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Retreat Center

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The main reason I came to Japan this time (and the last two times) was for Awakening To Presence workshops.  This year there were two workshops I attended.  The first one was an all graduate workshop with 20 people from four classes, both Japanese and Americans.  It was so wonderful to be with everyone, five days of living in the present moment with such beautiful people.

Since my body decided 5:00 – 6:00 in the morning is a good time to get up (even though breakfast isn’t until 8:00), I was able to get a walk in every morning.  A lot of my pictures are of beautiful scenes or flowers from walking near the retreat center. 

After we were done with the first week, it took three taxis to take us from the retreat center to the nearby town.  The first taxi was a van and was directed to come down to the farthest building to pick us up and take us up to our suitcases half way up the hill.  It scraped on trees as the driver tried to turn it around making horrible sounds of tree branches crushing metal.  It probably didn’t crush the metal, but I assume a lot of paint was scraped off and replaced with deep gouges.  The people that walked up the path beat the van by quite a bit. 

Then there was a lot of flurry as suitcases were moved around and put in the van.  I watched my suitcases go into the van so I followed them and got in the van.  Peggy and a bunch of the Japanese followed me into the van.  This left the other two Americans looking a bit lost, holding their luggage by the side of the path.  I’m sure they will end up in the same place.

When we got up to the main road, we found the other two taxis who were lost.  There was some conversation, probably around the lines of, ” don’t go down there, you can’t handle it”.  So we and all our luggage were booted from the van and moved to another van and off we went to the town of Ueda.

The original van and a car went to get the rest of the people and they did show up in the same place after us in Ueda.

My suitcase rolly handle broke.  I had been strapping my duffle bag to the top of my rolly carryon suitcase and the set up was awesome until it broke.  I could still roll the bag on semi flat surfaces, but I had to pick it up when the ground was uneven.  And now I had to carry the duffle.  It was all do-able, but definitely an upper body workout.  I looked for tape and couldn’t find any duct tape.  I tried a craft tape, but it was similar to electrical tape and worked for three minutes.

After a three day break, I went back for the second workshop.  I took an hour long bus ride hoping I was on the right bus.  I followed along on my map as we went and when we didn’t turn the wrong way at any forks in the road, I stayed on.  I did get off a stop or two early.  I think Google maps lead me astray.  It does pretty good, but has led me wrong before and most likely will again.  I watched the bus head off in the exact direction I needed to go.  I limped off behind it for three blocks with my broken suitcase and duffle bag in hand. 

Then I took a train to Tokyo and as I was waiting on the platform for my second train, I heard “Rraine!”. I looked toward the voice and there was Rika.  Rika is one of the other ATP graduates.  She was also headed to the second workshop.  She asked which train car I was on and I said “11”.  She said “Me too”.  We looked at our seats and she had the seat in front of me.  She looked online and found that no one had booked the seat next to me so we sat together on the ride.  She gave me half her lunch.

This second workshop was a new committed group of students.  I was one of the assistants along with Rika and Yuri.  There were also three more assistants who are just starting their assistant training program.  The workshop was intense and wonderful.  It was the smoothest most grounded group of assistants I have worked with.  A true joy.

There are a lot of unspoken rules at the retreat center or maybe not unspoken, but lost in translation.  In the hall where we meet, each sliding glass door had five doors – four glass and one screen.  When someone is going to do process work, the doors get closed, but I’m not sure why – we are on the side of a mountain in the forest – no one to disturb.  Then part way through the emotional processing, the doors get opened.  I can’t seem to figure out the doors.  You’d think five doors would be manageable, but I seemed to always have three glass doors on one side and one on the other or two and two, but not the right two so shortly later, someone would fix it.  I gave up trying after a couple days.

