Review: Himawari House

 Himawari House showed up in one of the "best comics of the year" lists and while it was labelled an "indie comic", it sounded interesting, so I checked it out of the library. Indie usually means black and white, bad art, and is to interesting reading what "literary fiction" is to actually good fiction. (For instance, I could never get into Love and Rockets) But Harmony Becker's work was compelling, interesting, and very readable from the get-go: I finished it in a couple of days, and never felt like it was a slog.

Right from the start, the book introduced a new story technique that I'd never seen before, and can only be pulled off by a true multi-lingual artist/writer. The word balloons are in 3 languages (though never all 3 in the same balloon): English, Japanese, and Korean. That's because characters in the book speak a combination of those languages. The conceit is that when a native speaker in a non-English language speaks too fast, the English translation is blurred out, struck through, or deliberately obscured, giving you the same bewildered feeling you get when someone in Japan thinks you're Japanese, and opens up her language stream at you full bore. It is an innovative technique, and it conveys exactly what the author has in mind. Since I can read a smattering of Japanese, I spot-checked many of the word balloons and to the best of my ability, all her Japanese was accurate, and so I assume that her Korean is good as well.

The book revolves around 3 women, Nao (a Japanese American) who moves to Japan for a gap year to learn Japanese better. She ends up in the shared eponymous house, and meets Hyejung (from Korea) and Tina (from Singapore), and the 3 become friends as they go to language school together and spend a year in Japan, learning about each other, and puzzling the men that they share the house with. Becker depicts Singlish accurately, including the code-switching that happens when a Singaporean speaks with someone she knows wouldn't understand the colloquialisms inherent in that dialect of English. Each chapter features a certain slice of life drama, giving you the background behind one of the characters. One of the most endearing pages of the comic has the 3 women saying to themselves that they weren't very good Asians, so they couldn't stay in their home countries, yet picked one of the most xenophobic countries in Asia to move to:

I've never lived in Japan long term, and especially not as an Asian person (many white people have lived in Japan and loved it of course), so I can't speak to the veracity of Becker's depictions, but everything in the book rings true, and none of it is cliched, and none of the events feel like invented drama.

My criticisms of the book? Well, there's a bit of the cliched Asian American "I'm neither Japanese or American" vibe. But it's not written in a "woe-is-me" self-pitying fashion. The author-stand-in character is quite privileged (all the characters are) and the drama consists entirely of first-world problems. The plot: there's no plot. It's a series of slice of life vignettes, linked together by common characters and quite touching. That's not really a criticism. Many TV sitcoms do the same. But I do like a little bit more plot in my books so this is just my personal taste.

In case you can't figure it out, I loved this book. I think you should read it. Even if you don't like the usual Asian American genre, I think you'll like this one. It's not self-centered, and it's multi-cultural in a way that's unique and truthful. It's the best comic I've read in years. Highly recommended.

Review: Gatchaman Complete Collection

I grew up in Singapore watching Gatchaman II (in dubbed Taiwanese translation, with the opening and closing songs stripped!), but was probably pre-TV when SBC had started broadcasting the original Gatchaman, so when I saw that BestBuy had the complete Blu Ray collection on a sale for under $40, I picked it up. I didn't expect either Bowen or Boen to be captivated by it, but Boen loved the show, so we've been watching it every so often and are now about half-way through the series.

The physical package has all sorts of details that are only impressive if you're a comic book fan. For instance, the painted box cover and the individual box disc covers (there are 3 boxes, 2 with 6 Blu Rays and 1 with 2) are done by American artist Alex Ross. Ross grew up with the American bastardized version, Battle of the Planets, and had never seen any episode in its original form prior to this set being put together, so there's an interview on the specials disc with him explaining how that art came to be and how he came to be involved, as well as a few  brief seconds of his reaction to his first exposure to the original TV show!

Let's talk about the show proper, since I've already previously reviewed the Gatchaman OAV, which was terrible. First of all, it's a Japanese show from the 1970s. Computers are huge mainframe sized creatures with tape drives, and the fashion is also fairly obvious, with bell bottoms. But more importantly, the Japanese at that time (and probably still don't) have any objections to killing and other such violence for kids TV. So the Science Ninja Team don't just karate-chop their opponents into unconsciousness, they'll run over them with cars, slash them with boomerang weapons, blow them up with explosive yoyos, and poison or kill them with feather shurikens. (Come on, they are Ninjas!) No wonder the Americans felt like they had to dial it back. (Note that despite this heavy dose of TV violence, Japan was and still is a much safer place to be a human many decades later, indicating that fantasy violence has nothing to do with real violence --- both my kids know this)

The parenting norms have also changed. One of the characters, Ken, has a father who disappeared off to do a secret mission, faking his death, leaving others to tell him that he's dead. He reappears as the mentor figure Red Impulse, but of course this isn't revealed to Ken until a critical moment whereupon his father sacrifices himself to save the planet. Bowen didn't find this believable or acceptable, but when I was a kid it seemed plausible. Absent fathers no longer seem plausible to little kids, making me wonder what current parenting behaviors will be considered unacceptable by the time Bowen's an adult.

The animation is rough at the start of the show but steadily improves all throughout the show. (The show ran for 105 episodes!) Bowen asked me, "What's different about Gatchaman?" My response was: "Stinky and Dirty is great, but you can watch the episodes out of order or even backwards and your experience wouldn't differ very much. Gatchaman is like a novel - you can't watch it backwards or it wouldn't make any sense!"  The show, like almost all Asian TV at the time, has a long story arc (the first one took about 50 episodes to cover), and is full of state: characters change, including our understanding of their relationships, and you're expected to have watched the entire series in order, with very little of each episode spent in recap (which is good - each episode is only 25 minutes long!). For  your reference, the adult TV shows my parents were watching seemed all adapted from long form narrative novels as well, for instance Louis Cha's  天龍八部 would run for 50 episodes. I believe that having early exposure to long form narrative is good for building attention span, but I have no proof to back up that assertion.

