look and look.  Today I will make my way halfway across Tokyo to the bigger Loft and hope to find padded envelopes.  Argh!

Wednesday, December 8, 2010

Kidzania

Last but not least....so we went with some of our friends and their girls to Kidzania.  I hear there are other Kidzanias around, but I have to say that it really seems like a Japanese idea (not something that would make a go of it in America).  So, our Dutch friends reserved tickets for all of us (Kidzania is so popular here you must reserve tickets well in advance)--the tickets were expensive, about $100 for Sid, Sam, and I. 

Basically, Kidzania is a place where different companies have sponsored career booths aimed at little kids. The whole place is full of these little booths where kids learn and try out different jobs--mailman, ambulance paramedic, fireman, Yamata shipping dude (sponsored by Yamata Shipping), service station attendant (Sponsored by an oil company), pilot/flight attendant (sponsored by ANA--All Nippon Air), veterinarian, surgeon (no kidding--they have a fake but real looking body and the kid uses instruments and technology to extract a tumor), pediatric nurse (with anatomically correct babies), make up artist, barber, business card maker, banker, painter, rescue personnel (the kids climb up ropes to the top of a burning building to save someone), etc. 

Here comes the bus!

Uh, Oh! Where's the fire?  These puppies actually drove around Kidzania City.

Don't worry--it's not my child up there. Can you tell that there are far fewer lawyers here in Japan than in the US? Can you imagine?

This looks just like the real Yamata Shipping places.


But, before you can try out a career, you must go through extensive training. Sam got his driver's license and, just as in the real world, he had to wait in line, pay for instruction (the class was about an hour long), take a road test, and pay 5 Kidzos for his license.  (They earn money on their jobs and deposit it in a bank where they get an ATM card!).  Like in real life, Sam had to wait in the DMV line. And, his driver's license photo makes him look crazed!  But, it was so cute.  Sam was a driver and other little kids wiped his windshield and pumped his gas!

Learning to drive--notice the car with the hood up in the background:  another career option is auto mechanic.  I should have sent Sid to that one!

Sam, having lived only in the land of self serve gas is befuddled as to what to do when someone else is attending to the car.  Wow, I bet he has never even seen Sid or I clean the windshield. Those of you who know us know what our car looks like!!!

Hmmmm.....why can't I just drive off?  I might mention that Sam also had to use a credit card to pay for his gas.

Sam also decided to make pizza.  That's what the girls were doing. :) And, Sam is much skinnier here, but he still loves food!
Making pizza.  

Making pizza.

Making pizza.

Just made pizza.

Learning about making pizza.

Still learning about making pizza. I got these out of order!

Eating the finished product.
So, it sounds like fun--and it is--but I kid you not, the training for each thing is like a half an hour to an hour. So, you only get to do 2-4 different jobs during your afternoon at Kidzania.  I guess like real life, it's a whole lot of waiting and a whole lot of working for not enough Kidzos!

Tokyo Tower

Okay, so my posts are out of order. This one should come after the next one, but oh well. This is why I teach history and not computer science or technology!

So, Tokyo Tower is pretty interesting. And, this time of year it is beautiful. There are Christmas lights and displays all around it.  And, the tower itself changes colors every few minutes.  For those of you in Fayetteville, it is just almost as impressive as the big water tower you can see from the All American!

Tokyo Tower was built in the 1950s and is a little over 1000 feet high. You probably think of it as just another tourist place, but it actually serves some purpose--it is a communication/t.v. tower.  There are two observation decks from which you can see most of Tokyo. The lower one is about halfway up and the upper one is near the top of the tower.  When we went, the upper deck was closed for repairs (yikes!). So, we just went to the lower deck. It was high enough.

I was terrified.  But, on one part there were windows on the floor and both boys kept stomping on those windows.  I thought I was going to be sick.

The tower lit up at night.

Interesting picture of the base of the tower.

Sid on the way to the tower--it's almost as if he already knew that he would be dining on food court McDonald's and Pizza La!

Well, I didn't get this one flipped. The Tokyo Tower, thankfully, was not on its side while we were there.