Another confusing thing was laundry.  I wanted to do laundry on the third day here.  It had to go up the chain of command.  Then I was told at least four different things by different people.  Maybe the 8th or the 9th.  Maybe 8:00, 9:00 or 10:00.  I decided to be ready and wait until some one said, “laundry now”.  I got shown twice how to do and where to do laundry.  No one was going to let me go un-laundried.  I so appreciated people making sure I was taken care of. 

Every day was a similar question about bathing.  When do you want to bathe?  They have two Japanese style public baths and it was quite the process to figure out when and which bath to use.  But, again, I was not going to go unbathed.  When I had to do laundry a second time, I didn’t ask, I just snuck off and did it.  There were rules about washing dishes – I figured those out by watching and mimicking.  There were rules about getting clean towels and turning in the dirty ones – I messed that up once.

One of my favorite things near the retreat center was a field (farm?) of azalea bushes.  During the first workshop there were some pink and some orange azaleas blooming.  By the second week, other shades of pink, red and white started to bloom.  Each day, there seemed to be more.  One day as I approached the azaleas I noticed them humming.  It seemed as if they were singing to me.  Of course, every bush was covered in happy bees and other pollinators.  It was actually the insects humming.  I decided not to walk through the bushes.

Bugs.  The forest is full of bugs.  Each day I tried to sit out in the sun after lunch.  Each day I went to the afternoon session feeling all itchy.  Inside the hall there are stink bugs – the prehistoric looking bugs that move v.e.r.y slowly.  There are spiders and ants inside too.  Each room had a small brush and dustpan for scooping up bugs and taking them outside.  There seemed to be less than I remembered last year so I was grateful for that.  There were some cool looking moths and butterflies too.  One night I was getting ready for bed and heard tapping on my glass door.  It startled me.  I looked out and saw a big green moth about four inches wide trying to get in.  I turned off my light in hopes he would find another better light to fly to.  During the second workshop there was a small room that no one was staying in adjacent to my small room.  There were at least four to five stink bugs in my room each night.  So when I went to take a bath, I would leave the light on in the empty room, turn my light off and open the door between the rooms.  It worked sometimes to draw the bugs out of my room .

And last, but not least – the bear.  A bear was seen in a nearby area, but not at the retreat center.  It still seemed to be close enough to be of concern.  And Japanese bears have been eating humans lately.  Huh? At dinner we had the bear talk – What to do if you came across a bear.  It appears you should curl up in a ball on the ground and cover your head.  I’m going to stick with the plan of walk slowly the other way.  We should avoid going outside at night or in the early morning.  The next afternoon I was sitting in the itchy spot and quite a few students were amazed that I wasn’t afraid to sit outside – what about the bear? 

That night I had to walk in the dark by myself to the bath house – remember Rraine will not go unbathed.  On my way back, only fifty feet from my building, I heard something large in the forest running, rustling the leaves.  Even though it was obvious from the sound that I scared it and it was running away from me, it startled me so bad I jumped and ran to the porch of the building .  So, my plan to walk away slowly didn’t work.

Overall, a couple of fabulous weeks in Japan.

Earthworks Guesthouse

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In 2019, Peggy and I came to Japan for a workshop.  We stayed in a guesthouse in the town of Bessho Onsen near where the workshop would be held.  We loved the little hot springs town and our host was the best.

This year, we returned with Wendy and Sally.  They all stayed at the same place for a night before I got there and I joined them for the last night.  Our host was just as wonderful.  Rumi picked me up at the train station and took me to the guesthouse.  She had lunch reserved for us at a nearby restaurant.  The breaded pork cutlet was perfect.  We wandered around town.  The town was very quiet. After massages at the guesthouse we headed out for dinner which Rumi had also reserved for us.  And a last stop at the outdoor foot bath before settling in for the night.

Rumi is a pottery artist and the guest house is behind her art gallery.  Her husband does decorative iron work.  The guest house, rental cabin and beautiful garden in the middle are so artfully and thoughtfully decorated.  The gallery is full of special hand made things from her and other local artists.