As the name implies, there is science in the series. In one of the episodes, a monster that only eats women is revealed to do so because it has an allergy to the Y-chromosome in men. Bowen asked me if chromosomes really exist after that. In another, the Van-Allen belt is the target of the villain's machinations. There's a surprising number of references to eco-friendly/sustainable building methods and lifestyles for a show that was built in the 1970s. Geothermal, nuclear, and other alternative energy sources are discussed (and of course, destroyed by mecha monsters created by the bad guys). Not every episode had a science behind it, and in fact early episodes were clumsy, with the solutions being provided by Professor Nambu who gives the team orders.

And of course, that's the weak spot of the whole series. As a kid having an International Science Organization that runs the world seemed like the way to go, but it's pretty funny to think of scientists having enough budget and power nowdaays to have all those secret bases and fancy projects at the same time while running not one, but two commando-style para-military teams with all the fancy planes, missiles and offensive weaponry.

It's also clear that the creators of the show got exposure to American superhero comics, but didn't have the language skills to comprehend the plot, so had all sorts of irrationality built into the series that are never explained or simply don't make sense. For instance, if the Science Ninja Team was employed by the ISO, why did they have secret identities and jobs? It's clear that all the trappings of a super-hero story was there, but it didn't make much sense, since the Science Ninja Team is more like a special-forces military team than a superhero team. It's just a weird carryover.

Anyway, the show's fun, draws kids attention (but beware the violence if your memories are from the sanitized American version), and has interesting attributes not available in even some of the best American kids shows today. I'm pretty sure my kids will watch it all the way to finish, as will I.

Review: Gatchaman 1994 OVA

I realized that the 1994 Gatchaman OVA was part of the Gatchaman Complete collection. I was pretty sure that the original Gatchaman was a kids show (having grown up with Gatchaman II), but I figured I'd better curate the show before the kids asked to see it.

It turned out that I didn't have to worry. The show is boring. It's clearly aimed at the nostalgia fans, with plenty of long drawn out moments that won't mean anything if you didn't grow up with the show. (Remember the first Star Trek movie where the directors had these massive long drawn out sequences featuring the Enterprise? Those were boring to me, because I didn't care, never having seen the TV show!)

The show consists of 3 episodes, the first being drawn from the first episode of the original TV show. Well, turning a 20 minute episode into a 45 minute TV movie didn't do the plot any favors. The second features Red Impulse, and didn't feature anything worth while. The last episode finally had some action, but had none of the pathos, drama, or even sense of sacrifice the kids show had. Yes, you can allow the kids to watch it, but they wouldn't want to.

Not recommended. Watch the original instead. It's so much better.

Review: The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up

Audible was giving away The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up, so I picked it up. I had run out of things to listen to, so this became a book I listened to while driving.

The book's written in a strange, twisted fashion. In summary, the KonMari method of tidying up is fairly straightforward:

1. Do your tidying up project all in one go. Don't try to do it incrementally.
2. Get rid of stuff that doesn't bring you joy. (This one is bizarre, since toilet paper doesn't bring me joy but I'm not getting rid of it from my house, but I get her point --- tidying up must start with getting rid of stuff)
3. Get rid of stuff in inverse order of difficulty (i.e., easiest stuff first). That means clothes, books/CDs first, then personal effects and momentos last. That's so you don't get distracted, and also because you'll be practiced at throwing out stuff by the time you get to the hard part.
4. Each person in the family should have their own storage, and all their own storage should be in one place, rather than being scattered in multiple places. This ensures when you're searching for something your'e only searching for it where you are.
5. Don't tidy for other people. If you want other people in your family to be more tidy, start by being tidy yourself.
6. Store clothing folded, don't use hangers except for stuff that needs it. Don't rotate clothing in and out of season. Just keep it organized by weather and use case.
7. In shelves, store things in order of height, with increasing height to the right. ("Up and to the right.")
8. Throw out documents as soon as you're done with them. For warranties, store everything in one folder and throw out stuff that's out of date. Throw out manuals, boxes, etc. Forget about resale value and reboxing when selling.
9. Don't worry about throwing out stuff you actually need. You can usually buy it again later if you really need it.

Yup, I just summarized everything in one check list. The rest of the book is bizarre nonsense like her strange statement that if you roll up socks, they won't be properly rested when you next put them on. (WTF!) Then she makes a big deal out of thanking your stuff. Sorry, things are things. I like my bicycles, but I didn't make a big deal out of the frame when it failed. I stripped it, sent it back to the manufacturer, and got a new one.

The book has some nice ideas, but she could have made it much shorter and easier to read and put into practice. In the last chapter she finally admits that despite her prior hyperbole about how tidying will make a massive change in your life, her experience is twisted by selection bias: the kind of people who pay her fees for her assistance in tidying up their house are the kind of people who would be predisposed to attributing all sorts of magic career changes and better health to the KonMari method.

All in all, the book has interesting ideas, but if you'd read this blog post you probably got them all! I just saved you 4 hours of reading/listening.

Review: eConnect Japan

I have a T-mobile Simple Choice global plan. But word from one of my friends who visits Japan frequently is that it was unreliable, and he talked me into renting a WiFi-To-Go Pocket WiFi router from eConnect Japan. I believed him because as late as in 2009, I had to rent a phone from the airline to get phone service in Japan. How quickly things change!

It turned out this was an unnecessary expense. Everywhere I had connectivity through the WiFi-To-Go router, I also had very fast internet speeds on my Moto G via T-mobile. Further more, in many cases, the Wi Fi router would go to sleep without warning, and I'd be stuck without Wi Fi, but found that my T-mobile unlimited data plan was still fast enough to make a Skype call, for instance.

On top of that, the device itself has a natively small battery, so eConnect supplies you with a battery extender that you then plug into it. That battery would last all day, but now you have 2 more things to charge at night instead of one. Given that we were traveling light, I only brought a 2-way charger, so it was a bit of a chore getting all the devices charged.

I supposed if we made use of the tablet more, the WiFi router might have come in useful. Even then, the package we received had all sorts of warnings against download video, large files, or doing anything interesting with the WiFi router.

In any case, I found myself regretting that I paid eConnect any money at all, and by contrast, was very happy with my Moto G running on T-mobile. Next time, I will not bother with eConnect, and I suggest you don't, either.

Review: Deuter Kid Comfort III Baby Carrier

In 2013, I killed the Kelty FC 3.0 Child Carrier. My rule with equipment is that if I kill it once, I'll exchange it at REI. If I kill it twice, I'll shop for something better. In this case, I got a coupon which got me the Deuter Kid Comfort III for under $230, as opposed to the regular $300 price.

