Day #5: Hakodate to Noboribetsu

June 25th, Wednesday began with the hot spring onsen for Art at the hotel.  I had still not worked up the courage to try it.

We were at the Yunokawa Kanko Hotel Shoen.  I got up tired with a slight headache.  Art was the usual Energizer Bunny and went out to take photos.

There were 37 members in our tour group which is the largest we've ever experienced.  On a 9 Day Tour which is more like 7, it was hard to get to know everyone.  Still, everyone was so very friendly and helpful that we were quickly becoming friends. We discovered that tour members, Kathy and Roger live close to us. I learned that Kathy was also uncomfortable about going to the onsen. We decided to support each other in gathering courage to take the plunge (pun intended).

Our first stop was this seafood market area.  Each couple was supposed to fish for squid which were then sliced into extremely fresh sashimi.  Unlike the others, I'm not a fan of sashimi (cut up raw seafood).  We sent my brother, Dennis out to do the fishing since we didn't really want to eat two of these creatures.  I ate one little slice and stopped when I saw the little tentacles move.

We then went to the Noboribetsu  Marine Park Nixe.  It's billed as a sort of Danish theme park.  Indeed, the entrance did look like a Danish castle.

Lunch was ANOTHER hot pot but the broth was a little better at this park restaurant.  This was supposed to be a traditional Ishikari Nabe (seafood soup).  Tour friends were not very excited about seeing so many hot pots or nabe meals on the tour.  This was a Yummy Yummy tour, but so far, the food was not quite at the level we'd been expecting.

After lunch we got to see a penguin parade.  They were awfully cute, but we needed to be wary of their sharp beaks.

The aquarium had a lot of interesting creatures.

We weren't quite sure what this creature at the bottom was.  It looked like something from a science fiction movie.

Here's the explanation.  I found this on Wikipedia:

The axolotl  ("water monster"), also known as a Mexican salamander (Ambystoma mexicanum) or a Mexican walking fish, is a neotenic salamander, closely related to the tiger salamander. Although the axolotl is colloquially known as a "walking fish", it is not a fish, but an amphibian.
 

Our next stop was Jigokudani (Hell Valley), so named because of the hot steam vents and sulfuric streams.

We were told that the onsen here is famous with many people coming to soak in the thermal waters.  Kathy and I decided that we would try the onsen no matter what!

Men and women go to separate onsens.

Art went with Dennis who was also not thrilled about baring all.

Kathy and I bumped into two other tour women who offered to show us what to do.  We were relieved.

Needless to say photos are not allowed at the onsen so I have no photos to show you what it looked like.

We had to wash ourselves thoroughly outside of the pools and then enter it with only a small towel to hold.  Our tour guide said that if you were too shy, you could use the towel to cover your face.  You are told not to put the towel into the water so many people fold it and put it on top of their heads while they soak.

The incredible thing which really, really surprised me was that after about 5 minutes, we no longer cared that we were stark naked.  How can that be?  It just didn't matter because we were all exposed.

We soaked in the hot water, talked and just got to really enjoy a special friendship since literally all our barriers were down.  It was amazing!

This was the meal we were all waiting for.  There were all kinds of seafood, but we'd been waiting for the Alaskan King crab legs.  We were surprised to find that they were served cold with no melted butter.  That was a let down for me.

However, the desserts were really scrumptious so it made up for the not too spectacular crab legs.

After dinner, Art and I walked around town and bought the cute little chawan (bowl) set for our granddaughter, KC.

We then sat in the lobby and talked to other tour members and got to know each other better.

I wished the tour could be longer now that faces and personalities were becoming more familiar and friendships were formed.

We were looking forward to the following day when we were supposed to see the lavender fields. This was the biggest reason for the trip as far as I was concerned.

Day #4: Hakodate

June 24th, Tuesday took us from Toyako to Hakodate. 

Art got up early and went for a hot spring dip in the onsen at 5:00 AM.  He said it was great since nobody wanted to get up that early and he had the onsen almost to himself.  I was curious about the onsen and wanted to try it, but was too shy to take off my clothes in front of a lot of strangers.  Mom absolutely, totally, completely, definitely refused to do so.

