Monthly Archive for September, 2009

We, in Japan, are currently in the middle of what is being called Silver Week — a 5 day public holiday! The only reason it is called Silver Week is because Golden Week is in May and is, by and large, the full nine days (5 working days book-ended by two weekends). Not bad for a country known for killing people with overworking, eh?

When I first caught wind of this silver week, I immediately started looking for flights back to Canada. It coincided with Mom and Dad’s vacation plans to Calgary and seemed like an overly-fortuitous opportunity to meet the new nephew. It seemed like the stars were aligning and things were good. There was only one problem – the airlines didn’t want to co-operate in making our first meeting happen. When I started looking around for flights, the options were limited and the prices astronomical. Flights were booked solid on the days I wanted to travel, but if I was willing to fly through San Francisco or Los Angeles, I could leave a day or two later than I wanted and come back a day or two earlier! To top it off, tickets that usually cost between $1000-1500 were going for triple those costs! As awesome as that sounded, I just couldn’t bring myself to do it.

Since going to Canada wasn’t an option, I figured we should find something more domestic (ie. less international flights with interplanetary prices). I’m always on the lookout for things to do here, and it just so happened that one of the places I had flagged as interesting in a would-be-cool-to-check-out-but-won’t-break-my-heart-if-we-never-see-it kind of way was just coming into the ideal season. Naruto, a town famous for giant whirlpools and not much else, has the biggest whirlpools in the spring and in the fall. Sounded interesting and looked cool. We booked our flights, hotels, rental car and just had to wait for Silver Week to actually start…

Saturday was the start, and we got started with a bang. There’s not a lot that can get me up early in the morning, especially a weekend morning, but a vacation is one of the few things that can. We got up, packed the few things we needed to, and were out the door with minutes to spare. Getting to the airport went as well as can be expected, the lounge at the airport had beer and nuts (ie. was adequate), the flight to Osaka was packed on an old plane but not at all uncomfortable, and even the rental car company was relatively painless. From Ebina to Tokyo to Osaka to Awaji Island (where we were staying) took but a few hours.

The hotel we were staying at was pretty posh — we had a king sized bed and a child-sized crib (as opposed to those baby-sized ones we normally get). It was built next to (or as a part of) a huge complex with gardens and water fountains. I’m not really sure how or why, but it kept us busy exploring the various corridors and passageways to see what was around the next corner. We climbed up to an area with a hundred gardens, and walked down to man-made pools with fountains rivaling the Bellagio.

We drove around a bit to check out the local sights, and after we saw both of them, we went out for some yakiniku (Korean barbecue) for dinner. Apparently the area is known for its beef, so Tamie wanted to get some beef inside her… who was I to argue? I’d asked the hotel clerk where the best place to go was and he recommended a restaurant, warning us that we’d best make a reservation as it was usually pretty busy. Tamie tried to call ahead to make reservations but they were already full up. Since we were looking for dinner and it was on the way, we decided to stop and see if we could get lucky – and, as luck would have it, we did! As for the meal, I wouldn’t say it was the greatest yakiniku I’ve ever eaten, but it was decent. I couldn’t help wondering, though, if that wasn’t the only yakiniku in town.

On the way up to our room (407) we got on the elevator with another couple. Layla, always eager to push buttons, ended up pushing the third floor instead of the fourth. Now, in case you didn’t know, with modern elevators you can actually cancel a selection by pressing it twice. I had no idea until I got to Japan, but apparently it’s common all over the world. Tamie, knowing this, apologized to the couple for Layla, cancelled her selection, and pusehd the fourth floor. Boy, was that couple surprised when the elevator skipped past their floor and stopped on ours right away. I couldn’t stop laughing when we realized they actually wanted to get off on the third floor… too funny.

The next morning we got up early again, this time because Layla woke up crying in an unfamiliar crib. I shifted her to our king-sized bed and she seemed happy enough but then Tamie wanted to get out jogging! I was flabbergasted… I knew she brought her running shoes and everything, but I never imagined she’d actually go. More power to her! So she went jogging while me and Layla stayed back and watched bits of the Sandra Bullock classic ‘While You Were Sleeping’. I took Layla to bath and by the time we were finished we found Tamie had already returned and was sitting in front of the tv watching the same movie. Wanting to get a good headstart on the day ahead, I turned off the tv and kicked her sweaty butt into the shower.

We grabbed some bread at a bakery in the hotel before starting the drive down to see the whirlpools. It was about an hour’s drive to catch the boat we booked and we had some time so we stopped at a hillside garden that Tamie was eager to see. I was a little less than eager, more so because I didn’t want anything to make us miss the whirlpools than anything I have against gardens. We broke bread in the garden and enjoyed the view — which turned out to be pretty spectacular in its own right. The sun was shining, we had a nice view of the ocean and were surrounded by flowers and tourists! What more could one ask for?

After exploring the garden, we took the car and headed down to Naruto. We weren’t the only ones with that idea — once we got there it seemed like everyone from Osaka decided to join us. After being led up a garden path by one of the helpful parking attendants and then down a garden road by another and finally around a garden mountain by another, we eventually found a parking space. We went and got in the line up for the shuttle bus and waited. And waited. And waited. Patiently, I might add.

At this point, I should mention there are two main ways to view the whirlpools – either by boat or from the bridge that spans above them. We were hoping to get in early enough to do both – we had a reservation on a boat at 13:45, but due to delays on the highway and long-ass lines for shuttle buses, it seemed like we were going to have to pick one over the other. Talking to one of the ladies managing the shuttle bus, she said it would be next to impossible to take a bus to the bridge and then back to catch our boat and the whirlpools would have disappeared if we’d gone after the boat ride (gone because they are only present when the tide is changing).

