As I take more photos I'll start using larger thumbnails. It's kind of a pain to go back and redo the thumbnails for all of the previous shots, so those will remain small, but from here on out I'll use a larger thumbnail for the pics.

Today is the trip back home. It was a really awesome trip. Like most vacations unfortunately, all good things must come to an end. Our flight out isn’t until the afternoon, so we decided to go take a run out to Virginia City. Anyone who’s a fan of old westerns, particularly Bonanza, will recognize the name of Virginia City. In the show, the Ponderosa Ranch was supposedly near the shore of Lake Tahoe, and Virginia City was the nearest town. It is also supposedly the “birthplace” of Mark Twain, the penname of one Samuel Clemens. Not that Clemens was born there, but where he first used the pseudonym.

What I got was a tad different. As a matter of fact, it’s one of the reasons I didn’t take my camera along with me, so there’s no pics for this entry. The current Virginia City, does in fact have the old style façade and wooden sidewalk. They do have an “old west shootout” type of show, and there is a horse-drawn carriage that runs through the main strip. Unfortunately that’s about it. While there’s no McDonalds or other fast food or big commercial businesses, some of the stores…well…in my opinion, they didn’t really fit the desired ambience. There were a few bars, and restaurants including a decent one where we had brunch. Unfortunately I don’t remember which one it was. The restaurant was nicely themed down to the waitresses who were dressed in period style. And of course being Nevada, a few casinos.

However, the “leather goods” store where “everything was $20 or under” was a tad odd (all made in china, cheap leather, questionable build quality). The “military surplus” store, and a few others didn’t quite fit the “old west theme” either. Add in the fact that the main street is a regular blacktop street with streetside parking etc, and the theme kept getting fainter and fainter the more we looked about.

Since we got there “early” (10:30am), a lot of the stores were still closed, and there weren’t too many cars. As we walked about and took in the “sights” the town slowly woke up, and some of the stores began to open. One of the locals called it “Comstock time.” Which I guess means: “open your doors whenever you roll in and decide to open.”

By the time we were ready to leave, the tourists were pouring in (and filling up the street with cars, subtracting the theme even more), and the biker trains were rumbling through as well.

Ah well, a slightly disappointing end, but by no means did it ruin the overall trip.

Maybe I’ll toss in an old western on the DVD, or see if there’s a rerun of Bonanza on…

Today we went to the Lake Tahoe Shakespeare Festival where we saw Measure for Measure. What a great idea. Have a small amphitheater with Lake Tahoe as the backdrop behind the stage. Allow the patrons to bring in their own picnic baskets, and stage music or plays as the sun sets.

Well, part way down the 28, heading down the eastern side of the Lake, there had apparently been a sewage break that morning that had washed out the road. Luckily the break was further south than the location for the Festival, or we would have had a LONG drive to get around the break.

Tossing those plans out the window, we decided to hit Jakes for an early brunch, and then find something else in the North Tahoe area for dinner. We got there about 10 minutes before they opened, and spent a little time walking through the shops in the area. Once they doors opened, we were seated out on the patio with yet another gorgeous view of one of the boat docks, and the Lake in the background.

So as we sit down and begin scanning the menu, we noticed that there’s a lot of “fresh fish” specialties on the menu, so our hopes were a little brighter but, alas, as the waiter gave us the list of fresh fish there was no trout. We eased our disappointment by setting for an herb-crusted Ono dish that was just fabulous.

Quickly revamping our plans, we decided to head up to Tahoe Meadows, along the 431. We had repeatedly passed the meadows in our trips back and forth from Reno, and saw there were some nice trails. Also, Pam really likes the alpine meadows areas, so we decided to head up there and work off some of the lunch.

Tahoe Meadows:

It really is a beautiful area, and we were very lucky that it was still green. A lot of late rains have left the area lush, and even kept some of the creeks flowing through the area. Normally this time of year the meadow would have been dry and brown.

That’s a good dog! (Sign at the entrance to the Tahoe Meadows Trails)

On the path around Tahoe Meadows. Just for Pam’s and my sake, the large leafed plants along the trail, which were very abundant all over, are California Corn Lilies aka California false hellebore (Veratrum californicum). (we couldn’t figure out what the plant was, and there were a LOT of them, so I had to look it up when I got the chance…)

I liked the texture of the tree against the cloudy sky.