Breakfast the next morning (reserved by our host) was at a small restaurant we had been to before where no one spoke English, but they were so happy to serve us.  Actually no one spoke English in the other restaurants either.  After breakfast, Rumi gathered with us in the guesthouse kitchen to make matcha tea for us.  She said it wasn’t an official tea ceremony, but taught us about the different elements of a tea ceremony and how to receive the tea and the sweets that were served along with the tea. 

After wandering around town some more, we were loaded into two taxis and taken to the retreat center.

Train Cleaning

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My train arrived, people got off and then it was announced that we had to wait while the train was cleaned.  Through the window, I saw the seats spin around slowly.  It looked like they were doing ballet, pirouetting around.  I saw no people.  I wondered if Japan had self cleaning trains.  Or were there tiny roombas zipping around the train that I could not see?  It was complete quickly and we were allowed to board the train. 

The second time I had to wait for a train to be cleaned, I did see a human walk through the train.  But, the seats did appear to dance and spin again on their own without help from the human.

So I did some googling and found these fun facts about Shinkansen cleaning:

It takes 7 minutes to clean the train – 1.5 minutes for trash collection, 30 seconds for seat rotation, 4 minutes for sweeping and wiping tables/windows, and 1 minute for a final check.

A single staff member is responsible for one carriage (up to 100 seats).

They use specialized equipment, such as a retractable broom and thermosensors to check for spills.

Unfortunately I didn’t get any photos or videos of the train being cleaned, but here is a train video and picture that I took for fun.

I’m Failing Sleep

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I didn’t sleep well for my first few nights in Japan.  Sometimes I have no problem when I travel, sometimes I am restless or wake up at weird times.  My watch records my sleep and when I get up I can see how I did.  The night on the plane I got a sleep score of 41.  Last night it was a 58, not much better.  I don’t really know how it calculates the score, but I’m obviously failing Sleep.  Then I look at my energy score and it’s in the low 80’s.  Huh?  Watch Math makes no sense.  I’m failing Watch Math too.

Failing Sleep was not great preparation for all the stairs.  My hotel was near a smaller train station with no escalators.  And if there were elevators, I missed them.  I saw the entrance to the station (all stairs) and went down to find my train on platform 2.  All I saw was platform 1 and no way around the tracks to the other side.  I walked around and it seemed the only solution was going to be going back up to ground level and finding another entrance.  Or I could get on the train going the wrong way for one stop and hope switching tracks would be easier at the next station.  I decided to go with Plan B, the possible no stair option.  The train pulled up to Platform 1.  I laughed out loud as the doors opened to a wall of people.  There was no way I was shoving myself, my big backpack and suitcase into that mess just to avoid stairs.  So I hobbled up a lot of stairs back to ground level.  As I looked around, I could see there were 4 entrances to the station, one on each corner of the street intersection.  I only knew the one I came up was wrong – I had a 2/3 chance of picking the right one.  If I was wrong, it would be another down and up of stairs.  Carrying my suitcase down was just as hard as up.  I crossed the street and went down again.  Success!  Platform 2!  The train was practically empty which was great too.

Even though my next station was bigger, there were still so many stairs.  I was getting more of an upper body workout than I expected.  I got near my next train early and sat at a coffee shop to cool down and enjoy an iced coffee.

This train was a shinkansen and wasn’t very crowded so I could relax before any more stairs might appear.

My last train was a small local train.  I heard it coming before it arrived.  I love the way the rails start to sing long before a train arrives.  A high pitched ringing, ping ping., the sound moving in tight waves along the rails toward you.  Then as it got closer, a cute, happy song played in the station to mark the arrival of the train.  It sounds like we might be in grade school, being invited to the playground.  The train is brightly colored and even has grade school drawings hanging up inside. 

