Irresolutions

pirate courtney

Ahoy, thar be 2014 on the horizon.

I’m not exactly opposed to goal setting, but annual resolutions feel sort of arbitrary and can be rendered irrelevant as the year unfolds. Plus, I’m a bit of a contrarian by nature, so once I’ve decided I ought to do something, it morphs from an aspiration to an expectation hanging over my head in an extremely unattractive way. Reflecting on the previous year’s goals is a universally disappointing experience.  Has anyone ever completed all of their resolutions? So, in the spirit of cutting myself a break for 2014, I’m listing some highly-achievable, highly non-committal irresolutions. But you still can’t hold me to them.

1. I will probably not begin tending to my cuticles, but I could at least start removing my nail polish before it’s chipped halfway off on its own.

2. I don’t intend to give up any food groups for any set length of time, unless I find a really fun-looking juice cleanse or something.

3. I may quit conditioning my hair in pursuit of touseledness.

4. I likely won’t begin ironing my clothing more than semi-annually. I will probably use my travel steamer in moments of desperation.

5. I’d like to join a CSA but, you know, we’ll see.

6. I will probably eat less fast food, maybe with the exception of mighty wings and fountain diet cokes.

7. I might work on my omelet making technique, but I might prefer fried eggs anyway and give up without caring too much.

8. I won’t learn to crochet or start watching Two and a Half Men. Pretty resolute on that one.

9. I will probably eat a lot of aged gouda when I get back to the states, but I’ll try to keep it within reason. Less than my bodyweight anyway.

10. I will try to buy more handmade things, provided they are of good quality.

11. I will probably forget this list sometime around April and not think about it again.

courtney at the beach

Happy New Year!

  1. I got a vitamix for Christmas and have been juicing my brains out. I'll give you some of my favorite combos so far :)

    Caitlin — December 31, 2013
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  2. Caitlin! I want a new blender bad! Do you strain your juices from the vitamix, or drink them with pulp? Cody thinks we need a separate juicer and blender, but I'm thinking no.

    courtney — January 1, 2014
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Knives, All Kinds of Knives

I think wedding registries are kind of hilarious, particularly for people who get married young, like I did, and have no idea what’s really necessary to keep a household running without contributions from five other roommates. When I got married I registered for a run of the mill, moderately priced knife block set at Target and I’ve been tolerating it humorlessly ever since. So, I’ve never had really “good” knives – knives that are worth having professionally sharpened or washing by hand. What’s worse is I’m an adult now, who has cooked professionally and who now frequently cooks at home. I know how important it is to have quality knives and how much safer you are when you cut with blades that are sharp and strong.

As luck would have it, knives are bit of a specialty here on Tanegashima. So these recent purchases will do double duty for me as a keepsake from our time here, and a solid knife set that will carry me through the next couple of decades at least.

tanegashima knife

Bonus: they’re affordable. These are the standard carbon steel home-cook grade knives, hand-made on this island, averaging about $35 each, (when you can buy them from the maker) and deliciously sharp. There’s a professional range of knives as well, that cost between $80 and $200 a piece.

tanegashima knives

The knife below is for hacking heads off fish, but I’m thinking it will perform similarly well on hard winter squashes or whole, large birds.

tanegashima knife

The knife makers here also make scissors that are supposed to be perfectly balanced and engineered in a way that causes them to become sharper with use. So, witchcraft?

tanegashima scissors

These are my new babies. Welcome to the knife drawer guys! Also, guess what my entire family is getting for Christmas?

  1. Um... I want some. They look so fun and cool! I am so jealous of your adventures. If I had the obey, I'd be on a plane right now for a visit. It looks like such a cute, fun place. I miss you!

    Tricia L — December 30, 2013
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  2. they look so rustic! love it. they will make for a good conversation piece when you have dinner guests. but yeah, cutting with a good knife can make all the difference. i definitely have my favorites around here. and i agree about the registries. for our baby registry with afton, i was just like...how the heck am i supposed to do this? i have no idea what we need.

    miranda — December 31, 2013
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  3. Tricia! I wish you could come here! I want to feed you kampachi sashimi at my favorite sushi place, and freaking fried chicken allllll day. And to both Mir and Tricia, whenever I have a baby I'll be asking for lots of advice about the registry :)

    courtney — December 31, 2013
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A Christmas Surprise

driving in tanegashima

So the other day on Tanegashima we were driving from Nakatane to Minamitane, and we saw something peculiar on the side of the road.

christmas goats

We had to investigate.

christmas goats

It was a Christmas miracle. Goats dressed in yuletide garb.

christmas goats

One more thing to make me want to move to Tanegashima.

christmas goats

That’s me trying to sneak up on a baby goat, unsuccessfully.

christmas goats

Finally one decided to give me a suspicious sniff.

christmas goats

CHRISTMAS GOATS you guys.

