19 April 2011
Posted by Jay

Anyone who knows Ella knows that she loves animals, especially marine animals.  With this love for marine animals it makes sense that we would take a whale watching tour while in Hawaii. Ella was very excited for this tour and couldn't wait to look for whales in the ocean. 

Before boarding
When we boarded our boat we had a very nice presentation from the boat naturalist including our guaranteed sighting of a humpback: a plastic model.  Yeah, a little corny, but that is what tours are.  Once we left port we decided to head to some of the higher decks to get a better view.  Even though it was a very sunny blue sky day it was really, really windy so we stayed off the top deck.  Not long after getting out into the ocean Jess saw the first blow of a whale surfacing, even before they announced it on the ship.  From then we basically followed 2 different sets of moms and calves.  Ella was really excited to find them for about 15 minutes, then she got bored.  Luckily the ship had many more activities for both kids and adults to do.

Thar she blows!

Nice shot Kiki!

Mom and calf

My hair was blowing too, can't you see it?
Ella was very busy for the rest of the cruise making leis, playing the ukelele, and learning some hula.  We had a lot of fun and saw a few whales.
Making a lei

Nana and Abby modeling

Learning some chords

Abby dancing, not necessarily the hula
Aloha!

Jay
Posted by Jess
19 April 2011

After the bus dropped me off in Downtown Seoul around 3pm, I had a renewed energy to explore the city.  If only I had a good map...

I followed street signs to an area called Cheongye Plaza, which has a nice pedestrian area and a stream that you can walk along.  This was a recently revitalized area of the city.  And I got to see a K-Pop group practicing their dance for a music video.



I headed in the direction of City Hall and in order to get to N Seoul Tower, an observation tower in the middle of Namsan Park.  I took a few wrong turns and saw a few extra things - including a couple of churches, museums and another palace.  When I finished walking in one giant circle, I decided it might be better to just look up and head towards the tower without using the map.  While going in that direction I ended up back at where the bus dropped me off.   I should have left marks in the tree because I'm pretty sure I walked by that place 4 times on Saturday.  I turned towards the tower and was getting closer when the buildings parted and I saw the park.  It's on a mountain.  No joke.  So I can see the tower but the cars next to me are all going to go through a tunnel to go through the mountain and under the park.  Discouraged and sweaty from hiking around all day, I decided to forget it and headed towards Seoul Station.

After walking for about 15 minutes, I checked some information maps along the way and was at a turning point - Namsan Park straight ahead or Seoul Station to the right.  Or what's this?  Cable Car access straight ahead.  So you don't need a car to get up to the tower, eh?  I can take a cable car?  Alright, I'll bite.  Wrong answer!  I walked about another 20-30 minutes up half the mountain to get in line for the cable car.  It was a steep hike and not many people were headed up that way with me - most were headed down.  If only I were so lucky!  I stood in line for a while and then rode the cable car up.  After the landing - more stairs to the tower.  Fantastic.


The tower itself was pretty average.  It was a clear day but the city looks so ubiquitous from up there it was hard to get a flavor for it.  Plus I was a little bitter about how long it took to get there so it really would have had to be spectacular to get me going!






I did see at the base of the mountain on the opposite side I came from the Grand Hyatt hotel.  I was told by friends before going that this hotel had a great band that played every night and I should check it out.  It was almost 6pm and it was right there so why not?  Now, how to get there?  I started walking down that side of the mountain and got to a bus stop.  I could still see the Hyatt below me.  Next bus in 38 minutes.  Well, it's right there and all downhill, how bad can it be?  Wrong answer again!  I took the path to the left and probably should have gone to the right.  So I was walking and the path was taking me down and away from the hotel with no where to turn off.  And turning around and going back up the hill was not an appealing option.  I kept going and finally at the bottom of the mountain, on the other side of the park, I grabbed a taxi and went to the Hyatt.

I was a little early for the band so I took my time exploring the hotel - had a glass of wine in the piano bar overlooking the city, shopped a bit, ate dinner and then headed to the bar.  The hotel was beautiful and a little fancy, totally out of my price range had they even had any rooms open but if you are looking to go to Seoul, this would be a good place to stay.  The band was called Magenta and they played a mix of rock, pop and R&B.  They were a lot of fun but I wish I would have had someone to share it with.  It was a little lonely there by myself.  I headed back to my hotel around 11, exhausted from the long day of hiking.  I packed up my suitcase, not feeling guilty about my unused workout clothes, and ordered the taxi for Sunday's ride to the airport.

