Tokyo for Christmas: the Wrap Up

SrA Nicholas S. Cox, the Country Chicken Girl and Mr. Travel

Last group picture in the lobby of our hotel.
Notice the red, white and blue Christmas trees!

Time to wrap this puppy up and put it in "one of the best times of my life" box. What an amazing trip! We really saw some awesome sights. I feel very blessed to have been able to see that part of the world and to finally be able to see Nick in his environment. I really miss him now, but am comforted by knowing that in May he will get stationed somewhere closer, prayerfully here in the states!

Various pieces of art at the hotel.
They look better if you click on them for a close-up, just
remember to hit your browser's "back" button to get back to the blog.

Our journey back home started at 11:00 am Tokyo time when we boarded the shuttle from the base to Narita Airport. Nick saw us off and I tried not to cry, like I always do, but I did. I hate goodbyes! I can't believe I am such a cry baby! I even cry at Hallmark commercials. LOL

Anyway, better move on or I'll start crying again. We got to the airport around 1 pm and had several hours to kill since our flight didn't leave until 6:30 pm. That was okay because it gave us time to eat one last meal of Japanese food besides the food that we would be served on the airplane. We ate at this restaurant that was a little different from what we were use to. It was self serve, kind of like a cafeteria. There were several places you could go to order your food, each place had different types of food. When you ordered your food, they gave you a little beeper that went off when your food was ready. You then went back to the place you ordered your food from and got it. As soon as we walked in, the hostess knew she would have to explain things to us. LOL

After lunch we did some shopping. It's hard to shop in airports with your carry on luggage. You know how it is when you are wearing a backpack that is the size of Texas and you are trying to maneuver through a store with breakables on shelves. "Excuse me, excuse me." "Watch out, you almost cleared that whole shelf with your backpack!" "Then here, you take the backpack so I can look around!"

Can you guess that Mr. Travel and the Country Chicken Girl are getting just a little tired of being with each other 24/7 for 9 days straight?! Mr. Travel finally takes all the carry on luggage including the backpack and sits outside each shop so the Country Chicken Girl can do the shopping.

Thankfully we didn't have much money left to spend because I was tired and not really in the mood to shop anyway. With our few gifts and one memento of the trip we headed through security down to our gate. We were both content with just going down there and sitting and doing absolutely nothing.

I have to back up to when we first arrived at the airport and was trying to figure out where to go to get our tickets and to check-in. I must tell you that this was the friendliest airline I have ever dealt with. We found the airline's counter, there was no line and about 20 employees standing around to help you. They weren't glued to a chair behind the counter, but they were actually on the floor and coming to you! One girl snatched us up, I showed here my e-ticket and she took us by the hand to a kiosk and showed us exactly what to do. When we had our tickets in our hands, she then told us exactly where our gate was. Wow, it was painless. Also the attendants on the plane coming and going were fantastic and genuinely friendly, caring, helpful and very nice. Young and beautiful girls I might add. Japan Airlines ROCKS! We made our way to the gate. Mr. Travel was exhausted and just napped, while I pulled out my laptop and did a little catching up on my blog.

Mr. Travel and the Country Chicken Girl waiting at Narita Airport

Hope that wasn't our plane! Nice full moon!

When is our plane leaving? Too bad for the glare on the window.

Google at the Airport!

About 45 minutes before we were to board the plane, there seemed to be a little more activity on the level above our gate. There was a balcony that had stairs that led down to the gate. You had to come down those stairs to get to the gate. We noticed that there were some airport security people up there and they weren't letting anyone come down to the gate. They were making announcements on the speakers, but we couldn't understand all of the announcement.

There was another English speaking couple sitting close by so I asked them if they knew what was going on. The girl was just as nosy as I was so she went up there to find out. When she returned she said that airport security was being heighten and they were rechecking all passengers with a pat down and going through their luggage. I was wondering if we would run into this heighten security since the Christmas day Detroit incident. Soon we were being patted down and they went through our luggage. That was exciting! Woke Mr. Travel up!

We boarded the plane and got settled in. We would arrive in San Fransisco at 10:30 am pacific time. I was really dreading the flight back since the flight there just about killed me. I was looking forward to watching "Julie and Julia" again, but it wasn't offered. What a bummer! I love that movie. I watched "Up" instead, and yes I cried! I started watching another movie with Richard Gere in it called "Hachi: A Dog's Tale" but didn't get to finish it before we landed. I now have it in my Netflix queue, but it's not available right now. I hope they get it because it was really good! This is what Netflex had to say about it, "When his college professor master, Parker (Richard Gere), dies, a loyal pooch named Hachiko (Japanese for "faithful dog") keeps a regular vigil -- for more than a decade -- at the train station where he once greeted the man every day." It is based on a true story so I guess if Netflix never gets it I could read the story. The film starts out in the mountains of Japan, looked just like the place we were when we went to the cave that one day. It was awesome!

