Japan Life: Month 10 Recap

September 15 – October 15, 2020

Places we Traveled:

Fukushima Prefecture (2-day road trip), Tokyo, Niigata & Sado Island

Fukushima Road Trip! My many, many blog fans will know I wrote a longer post about this road trip. Late summer/early fall was prime road trip season for us, and we really enjoyed seeing some of Japan’s less-traveled areas. This trip took us to several scenic lakes, a volcano crater, and a limestone cavern, among other places. The highlight for me was the rustic Lakeside Bandai Guesthouse. We slept in a tatami room with sliding doors looking out over the lake. The guesthouse has kayaks and canoes to borrow, a pretty little garden to walk in, and most importantly: plenty of Japanese craft beer on tap to try. Far Yeast Brewing’s Tokyo IPA was *chef’s kiss* a delight.

Our bountiful harvest. The pepper plants we didn’t murder when we took an 8-day trip to Hokkaido produced a bounty of fruits. I pickled them to keep on hand for the long winter ahead.

A brief run down to Tokyo. Because of COVID, we can’t send registered express mail through Japan Post currently. So, I made a quick trip to Tokyo to drop them in the ballot box at the US Embassy to ensure they arrive on time for the election. I’ve never needed to visit an embassy before, so I didn’t have a frame of reference for this trip. Like all of the other embassies I’ve seen, ours has a barrier fence. However, in addition to the fence, the sidewalks around the embassy are blocked off by police-patrolled barriers due to the threat of terrorist action. In order to get close enough to the embassy to drop off the ballots, I had to explain to one of the officers why I needed to be let past the barrier without an appointment. It was stressful. BUT AFTERWARDS, I took myself out for moussaka. And that was nice.

Niigata & Sado Island! Another fun road trip (blog post coming soon). Niigata is a pretty average port city on the West Coast of Japan. From Niigata, we caught a ferry (jetfoil to be exact) to Sado Island. Famous for toki birds, tub boats, and a decommissioned gold mine, Sado Island is definitely worth at least one day of your time. Andrew geeked out at the mine museum. You can walk through sections of the old mine and learn about mining techniques used. I barely tolerated being in a tub boat full of roaches. We both really, really liked the Airbnb I booked.

I chopped off a BUNCH of hair. I wore my hair long for about 5 years and finally decided it was time to say sayonara. My Japanese teacher, once again, met me at the hair salon to ensure a smooth salon experience. Thank god for Reiko-san the hero of almost every blog post I write. I think it looks great and if you don’t like it please go ahead and don’t tell me! Thanks.

The pizza quest continues. Andrew and I tested out Pizza Hachi near our apartment in Utsunomiya. Pretty solid pizza, but it’s no Pizza Studio Tamaki.

A second, less severe, wave of face rash appeared with some bonus rash spots on my hands. This one cleared up a lot faster, but I’m still not sure what’s causing the issue. The doctor said that “a lot of changes occur in the body between age 25-35” and implied that my skin is weak. AND THEN he mentioned that Utsunomiya is known to have a kind of “flying hairy worm” that can cause rash reactions by SPRAYING YOU. So, either I’m getting old or I got jizzed on by a flying worm. Your guess is as good as mine.
After one last sake-fueled hurrah, we said goodbye for now to a couple of friends we made here. Also on temporary work assignment, their time ended and we’ll greatly miss their travel advice and restaurant recommendations going forward.
This is a pretty niche valley, but the discount store Daiso stopped restocking the exact type of white yarn I am using for a project and it is, like, really inconveniencing me. That is to say, we don’t have any real problems here in Japan. 10 months down, 8 to go.