I just came back from a 2 week trip in Japan where I didn't bother bringing a stroller and just carried Boen around in the backpack whenever we needed to transport him. The backpack is rated for about 40 pounds of kid and 9 pounds of gear. It has a built in sun shield/rain shield, but is an open configured backpack, so don't expect it to keep your kid dry in rain without him wearing waterproof clothing. In practice, mommy will probably scream at you long before kiddie gets wet and cold.

The major problem with this pack is that it's not really made for skinny men with no hips. As you can guess, I fall into that category, so I cinch up the waist belt all the way to minimum, clip it on, and luckily that's enough that it doesn't slip. Once you do that, all the weight is on your hip and you can definitely move around with the kid all day.

As you can see, I could bend down and shoot one kid and still have the other one in the backpack. I wouldn't call it the most comfortable position in the world, but it's doable, and I was doing this multiple days during the trip. At various points during the trip, I'd have Boen in the backpack, be towing a rolling luggage, have my CPAP sling bag around my neck, and the EOS M3 kit in a bag around my neck as well, and then walk to the hotel from the train station. That I could manage it all was a testament to how comfortable this pack was.

Boen seemed very comfortable as well, falling asleep in the backpack more than once. When Boen wasn't using the bag, Bowen would try to get into the bag and sit in it. I've carried Bowen in it a couple of times (he weighs about 10 pounds more than Boen). It's OK, but it's not more comfortable than just carrying him directly on my shoulders, though it probably is more comfortable for him. Since the pack itself weighs almost 10 pounds, whenever I can carry Bowen on my shoulders I do so rather than using the pack.

The one bug is in the kick-stand. It is possible for the kick-stand to fold in under the lowest metal bar at the bottom of the pack. Then when you reach back to unfold it you'll have to yank and yank to get it to unfold so you can put the pack down. If there's any improvement feasible, I'd say that limiting the motion of the folding kick-stand to eliminate this possibility would be high on my list of priorities.

I consider baby backpacks much better than any of the alternative carrier systems. They scale up better than any front carriers, and this one provides nice features like a built in hydration setup. It's expensive, but I guess having kids is just plain expensive and there's no way around it. Recommended.

Japan 2016: Thoughts and Conclusions

Japan is very kid friendly. Before we left Xiaoqin was told by people that strollers, etc. were a handful to manage in Japanese cities. We left the stroller behind, and that was a good choice, since it made buses, subways, etc. easy. What I noticed, however, was that every urinal we found in Japan was usable by Bowen. Everywhere we went, people loved both Boen and Bowen. Hotels and restaurants were happy to make accommodations, up to and including putting us in a room with a play pen, or having a nap area right next to the dining table. Our only problem was finding western style baby food (not because Boen couldn't handle Japanese-style baby food, but because the packaging was more convenient for travelers) and diapers, both of which were solved by having very helpful Japanese strangers put in extraordinary efforts on our behalf. So I'd happily travel in Japan with kids.

Bicycle travel really is a gift. I say that after this year's trip, because the contrasts between this year's trip and the 2009 Tour of Hokkaido couldn't be starker. Thinking back upon it, you might even have a hard time believing that it's the same country. My memories of the 2009 tour was gobs of hot springs, including isolated open air public springs where no one else was nearby. My memories from this year's trip is throngs of crowds at temples, except for those few days in Matsumoto. Country hostels, night markets that we happened to ride into, and wild isolated but pretty spots in Hokkaido were certainly missed.

All throughout our Hokkaido trip, I was continually told that "you're seeing the real Japan." At that time, I dismissed it to the similar (false) American creed that people in cities are not real, just the country side is real. What I now realize is that it's not just the country-side: it's that we were venturing out into a Japan that didn't speak English, where we interacted deeply with local people (despite my limited Japanese), and the terrain in a way that's denied to you when you're not traveling by bicycle or on foot.

In both cases, the Japanese are the most polite, ultra-helpful people you'll ever encounter in the world. I'll never forget the woman who took a half hour out of her day to try to help us find baby food in Shinjuku, the busiest train station in the world. She even apologized for it taking a long time! And of course, the brothers who ran Drum Kan who not only drove us to the hot spring and went in with us, but also cooked dinner and then played a Rock concert for us that evening! But as a cyclist you really do get treated differently than other tourists, and you have to interact with locals deeply in a way I never had to on this year's trip.

One of the subtlest thing in the 2009 tour was how we got cleaner and cleaner as the trip progressed. As cyclists we frequently used public baths, and were constantly exposed to how Japanese scrub and clean themselves. And when I say scrub I mean it: I swear by the time a Japanese person is done with their scrub, the entire upper layer of epidermis must have been gone! Over the 2 weeks of our bike tour, we got so inculcated with this that by the time we got home we were scrubbing like the locals. This time, because we mostly stayed at private hotels and AirBnB homes, that effect never happened. I never felt anything other than being a visitor, whereas in 2009, I truly felt like I'd traveled!

I've often said that I don't think I'll ever go back to Japan on a bike tour. The cycling is horrible compared to my beloved Bay Area: the mountain roads have too many tunnels, and views are few and far between: even on this trip, our short stint on the freeway brought better views than our travels in the mountains. The trains aren't bike friendly. Perhaps as my boys get older we'll contemplate some onsen-to-onsen hiking in some of the Japanese national parks, and that might expose them to the more cultural aspects of travel, but if that fails I might reconsider my prohibition against further cycling trips in Japan.

But of course, this time we got to experience a real Japanese Ryokan, and that's really something that's tough to arrange on a bike tour. You can't beat the service. A $800/night Ryokan in Japan provides far better service, food, and ambiance than a $2,000/night Four Seasons in Hawaii. It's expensive, but it's far better value for money, and I'm a cheap-skate of the highest order and would never consider the latter but the consider the former a nice occasional treat.

All in all, if I had the trip to do all over again, I'd spend more time in Kyoto, skip one night in Nara, and spend a day less in Tokyo. But that's all relatively minor. I'd highly recommend Sugimoto and Matsumoto castle, and spend more time on the Philosopher's Path in Kyoto.

