The Buddha and Me

Monday was President's Day and even though we're in a foreign country, the government still gives its employees the day off! Woot!

I have to admit that I wasn't all that thrilled to be "wandering" that day...it was a deluge.  No joke.  Tim and Adam opted to just wear their rain jackets, but I put on full rain gear.  I was still pretty much soaked to the bone by the end of the day.

Once we got to Hase, where the Buddha is located, we followed the line of the other brave tourists and headed to the temple.  We had to buy tickets to get in and see the Buddha, but they did provide us with some interesting facts about the big guy. 

For instance, did you know that this is the Seated Buddha and named Amida Nyorai, but commonly referred to as the Kamakura Daibutsu?  OR that it is a national treasure? OR that construction began in 1252 and lasted about 10 years?  OR that Kamakura Daibutsu is 13.4 meters tall (including his pedestal) and 121 tons?

To give you an idea of his largeness, here is a picture of Tim and me standing close to the Buddha, while Adam took a picture from those first set of stairs...

And a picture of Tim and Adam standing closer to the camera...

We spent a little bit of time exploring his surroundings.  I found a pair of awesome sandals...

And, in the spirit of wanting to really understand and "get inside his head," we took an extra little tour...

literally inside the buddha! Here's his torso area, which has been reinforced to his head to withstand natural disasters.  We found that there was a lot of graffiti inside the buddha, in a variety of languages, but I'm choosing to believe that it's more spiritual graffiti than basic vandalism.  

After we got our fill of the Big Buddha, and spent some time in the gift shop warming up at their electric heater, we walked down the street to the Hase-Dera Temple.  The official program explains it as "A temple with a view and lots of flowers."  Rather poetic, isn't it?

This temple is famous for its statue of Kannon, an eleven headed Avalokitesvara Bodhisattva.  According to legend, in 721 AD the monk Tokudo Shonin discovered a camphor tree near Hase that was large enough to provide material for two statues of Kannon.  The statue from the lower part of the trunk was enshrined in Hasedera Temple, near Nara.  The larger statue from the upper part was thrown into the ocean near Osaka with a prayer that it would reappear to save the people.  Well, 15 years later it washed ashore not far from Kamakura.  The temple we visited was constructed to honor it.  

We didn't take photos of the Kannon, it wasn't allowed, but this is a link to the temple website, which does have pictures.  The gardens were amazing though, even in the rain. 

 

This is one of the buildings housing a different statue, next to the Kannon.

And a photo of the main Temple...

The rest of the grounds were pretty awesome and on a clear day, there would be a magnificent view.  We weren't so lucky...

The guys had fun wandering on the different paths...

I found a cave, but we didn't want to pay another admission fee, so we just stood outside of it...

Due to the downpour and being nearly frozen solid, we called it a day in Kamakura.  Hopefully we'll go back and explore more of the area on a sunny, clear day!  

On another note, Tim and I are still sick. :-( I woke up on Tuesday with whatever Tim had and am still recovering.  Tim has progressed to a loud and never-ending cough.  I'm practically drowning myself with liquid and getting lots of rest, and already I'm feeling much better.  It seems though that we've been on the tail end of whatever was going around.  Hopefully we'll be totally recovered soon, it would be no fun to spend another weekend sick! 

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Tokyo Valentine's: Part 2

When I last left you, we had settled down for the night after visiting the Tokyo Tower and scouring the city for some IB Profun, which we didn't find...

On Saturday morning, I had planned for us to wake up super early and go to the Tsukiji fish market in time to see the end of the morning Tuna auction.  But Tim had other plans...sleeping in.  Poor guy was still sick, so we got quite a late start.  The second plan was to tour the Imperial Gardens then head over to Akihabara for some electronics overload.  When we finally got out of the hotel around 11:30, we found out it was raining.  Not just raining, but raining and snowing.  This is not, in my opinion, the best weather to tour gardens in, so we scrapped that plan and went straight to Akihabara.  

If you don't know, Akihabara is the electronics super-center of Tokyo.  You can literally find any thing electronics related in these few square blocks.  Tim was, of course, mesmerized.  

Unfortunately, we didn't take a lot of pictures here.  Ok, that's a lie, we took a TON of pictures inside the stores with the display cameras! :-)  But somehow I didn't think they would appreciate it if I put my SD card in the camera and actually saved those!  (Can you tell I thought about doing that!?)

In North America, the Olympic Opening Ceremonies were in full swing around the time we arrived.  How did we know that, you ask?  We watched the whole thing standing in front of a 60" LED TV.  We spent a long time on the TV floor of that store!

We ended up spending the whole day in Akihabara and had lunch in one of the side street cafes.  Here is a picture of the area at night, lit up by neon...

