Yesterday, once we’d made our way to our apartment and dropped the luggage off, we wandered our neighborhood in the dream state of arrival, ambled to the Ixelles Pond hangout, wandered into the venues for the Belgian Short Film festival, bypassed the French fry shack, loitered in a graphic novel book shop (Grubb can amuse…
Gridlock on the tarmac
It was like the 405 at rush hour. The taxiways at Chicago’s Ohare airport. We’d been delayed leaving Albuquerque, eating into our tight connection time in Chicago. Still, things were looking good until touch down at Ohare. As we barreled down onto the runway I noticed long lines of planes lining the taxiways. As soon…
Land of waffles and french fries
It’s been a year since we’ve traveled out of the country. Last year, Japan. Shinto, Buddhism, beauty, politeness. This time, Belgium. Population: Close to 12 million people, densely packed. Home of the famous waffle. Birthplace of French fries (yep, according to Belgians, it wasn’t France), headquarters of the European Union and NATO (Brussels), a constitutional…
What a journey
Many, many years ago (oh say 50 or so years), I traveled through Southeast Asia including some time Japan. So this was not my first foray into Asian territory. Ah, it was a different world back then. No internet for one thing. How did I do it without Google Maps? Starting our journey in rural…
You know it’s time to go home when…
You’re too old to have fun at the gathering. Joining the group watching the robot statue makes you feel ridiculous. The park you’re walking through is meagre in comparison to the previous parks. The open shipping lane to the ocean seems adventurous. Ella is tired of waiting for you to catch up. You come across…
Japanese-style Korean (or Korean-style Japanese?)
Dinner had us stumped. There wasn’t much out in the Odaiba area which was our last destination. We opted to start the journey back home. We had to take a train to Shiodome and then transfer to the Oeida subway. At Shiodome station, we decided to ask Google what was in the area for food….
Unicorn Gundam
After a visit to the Sumida Hakusai museum, we wanted to explore an area we hadn’t seen yet. Being Tokyo, there were hundreds of neighborhoods as yet unvisited so really, it could be anywhere. Grubb wanted to head to Odaiba, an area by the bay. We had no inkling that on a fine Sunday afternoon,…
Hokusai highlights
For our last day in Tokyo we had beautiful weather to go along with the beautiful woodblock prints that are part of the collection at the Sumida Hokusai Museum. On Friday I talked about the exhibit at the Tokyo National Museum that featured Tsutaya Jūzaburō, master printer of the Edo Era. The most famous artist that…
Map of the Day, last day in Japan
Hotel -> Sumida Hokusai Museum -> Unicorn Gundam -> Shiodome -> Hotel Stay tuned. More details to follow on how we spent today, sadly our last day in Japan. Tomorrow (Monday the 5th), we leave Tokyo’s Haneda Airport at 17:00 (5:00 pm) and land at LAX on Monday the 5th at 11:00am. Isn’t that clever?…
Sign of the times
A cafe in Kanazawa seemingly designated for Americans.
Chastity High
Throughout our visit to Japan we constantly come across groups of girls or boys dressed in secondary school uniforms. We never see the high school age kids mix genders as they walk too or from school. At first I thought, that’s a lot of private schools! Then I found out that, “While relationships are common in schools worldwide,…
Tokyo from ground level
Tokyo, from the upper floors of towers and high rises, looks impossibly huge, all gleaming steel and glass, all business. Buildings for miles into the distance. On the ground, it’s just people. Each neighborhood its own village. The corner market, local dry cleaners, tucked away flower shops, side of the street niches with ever-protective jizus,…
Ginza walk, camera store dining
Yesterday, after the sumo slam and water goblins, I dragged Ella to the famous Ginza strip. The street was closed off to all traffic permitting only pedestrians. It was like walking down the La Rambla in Barcelona only instead of stalls there were luxury department stores. I had looked up a conveyor belt sushi restaurant that had…
Water goblins
Following nearly two hours of watching big sweaty men body slam each other, we headed up to the Kappabashi area via subway. Sōgenji Temple, aka Kappa-dera, home to the water goblins (kappa) of Japanese folklore. Founded as a Sōtō Zen temple in 1588, it moved locations several times (who wants water goblins in their backyard?)…
Map of the Day, Sumo Saturday
Hotel -> Sumo stable -> Sōgenji Temple -> Ginza (and conveyer belt sushi in a camera store) -> hotel Yeah, we saw these guys up close and personal.