Cherry Blossom Boy

Ueno Park, Tokyo

Cherry Blossom Boy and his sidekick, Plum Blossom Boy


Forgive me for I have sinned. It has been two months since my last blog entry. I am a bad, bad man. I should be taken out and tied to a giant “Things to Do” list until I’m eaten alive. Oh wait, that already happened.

But enough about me, let’s talk about JAPAN! First, a little geographical trivia: Japan is NOT in China! Surprising, yeah. When we lived in Hong Kong our American bank actually sent us checks that they printed up with “Hong Kong, Japan” on them. Then in Beijing, we met an American woman and asked her how long she’d be in Asia. “Oh, are we in Asia?” she replied. “I thought we were in China.” Yeah. So to bring everyone up to speed, Japan is a completely different country than China (where we live) – it has its own language and traditions and everything, you know, like Canada, only more so.

We went to Kyoto and Tokyo over Ching Ming Festival (and a very happy Sweeping Your Ancestors’ Graves Day to you and yours! And BTW, your ancestors’ graves are sparkling.) At the last minute Allison had to fly to Indonesia to settle a strike or stop a locomotive with her bare hands or something, and we thought we’d have to scrap the trip, but instead we came up with a plan to fly in separately and meet at our hotel in Kyoto. So I got to fly with the boys by myself, taking cars, buses, trains, taxis, snuggle puppies, monkeys, one tiger blanket and one cheetah blanket, two carry-on bags, one overstuffed suitcase, one double-stroller, and a couple Aleve. What didn’t we take? Naps, that’s what. Planes and trains, especially bullet trains, are too exciting for naps.

Except for one exploding orange juice, the trip was great; the hardest part was watching the empty luggage carousel circle round and round and figuring out that the suitcase was never coming out of the chute. Here’s an ad slogan I wrote, on spec: “China Eastern: When You’ve Got No Choice, We’ll Be There.” When the bag showed up two days later in Kyoto it seemed like something dropped from a U.N. helicopter at a refugee camp. At least I didn’t have to carry it myself on all those trains. Look, a bright side!

Japan is an incredible country, probably my favorite in the world to visit. (Hey Italy, don’t take it like that, you know how I feel about you.  Call me.) Honestly, Japan is spectacular. It’s obviously a very modern country, but it’s also an ancient culture that hasn’t forgotten its traditions; Zen monks and women in kimonos mix comfortably with businessmen and cos-play teens in Little-Bo-Peep outfits on the streets or in the subway. It’s physically diverse and beautiful, especially at Cherry Blossom season. Its people are friendly, gentle, and welcoming, curious without being intrusive. The food is fantastic, the language is far more accessable than you might think.  And, they play baseball. What else could you want?

As opposed to a blow-by-blow, I’ll offer a few impressions:

Riding the train from Nagoya to Kyoto when we arrived, Kai looked out at the trees and said, “why aren’t they pink and purple, Daddy?” We’d been telling them about the cherry blossoms, and he thought we’d duped him. But when we got to Kyoto, he started to figure it out, and he and Keegan called out “Cherry Blossoms!” at the top of their lungs whenever they saw them. They’d claim they “discovered” the blossoms first. Kai started calling himself “cherry blossom boy.”

God has been profligate in her gifts to Kyoto. There are 17 UNESCO World Heritage Sites in the city, which is a bit like having 17 Nobel laureates from your elementary school class. For centuries the capitol of Japan when Tokyo was a horse stable on the side of the road, Kyoto still looks and feels like a star. Nearby Osaka, Nagoya, even Kobe of beef and basketball fame, are more populous, but everyone goes to Kyoto, and there are plenty of reasons. If it’s not apparent from the (lack of) photos here that’s only because our camera betrayed us, but all the more reason for you to go see for yourself.

We slept Japanese style in Kyoto, not in a full-on ryokan, but with all four of us on thin pads pushed together in the middle of the tatami floor. It was the closest we’ve ever tried to a family bed, and it made us think, how on Earth do people do the family bed? OMFG, by which I mean, of couse, Oh, My Foolish Gooses! It was a toddler slumber party for a while there. Yikes.

We tore ourselves away from Kyoto briefly to make a day trip to Nara, where we’d never been, and it was worth it. Nara rocks. The largest bronze Buddha in the world, conveniently located in the largest wooden building in the world, is in Nara, as are 1200 or so tame deer, wandering through the streets as a symbol of enlightenment. They’re considered a national treasure in Japan and they act like the own the place, walking right up to passersby and demanding a snack like adorable panhandlers, Bambi bums. Thank goodness their horns are sheered, or I’d be featured in a Japanese proctology textbook. In Nara we also crawled through a whole in a pillar the same size as the nostril of the giant Buddha, because we were told we would achieve enlightenment if we could squeeze through. No problem for Kai and Keegan, and pretty easy for Allison, but let me tell you, I was the biggest person (and maybe the biggest doofus) to try it, egged on by my wife and kids. I made it, and here’s the proof, though I’m still waiting for enlightenment. I can feel it coming . . .