  1. HA! That's hilarious. Who would have thought...a little yuletide Tanegashima style!

    lisa — December 27, 2013
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  2. So darling! A nativity of sorts?

    Amy — December 27, 2013
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Yakushima

20131223-211202.jpg

I am on monkey island for Christmas/my birthday (have I mentioned they are one and the same? well there you go). Blogging from Cody’s phone because I have no wifi access. Yes, I have seen a monkey. It was everything I had hoped. I will do my best to update, but if I am too busy lolloping about with exotic wildlife, please forgive me.

  1. Have fun on Monkey Island...sounds like a TV show from the 70's.

    lisa — December 23, 2013
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  2. It does, doesn't it! Havin' a wild time on Monkey Island!

    courtney — December 27, 2013
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Not in the Guidebook

japanese temple

I’ve spent a month in Japan. I can’t even believe it. Only three more to go, and I’m doing my best to soak up every minute. In my one month I’ve observed a few things that I hadn’t anticipated.

1. Fried chicken. Not that I didn’t expect to see fried chicken at all, I just didn’t expect to see it quite so much, or for it to be so ridiculously good. We have a favorite sushi place that we’ve been visiting about once a week, and on a recent visit the owner said “next time, chicken fry”. So that’s what we did. His fried chicken was probably the best I’ve had, and he is duly proud of it. But I’ve had similarly delicious versions at a hotel, a casual lunch place, and a fried rice place. And it’s not just a dish that gets thrown at the gaijin – I see Japanese people order it pretty regularly. In fact, KFC is the most popular American restaurant in Japan, particularly around Christmas, when Japanese people have to make dine-in reservations in advance and pre-order their family-sized Christmas chicken buckets (that’s a link to a Smithsonian blog article I found about Christmas KFC in Japan, not some bit of spam). I have the sneaking suspicion that Japanese KFC is better than American KFC.

2. Portion sizes. American foods in Japan tend to come in small portions, like little tiny cheeseburgers and a side of 15 shoestring french fries. Japanese style meals, on the other hand, are huge. Especially dinner. Our little tiny Japanese friend, Suja, basically ate us under the table at one meal. We started with sashimi, then gyoza, then roasted fish, then a bowl of noodle soup with stewed vegetables, then kimchi, steamed snap peas, miso soup, and of course rice. We were slumping in our chairs, moaning and clutching our guts, so far from finishing, and she cleaned all eight of her dishes easily. Also, the average bowl of ramen eaten by the average small Japanese woman for lunch is bigger than my head. Go figure.

3. Napkins, or the lack there-of. People in Japan tend to carry their own hand-towels (called tenugis).  You’re about as likely to get a box of tissues on your restaurant table table in lieu of napkins as you are to get nothing. So we have to come prepared. Bathrooms are the same, though hand dryers appear here and there.

4. Sesame dressing. Not the dark brown super-gingery vinaigrette you get on “asian” salads in the states. This stuff is made from toasted, pulverized sesame seeds and it is creamy and rich. Suja said she’d teach me to make it. I will be her shadow until she relents.

5. Low expectations. An American can pretty much dazzle all the locals by saying “please” in Japanese (onegaishimasu). They will compliment you on your mastery of the language. I feel like I’m back in kindergarten, getting gold stickers for raising my hand. It’s actually preeetty fun. But sad. At the same time so very sad.

Anyway, Cody’s been working twelve-hour plus shifts straight through the weekends for the last two weeks, but he’s finally finished with that nonsense ’til after Christmas. Next week we’re thinking of taking a trip to the neighboring island of Yakushima, which is also known as monkey island. So I might get to spend my merry little birthday with monkeys. Squeeeeeeal.

