Another day, another park

Of course, the kids enjoy playing in the park in the summer. There is actually a small park almost right next door to Yukari's family home here in Niigata. Sometimes Luke's cousins come to visit, and we go there to play.  Ian is usually on the side in a stroller, but always with a smile on his face.

Once, even Yukari's 98 year-old grandfather came to see what we were doing, and had a couple of laughs with Luke on the swing, while Luke shot us all with his water pistol (don't worry, I moved Grandpa to a safer seat on the sidelines a minute after taking a few pictures).

Kansai

I was in Osaka, Japan for just over a week, both to present a paper at a conference and to meet with colleagues at Osaka University, to design a research study on cross-cultural differences in online learning. The week was very productive, though I was spending a lot of time in my hotel room preparing presentation files and documents -- and I really had the urge to get outside and see some of the interesting things in this part of Japan.

I did find two afternoons during the week to do some exploring. Although I have been in this part of Japan, the Kansai area, before, and have visited Kyoto many times over the past 12 years, I have never been to Nara. So I decided to spend a day outside in the Nara park and explore some of the temples and shrines of the old capital. Nara was the capital of Japan from 710 to 784 and designed after the capital of China, Chang'an (now called Xi'an, where I lived for a few months in 2005).

Nara is only a short train ride from Osaka, and from the station near where I was staying in Osaka there was a direct train, so I was there in no time. I forgot to each lunch in Osaka before leaving, so the first thing was to find a restaurant near the station in Nara. I was looking for a simple place to eat, not a touristy Japanese food restaurant (i.e. expensive), and then I saw a sign for an Indian restaurant with a lunch set for as little as 600 yen (about $7 US). A little known fact is that Japanese people love Indian-style curry, and there are Indian restaurants all over Japan. When I worked in Tokyo, our favorite was a place called Tandoor -- where many of us working at Adcore ate lunch 2 or 3 times a week! These restaurants always have a lunch set, with a choice of a couple of different types of curry, plus rice or nan (i.e. Indian bread), and a drink (always masala tea for me). Well, in Nara, I went all out and got the set that included 3 types of curry, plus tandoori chicken and prawns -- it was exactly what I was looking for after a few days of hotel food.

After lunch, I wandered around Nara park and visited the Kōfuku-ji Buddhist temple, Kasuga Shrine, and the botanical gardens; and also plenty of deer and middle school students all over town on field trips.

Later in the week, on my last afternoon after finishing our meetings at Osaka University, I had a few hours to explore some of my favorite areas of Kyoto. Again, a very short and easy train trip from Osaka, and guess what?.. Yes, another wonderful Indian lunch when I arrived in Kyoto :)

The sky was a bit threatening all afternoon, but this is rainy season in Japan and most days are cloudy and humid. I have always enjoyed rainy season, since the clouds can keep the temperatures down, and the are fewer tourists in cities like Kyoto and Nara. Here are a few photos from the area around Yasaka Shrine and Kiyomizu Temple:

 

A day in the park

Japan is pretty well know for its public works projects, what we in the US might call "pork-barrel projects" -- helping the legislator's local community with construction projects that are often not necessary. Niigata has its fair share of these, with a former Prime Minister of Japan, Kakuei Tanaka, from this area of Niigata -- a man The Economist once called, "that paragon of post-war corruption". Well, thanks to someone at least, this off-the-radar area of the country, mostly known for its delicious rice and heavy snowfall in winter, has two stops on the shinkansen bullet train to Tokyo and an international university right out in the middle of a rice field. We also have some beautiful parks! So enough about politics... let's enjoy what we have :)

Wednesday we spent a few hours at a park in Muikamachi (Yukari's hometown) next to the city building where the playgroup meets (see her post below). The day before we bought a hat for Ian, since he has rubbed off most of the hair on his head, and we didn't want him to get a sunburn. I am pretty tired of seeing every kid in the world wearing a baseball cap, so my rule was anything but a ball cap! Luke emphatically said at the time that he didn't want a hat, but shortly after we left the store, he changed his mind... How old are you? Oh, that's right, terrible two! So we returned and bought him the identical hat as Ian's -- though I notice that Luke likes to turn the brim of his hat up a bit on the sides, somewhat like a fedora, just to be different.

Yukari and I came to this park years ago, and I vaguely recall filling out health insurance forms for travel here at that time -- maybe before a trip to Indonesia? Anyway, I don't remember the park being this interesting and elaborate. There is an expansive pond with an area for viewing and feeding koi (see Yukari's post last month), a fountain in the middle of the pond, a pagoda at the top of a hill, a bridge, beautiful red Japanese maple trees, and a replica of an old style tea ceremony house complete with a stone lantern (ishidoro) and rock path to the pond. We really had a wonderful time as a family today, and I expect we'll be back at this park many times over the course of the next month. Thanks, pork-barrel politicians!

Reunited

I flew back from London to Japan on another very comfortable Virgin Atlantic flight (maybe just without kids airplane flights are relatively easy?), and arrived back in Tokyo in just about 12 hours -- but I had a few hours more to travel, to Tokyo from the airport is an hour or more, then the train up to Niigata is another couple of hours. Plus I had to stop in Tokyo, at Yodobashi camera in Akihabara (on a Saturday!) and brave to crowds to buy a couple of things to fix my computer -- which died when I was in Warsaw. I was getting pretty tired on that last stretch of the train ride, after being up for about 24 hours at that point.

Yukari, her Mom, Luke, and Ian were all at the Echigo-Yuzawa train station to pick me up. I didn't know what Luke's reaction would be, having not seen me for about one month. As soon as he did see me coming toward the ticket gate, he ran over laughing. It really was a bit touching, and I can say without an ounce of hyperbole that I will never forget that moment for the rest of my life. What a dear sweet boy he is.

The British Museum

The best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry -- and so went my day in London. I had a plan to visit several sites in the city, starting at the British Museum, then on to Tower Bridge, the Palace of Westminster and "Big Ben", Trafalgar Square; and to end the day at Piccadilly Circus. It wouldn't leave much time to explore any one place -- just to see the sights, take a few photos, and move on.

But I was tired after a full day of travel yesterday. And staying at a hotel near Heathrow, it was an hour tube ride to the city, on the busy and cramped underground. In the end, I just didn't feel like spending the day on the subway. Besides, I did nearly the same tour (minus the museum) last time I was in London about 10 years ago.

So what happened? Well, I made it to the British Museum and just stayed there all day :) Of course, you could spend several days in this museum, and although I had visited here 25 years ago, I thoroughly enjoyed the day just leisurely looking though the collection of artifacts from ancient Egypt, Greece, Rome, and the early British Isles. They also had a exhibit of Australian artists.

No regrets at all.

A Day in Vienna

A trip to Vienna really should be for more than one day, but I was just here for a stopover on my way back from Sofia to London, so a day is all I had. First of all, the weather in Europe for the past month has been beautiful -- no rain since I left Ireland a couple of week ago. Vienna was no different, it was a very warm and sunny day, and I really could have used a hat or at least some sunscreen, since I picked up a bit of sun today.

I stayed at a hotel just a 10 minute walk from the Opera House, and Vienna is a very easy city to see on foot, since many of the famous landmarks are all located in the city center. I spent the entire day just walking around the city, popping into a couple of museums, shops, and sidewalk cafés.