Blog Hiatus Again…

 This has been a crazy spring and summer for us. I’m really behind on everything.

Two weeks in April after returning from Japan, we were in Chicago in May. A month after we returned from Chicago, our son and family arrived for a month long stay in July.  Our daughter-in-law’s job was moving her from one country to the other side of the world. Luckily, Keola’s job as a data analyst allows him to work from home. 

It has been a very busy, wonderful, extremely exciting month of July for us where every minute was crowded with things to do with our grandsons, son and daughter-in-law. 

I’m therefore having to do another hiatus just to catch up on everything. Phew! I’m sorry to be missing out on all that’s happening with blog buddies. 

But I’ll be baaack… 😁

POSTSCRIPT:

Some of you asked for the corned beef hash patty recipe that I mentioned making for my daughter and family this spring. 

Would you believe I actually wrote a blog post about it in 2017? Here's the link to the post with the recipe.

https://travelerswife.blogspot.com/2017/11/making-hawaiian-corned-beef-hash.html

Surprising Byakkotai Memorials

I wrote earlier about the trip to Mt. Iimori in Japan that our tour took us to in April. This is where those 19 young boys committed seppuku (ritual suicide by disemboweling) thinking that their castle had fallen and they had lost their battle.

The Byakkotai was meant to be a reserve unit composed of young 16-17 year old sons of the Aizu clan samurais. They were organized in different groups and the group that committed seppuku had been cut off from their fighters and they ended up high on Mt. Iimori where they saw the devastation and thought all was lost. Well, actually all was lost eventually.

 We'd gone up an escalator to visit their memorial where 20 young boys had done seppuku. One fellow had not died and was actually rescued by a farmer who took care of him.

We saw the grave site of the 19 boys who'd died. 

The other boy who'd survived actually went on to move to Sendai. When he passed away, his remains were sent to join his comrade in arms.

Well....

I was looking up the story of these Byakkotai boys and saw something about a memorial that we weren't informed of.

I found this on the Everything is Marshmallows blog site:

"...I describe weird things in Japan, not weird things about Japan. This is not a country profile. But ohhhhh my god, I found something really weird: two memorials dedicated to fallen samurai children …donated by Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany!...

....By now, I suppose it’s been so long that the two memorials serve more as historical curios than genuine fascist symbols and the obscurity of Aizu prevents them from doing any real harm. But given ideology’s emphasis on youth mobilization for the fascist struggle and the Byakkotai’s own status as child soldiers, with Iimoriyama honoring the remains of samurai as young as 14, I have to ask a question:

Is it really appropriate to leave two fascist monuments overlooking the active graves of 19 child suicide victims, celebrating the militaristic ethos that led to their deaths on that very spot?

Ohhhhh my god, that’s weird. Maybe the Fascists and Nazis belong in the museum down the hill… let the Byakkotai rest...."

Well... Japan was once part of the Axis powers which I imagine they're not proud of at all once they knew everything. 

And then I'm thinking... what exactly is Fascism. I sort of know but what really? I looked it up and got this on AI.

I looked up fascism on Wikipedia.

What does fascism mean?

Many experts agree that fascism is a mass political movement that emphasizes extreme nationalism, militarism, and the supremacy of the nation over the individual. This model of government stands in contrast to liberal democracies that support individual rights, competitive elections, and political dissent.

In many ways, fascist regimes are revolutionary in nature. They advocate for the overthrow of existing systems of government and the persecution of political enemies. However, such regimes are also highly conservative in their championing of traditional values.

And although fascist leaders typically claim to support the everyman, in reality, their regimes often align with powerful business interests.

Oh goodness... what does this remind you of?

Surprise! Back in Hawaii

One evening, a few nights after our return from Japan and Illinois, Art had mentioned to me sometime in the evening that he'd smacked and killed a cockroach in his sink in our bathroom.

A few hours later I woke up to use the bathroom and while washing my hands at my sink, I was surprised to find his cockroach on top of the Invisalign for my teeth that I had washed and left out to dry the evening before.

I called Art and he was shocked!  He smacked the bug again and then had to smack it one more time before taking it out of the house.

We haven't seen such a giant American cockroach in a long time. 

Well... we now knew we were back in Hawaii for sure.

