"One must never place a loaded rifle on the stage if it
isn't going to go off. It's wrong to make promises you don't mean to
keep." – Chekhov, Russian playwright
To catch you up from the last post, we’ve been back in the
states a week now. My older son and his wife got in yesterday. They did an
additional week of touring with Zack. Earle and I were glad to be home, but we
still wish we could have seen everything they did. So I asked for photos.
Our family, like every family, has its on lingo; its own
traditions. Somehow, 8 or 10 years ago, we started with the Get Out tradition.
It goes like this: Mom texts (either) son: “How’s it going?” Son texts mom “Get
out.” There are variations to this theme. In 2013 I visited with a family
friend in Durham who lives in Japan. I knew he’d be seeing my son in Japan in a
few months later so I entrusted him with a small piece of paper to give to Zack
, which he put in his wallet and deployed as I asked. . It said
simply “Get out.”
So when “the kids” headed to Kyoto’s Iwatayama Monkey Park,
here’s the pic I got. It is the pic 1 of only 2 pics I got from the second half of their
trip. Ah well.
Back to our touring. I left off with us in Yokohama. After a
lovely but lengthy morning walking tour, we headed to some indoor destinations,
including a walkthrough of Yokohama’s Red Brick Warehouse, formerly customs
buildings from the 1920s. I enjoyed the variety of goods and both my credit
card and I could have spent more time there. But it wasn’t lunch yet and we
were all on the hungry side, and one of us was on the tired side(!)
Traveling with vegetarians lead us to some eclectic dining
options including an Italian chain restaurant, Saizeriya. This one was near the
Bay in the large Yokohama World Porter mall. We window shopped a bit and then were happy to sink into
comfortable seats and make use of an unlimited beverage bar. We filled up on
pizza, salads, and pasta. Even this family restaurant reminded us of Japanese
innovation. The table had an electronic device to summon the waitperson, who in
turn recorded our order on a small electronic tablet.
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| Legos and Buzz Lightyear - universally beloved. |
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| "American" section in an upscale department store |
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| Ever present fake food - this time for our Italian restaurant |
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| Ridiculously cute bunny at the Sylvanian Family Cafe |
After filling up we journeyed into the mall and had a
uniquely Japanese experience. We had our pictures taken in a purikura booth.
This is similar to a photo booth as we know it, but you are photographed on a
green screen. Your picture is customized based on the theme of the particular
booth – ours gave us a “cute” look – enlarging our eyes similar to
illustrations in Japanese manga. After your photo session you get to further
edit your pics by adding hearts, bows, sayings and other “cute” images, and
them – you wait a moment and out rolls a picture strip! You also get an email
of your prints. Lovely!
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| Our booth |
Lucky for all 4 of the 5 of us, the purikura booths where
adjacent to a videogame parlor. Lucky for the 5th of us, there were
seats nearby. Actually, before I sat
down, at the urging of our kids, Earle and I played a quick round of air
hockey. To our surprise, at certain time intervals, a stack of pucks were
released at once, turning our languid game into a frantic one! Afterwards Nat
and Lilly tried a drumming game and I wandered over to the seat across the
mall. Eventually, all four of them found connected Mario Olympic machines and
had a fierce battle. I enjoyed watching the onlookers stopping to watch my
family play for blood.
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| Another universal obsession. (Earle is behind the column.) |
Next we were off to the Landmark Tower, the second tallest
building in Japan. En route, we passed the Nippon Maru, a retired sailing ship
used as a training vessel. We didn’t stop as Zack was eager for us to see the
amazing view on the observation area on the 69th floor. We were
amazed by the fastest elevator in Japan, which got us there is 40 seconds.
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| Nippon Maru |
On the observation floor, we were able to see the city with
a 360 degree view, but unfortunately it was too cloudy for a sighting of Mount
Fuji. But we were astonished by the vistas that spread out around us, as far as
the eye could see.
Zack asked if we could find his building and we were able to
orient outselves by first spotting the baseball park and navigating our way
visually to his part of the city. Then Zack casually walked over to one of the telescopes
and called me over. He zoomed in, and in, and in on his neighborhood.
He zoomed in on his block, his building, and then his floor.
And then I saw them… three sheets of white paper taped to his apartment window.
You guessed it!
O U T!
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| Landmark Tower |
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| O U T! |
Love this! I see you now have some family pictures for your Christmas card.
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