And Tim thought the street tiles were very fitting.  I believe this is some sort of radio/boombox, but every 5 feet or so, there was a different tile, featuring a different electronic.  They take their sidewalk decorations very seriously here, I could probably do a whole post on them!

When we got back to the hotel it was about 7:00, so we headed back to the department stores to purchase our Valentine's Day presents for each other.  I had found mine the day before, but Tim hadn't found anything he wanted.  When we got to the stores, we realized they closed at 8:00, giving us 1 hour to find everything!  We figured out that we went to the wrong store and ended up walking briskly down the street to find the right place.  I ended up with...

A Burberry wallet!  I keep getting denied by the train wickets because they have a hard time reading my Passmo card through my passport wallet, so Tim thought this would be the perfect solution!  And it is!  I LOVE IT!

Tim didn't find anything he really loved, so I still owe him a Valentine's present.  It was kind of amazing how restrained he was in Akihabara too...I kept glancing over to see him eyeing the wire spools and crazy computer gadgets, so maybe we'll go back and he'll get something there.  Oh and he just informed me there's an entire store dedicated to Robotics supplies, yeah, I'm sure he'll find something there! 

That evening we closed down the stores and then tried to find somewhere to eat dinner.  Our lunch had been pretty late and very filling, so we weren't particularly hungry.  This was really good because everything was closed.  No joke.  At 7:30, the streets were packed and by 9:00, we had the sidewalks to ourselves.  After going into a few restaurants and being told they were closed, we headed to an AM/PM and got Japanese convenience food and went back to our room.  We ended up watching the end of the Olympic Opening Ceremonies and going to bed.  

On Valentine's Day, we had brunch at the military hotel in Tokyo.  This has been recommended to us a bunch of times, and now I know why...it was amazingly delicious and never ending!  I was stuffed until dinner.  By the time we were done with brunch, I wasn't feeling too hot and Tim was still feeling sick, so we headed back to Yokosuka.  

We got "displaced" in the business district finding our way to the JR train station, where we could catch the right train back home, but we did find a little park. 

We ended up finishing our Valentine's day with a long afternoon nap, our traditional heart-shaped pizza (no Papa Murphy's here, but Tim did a excellent job making it from "scratch") and a movie.  

I hope everyone else had a wonderful Valentine's!  I look forward to hearing all about them! :-)

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Tokyo Valentine's: Part 1

This weekend, we had the chance to spend some time wandering the streets of Tokyo.  In particular, we visited the Ginza district, Akihabara, and the Tokyo Tower.  

On friday we left bright and early and headed to the train station.  We managed to make it to Tokyo in about an hour...amazing!  We figured the easiest way to get to our hotel would mean getting off at the main Tokyo station and walking to Ginza and our hotel.  Well, we made it to Ginza, but it took us a good 30 minutes and finally asking directions to get to our hotel.  We stayed at the Hotel Monterey La Soeur.  

The rooms were teeny tiny, but super cute!  It had all of the essentials, plus pajamas and a Japanese newspaper (in English) delivered in the morning.  

The bed took up the entire room.  It was quite cozy!  :-)

After we checked in (they let us in early!) we headed towards the main street of Ginza.  This is known as the "5th Avenue" of Tokyo and I can definitely see the comparison!

There were stores from every major designer in the world, plus some amazing company stores.  This apple building was 4 floors of apple goodness.  Unfortunately, they didn't have the iPad...we looked.  We ended up in the food hall of one of the huge department stores for some food.  They didn't have any place to sit, so we headed across the street to a Starbucks, got some drinks and ate there.  I'm not sure if that's totally kosher, but it worked for us!  As we were leaving, we noticed this on the wall...

  

We ate/drank at the FIRST Starbucks in Japan!  We thought that was kind of cool, seeing as we're from Seattle and all.  :-)

Tim wasn't feeling very good, so we headed back to the hotel from a nap before our evening adventure to Tokyo Tower.

Tokyo Tower was a must-see for us on this trip and we thought we were close enough to stroll over there from our hotel.  Ha!  We thought WRONG!  You would think that it would be a pretty obvious landmark to walk towards, but we failed to take into account the number of skyscrapers that made finding the Tower so difficult.  It was a long and cold journey to the tower that evening...

The elusive Tokyo Tower...will we EVER make it?!

Finally, after going the "scenic route" to the Tower, we made it!  I was shocked to find a mall sitting under the tower and absolutely no line to get to the observation deck.  

Unlike the Eiffel Tower, the elevator is in the center of the Tower and the main observation deck is about half-way up.  At night, they open up the top observation deck for an extra fee, we choose to partake in that.  

