Two friends and I went to Meiji Mura on May 2, 2010 since we had an extra three days off for Golden Week. We prepared a picnic lunch of vegetables, bread, hummus, banana chocolate chip muffins, bean salad and egg salad. We spent about 4 hours at Meiji Mura before heading back home.
Meiji Mura is a Japanese open air museum about 30 minutes (driving) from Nagoya with architectural artifacts from the Meiji period (1868 – 1912). It was opened in 1965.
Kathy and I explored the Tokoname Pottery Path on a windy, cold sunny day during our spring break. We went in the afternoon and the two sites that we could have visited were closed but we enjoyed the circuitous walk, with frequent photography stops.
A Japanese person has created this infographic from a foreigner’s perspective.
Japan – The Strange Country (Japanese ver.) from Kenichi on Vimeo.
He’s taken down his official English version but there’s an English version here:
Since I speak little Japanese, I can’t compare the two versions. I’m interested in how well the video translates from Japanese to English and on your impression of the video.
I’m sitting at my hotel in Hokkaido, having a tart and coffee. It’s warm in here even though I have the thermostat set to 23 degrees. I’m enjoying the warmth after several hours in the snow and cold today.
I got to Hokkaido yesterday in time to enjoy the ice and snow sculptures in Odori park and the entertainment for the final night of the Sapporo Winter Festival. Light snow constantly fell over everything giving the illusion of a snow globe. The scale of the sculptures is empressive. There is one of animals at the zoo and several of buildings. Most of the sculptures are done by Japanese but there is an International Park with sculptures representing the following countries: Finland, USA, China, Thailand, Korea, Bali, New Zealand, Singapore and Hawaii (yes I know it’s not a country). There were two other sites for sculptures too but I didn’t make it to either of them. And now it’s too late because I saw cranes tearing the sculptures apart as I walked to my hotel tonight.
Right opposite my hotel was one of he largest sculptures. A stage was created as part of the sculpture, one of several such stages created in Odori Park to host performances. Most of the Japanese performances that I’ve seen involved taiko drumming. These were unique in that there were no live instruments. Large groups of performers danced while one person on the sidelines called out/sang out. Considering how cold it was, I was surprised that the outfits were often sleeveless or bared the men’s torsos. In one outfit, the men stripped down to underwear. There was even a Japanense boy band who performed. One thing that strikes me when I watch Japanese performances with dancing is how much fun the participants seem to have. The audience was having lots of fn too, dancing and waving in time with the performers.
Today I simply walked around the city and went to the zoo. I’m heading to Otaru tomorrow.
More pictures when I get home …
I seldom get sick. This week has been atypical; I took off my second sick day in over 6 years. It was a horrible day to be sick .. sunny and 10 degrees Celsius. Around 2:00 pm, I declared myself well enough to succumb to the lure of the sun. My headache had ceased and I could actually detect smells.
It was a beautiful day for a walk, birds chirping and the sun warming my face as I walked. Blissful enough that I didn’t mind the fact that my headache came back. After all, I could just go home and get back into bed. It’s just a cold and it’ll clear up soon enough I’m sure. Back to work on Monday.
It’s been hard carrying this secret for months; I told my family and friends that I was going to Thailand for the holidays. I couldn’t suppress my excitement on the long trip from Nagoya to Detroit. I was exhausted by the time I reached Detroit, around the same time of the same day that I left Nagoya. And I still had to contend with a 10 hours layover.
I’ve heard so many bad things about Detroit that I worried for weeks as to whether I should leave the airport to explore the city. I finally decided that if I could live in Sudan and travel in Yemen, I could find some areas of Detroit where I could feel safe in the daytime. But I refused to pay close to $50 to get there.
I got on the Smartbus at the airport, having decided to sit beside the driver. I almost lost my nerve when I got on the airport and found the driver calmly having a smoke in his seat. I hoped that this lawless behavior was not a bad omen. I kept my wits about me, observe everything closely as we drove through Detroit, going past many boarded, graffitied and deserted buildings. I kept watch for a safe place to get off. I decided to do so in the downtown area beside a Subway restaurant.
I walked around and grabbed coffee at the Au Bon Pain. There was a Hard Rock Cafe and mall nearby and a skating rink where many families seemed to be enjoying the beautiful winter day. I walked around the area before grabbing a taxi to take me to Livernois avenue to a hairdresser that I’d previously found.
I still had 4 hours to kill by the time I was finished at the hair dresser and had walked around the area looking for a nail bar that was open, to no avail. I called a taxi (as I’d had enough adventure for the day.)
I stayed overnight in Miami, just enough time to deal with all my Amazon.com orders. Between the packing, the time difference and my internet addiction, I only got three hours of sleep before heading to the airport.
As I sat at the airport waiting for my flight to board, I called my aunt to find out if the family would be home that day. As they called the flight, I started to wonder if it was such a good idea to surprise my grandmother. I called my aunt and told her that I was coming and that she shouldn’t tell anyone, knowing that she’d tell my grandmother if she thought it best. Four hours later, I was in St. Lucia. The immediate family all knew that I was coming.
I spent a little over two weeks in St. Lucia, visiting family and friends. It was a relaxing time in the heat, surrounded by familiarity and heat that make Japan seem a very long way away.
I’ve been wanting to bake pumpkin muffins since a friend on facebook mentioned making them. I had pumpkin in the fridge, just needed to find a good recipe. I came across this recipe tonight that looked promising, but had to modify it to make it a bit more wholesome. Here are the ingredients and the results:
4 eggs
1.5 cups sugar
2 cups roasted pumpkin puree
1 cup vegetable oil
1 cup apple puree
1.5 cups whole wheat flour
1.5 cups cake flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon cinnamon
pinch nutmeg
pinch ginger
1 tsp vanilla essence
1 teaspoon salt
This recipe made 17 muffins. For some reason, the first batch took 20 mins but the second took 15 mins. My oven is a little bit strange so the temperature may have been too low the first batch. They taste delicious. The whole wheat flour makes the taste more wholesome, just the way I like. Next time I make this recipe, I’ll reduce the oil by half. I don’t think there will be any adverse effects because I’ve added lots of apple puree.
I walked along the beach last night and listened to the play of waves. This was my moment to say goodbye to Bali.
The dolphins were the highlight of my week in Bali. We took a morning dolphin “tour” in Lovina, hoping to see the dolphins up close. We were not disappointed. There were hundreds of dolphins all over, playing, doing air flips and belly flops. I even saw them under the water. I couldn’t stop smiling watching them. The experience was surely worth the early morning wake-up.
During my week in Bali, I spent two nights in Ubud, one night in Kintamani, two nights in Lovina and one night in Kuta. I watched legong dancing in Ubud, climbed Mount Batur around Kintamani, saw dolphins and felt the mist of waterfalls around Lovina, relaxed in Kuta, and did spa treatments several times. I did not enjoying having to bargain for every purchase, even fruit, but I did make some good purchases of Balinese batiks, silver, Balinese puppet dolls and the obligatory tshirt gifts. The week was wonderful. It seems surreal to be back in Nagoya on a cool cloudy day…
