On the last minute, we decided to take a week's leave and just spend it together as a family here in Tokyo, doing some sightseeing, some relaxing, etc. What a nice time we're having. Yes, it's most times better to get AWAY // ....Michael has been to the office twice....also had some telephone conference calls inbetween...but...generally, we've had a lovely time together. :-)
On Monday, we took a drive to the mountains. Actually, as soon as one leaves the Tokyo metropol, the mountains just appear out of nowhere and are very steep, very thickly vegetated and beautiful! Big winding rivers every now and then. Lots of tunnels through all the mountains. Tunnels or bridges. They're experts in both fields!
Anyway, we drove to a countryside village making several pitstops and leg-stretching breaks along the way. After ALL that time, we decided it would be wise to sleep over or otherwise if we couldn't find anything, to travel back later that evening so the kids could go to sleep for the night in the car and we'd just carry them into their beds when we got back. Well, after knocking on 3 hotel doors, we were turned down "No room". Hmmm, we thought. Silently wondering why they had "no room" despite empty parking spaces and a large building. Hmmm. Well, the 4th place (smaller hotel) welcomed us in. Yay!! Btw: later we saw why the parking bays were empty....buses were arriving with their guests. Anyway, I think we got to stay in a wonderful JAPANESE place! It was SO INTERESTING!!!! Firstly, the whole place is decorated so differently....lots of wooden eagles, tigers, trickling water, bamboo, and the place kind of smelling like green tea! WEll, we went up to our room, and were shown around. Our stay included: accomodation of course, spa, dinner and breakfast. FORTUNATELY I asked them if there was anything that we should "be aware of". So the lady kindly said "Of course, you would know that you should wear your kimano around the hotel and also to the spa and dinner room". Of course I should know. That's her way of not letting me lose face. How gracious! So, inside the cupboard, we found 2 adult kimanos and 2 kiddie ones. Perfect!
First we went for a walk in the town. Was lovely. Just along the river and then back along one of the roads. There we saw 2 school girls probably aged around 10. Well, they looked at us with big smiles, very friendly and very curious. I'm not joking, we had the feeling, they were either extremely friendly or they hadn't seen a Westerner before. Guys, we were in the middle of nowhere. If it hadn't been for the navi, I'm dead sure we would never have chosen those roads!
Anyway, back at the hotel, Michael was the first to get dressed up into his "dwess Pappa. Dats a DWESS! Ooooh!" He looked HOT! :-) And then the kids. Evie was so possessive over her kimano. She knows exactly when something is assigned to her, and then no one dare touch or take it from her. Yip. Josephine was also very keen to do the whole Japanese thing. So we even put on our "ostrich socks". That's our name for it. It has 2 compartments at the toe area: one for your big toe and one for the other four toes. So it divides / separates your toes so that you can "comfortably" wear the wooden high heel slip slops which are about 2-3 sizes smaller than your feet. My slip slops were swopped for a man's ones as the receptionist thought the ladies size may be a little small for me. Well, I don't want to know what the ladies ones would have felt like, for the men's ones were also too small. Josephine skipped the socks as she just didn't have the patience to sit and separate and arrange her toes in the right order. So her little pink toenails looked gorgeous against the light coloured wooden slop. And she CLONKED her way down the passage letting EVERYONE know she was on the move towards the lift. And then CLONKED her way to the spa.
The spa was absolutely gorgeous! It was private. So we had a cubicle (like a wooden hut facing the river). It's just one room....stone floor...you come in and take your kimano off, then climb 2-3 stone steps and step into HOT spring water which is steaming. It was a tad hot for Evie's baby skin, but after a few splashes, she got used to it and then enjoyed it too. Josephine went natural and stripped down totally and did some adventurous rock climbing which we had to limit due to the slippery surface. Sometimes her guise as Tarzan is a bit much. (She currently believes that she is Tarzan and goes "Aaaah -i-aaaaah!" whilst doing something breathtaking and dangerous.) But she had a good time.