Here are some general observations from Seoul:
1.  There are a lot of churches.  Steeples everywhere.  It's a little jarring to someone used to Asian landscapes. 
2.  The city is dirty.  There is a lot of garbage strewn about and old buildings that look like they shouldn't be standing.  Very different from pristine Tokyo.
3.  This is the cheapest city I've been to in a while - for local stuff at least.  A lot of things in the souvenir shops were $5 or less.  Taxis were pretty cheap too.  Hotels though were not cheap and there's a lot of tax on the hotel bill.
4.  The Korean language is really 'hard' sounding to me.  It is much more abrasive to the ears as a language than Chinese or Japanese I think.  The people were friendly and helpful but not aggressive.  A good balance between the Japanese style and the Chinese style for me.
5.  There were American brands everywhere.  In grocery stores, restaurant chains, all of it - I even saw an Outback Steakhouse and a Bennigan's. 

Sunday was an uneventful trip back to Tokyo.  When I got home I noticed that we must have had a few big aftershocks this weekend - my fridge door was ajar and our tension-rod in the closet had fallen down.  Usual signs of a little shaking - and there was a 5.9 about 50 miles away - one of the closest we've had.  Sunday night I started packing for this Friday's trip to Green Bay to see the girls.  HOORAY!!!  Friday cannot come fast enough!

Kanpai!
Jess
Posted by Jess
18 April 2011

More on my weekend in Seoul:  On Saturday I took a tour of the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) between North Korea and South Korea.  This is the fenced in area 2km on either side of the Korean border where no military activity is allowed.   Since most of the tour takes place on military bases and in places where people might want to spy, there were not a lot of places to take photos but I did get a couple.  I was on a Japanese tour bus with 6 English speakers in the back - three guys from Poland and two women from Colombia, all about my age.

Our first stop was at The Third Tunnel.  Maybe a little history would help.  From 1910-1936, Korea was under the control of Japan.  When WWII ended, the Superpowers decided they would watch over the country and kind of like Germany, they split the country in two arbitrarily along the 38th parallel.  The Soviet Union was in charge of the north and the U.S. was in charge of the south.  Many families were split in 1945 between the two territories without any say in the matter.  In 1948, elections were supposed to happen in both the north and south to bring Korea their own independent government, but the U.S. and the USSR didn't agree on candidates and so the two states were born, both thinking the whole Peninsula was their land.  This is what lead to the Korean War in 1950.   The war lasted 3 years and ended in a cease-fire in 1953, when the DMZ was created.

A quick tangent - While I was meeting at work one of the guys was asking about life in Japan these days and he said something about "the foreigners stay away, but the locals just go on - they are used to it".  While I don't agree really for Japan since this is all a bit unprecedented, that's neither here nor there.  He went on to say that in March last year when there was an incident between the North and South where 46 South Korean sailors died, many foreigners were afraid to come (and truthfully as talk between the two countries escalated, Jason and I watched the papers closely).  He said, "this is as it has always been, so we were not afraid."  I learned on Saturday that he's right.  There have been so many incidents of North Koreans trying to infiltrate the South and seemingly unprovoked attacks on South Korean soldiers.  Now I'm sure there are two sides to every story, but it is pretty crazy what I learned from the South.

Ok, now back to the Third Tunnel.  So the DMZ is 4km wide.  This is a tunnel on the South Korean side of the border, coming in from the north.  Experts think there might actually be 17-20 tunnels in all but only 4 have been found so far.  It is thought that this tunnel was going to lead to the road leading straight into Seoul.  30,000 (short) troops could have passed through the tunnel in an hour when completed.  The tunnel was found when a North Korean tunnel engineer defected to the South.   When the North was busted, they did what they could to cover up their sneakiness.  They said that the South Koreans were actually building a tunnel to the North (but the dynamite holes were facing the wrong way and the tunnel was built in such a way that water would drain to the North) and then they said they were mining for coal.  No coal here, but they did put coal powder on the walls of the tunnel just to help their case.  No pictures down here, but I did get a few of the area and the monorail ride down the 73m to the tunnel.  Strangest Disney Ride Ever.



