April 4th: Ueno Park

April 4th would be our first full day. I did get a surprising 5 hours and 20 minutes of sleep. Art was fine. Mom seemed OK even though she did get up several times with the time change.

We were surprised that the breakfasts at the Toyoko Inns had improved since the last time we were there. It used to be just a rice ball, pickles and miso soup. This was wonderful!

At 9:00, we walked next door to the Aomono Yokocho train station. It was a work day Wednesday and the trains were crowded.

Since cherry blossoms had bloomed early this year, we thought we'd miss the peak blossoming.

Apparently, Tokyo had a cold snap soon after that early blooming so the cherry blossoms actually waited for mom to arrive.

The flowers at Ueno Park were absolutely stunning!

We walked along the floral tunnel of cherry blossoms and couldn't stop smiling.

We walked a short distance to the Ueno Toshogu shrine and saw a lot of street food being sold.

We have seen the pandas at the Smithsonian Zoo in Washington, D.C., but mom hasn't so Art thought it'd be fun to have mom get the panda experience at Ueno Zoo close by.

We walked over to see this massive crowd waiting for their tickets to get in.

When we entered the zoo we saw that the panda line was 50 minutes LONG!

Yikes!

We saw other beautiful animals instead. This mother and baby were so sweet.

Incredibly, we found a place to have our lunch under this gorgeous cherry blossom tree.

While we were having our yaki soba, cherry blossom petals swirled around us. Children were happily chasing after the petals.

There was a little Thai pavilion and beds of colorful lupins.

We have fun looking for manhole covers in Japan that have distinctive images of what that area is known for.

I love seeing cherry blossoms sprouting right out of the trunk. There are quite a few varieties of cherry blossoms. These are the five petal variety.

We went back to the hotel and rested before going out again that evening to Shinagawa where we met up with my mother's youngest brother and his wife.

Actually, since there is a 12 year age difference between my uncle and mother, my uncle is only 3 years older than Art. My aunt is only a year older than me.

My cousin and his wife and another cousin also joined us for a rollicking great time, laughing at the differences between Western and Asian customs.

Uncle treated us to a huge assortment of delicacies that we'd never had before. These are only a few of the dishes that were served.

By the time the soba noodles came, I honestly couldn't eat another bite. But then how hard is it to eat a little sherbet?

A very poignant moment came when my uncle and aunt walked us to our departure point. Everyone knew this would be the last time we'd see each other. Mom would not be taking another trip to Japan and they don't like to fly either.

So the parting was sweet, sad, yet happy that we'd had this final time together and brother and sister could say goodbye.

April 2nd: HNL to NRT (Narita)

I'd scheduled blog posts to go up automatically while we were in Japan. My brother works for the police department and he says there's a high incidence of robberies in our area so I shouldn't make our trips public knowledge.

We left for Japan on April 2nd. Art was determined to have mom enjoy one last visit with her family since she is almost 90 years old and getting to be pretty frail.

People assume because we've traveled quite a bit, that I am a good, calm, experienced traveler. I may be experienced, but I'm not a good traveler. And calm? Hah!

The week before our flying out had me totally jittery. I was extra nervous and climbing the walls because we were on our own this time without a tour to take care of everything. We were also taking mom without the help of my brother, Dennis to deal with luggage or any mishaps. I finally got both mine and mom's suitcases packed. I labeled bags so mom could find items quickly.

Dennis drove us to the airport and I know he wished he could come along.

Japan Airlines was wonderful.

A friendly flight attendant made sure we found our seats and showed mom where the bathroom was.

With all my trepidation, the flight was pretty easy for mom.

She watched almost four movies dubbed in Japanese. She was enjoying the movies so much that she couldn't go to sleep even though the flight was over 8 hours long.

When we landed at Narita International Airport, it was now April 3rd.

Japan is 23 hours ahead of Hawaii which sometimes makes things a little confusing.

We had to quickly do several things after leaving the Customs/Immigration area.

