This past week has been a very exhausting one. We had to box up all our belongings for the movers that were arriving on Wednesday. For anyone who’s moved you know what a pain it can be but even more so when you’re moving across the country. You have to figure out what you can do without for a good amount of time. In this case over a week for us even after the few days we have spent up in Michigan seeing family and picking up Scot the dog. During this past week though our little family had a tragedy. Kon our minilop rabbit had some snuffles a couple of weeks back and Kel took him in to the vet to have him looked at. The vet prescribed some antibiotics that are fatal to rabbits. We didn’t realized this until he stopped eating and drinking. By then there was too much damage done already and in between boxing things up Kel was desperately trying to save him. She was trying to administer subqu fluids to the poor guy but as this past Tuesday progressed he was turning for the worst. I wanted to be there for Kel but I couldn’t spend too much time in the room with her and Kon as I was start to break down too and there was still so much work a head of us to be ready for the next day. Kel later called the vet that she worked at and asked to schedule something first thing in the morning to finally give him some rest. Further into the night you could see that the poor guy was just in agony as he was stretched out and kicking not able to open his eyes. As I was just crawling into bed Kel came into the room and said she wanted to go to a 24-hour emergency vet and put him out of his pain. This was the best thing we could do for him at this point and I quickly got dressed and started looking up the number for Kel to call. 10 minutes later we were in the car and Kon was in Kel’s lap. By the time we made it to the office, only about 15 minutes away, Kon had stopped moving. Since we were already at the office we took him in anyway to be sure he had passed. The doctor confirmed it for us and they provided us with a little cardboard coffin for him. If was very heart breaking and we both cried in the parking lot for a while before I tried to drive us back home. After we arrived home we carefully put him in the freezer and crawled into bed. The emotions poured out of us for quite a while until we finally fell asleep.

Wednesday, January 25th, Allied Van Lines showed up right at 8AM as promised. It was a 3 man team, 1 driver and two extra to help with loading and boxing. These guys really made a big difference in trying to get through a difficult time. I would highly recommend them to anyone who ever has to do a cross country move. It was a pretty long day of finishing up what needed to stay or go or what was going to go into the cars. I think they finally rolled out of the drive around 2 or 3 in the afternoon. After that we cleaned up the house a bit. I went to home depot to pick up some stuff for moving the load bars on the car so we could transport a canoe that we weren’t using at the house back up to MI. The rear one loosened and moved without issue. The front one I was torquing on and snapped the head of the bolt right off…”Fuuuuuuuuuu!!!” Now I’m screwed. I don’t have any of my tools to try and deal with a situation like this. I cannot get the other half of the bolt out of the load bar to even try and get a new bolt for it. This all happened around 6:15pm. All the Subaru dealerships in the area close at 6:00pm. I’m starting to stress. I get all the numbers for the Subaru dealers lined up and plan on calling first thing in the morning. We went out to eat that night and I did my best to just try and relax.

Thursday January 26, I was able to get a hold of the part department at the Tyson’s Subaru dealer and buy some new load bars. At first he was saying he would have to special order me just the front one and when I asked about buying some off a used Forester on the lot he told me that he did have a set I could buy if that was okay. That was very much okay with me and I was there in 15 minutes. This reminds me of some other fun now that I think about it. In the week prior to the move I had received a phone call from my bank telling me that my debit card number had been compromised, again…and that they would be sending me a new card out in 7-10 business days. The current one is now an ATM card only. Anyone who knows me knows I don’t usually carry cash on me and this has been a bit of a pain during the moving process. Back to the load bar situation, I was able to install the new one but the other I could not get off since the other bolt was seized into the threads and I didn’t have anything to drill it out with. I even ended up rounding out the star bolt torquing so hard on that bastard. So we had to duct tape one bar to another and rely on the canoe to keep it from going anywhere. The drive up was pretty uneventful and we made excellent time. We’ve had a couple of days to catch up with family and I’m ready to get moving again. Right now I’m sitting over at my in-laws place on the night before we start the long trek out west. 1700 miles or so lie between us and Orem. Hopefully it’s nothing but smooth sailing for the next three days as we drive. I’ll probably post more as things go on.