POSTSCRIPT: I’m sorry I didn’t clarify that I threw away that set of Invisalign. I was already done with that week anyway so I just put on the next set.  😁

And Now Chicago!

I had one week to recover from our trip to Japan and then another week to prepare for our flight in the other direction to Illinois.

That last time we flew to Chicago on United, my tray table was slanted so food kept sliding down. The flight attendant merely put in a job order to get it fixed for another flight.

This time the tray table didn't even come up. I'd seen the white paper taped on it when we came in but the print was so small that I didn't see that it said, "TABLE INOP" in very light faded writing. Art and I both had to eat on his same little tray table. We mentioned it to the flight attendant and this time she gave us $300 for our next flight within a year. 

OK... that's fine.

We landed at O'Hare and our son-in-law arrived to drive us to their house. 

And then Art and I both took a nap.

The time difference between Hawaii and Japan is 5 hours. The difference between Hawaii and Chicago is 5 hours. Hawaii is in the middle so my brain needed to adjust again. My body didn't know what was going on.

And then it was soon time for KC's graduation. It was huge. There were over 900 graduates!!! My Waipahu graduation had a little over 300 graduates and I thought that was a lot. Art's high school had 120. 

There was a party with family friends after the graduation ceremony and her dance performance in the evening. It was a thoroughly busy, exciting, fun and happy day for KC and her friends and family. 

Our son, Keola and family had ordered flowers from overseas to be delivered to KC after the graduation. They also watched the ceremony from the other side of the world. Absolutely amazing!

There were a lot of different kinds of leis sent from Hawaii for KC along with flowers from her performance.

Later in the week, I had a fabulous time having lunch with the wonderful teacher friends I taught with. It was so good to catch up with our lives. It's such an awesome thing that we can keep in touch daily through our text chat group.

Art and I also met up with several other friends and was devastated to hear how some of them were doing. One friend told us he'd been told he has bone cancer and 6 months to...

And so on.... with several other friends... It was hard.

One thing I always prepare when we're in Chicagoland is corned beef hash patties. I make enough to eat and freeze. 

I didn't get to make cornbread which is something KC likes. I'll have to do that next time we go.

Our son-in-law, Ed is a master cook and griller. He made so many of his signature dishes that I actually gained 5 pounds.

Actually, that was their goal because they were a little alarmed at my weight loss.

Ed even got me this quite pricey Linda's Fudge Cake from Cheesecake Factory. They all know it's my favorite chocolate cake.

BUT the best, most awesome, wonderful thing Ed did was to transfer all the data from our fried, dead desktop computers onto new computers for us to bring home. I couldn't believe how much smaller computers were now. It took him a while to get the programs I needed and to make sure they worked properly on the newer Windows 11 system. (Will write more about this later.)

And so our two weeks in Chicagoland sped by and we returned home. 

My brother has been awesome in caring for mom while we've been away on these trips. 

And yes, it would be another couple of weeks before I was back to normal again. Art? He recovered a whole lot quicker than I did. I don't know how he does it.

Osaka to Tokyo to Honolulu

April 27, 2025 Sunday

Osaka to Honolulu

We had been gone from Hawaii now for 20 days. 

We woke up at 5:00 AM, had a wonderful buffet breakfast at the hotel and were on our way to the Shin-Osaka train station at 9:00 AM.

We changed trains at Tokyo Station and continued on our way to Narita Airport.

Once at the airport, we found the Yamato Transport baggage room where we were relieved to find our 2 suitcases and big box of items we'd bought in Japan while on the tour that we'd sent from the Mito hotel 3 days ago.

We then checked in for our ANA flight to Hawaii which would take off at 8:26 PM.

Our plane landed at Honolulu International Airport at 8:29 AM. 

We collected our luggage and was picked up by my brother and returned home to find mom happy to see us. 

I was shocked to see our orchid still had flowers blooming after so many weeks. 

We unpacked, sorted our laundry, etc. and stayed awake until about 8:30 PM. 

I can never sleep on airplanes so I wondered how long I'd been awake.

I had AI figure it out for me. Granted I'm not understanding why it says I've been awake for 27 hours and then also says the Total awake time is 39 hours.

