Tuesday 10: Eating their way through Japan

Jen documented pretty much everything she ate while in Japan. Here are just a few!

1. Okinomiyaki mix. Raw egg, hamburger, cabbage, tomato, batter, bacon.

2. Lunch at the Zip Cafe near Ginkakuji. Fried chicken pita sandwich.

3. Crepes!

4. Shrimp tempura sushi roll in Kyoto.

5. Purple sweet potato ice cream. Horrible pic of me, btw. :)

6. Dessert at lunch in Gion.

7. Gyoza House gyoza.

8. Spicy black pepper french fries at Kyoto station.

9. Disney Mickey-shaped Chinese bun. Delicious but a let down according to Jen.

10. Fish shaped custard sandwich thing. A.m.a.z.i.n.g.

What's for Dinner? Dinner for One

Glenn is gone again. This time only for a month. It makes me a little sad knowing that I think a month is a short time, but honestly that is a short time. Plus, I get to go visit him for a little tropical vacation soon. Can't wait for that.

When the guys are gone though, I really revert to being a bachelor. Why cook a big meal when it's going to just be me? Sometimes I'll make a fun new meal and invite friends over, but more often than not, it's a bowl of cereal or pancakes and some DVR.

Sundays are the worst because they are typically a loung-y kind of day for Glenn and I or a running errands kind of day together. So when he's gone, they particularly drag on. I decided to fill my time yesterday by premaking some meals for my busy days this week.

I made a lasagna in an 8x8 dish to freeze for later this month, but had the couple extra inches of noodles left over (since the noodles are made for a 9x13" pan) from where I had cut them. I made a mini lasagna for myself in a small round ceramic dish with the left over pieces. The perfect size for a dinner for one.

 

Perfect for catching up on Grey's Anatomy on abc.com. :)

Dave & Jen Visit Japan! Day 6

Monday was Disneyland Day! We got up early and started the drive back towards the airport to go to Disneyland. For my birthday last year, I went to DisneySea, but this would be my first trip to Disneyland!

I was hoping that Disney would be less crowded than I had heard. It wasn't a weekend or a Japanese holiday, but it didn't matter, it was still crowded! For example, we got to the park at 10:15 (it opens at 9) and our first Fast Pass for the new-ish Monster, Inc. ride was for 8:30 pm!

Our first ride was the Winnie the Pooh Honey Hunt ride mostly because it is unique to Tokyo Disney and since Dave & Jen are Florida Disney veterans, we wanted to go on the rides new for them. I've only been to Florida Disney once so I was up for whatever! The gouge Jen had received said that this ride was excellent and the particular woman she talked to went on it 5 times! After Winnie the Pooh, we stopped listening to that lady! It was fun, but not waiting-in-line-for-75-minutes fun.

We went on several more rides and of course checked out the parades. The night parade was my favorite! The Japanese are crazy at Disney. If you are a girl and not wearing Minnie ears, bow or headband, you are the minority! They also like to wait in crazy long lines, like this one which was probably an hour long, for caramel corn! There was an equally long line for giant chicken legs! I was confused!

Since there are often so many crowds at Disney, they have developed a few techniques for dealing with it that Florida does not have to. Like the shows. Since there are only so many shows a day, you have to take your park tickets, put them in to a machine and then there is a raffle to determine if you get to go to the show or not! We were successful for the Princess show, but no luck for the Musical show in front of the castle. Here is Jen with our show tickets!

A few pictures from the show and parade:

I also enjoyed showing Dave and Jen the crazy food they have in Japan. A few of the things we tried were-

• Honey and lemon churro
• Soy sauce popcorn
• Mickey-shaped chinese steamed buns
• Strawberry popcorn

We also saw black pepper popcorn and curry popcorn. I don't know what their obsession is with the flavored popcorn at Disney!

We stayed through the fireworks show, which I must say was a let down. It lasted only 5 minutes, but then we took the monorail back to our hotel!

Congrats Matt & Nichole!

My cousin, Matt, and his wife, Nichole, welcomed a baby boy on March 5th at 2:18 pm. Ethan James Beale was 8 1/2 pounds and 19 inches. Congrats big sister, Allie! That's the last of the Lawson baby's for this year. I think 4 was enough! 3 boys and 1 girl!