Guys, we then went back to our room and sat around the table. Japanese tables are LOW. If you sit on your butt with your legs out straight in front of you, your knees are nearly touching the table. That's how low it is. So we sat there on the special cushions they give you and did the Japanese thing. Well, whatever that might be. We just pretended to be Japanese for about 5 minutes and then we had to stop Josephine and Evie from jumping out the windows to their peril. Btw: we had a beautiful view of a mountain right outside. And Autumn is at its best. Here in Tokyo, one hardly notices that it's Autumn! There aren't enough trees or whatever to make the Autumn impression. But outside of Tokyo, it's AMAZING!!! It's truly the BEST Autumn colours I've seen. Although, England and Germany's Autumns are also amazing!!! Anyway. It's different here because the trees are so tightly packed and on the mountains and there's just one mountain next to the other going steeply up and steeply down with only a point at the top. And this lot is just covered with red, orange, yellow and green. It was food for the soul.
Anyway, after getting ourselves a bit ready for dinner, we headed down through the hotel towards the restaurant room with great anticipation! We were invited to a Japanese BBQ. I wasn't quite sure what to expect, but we had a knock on our door earlier as apparently the kitchen staff had heard there were some westerners staying and werene't sure if we'd eat the raw fish and other typical Japanese foods. We said we would love to try all their food. And so, we were led to our table. Each table was in it's own cubicle with straw room dividers. And inside, was a low table. Except it wasn't really a table. It was a fireplace!! So, we had to kneel on our cushions they provided and there was a narrow space around the fireplace where there were dishes of all sorts and chopsticks (hashi). The kids were given plastic spoons. Later...Michael and I "borrowed" the children's spoons too! The fire was in the middle, lots of ash, and spearheaded fish and other "things" on wooden sticks stabbed into the ash and cooking next to the heat. It was a lovely atmosphere. Michael was jolly uncomfortable and didn't know what to do with his legs after a while (!) but we had a BRILLIANT time. It's not the typical Japanese food one maybe tries outside of Japan. We actually didn't eat any sushi. It was just a whole variety of tiny little things in tiny little bowls which were in bigger bowls which were in bigger bowls....and things inside all these beautiful porcelein bowls which we had no clue as to what they were. We didn't know what we were eating, to be honest. But it tasted fine. Josephine really surprises us sometimes. At home she begs for a certain food, I cook it, and she takes a few bites and then she wants to be excused from the table. Well, here, she wanted to try EVERYTHING. And she really ate it all. Evie was a little more challenging. She usually eats so well at home, but I think she is starting to eat a bit more selectively and things which she recognises. She didn't fancy the fish with it's eyes and tail etc still on. So we spent our evening, passing everything to Josephine, whipping Evie's fingers away from the hot coals and trying some bites ourselves. It was very very interesting. We were the only non-Japanese there. Which was actually nice! We felt like we were experiencing JAPAN!! YAY!!!
After the children couldn't sit there anymore, they started to explore the restaurant. Just outside our cubicle were some stuffed animals: 2 deer, a fox, a racoon.... Evie thought they were alive, and Josephine thought they were badly injured as they had "cuts" (parts weren't sewn together very closely, let's say). So we had our joys in protecting the stuffed animals from our animal-fwiendly children who wanted to stwoke, wide and pet them.
All the while, I was wondering where we'd sleep. Our room (well, it was a suite, let's say) had a room with 2 single beds. And the "lounge" had this low table with 4 cushions. I was envisaging pushing the cushions together or just sleeping on the floor?
But when we got back to our room, everything was set up for us. Tatami mats had been brought in (2) with great big eiderdown douvets. It was glorious! So I set up camp with Evie on the tatami mats whilst Josephine and Pappa took the 2 single beds. (I didn't want Evie to roll off, so sleeping on the mats was the best option). We had an early night (8pm?) and slept through till 5. By then, the sun was up, and so were Josephine and Evie!