The big H is a symbol of the University of Hawaii.  This was the marker to show where we should bring our suitcases in the morning so it could be loaded onto our bus.

As you can see, the dining area was HUGE and set up to house tons of tourists.

The food was fine.

We visited Onuma Quasi National Park.  It is a famous volcanic lake.

We were given information about the formation of two lakes, etc. but what I enjoyed most was the melon soft serve.

I have no will power when it comes to ice cream.  Hard to believe that when I made my first trip to Japan 25 years ago, their ice cream was horrible.  It's fabulous now!

Lunch was another hot pot.  We're not crazy about hot pots because it's not great to cook your own food when you're on vacation, at least for us.

The broth was bland and it was served in a temporary building.

One of the biggest reasons for Mom wanting to come to Hokkaido was to buy konbu (seaweed).

We went to the Konbu Kan Museum and store where we bought LOTS and LOTS of seaweed for mom.

This was NOT the only place we bought seaweed either!

The diorama shows how seaweed is harvested and prepared.

The next stop was the Trappistine Convent which was the first monastery in Japan.  It was constructed in 1898 to house eight nuns who were sent by a French king.  There are still nuns living and working there.

We enjoyed another soft serve which we were told was the creamiest one around.  It was very good.

Outside the ice cream shop a tourist suddenly collapsed after suffering a seizure.  Our tour guide, Michael knew exactly what to do.

In a few moments, the poor fellow was fine and was able to walk away assisted by his girlfriend.

Here, you can see other members from our tour group offering their assistance.

We were then taken to another shopping area called the Kanemori Red Brick Warehouse. There were local arts and crafts here.  We wandered around, but didn't buy anything.

Our dinner at 6:00 was beautiful, but didn't quite measure up in taste according to Mom.  I was just glad it didn't require me to cook it.  We are not huge fans of hot pot cooking.

At 7:15 PM we left the hotel and drove by bus to the top of Mt. Hakodate.  There was quite a bit of walking uphill from the bus parking lot which really winded Mom.  However, it was worth the climb to the observation deck.  The setting sun and city lights were spectacular.  We rode a cable car down which gave us yet another beautiful view.  Dennis said he enjoyed this part of the tour best.

We would be heading to Noboribetsu on the following day.

Day #3: Tomakomai

Tired as I was, jet lag woke me up at 2:00 AM and then at 3:00.  I was surprised to see that it was already getting lighted in Hokkaido.  Hokkaido is the northernmost island of Japan.  We finally gave up on sleeping at 4:30 and went down to the lobby to use their wifi.  There wasn't wifi in most of the rooms while we were in Hokkaido.

The buffet breakfast was OK.

While waiting in the lobby for the tour bus, we met a tour member who is a cousin of our daughter's neighbor in Chicago.  Small world!

Our first tour stop was the Shiraoi Ainu Museum Porotokotan.  There was a huge statue of an Ainu chief at the entrance.  The Ainu were the indigenous people of Hokkaido.

The Ainu people were thought to have Caucasian features and it's believed they may have originated from Russia.  However with intermarriage, it's hard to know how many pure Ainu there are anymore.

I got this from Wikipedia:

Recent research suggests that the historical Ainu culture originated in a merger of the Okhotsk culture with the Satsumon, one of the ancient archaeological cultures that are considered to have derived from the Jōmon period cultures of the
cultures of the Japanese Archipelago.


Porotokotan is a reproduction of an early Ainu village.

Michael (our tour guide from Hawaii) called Porotokotan Japan's Polynesian Cultural Center.

The Ainu had only an oral history and no written language.

Ainu means people or human.  They believed that everything contains spirits.

"Irankarakute" is the Ainu greeting.

Poro means big.  To is Lake and kotan is village.

This girl is playing a mukkuri. 

The following information is from Wikipedia:

Mukkuri is a traditional Japanese plucked idiophone indigenous to the Ainu. The Mukkuri is made from bamboo and is 10 cm long and 1.5 cm wide. Similar to a jaw harp, sound is made by pulling the string and vibrating the inside.

