Category: travel

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Japan – Day 4

Today, I made my way to Sapporo to see my friends Dave and April and their kids. A quick refresher in case you don’t know: Sapporo is on the island of Hokkaido while Tokyo, of course, is on the island of Honshu. There is a train that connects the islands, but I opted for a flight — one that happens to leave from the Haneda Airport in Tokyo at 8:00am. Since the subway doesn’t open until 5:00am, I was worried about making it early enough in case I took the wrong one, etc., but I didn’t want to pay an arm and a leg for a cab. (Astute followers of these travelogues will note that catching the right train has not exactly been my strong suit).

After checking out of my hotel, I asked a taxi driver the cost for a ride to the airport. He quoted me 900 yen (which is not what I expected at all — but hey less than $10 Canadian — so, what a steal!) Soon the ride started with a base fare of 500 yen and started counting up by 100 yen every 10 seconds or so. I quickly realized he probably meant to quote me 9000 yen, which would mean this cab ride was going to push the better part of $90 CAD. Fine, at least I don’t have to worry about missing my plane.

April greeted me at the bus terminal. She said it was fun picking me out of the crowd from such a distance because I was a head taller than everyone else there. We took the subway back and made our way to their lovely little home on the university campus. I was struck by the change in conversation flow. I’m not sure the right word to use, but I’ll describe it. In Tokyo, I had been living a solitary silent retreat kind of life, but now I was surrounded by friends and we chatted a lot. It was an abrupt change from my internal dialogue to an abundance of chatting — not bad but notably different.

Dave and I went for a walk to the park.

Some sort of Canada/Japan association at the university put on a Canada Day party which we attended. We loved the delicious food and it was nice mingling with some new acquaintances. When it was just about time to leave they held several draws. I won a Terry Fox t-shirt, April won a heli-skiing vacation package discount, and Dave won a bowl and spoon designed for pouring water onto wet sauna rocks — a wonderfully specific prize, to be sure.

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Japan – Day 3

Today, I endeavoured to travel to a Japanese volcano and visit a traditional Japanese onsen. I failed in such a spectacular fashion that it makes this particular report almost pointless.

That’s not to say I didn’t travel. Boy, did I ever travel.

I was still feeling worn out from my day at the Disney park yesterday and got off to a late start. I figured a soak in a natural hot spring would be just what the doctor ordered. I headed onto the subway and, following the directions of Apple Maps, just took whichever train it suggested. I have a metro card that allows for basically unlimited use, but it’s only for the trains in downtown Tokyo. I very quickly found myself outside of the metro area taking trains my card wouldn’t cover. When I got to Shin Yokohama, I disembarked because I knew that eventually I was going to have to pay, but I wasn’t really sure which trains I could take and which I couldn’t.

I scrunched up my face in confusion at the schedule signs and, seeing my consternation, a conductor asked where I was trying to go. Long story short, he helped me pay what I owed and then led me to another employee who helped me buy a ticket to Odawara where I would get a bus to Hakone-Yumoto. Things were looking up. She told me the next train leaves at 10:45am.

I left and went back to confirm which train I should be taking. She very clearly said any train on platform 3 or 4. After ascending the escalator, I quickly inspected the electronic train schedule. I confirmed my location on platforms 3 and 4, and all the trains arriving in the next 20 minutes or so had the same company name in matching orange letters. This all seemed like good news. One of the trains was leaving at 10:39, and it was an express train! My thought process went something like, “Hey, that’s just one minute away, and I can make up some time from my late start — what luck!”

The express train in question turned out to be on the Tokaido Shinkansen line — it was a bullet train. I soon discovered it was en route for Nagoya, a 1-hour-and-15-minute high-speed race across the small island country. Oh dear!

Map of Japan with my unintended route

Going on an expensive train far, far away from my destination was indeed some kind of luck, but not the kind anyone wants.

Alas, when I arrived in Nagoya after stewing in my thoughts in the silent car, I ended up taking the next bullet train back to where I came from. When the inspector came around to check tickets — it felt like a scene from a movie — he moved from one passenger to the next, suspense building, and I knew that in just a minute or two, he’d be asking for mine! I did NOT want to pay the $100 CAD+ fee I surely owed for being on this train.

I explained I’d taken the wrong train, and he told me to just get off at the next stop (where I had come from) and it would be fine. It was such a relief.

Feeling disheartened, I headed back to my hotel, had a shower, a beer, and dropped into bed at about 5:00pm.

Tomorrow: Sapporo.

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Japan – Day 2

The day started with some trepidation: should I really pull the trigger and do a day at Tokyo DisneySea or listen to the voice in my head telling me it would be weird to go to a Disney park alone and that I should do something more worthwhile with my time? The art museums and cultural sites I was thinking about as an alternative don’t open until 10am and I’d already been up all night with jetlag so I resolved to just go for it.

