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Thoughts on Universal Orlando

Mark — Sun, 15 Aug 2010 23:01:13 +0000

I recently went on a vacation with friend down to Universal Orlando with some friends. We went in part to see the new Wizarding World of Harry Potter section which opened this summer. This was my first time going to a major theme park, so below are some tips and comments from my vacation.

Tips

Consider staying in one of the park hotels to save on transportation costs. If you’re not willing to pay the price for staying on park, there’s a DoubleTree hotel just a mile outside the park entrance, a taxi from there to the park is only $5.
Get to the park as early as your tickets let you inside the gates. Lines form quickly, especially for popular rides, and during peak times really popular rides can have wait times over an hour long. This is doubly troubling as the lines have a tendency to go in and back out again of air-conditioning with only minimal fans & misting devices to keep the heat down.
Carry a water bottle and refill it from the water fountains. Water fights off heat stroke better than soda, and refilling a water bottle is much cheaper than buying drink after drink (though the lemon slushes –sold in a few places around the park– were really, really good).
If the lines for a ride are very long, consider trying the single rider line. The parks use the single rider line to help fill-in empty seats on the rides, if you use this line you aren’t guaranteed (and cannot ask to be) seated with a friend. However when we used it; we frequently got seated on the same car. Plus some of the time we got through a 30 minute line in only 5 minutes.
Take the time to go to one of the sit-down restaurants for lunch every day. That hour or so in the air-conditioning is vital to one’s sanity & health. Plus some of those restaurants are really good.
- Mythos was our lunchtime favorite.
- Lombard’s is known for its seafood but we found both the food and service to only be mediocre.
The best restaurant for supper is called the Latin Quarter and is located in Universal CityWalk (the free/shopping area between Universal Studios & Universal Islands of Adventure). We ate there twice and ordered their guacamole (made at your table side) 4 times. It’s that good. Oh and when you’re there, ask for Micheal aka “the bald guy” (they’ve only got one bald guy) to be your server. He was ours the first time we were there and he was great!
The new Wizarding World of Harry Potter section is like a magnet to the park visitors. The closer you get to that section, the bigger the crowds (especially the closer you get to peak times). If you want to see any of this, go as early as you possible can to avoid as much of the lines as possible.
- When we were there our first day was Thursday, we had tickets for early admission and it still took around 2 hours to get through the line into Ollivander’s.
- Lines for Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey were similarly long.
- If you’re going for multiple days and want to see all of the Wizarding World of Harry Potter section, start each day with one thing you want to get into and wait in the line for that first. Then get out of the Harry Potter section and enjoy some of the rest of the park while the crowds are still filing into Harry Potter.

About the Rides and Shows

As Universal Orlando is divided into 2 separate parks, I’ve separated my comments about each ride and show into their individual parks.

Universal Studios Flordia

The Simpsons Ride: This ride is entirely simulation. The car jerks you around while huge, projection screens display whats happening around you. It’s a lot of fun, though I found sitting in the front row of the ride to be hard on my neck.
Revenge of the Mummy: This ride is all indoors and is part roller-coaster and part simulation ride (though it is more roller-coaster than simulation). I rode it three separate times while I was there and loved it every time. :) It was my favorite ride and I highly recommend checking it out while you’re there.
Men in Black: Alien Attack: During this interactive ride, you’re supposed to shoot the alien invaders. Unfortunately, the “guns” don’t have good sites or anyway of indicating what you’re shooting at. True all the guns display a red dot, but the ride has 2 tracks going side-by-side with 6 persons to a car so you’ve got 12 red dots all over the place. This makes it all but impossible to tell who’s shooting at what.
Terminator 2: 3-D: This show is supposed to have some of the most advanced effects of any of the parks, but the majority of the show was mediocre at best. Though the actress playing the director of public communications was pretty funny.
Shrek 4-D: Meh. The story for this show appears to take place between the first and second movies. The effects are nothing special and if you get stuck sitting in the back row of the theater, then you can hear the actuators which move the seats up/down for some of the effects.

Islands of Adventure

The Amazing Adventures of Spider-Man: This is another all simulation ride. It’s based on the old Spider-Man cartoons and not the movies, but basing it on the cartoon really helps with the 3-D effects they use. At one point during the ride, Spider-Man jumps on the front of the car and talks to you. Regardless of where you sit, it looks like he’s talking directly to you. While the lines tend to be long for this; the first time you go through them, it’s good that they are because it gives you time to watch all the backstory to the ride. You’ll definitely want to pay attention to the backstory, it’s sufficiently hokey to be highly entertaining (at least it’s entertaining that first time).
Eighth Voyage of Sindbad: Speaking of hokey, this show takes the hokey prize with a fair bit of camp. It’s a fun why to kill a bit time, especially if the sky cuts lose with a torrent of rain.
Poseidon’s Fury: This is a show where you walk through several rooms to get to different parts of the show. It’s a lot of fun and the finale uses curtains of water as screens to display some of the effects. While the costumes of the show’s major characters look a bit dated, I still rank this as my favorite of the shows we attended.