More shots of the meadows.

Once we were done hiking about the area, we still had time to kill, so we went further on heading towards a vista point on the map near the Mt. Rose ski resort.

From there we could look out over Washoe Lake and Lesser Washoe Lake, with some storm clouds and rain crossing the plains below.

From there we started heading back towards Lake Tahoe, but we made another stop at the top of the Mt. Rose Pass, where Pam headed off to explore one of the paths in the area. I was feeling a little off, probably because of the altitude (it’s about 8900’ at the pass) so I hung around the trailhead, reading the signs, and trying to keep my head from throbbing.

Once she got back, we headed back down the hill towards Lake Tahoe, in search of dinner before the show. As we were driving around North Lake Tahoe, we decided to try the “Blue Onion.” Unfortunately they were closed for a Wedding…so strike 1. A little further down, there was a small Italian restaurant, but they weren’t serving Dinner for another 30 minutes (it was about 4:30pm). Strike 2.

Looking across the street we spotted Jason’s restaurant and bar. Zipping over, the entrance was actually around the back, so we headed around, and were seated out on the patio, once again overlooking the lake. So far so good! I settled in for a delicious blue cheese burger, and Pam had a tasty looking grilled chicken sandwich. Score!

So, as I started this entry, we were off to the Shakespeare festival. It looked like quite the local hit, as there were a lot of people there who came with fully loaded coolers and picnic baskets full of wine, cheese, sausages, cheesecake, and more. Groups of friends would stake out some of the seats together, and all would share the goodies.

The amphitheater had a small concrete area near the front filled with Adirondack wooden recliners which was essentially the prime reserved seating area that season ticket holders and such would use. A little further back where we were seated were hand dug tiers in the sand with fabric beach chairs along the tiers. Even further back was the general seating area where people could bring their own chairs and beach blankets.

We had an amusing group of slightly tipsy (and bawdy) biker gals behind us, which made for an entertaining sideline to the actual play itself, which was very well done. The stage was nicely set up, with the gorgeous backdrop of the lake at sunset, gradually fading away as the play progressed.

I would highly recommend that if you are in the Tahoe area in the summer when the festival is going on that you make an effort to catch one of the plays. I don’t think you’ll be disappointed.

Today we decided to go rafting down the Truckee River. We chose the Truckee River Raft Co. There’s a number of companies that offer rafting trips down the Truckee, and it seems to be a very popular event. So much so that we had to make reservations for a specific time-slot. Ours was early afternoon, about 2:00pm, so we decided to grab lunch nearby in the Tahoe City area.

Back to the rafting: Now this is not whitewater rafting…this is a lazy float down the Truckee River. There are some rough-water areas, but not much. They use about a 5 mile stretch of the river, and it takes about 2-3 hours to lazily float down that distance. You could certainly do it in a much shorter amount of time, but that would kind of spoil the whole point.

The raft was a fairly large, and sturdy rubber raft, probably big enough to hold 4 or more easily, but it just had the two of us. It was the kind of raft that I think you’d have to work pretty hard to overturn or sink. It also seemed pretty durable, as there were some spots where rocks or underwater logs come close enough to the surface to where you could hang up on them, and in other areas you could find yourself scrubbing up against the brush along the bank, and I imagine the rafts have seen many a grind over these obstacles over the years.

I didn’t take my camera, since I wasn’t sure just how rough the water would be, and I certainly didn’t want to chance getting my gear wet. In retrospect it was both a bad and a good decision.

It was a bad decision, in that there were plenty of opportunities to take pictures with very little chance of the gear getting wet unless I dropped the camera overboard. On the good side, it did allow us to splash the water about, and be splashed and squirted by the kids armed with super-soakers (who much to their credit did ask if we wanted to be splashed before blasting), which was a lot of fun and a nice way to periodically cool off.