this was our ride.  watch your head!
the n. koreans, on average are like 5'6".  this thing saved me from a lot of pain in the tunnel

this is not for calling 'dibs' on the area. 
we were clearly instructed not to go behind fences with these signs on them!
The next stop was an observation point where you could look at North Korea.  This felt a little strange to me.  The big thing we were told is that since its planting season, we might see some North Korean's out in the field working.  They were out planting crops and I have to say it didn't look any different than any other farmers I've seen so I am not sure what the draw was.  There was a 'village' in view from this point that was interesting though.  It's called "Propaganda Village" by the South.  There are a bunch of buildings that no one lives in, in fact they have no windows or rooms inside, but they are there to make it look like North Korea is a great place to live when people come to the observation point.  The fact that they need that place makes me think it's really not.   No pictures into North Korea here but I did get a shot of the observation building.  Exciting, isn't it?


Next up was Dorasan Station.  Between 1998-2008, South Koreans were able to take tours to North Korea.  Then a tourist was killed and those tours were canceled.  There is a railway line that goes from Seoul to Pyeongyang that is no longer used.  Dorasan Station is the last station on this line.  It's built as a border crossing for shipments - has a security area and customs area all ready to go.  All that's left is a re-unification of the two Koreas and it's ready to go for imports and exports.  I bought a ticket for Pyongyang for about 50 cents.  Someday I hope I'll be able to use it.



After that we went on to lunch at a local restaurant and I had some roast beef Korean style on the floor with my tour mates.  After lunch we went to a tourist area in the DMZ.  It's the site of a few war memorials and Freedom Bridge.  This is where North Koreans who are allowed to leave cross into the South.  There is also an amusement park here.  A strange combination of tourism and war.  There was an area here where a little festival was set up.  We were told that the night before, the South Koreans tied pamphlets about free life in the south on some balloons and released them into the northerly wind.  North Korea said they would start shelling the area the balloons came from.  Great news since we're standing right there on that day.  The tour guide said "but it's 1pm and it hasn't happened yet, so that's pretty lucky."  Awe.Some.



After that, some people went on to Panmunjom to see the Joint Security Area.  This is a neutral area in the DMZ where if needed, the two sides can stand on their own side of the borders but in the same room.  I apparently didn't sign up for this so it was back to Seoul for me.  I was back in the city before 3pm with a much better appreciation for Korea's past (which for about 100 years doesn't sound so fantastic) and how crazy the North Koreans are.  And I wasn't detained.  Bonus!!!

The rest of Saturday will be blogged soon but this has already gotten a little long, so watch for Part 3 coming soon!

Kanpai!
Jess
Posted by Jess
17 April 2011

I took advantage of some available airline miles and a free weekend and made plans to visit the Republic of Korea.  I mentioned it at work and my manager asked me to take a few hours to visit our Seoul office during my trip as well.  I left Thursday night for Korea.  The flight was only 2 hours, but Narita Airport is over an hour outside Tokyo and Incheon Airport is the same from Seoul so it was a short flight but a long journey Thursday night.  Of course the taxi driver to the hotel made it as short as he could by driving at 150kph.  (90+mph).

I stayed at the Courtyard Marriott at the Times Square Mall, a relatively new mall that is the largest in Seoul.  The hotel was nice but had a glass wall to the bathroom which was strange.  If you stand at the bathroom sink, you can look out into the sleeping area through a plate of glass like you would have around your shower.  I guess since there's only one bed this is no big deal, but I found it curious that the bathroom door is solid wood.


Before heading to my room on Thursday night, I asked the front desk how long it would take to get to the office in the morning - the concierge thought it would be 25 minutes.  Good thing I left early because it took over an hour.  Traffic in Seoul is crazy.  I blame it on two things - the fact that the roads make no sense as far as I could tell and it's not very bike friendly.  My meetings were just in the morning and I was back to the hotel around 1pm.  By 2pm I was headed back out to explore the city a little.

I took the subway to Gyeongbokgung Palace and found my way out to one of the entrance gates.  Next to it was the National Palace Museum and it was free so I decided to take a look around.  There wasn't too much on display and I finished in about 30 minutes.  There was one room that was filled with a large clock that was run by water and chimed every two hours.  It was built between 4-7AD.   It seemed pretty advanced to me for something built 2,000 years ago.  And it was a sign of great power back then because the ruler was the timekeeper, which also kept his people on task and in a sense, ruled their time.
 