Wizarding World of Harry Potter

As this section is so new and its opening was a major influence on our deciding to go this summer, it gets a bit more coverage than the rest.

Dragon Challenge: Woosh, this ride goes by fast even though the line doesn’t. My taste in roller-coaters tends towards the classic coasters rather than these modern steel monsters, but it was still a heck of a ride.
Flight of the Hippogriff: They claim this a child’s ride but it still whips around mighty fast. It’s a lot of fun and the atmosphere of the waiting line and ride itself are nice.
Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey: Like Revenge of the Mummy, this ride is a combination of simulation and roller-coaster. However they greatly increased the number of screens for the simulation experience; which I found unfortunate as the roller-coaster whips you around so fast that it is hard to focus on what’s happening as you go through the ride. NOTE: Absolutely no bags are permitted on this ride, lockers are available at the entrance to the ride; however the lockers are too short for some of the wands available at Ollivander’s or the wand cart to fit in them. If you have bags that don’t fit; the ride attendants will let one of you wait in the child swap area with the bags while the rest of your party enjoys the ride and then they can take the bags while you go on the ride. The ride’s final exit goes through Filch’s Emporium of Confiscated Goods (a fancy gift shop stuffed with all the same Harry Potter merchandise as Dervish and Banges).
Three Broomsticks: Cafeteria style food at theme park prices with little atmosphere. I’d suggest skipping it and eating at Mythos instead.
Ollivander’s: Whew, the line was insane to get into this and I’m not entirely sure it was worth it. Once you’re in the shop, you get a 5 minute show of the shopkeeper doing a recreation of Harry Potter first getting his wand (using some lucky child from the audience) and then you’re herded into a shop that combines Ollivander’s, Dervish and Banges and the Owl Post.
- All the Harry Potter merchandise except for the wands at Ollivander’s and possibly some of the candy from Honeydukes appears to be available at the larger gifts store near the entrance to the parks. If you want to buy some Harry Potter gear but don’t like to wait for hours to be crammed into tiny shops with hordes of other people, avoid the shops in the Wizarding World. Shop with the muggles for less suffering and more comfort.
Honeydukes and Zonko’s: Like Ollivander’s, these 2 shops from the stories have been combined into a single shop. Sort of. There are separate exterior doors but inside it’s one room and the park attendants will force you to go through a single line to get into them through the Honeydukes entrance.

Update 2010-08-16: Doh! I can’t believe I forgot to mention Butterbeer & Pumpkin Juice. These are 2 speciality drinks only available within the Wizarding World of Harry Potter. Butterbear is a rather sugary cream soda with a non-dairy, butterscotch flavored whipped topping “head”. If you don’t buy it in the plastic, collector’s mug; it cost something like $3.50 a glass. I’d say it’s worth having at least once, but it’s so very sugary that I wouldn’t go for a second cup. Pumpkin juice is similar to a homemade apple cider, but with pumpkin pie like flavorings. It was good; but.… At $6.50 a bottle, it’s not something I could see drinking much of.

Thoughts on Universal Orlando © Mark McKibben, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States.

Chicago’s Field Museum

Mark — Sun, 26 Nov 2006 23:38:14 +0000

Over Thanksgiving weekend, some friends and I went to Chicago to see the King Tut Exhibit. It was amazing. Unfortunately, they had a no photo policy on that exhibit. With the crowd and all the security people, I didn’t want to get kicked out so I didn’t take any pictures of that exhibit. But our tickets included general admission to the rest of the museum, and I took these photos while we were there.

Well.… To be entirely frank, I took a lot more pictures than just these 4 but the rest turned out to be crap. Maybe when I have a chance to work on them a bit with GIMP they might be worth posting, but I’m not holding my breath.

Chicago’s Field Museum © Mark McKibben, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States.

Reflections on Japan

Mark — Thu, 12 Aug 2004 23:47:33 +0000

I’ve been back in the States for a few days now and I’ve been meaning to¹ write a little something reflecting back on the trip; however with jet lag and what not², I’ve been a bit too tired to write anything up. Since I received a friendly reminder about it from AWelkin; I figure I better hurry up and write something. First off, let’s get the gushy fan-boyishness out of the way. Going to Japan was an amazing experience and something that I am very glad that I had the opportunity to do. Now that we’ve got that out of the way, here are some of the impressions that I’m left with from my visit to Japan.

