At home and abroad

Trains and planes and a few more fauna

May 23, 2025jdewyze6 Comments

When you hear the word “seaplane,” what comes to mind? Like me, do you think of a small aircraft that takes off and lands on the water? That’s what I envisioned when I booked our flights between Juneau and Skagway on Alaska Seaplanes. I’ve never flown in one and I expected it to be one of the highlights of this trip. But Steve, looking at the Alaska Seaplanes website the other day, noted that the company uses both actual hydroplanes and other small aircraft, and that the ones going to Skagway were the land-launched ones. I felt crushed.

I need not have. Our single-engine 8-passenger Cessna may have lacked flotation pontoons, but other aspects of the trip made up for it.

I loved the anarchic check-in at Juneau’s airport Tuesday morning. When I gave my name to the cheery lady behind the counter, she asked for no identification, nor did she hand us any boarding passes. We could have been Boris Badenov and Natasha masquerading as Jeannette De Wyze and Steve Wolfe; no one would have been the wiser. She wanted to weigh our minimal baggage (just our backpacks; we’d left our carry-ons in our home-exchange partner’s garage), but she said we could keep the backpacks with us until boarding. Then we’d have to hand them over to be stowed in the plane’s belly. I eavesdropped as the passenger at the next counter was telling his clerk about the 9mm handgun in the suitcase he was checking. She had no problem with the weapon, but when he told her about the loose bullets, she said he’d have to somehow pack them in their original cartons.

That constituted the security screening. No metal detectors. No interrogation about the size of our toiletries, or attention to our drinking bottles, empty or full. I could have carried on a fifth of Jim Beam, undetected.

We thus had plenty of time to read and write on our iPads. Finally a plump young guy appeared and read off 8 names (our two among them) He checked us off a paper roster, then told us to follow him out onto the rainy airfield.

He turned out to be our pilot. Actually, he was the entire crew. He mentioned where the life vests were but I instantly forgot, transfixed by the thought of how quickly I would die if my body were plunged into the water anywhere in the region. He continued, pointing out how to operate the fire extinguisher and where the GPS button and the emergency locator transmitter were, instructing us that if we had to land unexpectedly and he was unconscious, one of us should activate them and help would be on the way. Aye-aye captain.

He turned on the engine, drove us to the end of the runway, and we started to move forward. Seconds later, we lifted up into the gray clouds and driving rain.

The skies never cleared completely during the 35 minutes we were in the air, but the rain stopped and I drank in the staggering views from the Cessna’s big windows.

About 30 minutes in, I spotted a little town with several gigantic cruise ships parked at its waterfront. It had to be Skagway, I figured. I could see a runway, but our pilot flew over it and up the valley and for a moment, it looked like he might be planning to slam into the mountainside. Then he banked, turned us around, and descended steeply. Our wheels jounced as they touched the ground, and we rolled toward the terminal.

Seventy-five minutes later, Steve and I were chugging up to the Canadian border on the White Pass and Yukon Route railroad, usually cited as Skagway’s top touristic experience.

Cruise-ship passengers and other package tour-goers filled the seats (along with us) for Wednesday afternoon’s summit excursion. Inaugurated in 1900 in the wake of the hellacious Klondike Gold Rush, the train takes a little over an hour and a half to ascend almost 3000 feet in about 10 miles, passing brutally vertiginous mountains and scary drop-offs (and the obvious evidence of an avalanche that had occurred just three days before).

I enjoyed it, though frankly, the scenery couldn’t compare with the views we’d just enjoyed from 2500 feet aloft. More than anything, the ride made me appreciate what the gold-seekers who slogged up this route before the line was built had endured: inadequately dressed, making the climb over and over as they hauled up load after load to cache the food and other supplies required by the Mounties at the top of the pass. (The Canadian government supposedly worried that without 2000 pounds per person of such provisions the wannabe miners would die of starvation as they made their way to the gold fields near Dawson, another 550 miles further into Canada.)

Before this trip, I knew almost nothing about the Klondike gold rush. Our short time in Skagway fixed that. The whole town is a National Historical Park and the visitor center and several museums do a wonderful job of bringing to life that brief (less than 2-year) period in which a wild, violent, frenzied society sprang into life. We learned that of the 100,000 gold-seekers who came from all over the world, only 400 actually collected a significant amount of the shiny yellow stuff.

At first glance, the town’s Main Street made both Steve and me think of Disneyland — those throngs of tourists shuffling along, clutching bags filled with their gift shop purchases, those colorful olde time buildings. But in Skagway, almost 100 of the buildings are authentic antiques.

Members of the town’s Arctic Brotherhood fraternal society decorated the entire facade of their hall with almost 9000 pieces of flotsam and driftwood.

The cruise-ship passengers were the main fauna (some 10,000 of them on the day of our visit.) But I forgot to mention three other cool creatures we saw during our time in Juneau — and one welcome no-show.

— Bald eagles! I failed to get a good photo of them, but it was startling to see them frolicking in the skies all over town. Kind of like the parrots in my neighborhood back home.