Dave & Jen Visit Japan! Day 5

On Sunday the 21st, we finally decided to sleep in a relax a little! After 3 days of getting up early and going all day, I think we needed it!

We started off the morning with breakfast at the 19th Hole, the golf course restaurant on base. Breakfast buffet for $5.75? Yes, please!

Next we headed to the 100 yen store. Jen was very excited because she had heard me write about it here. When most people think 100 yen they think a dollar store, but they are so so so much better in Japan! Jen spent a good hour or so wandering up and down every aisle. Fun souvenirs to be found! She was so intent on shopping that I don't think she took any pictures! Oh wait, she did take a few of Dave playing the taiko drum game at the arcade at the 100 yen store, but I can't find those.

So on to the rest of the day. Next we headed to the Kamakura area. I've been there several times, but it's always fun because there are many different areas to explore. We headed to one of my favorite temples, Hase-dera and of course a stop by the big Buddah! We had great weather, but it did start to get chilly towards the end of the day. We had lunch at a cute little shop in Hase where I insisted that Dave and Jen order crepes- delicious!

 

Since Hase and Enoshima are on the coast a little south of here, the plum blossoms were starting to bloom. Only one pink tree in the whole garden, but it was beautiful! I can't wait for Cherry Blossom season at the end of this month.

After seeing Buddah and the temple, we stopped at another small 100 yen store (I think Jen is addicted to them at this point, good think I didn't tell her there is a 5-story store not too far away!) and Dave found some new flavors of Doritos- crab dip and cheese gratin. What?! Yeah, they weren't bad, a little weird though. We had a picnic on the steps along the beach and enjoyed the view before we got too cold! We also made a stop at a cute little old-fashioned pachinko parlor. Pretty much like a penny arcade.

We headed home in the early evening and for dinner we went to Gyoza house. A Smith family favorite. We were hoping Glenn would be home on Sunday night, but his flight got canceled out of LAX due to maintenance so we wouldn't get to see him, bummer. We brought him home so gyoza though!

A relaxing, but fun-filled day!

Dave & Jen Visit Japan! Day 4

 

Saturday was Mount Fuji day! In order to ease my tour guide duties, I signed the three of us up for an MWR (Morale, Wellfare and Recreation) tour on base. It turned out that Saturday was beautiful weather and PERFECT for some Fuji-san viewing! Mount Fuji can be elusive in the clouds some days, but it was gorgeous for Dave & Jen's visit. Thank you weather kami!

We started out at the Fuji Peace Park which was build and donated by the Indian Prime Minister or something equally as random. It didn't offer much in the way of park or peace, but it was in a beautiful location to shoot some pictures of Fuji.

 

After 30 or 45 minutes or so of capturing Fuji on film, we headed to the Oshino Village which is famous for its 8 ponds that were formed by Fuji. They used to be one large pond, but they have dried up and formed 8 smaller "ponds". I use the term "pond" loosely though. Being from MN, when I think of pond, I really just think of a small lake, but since everything in Japan is smaller, so are their ponds.

Here are 3 of the 8 ponds. See what I mean? They are pretty tiny! Each was named for something interesting or some superstition. The second picture is called Mirror Pond because you can see Fuji's reflection. This pond (below) was my favorite, I forget the name, but it was name because a girl was getting married there, farted and was so embarrassed, she drowned herself.

After checking out Oshino village, we headed to the Sengen shrine. It was your basic Japanese shrine- beautiful and old. There was also a wedding happening that I was happy the family got to see. Since we were a little in to the mountains, the shrine was covered with snow as well. Seriously icy and slippery snow, but it was beautiful!

 We stopped for lunch at Fujiyama brewery. Dave was definitely happy about this!

 

This was a busy tour! Next we headed to Lake Kawaguchiko to enjoy the scenery and do some souvenir shopping. I found a cute Fuji cell phone charm and lastly we headed to the Fugaku Lava Caves. These caves were formed by the release of gases from cooling lava from Mount Fuji (which is still an active volcano). 

I think by the time the bus headed back towards base, we were Fuji-ed out, but we stopped one last time at a rest stop for another photo-op!