Breakfast was at 7am. And it was again a Japanese breakfast. Low tables, we were again the only non-Japanese. The food was DIFFERENT!! They had some scrambled egg. But there was a sauce in there to make it taste totally different.
....I think the food is an aquired taste ..... ;-)
....so, we paid our bill and headed then towards Nikko.
Nikko is a historical town. Actually it's World Heritage status. It's got beautiful nature, some shrines, waterfalls, walks, streams. We parked and headed up towards the shrines. It's nothing I ever imagined, really. It almost (?) doesn't seem very religious there. It's peaceful. And the architecture is what you see in books about Japan. And that's what we enjoyed: the architecture. Very detailed building. Especially the roofs. In other countries, details are often to columns, walls, doors, etc. Here, yes, it was those things too, but very particularly to their roofs. The way they curl at the ends. The little "gargoles", the colours, etc. Some of the statues around there were a bit scary. Fantasy tigers/lions/dragons with bulging eyes looking "scarily" down at us with their faded paints. Kids were fine. There were lots of stairs.
Josephine and Evie loved playing in the streams with their sticks and stones that they picked up along the way. They also climbed up rockeries, chased a wild cat who kept dashing into the street drain.
We also visited some lovely waterfalls. The roads were very windy to get to the tops of some mountains (where there were no tunnels). On the navigations system, it looked like tangled spaghetti. Very scenic.
We headed home late Tuesday afternoon / early evening. Got stuck in a big traffic jam coming back into Tokyo...urgh! Finally, arrived home....Evie already sleeping, Josie sleepy. Early night for all. Nice to have gone and nice to be home too in our own beds.
Tunnels, tunnels and more tunnels (with toll roads at each one). See how thick the trees are on the mountains!
a happy moment. Lots of fighting too though (pulling hair, teasing, crying, laughing. All in an hour!)
landscape
at a water resevoir
Evie's shoes (were Josephine's actually ...long long ago!)
rivers cutting through the country
Autumn - my photos don't do it ANY justice!
some Japanese ladies in the tiny village we stayed in
red umbrellas (I think for the sun, though)
the low table in our "lounge". See the mats on the ground? That's what you sleep on.So the rooms (here in hotel, but also in private homes) double up for lounge / bedrooms.
red umbrella
our private spa
the window in our "lounge/2nd bedroom" where we had to watch that the kids didn't fall out of the window.
a walk in the town next to the river
kids overjoyed to be out of the car...let loose!
my very own Autumn leaf. Evie's colours are Autumn
My Spring girl in the Autumn leaves
Mamma's toes in the Japanese socks.
all dwessed up in hotel attire (off to the hot springs)
Josephine's toes
the hot spring pool
rub a dub dub...!
Pappa's toes peeping out from under the low table!
where Evie and I slept on the "tatami mats" - very comfortable actually!
Josephine and Pappa's beds
an emerald green river
one of many mudslides on the mountainside
Pappa and his girls > in Nikko (the famous world heritage site)
everyday Japanese life
a board with wooden tablets: writing and pictures on it. Good luck charms, I think.etimes seen hanging outside people's houses: to keep the bad spirits or something away.
pieces of paper that get tied to trees, bushes etc outside a shrine. Maybe prayers? I have to check!
the shrines here consist of lots of buildings (about 8-10?)lots of steps leading up to each. Beautiful old trees, thick trunks. Lots of tourists...Japanese tourists or kids on a school outing.
one of the shrines. We didn't understand much as there wasn't any English information there. Have to check up.
impressive architecture
another beautiful river. Quite wide, actually. And emerald green.
Lots of steps!
the cat that Josephine wanted to stroke. It miaawoed loudly and then dashed under the drain each time she came close.
enjoying family time in the fresh air!! It felt GOOD!!
Josephine said: "dis cwoss just means: I am fwiends wif Jesus."
Here, Evie is saying "Where's it gone?!" She always gets very concerned when I ask this question and puts her palms up like this making grunting moaning sounds with eyebrows lifted. Cute!
now who is taking who for a walk here? Evie is fast.