Nishi Kasai (the district/suburb of Tokyo we stayed in for the first week) was very similar to most any large city that you’d go to, except in places where it wasn’t. Most of the streets I saw during my stay in Nishi Kasai were narrow and oddly clean. For being part of Tokyo, one of the biggest citites in the world, I expected a much larger amount of trash to accumulate in the gutters and down the side streets. During my stay, I rarely noticed any trash littering the streets and that usually was just a couple of cigarette butts or the very rare soda can. I see more trash littering streets in my hometown everyday than I think I saw during my entire week in Nishi Kasai. The other thing about Nishi Kasai that surprised me was how green it was there. I mean, it’s part of Tokyo and they’ve got trees and bushes all over the place. In particular, right next to TCA there was something that kind of resembled a park. It divided the street in half, was lined with trees and in one part had what I think was a rice paddy. While the rest of it was paved, had benches and a small wading area for kids (or a good place for the adults to dip their feet).

Of course, it wasn’t all greenery there; there were plenty of buildings all over the place. Some where towering monstrosities of concrete; while others were traditional Japanese houses made of wood. There was a convenience store on partically every corner, though normal grocery stores were a bit harder to find. This reminds me of another thing about Japan that seems odd to me now; zoning ordinances. I don’t know if they just don’t have any, if they’re lot less strict than American ones or what, but you could be walking down a street and it would shift from stores to houses to stores to apartments in a blink of an eye. If you’re like me and don’t read kanji; this means you can never be entirely sure if the building you are looking at is somebody’s house or their business or both or something else entirely.

Speaking of confusion, it is my understanding that the average Japanese person has several more years of schooling in English than the average American has schooling in any foreign language, but I have to wonder if they really understand English sometimes. For instance one day while walking around Nishi Kasai; I spotted a young Japanese girl wearing a green t-shirt that said “daddy” across the wrong of it. I’ve also seen other Japanese girls wearing t-shirts and tanktops that promote PlayBoy magazine. I really have to wonder if those ladies have any idea of what their clothing was promoting. Of course, I can’t be too judgemental about their shirts. I’ve got one with some characters that sort of look like kanji, but I have no idea what they mean either³.

Speaking of kanji reminds me of the only thing that really hit me as a bad bit of culture shock. Towards the end of our first week there; we visited a store called Mandrake. It’s this massive multistory geek shopping area, with used manga, anime cells, toys, costumes, etc… I’d been browsing through some of the manga; just trying to find something with cool artwork or maybe even just a really nice artbook and after I’d been in there a while all the multicolored kanji on the spines of the manga started to blend together and spin around a bit. It was extremely disorienting and is one of the reasons I didn’t much like going to Mandrake or really any bookstore while I was in Japan. Normally, I love going into bookstores and just browsing around; but since I don’t read any kanji it was painful for me to go in and see all these books I couldn’t read. Fortunately, you don’t have to be able to read kanji to get around Tokyo or really any of the areas we visited. Signs in English were all over the place and we were traveling as a group. So we almost always had either AWelkin or Keki-san or some other person who was fluent in Japanese along to help us out.

On the other hand, I think having all that help wasn’t entirely good for the class because it seemed several people would do everything they could to avoid having to speak Japanese themselves. We had 3 half-days of Japanese lessons from Sato-sensai and some people appeared to speak Japanese fairly well in class but then would suddenly lose all their Japanese skills once they left Sato-sensai’s class. I know my Japanese was very weak; but by the end of the trip, I could:

introduce myself
tell somebody what one of my hobbies was
order my own food (if I could point at it, already knew what it was called or somebody could tell me what it was called)
complain that the weather was hot⁴

I don’t know if that meant was I more independent/confident/foolish than my fellow students but it seemed to me that we were not in the U.S. so we should make every effort to speak the native language of the country we were in. This is just something that seemed to me as a basic form of courtesy that we could do for our “host country”.

Courtesy was another thing that I noticed and liked about Japan. People were nice to each other all over the place whether they knew one another or not. People would say sumimasen (excuse me/sorry/please) and arigatoo gozaimasu (thank you) at the drop of a hat; while back here in the States, it sometimes seems like you have to pratically save somebody’s life before they’ll say thank you.