  1. every post i read of yours i think the japanese have got it all figured it out. for instance, american food portions are smaller, because american food is so bad for you! and then carrying your own napkins around so there's not a ton of waste and so that you don't share germs with everyone. low expectations...duh. every good relationship is built on low expectations. you'll have to do a blog post with the sesame dressing when suja teaches you. sounds yummy.

    miranda — December 21, 2013
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  2. I agree! it's like the Japanese have looked at everything and said "is this the really best way to be doing things?" and if not, they make a change. And yes, the sesame dressing. I will get a recipe or die trying.

    courtney — December 21, 2013
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  3. jon's been trying to describe the fried chicken from japan for YEARS. every post i read convinces me more and more of the need to get over there sooner than later. and i'll do whatever is necessary to get that sesame dressing recipe from you once you have it :)

    callie — December 26, 2013
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  4. Callie, get to Japan ASAP (and Tanegashima while you're at it if you want the small-town experience). They marinade their fried chicken in soy sauce and garlic and ginger and I hear they're dusting it in potato starch instead of flour, but I'll need to look into that for confirmation. Oishii des.

    courtney — December 27, 2013
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Thanksgiving in Japan

Publishing a blog post about Thanksgiving when we’re already halfway to Christmas isn’t the kind of thing a good blogger would do. But those of you who know me also know that I’m not exactly breaking character here.

Anyway, the idea to prepare a Thanksgiving dinner for the NASA people out here in Japan came to me as a reckless whim while I was sitting in the hotel dining room about a week and a half before the holiday. I started thinking hypothetical logistics, fully aware that the whole idea was ill-advised. I was just daydreaming. But then, in a serendipitous moment Suja, our Japanese translator and general fixer, walked into the dining room. Before I could stop myself, the words tumbled out of my mouth: “can I make Thanksgiving dinner for everyone?” I was thinking I could casually throw together a couple of nostalgic dishes for the 30-some people I’d met who’d be missing their families. Suja liked the idea, but had a better grasp of the scope of the project than I did. She said there’d probably be 100 people who would want to come, no way would we be able to find turkeys on the island (Japanese people generally find them dry and I generally agree), and the kitchen at the Sun Pearl has no oven. Did I still want to do it? Yep. And that was it.

Thanksgiving in Japan

But word started getting around that someone was planning a Thanksgiving without turkeys. We thought Korean barbecue would be a tasty alternative – but the general consensus among the NASA folk was that it just wouldn’t be Thanksgiving without turkeys. Our friend, and Cody’s colleague, Lou took it upon himself to do some late-night networking at the karaoke bars in town and came back to us with news: he’d found a guy, who knew a guy, who could get us turkeys, and he’d get them cooked and delivered, with gravy no less. We were all channeling Goodfellas in this turkey acquisition and it felt sort of illicit.

Thanksgiving in Japan

Two other items we had a tricky time finding were green beans and white potatoes. We ended up paying about five dollars a pound for the white potatoes (they’re out of season here) which we had to order from a farmer through Mama-san. Once we figured out the Japanese name for green beans “ingemame” (roughly translated to mean English beans) we were able to get our paws on some of those too.

The last puzzle was dessert. Remember how I had no access to ovens? I asked Midori-san if she knew of any bakeries that made apple pies or pumpkin pies and she said she didn’t. So she took it upon herself to enlist her adorable friend Tomomi-san to make us some gorgeous and delicious apple tarts, which were a perfect substitute.

Cooking in Japan

The night before our party, Cody and I got back from dinner and went to the dining room to do some prep, where we found Mama-san sitting stringing a huge pile of ingemame for our meal. I made a fuss and told her to stop, but she wouldn’t, so I joined her. Cody and I had a nice little moment (I should say a nice couple of hours) working with Mama-san and Midori-san and Seki-san to string beans, skin onions, stem mushrooms, and peel potatoes. When I told them to go to bed and let me do the work they refused and said, simply “we like to help people”.

The day of went amazingly well. Cody, Suja, Seki-san and I went into the kitchens at 10am and took things over. After about an hour, the kitchen’s head cook showed up and started sneaking around watching us make idiots of ourselves with their foreign equipment. He had a little smirk on his face as he observed and nudged us in the right direction when we started looking lost. He saw me dumping frying oil into a pot and said “no no no” and uncovered a deep-fryer I’d missed somehow. He was like a little genie/kitchen ninja who just quietly let us go about our business, but swooped in with solutions when we got confused.