Sam and Graham doing the light thing. These lights were on the ground, but sort of like one of those electric ball things (like at the Children's Museum), the light moved with you!

Christmas in a Buddhist/Shinto country at the tower.

A view of Tokyo from the lower observation deck.

And another.

This is Rainbow Bridge at Odaiba seen from the observation deck. Unfortunately, my little cheap camera does not really do it justice. The bridge looked spectacular!

Looking down the window of the observation deck to the ground. Notice how tiny the cars look below!

Another window view with my magnification feature on the camera. Still, the cars look pretty small.

Tokyo Tower and Kidzania

As promised, here is an update--courtesy of the Blackboard troubles which have made it impossible to grade during this busiest week of the semester!

Last week we had a visitor stay with us.  One of the other Fulbrighter's wife came to stay for a couple of days and so we took her around to see some of the sights in the big city of Tokyo (Beth is in Kyoto--which by American standards is also a big city, but not quite like the largest city in the world!).  In particular, we visited the East Garden of the Imperial Palace and the Tokyo Dome.

The Imperial Palace is surrounded by moats and gardens and, for the most part, these are pretty open to the public. It's common to see people fishing or boating on the moat or for them to be strolling around the gardens.  At any rate, it's an interesting system.  Visiting the gardens is free, but, of course, there are all kinds of security guards and police. So, you walk through a bit gate (the doors are huge--maybe 4 times my height--and they really do close them when the grounds are closed) and get a ticket from the ticket booth.  It is free and looks a little bit like a thin domino and you return it when you leave (I guess it's their way of making sure the emperor has no uninvited overnight guests).  Then you stroll around. 

It was the funniest thing. Back home my mom is in Garden Club and they go around and have places in town they clean up and keep planted in flowers and whatnot.  I guess it was Garden Club day at the East Garden.  There were hundreds of little old ladies all dressed in little uniform type things (different colors in different parts of the gardens) and they were raking and planting and trimming and taking care of the garden. (And, of course, chattering away as old ladies do!) 

This time of year the gardens don't have much by way of flowers--a few roses and what looked to be camellias and pansies--but the grounds were still beautiful. 

Unfortunately I don't have pictures as my camera battery was dead, but Sid and I stopped back on Monday to take a few shots. I got some from the outside--the gardens are closed on Mondays.  So, here are some sights from the East Garden--the moat, a bridge, an old building, some swans....:

As you can see, the palace is surrounded by Tokyo.  It is a green spot in a city of buildings.

And, most of those buildings are under construction.

This is near the East Garden. I believe it is MacArthur's Tokyo HQ.  I have read that it was located only a short drive from the palace--for us it was about a 7 minute walk.

MacArthur?


The East Garden moat.

East Garden moat.



Old building at the East Garden.



Swans on the moat.

  
I am going to put Tokyo Tower in a different post. This one is getting too long.

Monday, December 6, 2010

More to come...

This is a tough couple of weeks with grading so posting has been tough. But, we did take the boys to Tokyo Tower and a friend visiting from Kyoto to the East Garden of the Imperial Palace, so I hope to post pictures soon!

Charlie's Angels

Even though we have Slingbox to bring us television from California on an irregular basis, we need videos to fill those evening hours when we only receive late night ads for Extends or other personal products. So, we have been hopping down to the Tsutaya video store (where we sometimes can rent videos for 100 yen apiece).  It's very amusing--Tsutaya does carry some newer shows such as the Mentalist or Bones (not recent seasons, of course), but we have enjoyed most perhaps our revisiting of the late 1970s and early 1980s.  Sam's newfound favorite show is Charlie's Angels--hmmmm.  Meanwhile, Graham seems to have taken a shine to Magnum P.I.  We have also dallied with Moonlighting, A-Team, and various other old favorites.  And, let me assure you, we are not the only Tsutaya patrons renting these classics. When I go to rent, there are always various Japanese persons also scanning the 1970s aisle!  I don't think we could even find these in American video stores anymore. 

In a weird way, it is maybe the most satisfying thing so far in Japan that my son will have memories of Farrah Fawcett and Kate Jackson!