I was hoping to post more frequently about how this trip was going but we’ve been having so much fun that it’s been difficult to find the time. Right now I’m waiting to see if Chris wants to get out of bed and go for a run. It’s about 6:30AM right now. Outlook does not look good for the run. Anyway here is the trip so far.

Oct. 14-15, 2011
We first had to drive up from Virginia to Michigan to drop the dogs off at the Kelly’s folks house. The drive was pretty uneventful and I’m thankful for that. I had just put new brakes on the rear only a couple of days ago. After arriving in Michigan my mother and I went out to dinner and Kelly spent some time with her folks. The next day Kelly and I were driven down to Detroit Metro by Mike. We checked in no problem and each picked up some lunch. Me a coffee and a parfait and Kelly a bacon burger. Boarded the flight and began our first boring flight of the day. Landed in LAX and had to cross over from the domestic terminal to the international terminal. We didn’t have much time to get there with less than an hour layover and by the time we found the gate and then took a moment to use the restroom they were boarding. We flew on a 777 from LAX to Haneda which had a very impressive multimedia setup. Each headrest had a touch screen built into it that allowed you to pick from a wide selection of movies on demand and watch them from any point. Lots of classics and lots of newly released features. That certainly helped pass the time during our 11 hour fight. After that we wandered over to the bus terminal and picked up some tickets to the Omiya train station. That took about an hour and it was already kind of weird to be riding around on the left side of the road. Chris met us at the station and we walked back to his place. He has a wonderful apartment and he and Sarah have been very gracious hosts. They put us up on an air mattress and Kel and I were out for the night.

Oct. 16, 2011
First day waking up to Japan sun. It rises pretty early here in Omiya and Kel and I woke up with it. Feeling actually pretty good Chris and I went for a short little run.

Running in a different city is a great way to check things out. You can take in so much more about an area while you’re doing it. Getting a feel for how level or not an area is. The smell of the air the sounds of the city as it’s slowly waking up. After getting back to Chris’s place we ate breakfast and cleaned up. From there we headed down to Tokyo for some sight seeing. Our goal was try and find the Cosplay group. Unfortunately we never were able to find them but we did get to see a few weddings going on at a nearby temple. These were some pretty high profile people judging by the groups that were there and the fact the wedding was being held where it was. From there we did a lot more exploring of Tokyo. Walked through lots of crowded shopping fashion areas and then started looking for a place to eat. We ended up at a place that had a buffet of very exotic pizzas. Examples would be an apple crisp type pizza and a banana split one as well. All was very tasty. We then wandered over to a building that had an art exhibit going on. All very recent works and most of it quite good. The paintings were all very large frames and varied quite a bit in style and symbolism. We then headed towards the famous intersection in Shibuya. Of course we had to go into the Starbucks as well while we were there. In order to get a view from the upper levels you kind of need to buy something. I ordered a mocha from a guy who was taking orders from people in line. He then gave me the order slip which basically had an ‘M’ on it. The person taking my order did a call for my mocha and the barista’s almost musically chimed in to acknowledge the order. When it was ready another fellow was standing there to hand your drink to you. It was a fantastic little experience to see so much work going into sometime so trivial as ordering coffee. We enjoyed our drinks and the view from above. I really wanted to go in here because of the ‘Ghost in the Shell: SAC’ series that features this intersection in a few key episodes. It was just kind of neat to be in one of the places that until then only existed in an anime for me. We left there and started making our way back to Omiya. A few train stops later and we were back in Chris’s hood. We were getting hungry again so we decided to grab a bowl of ramen from the top of an arcade. The first floor was all claw games and I believe the second is as well. On the 3rd floor they had a bunch of fighting games but the crowd seemed kind of small. Maybe because it was a Sunday night. At the top was the ramen place. To order you had a vending machine type setup in front of the little restaurant. On the front was pictures of the different selections, you fed it your money, pressed the button and were given a ticket. You would then take this ticket in with you and after you’re seated you hand your tickets to your server. A little while later you were chowing down on some great ramen. After that we headed back to Chris’s apartment, setup the air mattress and called it a night.