Japan 2016: Mitaka

We got up at 6:15am, got everything packed and left the hotel, making the 7:04 Kintetsu Express to Kyoto. At Kyoto station, we bought brunch and boarded the 8:24 Tokyo bound Shinkansen. Then we got into Tokyo station and boarded the local express to Mitaka, where we got off at the wrong station exit so we could use the rest room, and then went back to find the Studio Ghibli museum bus.
Ever since he saw My Neighbor Totoro and accumulated a posse of stuffed Totoros, Bowen's been a big fan of Totoro. The museum, unfortunately, did not let you take pictures inside!

From Japan 2016

From Japan 2016

From Japan 2016

From Japan 2016

Though small, the museum was very well done, including a cat bus play area (which you needed to line up for), a maze, a movie theater (which your entrance ticket doubled as an entry stub), displays and examples of animation, including a stroboscope display that was just amazing. It's well worth the visit, though you probably should have planned better than I did and not pay scalper prices for tickets.
After that, we visited Ryu's AirBnB which were an hour away. Ryu had his house keeper waiting for us so we moved in. Xiaoqin was tasked with buying some items for her friend, so we went to the closest tax-free department store. Wow, women's cosmetics, it turns out are just like cars and houses --- the profit margins are so high that it's worth while for companies to pay commissioned sales people to sell them to you. I did have one last item to get from Japan, which was 64GB Vita memory cards. Those cost $100 in the US, but $75 tax free in Japan, but you have to buy 2 to get the tax deduction, so I bought 2 knowing that I could flip one if necessary.

On our last day, Ryu picked us up from our AirBnB and drove us to the train station where he showed us how to take the SkyTrain to Narita airport. It's a fast 45 minute trip via express train and got us well-rested for the hyper-stressful 9 hour trip back to the USA.

Japan 2016: Nara

We grabbed a bus to Kyoto Station and then went in to buy tickets for the express train. To my dismay, the primary ticket machines were incomprehensible, so we went into the service counter to line up. At the last minute, I saw that there was a JR Rail machine, and tried to use my American credit card to buy a ticket to Nara. That worked great, and we were soon on the express train to Nara. Once there, Google projected an 8 minute walk to the hotel, but biff'd on finding the entrance. Luckily, the entrance wasn't that far. It was too early to checkin but we could leave our luggage at the hotel.

From Japan 2016

Xiaoqin wanted to come to Nara to see Daibutsu, so we walked through the city's parks to the information center, and were then directed along a route that took in more temples, and some reindeer!

From Japan 2016

From Japan 2016

The temple was very crowded, with hordes of school children, bus loads full of tourists, and tour guides armed with megaphones for both crowds. We walked in slowly and gaped at the huge Buddha statue and various accompaniments before leaving to get ice cream in the heat.

From Japan 2016

After that, everyone else was too exhausted to do more walking, so I set off by myself to explore Nara. My first stop was the Kintetsu station, which was not the same as the JR Nara station. It turned out that in this part of Japan there were two major rail networks with their own stations! I wanted the bullet train from Kyoto, but the Kintetsu station was closer to our hotel, so I had to confirm that (1) yes, I had to buy my tickets from two different companies, and that (2) the 14 minute connection was realistic at Kyoto, because the Kintetsu and JR Shinkansen lines shared a common terminal separated only by a 3 minute walk. Since the Shinkansen ticket was by far the most expensive one, I then walked over to the JR Rail HQ and stood inline for multiple minutes so I could buy reserved seats that would take us to the Studio Ghibli museum on Friday. Along the way, I found a mechanical toy museum, but it was closed on Wednesday.

It rained the next day, but first we had to find more diapers for Boen. This proved to be a surprisingly difficult task, and I eventually enlisted the help of the tourist information counter at the Kintetsu train station. She walked us through 2 more drug stores before finding one! If we'd been searching for adult diapers, it would have been no problem: those were on sale everywhere! I then bought tickets for the Kintetsu rail portion of the next day's trip, and took Bowen to the mechanical toy museum in Nara.

What a great museum that was. It was fully curated, but you were allowed to play with the toys as much as you like. The tops were a lot of fun, and there was even a mini kabuki show/demonstration. Highly recommended even if you don't have kids --- in fact, I was the only person there with a child accomplice!

The day turned out to be a nice quiet day for us because of the rain. We didn't see any sights, but got to live like a local, exploring the local shopping streets, buying take out food, and in general chilling out. This was great, since the next day was an early start, as we had Studio Ghibli tickets for a 12:00pm entry in Tokyo.

Japan 2016: Kyoto

The Shinkansen was a great experience, but to my surprise despite it being a mid-day trip we had a hard time getting seats in the non-reserved section. I made a note to make sure we got reserved seats on the trip back to Tokyo. Arriving in Kyoto at 2:45pm, we opted for a taxi to take us to our AirBnB home for the next 3 nights instead of the bus. The place turned out to be hard to find even for the taxi driver to find, but Yumiko, our AirBnB host was kind enough to get on a Skype call with the driver and even meet us outside the bridge in front of her house to guide the driver in the last 50 meters. Given how tricky it was I wasn't unhappy about spending the money.

By the time we were all settled in, it was 4pm, and we opted for a neighborhood stroll:

From Japan 2016

Kyoto is a gorgeous city, with lots of beautiful streets and neighborhoods. In fact, i"d say that my biggest regret about Tokyo was not walking enough. Note that according to my Garmin Vivoactive, during our 2 full days in Kyoto, we walked 9.5 miles and 9 miles respectively, most of that with Boen in the backpack on my shoulders, but I wanted to walk even more and just simply ran out of time (and also didn't want to push Bowen that hard, since the poor kid had to keep up with adults!).
That first night we walked around, explored the neighborhood, and ate dinner out, then bought breakfast for the next day. I had some ambitions about being able to eat out, but as the days progressed realized that with 2 kids, eating out was way more stressful than buying ready-to-eat packages at the supermarket that was literally 150m from the house, and much cheaper to boot!
Our first official visit the next day was at the Kiyomizu Dera, which many many people had recommended to us. The grounds were pretty, but it was crowded despite our early arrival.

From Japan 2016

From Japan 2016

From Japan 2016

There was also a Studio Ghibli museum nearby, so Bowen got to hug a large number of Totoros. After lunch, I looked in the guidebook and discovered that nearby was a street that was said to be the prettiest street in all of Asia. Going there took us through the Gion district and another temple, but it was indeed pretty.