I mailed all our omiyages (gifts) to our relatives using the extremely efficient takkyubin service while Art went to collect the WiFi hotspot he rented on line.

We then went to pick up our JR East rail (Shinkansen) passes so we could travel anywhere in that one region for any 5 days within 2 weeks.

After collecting our passes, we could use the Shinkansen train to our businessman's hotel.  Art chose this hotel because it's right next to the train stop and would be easy for mom to handle.

The Toyoko Inn has pretty much everything you need, but is small. Mom loved that they provided pajamas for you to wear also.

We went right to sleep!

Packing for Japan

When we take trips to Japan with a tour, I'm not overly worried. However, if we're traveling on our own and especially with my almost 90 year old mother, I'm a bundle of nerves.

I started buying clothes for her to wear last year and agonized about what would keep her most comfortable. She gets cold so fast. The temperatures in Japan also warmed up earlier this year so I worried that we would miss much of the cherry blossom blooming. 

I worried about everything. On the other hand, if it's warmer, she'll be more comfortable. On the other hand she'll be going to Sendai which is in northern Japan and much colder. On the other hand, we'll be on a cruise ship with formal nights.

Arrrghhh....

I finally decided to just pack for warmer and colder weather.

Now me? I was figuring on bringing my packable down coat on the left. But then... I thought it might rain so I should bring my windbreaker. But then again is it reeeeally cold enough to warrant bringing a down coat in April?

Nah....Back the down goes into my closet. I'll just bring my windbreaker and fleece.

And mom?

I'm bringing everything for her and then some. I'm not taking any chances.

POSTSCRIPT: Oh nuts! Art says the cruise ship will stop in Hokkaido also which is forecasted to have temperatures in the 40s. Arrrghhhh....

White Noise Machine Cover

That white noise machine we bought has made a difference for us. The other night there was a dog barking next door for HOURS. The sound of the rainstorm from the machine enabled us to get to sleep.

However... now Art was staring at the machine and worried about the dust getting in through the holes.

Sooooo.... after thinking about it, I got the box it came in and decided to use the bottom for a cover.

The bottom was not pretty so I got some scrapbooking paper that my daughter had given me a few years ago and used it to cover the box.

Aha! Then I thought I'd use the left over wood sealer from that wicker basket I repaired a while ago and coated the cover.

Ummm... that did cause the paper to ripple a little, but it just gave it more of a woven look so I was OK with that.

Art is happy the machine can be protected when not in use and I'm happy he's happy.

Visiting Friends From Japan

The family of our dear Tokyo friend, "Sam" who passed away last year came to visit recently. We offered to take them to places they might be interested in on Oahu.

Sam's granddaughter really wanted to see Kakaako's Wall art. Art and I hadn't heard of it so it was a good thing my brother, Dennis did.

A short distance from Waikiki are walls covered with whimsical, colorful murals.

Dennis drove our car with mom, "Sam's" wife, and his eldest daughter while we took the rest of the crew in our van.

Mom absolutely loved being able to speak to everyone in Japanese.

One of the places our friends from Japan put at the top of their list to visit was the Hitachi Tree at Moanalua Gardens.

I got this information from a Hitachi website:

The Hitachi Tree first originated through a TV commercial that aired in Japan in 1973. It symbolized the "comprehensive drive" and the "wide business range" of the Hitachi Group. It continues today as an image of the Hitachi Group's working for communities through leveraging of its collective capacities and technologies, and the dedication of the individuals that the Group comprises.

So that's where we went. It's where we take all our Japanese tourist friends and relatives when they come to Oahu.

Sam's 12 year old grandson was learning about Pearl Harbor and wanted to see it so that was our next destination.

We couldn't go to the Arizona Memorial, but we did see the Bowfin submarine from the outside and then visited the Arizona Museum with stories about that terrible day, December 7, 1941. The museum displayed the aircraft carrier, Akagi.