Mr. Travel slept most of the way, I'm not sure if he watched a movie or not. When I wasn't watching a movie, I too slept. So needless to say, the flight wasn't near as bad this time. My butt was still a little sore, but nothing like it had been on the way there.

We arrived in San Francisco on time. After we got our baggage we had to go through immigration and customs, but didn't have any problems. We found our way to our connecting airline and checked-in ourselves and our luggage. Then we found our way through security again and to our gate. When we got to our gate, this jazz band was playing. They were pretty good and we had about 4 hours to kill so we sat and listened for a while. Now when ever I hear this song I'll be reminded of this trip!

Make sure to notice how much Mr. Travel is enjoying this experience. He is just a tad out of his "comfort zone!" LOL Not his idea of a good time sitting on the floor with a group of people you don't even know listening to jazz while his wife is video taping the band and passer-bys! Oh Mr. Travel, you make me laugh! Relax, lighten-up, get down, bust a move! "Boogie down, Danny!" Turn up your sound!



Our plane for Denver left at 3:00 pm and we arrived in Denver at 6:30 pm mountain time. When we got to Denver we grabbed our luggage and found the shuttle to our hotel. Arrived at the hotel, checked in, watched the rest of some college football game and called it a night. Here are a couple of pictures of our room. I was going to take more of the hotel, but was too tired.

Aloft Hotel in Denver, fun, modern and tech savvy! Very comfy bed!

Nice BIG plasma TV

Thankfully we had great weather driving home the next day. We arrived home to 7 kitties that missed us very much. And I missed them very much as well. I think that Mr. Travel missed them just as much as I did, but he didn't admit it. The boys were also on their way home for the cabin with Roger and Emily.

Whew... it was so nice to be home! What a blessing it is to have such wonderful neighbors who took care of things (cats, chickens, cows, buildings, feeding, watering, fixing fence, etc.) here at the farm while we were gone (in below zero temps with winds gusting to at least 50 mph.) Thanks, you guys are the best! We owe you one, actually we owe you several!

Home Sweet Home!

Tokyo For Christmas: Day Seven

December 29, 2009
Day Seven

Okay, back to wrap this trip up! Let's see, where did I leave off. Oh yes, the much anticipated Day Seven, our trip to the mighty Mt. Fuji. I had been eagerly awaiting this day, ever since I knew we were going to Japan. The first time Nick came home from Japan, he took a picture of Mt. Fuji from the window of the airplane that he was on. That picture totally fascinated me. I don't know exactly why, but I think it was because Nick actually took the picture and it wasn't a photo in a magazine or the logo on a water bottle! My son was seeing this well known world famous geological wonder with his own two eyes everyday. How cool is that? Maybe not so cool to you, but to me it was.

We decided that in order to "do" Mt. Fuji, it might be advantageous for us to actually take a guided tour. So Mr. Travel got on the internet and found a tour company in Tokyo that gave such tours. They were expensive, but all three of us thought that it would be well worth it. Nick had a chance to climb Mt. Fuji earlier in the summer with a group that went from the base, but he was on crutches at the time and missed out so he hadn't really been to it either. He does have a pretty good view of it from his apartment though.

So we bought our tickets on line and I anxiously awaited the day of the trip. We had to take a train at 7 am that would take us to the bus station that the tour departed from. We had to be there by 9 am. The bus was big, like a normal tour bus that you see and our tour guide (don't ask me what her name was, I can't remember) spoke English pretty well. Mr. Travel didn't have hardly any trouble understanding her (that's a rarity in itself for Mr. Travel to be able to understand anyone who has the slightest accent! LOL) The guide was also good because she was full of information. She talked almost the whole time telling us all about stuff. It was very interesting to say the least.

We drove though Tokyo and she pointed out several buildings and landmarks but as we started to leave the city and go up into the mountainous region, I started to fall asleep! Actually that is normal for me. I can hardly stay awake in a car if I am not the one driving. I make terrible company on long trips, because I often doze off!

We finally saw rice fields, but of course they don't grow rice in the winter!

This was our first glimpse of Mt. Fuji, it's behind those clouds.