The other instrument is a tonkori.  

Art decided to support the museum by buying some smoked fish.

We enjoyed the view of Showa Shinzan while we ate our hot pot lunch.  Showa Shinzan was a mountain created by volcanic and earthquake activity from Mt. Usu.

We learned that Hokkaido is famous for its brown bears.  We also saw some beautiful flowers that we had to stop to admire.

840,000 Ezo deer are also overpopulating the island.   Wolves used to keep the population down, but when they were eradicated, the deer multiplied and are now eating the bark off trees and killing them.

We enjoyed watching the adorable bears at the Bear Park, but felt sad that there were too many confined to the small space.

The bears had learned to beg for food.

Lake Toya is a volcanic caldera lake and has four islands in it.  Here I am with Art, Mom and my brother, Dennis.

We tried a slice of Yubari Melon which tasted like a cross between a very sweet honeydew and a cantaloupe.

It cost 380 yen (about $3.80) for a slice.  We were told that the first, most perfect Yubari melon was bought for $20,000 at auction.

The melons were a little softer than I expected, but incredibly sweet and utterly delicious!

Our next hotel was the Toya Sun Palace.  There was a huge buffet which we enjoyed.  The view from our table was spectacular.

In the evening, we boarded a large boat to watch fireworks on Lake Toya.  We went to bed hoping not to wake up at 3:00 again.

Hokkaido: Day #1 and #2, Honolulu to Chitose

Our 9-Day, Air and Sea Travel, Yummy, Yummy Lavender Hokkaido Tour began on June 21st, Saturday. We'd decided on a tour to Japan this time thinking if would be easier for mom to travel with a tour company.

We were almost late for the 1:00 PM Hawaiian Airlines flight.  It was a good thing they asked us to get to the airport by 10:30 AM.

Art's classmate, Morris drove us to the airport and there was an accident that snarled traffic for several tense minutes.  Poor Morris was stressed out for us, but we got there in time.

Mom got to happily watch two Japanese movies.  Walter Mitty was the only English movie and I'd already seen it so I read my Paper White.

Flight time was 7 hours 20 minutes.

There was a 1 hour layover in Sendai before we continued on to Chitose Airport in Hokkaido which took another hour.

With the time change, it was now June 22nd, Sunday in Hokkaido.

We were met by this cartoon cat called Doraemon which is from an anime series.

Since we're not familiar with manga or anime, it was just a cute cat to us.

Michael was our capable, affable tour guide from Hawaii.

We were met at Chitose by Lilin (tour coordinator) and Chika (Hokkaido tour guide).

Forty more minutes and we were at the Grand Hotel, New Oji in Tomokomai.

I don't think I've quite seen a bathroom like this in Japan before.  It took a moment to figure it out.  You're supposed to wash yourself outside of the tub and then soak in the clean tub water. This is how we used to take a bath when I was little.

However, we didn't need to soak.  We just washed up and went to bed.  Two days of the 9-Day tour were over.  I kept my fingers crossed that I wouldn't wake up at 3:00.  I didn't.  I got up at 2:00!

Starting Again

Cyber friend, Hank Chapin wrote this comment on my post about having to take a blog hiatus.

"Hope you don't lose your rhythm."

I see now what he was talking about.  My brain and daily schedule reorganized themselves so that I found it hard to get back to blogging.  Granted I ended up with too many things on my plate to get started.... the hurricane for one.

Our son and partner stayed two weeks and our daughter and family left a week ago, the day before we started getting reports about Hurricane Iselle.  The myriad things we didn't do while our family was here for five weeks had to be done.

I'll now be working on posts about our Hokkaido trip and our family get-together.  I feel like I'm running a race with different side streets that take me off course.

Oops!  Just went off course again while looking for a photo to add to this post.  This is KC with her Uncle Keola on Waikiki Beach. We're missing them all dreadfully.

Sigh... That's OK.  Just let me catch my rhythm again and I'll get to the finish line yet.

Spared of Iselle... and Now Julio?