We took a vote and decided our best bet was to try our luck with the boat. After baking under the sun for what felt like days, we eventually got to the front where I boarded the bus with Layla, only to find out that it didn’t even go to where we were to catch our boat. Not to complain about the otherwise helpful lady, but it sure would have been nice if she’d have put two and two together when we described to her the dilemma of deciding between boat or bridge and let us know that we didn’t need to be in line. We ended up walking up to the docks (a five minute walk, as the eagle walks), getting our tickets and chilling while we waited for our boat.

Eventually our ride did come and we boarded the boat without incident. Layla was excited, Tamie was excited, and even I was anxious to get out there and see these big whirlpools. The boat engines started and Layla’s excitement was quickly replaced with fear. I tried to encourage her to open her eyes, but she’d have none of that! So long as the boat was moving, the daughter was not.

It didn’t take long to get to the whirlpools, and once there we were instructed to get off the deck and go below decks. The bottom of the boat was outfitted with windows so we could see what was happening under the water. As great an idea as that sounds, it really isn’t. We sat there for five minutes as the water churned in front of our window. Maybe there was a narration describing what we were seeing, but if so it was both too quiet and too non-english for me to make out – as it was, all I saw was a swirling of bubbles in a window. As Tamie never mentioned anything, I can only guess that she didn’t hear any narration, or her Japanese is on par with mine… my guess is the former.

When we’d had our fill of swirling bubbles behind glass, they let us go back on deck to see first-hand what the whirlpools offered. It was a pretty crazy sight to behold and I’m sure the pictures don’t do justice to the scene we witnessed. Water swirled everywhere, with little whirlpools forming all over the place. I was hoping to see a massive whirlpool, the likes of which I’m sure I’m envisioning from a childhood cartoon but, alas, it was not to be. The view we had from the boat was still amazing and it was pretty trippy to be able to witness the ocean turn into a raging river. Definitely an event to remember!

Once we were back on shore, Layla was her old self again, regaling us with stories of her bravery on the seven seas. We decided to take a chance on the bridge and headed up to where the next shuttle bus was going to come. There was another large group of people waiting. After talking with the guy running the show we found that they weren’t just waiting… they were waiting for at least another half-hour. Hightailing it back to the docks, we quickly found an old taxi driver who was more than happy to take us up. On the way, Tamie probed him for the best sushi place in town and he, again, was more than happy to oblige.

The view from the bridge was very cool, despite the whirlpools slowly fading in their ferocity. The bridge itself is interesting to see, but the highlight is definitely the glass floors above the swirling waters below. For some reason, Layla was completely unfazed by the floors though – she had a lot of fun running around on them. It wasn’t until hunger got the best of us that we decided to leave. We grabbed a quick snack before getting into another long line of people waiting for the shuttle bus back to the parking lot.

Before heading back to the hotel we stopped at the taxi-driver recommended sushi place. This place turned out to be a lot better than the previous night’s dinner, despite the dishes being fish rather than beef. We got our own private little room where we enjoyed many kinds of raw, but tasty, fish. After a good meal, we made the drive back to the hotel. Before turning in for the night, I took my girls down to the bar for a nightcap. Apparently two-year olds aren’t quite old enough to get in, but there were empty party rooms beside the bar which they politely provided for us. They even had the decency to serve Layla the same cocktail that her mom had (sans alcohol). The real kicker, though, was they had the balls to charge us the same price for Layla’s drink as they did for Tamie’s. Had they not given us complimentary peanuts, and had we noticed before getting back to the room, we might have complained. Maybe.

Today, we woke up early-ish again when Layla woke up crying. Tamie ended up jogging again while we watched BBC news before showering. We stopped for breakfast at the hotel ‘fun-dining’ restaurant, which is apparently a posh word for buffet. Layla got a kick out of the ‘monkey bananas’, which were almost too small for her. I say almost because it took four or five before she was eventually, thankfully, satisfied. We checked out of the hotel before checking out the greenhouse they had. Numerous types of flowers and vegetation were growing inside (surprise, surprise) and it was interesting to wander through it all.

Before heading back to Osaka to catch our flight, Tamie wanted to see a park next to the longest suspension bridge in the world (the one we drove over to get to the island). A lot of the park had been parked on, or so it seemed, as there were a lot of cars on grass. It was a nice place, though, offering a good view of the long bridge and providing ample opportunity to take pictures. And have ice cream. So we did both – two cones – vanilla and cookies and blueberry soft-serve. Two reminders of my renewed commitment to rollerblading (I ordered wheel replacements before we left Ebina).

After some slight navigation troubles, we made it back to Osaka airport in one piece. We sat in the lounge long enough to drink more than one beer before getting on the plane and flying home. Coming home is never as easy as leaving, but I swear the flight was worse, the train rides back to Ebina was worse, and even the walk home was worse. Layla was walking along and all of a sudden she started limping, grabbing at her leg screaming ‘pain!’ I’m not at all certain what happened, but the current thought is she got a cramp. I carried her home where she (eventually) could walk again.

And that was our trip. Tomorrow is Tamie’s last day off, but Layla and I have tomorrow AND the following day! Not sure what we’re going to do, but I am sure what I won’t be doing… WORKING! =)

(more pics to come after I fix this server)