NOTE: Don't forget you can see bigger pictures by clicking on the picture itself and hitting the back button on your browser to get back to the blog.
Some of these you might want to enlarge!

Another glimpse, behind those clouds!

Our first stop for the day was the Mt. Fuji visitor center where we would get out and explore the visitor center and see Mt. Fuji from the observation deck. It took a couple of hours to get to the visitor center on the bus.

There it is, Mt. Fuji!
You guessed it, behind those clouds!

Can you believe it? I was heart broken... How much money did we spend to see this? You have got to be kidding me! In all my excitement and anticipation of seeing Mt. Fuji, the possibility of NOT being able to see it because of cloud cover never once entered my mind! My heart was broken. :( I can remember Nick saying "I want my money back, what a jip!" Oh well, I am sure there are several, probably thousands of people each year that take the tour and don't get to see the mountain.

Our guide graciously apologized for our misfortune and told us that maybe the clouds would clear off while we rode the bus to the first station. I prayed that they would, but deep down I knew that those clouds weren't going any where!

There were bus loads of people there at the visitor center and we were only allowed about 20 minutes there. There was a gift shop and several informational things to look at, but it was all so crowded you could hardly do anything. You actually needed about an hour or more at the visitor center.

But while we were there, we found out a few interesting facts. The official climbing season is from July 1st - Aug. 26th. Climbing is restricted to this season only because of the weather on the mountain. The average climbing time from the 5th station is 6 to 8 hours to the top and 3 to 5 hours back down to the 5th station. I think that my dad's brother, Uncle Dexter, has climbed Mt. Fuji. You can drive all the way to the 5th station which is at 7560 ft. The peak is at 12,385 ft. It is considered an active volcano, but it's last eruption was in 1707–08.

When we reached the first station, this is what we saw.

Just joking! I wish this is what we saw, but we saw more clouds! What a bummer! This is a picture of a picture at the visitor center! LOL

This is actually what we saw.

I don't think I have mentioned this in any other post, but one thing we noticed is that the Japanese are very conscience of public safety. There is always some one or several people directing traffic every where there are several cars trying to park. Also, every construction site we saw had several "safety officers" who all have batons and whistles. They whistle short whistles every time a construction vehicle is moving! They also stop all foot traffic until the vehicle has passed. As you can see, several people had drove up to the first station hoping for the same miracle that we were, for the clouds to clear.

I got the idea of taking pictures of the pictures at the visitor center from the tour guide. As she was apologizing for the weather, she told us we could always take pictures of the pictures inside the visitor center. I wasn't alone, several people were doing just that! Here are some more:

Mt. Fuji in the spring, see all the cherry blossoms, must be quite a sight!

The bus tour usually drives up to the 5th station in the summer when the road is passable, but on this winter day we were only allowed to go to the 1st station. There was a gate across the road and the guide warned us NOT to venture past that gate, it was strictly against the law. I imagined it would be like trying to drive up Trail Ridge Road in Rocky Mtn. Park in the middle of winter. Doesn't happen! We spent 20 minutes here, freezing, standing around with everyone else in a parking lot with nothing to see but clouds and the guys directing traffic and parking the loads of tour busses!

After the 1st station it was time to head back down the mountain to our destination for lunch. It was some nice hotel, I can't really tell you where though.

This was in the lobby of the hotel. The guide told us it had something to do with the New Year. Each symbol, like the fruit and the flowers, means something. We saw several smaller versions of this kind of thing hanging on doors through out Tokyo, now we know what they were for. Kind of like our tradition of a wreath on the door at Christmas time.

Yummy treat offered at a bakery in the hotel.

Pretty center piece that resembled a cake at the hotel in one of the public areas.

Stain glassed windows went all the way around in the restaurant that we ate at.
It was shaped in a circle. These angles seemed out of place in Japan!

As we were waiting for our food to arrive, I noticed one of the ladies from our tour with her camera out on the deck taking a picture of something. I didn't want to miss a picture taking opportunity, so I went outside to see what she was doing. I know, I'm so nosy! This is what she was taking a picture of.

Now these are the real thing folks!
Not pictures of pictures!

Still not the image I had imagined in my mind when I thought we were going on a guided tour of Mt. Fuji, but for sure the best view we had seen of the mountain thus far. After a quick lunch, we had to scarf down our food because we only had about 45 minutes there, it was back on the bus to our next destination, Lake Ashinoko.

Country Chicken Girl and Mr. Travel on the bus.