— Ravens! As common as the eagles. I had fun tossing bits of my sandwich to this cheeky guy on our beach hike the other day.

The views from that beach were also pretty diverting.

— A live King Crab! The one below was in a little tank at the dazzling salmon hatchery we visited after our beach hike. We were blown away by the hatchery’s mission (for the last 50 years): raising millions of embryonic salmon every year till they’re big enough for release into the ocean. That TLC gives them a vastly better chance for survival than salmon who aren’t thus protected. After release, the fish swim the seas for several years and then return to the hatchery to spawn and die.

What we did NOT see were the hordes of mosquitoes and “white feet” bugs and flies and no see ‘ums and other annoying summer pests for which Alaska is famous. Apparently they’ll appear in Juneau a bit later this summer. We may meet them yet. We’ve just arrived in Fairbanks for a whirlwind (two-night) stay here. Then we’re on to Denali National Park and Anchorage, the next stops on our grand tour of Seward’s Folly.

Local fauna

May 19, 2025jdewyze3 Comments

Thursday I saw a porcupine for the first time in the wild. This guy was outside the Mendenhall Glacier visitor’s center, nibbling like crazy on the greenery surrounding him. He looked like he was trying to ignore all the tourists taking pictures. But they were making him nervous.

That night we encountered another stellar denizen of this part of the world: the Alaskan king crab. We didn’t see one of the actual crustaceans (which can have a leg span five feet wide). But their parts are on multiple restaurant menus, priced at $75 to $85 a pound.

Steve and I shared a single leg for dinner Thursday, along with crab bisque and a couple of crab cakes, all extraordinarily delicious.

All around us people had ponied up for bucketloads of legs and were digging in with gusto.

The two of us almost stumbled over another porcupine Saturday morning, when we hiked on what’s left of Alaska’s first road. Known today as the Perseverance Trail, it was built in the late 1880s to serve early miners.

Today parts of the trail retain remnants of those impressive early days.

The path leads through some of the most beautiful forest I’ve ever hiked in.

Salmon berries were only just beginning to flower, which may partly explain why we didn’t see any black bears. God knows there were plenty of signs warning of their presence — and other dangers Sunday when we climbed up Mt. Roberts to the top of the cable car that carries cruise-ship passengers up the almost-vertical mountainside.

Wolves live in those woods, too. But I was told moose prefer other parts of Alaska. It struck me I’ve never seen a live moose anywhere, in neither zoo nor the wild, so I would be most excited to see one of them.

We did eat in downtown Juneau at Bullwinkle’s Pizza Saturday night. Juneauites have been devouring pizza there under images of the cartoon moose for more than 50 years.

The pizza was good, but the restaurant interior was pretty forlorn. We chose it only because Bullwinkle’s is just around the corner from the Elizabeth Peratrovich Hall, where the Lionel Hampton Big Band was performing that night. I’d heard that Juneau organizes a music festival every May, and the big band would be performing for the finale that Saturday night. I’d gotten tickets, and Steve and I had decided to take the free pre-concert dance lesson at 6 pm (hence the need for an easy, close dinner.)

We walked in to the hall to find at least a dozen folks already gathered around the teacher, a pretty blonde with a bear paw tattooed on her left shoulder blade. Gamely, she and her assistant demonstrated Lindy and jitterbug moves to the “class.” To me it seemed a wildly ambitious effort; the instructors were racing through a repertoire that Steve and I once learned (sort of) over the course of a couple of years. But soon enough it was time for the dance students to clear the floor so the performance could begin.

Lionel himself has been dead for more than 40 years, but the band is still playing his arrangements; indeed some of the 10 members were in the group when the great vibraphonist was still leading it. The ensemble proved energetic and accomplished, and more-confident dancers soon filled the dance floor.

Steve and I joined them for one number, but it reminded us how far out of practice we are, so mostly we watched. I found myself wondering if the scene would look very different were the band playing at some Kiwanis hall in San Diego. I spotted way more boots on the feet in the Juneau crowd. But mostly they just looked like ordinary American Homo sapiens, having fun.

Scenery

May 16, 2025May 16, 2025jdewyze2 Comments

My worst fear was not being eaten by a grizzly bear. Instead the Apple Weather prediction for our time in Juneau looked so grim — temperatures ranging from barely above freezing to the mid-40s, with rain every day — I worried we might not want to venture outside. What fun would that be?

I need not have fretted. True, we emerged from the airport terminal Wednesday afternoon into a chilly, damp world, but we’ve been more than comfortable moving around in it. My gear choices were good! For this trip, I bought a waterproof Norwegian (Helly Hanson) raincoat, and yesterday I wore it over two lightweight thermal tops and a down jacket. On my legs I had rain pants over thermal long-johns. For footwear I dusted off the hiking shoes in which I trekked on New Zealand’s Routeburn Trail 8 years ago.

It all worked so well I got too warm at one point and had to stow the down jacket in my day pack! (It compresses down into a compact stuff sack.) And the rain proved to be only intermittent, never intensifying to much more than a drizzle; often stopping altogether.