Oct. 17, 2011
Chris was nice enough to take the day off and head back down to Tokyo with us. We woke up and put in another short run.

After this run I was talking to Chris about his internet access and whatnot. He explained he had tried to get some wireless setup before but ran into some issue with it. Looking at his setup in the apartment the whole thing is prewired for ethernet, but to get outside access you need to have an account with an ISP. Working backwards I was able to see that his iMac had a PPPoE account on it that he had setup via instructions sent to him by his ISP. I told him to grab the router and I set about getting everything configured on it to be able to use the PPPoE credentials on the account. Some rewiring of his setup and all the devices in the house were not able to
We were going to try and work in visiting the Ghibli Museum but unfortunately it was all sold out for the day. So with that off the table we headed to Tokyo. Kelly was a trooper as we wandered through Akihabara’s electric town while Chris and I satisfied our geeky cravings at looking at all the highend electronics. In one of the stores they had multiple 3D video cameras. They were actually pretty impressive and one even had a 3D display build into it’s viewfinder. I still don’t know if I’ll ever want to sit and watch an entire movie in my living room while wearing 3D glasses but it was at least neat to see the technology on display. On the top floor there were some very highend stereos. Prices were at high as 5,000,000 円. That’s a little over $65,000 so some pretty fancy stuff. Kel and I bought earbuds instead for the flights back. After that I think we enjoyed some ice cream based crepes. They are pretty popular over here and extremely yummy. From there we tried to go and see the Imperial Gardens. Unfortunately they are closed on Mondays so we struck out again. From there we headed over to a shrine in Tokyo that to get to you have to walk down through an old style outdoor market. There were lots to look at and the shrine provided some great photos opportunities. After that we wandered around a bit and then headed back to Chris’s place. Sarah had prepared a lasagna and it just need to be cooked. Dinner was great and I think we called it a night shortly after that.

Oct. 18, 2011
Chris had to get up and go make some money so he was out of the apartment pretty early. He was also being lazy and didn’t feel like going for a run that morning. Sarah was nice enough to plan out a day trip for us to Nikko. This town is about 2 hours north of Omiya and is up in the mountains a bit. Not realizing the last part I was a little under dressed for the temps. We first took a shinkansen and then transferred over to a local line that took us up the rest of the way. From there it was a little bit of a walk up to the temples. At Nikko you purchase a ticket that has 4 or 5 smaller stubs to be torn off and you slowly walk around and tour the various temples and shrines. The first one to head to is a huge temple that has had a modern structure built over it to protect it from the elements. Unfortunately you’re not allowed to shoot photos within a lot of the temples but we were able to capture a lot outside. Really it was a very nice peaceful atmosphere. Lots of sights to see tucked away in the woods. A couple of them you could walk through after removing your shoes which was pretty neat as well. After we used up about all our daylight and the temp was starting to drop we headed back to the station. Pretty whipped after all of that and crashed shortly after we returned.

Oct. 19, 2011
Kel and I got a very early start and headed to Kyoto. We were able to take the shinkansen first to Tokyo and then all the way to Kyoto. Really it’s a fantastic way to travel. When we first arrived in Kyoto we grabbed a little byte to eat and then started walking around and exploring. We went to a couple of shrines and by that time we were able to check into our hotel. Popped in there and dropped off all of our gear and tried to head back out. We hopped on the subway to head up to the Nijo Castle. Unfortunately just as we were arriving at the castle they were closing up for the day. With that plan busted we headed back to Kyoto Station which runs right through a mall. We wandered for way to long looking for something worthwhile to eat and settled on a little ramen shop. Food was good there and after paying we headed to another place that was serving up desserts. From there we headed back to the hotel and called it a night.

Oct. 20, 2011
We got a pretty early start the next morning. I first went our for a run as soon as we woke. It was really nice to run through the city and along the river as the sun was rising up over the city. People were out sweeping up in front of their shops and homes preparing for the day that lies ahead.