Many of the people doing the float down the river came armed with coolers and picnic baskets and such. Much to my surprise the river was surprisingly clear of the trash and crap you might expect from having a bunch of party floats all summer long. Sure there was the occasional bit of trash, but on the whole it was remarkably trash free.

A number of them also took their own inner tubes and floats and did their own float down the river, which also looked to be fun. Some tied up to each other forming much larger flotillas. All in all, most seemed to be very friendly and polite and everyone was just enjoying and sharing the river.

I found it to be a very relaxing time and I’m really glad we did it.

After we got off the water, it was still late afternoon, so we decided to head back towards the viewpoint to hopefully catch the sunset. Being as it was still a little early, and we were a little hungry, we stopped off at the Log Cabin Ice Cream shop which supposedly was voted “Best Ice Cream” I’m assuming for the Tahoe area. And it was quite yummy. Again, another random choice that paid off in great food.

By the time we got done with the delicious ice cream, it was starting to cloud over a bit and get a little blustery. And as we headed down to the viewpoint, we could see the wind was really picking up. It still wasn’t cold, but it was definitely windy.

Looking out over the lake, the whole feel of the lake had changed. The gray clouds and the blustery wind made the whole scene feel very moody, and the lake had changed color from the crystalline blue, to a dark steel gray.

This is the same basic shot as I got the first day I was there, however, my eye was drawn to the watermarks on the rocks, which I had overlooked on the previous stop here.

Here is another shot across the lake, emphasizing the gray mood.

Pam posing against the sunset and the lake.

So after chilling and enjoying the view, we decided that we should try to get some dinner. After having floated down the Truckee earlier, and seeing lots of trout either jumping for bugs, or just swimming about in the river, we strangely enough had a craving for trout. So we hopped in the car, and started flipping through the GPS trying to find a place that served trout. Of course, there’s no “trout” grouping like there is Mexican, or Italian, etc. So we tried the “seafood” section, and started flipping through the nearest ones hoping to find something that sounded like they might serve trout. The first up on the list was the Lone Eagle Grill. Sounded promising. After finding it across the street from where the GPS actually indicated, we walked up and checked the menu. After seeing, “Course 1, Course 2, and Course 3” on the menu, and no prices indicated, we decided that was probably going to be a bit out of our league even if they did serve trout (which they didn’t.)

Hopping back in the car we decided to try the GPS again…skimming through we couldn’t find another restaurant nearby that would seem to serve trout. We skipped places like the “Blue Oyster Grill” etc, based on the name. Perhaps a bad choice, perhaps not. What we did find was a restaurant out in Reno that looked promising.

So we cruised back to Reno, following the GPS, until we got to the restaurant. So far so good, it was even in the right spot. Except...it had a big “Space for Lease” sign on the front of it. *Sigh*

A bit disappointed and more than a little frustrated, we decided to try one of the Thai places we saw along the way. As we were moving through the parking lot, Pam spotted a very ornately painted façade for a Japanese restaurant named Kyoto and suggested “Let’s try there.”

So we pulled in, and were trying to spot the doorway (remember the whole storefront was painted rather ornately). Spotting a door with no handle, we were prepared for disappointment, until we spotted a door that we thought was associated with an amazingly small Italian restaurant next door (which in typical Reno fashion was already closed even though it was only 8:00pm). Turns out that was the entrance to the restaurant, so we happily (and hungrily) headed in once we had verified they were open.

Turns out we were the only customers in the restaurant, so we got quite excellent service. The best thing we ordered was the gyoza appetizer. Apparently they hand make everything about the gyoza there, and I must say, they were absolutely delicious. Large, plump, and nicely crisped on the bottom, they were awesome. Yet another random food choice that paid off in great food.

We headed back to the hotel to relax and see if we could find a Tahoe area restaurant that served trout by checking online. While we were there we were treated to a fireworks show down the road a bit. I have no idea what the fireworks were for, but it was a nice show.

Here’s a shot from the window. I was trying to handhold the camera for the 5 seconds or so the shutter was open, which is why it’s a little blurry. That's the Reno Strip in the background.

We decided to take a nice easy drive around the lake, and see what was there. The route around the lake is about 70 miles or so. The reason to do the leisurely drive was twofold: 1) It lets us see if there were any spots we wanted to come back to later, and 2) it gave us another day to acclimate to the altitude (Lake Tahoe is at 6000 feet or so).