After a series of wrong trains — and still not having cash for the JR Line — I got myself sorted and finally made it all the way to Tokyo DisneySea. A sea of people was already lined up for security at 9:00, so despite one more delay, I still got into the park plenty early.

The entrance to the park was stunning, and then things only escalated from there. I absolutely loved my whole day. What an incredible experience!

I lined up for “Journey to the Center of the Earth” first. The sign warned of a long wait.

The 140 minutes shifted to 160 minutes mere moments after I took the photo. That’s a 2-hour-and-20-minute wait! But once the ride vehicle shifted into high gear and we raced through the tunnels, I whispered to myself, ‘This is awesome.’ That’s the exact moment I felt vindication. I knew, with total conviction, I’d made the right call.

One of the things that made the day so special was the people. The civility here is remarkable. I witnessed exactly zero people budging in line or displaying any friction whatsoever. I can’t say the same for my trips to Disney parks in Anaheim. People just went about their business happily and quietly. I love it here.

I watched an Aladdin-themed magic show, which was fun even with the language barrier, and also did some shopping. I went on quite a few rides, twice on “Peter Pan’s Never Land Adventure”. I also used the single rider line for the rollercoaster ride “Raging Spirits”, which features a single vertical loop after a thrilling drop. As it happened, the single rider line had just closed. The kind cast member took pity on me and let me in — not before standing me up against the height ruler, though. Onlookers chuckled as the cast member measured to see if I was too tall to ride.

The lunch I bought at The Ugly Duckling didn’t look like much but the taste was amazing! The ambiance and theming of the restaurant also made for an enjoyable meal. Some Aussies sat at the table next to me, and their cute baby spilled some water. The baby and I made eye contact immediately after, and she smiled mischievously — delighted to be keeping everyone on their toes.

By 6pm, tired and sore, I ventured back to my hotel in Tokyo. Yes, the park had finally gotten the better of me with three hours left to enjoy it, but since I had been up since 2am, I needed to get home and sleep. Once again, I took multiple wrong train lines (my ways are not your ways), but I finally got myself sorted and relished the strange but amazing shower in my tiny hotel room before I collapsed into bed.

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Japan – Day 1

Before I even arrived at the airport in Saskatoon, good fortune already fell upon me. A mishap at the drive-through caused a 10-pack of Timbits that Andrea had bought for the kids to fall onto the ground. Without missing a beat, the woman at the drive-through insisted it was no problem and that she’d get us another pack. I jumped out of the car and found the box, unopened, on the ground. When we offered to give back the replacement pack, they told us to keep both. That’s how I scored a 10-pack of donut holes for my flight. Things are looking up.

I’ve landed in Calgary and am about to board. Sitting in the terminal, I’ve been people-watching and thinking about how many people are glued to their phones. I’m not much of one to talk – typing away at my MacBook – but I do like to talk to strangers.

Anyway, at the very end of my first flight, I struck up a conversation with my seat-mate, who is going to Tokyo to climb Mt. Fuji. She’s also going to visit some of the parks around Sapporo. That’s the danger of chatting with strangers: FOMO sets in quickly. Should I also be planning a climb of Fujisan? It’s not in the cards for this trip.

On the main flight, I sat next to what appeared to be the only baby on this nine-hour transpacific flight. Luckily, he was a champ, sleeping most of the way and lighting up the cabin when he woke. He’d already flown four hours from Toronto earlier that day. His parents were kind, and we chatted about our travel plans as well as our kids. I’ll say it again: chatting with strangers is one of the things I love about travelling.

Getting from the plane to my hotel bed was next. My friends had warned me that while tap payments do exist in Japan, they’re far from ubiquitous. I ran into trouble paying train and subway fares without resorting to credit cards in the wrong currency. The roughly $2 CAD subway fee derailed (pardon the pun) my trip home for nearly 20 minutes while I figured out how to pay, because the machine wouldn’t take anything but cash or a metro card. I finally bought a reusable “unlimited” 72-hour subway card online, then used a QR code to get the machine to print it for me.

When I finally arrived, I turned on some Japanese TV and found the shows exciting and bizarre: game shows, news, and something resembling America’s Funniest Home Videos, but with picture-in-picture shots of guests predicting what would happen next. Considering the ups and downs of the journey, it was a pretty fortunate day – much better than the one those featured on the show were having.

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  1. I don’t know what the show was called, but it’s a missed opportunity if they never titled it “Ow, My Balls.”[↩]
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Japan… Again!

It’s been 33 years since my childhood trip to Japan and next month, I’m going back!

My friends and their family are currently on a four month exchange in Sapporo so I’m going to stay with them before they head back to Canada.

That original trip to Japan was so formative in my life and something that I’ve been able to look back on as a core memory. Travelling is so good for broadening perspectives and cultivating new ideas. I highly recommend it.