We then had a wonderful luncheon at the Jade Garden Chinese Restaurant in Waipahu. Art took this photo a little too late. We'd already eaten up most of it. We did still have enough for two days of left overs though.

We then dropped the group off at the Waikele Outlet Mall while Art, mom, my brother and I went home and waited for them to call for a pick up.

After a couple of hours, we picked them up and headed out to the Iolani Palace. It was getting quite late and they asked to be dropped off at the Ala Moana Shopping Center where they would be getting their dinner.

It was wonderful to see our friends again and to feel the presence of their very special husband, father and grandfather. We really feel Sam was smiling down at us the entire day.

Japan Airlines Panic

Mom is going to be 90 years old this year and is the oldest of all her siblings. Art has been wanting for the longest time to take her to Japan one last time to see her brother in Tokyo and sister in Sendai.

I was actually against it because... for one thing... mom HATES flying and 8 hours is too long for her. And... well... she's going to be 90 years old and isn't the spry, energetic little ol' lady she used to be even three years ago.

Would you believe one morning she agreed to Art's suggestion that she see her family one last time? I was flabbergasted. I don't know what made her change her mind.

Art promised that he would do everything in his power to make it as easy a trip as possible. We would stay in Tokyo a couple of days to get acclimated to the time change and see her baby brother as well. Then my cousin would take mom to Sendai to spend four days with her sister. We would then pick mom up and take her to Yokohama where we could board the Princess Cruise Line for a trip around Japan.

It seemed fine.

Art made reservations with Japan Airlines. It's more expensive to travel with Japan Airlines but he said they would provide Japanese movies for her to enjoy.

OK... so far so good. Unfortunately, the website said he couldn't make seat selections yet. This was in October, 2018. He waited a couple months and then the website said he could only make seat selections 48 hours before fight time.

Two weeks before leaving I asked about the seat selections because I was really worried for mom. She HATES flying because she needs to go to the bathroom often. I wanted to make sure we had appropriate seats.

So I got online and saw the same message Art saw about waiting 48 hours. That's crazy! I decided to call Japan Airlines and was told that the 48 hour message shouldn't have been there. (I don't think they believed me.) All the seats were already assigned and there were only three left. Art would be separated way up front and mom and I would be in a middle and window seat. Mom would have to climb over someone to get to the bathroom. I was almost hysterical with Christina, the poor contact person. I have to tell you she did keep her cools despite my upset. She promised to send a message to the main office to let them know our predicament.

The following morning, Christina called to tell me she still hadn't heard back, but would let me know as soon as she got word from the main office.

Art checked the JAL website that now suddenly showed the seat selection. What the heck? It showed that all the seats were taken. We really felt it was hopeless and I was thinking of appealing to the person on the aisle seat when we boarded the plane to switch seats.

On the third day, I got a call from JAL. I was ready for them to tell me they were sorry that nothing could be done.

Would you believe they gave us three seats in the middle together with an aisle?

Oh my gosh! What a relief! Thank goodness I didn't hint to mom that there would be a problem.

And coming back to Hawaii? Christina had already found us seats that would make it quite comfortable for mom.

I can't stand the stress of trip planning. This is why I prefer tours. I like leaving this kind of aggravation to the tour leader.

Oh... and the Princess Cruise? Art bought the upgrade so mom could enjoy a suite with us and have some amenities for her to enjoy. She did love the Alaskan Cruise so I'm keeping my fingers crossed that all goes well.

The Wily Cekoroba

I've been scanning and backing up CDs and DVDs of photos, letters, newsletters, etc. onto two external drives. While doing so, I came across this letter that our son wrote to us from Mali. I forgot that I actually posted it in 2012. It's so hard to remember what I've already written about since I've written over 3,000 posts in the last 11 years. Anyway, I just can't resist posting it again since it makes me laugh every time read it.

My son, Keola served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Mali, West Africa in 2002.   Our lives centered on waiting for each of his letters for the 27 months that he lived in a small, isolated, rural village called Koro Bada.  