Ok, enough already about what I did like; what didn’t I like? Well… their milk tasted a bit off from what I’m used to and rice cakes at breakfast time got old fast⁵. Also the heat was nearly unbearable and bonking my head in doorways was annoying. But none of those were major issues really, probably the biggest thing that would have annoyed me would be their attitude towards schedules. We were pretty heavily insulated from this thanks to AWelkin’s efforts but given some of the things we talked about over dinner that first night back; I get the impression that the Japanese do not view schedules as something you really set in stone (like we silly Americans do). It seems to me that they felt it was perfectly ok to rearrange the schedules at a moments notice and continue to arrange them until they were happy about it; without ever realizing that the silly foreigners were likely to get stressed about it (which we did, frequently). Still I was pretty well insulated from that so it wasn’t too bad. Probably the number one thing about Japan that disturbed me were their cemeteries; specifically those areas set aside for children who’d died. Usually, I’d see these with little statues (of a standing Buddha?, not sure need to ask AWelkin about that) with knitted bonnets and/or a bib. According to one discussion, I’d had with AWelkin about these statues⁶; the Japanese feel a need to honor all of their dead, including those children that died young, at birth, were aborted and what not. I don’t think that’s a bad thing at all, as to me that seems to display a deep and abiding respect for life but seeing the children’s section of the cemeteries disturbed me on some fundamental level. It’s rather hard to describe; there was a sense of “this is really creepy” but overlaid with a sense of deep sadness. *shudder* Thinking about those parts of Japan still creeps me out a bit.

As this was my first trip outside of the U.S. (and the first plane ride that I can remember going on); I did end up learning a few things about myself:

I can handle riding in a plane just fine, even in coach, but I’d rather be up front so I know when the plane is going to dip or turn and perhaps won’t be quite so put out by turbulence.
With proper motivation, I can learn other languages fairly quickly. Note that I didn’t say well or in depth; just quickly.
I’m still oblvious to flirting⁷.
As worldly as I might want to appear to others; I get too big a kick out of being a tourist to not stop and stare at (or take pictures of) things that interest me.
I enjoy traveling immensely.

¹ Translation: The final project of the course was to write one last journal entry talking about the trip and what the trip made me learn about myself.
² Switching from U.S. time to Japan time was easy, switching back has been brutal and probably wasn’t helped by giving blood yesterday.
³ I wore it during the homestay and Makoto-san didn’t know what they meant either. At least, he said he didn’t know but that could have been just him being nice and not telling me that it said something stupid or vulgar. *sigh* I have really need to learn how to read kanji!
⁴ It took me a few days to pick that one up and I really only got it after a bit of help from KO, but I ended up using it a lot!
⁵ Though I loved having the miso soup every day, yum!
⁶ The one where I found out they were for children.
⁷ AWelkin said that some of the art instructors were flirting with me during class. Ariesna has mentioned before that she’s noticed other girls flirting with me. *shrug* I still don’t really know what either one is talking about.

Reflections on Japan © Mark McKibben, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States.

Japan Day 13

Mark — Sat, 07 Aug 2004 11:53:06 +0000

Another day of raising from bed far too damn early; only to hop on trains and run like the wind to make all our train/plane connections. *sigh* The day started off poorly as one of the students spent the night in S-sensai’s room and another had the key to her room with him at the station. But after that got storted out, things went relatively smoothly until Narita. Then there were massive lines to get through security and customs and somehow AWelkin, Bryon & 2 of the other students didn’t see us waiting for them after customs so we were running behind when we finally decided to hurry up through immigration and to meet them at the boarding gate. Though we did see them as we waited to get through immigration, confirmed that all students were accounted for and made our flight to O’Hare without a problem. Our next problem was that 3 students went missing and nearly missed the flight from O’Hare to Cedar Rapids. Since that was the last flight of the night to CR; AWelkin (doing that responsible teacher thing) was planning on staying behind to find them but they showed up pretty much as the boarding was finishing up. So we all got home safely; Ariesna and I ate out with AWelkin and Bryon that night and my lovely finance ever so patiently listened to all of us bitch our anger and frustration out about the trip. *sigh* I’m too damn lucky for words to have a fiance like her.

Then we went home and I gave Ariesna all the souvenirs that I’d gotten for her on the trip and off to bed I went.

Japan Day 13 © Mark McKibben, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States.