From Japan 2016

After that, we took a bus to a Ramen shop, and then made it home for dinner after visiting the Imperial Palace and discovering that it required reservations. Our last full day in Kyoto started at Fushima Inari, which would have been a nice climb but with kids, would have taken quite a bit longer than the projected 50 minutes. We got as high as the first place with which to get a nice view of Kyoto and turned around.

From Japan 2016

From Japan 2016

It was indeed pretty, but once again had people, people, and more people everywhere. I think after too many decades of living in North America, I'm just no longer used to such crowded areas. After the shrine, we headed to the Nishiki food market for snacking, and then headed over to Ginkakuji, which was yet another nice looking temple. But that wasn't what was exciting about Ginkakuji: it was the Philosopher's Path that started near that temple and led through the back alleys. That's a nice city walk that surpassed all our expectations, and if I'd known it was that nice I would probably have started the day with it instead of ending our visit to Kyoto with that walk. I would prioritize it over all the temples in the city.

From Japan 2016

From Japan 2016

From Japan 2016

The walk took us right to the supermarket near our AirBnB, so there we left the path unfinished, to grab dinner and breakfast, and prepare for our trip to Nara the next day.

Japan 2016: Matsumoto

After our customary early breakfast, we checked out and proceeded to walk to the bus stop, which would take us to a relatively small JR train station. When you're traveling with luggage, buses are actually easier than subways as you don't have to lift the luggage up and down stairs. The bus stop was also much closer than the subway station, and provided a direct connection to a JR station. Once there, I bought the train tickets for Matsumoto from a person at the single counter available there (it was a small station), and we got onto the next train for the Shinjuku station. We changed there to catch a local express train, but Xiaoqin missed the train! Fortunately, the Tokyo express train came every 5 minutes, so she simply boarded the next one and then we got onto the long distance train together with almost an hour to spare, thanks to our being super early to begin with.

Once in Matsumoto, I walked over to the rental car company with my international driver's license to pick up a rental van (with car seats), and then picked up everyone else at the train station and then drove to Matsumoto castle.

From Japan 2016

Matsumoto wasn't at peak display either, but it was much closer to the peak than Tokyo was. Matsumoto castle itself provided a beautiful backdrop for the viewing, and we got a chance to enter the castle and examine both historical artifacts, and see what it was like in an ancient Japanese castle first hand.

From Japan 2016

From Japan 2016

The ticket for the castle also included a tour of the city museum, which wasn't nearly as impressive, but still worth a visit, given how close it was. Our stay that night was at Sugimoto Ryokan, a high end traditional luxury (read expensive) Ryokan whose service and hospitality was unmatched by any Western hotel I'd ever stayed at. For instance, the minute we parked our car in the parking lot, they'd jumped out and took our bags from us and delivered the bags into the room, even before we'd even checked in. When Bowen saw that we had gi and he didn't, the Ryokan provided him with a gi:

From Japan 2016

The room was huge, the hot springs (real hot springs!) had both indoor and outdoor rooms, and the food was nothing short of fabulous.

From Japan 2016

My Japanese instructor back in college had raved about Basashi (horse sashimi, and yes, that means it's raw!), but this was my first time trying it and wow, it was yummy! I ate everything the rest of my family couldn't finish, which unfortunately still left me quite hungry. The reason for this was obvious in hindsight: all the days in Japan, I was carrying Boen (23 pounds) on a Deuter Kid Comfort backpack (8 pounds) that was also loaded with baby food and diapers. That was at least a 35 pound load, and on some days closer to 40 pounds. Walking about 8-12 miles a day with a 35 pound load would leave me in a constant state of hunger not unlike my condition during the 2009 bike tour.
We reluctantly left Sugimoto the next day to drive towards the Shinhotaka Ropeway. On the way there, we took a detour to visit Shirahone-Onsen. The milky white character of these hot springs are apparently famous, but the place was exceedingly expensive so we didn't stay.

From Japan 2016

Not realizing that Shirahone-Onsen was on a detour, we found a tourist information center and booked a Ryokan for the night. We ended up back on the road to Shinhotaka Ropeway and being surprised that we'd seen it before! Well, we'd already paid a deposit, so we gritted our teeth, drove the rest of the way, and went up the ropeway, which did grant us nice views of the Japanese Alps.

From Japan 2016

We hiked around near the top of the ropeway, but it was mid-Spring, and there really wasn't that much hiking you could do without making an overnight trip out of it. The Ryokan we stayed that night was half the price of Sugimoto, and so not nearly as nice. But they nevertheless gave us decent food. The next day, it was cool and windy, and the hiking wasn't going to be good anyway, so we aimed to visit Obuse. On the way, however, we found a little village with cherry blossoms in full bloom!

From Japan 2016

From Japan 2016

From Japan 2016

That alone made the cost of the rental car worthwhile. Japanese mountain roads suck compared to European or North American ones. They're full of tunnels so you can't see any scenery, they're narrow, with no interesting views whatsoever. So I was pleasantly surprised to discover nice views from the Japanese freeways (well, toll-ways).
At Obuse, we visited the Hokusai museum as well as the Kozan Takai musuem. Both museums are small (under 90 minutes each if you don't rush), and well worth the visit. We tried some chest nut specialty food which Obuse was famous for, and then I set about looking for lodging on my smartphone. Due to a Tripadvisor app screw up, I ended up searching on booking.com and found a place in the Yudanaka Onsen area. Once I read in the guidebook that this was where the opening sequence of one of my favorite movies Baraka was filmed, I was sold!
Finding Yudanaka Onsen was easy. Finding the hotel we'd booked online wasn't. But we did eventually find it after some help, and then settled in. Yudanaka still had plenty of cherry blossoms in bloom, so in the evening before dinner we did a cherry blossom walk.

From Japan 2016

From Japan 2016

I also did laundry in the most sophisticated coin operated laundromat I'd ever seen: each single machine could wash, rinse, spin, and dry your clothes in fully automated fashion, without you having to pour in detergent, etc. It was super expensive ($10 per load), but you could walk away and then come back in an hour without having to do anything.