Keola knows my aversion to spiders and wrote the following for me:

…Oh yeah, mom I promised that I would write about the spiders.  Cekoroba yayoroba is a lean spider about 3 inches long with large stiff front legs.  Cekoroba is a respectful term used for elderly men, it literally means stiff or set in their ways.  The front legs give the spider an ungraceful walk which shouldn't enable them to go fast. The cekoroba however, is all about speed and deception.  

For about 3 nights when it was raining I had to sleep inside.  For some reason they were particularly active that day.  I found one running across my wall so I got out my field lamp and fly swatter and we fought back and forth for half an hour. 

Once I went to whack him while he was on the wall and he jumped a good 2 feet off the wall and scared the shit out of me.  Other times he chased me or hid under the bed/sofa making darting attacks. 

Finally after expending much of my energy, I got him with the fly swatter and smacked him ruthlessly.  I was relieved and began to sweep him towards the door.  That crazy spider was playing dead, jumped up and ran under a chair.  I traded the fly swatter (key word “fly”) for  a good stick and commenced pummeling the cekoroba till he was pretty much pulp.  The others heard about this and continued to torture me for the rest of the night.

One incident; while lying on the bed I looked over at the wall and saw a medium sized cekoroba on the wall.  I rolled off my bed to grab my lantern and right next to the lantern was another one waiting to ambush me.  Yes, diversionary tactics and predation.  They are smart, fast and not the least bit dangerous.  Or maybe that’s what they want you to think…"

So much has happened since that letter of 17 years ago. Keola has settled down with another Peace Corps volunteer and they have two beautiful boys. Someday, I will have to share this letter with our wonderful grandsons.

Rabbits in Hawaii?

Art was out for an early morning jog and was startled to see rabbits in someone's driveway.

I think rabbits are as cute as can be, but I also know how FAST they multiply and the damage that can cause also if unchecked.

We had the normal amount of bunnies in Illinois and then the West Nile disease killed off most of the large predatory birds.

Suddenly, the rabbit population exploded. 

I didn't think we had wild rabbits in Hawaii.

Yes, I did have a pet rabbit when I was in college but had to leave him with my parents when we moved to Illinois.

I kept him on a leash when I walked him on campus.

My parents built a cage for him outside the house.

We do have Rabbit Island near Oahu.

I got this from Wikipedia:

Mānana Island is an uninhabited islet located 0.75 mi (1.21 km) off Kaupō Beach, near Makapuʻu at the eastern end of the Island of Oʻahu in the Hawaiian Islands. In the Hawaiian language, mānana means "buoyant".The islet is commonly referred to as Rabbit Island, because its shape as seen from the nearby Oʻahu shore looks something like a rabbit's head and because it was once inhabited by introduced rabbits. The rabbit colony was established by John Adams Cummins in the 1880s when he ran the Waimānalo plantation. The rabbits were eradicated about a hundred years later because they were destroying the native ecosystem, an important seabird breeding area.

Anytime non-indigenous wildlife is introduced onto our ecosystem, bad things can happen. Think biting mosquitoes. Think mynah birds. Think mongoose. The list goes on and on.

I just hope those rabbits that Art saw were not feral like our cats and chickens.

Colors of USB Connectors?

Good grief! More technology stuff to drive me crazy.

When my son-in-law, Ed advised me to back up my data (photo files I've been working on exhaustingly) on two external drives he asked me if I had additional blue USB ports on my computer for the drives. "What's a port?" I asked.

He patiently told me that it's what I plug my cords into. I'm not good with technology. Sigh. I took a photo of the back of my computer to show him.

He said I needed to buy a hub.

"But I have a hub." I informed him.

He said those were white ports on the hub and that I needed to get a hub with blue ports.

"What? Color matters?"

Hmmmm... I guess that's why my other external drive wasn't working on it.

So Ed ordered a hub with blue ports for me.

Sure enough, when the 8 TB external drives arrived, I saw that the plug thing was color coded blue.

And I saw that the front of my computer had black ports.