Japan Day 12

Mark — Fri, 06 Aug 2004 11:47:38 +0000

Today we went to Kyoto. We’d been warned that it was one of the hottest places in Japan, but I hadn’t paid too much attention to the warnings thinking that I wouldn’t really notice the difference after the heat I’d already been dealing with. Boy was I ever wrong! It was the single most brutal day of heat and misery that I’ve ever experienced. It wouldn’t have been so bad if I’d been wearing shorts, but AWelkin had mentioned prior to the trip that it was one of the more conservative areas of Japan and we shouldn’t wear shorts there because it’s just not done¹. I have to say that if I’d known in advance how brutal the heat would be there; I would have ignored that cultural advice and worn shorts. It was horrific and it make matters worse, the main temple we’d come to see was more than just a little ways from the train station and all the walking was uphill. Before we got there though, we rode the local bus system which wasn’t too bad, except when it got crowded². Once the bus desposited us at the base of the hill to the temple; we started the climb, ignoring all the shops on the way up. When we finally made it to the top of the hill; we found we had to go up a set of steep stairs to get to the actual temple area. I think we’d already visited another temple that day (I’ll have to go through all the tickets and scraps I saved from the trip to double-check) and so AWelkin allowed those students who wanted to; to rest at the base of the temples. Only about 5 of us (3, if you didn’t count AWelkin & Bryon) actually went in. It was the most beautiful temple we’d seen yet and had a view of the valley area below which rivalled (but didn’t quite beat) the view of the ocean at the one previous temple. Again, words fail me here so I’ll have to hurry up and see about posting some pictures.

After we finished up at the temple, we had a short time to do some shopping on the way back. I started off trying to help Bryon find a kitsune figurine but we had no luck. Then I saw a shaved ice stand on the way down. I stopped to get some and cool off a bit while Bryon continued down to meet up with AWelkin. After I’d cooled down a bit, I took my ice with me as I finished walking down to the meeting point. Then we waited around far too long for all of the students to finish showing up and then took taxis back to the train station. On our taxi-ride back, Keki-san pointed out some maiko walking off onto a side street. They were wearing beautiful kimonos, but unfortunately we didn’t have time to stop and I had put my camera away so there was no chance to get a picture of them. *sad*

Once we all got to the train station, we all headed back to the Jikei center. On the train ride back, I had a nice chat with H-san (the bigwigs of Jikei that spent the most time with us). He gave me some background/history of Japan and asked me what I liked about the program so. It was very pleasant. Unfortunately, I don’t think I gave him the information he was really looking for because I’m such a non-traditional student and only went back to school in order to take this course. *sigh*

At the Jikei center, the staff out did themselves again with a barbeque for us. They grilled bits of beef (tiny, tiny but very tasty slices), corn, potatoes, onions, peppers, something like tofu but made from a root (which I didn’t care for) and rice balls (which I loved). They also had fresh (pulled from the ocean that day) which they grilled whole (heads, scales and all); but they ran out before I got around to trying them. I was soooo disappointed (not). They finished off the meal with more fresh fruit (watermelon and grapes) as well as shaved ice inside of plastic sticks (like a frozen popsicle). I tried both the melon and cream soda flavors, yum! Towards the end of the BBQ, Keki-san was talking with AWelkin and mentioned how much she liked the Japanese bath at the center. There was a bit of silence amoung several of us as AWelkin figured out that Keki-san wasn’t talking about a bath in her room, but a bath like a Japanese bathhouse. Several of us insistently were asking where it was and if we could use it. When we learned we could (unlike the pool which had been closed because no lifeguard was available); there was much rejoycing. *yeah* It was odd showering up in front of other men like that, but the ooo, aaaa, ah, ah, NOT COLD water in the tub (which was 3–4 times the size of my bathroom here in the US) made it all worthwhile. Especially since it relaxed my feet; so that for the first time, in about 2 weeks, my feet weren’t hurting. Aaaaahhhhhhh.

After the relaxing bath AWelkin, Bryon and myself did a bit more karoke and it was old farts night for about 2 songs each before some of the other students came in. AWelkin & Bryon slipped out early but I didn’t quite until my throat hurt but that didn’t take as long this night, partly because I was still somewhat sore from the night before and partly because they were smoking quite a bit more that night.

¹ One of those clutural difference things.
² AWelkin, Keki-san and Sato-sensai seemed very amused to see me srunch myself on top of a step inside the bus and push my head up at an angle along the cieling to make room for some of the little old ladies getting on to the bus.

Japan Day 12 © Mark McKibben, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States.