A little further down the east side is a view point, where I got this shot:

The water really is that clear. According to some stuff I read at the vista point is that back in the time of Mark Twain, the water clarity of the lake was over 100 feet. They test that by lowering a white plate into the water, and recording how far down it goes before they can’t see it anymore. So back then, you could see over 100 feet straight down into the water! These days, primarily due to human contamination with pesticides, fertilizers, etc, the water clarity is down to around 70 feet, though with increased awareness, and more careful monitoring, they’re hoping to reverse that trend.

A little further down the road, and a short hop up a side road was Spooner Lake:

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Spooner Lake itself is a small lake, beautiful for it’s location but otherwise unremarkable. But according to a helpful volunteer at the Visitor Center, there were supposed to be carvings from Basque Shepherds on the aspen trees in the area. These carvings were called arborglyphs. Apparently these arborglyphs conveyed everything from whom and where the shepherd was grazing the sheep, to erotic messages and pictures, to Basque mythology. Unfortunately, aspen trees at best live to be about 100 years old, so a lot of these arborglyphs have been lost. Also unfortunately, we did not find any of the actual Basque arborglyphs. There were however, modern interpretations.

Continuing on around the lake, we passed through the South Lake Tahoe area. Nothing too remarkable seemed to pop out while we were passing through. It seemed very commercial, more like a beach resort area.

Continuing on around, we got to Emerald Bay.

Emerald Bay is an interesting little spot, it’s an odd protrusion from the main lake itself, and contains Lake Tahoe’s only island, Fannette Island.

Apparently Fannette Island was, for a time, home to a hermit. Here is one version of the story. The only reason I bring this up is because while we were walking around the vista point, a young boy (I’m guessing maybe 8-9 years old), walked up to me while I was looking about and asked me if I was the hermit that lived on the island. He said that he thought I kinda looked like I might be the hermit. I’m not sure what prompted that, or if I should have been offended or not. I did tell him that, sorry no, I was not the hermit, and he seemed a bit disappointed at that.

Continuing around the lake, there were few other vista areas until we got back through the North Tahoe area and we were back where we had started.

From here we went up to Donner Pass. The whole story behind Donner Pass tends to get lost behind the whole cannibalism thing, which was really such a minor aspect of the whole episode. The whole Donner expedition really suffered from just the “perfect storm” (pun intended) of issues that resulted in the expedition being stranded at the pass.

There was the decision to essentially try a new route that was supposed to shave a couple of hundred miles off the trip but instead added 3 weeks to their travel time and used up all of their supplies. They had sent someone ahead to Sutter Fort near Sacramento for supplies, and when that person returned, they told them the road ahead was very rough and difficult. So they decided to stop and rest for a week, which was the next mistake. Winter came very early and hard to the area with one of the worst storms ever recorded for the Sierras, blanketing the area in snow, and forcing the group to stop near what is now Donner Lake. The rest of the story is really about their struggle for survival in snows that eventually were 22 feet deep! Out of food, and dying from starvation, some of the people involved eventually resorted to cannibalizing some of the corpses to survive. Of the 91 members who set out, in the end only 49 survived.

To give you an idea of how deep the snow was, this picture by Pam shows the memorial to the Donner party. From the ground to the top of the pillar is 22’ (note that’s not to the top of the statues, just to top of the main pillar)
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(I’ll add the pic when I get it from Pam…in the mean time here’s a link to a picture of the statue.)
Donner Memorial State Park

We flew in on the 29th in the evening. A delayed flight from SD to San Jose, made it a little tense in catching our connecting flight to Reno, but, we did manage to get in just in the nick of time.

Having had an Altima before (see Colorado 2008), I didn’t think it would be too different, but either they made some changes for 2009, or the Hybrid trim level is different.

The good: The mileage on the Hybrid was pretty amazing. We did over 500 miles on the initial tank, averaging about 32.5 MPG or so even in the mountains. Acceleration was very good, and handling was decent. The seats were more comfortable than I recall from 2008, and I had no problems with the seats even while going around the twisties in the mountains. I learned also that the key fob doesn’t need to be in the slot in order to use the car. Just needs to be nearby for you to use the push-button start.