We’re in a wonderful exchange home here, just a 10-minute Uber ride from the airport. The expanse of windows in its living room open onto a big deck with sweeping views of Douglas Island across the Gastineau Channel.

Our trading partners are also letting us use their Honda CRV. We drove it yesterday (Thursday) to Juneau’s #1 touristic attraction for the last 150 years: one of the easiest places in North America to see a glacier up close. It took us barely 15 minutes to reach the Mendenhall Glacier parking lot. We had a delightful time exploring the complex.

This is Mendenhall Lake into which the ice river deposits its calves.

My telephoto lens helped us see the chunks about to break off.

My very first iceberg (tiny but elegant)

Someone transported this one to the beach leading to Nugget Falls.

The waterfall itself was nothing to sneer at.

This is all within the Tongass National Forest — the largest temperate rain forest in the world. The visitor’s center was jammed with cruise-ship passengers, but we met almost no one on the nearby Trail of Time. Its misty pathways led us through a landscape lushly upholstered with mosses and a profusion of other plants.

It felt primordial but to our astonishment, we learned the glacier had covered much of this trail less than 100 years ago. It retreated to leave behind bare rock. All the dense green beauty has developed since then.

This viewpoint provided photos documenting how dramatically the landscape has changed.

After just one day, I felt amazed by Juneau’s scenery. Another feature of that scenery also has been striking. Our hosts in the exchange home left a list of (dumb) tourist questions that they advised (tongue in cheek) against asking. “What elevation are we at?” was one. “Sea level” is the proper answer. (“That water out there, that’s the sea.)

Now that I’m here, I understand why visitors might ask that. The scenery makes me feel I’m deep in some mountain holdfast; dramatic peaks jut skyward in every direction, cut through with deep valleys. For most of my life I’ve only seen scenery like this far, far from the ocean. This place feels different.

At home AND abroad?

May 9, 2025May 10, 2025jdewyze3 Comments

Early next Wednesday morning (May 14), Steve and I will fly north to spend a month in Alaska. I keep reminding myself we will still be in the United States (home!) thus at least theoretically able to fill in for anything we forget to pack. But I’m expecting (hoping) it will feel a bit like being in another country. Abroad.

Neither of us have ever set foot in Alaska before. We decided it was time to make up for that, and several months ago I started my planning by making the same mistake I made last year when planning our travels in the Caribbean: assuming we could get around substantially on ferries. I soon learned that although Alaska at one time had an extensive ferry system, that’s now a shadow of its once glorious self. Some ferries still operate, and in the end, I was able to book passage for us on two, one from Juneau to Gustavus (aka the gateway to Glacier National Park), and another from Sitka to Bellingham. (We’ll spend two nights on that one in a cabin with actual beds.)

I also booked a ferry from Juneau up to Skagway, but then I got an email informing me the Alaska Marine Highway System operators had canceled it. So we will instead fly in a seaplane (another first) up to Skagway and back to Juneau.

Otherwise, we’ll be relying heavily on Alaska Airlines and the Alaska Railroad to get us around. Even with a full month, we still won’t see many parts of the state that sound interesting. This is a HUGE place, I’ve come to appreciate, bigger than Texas, California, and Montana combined.

To my delight, I was able to secure home exchanges with a couple in Juneau and another in Anchorage. We’re counting on those stays to give us some deeper insight into Alaskan life. On the other hand, the weather (at least in Juneau) looks worse than I originally expected. (I took this recent screenshot of Apple Weather just a few weeks ago. The forecasts haven’t improved much since.)

We’re preparing as best as possible, telling ourselves we can always buy more clothes if necessary.

I plan to wear this footwear on the plane. Another first.

A Cautionary Tale

January 15, 2025January 18, 2025jdewyze2 Comments

Here’s a warning: be very cautious about buying anything big overseas.

Neither Steve nor I are big shoppers at home or abroad, and we particularly try to limit any purchases while traveling. We almost never check baggage, and our carry-ons only hold so much. But on our recent trip to Japan we made a big exception — to our eventual regret.

By way of background, almost 40 years ago, when we were remodeling our house, we built a platform in our bedroom to hold a Japanese-style bed. From a local (San Diego) supplier we bought three tatami (woven rice-straw) mats that fit by design into the platform. We placed traditional Japanese futons on this base and slept on (and under) them. Eventually we traded the (very hard) bottom futon for a regular mattress, which we’ve replaced a few times over the years. But we never replaced the tatami mats. As we approached our recent trip, it occurred to us that it might be a great opportunity to do so.

After 40 years, the old mats were worn and discolored.

The cloth edging was frayed. (I don’t know why it looks purple in this photo. Actually it was brown.)

In an earlier post I explained how we asked our old friend Yoshi for help; he kindly found a modest tatami-making business near our Tokyo hotel. Steve and I had a great time going there with Yoshi one afternoon and chatting with one of the chief artisans.