After the museum I headed onto the palace grounds.  I was lucky to catch the changing of the Gate Guard ceremony and then set off to explore the palace.  It was a large area with some pretty spots in it and had a beautiful mountain backdrop.  It wasn't busy there as it was on overcast and chilly afternoon.  I think I might be getting a bit "palaced-out" because I wasn't so into it today.  Or it could have been that I didn't have a tour guide so not knowing the history of the palace made it a bit less interesting.  The original palace was built in the late 1300's and has been rebuilt in the 1800's.  And is now being repaired again after destruction during the Japanese occupation in the 1900's.






I headed out the main gate and into the main downtown street of Seoul's government district.  I passed a few embassies, including the U.S. one, which looks like it was built during the Korean War as barracks and was converted after.  It is not an impressive building.  I stopped in for a coffee and a snack to warm up a bit from the chilly weather at a Dunkin Donuts.  In the case you could buy Spinach, Broccoli, or Carrot Donuts.  Oh and a banana filled one.  I don't think I've ever had a green donut before.  And I still haven't.


With my coffee in hand I headed towards Insa-dong, a neighborhood known for small shops selling traditional Korean goods and souvenirs.  The area also has a lot street vendors, cafes and art galleries  It was a good place to find some souvenirs and watch some locals lining up for local treats.  I wandered in and out of shops and around the neighborhood before finally heading back to the subway.  I window-shopped through the mall connected to my hotel for a bit and headed back to the room for the night. 

More in the next post on Saturday's tour.

Kanpai!
Jess
Posted by Jay
16 April 2011

To continue our scattered blogging of Hawaii I thought I would share our experience of hiking up Diamond Head.  Diamond Head is a crater on the eastern edge of Waikiki's coastline and one of the most recognized landmarks on Hawaii.  For the history and formation see the Hawaii State Parks site: http://www.hawaiistateparks.org/parks/oahu/index.cfm?park_id=15.

Jess, Kelly, Joe, Ella and I decided to make the hike up to the top of the trail, but first we had to find the entrance to the park.  Eventually we found the entrance and got set to make the 0.8 mile 560ft gain hike to the summit.  Ella thought it would be a good idea to get some pre-hike fuel:

Twizzler for fuel
The trail was very well laid out and well traveled.  During our hike we saw people of all shapes, sizes, ages, and athletic abilities.  We even saw some people carrying their bags from recent shopping trips and wearing flip-flops (not recommended).  Ella was a pro and made only a few brief stops (brief = 5 seconds) for water.


Water break, and go!

You want me to go out where?
We made it up all 175 steps and the unlit long tunnel with only one one person hitting their head on the roof.  The view from the top was amazing with views of all of Honolulu and as far as the eye can see to the ocean. 

Holy steps Batman!

Taking a short break


Ella "received" a certificate at the top for climbing the whole way up and she was very proud of it.

Writing her name on the certificate

Wow, long way down.
Aloha!
Jay
Posted by Jess
13 April 2011

I haven't written an update on life in Tokyo in a while and what's been going on with us, so here goes.

Life in Tokyo is OK.  This week has been a big week for aftershocks in the city.  We don't even stop meetings for them now which I'm not sure is a good thing or a bad thing.  I guess it's just a little sad to me that we just say, "This is how it is!", but knowing that they are going to go on for a while, what else can you do?  Food and water is all reappearing at the stores, but packaging for the food continues to drive shortages in some things.  Since some manufacturing plants for packaging materials were destroyed in the disaster and still there are power outages, it is hard to get a steady stream of supplies.  Things that are in short-er supply: beer, coke, yogurt and milk come to mind, mostly because cans and cartons are hard to come by.   We are still saving power here although not as drastically as before, for now.  Baseball night games have been moved to day games, Disneyland will be opening again next week but not open at night, billboards are still not on, some escalators are turned off, and only every few streetlights are on.  It definitely takes away from some of the city's buzz.  The streets are much quieter these days.  This will continue to be what life is like here for a while and may actually be more somber in the summer months.  The situation at the power plant is not as big of news these days it seems like but I feel like they haven't made much progress one way or the other.  Hopefully there's some big steps forward there soon.  I believe the last count was 13,000+ confirmed dead and 15,000+ still missing.