Whatever the case. I wondered how Cory Booker was able to stay awake for 25 hours and 4 minutes in the Senate (March 31st to April 1st) with his symbolic protest against Trump without a bathroom break or food. Granted, I'd been up much longer although I got to eat and use the bathroom and didn't have to give a speech. 😄

However, I did pay for this abuse of my body and brain because it took me over a week to recover from this trip after which I had one week to prepare for a trip in the other direction to see our granddaughter graduate from high school in Illinois.

Osaka EXPO - Day 2

April 26, Saturday
Osaka EXPO Day 2

We went to breakfast at the hotel buffet area and was surprised that there were very few people there. 

There was a delicious assortment of food for us to try and we fortified us for the day ahead.

To be perfectly honest, I was NOT looking forward to this. Yesterday had been too exhausting.

It was now Saturday so as expected there were more people heading to the EXPO.  

Surprisingly, there weren't as many students there on Saturday.

Art had his list of places that he'd researched, but when we entered the EXPO and I saw the pavilion for Korea, I told him we needed to see this because.... well... our wonderful son-in-law is Korean American and there wasn't any line to go in.

And you know what? It was great! There was a light show at the start with K-Pop music playing in the first room. (I assumed it was K-Pop.) The second room had a bubble machine.

I got this from the Chosun Biz En website:

"Upon entering Hall 2, there were concrete walls. When air was blown into pipes installed everywhere, bubbles gradually fell from the hydrogen vehicle Nexo engine from Hyundai hanging from the ceiling. Director Go Ju-won explained, "The oxygen that the visitors exhale in the desolate city combines with the hydrogen from the hydrogen fuel cell to become water that falls as concrete and then recovers the space."

The last room/Hall had a girl from the future who finds her grandfather's broken cellphone and and completes the music he'd been writing. 

And then yes... more K-Pop dancing and music.

It was great and I was energized to see more, BUT I told Art to forget his list and let's just go to pavilions with no lines and no necessary reservations. He agreed.

We went to Azerbaijan next which was OK.

Turkey had a small display. We'd been to Turkey and enjoyed the memories it brought up.

Then we came to Thailand which was a lot of fun. There were giant wooden elephants outside and a video inside showing parts of the country we remembered visiting while a couple docents danced in front. Displays showed the many accomplishments of the country.

We've also been to Spain and enjoyed their pavilion a lot which included the story of Don Quixote. It told of Spain's past connection to Japan.  

Saudi Arabia had a huge display of all their accomplishments. 

We then stopped for lunch at a fun food court enjoyed our sushis and seafood rice bowl. 

Their recycling station was impressive too.

What I liked best about Indonesia was all the different translations for many of their sayings.

Steadfast in purpose, driven in spirit.

We are one with nature.

Transparency brings prosperity.

Diversity fuels unity and solidarity.

To live is to uplift others.

United in love through life's journey.

Where there's will, there's a way.

Warm not the earth nor the heavens.

We love peace but we love freedom more. 

With a peaceful heart, everything feels right.

Each step shapes the path ahead. 

Peace thrives when we respect others.

Live righteously, be blessed eternally.

And so many others.

Seeing the Australia pavilion brought back a lot of happy memories.

Serbia was next and their display was on the importance of play. 

The next EXPO would be in Belgrade, Serbia in 2027.

They gave out marbles with the colors of their flag.

We went to a small exhibit for Bangladesh because we'd gone there to visit our son, Keola who'd been doing research there.

Art had also visited Kenya when Keola was in the Peace Corps so of course, we had to check out that exhibit. Maurice was very happy to talk to Art about their experiences.

When we think back on it, it's funny to think we went to 5 exhibits on our first day at the EXPO and was exhausted. On this second day, we went to 11 exhibits and loved every bit of it. It was far better to just go and see the pavilions where there were no lines, friendly guides, and smiling faces. 

Since we enjoyed our dinner at Yayoi Teishoku restaurant yesterday, we decided to go there again on the way back to our hotel. When I texted my cousin in Tokyo about this, he said Yoyoi Teishoku is a very well known, popular restaurant. As a matter of fact, I just looked online and there are three Yayoi Teishoku restaurants in California. Wow!

It had been such a wonderful day that we stopped at the 7/11 next to our hotel and bought some ice cream bars for desserts.

It was all really such a lovely way to end our trip.