I won't say Art is exactly looking smug because Hurricane Iselle fizzled before she hit Oahu, but he does give me that little "I told you so" smile every so often.  He was counting on the high peaks of Mauna Loa and Mauna Kea breaking up the storm.  I was the one collecting water in every available container in the house and trying to buy Spam which we never were able to find since it had been bought up by everybody else.

Still... we did get a lot of rain and pretty strong winds on Friday. Our skies now are just gray and we're getting lots of drizzle.

Hurricane Julio is expected to pass north of us, but we're being told not to relax our guard because it could switch course at the last minute. 

I'm just so relieved that our solar panels didn't crash down into the neighbor's house or that all the windows weren't blown out.  Some people had duct taped the glass on their windows, but the advisory on TV said it wasn't a good thing to do.  Art noticed that our neighbors had hammered plywood sheets over most of their windows.

I hope that the damage on the Big Island and Maui was not too bad and that everybody there gets their power back on soon.

I now have a lot of water to cart out of the house to water the plants with.  I'll also need to go out and buy more ice cream since we ate up what we thought would be lost with a power outage.

I'll be working on blog posts for Hokkaido and our five week family fest in Hawaii.  I also need to make our travel album and family album to document these precious times.  My life is not quite back to normal yet, but soon... soon.

Please keep any more hurricanes away so I can get some things done.

The Tension Before the Storm

Art is calm.  I'm not.  I've never been near a hurricane before.  Art feels we've prepared as much as we can and we'll have to just deal with the situation as it arises.  Still, as I hear the announcements that schools on Oahu will be closed tomorrow as well as all city and county buildings and all the major shopping centers... I'm nervous.  The buses won't be running except some in Waikiki.  I suspect it's to insure workers can come to help stranded tourists.

I'm writing this on Thursday evening at 7:00.  The Big Island is already starting to feel the effects of Iselle.  The hurricane is supposed to lose some of its energy after hitting the Big Island.  They say the high peaks of Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa may dissipate some of Iselle's strength.  I hope so.

We stopped by the store yesterday to see if we could pick up some canned Spam or Vienna sausages. 

Art was not thrilled  because we normally don't eat these canned meats.  I told him we could donate them to the food bank after the storm passes.

The argument discussion was moot since the store shelves were empty.

I picked up some canned vegetables instead.

We went to tai-chi this morning and you would never have guessed that two hurricanes were on their way to deliver a 1-2 punch to the islands.

I wasn't going to post today so that I could work on my posts for next week about our Hokkaido trip.

However, it is a rather historic time for Hawaii so I felt I needed to document this.

The Big Island has never been hit by a hurricane before and I don't think the islands have been hit by two possible hurricanes so close together either.

We've heard over and over that we need to keep a gallon of water per person per day for seven days.  I don't think we've got exactly that, but I've got water saved in the bathrooms and in the refrigerator.  We also have water in the rain barrel outside and I've been filling containers for the toilet as well.

Art put up these tarps across our patio to minimize rain.

I was worried about the papaya tree crashing onto the neighbor's house because papaya trees have shallow roots.

Art decided to strap it to our house instead of chopping it down as I suggested.

I've heard how horrible it was when Hurricane Iniki crashed into Kauai in 1992.

I took this photo from my window at about 5:30 this afternoon.  Although the skies are gray and cloudy right now, it does feel like the calm before the storm.

We're supposed to feel the peak of the storm around 11:00 AM tomorrow.  My brother and sister-in-law were supposed to return from Vegas at noon.  I have a feeling their flight will be delayed.

I'm looking out my window again and see the ominous clouds crawling across the skies. 

But on a positive note, we've eaten up the ice cream in the freezer in case we lose power so I guess we're about as ready as we'll ever be now.

I Will Be Back Soon

Thank you so much for all your kind messages, everybody!!!  I'm so touched by your kindness and friendship.  I miss you, too!

I was mentioning to my family that I feel like my brain is sluggish without the creativity of writing a blog post every week day.  My word retrieval seems to be affected.  I was talking to somebody on Monday and couldn't think of the word "Honeydew" when we were discussing melons.