The sounds don’t stop there.  The train sings the whole way to the town of Bessho Onsen.    As the train changes speed, the pitch of its song changes too.  There are many rural stops along the way with old wooden platforms and small stations.  It helps paint the picture that you are in the countryside.  As the train slows or sits at a station it sighs, moans and makes cooing sounds.  I’ve never heard anything like it.  After I looked it up, I learned it was from the air suspension system that balances the load of the train and its passengers.  It sounded like the train was talking to me.

I arrived in Bessho Onsen around lunch time, already exhausted, but happy to meet up with my friends.

Takayama Day 2

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I wanted to do a nighttime food tour, but found none online.  I did find a daytime food tour that went to the morning market and the old town.  I arrived at the train station meeting point early.  Hanging out in the hotel room sounded less fun than wasting a half hour exploring the train station. 

I saw a guy sitting on a bench with an official looking badge on so I asked if he was the guide for the food tour.  He asked if I was Rraine.  “How did you know?”. I was the only one on the tour.  I like tours because you get to meet new people.  I guess I get to meet one new person today.  Later I learned I was the first person to ever take this food tour.  The tour company has done history and walking tours for years, but just decided to add a food tour for the first time.

The first stop was a vendor at the morning market.  He sold espresso in tiny cookie cups.  The inside of the cup was lightly frosted so the frosting would melt into your espresso.  When done, you ate the cup.  Brilliant.

We went to a samurai museum where you could see what the castle in this town would have looked like.  Also displayed were clothing, tools, swords and other artifacts from the samurai times. 

I ate grilled beef on a stick, raw beef sashimi, ramen and finished up the food portion with pudding. 

There was also sake testing.  In one of the sake sellers, you can put money in a gumball machine and out pops a sake cup and a token.  At another machine, you can get additional tokens.  Then you take the tokens to a bank of pour machines.  Each token pours a sample of sake.  This way you can sample sake to help decide which one you want to buy.  Again, brilliant!

We also went to a memorabilia museum with items from the Showa period (1926 – 1989).  It was like entering an Americana museum from the 1950s and 1960’s, but with a slight Japanese flavor.  It was fun and something I never would have chosen on my own.

After the tour, I decided to go see the samurai castle ruins.  This was not the best decision of the day.  Of course, the castle was at the top of a huge hill.  There were several ruins locations at the top of the hill.  None of the Google maps names matched the park arrow signs.  So I had no idea which trail I wanted to pick to see ruins.  I picked one and hiked up to the false summit at which point I had seen no ruins.  My feet hurt, my back hurt and seeing ruins no longer seemed worth it.  Was I going to continue up just to say I did?  No. I admitted defeat and headed back down.  At least it was a pretty forest hike except for the very loud heavily perfumed French group of 6 that followed me down.

Finally down from the mountain, it was time to do the dinner hunt game.   First I went to the restaurant my hotel had recommended that was closed last night.  There was a sign on the door that said all seats were reserved for the night.  I went to a couple other steak places that were more ‘food on the go’ type places.  The next place I went to had a line out the door of about 20 people. 

I didn’t want to wait, but I also was tired of being told restaurants were closed or needed a reservation.  And a line often means good food.  So I got in line.  Every now and then one of the three wait staff would come out and excitedly call the next person in line like they had won the lottery.  It was a celebration each time a new table became available.  This made me want to eat here even more.  When I got closer to the front one of them came out and put some of our names, party number and where we were from on the list.  Whoo!  Rraine One USA!  A short time later, it was my turn to eat. I was welcomed with cheers.  I had a very delicious steak and a lemon sour.  It was so fun watching the wait staff interact with the guests.  They were so energetic and their joy spread out throughout the room.  It was contagious.  Thank you, other restaurant, for being fully booked.

On the way back to my hotel, I found a foot bath.  Game changer.  We need more foot baths in the world.  It was warm, relaxing, and clean.  I found a coin operated massage chair at my hotel.  It wasn’t as great as the foot bath.