We picked out what we wanted but decided not to place the order until we could recheck all the dimensions back at home. The shop owner didn’t want to be paid until his crew had made the mats for us, but we insisted on giving him the $350 in cash, figuring it would be easier than trying to transfer the funds electronically. (To a startling degree, the Japanese still rely on paper money.) Steve and I felt certain, even cocky, that finding a way to ship the mats to San Diego would be a piece of cake.

After all, many Americans move to Japan (and back again). Surely shippers must exist to transport their household items. Steve dove into trying to find one not long after we got back in October. That’s when reality set in. He learned the mats were too large to be handled by a “common carrier” like Fed Ex or UPS. We needed an international freight company.

He called several including DHL and Yamato, one of Japan’s largest freight and package-delivery services. Some were polite but said they didn’t do business with individuals, only companies that ship a lot of stuff. Yamato said surface shipping our mats would cost $1,400 and they wouldn’t arrive for weeks. Another tatami maker quoted us $1,700. A smaller Japanese freight forwarding company strung us along for a couple of weeks, then wrote to say they couldn’t help at all.

As we were getting desperate, Steve found an online business called Tokyo Tatami. In their online photos, the company’s operation looked a lot like the shop we had visited. But Tokyo Tatami has clearly found a niche in making tatami mats for folks all over the planet — and getting the mats to where they need to go.

We sadly let the first folks know we would not be able to place an order with them after all. Then in startlingly short order, we were able to use Tokyo Tatami’s well-designed web site to order what we needed. We received a detailed quotation the next day and follow-up e-mails in good English asking if we had any questions. After placing the order, the mats showed up on our doorstep in just over a week.

The packing was very complicated and effective. The panels arrived in perfect shape.

The total price for the mats and shipping was more than the original $350 (for the mats alone) but less than all of the quotes Steve got for shipping alone. To our enormous relief, the new mats fit perfectly. We hand-sanded the wood platform, and now it looks almost like new.

The downside was that our poor friend Yoshi had to travel from Yokohama back to Tokyo to reclaim our cash payment. We’re hoping his daughter will help him send it back to us via PayPal.

We regret having dragged him into all this. We promise not to do it ever again. (But our new tatami does look great.)

One thing the Japanese do not do well (imho)

October 17, 2024October 18, 2024jdewyzeLeave a comment

I’m publishing this post from my desk in San Diego, where I’m immersed in Re-Entry. I’ve been tempted to blow off writing anything more about Japan. Our time in Osaka was gratifying and fun, but maybe not so interesting to read about. We made a quick day trip to Nara, the ancient Japanese capital and a magnet for visitors who come to feed special crackers to the vast numbers of semi-wild deer.

Considered sacred, the animals seemed pretty chill.

Some of them dip their heads in what’s said to be a bow, when seeking snacks. I tried to use my puppy-raising skills to tune up some of their bowing skills.

Nara Park contains some fabulous creations, including Tōdaiji Temple, where the largest wooden building ever constructed…

…shelters one of the world’s largest statues of the Buddha.

Steve and I also briefly strolled the grounds of the mighty Osaka Castle. But mostly we concentrated on food in this city known as “the grocery store of Japan.” One morning we spent a couple hours roaming the area around Dotonbori Street, a vortex for delicious street food and outrageous building decoration.

I’m pretty sure people don’t eat dragons, but there’s nothing like them for catching the eye.

Octopuses are enormously popular, both on building facades and chopped up to be embedded in wonderful, creamy fried batter (takoyaki).

Everywhere we looked, we saw people lined up in the street; we despaired of getting a taste of any of it. But on a quiet byway we finally scored some marvelous takoyaki.

On that walk I also spotted a homeless person — the first I’ve ever seen in Japan.

He was sleeping on that bench overlooking the river.

That evening we joined an “Osaka food tour” that introduced us to more than a dozen local specialties.

Shinsekai is another famous Osaka food center, part Coney Island, part faux Paris.

Our fellow group members were a lively bunch.

We learned about the Billiken, which started out as St. Louis University’s mascot, but long ago became beloved in Japan, and today has achieved quasi-religious status: the Shinto “god of things as they ought to be.”

And of course we ate more takoyaki — as well as more than a dozen other delicious dishes.

I’ve been so bowled over by and enthusiastic about our experiences on this trip, I’m a little worried I may sound undiscriminating. So I decided I should chronicle at least one thing at which we found the Japanese to be mediocre: They don’t explain themselves well to foreigners.

Over and over, even in famous, important sites, we found a shocking dearth of signs or placards or other educational material in English (or any language other than Japanese.) To some extent, we could overcome this by using Google’s Translate app or Google Lens. We’ve never used either much before, but today they’re game-changers in a country where you can’t read. They liberated us to waltz into restaurants without worrying if an English menu would be available (as often as not, it wouldn’t be.) They helped us figure out air-conditioning controls and all manner of street warnings and how to work a coin-op washer/dryer.

But in situations where there’s a ton of information being conveyed, for example at the Kyoto Railway Museum, the language apps don’t work that well. They take time to do their translating, and they require good Internet. (Our T-Mobile service was often tooth-grindingly slow.)

Our experience at the railway museum was particularly disappointing. The facility is enormous, and everything in it is bright and shiny and beautiful.