From Japan 2016

The next morning, we drove the precarious single-lane road up to the Monkey Park. In Chinese, the park's name was: "Hell Valley" park. We had a limited time to visit the park as I had to drive back to Matsumoto that day, return the car, and then we all had to pile into a bus that would take us to the night's stay, but the trip was worth it, as we got to see the snow monkeys bathing in the pool, the scene which Baraka had made famous.

From Japan 2016

From Japan 2016

We then made the drive back to Matsumoto, where I returned the car with a minimum of fuss and we found ourselves boarding the bus for ougatou. Set high in the mountains at 6000' feet, Ougatou was billed by the guidebook as a hotel above the clouds. Unfortunately, the weather didn't cooperate and it was either clear or raining, so we didn't get the experience. Still, for the price, the service was excellent, even if the views were disappointing.

From Japan 2016

From Japan 2016

We did a bit of hiking, but it was cleary not the best season for it. Summer, Fall, or Winter would be preferable to Spring for this. We left the next day in the rain, heading back to Matsumoto for the train to Kyoto.

Japan 2016: Tokyo

Traveling with family is much different and tougher than traveling alone (or with a partner) as an adult. For instance, if you're jet-lagged as an adult, you can take sleeping pills, or worse comes to worse, wake up at 3am and go walk around a foreign city, which can be fun all by itself. You're not going to be able to do that with a toddler and infant in tow.

With that in mind, I booked a 3 night stay at Homeikan in Tokyo, hoping that it 3 days would be sufficient to get over baby jet-lag. (Bowen's baby jet-lag during the 2012 trip was a horrifying experience that I still remember today) In a similar vein, I paid one of our AirBnB hosts, Ryu, to pick us up from the airport in a mini-van. After a 9 hour flight, I expected everyone to be stressed and I did not want to deal with navigating the train system and busy streets immediately after the flight. The flight was indeed stressful for Boen, so it was a relief to see Ryu holding up a sign for our party when we exited the customs and immigration terminal.

From Japan 2016

The trip to Homeikan took a good 2 hours by car which was much longer than it would have by train (which would have been an hour or so), mostly because of unusually poor traffic conditions. On the other hand, we could see Tokyo first hand, including cyclists without helmets, the Skytree, and ask questions of Ryu. Bowen whined a lot about having no water to drink, but that would have been true on the train as well. Once settled in the hotel, we went out for a quick dinner, got a quick bath, and then went to sleep as late as we could.

Going from California to Japan was the easy direction, but we still all woke up around 5:00am, and by the time breakfast came, we were hungry. 

From Japan 2016

We then went to Ueno park, mostly because it was close. We knew from reports that the Cherry Blossom season was over. But what was left was remarkably good, and still quite pretty:

From Japan 2016

What was remarkable was that whenever the wind blew, we'd get cherry blossoms coming down on us from the trees. We would later be told that this was 花吹雪, Hana Fubuki.

After that we went to the Nishiki market for lunch. The wait was over an hour, and we later found out that this was normal! The only time to go when it wouldn't be crowded would be in the morning, right after breakfast. Well, I wasn't about to do that since the Ryokan did feed us quite well.

From Japan 2016

Over-ambitious by this point, we went to Akhibahara, but discovered that all the big shops that would do tax-free discounting required you to bring your passport, and we'd left ours safely at the hotel. Everyone was tired by now, so we headed back to Homeikan. Poor Bowen fell asleep waiting for his ramen dinner!

From Japan 2016

The little guy had walked all over Tokyo with us (I was carrying his little brother in the backpack, so I couldn't carry him), and according to my watch, we'd walked 10 miles in total. No wonder he was tired.

Ask anyone what the best antidote for jet-lag was, and you'll hear that sunlight and exercise are the best. We didn't get a huge amount of sunlight, but judging by my hips and shoulders, we did get quite a bit of exercise. So rather than a long walk through a park, we took the subway to the Tokyo Skytree.

From Japan 2016

From there, you got nice panoramic views of Tokyo, but unfortunately, it wasn't the clearest of days so we couldn't see Mt. Fuji.

From Japan 2016

We had lunch in the area at a famous beef tongue shop, visited the Studio Ghibli store, and then went to Shinjuku, where the intention was to look at the street scene. Instead, we got side-tracked into buying baby food. We got help from a very nice lady, and ended up at a department store. Having brought my passport, I paid a visit to Yodabashi Camera, and purchased an EF-M 11-22/4-5.6 STM IS for the EOS M3, as well as a spare battery. As a foreigner on a short visit, camera equipment is one of the few things that are cheaper in Tokyo than they would be in the USA, though even in those cases you should still do some comparison shopping in advance.

Exhausted, we went back to the hotel early and went to bed early, as we had a train to catch the next morning to Matsumoto.

Japan 2016 Index

For this year's Spring Break, we opted to visit Japan. Since we had to orient around Bowen's school schedule, we weren't able to pick the optimal dates to visit Kyoto/Tokyo during peak cherry blossom season. Because of that, in addition to those two cities, we picked Matsumoto, where we could rent a car and use that to explore and find cherry blossoms to look at. This is the index page for the trip. Unlike my cycling trips, I won't do a day-by-day breakdown but simply discuss each city/region:

• Tokyo
• Matsumoto
• Kyoto
• Nara
• Final Day in Tokyo
• Thoughts and Conclusions

Equipment reviews will also be provided, as well as recommendations for future trips.

Review: Battle Royale (The Novel)

I didn't like the movie, Battle Royale much. Unfortunately, Battle Royale: The Novel wasn't a whole lot better.

The writing is terrible, and the plot is identical. (The movie was very faithful to the book) With significantly more time, the book does have a few additional nuances, and the metaphor that the author wanted to depict stands out better. In particular, you start to see that the book is also partly railing against what its author sees as an overly competitive, dog-eat-dog school system. The ending is quite a bit better, as we see that the authorities are not complete idiots. All the minor characters are also fleshed out, so we do get some insight into the dynamics of the class put into the game.

Nevertheless, the horrible writing (or maybe horrid translation) makes this book a tedious slog, with what I consider an insufficient payoff. Not recommended.