We took the famed Shinkansen, or bullet train, to Tokyo for the second half of the trip. This enflamed Kai and Keegan’s bad case of Bullet Train Fever: they now compare everything fast, especially themselves in their opinion, to bullet trains. The have bullet train stickers, bullet train toys, a bullet train tape measure – they even have bullet train socks (that is not a typo).  If you’re wondering, bullet trains can go about 300 km per hour, about as fast as a race car, but they’re a little bigger.

Tokyo is so big these days that there’s no way Godzilla has a chance. It’s the largest metropolitan area on earth at roughly 32 million – that’s metro New York, plus metro London, with room for a half-dozen or so Denvers. Big doesn’t cover it. Whether or not you’re Godzilla, it’s best to take it in bites. That said, it’s pretty easy to get around, great subway system and other trains, and you won’t find a cleaner or a friendlier big city (Paris, I am looking at you).

Here are the boys in front of the hotel window, engaged in what became a passion for them -- checking out the traffic on Tokyo Bay:

Ueno Park in the north of the city is legendary for cherry blossom viewing, and the blossoms were hitting their peak as we got to town too, so the entire city, all 32 million, decided to stop by and take a few snaps – of the trees, of our children. They were very nice about it, though. There’s a festival vibe to the season and the park was filled with row upon row of picnickers, food booths and the like. Somehow we managed to wade through the crowds, double-stroller and all, with our lives intact, a tribute to the graciousness of the people. Thank you for not crushing us, people of Tokyo!

Allison had to work for two and a half days while we were in Tokyo (her meetings being our justification for the whole trip).  So if you need some hot tips on Tokyo highlights for the 3-and-under set, you have got to call me.  You may have heard that Tokyo has its very own Eiffel Tower, or an eerie facsimile anyway. There it is, behind those blossoms . . .

You may not know that unlike its French counterpart, Tokyo Tower is a toddler mecca, with a 5-story building tucked underneath that’s got a bouncy castle, a food court, a treasure-hunt game (we played it twice, don’t ask), even a mini-amusement park on the roof. Best of all they have a couple of guys called the Noppon Brothers who walk around in costumes that are supposed to look like towers, but, um, they don’t. They look instead like big pink, well . . . this is basically a family blog. Here’s a photo of one of them, draw your own conclusions:

Moving on . . . I had seriously thought I'd take the boys to Tokyo Disney, but as if by divine intervention I realized that this was both totally insane and totally unnecessary. I heard amazing stories about 90-minute lines for the teacup ride -- a guaranteed meltdown. Our kids are 2 and 3 years old, and to them there is essentially zero difference between Pirates of the Caribbean and the wiggly coin-operated firetruck outside the grocery store. I've see these guys be entertained for hours playing with a leaf in the driveway. So instead of Disney, I took them on a boat ride on the Sumida River to the Asakusa neighborhood, walked through the blossom-viewing mobs for ten minutes, and went to the oldest amusement park in Japan, Hanayashiki Park. I think it was there when Admiral Perry was in town. It's tiny, rinky-dink, and absolutely perfect. The boys loved it with a white-hot burning love that only animatronic pandas can inspire and would’ve been happy to stay until morning. Instead, we took the subway home for a late nap.

On Easter morning we went to the small, impeccable Kyu Shiba Rikyu Gardens, which have been around since they were a feudal-era clan garden under the Tokagawa Shogunate(!). I snuck ahead of the boys and scattered the jellybean-stuffed eggs Allison carried all the way from the US to China to Japan, hiding them under a grove of cherry blossom trees, pinch-hitting for the Easter Bunny.

So much more to say about Tokyo – dumplings and toy-shopping in Harajuku, maybe the best people-watching ‘hood on the planet; riding the monorail to the giant Ferris Wheel on Odaiba (that’s why we didn’t need to go to Disneyland – Tokyo is its own Disneyland); almost finding Denny’s and actually trying to go there (it opens next week! Damn, so close!). But I’ve got a big day tomorrow with the boys, taking them by train to met up with Mommy in Nanjing, and I want to get this post out into cyberspace where it belongs.

I hope this finds you well, and happy. Let me know.