After I got back I hopped in the shower and then found a Kyoto city bus map. This is a great way to get around the city. For 500円 per person (about $6.50) you can purchase a day pass to all the local line buses. I had a map that Chris had given me with some highlights circled on it so I used that to plan out our route and efficiently as possible. First stop was the Nijo Castle. The area it’s in is very large and there is pea gravel all over the grounds. This was a anti-intruder measure to ensure that there wasn’t a way for someone to get up to the castle without being heard. After taking our shoes off we were able to walk through the castle (no photos allowed). There were a lot of elementary schools on tour with us today and with all the people walking in you could immediately hear the uguisubari (Nightingale Floors). These have a little chirp built into them so if anyone walks through the halls you’ll know they are there. To have so many people walking on them at once it produced a continuous chirping during the whole tour. We then toured the garden area surrounding the castle and of course captured lots of photos. Getting back on the bus we headed up to the Kinkakuji (Golden Palace). The surrounding area is very beautifully maintained and the palace itself was pretty impressive to see. From there we tried to head to the Ryonji Temple, but quickly realized we were going the wrong way on the bus line. After a quick exit and crossing the street we were back on track. Ryonji I believe had our first rock garden to view and we were allowed to shoot some photos within the buildings. Everything in the surrounding grounds has a layer of moss on it that kind of gives you a sense of how old everything in the area is and how well these buildings were built to have lasted so long. From there we headed back to the stop where we were going to pick up the line to take us over to the Ginkakuji (Silver Temple). We happened to pass a bakery that smelled really good so we took a break for lunch and unfortunately just missed our bus which was running on a 30 minute schedule. So we had plenty of time to sit and eat at the bus stop while we waited. We arrived at the stop for the Ginkakuji but there is a walk from the stop to the temple. Accidentally we made a wrong turn and kind of walked a bit out of our way. However we came across a gentleman that was selling some beautiful scarves. As a request from my mother I had been on the look out for one the entire trip and this was an excellent find. Scarf in hand and heading back to the temple. Once over to the Ginkakuji you enter in and right away are presented with some very impressive rock garden work. The sand and rocks are raised up and carved into some very impressive shapes. I think this was one of my favorite areas for the day. The surrounding landscape was very beautiful and I’m sure my pictures won’t do it justice. At this point it was getting late in the day and the sun was starting to set. There was one more stop we wanted to make but it was already 4:45 PM and we needed to get back to Kyoto Station to make our shinkansen that would take us back to Omiya. So we had to skip the last stop on the way to the station. Chris told me that we weren’t missing too much when I told him what temple it was. We did however make friends with an old lady who I gave my seat up for on the bus. She was easily old enough to be my grandmother and was wearing a kimono. While the bus does had priority seats for elderly / handicapped / expectant mothers they were all full and the bus was quickly running out of breathing room. I got up and motioned for her to take a seat. She was very thankful and ended up trying to talk to Kelly for a bit after she figured out we spoke English. We arrived at Kyoto Station and made our train which went by like it was nothing. I was pretty engrossed in the book I was reading and Kel was nodded out. When it stopped, the people all exited and I saw the cleaning crews starting to climb on I shook Kel and told her we needed to get off now. We were supposed to make another train that we had reserved tickets for from Tokyo to Omiya but it seems that train was canceled or something. After a little stress of not being able to find the train we were looking for we talked to the lady at the JR line counter. She directed us to a shinkansen line we could take to get to Omiya where we could just walk on and take any available seat. I had been emailing Chris on the earlier train letting him know when we would arrive in Omiya and that we’d be hungry when we arrived. He met us at the station and we walked around striking out a couple of times trying to find a place to eat. We ended up at a burger joint on a side street that was started by a guy from Okinawa. It had a Hawaiian feel to it and the burgers were great. The staff of two was very accommodating as well. Chris ordered a salsa salad and asked if he could get chips. They said they didn’t have any, and Chris said something like “Awww…no chips”. The guy behind the bar replied “Five minutes”. Sure enough our food was served and in a little bit someone came back with a bag of Doritos. They certainly get an A for effort in my book. After dinner we walked back to Chris’s apartment but made a quick stop at the 7-11 right next door to pick up some small ice cream. Had a wonderful score when we found some mint chocolate chip ice cream cones. Headed back to the apartment, downed the ice cream and passed right out.