Thoughts on Cycling in Hokkaido and Japan

I really enjoyed the Hokkaido trip. It's a truism of cycling that cycling brings out the best in the people of the country we visit, and in the case of Japan, the people are just amazing. No matter where we went, folks were helpful and kind towards cyclists. From visitor center receptionists to B&B hosts, they exhibit a curiosity and friendliness that just blew me away. The drivers are polite, and the food is amazing. What really surprised me was how cheap everything was! My brother had told me that he lost weight in Japan because he could not afford meat. Well, I guess if you stay in Tokyo all the time in Japan that could very well happen. Once out in the rural countryside, prices drop dramatically, and Japan becomes cheaper than Europe! A typical night's stay was 5000 Yen, including dinner and breakfast. And the typical dinner served was comparable to restaurant food, so you're not getting short-changed at all. In many cases, you would be asked whether you would prefer a Western option for your meals. We rarely tried it since we preferred Japanese food anyway.

The food is very healthy --- lots of fish, rice, vegetables, and not a lot of red meat. You won't get a whole lot of milk and cereal, and you have to like seaweed. The portions (especially at lunch) can be quite small. On the other hand, I like having a small lunch. On my European trips, I resist stopping for anything other than a supermarket lunch because not only is the service slow, you usually have no choice but to get a big meal that bloats you and makes afternoon cycling bog down. Not in Japan. You can order the biggest meal on the menu, and not only will the service be very fast, you won't feel bloated! The flip side, of course, is that you'll have to snack a couple of hours later. I don't think any cyclists would be disappointed by the need to do so, since convenience stores are plentiful, and the snacks are delicious!

The roads are clean. We never got a single flat tire that could be attributed to Japanese roads. There were times when cracks across the roads were very annoying though --- I think those happened at the expansion joints, and the regularity is very jolting.

The frequent Onsens (Hot Springs) means that if you ever get hypothermia, you can just hop in one and get warm. This means you can be more free to take risks with the weather, if you know you have an Onsen coming up (or near by).

The biggest penalty, however, is that the riding outside of Biei/Furano is not very interesting. That's because as with many islands, there are frequently only one road from one part to another, so everyone has to use those roads, cyclists/motorcyclists/drivers. So those roads are crowded, noisy, and not very much fun to ride. But the worst part is that the Japanese don't build roads over their mountains! Most of the roads go up into the mountain and then don't connect to anything on the other side. This puts a serious damper on getting to great views and scenery on the bicycle. And of course, the roads that go around the mountains are boring: straight and long, frequently with head-winds. I am unlikely to do another bicycle tour in Japan because of this (a car or hiking oriented trip would not be out of the question), but the cultural experience of doing it once was great! Bear in mind that I'm a very spoiled cyclist, having spent too much time in the San Francisco Bay Area and the Alps. I don't consider the California Sierras pretty, for instance, and Yosemite doesn't bowl me over any more. The perils of being a world traveler is that you'll always be comparing places to one another, and for cycling, it's really difficult to beat the Bay Area and the Swiss Alps.

All in all, my conclusion is that Japan/Hokkaido is an ideal country for the novice tourist, or the cycling tourist who is out of shape and/or afraid of mountains. It is filled with polite people and drivers, clean clean roads, fantastic food, wonderful hot springs and lots of places to do good hiking. You might not find the cycling memorable, but the people and the culture will be unforgettable!

Touring Hokkaido Tips and Resources

The biggest tip I can give you is to not fly United Airlines to Japan. They've recently revised their bike policy to be $250 each way, so no matter if their prices are $100 less than ANA or JAL, you come out ahead with ANA's policy being that bikes are free! But even if United revised their policy, ANA might be the way to go anyway. As mentioned during the trip reports, ANA gives bikes (and their enclosing boxes) the white glove treatment. I can't emphasize how rare and unusual this is! Not only were the boxes intact and fully functional on both ends, they were positively immaculate! I have never seen bike boxes handled so well and so carefully. ANA deserves all the business cyclists can give them. Note that if you book with ANA, you also get a free rental cell phone. This is a big deal, because American cell phones don't work in Japan, not even the world phones! Even my international blackberry does not provide Japanese service. Fortunately, all Japanese phones have internet capability (though it's very costly --- they charge by the byte!), and you'll get your phone # ahead of time so you can tell all your family what number to call.

For the trip proper, here are some resources:

• Touring Mapple (Scroll down the web page for directions on how to buy). I like the Touring Mapple but I find it frustrating as well. First of all, the recommended accommodations are always worth checking out. They are reasonably priced, and always worth the stay. But the map itself is geared towards motorcyclists, which means there is no elevation information at all except for passes. Nothing for towns, nothing for lakes, nothing for any points of interests. As a former Michelin map user, I find it extremely frustrating. And don't get me started on the scenic markings. They are used very sparingly, and unfortunately, are not an indicator at all as to whether the road is good for cycling, since frequently, the road is busy as well! Compared to the Michelin "green" markers, these are useless. Finally, no street names are available, only highway numbers. This makes it really tough to figure out where you are in any kind of built up area. Overall, it's still worth getting, but I'm quite disappointed at how useless it is for cycling.
  
• Japanese Garmin Map download I used a GPS unit throughout Japan, and this was the only source I found for Japanese maps. While the information was complete and more or less accurate, I had some frustrations. First of all, only Romaji is available for viewing. This means that correlating locations with the Touring Mapple is difficult, since the Touring Mapple only has Kanji (which I can read but not pronounce!). This means that before the trip, you'd better have every interesting way-point already on your unit. Again, road names were not available, so it drove me nuts sometimes trying to figure out whether we were at the correct location. Finally, every tiny portion of a town has its own little name, which was too fine a granularity for bike touring, since it crowded out useful ways that dynamic routing could work. The times when it did work it worked spectacularly, but it was definitely way too hard to use.
  
• Toho.net B&B guide We did not have this, but it would have saved us time and money and would have been 420 Yen well spent! All the quirky B&Bs we stayed at, including (Drum Kan and Lapland) are listed here, with many more that we wished we had know about. The prices are incredibly reasonable, and very much worth the stay. Highly recommended.
  