After our Spring Break, Jason took the girls back to Minneapolis and I returned to Tokyo.  That was about 2 and a half weeks ago now.  Our parents have been wonderful in helping him out and letting him and the girls crash in their houses over these two weeks.  Last week, Jason and I had many long talks about when it would be right for our family to be back together again - should they come here?  Should I be there?  We deliberated for hours on end.  It was so difficult to figure out what the right thing to do was.  We knew the 1,000 reasons that we wanted everyone to come back to Tokyo and finish out this adventure into the summer, yet I still could never hang up the phone and book the family plane tickets.  And that, I guess, was what finally made me realize that my gut was telling me not to bring them back here and that I needed to follow that instinct.

A few days ago, I spoke to my company about ending my assignment here early.  Jason and the girls will not be moving back to Tokyo, although Jason will come and visit for a bit at the end of the month to wrap some things up and to say goodbye to friends, and have one last Asia adventure together, just the two of us.

So now I am in the process of working with our human resources department to figure out what's next.  My next role will be a permanent position, so not just a year wherever we go.  My company has many locations worldwide so it is hard to say where we might head next.  As with finding a new job for any reason, I know that this is going to take a little while.  I don't know when I'll find the position and move on, but I'm hopeful it is in the next two months.

Other than that, Jason and the girls & I talk as much as possible on Skype, but the girls only last a few minutes.  Jason is keeping busy between Green Bay and Ellsworth and has signed the girls up for swim lessons.  He's shopping for cars for us so that we have two vehicles when we get set up again and because with the Japan automaker plants shut down here, supply will be getting tighter in the next few months.  That's never a good time to buy a car.  He'll be taking the girls back to our house in the next few weeks to settle in there and leave our parents alone!   Ella will be so excited to be reunited with her dollhouse.

I'm working a lot, getting in some travel and very slowly getting our apartment cleaned up.  By that I mean returning things to Ella's school (a tough morning for me and her teachers), finding good homes for our bikes, and starting to set some things aside that I won't need between now and summer.  I'll be heading to Green Bay for Easter to see them and next weekend cannot come fast enough.   It will have been a month since I've seen them all, which is waaaayyyyy too long.

When I know something about our next adventure, I'll definitely post it here, so stay tuned...

Kanpai,
Jess
Posted by Jess
14 April 2011

After the Peace Memorial Museum and Park, I headed back to Hiroshima Station and asked for the directions to Miyajima.  Again I found that the station staff had great English and they had everything printed up that I needed to find my way.

I grabbed the next train to Miyajima-guchi Station (About a 25 minute ride) and then walked down to the port to get on the ferry.  The ferry is run by Japan Rail as well so it's just like public transport, which I thought was pretty neat.



As we crossed to Miyajima Island (only about a 10 minute ride), it was nice to cool down on the water and enjoy the view.  With the  mountains as the backdrop, it was gorgeous.  We landed and I started walking along the pedestrian walkway up to Istukushima Shrine.   I had read in the guidebooks about the deer that shared the island and how comfortable they were with people, but I was unprepared for what I saw!  There were probably 50 deer along the path, sleeping, eating, walking.  And they were walking up to people and eating their food, sometimes just digging in the purses or bags that people had sitting next to them.   I didn't take the time to feed one or pet one, but I snapped a few shots of them. 


The walk up to the shrine was short - about 10 minutes.  It was along the water and had many souvenir shops and street vendors.  The attraction at Itsukushima Shrine is the Floating Torii Gate.  The island of Miyajima was considered sacred in ancient times and so the shrine was built protruding from the island so that commoners would not set foot on the sacred land but could still worship there.  The Floating Gate was for much the same purpose and you had to take a boat through the gate to approach the shrine.  Today people are allowed on the island, but births or deaths near the shrine are still considered forbidden on this sacred land.  Pregnant women leave the island and go to mainland Japan before giving birth and there are no burials on the island itself. 





This was a beautiful, peaceful place.  I wish that it had been high tide when I was there as that would enhance the "floating" effect of the gate.  If we had the time, I think it would be great to spend a night on Miyajima and enjoy the beautiful views at sunset of the shrine and the mountains.  

I rode the ferry back to the mainland and headed back to Hiroshima Station via train.  Once there I caught the next shinkansen to Tokyo and was home by about 10pm.  It was a long day for sure with 9 hours on trains and only about 4 hours of sightseeing, but so worth it.  I found the Hiroshima area to be so lovely and relaxed - a very different feel from the usual hum of Tokyo. 

Kanpai!
Jess