The odd: When you first push the start button, nothing really seems to happen. The dash turns on, and the AC comes on, but there’s no engine noise or vibration. It just…turns on. At slow parking lot speeds, the engine still typically didn’t come on, which was a little disconcerting. As you accelerate to normal street speeds, there’s a slight stumbling sensation, and the gas motor kicks in. Shortly after you stop, there is again that slight sensation, almost like the engine has stalled. In fact, the engine does shut down, but you’re running in EV mode, so the main engine isn’t needed. On long enough downhills, the system goes into regenerative braking mode, so the engine is used to recharge the batteries. So from a reasonably quiet car, all of a sudden it sounds like you’ve downshifted, but you really don’t slow down all that much. The Hybrid also had a CVT, which, as in my previous post can be a little odd. The revs climb while accelerating, but never “shift”.

The bad: The brakes. Still very, very, touchy. Also, under moderate to firm acceleration from a standing start, there is a momentary hesitation while the engine kicks in. It’s not much, but it is noticeable, especially if you are used to the more or less instantaneous acceleration of a regular gas engine. The big problem is it occurs AFTER you've already started to roll forward into traffic...

We stayed at the Ramada in Reno. A nice enough hotel, nothing fancy. It did have one oddity in the gift shop. We never could quite figure out when the shop was supposed to be open. It never seemed to be open in the morning (no matter how late in the morning we left), and was sometimes open very late (i.e. after 10:00pm), but other times it wasn't open when we returned. It became a sort of game to try to guess if it was going to be open when we got back to the hotel. Anyway, the Ramada was only about two blocks from the Reno “strip”.

Ah, Reno…the town gave me the creeps, actually. More or less deserted whenever we were driving through it, the town seemed to shut down after about 8:00pm. I guess I was anticipating something more along the lines of Las Vegas, only smaller. What it turned out to be was something like an old and dingy Las Vegas, bereft of shows, glamour, or glitz. All you have left is the casinos, the lights, and the cigarette smoke. Maybe it’s the economy or something, but there were an awful lot of closed businesses, casinos, and a general lack of people about.

During the trip, we traversed through Reno a few times looking for a place to grab dinner (aside from the Denny’s and Carrows near the hotel…nice enough establishments, but we wanted something different…). Unlike Vegas, there was a decided lack of restaurants anywhere along or near the strip (aside from those inside the very smoky casinos.) So we ended up roaming through Reno looking for restaurants that were open later than 8:00pm. Yes, I said 8:00pm.

We finally found some restaurants about 3-4 miles away from the strip area itself, and even found a few that were open.

Anyway, I’ll have pictures and more with the next post.

So I got the chance to use some neutral density gradient filters on some of the shots, and all I can say is..WOW. I need to learn a lot more about how to use them properly but I was amazed at the difference they make.

The first image is without the gradient filter, and the second is with a 3 stop soft filter. Both are nice images, but being able to balance the tones between the reflection and the sky allows me to bring up more detail in the trees and foreground. Oh and as a side note, the hard/soft designation refers to the transition between the dark and light portions of the filter. A hard filter has a relatively abrupt transition, while a soft transition is more gradual.

Here's the same situation. All processing is the same, the first is no filter, the second is with the filter, in this case a 3 stop hard filter. You can see in the first image I exposed for the sky, so the valley detail was kind of lost and too dark. But by using the filter, I could stop down the sky enough to bring up the details in the valley.

I certainly need more practice with these filters, but I am really encouraged about the possibilities for using them. They do have some drawbacks though. You have to spend the time to set up and place the gradient line where you want it, and you have to spend the time to meter carefully in order to get a good shot, but overall I am really very pleased with them and am looking forward to using them a lot more. The ones I'm using are resin based, so scratching may also be an issue in the long run.

The filters I'm using are Lee 4" x 6" resin filters and the Lee Filter holder system. I bought mine from Calumet Photo. I read somewhere (I don't recall where at this time) that 2 and 3 stop in hard and soft transitions are your best bet for a starting point. You can always add more filters later if you feel you need them.