The next stop was the Hakone Komagatake Aerial Tramway. Here's the literature on that. "Komagatake, the central volcanic cone of the Hakone range, rises 1,327 meters above sea level. An 1,800 meter long aerial tramway operates between Hakone-en and the summit, and the ride takes 7 minutes. From the gondola, which has a capacity of 101 person, one can enjoy a breathtaking panoramic view of Lake Ashinoko and the surrounding mountains. On clear days you can see all the way to Sagami and Suruga Bay and the distant Seven Islands of Izu. The summit of Mt. Komagatake offers a magnificent view of Mt. Fuji."

They weren't kidding about cramming 101 people in that tram! We were packed in there like sardines. Reminded me of taking the tour at Hoover Dam and riding the elevator there! LOL Anyone done that before?? Also did you catch the key phrase "on clear days"?

Egads, there it is again... The stupid quotation mark! Does the question mark go on the inside or the outside?

There was this little sledding hill at the bottom of the tramway.
Looks like they had man-made snow for it.

The Tramway.

Going up. That's a golf course on the side of the mountain, beautiful.

Don't forget to click on some of these photos for a larger image!

The lake.

Going higher, more of the golf course.

On a clear day, this is what we would have seen, Mt. Fuji to our left.
Uh, you guessed it, a picture of a picture!
But I see they don't have 101 people crammed in that tram!

At the top. It was FREEZING cold up top so we didn't climb
all those stairs to go see that temple.

Nice shot of the moon at the top.

Wow, this is getting long. Sorry, hope I'm not keeping you from something, like work! Are you reading this at work? You know who you are, yes you! Don't tell me you are getting paid to read my blog at work. LOL! I'm almost done, I think!

When we got back down to the base we took a cruise around the lake.

Is this not the cutest paddle boat you've ever seen?

They sure had all their ducks, well, swans in a row! Hee, Hee!

Not too bad of a view of Mt. Fuji.

Our guide assured us these were not pirates! Cool ship though!

Man fishing with net. Brrr....

This is what our tour boat looked like. Happy tourist from Sweden.

Hold on, I've got to get a cup of coffee and give my butt a rest. This is taking for-ev-er!

Okay, I've got my coffee and a little left over Christmas candy.

When our boat tour was completed, we got back on the bus and took it to the train station. From here we would ride the world famous Bullet Train. The first line was inaugurated in 1964 and was the world's first high speed train service. At that time the trains already ran at about 200 km/h. Nowadays they reach speeds of 300 km/h. That's 186 mph!! That's fast!!! And I mean fast people. I took these videos of the train passing while we waited at the station for ours. The first video kind of follows the train which doesn't do the train justice. The second shot in the video shows me taping straight on. You can hear Mr. Travel instructing me on how to get the shot. You know he is an expert at these things even though he doesn't know how to run the video camera or the digital camera! He's amazing!

I do have to say that this was actually one of the highlights of the day. All the other people who were on the tour with us were just as fascinated with that train as "us rednecks from the sticks" were! Wish our coal trains moved this fast! Can you imagine waiting at a train crossing in your car and seeing this come blazing down the track. It would be gone before you even knew it was there! Oh, turn up your sound to get the full effect (and to hear Mr. Travel instruct me on taping) and blow a fan in your face so your hair blows back off your face!

After the train ride back to where we started, we then took another train, just the regular kind back to the train station by the base and staggered back to the hotel. We were exhausted and had just put in a 14+ hour day. The next day was the day we had to leave. One more post about that and I'll wrap this puppy up!

Thanks for taking the trip with us!

Tokyo for Christmas: Day Six

Note: When we returned home after our trip, we found out that we had no internet service. It was off for several days, due to a problem with our tower. After I called the company and complained, they sent someone out and got us connected again. Amazing how dependent we have become to the internet! I hope to get the blog caught up with the Tokyo Trip soon.

Day Six, December 28th

Well, here we are sitting at the Narita Airport in Japan waiting for our flight home. It is now 3:30 pm, Wednesday, Tokyo time which is 11:30 pm Tuesday back home. Our flight leaves at 6:15 pm so we’ve got about a 3 hour wait. Actually we have been here at the airport since about 1:00 pm. We left the Yokota Air Base on the shuttle at 11:00 am. We’ve got about a 10 hour flight to San Francisco, a 5 hour lay over there and we finally fly into Denver around 6:30 pm on Wednesday MST. I’m exhausted just writing about it. I can only imagine how exhausted I am going to be by the time we finally do arrive in Denver.

I need to catch up with my postings. Left off at Day Six, so that’s where I’ll pick up the story.