Another Night in Ueda

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I decided to stay one night in Ueda since I wasn’t sure how I was going to get from the retreat center to Ueda or what time.  I didn’t want to have to rush to meet my train or miss it because my timing was off.  It would take me two trains and a bus to get from Ueda to Hirayu Onsen.  I was able to come back to Ueda with my teacher and friend by taxi.  I also got to have lunch with them before they departed to Tokyo and I departed to laundry

After doing laundry, I was only slightly early to check in to my hotel.  I was able to check in early.  I booked a massage for 6:40pm so I had over three hours to kill.  Sara and Michael had headed off to get ice cream when I left them so I still had ice cream running around in my brain.  I mapped ice cream and picked a location nearby.  It was a restaurant that served a lot of things.  Ice cream was not one of them.  They had shaved ice.  Close enough.  I got a mulberry milk ice.  The menu advertised it was high in antioxidants. I’ll take my toxic sugar with a side of antioxidants please. They cancel each other out, right?  It was stupid sized and delicious.

Then what?  I went to the art museum because the internet told me they had a great shop with things from local artists.  Lots of things, but nothing I wanted.  Since I was shopping now, where else coukd I go?  I went to two other gift shops.  They were full of boxed snacks.  When Japanese travel they buy these as gifts, either as a memento of where they traveled to or as a gift to others from their home town.  I think it’s a great gift idea, but I don’t have room in my suitcase for boxed mystery food.  One box had a picture of a green grape, another of an apple.  I was pretty sure both of them probably were sweet and might resemble the flavor of that fruit.  The rest of the boxes and bags were a complete mystery.  The rest of the things in the shops were sake, samurai themed toys, other toys, trinkets, t-shirts and hats.  There was a huge samurai theme since the Ueda Castle nearby dates back to this times of samurais.

After my massage, I went in search of steak.  I had seen several on my wander around town.  I went to two steak places that had people eating in them, but they told me they were closed.  It was a little before 8:00pm.  Even restaurants in Granby are open past 8:00.  I went to a Korean BBQ place.  Every item I would want was for a minimum of two people.  I gave up the hope of steak.  My next goal was to find a place that would serve me any food. 

I went to the street near the train station where I ate the last time I was in Ueda.  Two more restaurants were full of people, but closed.  I still have emergencheese in my suitcase, but I’m pretty sure I should throw that away, not eat it.  I think I’ll go to bed without dinner before eating emergencheese.  The last restaurant on the street welcomed me in and even fished an English menu out of the back somewhere.  No steak.  So, I chose a cabbage and pork omelet.  I never would have put those three things together on my own, but it was good once I scraped the dried fish flakes off the top.

Rain Day

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Rain was predicted for today.  In fact it was raining when I went down from my room to breakfast.  I debated if I should bring the umbrella and rain jacket or just the rain jacket.  The umbrella is just another thing to carry and the rain was light.  I chose just the rain jacket.  I should have taken both.

Today, I had scheduled a tour through the streets of Tokyo on go-karts.  I was quite excited.  I hoped the rain didn’t ruin the activity.  I headed over to the kart shop.  There were four others signed up to go with me.

It was no longer raining, but the cart guy said it was expected to start back up in the middle of the 2 hour tour.  I could get a refund or if I decided to go, they would lend me a rain coat, rain pants, gloves, goggles AND a rain poncho.  Under all that, how would I even know if it was raining.  I should have taken the refund. 

The group of 4 came in after me and didn’t know you needed to have an international driver’s license to go on the tour.  So they couldn’t go.  It was just me.  I expected it would be me and a guide in karts zipping around.  That didn’t sound as fun as a big group, but it sounded fun enough so I suited up in all the anti rain stuff and watched the safety video. 

There would be a lead car and a follow car so I just had to follow the lead car and not run any red lights.  After a hands-on tutorial of the kart, I was ready to go.  Wait, there was no guide in a kart going with me.  This suddenly went down on the fun scale to fun adjacent.  