The drive in was pretty smooth, just a few idiots who like to drive 60mph in the left lane, or worse, cut in front of you THEN drive 60mph. It's kind of to be expected though.

Hopefully I'll have some amazing/dazzling/wonderful pictures to show you, but...don't hold your breath. ;)

Time to wake up my roommate and join everyone for Breakfast...

For you photography geeks out there, I purchased some neutral density gradient filters (4"x6" Lee filters and the Lee holder) and I'll be experimenting with them this year. Hopefully I'll be able to get some good experience and maybe a good photo or two by using them. I wish I would have had time to practice with them before the trip, but, oh well. Trial by fire it will have to be. And if I get lousy pictures, that just means I'll have to come back and try again...oh darn!

I'll be posting updates as I go along again.

Well, there was a major street just to the right as we came out of the station, so we thought "Maybe the entrance is just up the street a bit." So off we trundled with the luggage and everything in tow to find the entrance. Along the way we passed an Outback Steakhouse, and several other US style restaurants. Guess we're really in Tokyo!

A little ways up the side street (uphill btw), we spot what looks like yet another side street going towards the hotel. So we trundle off that way (uphill again), and eventually find ourselves outside the "Epson Aqua Stadium" looking at a couple of lines of people who were apparently waiting to get in to see a movie or something. I should explain something here, the Shinagawa Prince Hotel has a stadium, a movie theater, a bowling alley, and the ubiquitous restaurants and such inside. It's really quite the self-contained little metropolis.

Knowing that the Aqua Stadium was attached to the hotel, we made our way inside, and started trying to navigate the signs to get to the front desk to check in. After a few escalators and elevators, we eventually found our way to the front desk, all hot and sweaty. While we were checking in, the bellhop (or at least one of the front desk people) came over with a luggage cart, helped us load it, and said that we didn't need to bring it down to the front after we were done, just leave it outside the room and they'll get it later. Now this struck me as a little odd, since at most hotels I've gone to (including the Rihga Royal in Kyoto) either the bellhop carts or carries all of your stuff up for you, or they just don't do anything. This was the first time where we were handed a cart and more or less told (very politely of course) "take it up yourself." Nothing terrible, just seemed a bit odd for such a fancy hotel. Another oddity, though I'm getting ahead of myself, is that the internet access while supposedly ¥1050 for 24 hours, resets itself at noon each day. So, if you buy it at say 10:00am, you're paying ¥1050 for 2 hours...

So after getting upstairs, and offloading the cart (which didn't fit through the door very well). It was off to dinner. As we were leaving we discovered much to our chagrin that the Takanawa West was the entrance to the hotel! Passing through little mall there, there were several resturants there, italian, a McDonalds, a yakiniku restaurant. Lots of choices! A little odd to me because I was more interested in finding more Japanese food, not eating western, but, being as it's Tokyo, I imagine they're trying to grab the home-sick people, as well as offering some "foreign" cuisine to the natives.

However, we went to the Ramen museum in Shin-Yokohama. We managed to plow through 3 mini-bowls trying the various flavors available. The vote was split between the three of us as to which was the best. Kaelyn liked the Tokyo ramen with the fish-based soup. That was a good one, with a nice subtle, yet rich flavor. The noodles were superb there, having a nice firm texture. Dale went for what we call the “spicy-fireball bowl of doom” from another restaurant that puts a small scoop of spicy miso on top of the ramen. The soup itself there was delicious, but the spicy miso was a bit much for me and Kaelyn. I liked it, but it was not necessarily my top favorite. We also tried another shop whose owner is reputed to be fanatical in his use of only the top available ingredients from all over Japan. The soup base there was made of a combination of pork and chicken, and was absolutely delicious. It had many layers of flavor behind each sip of the soup and bite of the noodles. In the end, we all agreed that they were all the best ramen we’d ever had anywhere.

