Ellie demonstrates how you can get some serious air in Showa Kinen Park’s white, bouncy, trampoline-like mountainy thing in the Children’s Forest (子供の森).

Posted on September 3rd, 2010 under Japan. Tags: ellie, showa kinen koen. Comments: 7

On a frightfully hot (37 degrees Centigrade) day near the end of July we made our way to Showa Kinen Koen near the Tachikawa Station. Outside of the swimming/wave pool/water slide area (Rainbow Pool or レインボープール) there were few people willing to brave the heat. Today’s pic is of the view immediately after entering.

Posted on September 1st, 2010 under Japan. Tags: showa kinen koen. Comments: 2

Our trip to Takayama, Shirakawago, and Kanazawa included four bus trips. The first three were all during the day and featured great views. The last leg (Kanazawa to Shinjuku) was a night bus–something I hope to never experience again.

Today’s pic, out our moving bus’s window, is from Matsumoto (松本市), a castle town in Nagano Prefecture. It was our second time through Matsumoto, the first time being on our trip to Hakuba last fall, but I have yet to see the castle. Soon after I took this picture heavy rain began to fall in places, turning the great views into other worldly views. The bus took us through countless tunnels and down roads with steep mountains on one or both sides. Temporary waterfalls formed down these green slopes as I rode on with my jaw on the bottom of the window seal in awe.

Posted on August 31st, 2010 under Japan. Tags: rice paddy, takayama. Comments Off on Matsumoto

Before going to Japan I mentioned my research on the various Japanese cell phone plans. Now that we have actually experienced a year with Japanese cell phones I’ll give you a review.

Getting the phones was more complicated than I imagined. We couldn’t get them as soon as we got to Japan because the providers require a gaijin card which may take a few days to obtain–especially if you arrive in Japan on a Friday or Saturday. A passport is not good enough. Once we had the gaijin cards (gaikokujin-tourokushou or 外国人登録証) we visited several different Softbank stores. They all quoted us different offers. We ended up going with the Harajuku store for two phones for a year on the White Plan Family. We were expecting about 800 yen a month per phone, the seemingly low price due to the fact that we only planned to use them to call each other. The first few bills came in at more than double these amounts so we went in, they made some adjustments, and the bills dropped to about 2,000 yen a month–not the 1,600 yen we were hoping for but with taxes and whatever we didn’t push it.

We had to pay with a credit card which meant the bills were even higher as the currency translation for our US credit cards always stuck us with a few more bucks. Most monthly bills ended up being about $28 after all of the fees.

When we went to cancel we had to pay 20,000 yen (again, credit card only–no cash) so we got stuck with a final bill of over $250 with the strong yen. Ouch!

If I had it to do over again I would have purchased cheap phones and a prepaid option. With the amount we called I probably could have saved a few hundred bucks during the year.

Posted on August 31st, 2010 under Japan. Tags: compare, reviews, travel related goods. Comments: 1

Mitsukejima (also known as Battleship Island for its shape) lies off the coast of the Noto Peninsula in Ishikawa Prefecture. Ryan and Ellie’s dear Ojiisan took us there. To the left you can see a small torii in the Sea of Japan.

Posted on August 30th, 2010 under Japan. Tags: noto hanto, torii. Comments: 1