Here is one of many photos we took of the city:

Unfortunately our camera doesn't do "night" very well, so the pictures are kind of blurry.  I think it makes this one a bit more artistic...do you see the starfish?

After we had gotten our fill of the view, we headed down into the mall.  We hadn't eaten in a while and decided to just do dinner in their little food court.  As we were leaving, Tim had to take some glamour shots of the Tower.  

I made him pose when the Tower changed colors...

Tim still wasn't feeling very well, so tried to find a convenience store to buy some medication, but no one had anything.  By the time we figured out that we needed to go to a pharmacy, they were all closed. Then we started to notice how everything was shut down for the evening.  I asked Tim what time it was and, amazingly, it was only 8:30.  Evidently Tokyo is more an "early to bed" city.  

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Thursday Ramblings....

I don't have any new pictures to share today, but I do have some fun stories, hence the "rambling."

Ichi - I went shopping yesterday with some other "Real Housewives of the DOD" at an outlet mall in Yokohama.  We were all pretty impressed, but the most amazing part was the Coach store.  This is a big brand in Japan, all of the women have Coach bags.  I figured that the prices must be amazing if so many people own their stuff.  Wrong.  So wrong.  A wallet, which goes for about $80 at an outlet store in the U.S., was over $200!  Most of the purses were in the 90,000-95,000yen range! We were blown away!  I now understand why there are always a million and a half Japanese tourists in the outlet store at Tulalip, it's so cheap compared to Japan!

Ni - We're spending the weekend in Tokyo!  The military hotel, The New Sanno, was completely booked for the holiday weekend, but I managed to find a hotel in the Ginza district (think Fifth Avenue in NYC) that wasn't astronomically priced.  Woot!  Tim has asked to spend some time in Akihabara, the electronics area, and I want to visit the Imperial gardens.  We both want to go to the Tokyo Tower, Japan's answer to the Eiffel Tower.  If you don't know about Tim's obsession with the Eiffel Tower, just know that he took about 100 pictures of it when we visited in 2007.  I promise to report back here with some good pictures from our whole trip and I'll try to restrain Tim from filling up our memory card with pictures of the Tokyo Tower.  (Somehow I don't think anything could stop him...)

San - If you haven't tried "Google Chrome" yet as your web browser, download it now, it's amazing.  My browser is currently decorated in a Cath Kidston theme, much cuter than the old blue Safari!

Yan - The Olympics start this weekend!  Woot!  Hopefully we'll be able to watch them, but I won't be surprised if we're spending most of the time watching the Japanese athletes.  It'll be a new experience for sure!

Go - In the spirit of athleticism...I woke up early on Monday to watch the Super Bowl (GEAUX SAINTS!) and I thought I would be good to geaux when I found Sports Center on the J-ESPN channel broadcasting from the game.  Well, as soon as that program was over, they switched to a Table Tennis tournament that is, seriously, still going on 3 days later.  That is what ESPN plays here, lots of ping pong.

 Roku -  I just taught you how to count to 6 in Japanese!  Here's a list with pronunciations so you can go show off to your friends and coworkers.  :-)

Ichi - (ee-chee)

Ni - (nee)

San - (sahn)

Yon - (yohn)

Go - (goh)

Roku - (roke - the end U is usually whispered)

Nana - (nah-nah)

Hachi - (hah-chee)

Kyuu - (Q)

Juu - (joo)

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Welcome to the Neighborhood

Since most of my faithful readers in the states won't get the chance to come visit, I thought a photo tour of our neighborhood would be a good idea.

Let's start things off when a picture of our building.

Lovely, isn't it...

Right next door to our building is a park, where all of the locals play/walk their dogs/hang out in the afternoon and evening.  

A small stretch of the large park

We've been told that this is a more affluent area of Yokosuka, and it's pretty evident by the surrounding housing and buildings.

We're across the street from a school - even in another country we're surrounded by schools! :-)

A few of the houses in our neighborhood, they're large by Japanese standards.   

I have to include a picture of our local grocery store and pharmacy. We've enjoyed quite a few delicacies from this place, I look forward to posting some more food adventures.

The other day I was walking to the train station when I realized how amazing it felt to confidently walk to the nearest train station.  This may seem a little crazy, but as someone who fears public transportation, I feel like I've pretty much mastered it here in Japan!  So far, every time I've gotten lost, I've managed to get "found" again pretty efficiently.  Anyway, here's some pictures from the route we take to the Kita-Kurihama station...

We have to descend a hill, this is from the top.

Then we cross the street and walk next to some neighborhoods. 

Walking along the road...

Eventually, we hang a right and walk a small, one-lane residential road through a fairly nice neighborhood.  