Steve and I went to the railway museum because our respect for Japanese railway technology knows no bounds. The country’s urban train systems are a wonder of the world — a stunning profusion of companies and services, with most trains arriving on time to the minute. For longer trips, the Shinkansen bullet trains have changed the world since the first one went zooming down the rails (50 years ago this month.)

The museum houses newer versions of the bullet train…

…as well as older incarnations like this one.

Steve got to sit at the controls and pose as a train engineer.

We had hoped to learn the bullet trains’ story — to hear about the initial vision for high-speed rail; get insight into what the biggest challenges were and how they were solved. But almost none of the museum’s relevant signage was in English, and even the Japanese-language information seemed sketchy. I’ll probably forget our whole visit there within weeks.

I can’t say that about the actual train that carried us from Kyoto to Osaka last Sunday. It wasn’t a bullet train. I don’t even remember how I learned about it. (Maybe a one-line mention in some guide book I consulted?) The Kyo-train GARAKU, as it’s called, only operates on weekends and holidays. The one we caught (the first of four making the round-trip that day) wasn’t mobbed with tourists. Many of our fellow passengers were Japanese. We didn’t have to buy any special ticket. We just used our marvelous “IC” cards (which worked on every bus, train, and metro line we took throughout the country, except for the Shinkansens.)

The 45-minute one-way trip from Kyoto to Osaka cost 410 yen, just under $2.75 per person. It was the most beautiful train I’ve traveled on anywhere.

Here it is, pulling into Kyoto-Kawaramachi station.

Here’s the car Steve and I sat in. Every car was unique in its decor.

Some of the seating emulated traditional tatami (straw mats).

The train had not one but two gardens. This one included a little fountain.

This one had a Zen vibe, complete with raked sand.

Why did the Hankyu Railway (a private company) build this thing? Why do they charge so little for it? Why go to so much expense and effort to carry some passengers between Kyoto and Osaka (something Hankyu does routinely every day)?

As usual, there were no signs, no brochures answering any of my questions. We just had to enjoy it, in wonder.

How I wound up cuddling little pigs in Kyoto

October 15, 2024October 15, 2024jdewyzeLeave a comment

The short answer is we got templed out. Kyoto has more than 2000 temples and shrines. When I was planning our Kyoto itinerary back in San Diego, visiting a dozen or so over the course of four full days seemed reasonable. Got that one wrong.

For one thing, I wasn’t prepared for how overcrowded the most popular sites would be. I had read that tourists were overwhelming Kyoto but I didn’t take it seriously; I figured the mobs would be gone by mid-October. I also read up on the times of day to best avoid crowds. But it turns out it’s hard to succeed at that.

The famous Fushimi Inari Shrine is open around the clock. If we had gotten there at 7 in the morning, we probably *would* have encountered few other visitors. But we didn’t make it there till a bit after 8, when people were beginning to stream in.

The shrine is notable for its tunnels of traditional Shinto gates.

In search of some solitude, we found a side path up the mountain, which, though gateless, was eerily beautiful.

We found small weird side shrines filled with innumerable foxes, the ancient god of rice and the reigning presence at this shrine.

People also place miniatures Shinto gates in the side shrines.

Toward the top of the mountain the gates — and other tourists — started to multiply.

The further we went down the main path, the more crowded it got.

The only other time Steve and I have been to Kyoto — back in 1979 — the city reportedly attracted 6.5 million visitors. I just read that in 2023, more than 75 million came. We saw more foreigners than we had in Hiroshima, and at every major attraction we encountered the kind of crowds that fill Disneyland the week after Christmas. It takes energy to push your way through that.

After Fushimi Inari’s congestion, Steve and I returned to our Airbnb and took a short nap. Around 4 that afternoon we set off for another of Kyoto’s most popular temples: Kiyomizu-dera —more than 1200 years old and filled with great architecture…

…also many, many other visitors (contradicting what I’d read about how they would be largely gone by sunset.)

Many of the tourists wander around in rented kimonos, apparently to better savor the ancient Japaneseness of the place. These two looked Japanese but were speaking English with American accents.

Steve and I enjoyed taking it all in. Still, the concentration of visitors shocked us: all the clueless individuals blocking pathways as they posed for selfies; the surround-sound chatter; the constant need to change your pace to squeeze through clusters of bodies.

The next morning we tried even harder to get to our next touristic vortex as early as possible. But Arashiyama is on the far western edge of Kyoto, and it was 8:45 by the time we woke up, walked to the necessary train station, rode the train, and found our way to the famous pathway through the dense bamboo forest.

This is what it looked like when we first arrived.

Around 9 the buses began arriving and disgorging their loads.

We did find some calmer enclaves to explore in the vicinity. We had the beautiful garden created by a Japanese movie star famous in the 1920s almost to ourselves.

Here and there we saw the first evidence of the approaching autumn.

Back in the center of town, it was a steep 20-minute climb up to the Arashiyama Monkey Park, a preserve that’s home to wild native snow monkeys (the northernmost species of monkeys on earth.) The climb surely must have discouraged some visitors. But not that many, or so it appeared.