P.S. Thank you to all who were concerned for us about the tsunami threat on Tuesday. We were holding our breaths not knowing how bad it was going to be. The news were showing some tourists who were refusing to leave the beach. That was not smart. I wrote a blog post in 2017 about tsunamis that hit the Big Island and Japan. https://travelerswife.blogspot.com/2017/04/when-historical-catastrophe-becomes.html

It shows how seriously you need to heed the warnings.

Returning to Osaka EXPO After 50 Years

April 25, 2025 Friday

EXPO Day 1

I wrote earlier about how Art and I had managed to go to the Osaka EXPO in 1970. He was in the Air Force by then and had gone sometime in spring. I'd gone with a 6 week-college credit Art and Architecture tour. We would meet the following year.

Anyway, Art thought we needed to extend our time in Japan this time after the tour to return to Osaka for the 2025 EXPO, but together this time. Good gosh! It's been 55 years!

Back then, we were very impressed with the USA Pavilion. There were displays of the moon capsule and we all got to gaze at a rather large moon rock. 

OK... now here we are in Osaka again. We knew it could be a rather tiring day so we bolstered ourselves with a big breakfast at the hotel. The rooms may have been small, but the breakfast buffet was very nice.

Art had done a lot of research online to see what pavilions we should attend.

Tickets also had to be ordered online.

Ummmm...

The trains were PACKED!

There were a couple of train transfers before we arrived at the Yumeshima (Dream Island) stop. 

Our tickets were for 10:00 AM and I was surprised at the crowds that were waiting outside.

When the group in front of us heard us talking in English, the woman turned to speak to us. She happened to be an English language teacher with a few of her middle school students and a department head. 

The girls absolutely loved practicing what they'd learned with us and it really passed the time enjoyably. The teacher was happy hearing that I was a retired teacher from the US. 

We passed through a security check.

The first place on Art's list was France. And yes. They did an amazing job with their pavilion highlighting a lot on their culture, arts and fashion. Their theme was a Hymn to Love.

This was an exhibit linking Mont-Saint Michel and a Japanese torii.

And yes, we needed to see the USA Pavilion to see what they would be highlighting.

It emphasized working with other countries, inviting students from abroad to study at our universities, and the diversity of our population.

Obviously, all this was created before Trump came into office. 😏

As in 1970, our space program was especially highlighted. There was a long line to see a moon rock and attendants rushed you through it saying you could take just two photos and move on.

Unlike 1970, I really couldn't believe I was taking a photo of a moon rock.

All in all...

I was rather underwhelmed by our pavilion.

Next on Art's list was the Austrian Pavilion.

This is from the Smithsonian website:

Lamarr shared her concept for using “frequency hopping” with the U.S. Navy and codeveloped a patent with Antheil 1941. Today, her innovation helped make possible a wide range of wireless communications technologies, including Wi-Fi, GPS, and Bluetooth. 

I was surprised at learning about her accomplishments as a scientist a while ago and remembered seeing old movies of Hedy Lamarr while growing up.

And now the 3rd Pavilion. We were doing a lot of walking looking for the different pavilions and I was hot and getting quite tired.

Switzerland was next. 

They had a bubble machine which was fun. You could speak a wish into a funnel and a bubble would rise up with your wish.

There were more exhibits showing their advancements with robotics. 

OK... This was a Swiss display about a robotic cake. 

Sign on display: 

The Robocake features two edible dancing bears and LED candles powered by edible chocolate batteries. Would you eat one? 

I was REALLY tired by now so we stopped for refreshments, and then just took the escalator to the upper level so we could have a bird's eye view of the area.

It was now getting late, but we stopped at a pavilion that showcased smaller countries. We went in so we could visit countries that we and/or our son had traveled to.

I was REALLY, REALLY tired now. 😫 It was exhausting to walk everywhere in the hot sun looking for all the different pavilions. I was not looking forward to returning the following day, but the tickets had already been bought.

We boarded the train back to our MyStays hotel. 

As we (me actually...Art is in much better athletic shape) trudged back to our hotel, we stopped by the Yayoi Teishoku Restaurant. 

There was that machine again to take your order.

Art goofed and actually mistakenly ended up with two salads which he was happy with. Incredibly, our bill for both of us was $12.40.  

We stopped at a convenience store and bought big bottles of tea and water. 

I drank a lot of both that evening and slept really well.