Japan Day 11

Mark — Thu, 05 Aug 2004 11:13:57 +0000

Today we had to get up and check out of the hotel by 6:00 AM (or 5:45 AM if you had phone charges to pay for like I did). Then we ran to catch the early morning train and made some exchanges to get over to Takarazuka, where we visited the Osamu Tezuka Museum. The walk to the museum from the train station would not have been so bad; if we weren’t carrying our luggage for the next 3 days with us¹. The museum wasn’t as big as say the Ghibli museum had been but it was packed with stuff about Tezuka and his work. Also in the basement level, they ran an hour long “animation course“². The course ran off a set of computer built into little desks with built-in lightboxes. You were supposed to follow along with what they were saying via your computer, but we didn’t speak enough Japanese and none of us read any Japanese, so that part was hard. Fortunately, some of the museum employees spoke enough English that we were able to participate and make our own little 2 frame animation. Mine was of my CoffeeBear character waving and it received the Astro Boy Seal of Approval³ *grin* Oh and one of the other nice things about the museum was that they allowed you to take pictures inside. So, I’ll see about posting some of those later.

After we finished up at the musem; we hit a nearby mall for lunch. I had some ramen with dumplings and bits of pork; it tasted good but didn’t agree with me later. After lunch, we went to a nearby coffeeshop; where I enjoyed an iced coffee and a kjiwi/strawberry parfait. It was ridiculously large and quite, quite tasty. *yum*

Then we caught another train that took us out to the Jeiki center⁴. I’m not entirely sure where the center was, but I know it was right on the beach of Lake Biwa and am guessing it was in Osaka. The train station there was pretty disappointing in that we were all tired and thirsty but for some reason this one station didn’t have a single vending machine in it or near it; so no drinks were to be had. *groan* Then because the Jikei bigwig with us wanted to walk; they asked all of us to walk. Surprisingly, most of us did so. Some who hadn’t been well (and some who were just whimps) accepted a ride in the air-conditioned van to the center. The rest of us hiked 2 kilometers or so to the center. It was a beautiful walk and not too hard to do after all the walking we’d done in Tokyo and especially since all the luggage went to the center in the van. Towards the end of the walk, it started to rain and I held my umbrella for one of the girls on the tri; she said she didn’t need it but that wasn’t the point. The point was that a gentlemen sees to the comfort of those around him before himself, though I have to admit that rain felt good and cool as it hit me. Then we had a short time to clean up before we had to give our speeches to all the bigwigs of Jikei, including U-san’s uncle/the owner of Jikei. Apparently, I was about the only one of the students who remembered that this was the night we were supposed to dress up and hence bothered to actually shower/freshen up. Most of the other students wore their crappy t-shirts and didn’t seem to have made any effort to appear presentable. There wasn’t enough time after my shower for my hair to dry and I got a few comments from people that I looked very different with my hair slicked back. U-san, pointed and made hand gestures that I think meant he approved at my attempt to clean up; while K said that I looked more like a professor with my hair like that and while wearing my glasses. *heh*

Then the speeches started and after the Jikei president gave his; they handed out a copy of the Jikei banner to each of us as well as giving each of us a book. The book was especially a treat for me because it’s in both Japanese and English. Plus, U-san grabbed one of the 3 books, skipped a couple of kids and asked me if I wanted the samurai/bushio book. Naturally, I said yes and accepted it. U-san is just too cool for words and I really must learn enough Japanese so I can talk to him one day⁵. After the books, then each of the students gave their little speech with Keki-san providing the translation where necessary.
After everybody had given their speech; we broke up for dinner. The Jikei staff made this massive meal for us and served it to us with smiles. It was really nice. I started off the meal, drinking some Asahi dry (maybe draft?) beer with U-san. It was the same stuff that I’d drunk with M-san during the homestay and was fairly pleasant. Then we started in on the food, which including fresh pineapple (one of my all time favorite foods!). We’d barely started eating when they asked for five of us to go off and try the Japanese tea ceremony. I volunteered and found it to be a very relaxing experience. First they feed you a small slab of red bean paste (very, very sweet stuff), which you eat by slicing it in half with the wooden knife and eating it in 2 bites. Then they give you a small bowl of strong/bitter green tea, which you rotate in the palm of your left hand 2 times and drink down. I heard later that it’s considered lucky if you can finish the tea in 3 drinks, but I think I took a lot more than that. L was doing the tea ceremony at one time and let his nervousness get the better of him. He sort of listened to the instructions then kind of frooze up while drinking the tea and finished it in one go.

After that, it was back to dinner but U-san was elsewhere by then and a Keko-san joined me at the table. She was nice and spoke enough English that we could converse during dinner. While we chatted, she asked what kind of manga I draw; so I did a quick sketch of my CoffeeBear for her on the paperwrapper for my chopsticks which seemed to please her quite a bit. Then she had to go off to do something else and dinner broke up shortly afterwards. At the close of dinner, the staff explained that they had a game room complete with a billards table as well as a karoke room that we could use.