The next day was a lot of last minute shopping for various omiyage for our friends and family back home. We went to Shibuya to see the 109 (spoken as "Ten-Nine") Store there. It’s supposed to be the top fashion store for teens and young adults in Japan. Being as Dale and I are bit over that age, and I was never much for fashion, we left Kaelyn to do some shopping there while we simply wandered around the Shibuya district a little bit. Shibuya has a lot of different shops and Dogenzaka Avenue is famous for the shopping.

Another subway ride and we were off to the Pokemon Center in Hamamatsu-cho. It’s an entire store devoted to all things Pokemon, which is still quite the craze out here, though not as much as before. Even Kaelyn was a bit over the average age there, but, they had some shopping to do there. Rather than stand about like a bull in a chicken-coop, I waited outside while they did their shopping amongst the hordes of small children and their parents. It was still interesting to see the sheer number of kids and parents going to this store. Walking through the train station, you'd see these small groups of children, all with a Pikachu hat on headed to the store.

Another subway ride and we’re at Akihabara, the electronics mecca of Japan. Just about anything electronic or electronic related can be purchased here, even down to cables, relays, and switches of various kinds. After patrolling around here for some other items, it was back to the hotel to offload the junk and look up the location of one final item that the kids had to pick up.

Now, I’m by no means hip on the latest trends, but this thing was…odd…it apparently comes from a Japanese anime program about a seal that dresses up as other animals to learn about them. Kinda nifty, definitely geared towards the kids, and typically anime-cute. Only problem was we had seen neither hide nor hair of the critter in any of the shops we’d gone to so far, anywhere in Japan. So while at the hotel we hooked up to the internet again (another ¥1050) and eventually figured out what store would have it and what district of Tokyo it was in. Another few minutes were spent figuring out which subways we needed to use to get there, then it was off to see if we could find the store.

Now, for those of you who have never seen or experienced the Tokyo subway system, let me tell you, it is quite the phenomenal place. I figure you could probably spend several days just exploring it, and it wouldn’t surprise me if you couldn’t somehow figure out how to live down there exclusively.

Turns out the place is located near the Tokyo Dome stadium. In typical Japanese fashion, the stadium is not only a stadium, but the surrounding area is dedicated to several shopping malls, restaurants, and other services for convenience sake. It also means that the area is very busy with a lot of people heading to the Dome for some event, others meeting friends, etc. So after all of this, the kids bought their seals and were happy, and it was back to the hotel to try to cram everything into the suitcases for the trip home.

Overall the trip has been quite the adventure. The only major disappointment was being unable to get to the Studio Ghibli Museum (we were unable to obtain tickets). If you can come to Japan, you should. Even as many times as I’ve been, I always enjoy being over here. I recommend you avoid coming in the summertime if possible due to the expense and the heat, but, whenever you can make it I’m sure you’ll have a good time.

Japanese drivers are typically very courteous drivers. Some will shut off their headlights when waiting at intersections to keep from blinding drivers on the other side. Merges are typically handled without much fuss, and pedestrians and bicycles always have the right of way with vehicles stopping at crosswalks to let people through.

Everyone stops at railroad crossings before actually crossing, and moving down some of the narrow side streets becomes an intricate dance of cars trying to get past the really narrow spots on roads that would make US drivers wonder if it was even a real street much less one for two way traffic.

Now, mix in motorcyclists/scooter riders who more or less slide through wherever they can, and you have quite the mix of traffic that still somehow keeps on moving. Of course they’re not perfect, and accidents do happen, but it’s certainly a different experience than in the US.

This was the trip to Miyajima. Miyajima is a small island near Hiroshima. It’s most famous feature is the Itskushima shrine with the giant red Torii gate. When the tide is in the shrine appears to float on the water. The gate itself is not actually anchored into the seabed, but rather stands on it’s own on the floor.

On this day the ropeway cable cars to the top of the mountain were out of order, and as it’s a 90+ minute strenuous hike to the top of the mountain and the temp was about 35C, we decided that we would skip that. We did however make it to the Dai-shoin temple.

This temple is primarily dedicated to the Shingon sect of Buddhism, however, it also services most of other major sects, so is a popular stop for Buddhists. On the grounds of the temple is the Hentojyoku shrine. I’ve written about this place previously, and it has not lost any of it’s magic for me.