Oct. 21, 2011
Chris and I were supposed to to go running first thing in the morning. I was up at six and had heard someone using the bathroom and assumed it was Chris. Turns out it was Sarah and Chris was actually dead to the world still. I sat in the dark and worked on this blog waiting for him to get up at any moment. Finally 7:30 was approaching and I started to worry that he was going to be late for work so I knocked on the door a few times. A sleepy Chris opened it, digging sleep out of his eyes, asked if he had overslept. I told him it was 7:30 and he expressed a look of shock. So while he scrambled to get ready for work I started eating breakfast as I didn’t trust myself to not get lost running around Omiya by myself. Kel, Sarah and I got had purchased tickets and headed down to Mitaka to visit the Ghibli Museum. I was kind of torn between whether or not it was worth it to make this trip vs. staying an extra day in Kyoto. After seeing Kelly’s reaction to the museum it was really worth it. She loved everything about it. I wasn’t sure what to expect and found it to be a really good insight into how animation is actually produced. It was amazing to see all the books they keep on hand for subject matter to help create convincing environments. Later that night Chris and Sarah took us out to get some shabu shabu. This was an interesting experience. First we kind of had some slight prejudice against us. We first asked for a table of 4 and they said they were full, so we offered to wait. Then suddenly we were able to be seated. It was kind of suspect. Anyway, the way this place works is you buy say 90 minutes of unlimited shabu shabu. This consists of them bringing out trays of very thinly sliced beef and pork. Your table has an electric heating plate on it which is used to heat a pan of soy sauce. While this is heating up you go to a buffet type counter and fill a bowl up with vegetables and whatnot. Once the soy sauce is up to temp you add your vegetables into it to start cooking them. While those are cooking you take a thin strip of mean and quickly drag it through the sauce. The idea is that it cooks in a couple of swipes. You then pull that out, add it to your bowl with rice and veggies. Let me say 90-minutes is by far way too much time. I think maybe 45 minutes and we were plenty satisfied. I think I was full even before that. After that it was pretty late. We walked over to 7-11, bought some ice cream and called it a night.

Oct. 22nd, 2011
Last day in Japan. Chris and I started it off right by getting in a really good run.

After the run we started packing up and said our good-byes. We needed to leave lots of time to get to the airport since it was a flight we really couldn’t afford to miss. We had tickets to take a Shinkansen on a JR line to Keisieueno. From there we had to walk to another station and get on a line that took us to the airport. While waiting for the Shinkansen we were able to actually see the In/Out process of the trains. When the roll into a train, the doors open, everyone exits, the doors close and staff then go through the train and clean all the cars. The seats rotate around and then the doors open back up. You board and then the train heads back out the way it came in. We made our flight no problem and both flights were pretty uneventful.

Final Thoughts
I cannot emphasize enough how much I enjoyed this trip. Everything was a wonderful experience. Sure there were things we missed but we were trying to take in an entire country in a week. I guess it means we’ll just have to go back again sometime. For anyone who’s thinking about going, Kel and I found the country to be very accessible to people who really only speak English. Oh and they are pretty big into crepes over there and they are awesome!

Well I tried to head down to DC today for the Daily Show’s Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear.  Unfortunately there wasn’t much planning by the WMTA on the matter.  They were not running nearly enough trains to handle the volume of people that were trying to attend.  The stations at West Falls Church had a full platform and when trains would arrive they were already full only from Vienna.  People then started to take the trains west to the Vienna stop and hop back over to the east bound train.  At this point it was already past 1pm and I was beginning to get pretty hungry.  I had planned on getting a bite to eat in DC once I arrived down there.  Poor planning on my part too I suppose.  Figuring if I went home now I could at least get back home in time to watch some of the broadcast live on the website.  So I rode the bus back and enjoyed the live streaming HD footage with a PB & J sandwich.  Not what I was hoping for but when the camera panned wide and showed the amount of people that were down there I was amazed.  Pretty impressive really.  It was nice to see such a large turnout of people in favor of being reasonable.  Hopefully the media and politicians were paying attention.  Time will tell I suppose.

I wish I could sleep the way she does.