Traveling South on the Shinkansen (Bullet Train)

April 24, 2025 Thursday
Mito to Shin-Osaka

We went down for breakfast and gave our tip envelopes to Micah, Matt, Erika, Jackie, and Tiger. They'd made our tour truly interesting and informative as well.

This was our last breakfast together and it was sad to say goodbye to everybody. We always meet the nicest people on the tours that we've taken.

We walked across from the hotel to the train station and bought our tickets to travel to Tokyo Station where we would change trains to continue on to Shin Osaka.

We left Mito at 9:53 AM and arrived at Tokyo Station at 11:13 AM.

Our tour group was leaving the hotel at 2:00 PM for Narita Airport to return to Hawaii. My cousin, Arnold and Nancy would be leaving at the same time.

We arrived at the Shin-Osaka station at 2:06 PM and bought reserved tickets to go Narita Airport in 3 days.

After arriving at the Shin-Osaka station, we talked to a person manning the EXPO booth. He along with several others gave us friendly explanations on what to expect at the EXPO the following day.

Another very helpful fellow also gave us a map written in English for the EXPO. I told him his command of the English language was the best we'd experienced in Japan. Yes, I got a big smile for that.

OK, I know this is crazy, but we then didn't know how to get out of the station. The place is huge! I had to bother a young fellow who was cleaning the floors to ask him how.

This very wonderful fellow asked where our hotel was and then guided us out to the correct exit. I wish we had more candy to give out. 

We do meet the nicest people in Japan.

It was about a 15 minute walk to our Hotel MyStays.

The temperature was about 76 degrees F. Very comfortable.

We've been at other Hotel MyStays, but this one had the smallest rooms we've seen yet. 

It's a good thing we didn't bring all our luggage!

Across the hotel was Nakau-Shin Osaka so we decided to try them out. The pictures out front looked very tasty and we were hungry since we missed lunch.

Uh oh...

No one took your order. You had to key it in to this computer thing. 

It's a good thing we had something called the SUICA card on our phone with money on it to use in Japan.

We enjoyed the unagi (broiled eel) rice bowl with salad and miso soup.

And so our tour was ended that day and our EXPO adventure would bring the following day.

Flowers in the Rain

 April 23, 2025 Wednesday
Nemophila Flower Garden at Hitachi Seaside Park

This would be our last full day with our tour group before we'd be striking out on our own again. I was looking forward to seeing the Nemophila flowers after seeing Yoko's photos on her blog Stardust Talk. 

We'd been very fortunate on this trip with very light rain on just a few days.

But today, it really rained.

There was a little shuttle bus that took us to the hill where the Nemophila were blooming.

Art started to climb that hill but stopped half way and came down to where I was. I'm not a fan of walking in the wind and rain. My shoes were soaked.

But yes, the delicate blue flowers were beautiful adorned with raindrops.

We were taken to a seafood market where we bought some dried sweet potatoes that Erika recommended.

We were then driven to Don Quijote department store and  then Aeon Mall where we could explore and buy last minute omiyage (gifts) or whatever to help Japan's economy.

Freshness Burger was recommended to us by Matt. We tried their Kobe beef burgers and yes, it was very good.

I was taking a photo of Art with his burger to show his sister when a lady at the table next to ours offered to take our photos. That was so very kind of her. There were other places in Japan where people offered to take our photos and it raised our spirits even higher to meet such friendly people.

One of Art's favorite memories and mine happened here.

Lori, one of our tour members at another table came by to say she was happy to meet us, but especially to tell us that she loved seeing how well Art and I got along and were so loving with each other. This surprised us. We don't hold hands and don't tend to show affection in public. We've both been raised in a very old Japanese way by our parents. 

It was Art who said later in the day how much he loved what Lori had said. And it makes me smile to think of it.

Back at the hotel in Mito, we went to the front desk where a VERY KIND desk clerk wrote out the tedious Yamato Transport forms to send our two suitcases and our uuummm.... large box of "fun" things we bought on our trip to Narita Airport.

We went down a little later and gave her a couple of tiny bags of chocolate macdamia nut candies. She was so very happy and grateful that it really made us happy too.

Our plans were to travel down to Osaka the following day to see the EXPO without our heavy luggage and box. 

We again bought some carry-out dinners and relaxed in our room with it.

Our tour was ending and we would be on our own again. I was nervous. Art was looking forward to the adventure.