It got me excited for August though when I am going to climb all 3776 meters!

Dave & Jen Visit Japan! Day 3

Our second day in Kyoto started out early just like every other day so far. We wanted to visit Kiyomizudera before our scheduled tour of the Kyoto Imperial Palace. Kyoto used to be the capital of Japan and the palace is still used for some functions as well as the holding place for the emperor's throne used during the enthronement ceremony. Which, by the way, they fly to Tokyo via helicopter for the short ceremony.

We stopped at a pastry shop for some breakfast before catching the bus and then hiked up the steep hill to the temple. More climbing! My legs were sore after 2 days in Kyoto.

Kiyomizudera is one of my favorite temples in Kyoto because of it's great view. Glenn and I saw it during cherry blossom season last year so it wasn't quite as pretty during the winter, but much less crowded which was a definite bonus! Here we are at the Love Stone which is 2 small maybe 3' x 3' stones and the superstition is that if you can walk from stone to the other blindfolded then you will be lucky in love. If you need help finding the stone, then you will need help with your love life. It was fun watching the school kids try to make it to the second stone.

We took a bus ride from the temple to the Imperial Palace. Glenn and I tried to go last year, but they only have 2 English tours a day and you have to sign up ahead of time and get a permit. This time, I was sure to sign up. You don't get to go inside any of the buildings, just outside and through some of the gardens, but the free tour was definitely worth it. Here are a few pictures of the palace:

 

  

 

After the palace, we headed to the Gion area of Tokyo to see a Geisha show, but people were lined up for the 500 yen, 30 minute show, 2 hours before it started! We could have been towards the front of the line, but we figured we're rather sit down and have lunch and go shopping than wait in line. When we went back after lunch, the line was out the door. No thanks!

We headed back to the hotel to pick up our bags, do some souvenir shopping and beer drinking at the train station and catch our shinkansen back to Yokohama! Jen loves the taste of beer. :)

I know they came all the way to Japan and don't hold this against me, but for dinner we had McDonalds....BUT they ordered the only-found-in-Japan Hawaiian burger which is part of their Big America series. First was the Texas burger, then the New York Burger, California burger and Hawaiian burger. We came home and ate McDonalds and played Scrabble (our favorite!). Where I got my first ever Bingo (use all 7 of your tiles for a 50 point bonus)! I played ESTROGEN off of an existing E!

PS. You may notice a trend in the pictures of Dave and Jen's visit. All the pictures are of Dave and I. Jen is the resident photographer and usually takes more than she is in!

Dave & Jen Visit Japan! Day 2

Jen has also been posting on her blog about Japan so here is her Day 2 post.

Day 2 started very early with the alarm going off around 4:30 am. I think I heard Jen moving around about an hour before that which is why I figured an early train was the way to go! I knew they would be awake. We caught a 5:30 train from Sagami-otsuka to Yokohama and another train to Shin-yokohama where we caught the Shinkansen to Kyoto. Kyoto is on the other side of Japan but by bullet train it takes about 2 hours. We arrived at the Hotel Miyako, dropped off our bags and eventually got on a bus for Arashiyama. Like Jen said, easier said than done.

Our first stop was the Arashiyama Monkey Park. It was awesome! Mostly because I got lots of pictures of Jen like this-

They weren't joking when they said not to stare the monkeys in the eye though. It was mating season so I definitely got a few hisses when I looked to closely! Dave and I would turn around and walk to the other way. Jen stayed far below and waited for Dave to come back and get her. :)

After we got to the top of Mount Arashiyama, we got to feed the monkeys from inside a little house and take pictures of them without worrying about being hissed at!

After the monkeys, we saw the bamboo forest which was really pretty! Then we got lost for a short while looking for the bus. We then headed to the Golden Pavillion of Kinkakuji with a short stop at Zip Cafe for lunch. We did a good job of finding non-fish food that Jen would eat. Success!

We ended our whirlwind Kyoto day with a stop at Nijo Castle. The gardens weren't nearly as pretty as they were in April when Glenn and I saw them, but I still enjoyed them with my family.

We went back to the hotel to check in, took a two hour nap (much needed!) and then went to a Yakitori restaurant for dinner in Gion! No Geisha sightings unfortunately!