Our lives have been about as busy as it could possibly be.  We haven't been to Tai Chi in six weeks and I've only recently started my Zumba last week.  Our daughter, son-in-law and granddaughter left on Sunday and the house is quiet once more.... almost eerily so.  And yet the walls of our home are still echoing my granddaughter's voice singing, "Do You Want to Build a Snowman?" from the movie, Frozen.

As sad as we are, we have a million things to now catch up on.  I'm now sorting through the photos from Hokkaido as well as the photos we took with our family here this past month.  I should be able to start blogging again next week....

Unless....

Hurricane Iselle and Julio put a stop to things since they appear to be headed toward us with a 1 - 2 punch on Friday.

My daughter told me that people on the Big Island do not appear worried.  News reports do say Big Island surfers are looking forward to high surf and that there are no long lines of people buying hurricane supplies there.

Not so on Oahu.

We were at Sam's Club last night to buy a couple of cases of water and the place was PACKED!  Everybody was buying lots of water, batteries, ready to eat food, etc.

We just bought water.

When we got home, I looked to see what we could eat.

Hmmmm...

Our granddaughter, KC had left those Choco-Pie cookies and there were an assortment of goodies that our kids had brought with them when they arrived for their visit.

We also had some other things that we could munch on.

We went back to Sam's Club today to get a cake for a birthday party for our nephew's wife tonight.

We did get some stares and perplexed smiles as we passed LONG lines of full shopping carts reaching toward the back of the store.  This was the line for cigarettes.  They must have wondered why we were just carrying a cake.

Our next stop was to get some gas and was surprised to find more lines.

As we monitor the progress of the storms, we're hearing that the likelihood is that the hurricanes will diminish before they reach us.

We hope.

Thank you again, everybody for caring.  I can't begin to put into words how much your messages have meant to me.  Barring anything else happening,  I will be back next week.

Blog Hiatus

I thought I could continue to write posts, but I'm afraid I'm going to have to take my first blog hiatus in 3 + years after all.  There's just too much going on that demands my entire attention and on top of that I've caught a miserable cold when I really can't afford to be sick.

Our children are all here with their families and there's something going on every single day. 

The above hibiscus photo was taken by our very good photographer friend, Dave Au.  He'll also be taking our family photo since it's been five years since we've all been together. 

This was our 2009 photo that Dave took of us when we were last together. 

Time has passed so quickly and so will my hiatus.

I shall look forward to returning with posts about our trip to Hokkaido and our family happenings.

Till then.... aloha and may the sun shine wherever you are. 

Getting His Feet Wet in Bonsai

With our often busy schedule, Art is finding it difficult to find time to care for his bonsai plants after he brought them home from our sensei's (teacher's) house.

We were taught that you really have to keep on top of caring for your little trees.

I was dubious that Art would be able to do this along with all the other projects he's always working on.

However, one evening there he was trying his best to remember what the bonsai sensei, Keith had taught him.

Since we do go on trips, we decided not to put the plants into the shallow pots because they would then need to be watered almost three times a day.

I think he did a rather nice job with this one.

Uh oh... Then I saw that he'd trimmed and shaped our baby Meyer lemon tree into a cascade shape.

He's also been looking at my uncle's giant mango tree and wondering if he could do an air layering on one of the branches to get it to root to make a bonsai mango tree.  I'm very doubtful... but with Art you can never tell.

Propping the Old Lemon Tree

I've often mentioned how mom has her own special way of trimming the lemon tree.  The branches are a confusing tangle of limbs going this way and that.  Since the blossoms are at the new growth, mom doesn't cut those.  She cuts branches that poke her or have black or white flies on them.  Therefore some branches keep growing longer and longer until they touch the ground every time the wind blows.

Art had to devise a method to prop up the lemon branch which will get heavier and heavier as the fruit grows larger and ripens.  I'm also snipping off any further flowers that pop up on that branch so we can cut the branch off later.

And here's a branch that escaped mom's pruning and is pouring out onto the street.  I imagine somebody passing by might decide they feel like a little lemonade is in order.

I hope they enjoy it.

It might be perfect for today as we celebrate our Independence Day!

Happy 4th, everybody!