On Day Six, which was Monday, Nick had to work, so Mr. Travel and I decided to tackle “downtown” Tokyo all by ourselves. We figured that we knew just enough about the train to be dangerous. We had received a pretty detailed map from the “travel information booth” on base and Mr. Travel did some research on the internet the night before so we thought we knew pretty much what we were doing.

We started around 8:30, once again we were off walking. We had to walk to the train station which is about a 20 minute walk from the air base. We weren’t positive where the train station was since Nick wasn’t with us, but we knew the general direction and found it without incident. We then bought our train tickets, which you buy from vending machines, so you need to know what you are doing because there are no instructions. Also there are so many people who use the train that it seems like no matter what you are doing, there is always a line waiting for you to hurry up and get done so the next person in line can go. This applies to everything, from buying train tickets, to using the bathroom, to reading a menu outside a restaurant, to riding an elevator or escalator, to taking a picture of a landmark! I am telling you, there are millions of people here, everywhere!

Our train ride was suppose to be about 2 hours, but we goofed up a couple of times and got off when we should have stayed on so we were actually on the train for closer to 21/2 hours. We then had to take the subway. We hadn’t done this before, but Mr. Travel led us right to the subway station and we got our tickets with no problem. The subway was just like the train, only underground. The train and subway were both crowded, but not too bad, we had to stand some of the way but were able to sit part of the way as well.

When we got off the subway we wandered around until we saw a street sign pointing us to Tokyo Tower.

There's a 7 Eleven around every corner.

Anyone hungry for gross looking fish things with a slice of lemon?

By george, I think we found it!

Our tour guide on Tuesday told us that they were constructing a second Tokyo Tower which would be twice as tall as the present one and would be completed in the year 2012. She said at present, it would be the worlds tallest structure, but who knew what might be constructed between now and 2012.

They have two observatories at Tokyo Tower, but we only went to the first one. The weather was hazy and we figured we wouldn’t be able to see much more any higher so we opted to save a little money and only go to the first. We ate lunch at a restaurant in Tokyo Tower. The restaurant was a Japanese buffet which was great for trying things we had seen, but weren’t sure we wanted to try. I took all the funky looking stuff while Mr. Travel stayed with things that he could identify.

Base of Tokyo Tower

View of Downtown Tokyo, see Rainbow Bridge in the distance?

I was standing on a "window" on the floor of the observatory deck, see how little the cars and trucks are at the very top of the photo?

Kathi and the Tokyo Tower mascot.

After lunch, we found a little park that had some Japanese maple trees that still had their red leaves on. I keep thinking that all the trees and flowers must be spectacular in the fall and spring. If we ever get to come back, I hope it is either in the fall or the spring time.

Beautiful Fall Leaves of a Japanese Maple

See the reflection of Tokyo Tower in the water?

One Big Tree!

After exploring the area around Tokyo Tower, we took the subway back to the train station. It was now around 4 pm and just starting to get dark. We decided to take a little time and explore around that area before hopping on the train. We found Hard Rock Café. I loved all the lights of the city. Made we wonder if this is what New York City was like?

Hard Rock Cafe Tokyo

Look familiar to any "Amazing Race" fans?

Tiny delivery truck

Cool Scooter

Another manhole cover, they are all decorative like this!

This picture is actually a reflection on a building.

Nice wide streets, downtown Tokyo.

Men Saka Bar? That's what it says!



Beautiful florist shops around every corner with orchids galore, beautiful!

Finally fatigue started to set in and we made our way back to the train. We arrived back at the train station near the base around 7 pm and Nick came and picked us up. We then went out to dinner with Nick and one of his friends. Then it was off to bed since we had to get going early in the morning for our tour to Mt. Fuji.

We just heard over the loud speaker that all passengers flying to the United States are going to have to go through a second security check. We are already sitting down here at our gate waiting so we are wondering if they are going to check us again. They started checking some of the people waiting down here, but seemed to have stopped. Also they were not letting anyone come down here, but they have stated to let people down here to the gate. I was wondering what security would be like since the incident in Detroit.

We were thinking that security wasn’t as tight here as it was in DIA or San Francisco, they didn’t even make us take off our shoes. I guess we’ll find out shortly what is going to happen.

After I put away my computer, several TSA agents came down to our gate and started patting down everyone who was going to get on our plane. I think that was only the second time in my whole entire life I have been patted down. The other time was in Rapid City in 1986 when I went to a Heart concert. They also went thorough our carry on bags, but didn't make us take our shoes off.

Well, that's it for now...