Stay tuned for more about my upcoming trip.

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The Claw

The kids played the claw machine today in downtown Whitehorse, Yukon. When I saw Andrea getting her $5 changed into tokens, I thought it was a total waste of money. Andrea’s $5 gave them each five tries to capture a stuffy. By some fluke of nature, my daughter Nesslin actually succeeded on her third try.

The two of them used up the rest of the tokens and, of course, Ian had nothing. He begged and cried for just one more go but we were insistent that there was no way we were dropping more cash on this thing. The kind little old lady who was running the machine volunteered one last token for Ian. I just shook my head thinking we’re only delaying the inevitable. I gave him a pep-talk that if he doesn’t win, that he’s going to accept the loss and move on.

Quite a few people had gathered around watching as Ian went for it, then a Christmas miracle happened. The crowd cheered as he dropped the exact stuffy he had been going for the whole time. The lady who gave him the token gave him a big hug and I have to admit, I was wrong: that $5 was money well spent.

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Banyan Tree Sprouts New Leaves

I’ve been reading the novel Hawaii by James Michener which takes place in Lahaina, Maui and it got me thinking about the fire there last August. I visited there in 2019 and loved seeing the largest Banyan tree in the US.

I remember seeing aerial photos of the damage and wondering if the tree survived.

From Hawaii Public Radio last month:

The heart of Lahaina, the historic town on Maui that burned in a deadly wildfire that killed at least 100 people, reopened Monday to residents and business owners holding day passes.

[…]

The reopened areas include Banyan Tree Park, home to a 150-year-old tree that burned in the fire but that is now sprouting new leaves, Lahaina Public Library, King Kamehameha III Elementary School and popular restaurants.

Great news.

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Substitute Teacher Conference

This weekend Andrea and I went to the ATA Substitute Teacher Conference in Calgary. Since neither of our extended families live in town, we drove to Medicine Hat to drop our kids off at my brother’s house.

I don’t remember the last time we got away for an overnight trip without the kids. With our travel expenses paid and the hotel advertising outdoor roof-top hot-tubs, it was going to be a great weekend!

The five hours of driving beforehand was a bit much but we found the conference itself very rewarding. It turns out talking to other teachers (both about teaching and about their adventures) was my favourite part!

Sitting next to Andrea during a talk, I discreetly used sign language ask her something — the teacher next to us noticed and asked, using ASL, if we knew sign language? We lit up and excitedly responded that yes, we know sign. Later, she told us how her son, at three years old, lost his hearing due to complications with meningitis. She shared her family’s journey into learning sign language and her son getting one of the first cochlear implants available. Because it wasn’t available in Canada, they travelled down to the one hospital in Los Angeles that offered it. She talked about the media attention that she got and about some of the difficult choices they had to make as parents about getting the surgery and how the deaf community reacted. Her story was inspiring. Eventually her son went on to be an engineer and now he works in the Google X lab within Alphabet in California. She says if you met him today, you would never know that he was once deaf.1

After winning some prizes2 we shared in some intriguing conversations while hot tubbing in the cool October air atop the hotel. A man named Peter told us the reason for his hand being wrapped in a plastic bag was a recent table-saw accident in which he seriously cut his right middle-finger. He explained that after making a really nice rip he turned off the saw and thought, “this 3/4″ sheet of plywood is pretty heavy for my brother to catch on his own so I’ll just do what I can to take some of the weight.” Without thinking, he brushed his hand across the blade as it was slowing. Looking down at his bloodied glove he knew right away he had a particularly serious injury. He’d lost the ability to wiggle that finger.

Luckily it was still attached and surgery to reattach the tendon would come a few days later. He got an X-ray showing the detachment but claims after a prayer on it from his pastor he was playing the organ at church the next night.3

Next, a nice woman named Elicia told us about a dangerous adventure she had in her younger years when she and a group of about five people hiked a mountain in Waterton where sheer cliffs dropped off just below them. They decided to take a shortcut up bypassing the switchbacks and found themselves on some shale just above the dangerous precipice. They all insisted it would be fine and Elicia, the lone hold out in the group, finally relented. When they got about halfway across the dangerous path one of the girls began crying. She sat down and refused to go any further while declaring that she would wait for a rescue team to find them. Elicia explained that no one would be coming anytime soon. She explained that even in the very best case scenario it would be at least 24 hours before anyone thought about rescuing them. After some time the weather began to turn and the group convinced the girl that if she didn’t move it was going to get very dangerous if the wind and rain began to pick up. Just then two young men peered down at them from a path above and called to them giving encouragement. They even jumped down into the shale like skiers slaloming down one jump after another. Seeing that, it inspired Elicia that the shale would hold if one got deep enough into it and the group got the courage to climb out of danger on their own.4

We crashed that night close to midnight and the next day enjoyed informative talks and delicious food. The ATA knows how to put on a worthwhile event. I started to feel a little under-the-weather and talked Andrea into leaving slightly early (though I wanted to stay but my head was just pounding) and we made the trip back to the kids and ended the weekend the next day back in Lethbridge feeling great about our lives and our livelihoods. I don’t believe in miracles per se but nevertheless one can’t deny life itself is a miracle. I like to reflect on that often.