Hilariously, the humans had to enter a big cage in order to feed the monkeys who were peering in at them from outside.

A half-hour boat ride on the Hozu River felt soothing.

Even more serene was our visit Friday morning (Oct 11) to Saihoji (aka Kokedera), a Zen Buddhist temple renowned for its beautiful central pond…

…and vast expanses of emerald moss. It’s an exceptionally peaceful place to meander.

The only reason it wasn’t crawling with tourists is because the temple managers strictly limit the number of people they let in every day. (I had to make my reservation months in advance.) Each visitor also must begin his or her visit by sitting in silence and copying a kōan (a sort of Buddhist religious verse) to settle the mind.

We weren’t allowed to take photographs in the central hall, where we did the copying. But this is what it looked like from the outside.

As delightful as the Moss Temple was, by the time we made our way home, I felt like I had used up all my temple-visiting energy, at least for this visit to Kyoto. Steve shared my feelings, so we decided to scrap the rest of my careful plans, in favor of… shopping.

Nintendo’s headquarters are in Kyoto, and the company has recently opened several retails stores throughout Japan. The Kyoto branch, just ten minutes from where we were staying, was another mob scene. But fascinating!

We also visited the Kyoto Railway Museum. And I spent some time in the pig cafe near our Airbnb.

Pig cafes are a spin-off of the cat cafes that first appeared in Japan about 20 years ago; those are havens in which one can relax, relieving stress by stroking purring felines. Dog cafes followed some years later; the pig cafes are a further iteration.

I’d read about such places, and talking with the Czech tourist at our beef dinner in Kobe fanned my desire to visit one. She’d been to a pig cafe in Osaka and raved about the experience. Steve was mildly revolted by the idea of paying money (a little under $15) to interact with farm animals. But he couldn’t talk me out of it, so I made an appointment for a 30-minute session at the MiPig Cafe in one of the shopping arcades near our Kyoto Airbnb.

I had to take off my shoes, stow them in a locker, and climb to the second floor of the narrow building. An attendant assigned me to one of the four low tables in a room containing 8 pigs — two older ones and 6 youngsters all about 7 months old. My companions at the other tables were a German family (mom, dad, and three adorable kids) and a couple from somewhere in Latin America.

I can now understand why the Czech woman fell in love. The young “micropigs” have outrageously long eyebrows, and they wag their tails as vigorously as puppies. They looked and smelled very clean. When they needed a toilet break, they leapt to their hoofs and trotted over to a piggy version of a litter box to relieve themselves.

One of the mother pigs immediately settled in on the Latin American guy’s lap, and several of the youngsters soon followed her.

I’m sorry to report: they did not steal my heart. It seemed clear to me that what the pigs most loved was to snuggle up with other pigs.

It took a while, but the German lady won over the two big pigs and two youngsters.

One of the sweet young attendants kept trying to entice at least one piglet to me. But for the longest time, they kept returning to Señor Pig Whisperer.

Finally, “Bobby” settled into my lap, and a sibling joined him. The attendant took a photo, documenting my success.

I petted them a bit. They snoozed, oblivious. I really wanted to feel Bobby’s snout, but the attendant warned against this. It might provoke him to bite me, she said.

Puppies, I later pointed out to Steve, would be a different experience. Maybe I should check out a dog cafe! He retorted that I will have my own puppy to snuggle soon enough. We fly home tomorrow evening and pick up Vanessa (our current service-dog trainee) on Friday.

I resisted this puppy cafe across the street from our Osaka hotel. But barely.

Little Boy’s Target

October 7, 2024October 8, 2024jdewyze2 Comments

One-tenth scale model of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima: “Little Boy” on the right. “Fat Man” on the left hit Nagasaki three days later.

I didn’t need to visit Hiroshima to understand that terrible things happen when you drop an atomic bomb on a city. I learned that lesson as a little girl, growing up during the Cold War; everyone knew about duck-and-cover drills and bomb shelters (the likes of which of course my family couldn’t afford). As a 7-year-old, I knew a single bomb could incinerate me and everyone I loved in an instant, and I thought poisons would linger in the air and ground for an unimaginable aftermath.

Visiting Hiroshima reminded me of all those things. Steve and I had three full days in the city, and the first thing we did on our first morning was walk to Peace Memorial Park, minutes from our hotel. We spent more than two hours in the Hiroshima Memorial Peace Museum.

It contains displays that plead for peace and inveigh against future nuclear holocausts. But mostly, the museum is a literal chamber of horrors — evoking in shocking, gritty detail what a single bomb did to the city and the 350,000 men, women, and children who lived in it.

This video recreation was gripping. First you see the city on the morning of the bombing. Streetcars and pedestrians move through the busy urban core. Then the viewpoint swoops up to that of the US pilots at 30,000 feet. You follow the bomb as it hurtles down. The world explodes and when the dust settles almost everything has been flattened, annihilated.