Sweet Potatoes

Sweet potatoes are luckily one of Tanegashima’s primary crops, so we had plenty.

Japanese Thanksgiving Prep

That’s Suja’s angry-looking Korean barbecue marinade on the left. Good stuff – much tamer than it looks. And don’t worry, I’m never doing my hair like that again. I was going for a low, maybe slightly mussed chignon, but clearly it went all Hester Prynne. I just love being in photos.

Japanese Kitchen

So the guy we’d put our faith in to source, cook, and deliver turkeys came through. The four pretty birds came to us from Australia, via Tokyo, and were cooked impressively well by two separate local restaurants that each had just enough oven space for two turkeys. OH and gravy.

Chopsticks and Thanksgiving

Successes of the night: the Japanese people really liked the Turkey, and while the Americans were obsessed with the crunchy almond and cashew brulee’d sweet potato situation I came up with, I saw several piles of untouched sweet potatoes come back on Japanese plates. Different palates, you know? The only real fail of the night: we ran out of gravy.

Cody at Thanksgiving

Cody was such a champ, along with Seki-san and Suja, the NASA folks that washed dishes and served food, and our personal kitchen ninja whose name I still don’t know (Suja asked and he said just call me “brother” in Japanese, which is sort of deceptively vague if you ask me – typical ninja behavior). We worked all day and ate our dinner standing up, between cleaning and serving food, and I had such an inordinate amount of fun I think I missed my calling as a caterer.

  1. So much work! So many cute Japanese helpers! Are you going to tackle Christmas dinner?

    Carrie — December 15, 2013
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  2. Your heart is so dang big. I miss you so.

    Caitlin — December 15, 2013
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  3. Well done! Would like to taste your crunchy almond and cashew brulee’d sweet potatoes.

    Lisa — December 15, 2013
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  4. this is so fantastic! and pretty miraculous how everything came together...bravo!

    Callie C. — December 16, 2013
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  5. everything looks amazing! What an amazing experience. Bravo!

    Ashlee — December 17, 2013
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  6. So fabulous!!!

    Amy — December 18, 2013
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  7. wow, black market turkeys, $5/lb potatoes, and a crazy kitchen ninja. i'm so glad everything worked so well! love the pictures. and i love that when i saw that picture of you i thought to myself, oh cute, i've never seen courtney do her hair like that and then you mention it below. haha...you are so funny. so glad you guys are having fun!!

    miranda — December 18, 2013
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Around Minamitane

tanegashima vending machine

One of the first things I noticed about Japan is that they’ve thought of everything. When I stepped out of the shower at our hotel in Tokyo I looked at the fogged mirror and noticed a perfectly clear rectangle of mirror-space above the sink. Eastern hemisphere phenomenon? NO – JAPANESE DESIGN. Exhibit B: the vending machines. You’ll notice the top row is made up of bottled tea and coffee with red labels. Anything with a red label is dispensed hot. That’s right, hot vending machines.

tanegashima clouds

So anyway, Minamitane is a small town, about a 15 minute drive from the closest beach. There are gardens planted between the shops on the main drag and farmland lining the highway to the shore. The newest building was probably finished in the 60’s. People dress in utilitarian layers and more than once I’ve seen someone who looked over the age of 70 hop on a bike and ride down the street, probably to do some grocery shopping or fishing.

ramen and flowers

I feel like all the islands I’ve been to (so, Hawaii) have this wind-whipped, mother nature is in charge kind of vibe – and Tanegashima is no different. It’s like the people just let things grow the way they want to, and grow they do.

leaves growing in a grate

I think an American town of comparable size to Minamitane would have a handful of restaurants to choose from: probably a McDonalds, an Arbys, an Applebees, and a Panera Bread or something. Then they’d have a Wal Mart and maybe a Home Depot. Minamitane only has two chain stores: the co-op, which is delightfully punctuated to read A-COOP. I just call it the coop. Locals call it a-co-opu. It’s a grocery store. And then there’s the everyone store which is basically a super deluxe 7-11 where I get all my insane pastries. More on that later.