  1. A miraculous story.[↩]
  2. A heating bag and a box of Smarties.[↩]
  3. He considered it a miracle.[↩]
  4. She felt it was miraculous they got out — I guess it was an evening of miracle stories.[↩]
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California Dreamin’

The plane touched down at about 1:20pm Palm Springs time. My father-in-law greeted me and secretly delivered me to his place in Palm Desert. I snuck into the living room and watched the faces of my kids processing the fact that I was there. Their surprise and delight was music to my soul. Andrea heard us talking and came out of her room saying, “What is going on? What on Earth!” Apparently she had been having a hard time thinking she was ready to come home. That’s all changed now. It’s been a fantastic four day weekend.

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Weekend at Barnie’s

Last Thursday I travelled up to Barnett House, the ATA headquarters in Edmonton, for a political engagement meeting. The ATA was updating its members on an awareness campaign for public education issues in Alberta before the next provincial election.

The meeting was pretty interesting. It was eye-opening to hear how many school divisions are hoarding millions of budgeted dollars instead of spending it. I couldn’t help notice that a lot of the biggest offenders are from the separate (Catholic) school divisions. I also liked hearing from pollster Janet Brown about how the UCP are not polling well since their new leader was chosen — though most of what she said was in this article by the CBC and I had already read it.

At the end of the day, I found out that my plane was delayed and that I probably wouldn’t be able to catch my connecting flight from Calgary to Lethbridge. It turns out — very long story short, WestJet had some major computer schedule issues and after a not great two hour sleep in a hotel on Friday night I ended up driving a rental car from Edmonton to Calgary so I could catch that connecting flight on Saturday instead of waiting an extra, extra 24 hours.

Because I was driving, I now had some time to kill in Calgary. I called my sister up to see if we could meet while I waited for my flight. As luck would have it, (or as it turns out bad luck) she was bringing her oldest, Ryker, to Olds for a volleyball game. Ryker plays for the college in Lloydminster. We met up and because Ryker’s game wasn’t going to start until much later and he just wanted to hang with his team, we decided to drive to the airport in Calgary to spend some time together there.

The roads were pretty bad when we set out but we hoped with the direction of the wind, it might not be so bad when we were headed south on the highway. It was really bad, even heading south. I had my AirPods in and was chatting with Jackie while watching her taillights disappearing into the white out blizzard conditions. Suddenly she told me there were vehicles all over the highway and that I needed to stop. She told me she couldn’t stop and was going to have to pull into the ditch. She did so and never had any real issues but with the extra time to slow I was able to navigate through the gauntlet of five or six crashed vehicles both on and off the highway.

It was just last week that a cousin of mine actually died in a collision on a snowy highway and so it made this situation all the more tense.

Suddenly I saw a car in my rearview mirror approaching rapidly. I tried to speed up to get out of the way but he was coming way too fast and I told my sister I was about to get hit. I braced for impact and was surprised at just how hard the force compressed my body against the seat. I stopped the car in the ditch and after a moment got out to inspect the damage. I took this footage:

Cars continued to smash for a few minutes. A couple of semi trailers pulled off the road and crashed into the nearby barbed wire fence.

The car was still drivable and the RCMP showed up fairly quickly. They shut down the highway and since we weren’t hurt and the conditions were so cold, the officer asked if we would take some of the people that had crashed their vehicles with us. I ended up taking the very same guy that rear ended me. That was fine but also I felt annoyed that he couldn’t have avoided me and now I had to sit beside him for the drive when what I really wanted to do was call my wife and complain about how I think he had room to drive by me.

As a result of the accident I had neck spasms and a headache, so I went into the hospital to get things checked out. The doctor said it looks most likely that I have, “what they used to call whiplash,” and he added that I might have a concussion as well. His advice was to take some ibuprofen and Tylenol and if I start acting loopy come back to the hospital.

So I took the day off work — I’ve also got a cough and cold going so I wasn’t feeling that well anyway.

The lesson of the weekend is that I won’t be flying WestJet for a quick day trip to Edmonton again, and if I find myself in a huge pileup on icy roads, get as far off the road as fast and far as possible.

Update: It’s been three weeks a month two months and I’m still getting headaches every day. Andrea thinks it’s time to head back to the doctor. I’m doubtful that the doctor can do much for me, and I’m still hopeful they will just go away.

Update: I got a letter from the RCMP which indicated 42 vehicles were involved in the pile-up. That’s about twice what I estimated.