My Fitbit has a black plug.

Ahhh... a match!

My cellphone, however has a white plug.

So how many colors are there, for goodness sakes?!?

Apparently there are FOUR colors.
White 1.x
Black 2.x
Blue 3.x
Red or yellow

The white was introduced in 1996 and is a slower transfer speed.
The black was introduced in 2000 and supposed to be a faster speed.
The blue was introduced in 2008 and is called SuperSpeed.
The red or yellow indicates that the connector does not power off during sleep or standby mode.

I got this information from a blog called Geeks in Phoenix.

OK... So now there's more techie information to confuse me. I need to send some cookies (the baked kind) to Ed for his patience and expertise.

Another Helpful Hint From Myrtle

My friend, Myrtle sent me some "Helpful Hints" a long while ago and every so often I'll test one of them.

I wanted a soft drink for lunch the other day, but I didn't have anything cooling in the fridge. That's when I remembered Myrtle's Helpful Hint about cooling a drink quickly.

I wasn't sure it would work, but I decided to give it a try while Art was preparing lunch.

I wrapped the pop with a wet paper towel, set it in a small bowl (to hold the drips) and stuck it in the freezer for about 10-15 minutes.

And voila! It did work. The drink was cold.

Yay!

My Fairy Godmother

A while ago, I bemoaned my over Konmari organizing when I couldn't find the dress I was wearing when I gave birth to my son in the Chicago hospital elevator.

Here's the dress.

Art wanted to take a photo of me wearing the dress with my month old son and my almost 3 year old daughter.

I realized that in my fervor to clean out my closet, I must have finally added my 40 year old dress to the donation pile.

Well....

The other night, I was looking through the closet downstairs in my mother's area where I had really puffy winter coats stored for her to use when we travel.

I had planned to donate those much too bulky coats a while ago, but kept forgetting.

What a shock when I opened the closet door and saw the dress hanging there with the coats!!!

I called Art and he immediately said, "Don't look at me. I didn't do it."

I must have taken it down with me to donate with the coats and then forgot about it.

I have no memory of having done that.

But there it is.


And no, it wasn't Art. It had to have been me.

Or maybe it was my fairy godmother who knew I was making a mistake to donate it.

22,000 Family Photos Scanned!

I've been working on scanning our family photos now for several months. However, I then decided to take the photos out of the albums and store some of them in plastic containers. That part is now done! I technically didn't need to since I've scanned them... but juuust in case.

According to the properties of my Family Photo file, I have over 22,000 images uploaded.

However, it's far from over.

I've saved the photos by year.

I will now be labeling and organizing each image so they are more consistent and adding notes in the properties as well.

I just hope I don't find another box of photos that I hadn't scanned.

I wonder how long this project will take to complete.

I'm enjoying reliving so many of our happy times and even the difficult ones are good to reflect on.

And yes, this makes it a lot easier to find things to blog about. 

Spectacular Sunset

Art loves taking photos of the beautiful sunrises and sunsets we get here in Hawaii. I just wanted to share this one with you.

Have a wonderful day everybody!

Crystal Light Memory

When I had my colonoscopy recently, I was pleasantly surprised that I was able to drink the GoLytely solution to clean my colon pretty easily, much more easily than what I remembered the last time I did the procedure. I assumed it was because of the Crystal Light I flavored it with. I don't know what I used before.

In fact, I decided to go ahead and make more Crystal Light recently since I still had 2 more packages left.

Do you know, I didn't love it? It reminded me of forcing myself to drink that gallon of GoLytely and what came after.

Art laughed and said that's what happened to him and maraschino cherries.

Art's parents owned a small mom and pop restaurant. When he was little, he managed to sneak into the storeroom and open a bottle of maraschino cherries that he liked. He can't remember how much of it he ate, but he got very, very sick.

To this day, I always get to have his maraschino cherry whenever it's used to top off any dessert. I'm OK with that.

Do you have anything you don't like to eat because of a bad experience?