minamitane a-coop

Instead of Arby’s or McDonalds, Minamitane has over thirty independently owned restaurants and almost as many karaoke bars. Most of the businesses here are family-run and each one has a character all it’s own. One of my favorite places is called the Sama-Sama. It’s a yakitori place and the teeny kitchen is tucked behind the bar, so you can see everything happening. The cook wears a bandana on his head and grills with the window open to keep the smoke situation to a minimum, but the whole place smells like burning meat anyway and I love it. I’m going to do a whole post on the Sama-Sama sometime, but all the restaurants here are just bubbling over with nonchalant charm.

tanegashima dog

If you walk around town you’ll notice a lot of businesses put bowls of salt outside their door. These are not for eating. They’re for good luck. Also there are a lot of dogs.

japanese car and some moss

That’s me leaning on our Japanese whip. We’ve only had to put gas in it once in the three weeks we’ve been here. And that’s with Cody driving it at least a half hour every day, and it was only half-empty. Below is a picture of Cody and I out to dinner at a Korean barbecue place and a sign with the town mascot – a cute little rocket astronaut boy. He’s on all the bus stop signs.

tanegashima mascot

Apparently rocket launches are a big deal here. All the hotels are booked up for the end of February and Midori-san said people will come and sleep in their cars if they have to. So while every town has a mascot and a thing that they take pride in, Minamitane and Tanegashima have more to boast about than most.

  1. Tanegashima looks inviting. Every picture you've posted is a beautiful sunny day. Do you ever see any rain? Apparently venting machines are quite the thing (learned that from The Amazing Race). Tokyo has roving venting machines....yep, they seem to think of everything.

    Lisa — December 10, 2013
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  2. Lisa, yes it rains! It's actually raining right now a little. More than rain though, we get wind. Howling wind. But we've had a lot of gorgeous days too.

    courtney — December 10, 2013
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  3. i'm completely enamored by this whole experience. i got four hours of sleep last night, jon is out of town and i can't stop reading...such great posts :)

    Callie — December 11, 2013
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  4. Thanks, Callie! It's nice to know this labor of love is being appreciated. The feeling's mutual by the way! Your blog is my newest favorite.

    courtney — December 11, 2013
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  5. Loved your blog!! Your friend, Shirley!!! No NASA!!!!!

    Shirley Dion — March 2, 2014
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The Hotel Sunpearl

Cody and I looked into staying in an apartment here in Tanegashima, but ultimately decided against it. As introverts, we knew our only hope of meeting people and staying out of the hole of solitude was to live in town, near people and shops and food. It’s working pretty well so far.

hotelsunpearl

So we’re living at the Hotel Sunpearl in the town of Minamitane. The hotel is basically full of NASA people right now so we see lots of Americans every day, but it seems to be a pretty happenin’ place for Japanese people too.

nasa stickers

Every night the hotel owner, Midori-san puts out a list with everyone’s names where they order their breakfast and have the option of adding a bento box for lunch the next day. In the morning the boxes are stacked and wrapped and waiting to be taken to work.

tanegashima 20

For breakfast we have two choices: western style or Japanese style. The typical Japanese breakfast looks like this: pickled vegetables, some kind of meat, a piece of fish, miso soup, a packet of nori, rice, an egg (raw if you’re Japanese, boiled if you’re scared or American) and green tea. I’ve had the Japanese breakfast a few times, and it’s fun, but I rarely eat all the pickled vegetables and I feel bad leaving things on my tray, so I usually opt for western. That piece of fish there looks scary, but it was braised in sweet soy sauce and it tasted shockingly good.

japanese style breakfast

The Sunpearl is home to lots of goldfish that I’ve taken an unhealthy interest in (probably because I’m missing Murdock). One has been floating upside-down for a couple of weeks now and has me concerned, but he keeps on kicking. Midori-san made fun of me when I told her I was worried about him and suggested I take him to the hospital. Maybe I will! Harumph.

japanese fish and table

Freshly washed and folded NASA shirts.

nasa laundry at the sunpearl

Midori-san and her mom (Mama-san) have been keeping an eye on me since I’m at the Sunpearl most of the day. One day I was eating a salad for lunch in the dining room and Midori-san said “only salad”? and gave me this rice ball to fill out my meal. The tray on the right is a typical western-style breakfast. That bowl at the top was mushroom chowder, which was kind of an odd thing for breakfast, but man was it good. It seems like Japanese people make chowder whenever they have a bunch of vegetables to use up, and I’m going to follow suit when I get home.

rice ball and western breakfast

Mama-san cooks lunch for the hotel staff sometimes and every now and then I’ll get a knock on my door with a surprise treat from her. One day she even made okonomiyaki and brought it to my room. I was worried I’d have to hide it in the trash (based on my previous experience with okonomiyaki), but it was delicious.

mamasan's okonomiyaki

So this is my home until March. I’m quite taken with it.

