Mom and Karroll Came to Japan!

Karroll and I in Tsu Castle Park

I think the title of this post is pretty self-explanatory.  For months and months now, I have been waiting for my folks to get here, and now they have come and gone in what felt like the blink of an eye.  They bought their tickets to come out here in April I think, and we have been planning this trip for them since I came to Japan last year.  So for basically my entire career in Japan I have been looking forward to them coming out here, and now they are gone!  So now here I am, sitting here in my room trying to recover from one serious week and weekend of travel and lack of sleep.  

Mom and Karroll outside some sort of Japanese building
on Okageyokuchou in Ise.

As with pretty much everything I plan, my parents' visit wasn't without adventure.  After much research and contemplation we decided that the best travel arrangement would be for mom and Karroll to fly into Haneda Airport in Tokyo, then take the Shinkansen (read: Bullet Train) to Nagoya Station where I would meet them and guide them back to Tsu City.  The way this all played out in my head was as follows.  My parents would land in Haneda around 5:30 am, deal with customs and baggage claim and be out of the airport by around 6:30 or 7:00.  Then they would, following my detailed instructions, work their way through the Tokyo train system from Haneda Airport to Shinagawa Station via the Keikyu line, arriving at Shinagawa around 8:00.  Then, they would take a bit of time navigating Shinagawa Station from the Keikyu line to the Shinkansen ticket area where they would buy a couple of tickets and hop on the next train to Nagoya.  They would then arrive in Nagoya at about 11:00.  This was a bit problematic because I teach in Tsu until noon, but it was the best I could do.  They would then wait for me in Nagoya where I would meet them.  We would then take a Kintetsu train from Nagoya to Tsushimmachi station and a taxi to my house.  Sounds like a great to decent plan, right?  Well, my mom being the highly intelligent and wonderfully efficient person that she is took my wonderfully laid out plan and managed to do all of the extremely difficult and foreign tasks that I assigned her in about half the time I expected her to, arriving in Nagoya at about 9:45 am.  I was sitting in the teachers' office at OBC when I got the phone call from my mom saying that they were in Nagoya, which left me about 4 minutes to decide what to do about it before I had to go and teach my first class.  We decide that mom and Karroll would do their best to get through Nagoya station and try and get all the down to Tsu without me.  They mostly succeeded.  There are two stations in Tsu city, one is Tsu Station and the other is Tsushimmachi Station.  I live near Tsushimmachi Station, but the folks only got as far as Tsu.  So as soon as I finished teaching, Sarah and I ran up to Tsu and found them waiting in the Station for me.

The three of us on Okageyokuchou.

So after that small adventure, I took my folks back to my apartment for a short nap before we headed back to OBC to start teaching English.  My first class is a small elementary class of three students, and I didn't want to freak them out by bringing two new people into class so my parents hung out in the office while I taught my first class.  The next two classes are adult lessons though, and all of my students were quite excited to meet my folks so my parents were welcome to join my last two classes.  The first class of the evening was a low-ish level class of three.  One of the students in that class is very fond of asking very blunt questions.  He is a weightlifter, so by Japanese standards he is a pretty big dude, but I am still taller than he is and Karroll is just a bit bigger than he is.  So the very first question my step-dad was asked by a student was, "How much do you weigh?"  Needless to say Karroll was caught just a bit off guard.  After that though, my classes went quite smoothly.  My second adult class of Wednesday night actually suggested that we skip the OBC portion of our class and hold our lesson at a local yakiniku restaurant.  Yakiniku means grilled meat, and Yakiniku restaurants are places where you order all of your food raw and the staff brings out a big charcoal bucket for you to cook on.  I love these places, but unfortunately my parents were so sleepy from the day and all the traveling that they weren't really able to fully appreciate it.  All in all, I think the first day was quite the success.  I got my parents home, and they were asleep before their heads even hit the pillow. 

Lunch!

We woke up the next morning bright and early to head back to OBC, but first we had to find breakfast. I took my parents to my favorite bakery in Tsu and we took our delicious baked good to Castle Park to eat.  My first class of the day cancelled because she was on vacation in Hokkaido, so we had plenty of time to eat and relax.  We asked a really nice lady in the park to take our picture, and thus I began to practice the most helpful Japanese sentence of my parent's vacation, "Sumimasen, shashin o totte kudasai?" or in English, "Excuse me, could you please take our picture?"  Of all the Japanese I spoke on this trip, that sentence was far and away the most heavily used.  We had to teach one class in the morning, so we eventually made our way to OBC so I could prepare and get dressed for school.  That class was a resounding success as mom and Karroll were greatly revived by rest and food and were very talkative.  The class was a high level/hobby class of four women about the same age as my mom.  We basically chatted for an hour then the folks and I headed for the train station to catch a train to Ise.  Our plan for the afternoon was to explore Ise city and the accompanying shrine.  You can read more about the shrine here.  (The link will take you to an earlier post on this blog about my first experience at the Shrine)  We made our way very easily to Ise and took a cab from the station to the mouth of Okageyokuchou, the street leading to the Shrine.  Okageyokuchou is a wonderful place.  It is a set of narrow streets surrounding the Shrine and is full of wonderful shops and restaurants.  We got my parents some Ise Udon (Ise Style noodles) and did a bit of souvenir shopping shopping before making our way into the shrine.  I think my parents really enjoyed the whole atmosphere of the street, it is impossible to feel like you are anywhere but Japan when you are so surrounded by the people and the architecture.  

Ise Shrine's main Gate (Torii in Japanese)

Our time in the shrine was quite nice.  It was a beautiful day as far as the rainy season in Japan goes, and since it was a Thursday afternoon, the crowds were minimal.  We took our time walking through the woods surrounding the shrine, washing our hands in the fountain, then heading up the steps into the actual shrine.  We watched as people paid their respects to the Shrine, then began making our way back through the woods to the gate.  We stopped for a while to watch some Koi swimming in a pond, and saw the infamous Ise chickens that I still don't entirely understand.  After a nice relaxing afternoon in one of the most beautiful places I have ever been, we caught a cab and headed back to the station to begin our journey back to Tsu.  Once we got back to Tsushimmachi, we had about two hours to kill before we needed to be at OBC, so we decided to head from the station to Gontemba beach here in Tsu.  It was about a 20 minute bike ride (don't ask mom, she'll say it was 20 miles!) and we made it there in one piece.  We spent half an hour or just hanging out, then Karroll and I walked out onto the seawall to check out the view.  Mom elected to stay behind and play photographer because the wall is about 15 feet tall with no railings on either side, with a straight drop to the water just one stumble away.  We made it safe and sound, and upon our return to solid ground we headed back to OBC to teach my evening classes.  

More Ise Shrine

Ise Shrine Architecture

Seawall Adventures

Dinner at Karakatta Curry!

Okageyokuchou.

I just checked, and it appears I am at 1500 words for this post, and my fingers are starting to get worn out.  I think I will end this post here, and finish our dashing adventures in Kyoto and Tokyo sometime later this week.  Tune in next time for part two of my blog's parental miniseries!