It started off ok.  I was a little slow at first.  I didn’t want to gun it and run into the lead car.  I would start up slow and then speed up just in time to have to break at a stop light.  Apparently I was driving around with my hazards on because the guy in the follow car ran up to me at a stop light and asked if I was ok and then turned them off.  Ooops. 

The turn signal was trying to get the better of me.  I couldn’t see the toggle switch under the wheel.  I missed it quite a few times and I bet I was driving around with it on when I wasn’t turning from time to time.  I don’t even know why I cared.  The follow car had a clear view of the lead car over my head and knew when we were turning.

It rained a little harder.  The break and gas pedals were slippery.  My goggles were streaked with rain.  The rain jacket hood slowly slipped farther back exposing more of my face and allowing water to drip into the jacket.  I couldn’t tell if I was mildly wet or completely soaked.

I basically was flying slowly (felt fast to me, but probably was annoyingly slow to everyone else) in a bubble between the lead and follow cars so I felt safe-ish.  But I was sitting on the ground by myself completely exposed to the elements in a vehicle that is squirrely.  Water was everywhere.  It rained harder and harder and became more difficult to see or push the pedals.  I had dropped solidly into the category of pure un-fun – no fun anywhere to be found.

I raised my hand at the next light which was the signal to abort. Someone from the lead car ran out and asked if I wanted to abort.  Yes, very much so.  The lead car found a safe place to pull over and I was shuttled into the lead car.  I have no idea what became of the kart.  We drove around a bit.  Then we stopped for a photo at Tokyo Station, then went back.

I have a coupon for another time.  I still think it would be a lot of fun not by myself.  

I asked if there was anything they recommended I could do that was fun and not in the rain.  My plan was to go to a park after, but  that was solidly in the non-fun category now.  My feet and pants were dry, but my top was not.  Both TeamLabs and the Harry Potter Tour were recommended.  Everyone kept asking if I was cold – not in the slightest.  I had my rain jacket, but they gave me a poncho to add to the mix. 

I looked up TeamLabs – no tickets available.  I looked up the HP tour.  There were tickets, but it seemed far away.  To HP or not to HP?  I didn’t have the energy to come up with another idea.  I ordered a cab to the HP tour which cost the same as the HP tickets. 

They gave me a plastic bag to put my wet poncho in.  That was nice.  The tour covered a lot about how the movies were made.  It also had a bunch of sets that looked like the movie sets so you could walk through them.  Most of the instructions by staff were in Japanese, but it wasn’t hard to get the gist.  There were places where you could act out scenes or get your picture taken.  I tried them all, but, wow, I’m horrible.  Not that anyone around me was great, but each time I watched the video I just made, I cringed.  It wasn’t even funny bad acting.

The best part of the whole thing was that about 90% of the people, including the adults went into the gift shop ahead of the tour and bought a cape, scarf and wand.  The place was completely covered in giddy, excited people running around pretending they were wizards.  They were posing for pictures, waving their wands to do spells, and having the best time ever.

Halfway through the tour was a cafe and a bar where you could get butter beer.  I was quite ready to try butter beer.  I love everything butter.  I got the butter beer and popcorn combo.  The butter beer smelled like butterscotch, but didn’t quite taste like it.  It just tasted sweet.  It was fun to sit at the pub and have a butter beer.  It also came in a souvenir cup.  My poor husband is going to get a bunch of souvenir cups when I get home and not a single cat hat.

After taking way too many pictures it was time to figure out how to get back to the hotel.  The trains would take over an hour and would involve walking in the pouring rain.  I was in a zone Go Taxis were not allowed because there was a formal taxi stand nearby.  Go is like Uber.  There was no taxi stand anywhere in sight.  There was nothing.  I thought if I headed out to the street, I might get out of the no Go zone.  I got out of the zone, but no Go’s were available in the area.  I was  completely soaked now anyway despite the gift poncho.  I ask maps to find the train station.  I hoped my phone continued to work even though it was also soaked.  Wandering through train stations and riding trains for an hour and my clothes were dry again. Yay for quick drying clothes. 

