November 11, 2004 - Laura's Coming to Visit

My sister Laura is in a good position to win the prize for our first visitor (dinner at our favorite sushi restaurant). She has tickets to visit from Jan. 10th to the 21st. Recently I came across this picture of a sushi roll that made me think of her - I decided to post it in honor of her ticket purchase, and to get her excited to eat, eat, eat.... You could be next.. Come and visit now. Why wait? The following is a quick travel primer for visiting Kobe. It was compiled from the emails Laura and I sent back and forth. Diana and I will develop a more comprehensive guide for everyone as time goes on. Climate: If you are traveling for climate, you should come early spring or late fall (right now the temperature is perfect, the leaves are turning, and it is gorgeous)... I gather that spring, late May to early July, is WET, and that summer is muggier than a Sicilian in New York. The winter will be quite mild I think, cool temperatures with many sunny days, so that may be a good bet as well. Flights: We have always found the cheapest fares to Asia in the travel section of the Sunday Seattle Times. There are many Asian travel agencies that specialize in buying blocks of tickets to Asian destinations and selling them for good prices. If your dates are flexible, $400 to $550 dollars round trip from Seattle to Japan is the norm, with $600 being an expensive ticket. To my knowledge the agencies don't advertise anywhere but the paper (no internet, no yellow pages). Look for the little boxes that are full of Asian city names with a price next to them, and then look for one or two that has the cheapest prices for Tokyo. Usually they only list Tokyo, call and ask what they have for Osaka if you want to fly there. Here are some Seattle phone numbers that my sister sent our way after her ticket search: JPI Travel (cheapest ticket) 206-682-8350 Sunko 206-728-7130 Genesis Travel 206-325-5869 Travel House 206-248-0900 An's Travel 206-352-6261 Osaka - Kansai Airport (closest airport to Kobe and the 2nd cheapest place to fly to in Japan) If you land at Kansai airport, a manmade island about 1 hour by bus from Kobe. It costs about $18 to take the bus to Kobe, and $6 for a taxi from the bus stop to our house. Tokyo - Narita Airport (cheapest place to fly to in Japan): Consider landing in Tokyo if you find a screaming deal on airfare, or if you want to see more of Japan during your visit. If you land at Narita airport, a manmade island about 30 minutes from Tokyo, I think you need to buy a train ticket, $20-$30, to get to Tokyo proper. The price from Tokyo to Kobe on a Shinkansen (bullet train) is 28,740 yen round trip. Exchange is currently 106 yen to the dollar, so that's $271. If you plan on staying put in Kobe for awhile this is a good option. For another option, see info on Japan rail pass below. Trains: Once you are in Japan you can get just about anywhere via train. In many cases the trains are the cheapest and most efficient mode of travel. Using the Shinkansen and other trains is pretty easy, there are English speaking information centers at all the major stations and a toll free hotline you can call from anywhere in the country if you run into trouble. Japan Rail Pass: Visiting tourist areas near Kobe such as Kyoto, Osaka, and Himeji will cost about $10-$30 dollars a day for local train fare. If you want to go farther afoot, a JR pass is the way to travel. A JR pass is basically subsidized travel for tourists and a real sweet deal. If you like, you can thank everyone on the train for helping pay your way. Cough loudly to gather attention and shout out "arigato gozaimasu!" then commence bowing feverishly. They will understand. The pass allows unlimited travel during a set date range. A 7 day JR rail pass is $266, 14 days is $425, and 24 days is $544. Depending on your itinerary you may be able to travel cheaper via local trains, but if you plan to ride the Shinkansen, a couple passages will quickly cover the purchase price of a JR pass. Guidebooks: We have a copy of Lonely Planet Japan, and Japan, a Rough Guide, as well as a couple of local interest guides. You are welcome to borrow our books during the times we are unable to travel with you. If you want to buy a guidebook of your own, you may benefit from perusing one before you arrive, we have found Lonely Planet Japan to be our favorite. It has a good historical and cultural primer, good travel tips, and fairly comprehensive information for any given locale. I also recommend reading some books about Japan, and or written by the Japanese before you get here. It will help build excitement and anxiety for the upcoming trip. Check out Haruki Murakami's The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. Murakami is what you might get if you were to squeeze the brains of Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Jack Kerouac into a contemporary Japanese man's head. Pure poetry, pure reading pleasure.

November 11, 2004 - Ceramics and Textiles

Inspiration

I'm taking a ceramics class at night that is probably the coolest thing I do with my time. I have always wanted to do pottery and there is so much history surrounding ceramics here that it is a great atmosphere for creativity. Each of the surrounding regions has their own type of local soil. This generates clays and glazing styles that are specific to each region. Some clays and glazes can be chosen for different color or textural effects. Clays are white, red, brown and black. Glazes are the classic celadon, mustard, white, pale blue and brown. Although I admire purists who stick to and perfect one style, I myself am a natural-born libra. I want to try it all before the class is over. smooth surfaces, rough surfaces, soft lines, hard lines, glaze, no glaze, etc. The class is taught only in Japanese, but is a very comfortable place to be. I get my hands dirty, I use metal wire for cutting my clay, wooden combs for adding texture to my pieces, and bamboo sticks to carve my name into them. I am really taken by the rustic side of Japanese design. fish head delicacies, nubby textiles, carved wooden furniture. Most things that are not made of plastic are made of down-to-earth materials such as cotton, bamboo, clay, wood, rock, etc. I think I have died and gone to heaven. If only my pottery class was 4 days a week and on the other days I could wander the old gardens and architecture. I would eat fish head delicacies every day of the week. That is my dream life.

©2004    contact us