MASSAGEE

I don't have a picture of this, so I'll try to be descriptive. Tim and I were on date night on Tuesday. We were walking to the Hotel New Yokosuka, a common meeting up place. It is near the place they call 'The Honch' and 'Doubuita Street' which is by the main gate onto base.

Several years ago I saw a sign there that said MASSAGE -- SOAPY FINISH. That has become a catch-phrase for me, because I thought it was so funny.

Tim told me about a time when he was here temporarily when a 'buddy' sicked a girl on him to give him a massagee one evening. They can be rather persistent.

Well, we were walking along, and since the sidewalks are narrow, I was walking behind Tim. It's easier that way, since there are bicyclists on the sidewalks here, so you're likely to not have enough advanced warning to get out of the way. Single file, even when we're traveling as a family works great. At least they'll have to mow down 3 in a row, and when I'm in the rear, well, I think I could do some damage to a bike. It's far easier than dodging back and forth when you're walking side by side. Plus, with Tim's long stride, and my short stumpy legs, it's easier for us to just do our own thing.

Anyhoo... a nice dressed Japanese lady, about 30 or so, walks up to Tim and says something. I IMMEDIATELY knew what's going down. Japanese women don't normally talk to men. So I pointed at him and said, "SHUJIN!" (HUSBAND!)

The instant surprise and abashed look on her face was priceless. It was too funny. She'd been caught, by the wife!!

Then we went into the bar and a guy I just met gave me $30 worth of drink coupons (he was heading back to the states the next day). And I didn't even have to give a massagee for it! Score one for the wife!

Seika Art Exhibition

Saturday was the Art Exhibition at William's school.

Getting to William's school is always an adventure. There is no parking available, so you need to find some type of public transportation to get there and it is a fair distance up a hill from the nearest train station. Last time, we'd parked on base and got an off-base taxi to get up there. We waited nearly 20 minutes to get a taxi, so we figured there should be a better way. This time, we took the train to the nearest train station and took a taxi from there. There is always a line of taxis at the train station so that was quick. We were also prepared to take the bus up the hill and we did actually ride the bus back to the train station when we were done.

I'm not much of an art critic, so all I can really do is provide some pictures of William's wares for your enjoyment. (Click on the small pictures to see a larger version of the picture.)
All the classes made a cow. William's class's cow is the third one from the right.




These are William's version of traditional Japanese dolls. It looks like the one on the left got into the medicine cabinet...






The highlight of the day, though, is the model shinkansen ride they had out in the playground. The bus drivers took turns driving it for the kids. It was one of the selling points for William in deciding which school to attend. I can't say that I can blame him.

Snow Festival

Our hotel was nicely located. We were a block from a subway station and the street that the ice sculptures were being built and displayed on. The first night, we looked at the ice sculptures along the street. There were a LOT of them and all very nicely done. At the end there was a dozen or so still being built so we could watch the creations in process.


The next day, we got on the subway and went the one stop to get to the big park where the snow sculptures were. It was a bit spooky. It was snowy and foggy and as we'd walk along the path, these HUGE sculptures would come out of the fog. They were so detailed and large that you'd initially think it was a big building or ... something coming up. Some of the big displays were some 20 to 30 feet tall and 60 feet wide. They had huge replications of historic castles and buildings and even a Disney scene. There was even a slide made of ice and snow that William tried out a couple of times. We found that William was only slightly interested in the sculptures (except for a few that were of trains...). He'd rather play in the snow along the side of the park. It kept him busy, anyway.

It was Friday, so kids were still in school, however, hoards of them were wearing numbered bibs and running around the site with assignments to introduce themselves to foreigners using english and getting their signature, or asking for information. Every time we came within sight, we were mobbed. We heard the following speech about 2 dozen times: "Hello, do you have a minute? I am _______ from Elementary School _____ can I ask you a few questions? Where are you from? What is your favorite thing to do in Sapporo? Thank you, have a nice day!" At one point I had about 15 kids asking for my autograph all at once.


The fog and snow cleared up a bit and we saw a bit more. They had a huge mountain of scaffolding holding up a snow board jump that snowboarders were using to show off to judges.

At night, I went back on my own to take pictures of the sculptures with all the lights on them. They had light and sound shows and some even had bands playing on them.


The next morning was our last day there, and the weather really turned nice. We took a quick peek at the sculptures and then headed to see the other sights. There was a tiny steam powered train that William was thrilled to ride on and the Sapporo TV tower had an elevator and an excellent view of the park, the city, and the surrounding hills. I suspect there is some good skiing out there...

Sapporo Beer Museum

We took a long weekend this last weekend and headed up to Sapporo, which is on the north island of Hokkaido for the Sapporo Winter Festival.

We took off from our house on Thursday morning and walked to the train with our back-packs on. We hit the trains during rush hour and it was quite an experience. Toward the end of the trek up to Tokyo, the train was getting so packed with people that we were quite literally squished in so we couldn't really move. Caroline and I surrounded William to ensure he didn't get squished, though most everyone around us was quite mindful of William and was very careful. It was a bit of a struggle to get all our bags and coats and get off the train at the right stop, but it all seemed to work out.

We caught our flight from Haneda airport. This was our first experience on a Japanese domestic flight. We tried to check in at the front counter, but they gave us a confused look. I'm not sure, but I think Japanese only use the check-in counter to change something on their ticket instead of just to let the airline know that they are there. As we put our bags on the security scanner, we scanned in the bar code on our e-tickets and slips of paper came out with our gate number. Then, as we entered the flight, our tickets were scanned again and our seat numbers were printed out.

The flight to Hokkaido was just a bit over an hour.

At the airport, we grabbed a train to Sapporo and then a taxi to our first goal: The Sapporo Beer Museum!

We started off with food in the Sapporo Bier Garten where they have an all-you-can-eat Genghis Kahn grill-it-yourself lamb meal. It was really good after the long trip.

The museum is not terribly extensive, but it is pretty nice for a free tour and has two bars for beer tasting. Hard to go wrong here.

Outside, there were some snow sculpturing going on. One guy looked like he had a beer bottle and mug outlined and a funny looking round form with two circles on it. He noticed our puzzled looks and pulled out the owl statue he was modeling. This was just a warm-up for the big snow sculptures we were headed to see the next day...