I was riveted by these, the only two photographs from that morning. You can almost smell the burned hair on the dazed survivors. You see flesh peeled off, hanging from the bodies.

The museum tells so many stories, both horrifying and heartbreaking.

When we had absorbed as much as we could bear, Steve and I walked through the surrounding park in bright autumn sunshine.

Parts are grand. Parts, like the pathways through the trees, are soothing.

We appreciated several other striking monuments, including the Atomic Bomb Dome.

The museum contains models of what the Hiroshima Prefectural Industrial Promotion Hall looked like before and after the bombing.

Today it’s the only remaining building of the few in Hiroshima that survived the initial blast and subsequent firestorms. Many people wanted to tear it down, but a decision was made to keep and rename it the Atomic Bomb Dome.

It’s a haunting landmark, but nearby Steve and I found something that fascinated us even more. We’d read about the bomb’s “hypocenter” — the spot directly below where it exploded. In the case of Little Boy that was about 2000 feet above the ground (roughly four blocks overhead.) We looked for the hypocenter in Peace Memorial Park, but it’s not there. Google Maps led us to it, a 3-minute walk from the Atomic Bomb Dome, outside the park and down a short block with a 7-Eleven on the corner. It’s so inconspicuous you could walk right by and miss it. But there is a little plaque, and looking up next to it gave me chills.

That was the sum of our A-bomb tourism. With the rest of our time, we did several fun things. On Sunday we rode a local train for about an hour to the town of Saijo, renowned for its concentration of craft sake breweries.

It reminded me of an outing in the Napa Valley.

The town also boasts an archeological park containing a 1400-year-old kofun — one of the mysterious keyhole-shape burial mounds in which ancient Japanese rulers were interred.

The *kofun* were ringed with levels of ornamental vessels (today represented by plastic replicas.)

The next day we took a river ferry from Peace Memorial Park out into the Inland Sea to reach Miyajima Island, famous for its striking Shinto shrine torii (ceremonial gate).

We ate more wonderful meals, strolled through gleaming commercial streets, and reeled at the thought that not in our lifetimes but close — so close! — everything everywhere here in all directions was smoking rubble. You’d never dream that was possible if you didn’t know better. Hiroshima today looks more prosperous and well-maintained than San Diego, and experts say radiation levels long ago dropped to no higher than they are anywhere else on earth.

I found that inspiring — evidence of how resilient people and their environments can be. Steve and I both were also struck by how many non-Japanese we encountered in Hiroshima —- more than anywhere else we’ve been on this trip. Large buses disgorge Germans and French and Americans and others. I heard people speaking Spanish and Hebrew and Russian and Korean and other languages I didn’t recognize. I wondered if maybe people all over the world feel Hiroshima belongs to all Earthlings — a warning.

Steve at one point expressed the wish that Putin and Biden and Bibi and Trump and Kamala would go to that museum and just look, long and hard, at those displays. Would it impact any of them? Maybe not.

So what’s a girl to do?

Is it worth going to Shikoku? Part 2

October 5, 2024October 6, 2024jdewyze2 Comments

From my last post, you might think the main reason for visiting Shikoku is the food. Steve makes this case, and I have a hard time arguing with it. We consumed amazing meals; tasted the freshest seafood we have ever eaten. We ate most of it in simple, inexpensive settings, like the marvelous food court in central Kochi.

Hirome Ichiba contains dozens upon dozens of stalls selling all kinds of food and drink. On the Monday night we were there, the scene was every bit as lively as the beer halls of Munich or Singapore’s hawker centers.

We ordered several dishes. One was this delicious eel, one of my favorite types of seafood.

I doubt I’ll ever forget the seared bonita we got for lunch the next day in a little fishing village on Shikoku’s Pacific coast.

Its freshness was stunning. And the total bill for both of us was $12.75.

Still, we enjoyed more than just the food. Think of the following as postcards from some highlights.

Our time in the mountain villages took us back in time.

This is the matriarch of a family that for four generations has run the Japanese inn where we stayed. She still appears to do a lot of the cooking.

The dinners and breakfasts included with our stay were delicious.

All the rooms are Japanese style. This was ours.

Our hostess was tiny in stature but bright and welcoming in spirit.

Not just the mountains on Shikoku are wild. So are most of the rivers.

We took a short, placid cruise on the Yoshino River through Oboke Gorge. but if we’d wanted to ride some rapids, that was an option just downstream.

The next day we drove along the Shimanto, known as the last wild river in Japan. No dam has been built along its course.

Many bridges like this one span the Shimanto. The absence of railings is intended to make the structures less vulnerable to being swept away by floods. Neither of us was eager to walk all the way across one of the *chinkabashi*. But it was fun to watch a steady driver motor across.

We got a strong reminder of the potential menace of the sea in the little fishing village where we ate the world-class lunch.

This way to a tsunami evacuation shelter.

Posters warned that a tsunami could roll in and wreck havoc within minutes of a quake offshore.

Steve and I found one of the town’s tsunami evacuation towers. It’s that round thing in the distance.

We climbed it and at the top enjoyed a lovely seascape. A couple of local old guys were also up there, shooting the breeze.