I think this house is amazing and totally Japanese.

Do you see the laundry out to dry?  A majority of residents do not have a dryer, so there are always clothes hanging out to dry.  I think it's kind of funny.  

This little guy is always out to greet us.  Weird, yet cute.  

We have to cross the train tracks to get to the station, but that's the train station!

  The train tracks on the left are going away from us and the tracks on the right are coming towards us...it's opposite of the U.S.

So there you have it!  That's our neighborhood in a nutshell.  We are enjoying it and the 20ish minute walk to the train station is good exercise.  Of course on those days when we are just not feeling the walk, we can catch a bus near the grocery store that takes us to the Keiku-Kurihama station, one stop down from Kita-Kurihama.  And then sometimes we take a taxi, but that's only when we're coming home and we're really tired or it's freezing/windy outside.  Really, that's the only time.  I swear.  :-)  

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SUMO SUNDAY!

A forewarning: there are quite a few videos in this post.  Take your time, I think they're pretty good!

We had the opportunity to attend a Sumo tournament today in Tokyo with some coworkers of Tim's, all arranged by the MWR on base.  To get to the tournament, we had to meet a bus on base and drive for about an hour and a half to central Tokyo.  The drive was gorgeous!  But, lucky for you, bus windows aren't the best things to take a picture through, so you get a picture of us! :-)

Once we got to the arena, the whole group decided to get lunch in the area around the stadium, instead of waiting in the food lines inside.  

 

The Sumo Arena

Our group walking through the crowd of spectators

On our way back to the stadium, we managed to get a shot of some of the Sumo wrestlers entering the arena through their private entrance.  This area was surrounded by camera crews and spectators, and many of the Sumos required security escorts.  

Do you see the Sumo?? Yes, they always dress in the traditional Kimono, it's tradition. 

Once we finally got into the arena, we found our seats, wandered around the perimeter, and waited for the tournament to begin.  

The dohyo, a 18 sq. foot clay platform, covered by a pseudo-Shinto shrine

A better view of the Dohyo and the arena

There was a drum performance to start off the tournament and then the lower, Juryo division performed their ceremonial entrance.  

This was almost exactly what the higher, Makuuchi division's ceremonial entrance looked like later on in the tournament. 

Here is a video of what a Sumo match looks like when the wrestlers are not even close to being the same size.  I was betting on the big guy...

That's pretty much how all of my bets ended until the last round, where my guy won the whole she-bang!  

Between the two division tournaments, there was a children's sumo demonstration and a comic sumo match.  The second video is about 4 minutes long, but pretty funny. 

We also got our picture taken with the Sumo mascot.  This guy had a line around the building waiting to take pictures before the tournament started, but we found him in-between the tournaments with absolutely no line! 

Then the Makuuchi wrestlers and the sole Yokozuna wrestler entered. 

The Yokozuna is the most elite wrestler in the sport, only 69 wrestlers have been promoted to this rank since official record keeping started in 1789.  Yeah, in 221 years, 69 wrestlers have qualified for this rank!! They are expected to always act with hinkaku, dignity and grace, and they have to be extremely good wrestlers.  This past week, the other Yokozuna decided to retire after it came to surface that he was involved in a drunken brawl outside a Tokyo nightclub.  I guess it was the "straw-that-broke-the-camel's-back" for Asashoryu and instead of being forced to retire, he stepped up and made the announcement himself.  You should google his name, there are quite a few controversies surrounding him.  

ANYWAY, this tournament was pretty intense and Hokuho, the Yokozuna, was kicking serious butt until he got to the "Final Four" where we was defeated by Goeido, a maegashira!  I should explain that in the main tournament, there are 5 different rankings of sumos.  At the top is the Yokozuna, followed by the Ozeki, the Sekiwake, the Komusubi, and the maegashira.  So the very elite was beaten by the very bottom.  It was intense.  Many of the spectators on the floor cushions threw their cushions onto the dohyo, a sign of congratulations for the underdog.  

So the final match came down to Goeido and Kotooshu, an Ozeki, who also happens to be from Romania.  And he's huge: 6'6" - 340ish lbs.  

You can see why it was an exciting match!  

After all the wrestling, Goeido was presented with the trophy and some other things in another ceremony.  We left after he got his trophy because we couldn't really understand anything that was going on.  

When we got on the bus to go back to Yokosuka, we saw Goeido leaving the arena through the special sumo entrance completely surrounded by cameras, spectators, and tv crews.  It was a madhouse! 

Overall, we really enjoyed ourselves!  I thought it was a fascinating sport and I think I picked up on a lot of what was going on in the ring.  A great feat for not understanding a word or what was going on!

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