This was going to be a good night to eat at the hotel.  No, it was closed for a private party just like every other night.  Back out into the rain.  I went back to the place I went the first night for more meat on a stick.

Planets and Towers

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The last time I was in Tokyo, I went to a light exhibit by TeamLabs.  I don’t even know how to describe it, but it blew my mind.  Digital light effects, computer generated, interactive, magical,…..  Since then I have gone to everything like it including one in Singapore by TeamLabs.  None came close to comparing.  So first order of business for the day was to go to their second installation in Tokyo, Planets.

Planets did not disappoint.  There were three exhibits that included water.  One was wading in a koi pond.  The water was up to my mid calf.  The koi were digital light images on the water.  They interacted with you as you walked through the pond.  Some swam around you, others skittered off when you approached.  When they ran into each other, they turned into flowers that floated off.  Pure magic.

I could explain more of the exhibits, but I couldn’t do them justice.  The pictures and videos below are just an approximation also, but enjoy.

After, I went to the small cafe outside.  They had a “bar” where you could sit with the orchids from one of the exhibits and get a sake or a tea.  I got a tea.  I sat in a dark room with a couple while the vases the orchids were in lit up on a slow neon fade. My tea cup also lit up. It was an odd, not quite satisfying experience.  It also came with a free orchid (no flower, just the plant).  More odd.  Now I’m toting a rather large green thing around that I can’t take home with me.  I hope my friend that I will see later in the trip or the retreat center I am going to will like it.

After stashing my orchid in my hotel room, I decided to head off to a park near the Tokyo tower. I walked from the train station toward the tower and saw a shrine along the way. I stopped in a cafe for lunch. The tower was close so I decided to take some pictures around there before heading to the park. I went in and saw that tickets to the observation deck were not very expensive. I bought a ticket for entry to the top observation deck. I had an hour to kill before my ticket entry time. So, I went up to the mid observation deck and walked around about ten times. I got a coffee, snapped some pictures and watched a movie about the war and the building of the tower. The park I was aiming to go to didn’t look too impressive from way up high. In every direction I looked, there was just city as far as the eye could see. No end to Tokyo in any direction. Then I went up to the top deck in a very crowded elevator. The views from the top deck looked a lot like the views from the mid deck so I did a couple laps around and headed back down.

All of this took the better part of a day. It was so nice to have a planned activity followed by wandering. I decided to wander to a different part of the city in search of ramen for dinner.

Ramen

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I decided to go to Shinjuku for dinner.  I looked for ramen restaurants on Google maps and picked one nearby the station that had good reviews.  Maps led me down a busy street and then turned me down an alley.  The alley was quiet and dark except for a place that was lit up and had a line of people in front of it. 

I had to wait in line for ramen?  Normally, I would not be up for waiting in line for dinner, but a line down the alley had to be a good sign.  So I got in line.

A lady came out of the restaurant and took tickets from a couple a few people ahead of me.  Huh.  How did they get tickets?  Was I in line for take out?  I hoped not.  I wouldn’t know where to take it.  The guy behind me hadn’t done anything so I just stood there, waiting. 

Two people came out of the restaurant and got in line up ahead of me. No one seemed bothered by this.  Oh…..something was going on that I didn’t understand.  After about 5 minutes the guy in front of me went in and came back out with a ticket.  I think I got it – kind of. 

The lady came out, asked him some questions, wrote on his ticket and took his ticket.  She then motioned for me to go inside to get a ticket.