Walking in from the outside, you can see various images of Buddha, and a lot of prayer wheels/beads. It’s believed that praying here is the equivalent of praying at each of the 1000 other shrines available, so it’s sort of your one-stop-shopping if you can’t make it to the other 999 shrines. However, for me the feeling of walking into this dark room, that is barely lit by the candlelight equivalents along the ceiling is always somewhat breathtaking. It’s very hard to get a picture of the place given the lighting conditions, but I tried to get a few. I used an old trick of propping the camera on an available flat surface to hold it still long enough for the long shutter speeds required. I didn’t see any signs preventing the use of flash, but, to me it would seem very disruptive to use a flash even though I was the only one present.

That evening, we were treated to dinner at a revolving sushi-bar. Now these are nothing new, but, the place we went to was enormous. The bar was designed with two large islands, each easily 40m in length. With seating on both sides of the island, and the ends expanded, I estimate that the revolving track was over 200m in length! The selection of sushi was quite amazing, with the chefs available for anything you didn’t see or didn’t want to wait for. Some of the more unusual pieces I saw was a prosciutto sushi, and what we called the “bacon” sushi. Yes, I said “bacon.” Now it’s not the smoked, salty stuff we have in the US. In fact I believed they called it “buta kal-bi” meaning “pork kal-bi” or “pork Korean barbecue style.” But it looked like a slice of pale bacon. Now, before you go “blegh!” I have to tell you, it was pretty tasty. It wasn’t salty or nasty, it was rather like eating a lightly seasoned piece of meat with some rice (which is pretty much what it was). But the main attraction was really the bar itself. Not only was the bar huge, but the variety of stuff on the track was phenomenal. All different kinds of sushi, tempura, chicken kara-age (deep fried chicken nuggets), desserts and even fruit went around on the bar.

The prices are all indicated by the type/color of plate it’s on. It was quite the amazing selection. We all ate far more than we should have as exhibited by the many tall piles of different colored plates on our table, but not only was it delicious, just watching the bar go around and waiting to see what new thing might come around was really fun.

A view of the construction under one of the spans:

Walking across the bridge.

A statue in the park after you cross the bridge. Unfortunately I forget who the statue is for, though I would guess it is for Kikkawa Tsuneie, who is famous in the area. The story goes that when Toyotomi Hideyoshi was conquering the area for Oda Nobunaga, he had this area surrounded and had cut off all the supplies to the area. With his people suffering, Tsuneie surrendered to Hideyoshi, and in exchange for his life he asked that Hideyoshi spare his people. Tsuneie then performed the ritual seppuku or hara-kiri. The statue was raised in honor of his sacrifice many years later.

Some fountains in the park behind the bridge. It was very hot, so some of the local kids were running through the fountains cooling off. I should have joined them!

Since it’s summer time here, there are cicadas all over Japan singing their song. It’s a unique sound, from a fairly unique bug. This one was captured by a small child who was off playing in the fountains in the park near the bridge. Unfortunately for this one, shortly after I took these pictures, a local cat wandered by and had it for lunch.

One of the food specialties for Hiroshima is a unique dish called “Okonomiyaki.” It’s really hard to describe. It is composed of several layers starting with a very thin crepe-like base, piled high with cabbage, bean sprouts, bacon, and other toppings, then grilled down and covered with seasonings, an egg and a special sauce. It sounds weird, but it’s tastes absolutely wonderful. Available with several kinds of add-ins ranging from shrimp to squid, noodles or even mochi (Japanese pounded rice cakes). This is something I’m going to have to try to reverse-engineer the recipe for. We went to an okonomiyaki restaurant where you could watch yours being made right in front of you on a big flat grill (like they use at Benihana-type teppan-yaki restaurants). I watched carefully as the chef prepared mine, and several others, but there were some of the ingredients I’ll have to guess at. Often there was a sprinkle of this, or a shake of that added, or a splash of something, but I have no idea what the actual ingredients were. Things like the crepe base, and the sauce are actually available stateside now, but there’s still quite a bit of experimentation to do to get the seasoning right. I suspect I won’t have a lack of volunteers to try my creations though.