• Lonely Planet has pick & mix chapters for all of Japan. I bought the one for Hokkaido (for about $3), and if you have a Kindle DX you can send them e-mail and they'll give you an unlocked version that you can load on the DX. Unfortunately, I didn't find the guide all that useful. The problem with Lonely Planet is that they are geared entirely towards the "backpack" tourist who goes by bus and train, so tiny towns get short shrift. I don't use them for Europe, but had a really hard time with information about Japan otherwise. It's worth it for the price, just don't buy the whole book.
• The best time of year to go for a Hokkaido tour is probably late spring, May or June. It would probably rain more, but the pictures I saw of the Biei/Furano area in Spring look stunning, with snow-capped peaks and the flowers in bloom. It'll be a little cooler, but since the Hot Springs are all up in the mountains, that makes climbing them for the Hot Springs all the more worth while.
• On the Move in Japan: Despite having had a year of University Japanese, my Japanese was more than 17 years old and unused by the time I went to Japan, hence I bought this phrase book. The important key is the katakana/hiragana table, along with very useful phrases often needed by travelers. The food section is very comprehensive. Very useful, and I referred to it far more often than I thought I would.

Tour of Hokkaido 2009

On August 25th, Yana & Mark Ivey, Brooks Sizemore and I did a Bicycle Tour of Hokkaido (the northern-most big Island of Japan). The ride totaled 1532.3km of riding and 15,300m of climb over 18 riding days, during which we got 2 flat tires, neither of which could be attributed to the condition of Japan's roads. (All tracks were recorded by my Garmin 76CSx, and you download all the tracks in a zipped package)

This is the index page with day-by-day trip reports and will collect all the photos when they show up.

The original solicitation letter got enough attention to go ahead, and due to plane ticket pricing and other timing issues, we settled on an August 25th departure.

We used the Collaborative album feature of PicasaWeb to mix all our photos together in chronological order:

• August 25-26: Prologue
• August 27: Chitose to Sapporo
• August 28: Sapporo
• August 29: Sapporo to Yubari
• August 30: Yubari to Furano
• August 31: Furano to Tokachidake Hot Springs
• September 1: Tokachidake Hot Springs to Biei "Potato" Hostel
• September 2: Biei "Potato" Hostel to Asahidake Hot Springs
• September 3: Asahidake Hot Springs to Biei "Tomato" Minshuku
• September 4: Biei "Tomato" Minshuku to Sounkyo Hot Springs
• September 5: Sounkyo Hot Springs to Bihoro
• September 6: Bihoro to Kotan
• September 7: Kotan to Utoro
• September 8: Utoro to Rausu
• September 9: Rausu to Teshikaga
• September 10: Teshikaga to Ashoro
• September 11: Ashoro to Shintoku "Drum Kan"
• September 12: Shintoku "Drum Kan" to Yubari Forest Youth Hostel
• September 13: Yubari Forest Youth Hostel to Lake Shikotsu "Lapland"
• September 14: Lake Shikotsu "Lapland" to Chitose Airport
• September 14-15: Epilogue
• Appendix A: Hokkaido Touring Tips and Resources
• Appendix B: Thoughts on Hokkaido Touring
• Appendix C: Essay - Why You should not tour like Me

Brooks Sizemore's Pictures

• Tour of Hokkaido Day 1
• Tour of Hokkaido Day 3
• Tour of Hokkaido Day 4

Epilogue

We arrived once again at Hotel COM's lobby, retrieved our bike boxes and proceeded to disassemble our bikes in the lobby and put them back in the boxes. We ran into other cyclists while we were doing do, and they were impressed that we had spent 3 entire weeks riding in Hokkaido. Characteristic of the Japanese, we were told that our rooms wouldn't be ready till 1pm, but by the time I was finished packing the bike at 12:15pm, they had a room for us.

We had time enough to take a shower, run downtown to Sapporo for lunch, and take the Moiwa-Yama ropeway to the top of a local ski mountain to see the sunset and Sapporo lit up at night.

The initial thinking was that we'd wake up the next day, check in all our baggage, and then take the train back to Chitose (5 minutes) for brunch. But when we went to check in everything at 9:30am, we were told that our original flight to Narita had been cancelled, and we had to take an alternate flight to Haneda airport, transfer to Narita on a bus, and then board our SFO flight from Narita. That led to us getting onto a 10:30am plane.

The whole morass went surprisingly well (perhaps not surprising, since the only person I've ever heard of who was disappointed with Switzerland's efficiency was a Japanese woman) --- we were handed envelops with cash to buy our bus tickets with, our bikes were checked and again treated with white glove treatment by ANA, and the bus transfer went well.

Once in Narita, we had plenty of time to buy lunch, look around and spend the rest of our cash. Unfortunately, between Narita and San Francisco, my Canon G9 went missing. That was very sad as I had no pictures from the last week of the trip as a result!

Lake Shikotsu "Lapland" to Chitose Airport

We woke up in the morning to a fine clear day. I looked around outside, and then came back in to explore the little cabin. That was when I noticed a little Toho.net guide selling for 400 Yen. It contained listings, phone numbers, web pages, e-mail addresses and directions for every quirky B&B in Hokkaido, including both "Lapland" and "Drum-Kan". Leafing through the pages, I saw themed B&B's like the India-themed one, and various athletic themed ones as well. They were all very reasonably priced at 5000 yen/person/night with 2 meals. If only I had noticed something like this at the start of the trip! Well, you learn something every day.

The breakfast was beautifully laid out and had lots of toast,

From Hokkaido

so by the time we left (at a very tardy 9:00am), we were extremely well-fed.

The ride to the airport started with an easy 6% climb that was over in 5 minutes and then we got to the bike path and rode down the bike path easily. The entire day was spent climbing yesterday, and the bike path this time was smooth sailing. It was so straight that Mark and Yana spent time shooting videos and taking pictures. What a ride! When we finally go off the bike path, we discovered that indeed, the path we had ignored yesterday was indeed the correct entry-way to the bike path. It was indeed a very pretty bike path, and I enjoyed the part that was separated from the road.

We got into Chitose at 10:30am, and followed the directions to Highway 36. It was only 3km before we saw the familiar fences that we climbed over last time, but this time we eschewed the fence-hop in favor of carrying our bikes up a pedestrian bridge, coming down the other side, and riding up and down 2 ramps to get to the entrance to the airport. Once onto the airport thoroughfare, we had no problem renegotiating the airport tunnel, finding the entrance to the departure lobby, and riding up to the curb and getting our bikes inside.

Our bike trip was over.