I went inside.  It was a tiny restaurant that only sat 12 people.  I’d only been in one ramen restaurant before and it was tiny too, but without the line and ticket system.  There was a machine and it appeared to have menu items on it.  There was shrimp and miso, shrimp and tomato, and shrimp and dipping sauce.  I pressed the button for shrimp and dipping sauce, but nothing happened.  I pressed another button below it.  Nothing happened.  I stared at the machine for a minute, trying to figure out what to do next.  Finally, I see the lady who was outside and motioned for help.  She showed me where to put money in the machine.  Duh.  It was obvious after she showed me.  The machine lit up and I pressed a button.  A ticket popped out and then my change. 

I think I might have ordered ramen with shrimp, dipping sauce and egg?  I went back out and stood where I was in line.  The lady came to get my ticket and asked what size I wanted.  I said small.  Small apparently came with another topping, pork or something.  I understood “pork” so I picked that.  She wrote on my ticket and took it. 

I watched the system continue with the people behind me as I waited to go in to eat.  Now I was excited.  It was like dinner with a guessing game. Guess what happens next….. This is one the things I love so much about travelling – feeling kind of clueless or lost because something is so different than I am used to. 

When I got closer to the door, I noticed the sign for the restaurant.  It had a huge shrimp on it.  Aha, that must be their speciality and it explained the choices.

When it was time to go in, the lady told me “two” and motioned to a bar stool with a 2 on it.  As I sat down the guy in seat 1 got up and went to a counter behind the bar stools where there was a stack of cups and a water dispenser.  Suddenly I was so thirsty.  I got up, got some water, a packaged wet cloth for cleaning my hands and what I thought was a napkin.  It was the least absorbent napkin I had ever felt.  Wait, it wasn’t a napkin.  It was a bib.  I hadn’t noticed before, but everyone was wearing bibs.  I don’t think I’d worn a bib since I was a kid.  This was oddly super fun.

Proudly, I put my bib on, grabbed my chop sticks and waited for my food to arrive.  They gave me two bowls, one with noodles, lettuce and pork in it and one with the sauce and “shrimp”.  Watching others, I see that you take a little of everything and put it in the sauce to soak for a few seconds, then eat, then repeat.  The shrimp had the consistency of shrimp, but didn’t resemble shrimp in any other way.  The pork was excellent. 

Still not used to the time change coupled with a belly full of carbs I was exhausted. I decided that going back to the hotel and going to bed by 9:00 was the best plan.

Help Needed

On By rrainefioreIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

This blog post is for, you, my OG Subscribers. 

I am in the process of writing a book.  The book will be about what it was like to join a search and rescue team as a middle aged woman.  Also, about the beautiful and wonderful moments found in nature and the diverse people I have met along the way.

Unfortunately, writing a book in 2025 also involves having a marketing plan and having an on-line presence.  I’d like to bump up the number of people subscribing to my blog to help show publishers that people like my writing.

I decided to make some rain drop themed metal charm pieces as an incentive/thank you for any of you that are willing to share my blog with others so that I can increase my number of subscribers.  I have sample photos below.  Most can be used as a necklace pendant or other decoration.  I can also do key rings or a fidget spinner (also pictured below). 

If you can help me gain 5 – 10 new subscribers I will send you a charm.  10 – 15 new subscribers I will let you choose the style and metal (copper, brass, bronze, jewelry nickel) you want and make it specifically for you.  If you can help me gain 15 – 20 new subscribers, I will add a stone to the piece and/or make it in silver.  20+ subscribers, we can discuss another design, earrings, or whatever you may want that is in my jewelry skill set.

Once new subscribers sign up, I will email them to find out who recommended them and keep track.

Other ways you can help.  If you want to write a short testimonial about why you like my writing, I can gather those to give to publishers.  It would also help me for future blogs.  You could post a comment here or email me.  rrainefiore@gmail.com.

Upcoming:  1.  I am currently in Japan and will be sharing stories of my travels with you.  2.  Later, I will be posting a survey to help determine what I should put in the blog after Japan.  What do you want to read about?  3.  I will post some chapters from my book.