With all the danger on land and sea, I could understand how Shikoku residents might develop a rich mythology about the creatures — occasionally helpful but often evil or malicious — lurking in the landscape. They’re called yokai, and we spent an entertaining hour at a museum in the Oboke Gorge that explains a lot about them.

This is a *tanuki*, an evil “raccoon dog.”

Who wouldn’t want to visit a place inhabited by the likes of those guys? So my answer to the question of whether it’s worth visiting Shikoku is an emphatic hai!

Is Shikoku worth visiting? Part 1

October 5, 2024October 5, 2024jdewyzeLeave a comment

Our final stop on Shikoku was Matsuyama, the island’s biggest city. We only had a day and a half, but we made it to three of the city’s most highly praised sights:

One was Matsuyama Castle, one of the largest and best-preserved fortified dwellings in all Japan. We went on a rainy afternoon when it was easy to conjure up the samurai ghosts. (Good English translations of the displays helped.)

It was even more impressive than Kochi’s well-preserved castle, which we visited while there. The weather was better in Kochi, so when we climbed to the top-most level of the tower, we could better appreciate the great views.

The second major site we visited in Matsuyama was Ishite-Ji, one of Matsuyama’s many Buddhist temples. There I was disappointed to find the main building under renovation. But the grounds were wonderfully atmospheric…

…filled with nooks and crannies, some quirky, some beautiful.

We also crept into a a weird meditation tunnel chiseled into the rocky stone that abuts the temple complex.

It looked much darker and creepier to our eyes than it looks here, as captured by my iPhone camera.

Most exciting to me was catching sight of several arriving pilgrims. The Shikoku Pilgrimage is kind of a big deal on the island. Religious devotees try to follow a circuit that includes 88 temples; reportedly it takes 2-3 months to do it on foot. While achieving this would give one great bragging rights, it’s not on my bucket list. Still I was happy to glimpse some of those who were called by it.

The third Big Attraction in town is Dogo Onsen (onsen are hot springs and the bathing facilities around them). This one is said to be the oldest in Japan (3000 years old? So they say.) You have to pay an admission fee to enter the 130-year-old main resort building (Dogo Onsen Honkan). Because we had failed to bring towels and robes with us, we paid about $27 for the two of us to enter, bathe, and get not only towels and robes but also tea and cookies.

I should explain here that Steve’s not a huge fan of Japanese bathing, which we have done many times over the years. In 1979 we visited a town where the streets were filled with freshly scrubbed people strolling around in just robes and sandals. In 1982 we went to an onsen in the north where men and women soaked together, au natural, in lovely outdoor pools. On this trip, we used the communal baths at two places, both of which reminded Steve he finds nothing appealing about sitting in hot water with a bunch of other naked men. I’m more of a fan of the whole experience. I learned the rules of Japanese bathing way back on my first trip to Japan.

Here’s one rendering of the rules I saw recently.

Steeping myself in very hot pools alongside other naked women is so wildly different from anything back home, I find the rituals interesting — and the hot-water dips relaxing.

At Dogo Onsen, Steve was a good sport and accompanied me into the spa (though we couldn’t soak together. In most places, it’s a sex-segregated activity.)

We were allowed to sit together in this room for our after-bath tea and cookies.

We enjoyed all three of these activities, but two other things happened that seemed more wonderfully, quintessentially Japanese. We stumbled on one while walking to the onsen through one of the town’s pleasant covered malls. An odd sight caught my eye:

A colorful store containing a long wall lined with spigots.

We realized the spigots poured tastes of maybe two dozen kinds of citrus juice.

It seemed the juice was squeezed from varieties of fruit hybridized and grown in Ehime Prefecture. We recognized a few like blood orange. But most were alien: Seminole juice? Buntan?

A taste of the buntan, for example, cost $1.68. The displays showed the sweetness, acidity, and bitterness levels of each offering.

We picked out three to share; the total came to $5. None of them tasted exactly like the orange juice or tangerine juice or grapefruit juice we know from home.They weren’t blends of those, but squeezed from wholly different fruit, clearly related but different. As we walked in, customers of all ages were streaming in, happy to be trying something new, as people here tend to be.

Our other striking experience came on our final night on Shikoku. We’d wanted to eat somewhere good but close to our hotel; Google Maps showed us at least a dozen candidates within a 5-minute radius. We selected a highly rated one which looked to be just a half block down a little street almost directly across from where we were staying. We followed Google’s directions and were baffled to find a dark alley containing no sign of any commercial establishment (even though Google said it should be open.) We walked in various directions, increasingly frustrated. Steve was certain Google was simply wrong. But I pushed for one more careful walk through the alley before we caved and went to the nearest burger joint. And there it was!

A sign for the restaurant we were seeking.

We climbed an unpromising set of stairs…

…pushed open the door, and were greeted with a cry of welcome from the solitary figure working behind the counter. The room was lovely — sleekly elegant with lots of warm wood tones. Music played softly in the background. The only other person in the place was a single woman nursing a drink at the bar.