Naturally AWelkin, Bryon and myself made a mad dash for the karoke room; SE also joined us as well as a couple of the other students. And it was karoke for me till my voice gave out. I would never do karoke in the US but in Japan when you’re just doing it with a group of your friends; it’s a hell of a good time. *grin*

¹ The rest was being stored at the Toyo Language School thanks to the efforts of the mighty U-san.
² This was really aimed at the 12 and under set, but we silly foreigners didn’t let that stop us and several of us sat through the course.
³ In reality, everybody’s animation got stamped but I can’t read any of the writing on the stamp; so I don’t really know what it says. I just recognize that Astro Boy was in the middle of it.
⁴ Err, I’m not sure that’s what it was called but it’s what I called it. It is owned by the Jeiki group and is more like a resort than a school. We found out how much like a resort it was on our last night there, but more on that in a future entry.
⁵ Currently, my Japanese is enough to order my own food at a restauran (if somebody else can read the menu to me) and discussing the weather. I’m no where near fluent enough to have a real conversation.

Japan Day 11 © Mark McKibben, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States.

Japan Day 10

Mark — Wed, 04 Aug 2004 07:07:07 +0000

Today, we hit 3 temples over in the Kamakura region. And since I’m feeling lazy, I’m just going to post some bullet points about them for now:

Great pictures thanks to cooperative sky
HOT, HOT walk to Buddha

BLOODY MISERABLE HEAT and stairs on walk up to temple
Gorgeous scenary
Rest area near top with excellent apple juice
Rest area overlooks the city area and the ocean
saw some hawks/falcons/eagles flying from rest area, very cool
Got a picture of a couple of ladies wearing kimonos outside temple, really like the design of the white one with blue flowers

Massive and beautiful
heat started to go down a bit
saw shrine maidens wearing traditional grab, but didn’t get a chance to ask them for a picture
had a small museum area with various things of interest: sword, arrows, bows, scrolls, vases, kimonos

bought small something for Mom, K and Grandma D.
helped pick out omiyage for K-san.
ate dinner with AWelkin and Bryon again, this time also with Y, an old friend of AWelkin’s
nice itlian place, had salomn cream penne, very nice
got back to hotel late, tried calling Ariesna but got no answer

This morning had e-mail from Ariesna that she’s been having a rough time (smashed her hand) but other than that she’s ok.
Also, I had some bizarre dream last night. Don’t remember much, but it seemed like I’d had it before and it seems there was some odd ball drug use going on in the dream. As I said, it was bizarre.

Japan Day 9

Mark — Tue, 03 Aug 2004 04:54:46 +0000

This morning was another sweltering day and after a short hop on the train; we walked up to Osamu Tezuka Productions. When you first step off the street towards their door; there’s a marble (maybe granite) status of Astro Boy. Then you walk inside and immediately you’re surrounded by merchandise, mostly from Astro Boy but also from some of Tezuka’s other series, such as Princess Knight. Then it was up the stairs and we split up with half of us touring of the offices while the other half watched a video. I went on the tour and the wonderful people there let me video tape it; so I won’t talk about it here. Then we went back to the waiting area and watched some of Tezuka’s animation work while the other group go the tour. It was a very nice environmental work with no words set to one of Tchaikovsky’s operas. Then they brought in one of Tezuka’s former assistants and he gave a short presentation about what it was like to be an assistant. I was still suffering from the heat, so my fried brains couldn’t think of a question before the presentation was over. On the other hand, at least I wasn’t sleeping with my head on the table through the presentation.

After the presentation, we left Osamu Tezuka Productions and headed for Asasuka. It was a beautiful area with a large market leading up to the shrine. We did a bunch of group pictures at the entrance to the area and then headed up. The shrine was gorgeous and when I get back to the USA; I’ll see about posting some pictures. I wish we’d had more time to check out the market area as there looked to be a lot of really cool stuff in a small area, but the children had been whining again and we cut that part of the day a bit short. Plus P was absolutely wasted by the heat and we had to go activate our JR passes.

I noticed that I was getting a bit snappish with the kids and when AWelkin mentioned that we’d be finishing the day in Tokyo station; I asked if Tokyo Tower was nearby. She said it was and so I asked if maybe her & Bryon would like to go with me to see it. She was hesitant about it and I said I understood but that I’d been hoping to have an evening with my kind of geek. This ended up being a sign to AWelkin that I needed a sanity check and she changed their plans to go with me.