  1. I am so glad Midori-san and Mama-san are taking good care of you! Does Cody get to wear NASA shirts?

    Carrie — December 8, 2013
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  2. okonomiyaki is IT! there are definitely bad ones out there, but when you have a good one, you're hooked for life, yeah? i'm still trying to figure out how i didn't know about this blog before now... loving all your posts though...it's so fun to see it all unfold :)

    callie — December 9, 2013
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  3. Ma, yes Cody wears the NASA shirts and he looks like a dweeb. Callie, I'm plotting a way to bribe mama-san for her okonomiyaki method because it was ridiculously good and life won't be the same.

    courtney — December 9, 2013
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Tokyo to Tanegashima

tokyo skyline

Our last morning in Tokyo was quick. We had time to pack our bags, eat breakfast, and catch our bus. Our trip into the city from the airport was in the dark, so getting a little tour of Tokyo by bus during the day was a bit of a treat. Even better, it was rush hour (no sarcasm) and we got to do a lot of people watching.

tokyo skyline

People in Tokyo mostly commute on foot or via train. The train system is pretty great and seems to go anywhere you’d need it to. Another note, people in Tokyo dress really really well. I’ve only ever seen that many men in suits at church or like, pictures of Congress. You will likely feel shabby the moment you get there (especially after a 13 hour flight) so maybe pack a blazer or something.

tokyo view from bus

People in Tokyo are also generally thin (from the walking I assume) and considerate. You want to hate them all for being so perfectly put together, but you can’t because they’re also so kind, aware of foreigners, and willing to help if you need it. Respect for others is what motivates them to wear medical masks when they’re feeling under the weather. It’s also why this country is so remarkably safe.

tokyo rush hour

Kind of a side-note, there also seems to be a huge emphasis on family here. People take their kids everywhere, even at night, to shop and eat and socialize – and their presence is tolerated, even welcomed, by the general public. I’ve never seen so many cute little babies strapped to moms and dads bellies, mellow and just along for the ride.

tokyo commuters

So, basically I’d move here tomorrow if I could. And if I thought they’d let me bring Murdock. This sentiment has taken me quite by surprise. I realize I’m gushing, and I’m sure I haven’t begun to grasp the complexities of the culture here, but on the surface it’s everything I’d want in a city.

tokyo city

This was the flight from Kagoshima to Tanegashima with a little view of Mt. Fuji.

mount fuji from the air

And once we arrived, I hopped in a tiny Japanese car with the steering on the right and it was weird.

japanese car

This was around the time I accused Cody of trying to drive us off the road. Being on the other side is hard to get used to, both as a passenger and as a driver. It’s easy to miss stop signs and crosswalks when you’re thinking about which lane you should end up in after you turn. So it’s a good thing the max speed is around 35 miles per hour.

driving on the left on tanegashima

We found our favorite new chips, and a little typo on some plastic cups.

japanese things

First dinner on Tanegashima: Cody had curry rice (pronounced ka-ray ree-su in Japanese) and I had the “yakitori special”. This was the first meal I devoured with abandon.

curry rice kare risu

yakitori special

I loved Tokyo, and I can’t wait to go back. Tanegashima is a completely different thing – rustic and utilitarian and charming. But while the people in Tokyo were polite and helpful, the people on Tanegashima are already family. More on that later!

  1. Not to take away from how good of a post this is, but my favorite part was the "crear cups". I'm so immature.

    Jordan — December 2, 2013
    1. Jordan, I'm the one who posted that photo. So I...um...get it.

      courtney — December 2, 2013
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  2. Great post. Your adventures and take on Japan are a treat. Thanks for sharing.

    Lisa — December 2, 2013
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  3. thanks for "crearing" up my misconception about the masks! i thought they wore those because they didn't want to catch something from the masses. but that just warms my heart to think it's the opposite. awesome. i want to come visit you guys! sounds like an awesome culture there.

    Miranda — December 3, 2013
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  4. Yup. Crear cups made me laugh out loud.

    Caitrin — December 3, 2013
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