Winter Vacation Part IV-Tokyo

My flight back to Japan went in to Tokyo and I was hoping to spend a few days there, but hours before my trip began I had no idea where I would stay in Tokyo. I was afraid I would be leaving loved ones in the States to spend the New Year holidays in a hostel all alone, but a friend came to the rescue just in time!

The Tokyo portion of my trip ended up being relaxing and energizing. I was able to see several friends, visit the temple in Asakusa, experience the insanity of the New Year sales in Shinjuku, and try a few more vegan (and vegan friendly) restaurants!

Winter Vacation Part III-Vegan Paradise

I was really spoiled, taking the leap to veganism while living in Seattle. The availability of natural foods and a variety of vegan alternatives is definitely a luxury, not to mention the fact that I can read everything on all the labels! My first stop was Madison Market, where the excitement of vegan "dairy" products got me to buy much more than I could eat in my five-day visit, but somehow I got back to Eric's house with nothing that could qualify as an actual meal.

Of course I had to go to my two favorite restaurants too! Hillside Quickie's Cafe is the perfect place to take non-vegans with its filling, greasy, delicious sandwiches and the best vegan macaroni and cheese you will ever find! Miranda goes there even when I'm not in town. Teapot has so many options in its pan-asian menu. My favorites are Asian Fries and Mongolian Vegetarian!

Winter Vacation Part II-Family

After years of life in the islands, my whole family is back in the States. In fact four of the six of us are in Colorado! Tadashi (19) is working as a ski lift operator in Breckenridge, Mariko (16) is working at a restaurant, doing correspondence school and living with our dad in Rye, and our mom is working from home for a company based in Washington, D.C. and living with her husband in Colorado Springs. The four of us "kids" went to Mom's house first where we celebrated Christmas early. On the 22nd we opened our Christmas Eve Gifts from Rudolph, which were pajamas, as is our tradition, and talked and wrapped presents and had vegan chili for dinner. The next morning we had cinnamon rolls and bagels for breakfast while we opened our gifts and stockings. On Monday the four of us stopped in Pueblo for some last minute shopping on the way to Rye. Christmas with Dad included silly putty, a huge coloring book and a Hot Wheels track, we spent most of the day playing! It snowed about 7 inches making it a very White Christmas!

Note: Miranda (25) is living in Seattle with her tiny Chihuahua named Maile and working with the 1-year-olds in a daycare.

Winter Vacation Part I-Transport

School was out for two weeks for winter vacation, and although the Board of Education Office wasn't closed that whole time, I used a few vacation days to fill in the gaps. I was so excited to get out of here but I didn't take the time to get any Christmas gifts! Fortunately the airport was pretty empty (actually, at 6pm it felt like 2am, it was so quiet), so I got through check-in and security in time to start my vacation with a little airport Christmas shopping. I'll admit, most of the gifts weren't great, but they were from Japan...

Everything was going well until I found my seat on the plane. It was a middle seat in the middle section of the 60th row of a 747. We pulled away from the gate basically on time, but then there was some kind of problem on the flight deck and the pilot was on the phone with a technician in London! Why London, you ask? I have no idea! It was a Boeing plane with United Airlines and we were sitting at Kansai International Airport, you'd think someone in Japan or the US could help, but he was on the phone with London. Pretty soon we were back at the gate and some local technicians were coming on board to fix a circuit breaker and I was finding out that there were two Marines to my right. One young and one older, they didn't know each other, but they seemed to enjoy talking about guns and crazy nights at bars and various Marine stuff that I prefer not to know about. I'm sure they were just as thrilled to find out that they were sitting next to a vegan when we were in the air and my special meal arrived. It's a good thing I can read some Japanese, because my special meal didn't turn out to be so special. The entree and salad (without the creamy dressing) were OK, but the packaged bread (which was served with butter) clearly listed milk products, eggs AND lard in the ingredients. The dessert didn't have a list of ingredients, but since it was clearly gelatinous, I didn't want to risk it. By this time I had spoken with the older lady on my left and found out that she was on her first trip to Japan, tagging along with her husband who was on business, and was sitting in business class. It seemed that she didn't really enjoy Japan, she claimed that she didn't see any other foreigners (although when I asked her where she had gone, they were all the tourist spots) and she thought it was terrible that the Japanese people...in Japan...couldn't speak to her in English.

To top things off, there were no personal TV screens on this flight, so when the movie started I noticed that I was too short to see the screen and the jack for my headphones didn't work. It was really a lovely nine-hour flight, and once we arrived in San Francisco, I had missed my connection to Colorado Springs! I was rerouted through Denver with stand-by tickets, the woman helping me said that my bags would be going on those flights even if there wasn't room for me. I was really happy to make it on the plane to Denver, and I was even sitting next to good company! When we landed, I thought I had already missed my connection again, but checked the board just in case. That flight was running late, but it was just about to leave, so a I ran from gate 40-something to gate 80-something and just made it! When I got to Colorado Springs, miraculously only about 4 hours late, they said my bag was still in San Francisco.

Visitors!

In December my long-time friend and original host brother, Shinya, from Ishigaki was able to come visit me with two of his friends from high school for sight-seeing in Kyoto. It was so great to have someone to talk to and something to do for a few days, of course the fact that they cooked dinner and did the dishes didn't hurt!

It was my first time to visit Byodoin, a famous temple in Uji City, Kyoto Prefecture, which is pictured on the 10 yen coin and is only one stop away from where I live on the JR train line!





Then we went to Kinkakuji, the Golden Pavilion, in western Kyoto City.





And had a late lunch at the Buddhist vegan tofu restaurant at Ryoanji, a temple known for its rock garden that also has beautiful natural-looking grounds. (Ryoanji photos taken on trip with family in 2005.)