We ended up wandering around for quite a while to find some dinner. Eventually we settled on the Japanese version of an Italian restaurant. Bryon had lasagna, while AWelkin and I each went for a personal pizza. Hers was some bizarre seafood thing while mine was Mixed Pizza and came with a variety of vegetables and some rather undercooked/fatty (by American standards) bacon. After dinner more walking and AWelkin asking for directions a couple of times; we made it to Tokyo Tower. It was amazing! Especially since we got there at just about sunset, the view was just spectacular. Again, I’ll see about posting some pictures when I get back to the USA.

After that extremely long day and a really nice evening, I was feeling very tired but much more sane. More about Japan tomorrow!

Japan Day 8

Mark — Sun, 01 Aug 2004 23:55:55 +0000

Homestay Day 2
We slept fairly late and then R & M made us brunch. A massive salad with tomatoes and onion, eggs, sausage, fatty ham patties and fresh fruit. After we lazily ate breakfast, they took us to a nearby beach. M-san warned us first that the water was very dirty but we had no better ideas on where we would have liked to go, so it was off to the beach. The whole area was filthy; actually, it was the first time I’d seen so much litter laying on the ground. And water level was really low, so there was something like a 100 yards of mud between the normal beach and the water line. Still, there was a strong breeze coming off the water and the smell of the sea was much like I remember from visiting the ocean back when I lived in North Carolina. So it was very pleasant. Then as we were leaving, R-san bought us some Japanese style ice-cream. Basically it like a slushie, shaved ice topped with flavored syrup but they also added in some cream. It was delicious!

Then we went back to their place, exchanged e-mail addresses and got our bags so we could head back to the hotel. While we were there, I gave them a sketch that I’d done of their family as my bear characters. They seemed to like it a lot, which made me glad because D didn’t have any omiyage for them and mine¹ seemed rather small compared to what I saw the other students take with them. As we were leaving to go back to the hotel; we got to see part of their apartment complex’s festival. The children of the apartments were carrying around a mobile temple while chanting something that sounded like wah-choi. Then we went back to the hotel and waited around for somebody to show up. AWelkin came down and got us into our rooms and then we relaxed.

¹ A small jar of apricot preserves and a larger one of apple butter, both from the Amanas.

Japan Day 7

Mark — Sat, 31 Jul 2004 23:36:05 +0000

Homestay, day 1
We got ourselves checked out of the hotel this morning and I found that calls to the US must be around $1/minute, as I’d called Ariesna a couple of times and hadn’t spoken all that long but the bill was rather high. After we were all checked out, we walked down to the language school. It was extremely hot out and there wasn’t a lot of shade. I noticed K was having problems, so I carried her bag for her to the school. Once we were there, one of the teachers brought us some drinks and snacks, but the A/C wasn’t working all that well and we were still frying.

About the time we’d gotten cooled off; the Hippo Family Club showed up. Apparently they study foreign languages by listening to music, singing, dancing and hosting foreign visitors for home stays. After a few silly dances and some singing, they paired us up with our host families. Then they asked somebody to say something to their host family. K-san asked me to go first; so I stood up –and then remembered to grab my phrasebook– then I rattled off the Japanese for: It’s nice to meet you. My name is Mark McKibben. and something else that I can’t remember now. Then I sat down expecting them to call on somebody else, but instead they broke up the meeting and we all went off with our host families. AAARRRGGGGHHHH!!!! Why I did have to be the only one to embarass myself that way?!?!?

D and I went off with M-san & R-san and their 2 boys A & T to their apartment. We rested there for a while and then walked down to the grocery store. T kept trying to run ahead, so R-san had me hold his hand. We’d still occassionally run ahead, but I kept him from going too far. R-san bought a bunch of stuff for tempura and some sushi. We went back to their apartment but this time D took care of T while I pushed A’s stroller. Then Rika cooked up a storm with just a little help from M and we sat around their dinner table eating for a looooong time. I tried several pieces of sushi that I’d never had before and several that I really wish I hadn’t eaten. During dinner, M-san offered me a beer and pretty much by the time I said maybe it was poured and waiting for me to drink it. I think D looked a bit put out by that as he’s not old enough to drink yet. Then M-san and I chatted, using his laptop with a tranlating webpage up. He really wanted to work on his English, which was considerably better than my Japanese and we talked about a variety of subjects:

fishing
music
politics
movies
American food

M-san would definitly like to come to the USA someday and I offered to take him to dinner if he ever makes to my part of the USA. After dinner during our chat, M-san pulled out a bottle of Suntory whiskey which amused me because I’d seen Lost in Translation. He poured me a small amount and it was smooth in my mouth but burned all the way down my throat. After that he offered me some sake, which was much better than the hot sake that I’d tried back in the USA. Then I went to bed, and I got to sleep on a futon in the one room with tatami mats which was much more comfortable than one would think.