Hooray for Raleighwood

As Nicki so eloquently posted a few days ago, we have returned to the Land of the Rising Sun. After spending a couple weeks in Sacramento, Nicki and Josh flew over to the east coast to meet up with me in Richmond, VA. I flew into Richmond on March 5th... we stayed on the east coast until March 23... a nice long trip - but still not long enough to see and do all we wanted.

It had been a long time since we had been east of the Mississippi and even longer since we had been down to Raleigh, NC, to visit with my old college friends and their families. Many of my college friends and their wives have started families in recent years and we had a whole herd of new babies to meet. We also coordinated with a friend (Adam) in South Florida and one (Tom) in Atlanta to meet us there, so we got to meet Adam's new fiancee and Tom's new girl.

A side benefit of our trip's timing was that it aligned perfectly with the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) Basketball Tournament. Our friends - Sean, Miguel, and Danny - set it up so that we could watch one of each of the games at their houses. They really rolled out the red carpet for us, too. Great food, great friends, and a great time. When all was said and done, our beloved NC State Wolfpack made it to the tournament championship game (but ultimately lost a close one to a certain powder blue rival).

It was tough leaving Raleigh, but we had a lot more to see and do... which we'll talk about at a later date and time. In the meantime, some of the Raleigh pictures are below and in our Gallery, dated 03/28/2007.

Sofia

Mackenzie

Riley

The Usual Suspects

Home Sweet Home

Finally, after a month of being away from home, we've made it back. I have to admit a feeling of relief swept over us as we jumped on our ANA international flight and were greeted by an all-Japanese staff. We knew our flight home from Chicago to Tokyo would be just a little more pleasant. As soon as we landed from our 13 hour flight, we were lucky enough to go through the special "with kids" line at Immigration. We ran down to baggage claim, and quickly all three checked-in items made it into our possession. We made it to the Yokosuka Base shuttle bus right on time. All was going smoothly. Despite it being 3:30PM, Tokyo traffic was moving fairly well. We all drifted to sleep dreaming of home, until we were awoken by sirens and a sudden stop. Our luck had run out! On the Yokohama Bay Bridge, a Shell gasoline truck had jackknifed on the road, blocking all but one lane on the bridge. There were probably about 20 different emergency vehicles pushing their way through the dead-stop traffic. Long story short, thanks to our bus driver's maneuvering, we were able to make it past the bottleneck and our commute only took... drum roll... 4 hours.

2 days after our arrival back home, I decided to take an easy 1 mile jog around the neighborhood. I thought easy but was quickly reminded that it had been a month since I last did any kind of physical activity. Here's how my body responded:

(Beginning) brain: "Ah, feels good to get some fresh air... I'm glad I decided to do this. Ok, wait... did my ankle just pop?"

(About a minute later) heart and lungs: "What fresh hell is this?!"

legs: "OK really, stop, just stop. It's not funny anymore."

brain: "Gotta think about something else besides feeling like I'm dying. What can I write on the blog?"

A mile later and currently immobile because of the pain, I have a chance to list off some highlights that will be covered in future posts:

1. Seeing all of our friends and family, and all of the new babies!
2. Being able to take a private West Wing tour
3. Being able to see the President arrive by chopper at the White House (and being able to see the VP and the President in the same 30 day period)
4. Spotting Mike and me in a photo hanging inside the West Wing....VERY COOL
5. Shopping
6. Restaurants
7. much much more

So, stay tuned. We have much to write about.

Happy B-day to Mike

Hey everyone it's Mike's 31st Birthday today(March 17th St. Patrick's day).........here comes the shameless plug: Please send a comment his way to wish him a Happy Birthday!

Second Annual Kamakura 10K

Those of you that have been The Japan Years readers for over a year may recall a post from April 2006 called Kamakura 10K, describing my adventures of getting up before dawn and heading over to Kamakura to catch as many temples and shrines as I could before noon. I walked so far that I decided to call the trip my Kamakura 10K.

With Nicki and Josh away in the States, I thought it would be a good time to get up before dawn and do it again. This time, though, I didn't want to rush my way through. Instead, I took it easy and visited fewer sites. Also, I set the camera in full-fledged manual mode, which is something that I rarely do but want to practice more to help improve my photography skills.

The Japanese Plum (Ume) Blossoms were in full bloom... what a perfect time to visit Kamakura. I want to keep my write-up pretty short and instead devote time to some of the pics, but I thought I would share a little about one of the temples I visited called Tokeiji.

When I arrived at Tokeiji Temple ("ji" means "temple" in Japanese, so I am being redundant), I paid my 100 yen entrance fee and received a small information sheet in English. Some excerpts from the sheet:

"Tokeiji temple in Kitakamakura, which used to be known as one of the five nunneries was founded in 1285 by a nun named Kakusan..."

"In those days when women had no right to seek divorce, the Shogunate designated Tokeiji as a sanctuary for women where a woman petitioner could obtain a divorce from her husband after she spent three calendar years at the temple. That was how it earned the nickname "Divorce Temple".

"Local people were also ready to help women seeking refuge at Tokeiji. They might say where the temple was to any woman running in the neighborhood, since they thought she was being chased by her husband."

"As time passed, more and more women turned to this temple. Many men were summoned to the local court and were made to write a note of divorce."

"Tokeiji is the place where men are deprived of their pride."

I actually laughed out loud when I read the last line. It was even written in bold to stand out on the page. Not that I find it funny, per se, especially since it took 3 years of living there before a woman could get a divorce. But I find it ironic that these days, many modern married men would argue that home is the place where we're deprived of our pride.

Kidding aside, now for the pictures (the rest are in the Gallery, dated 03/04/2007):

Three Flower Pots Along Wall

Ume Blossoms and Japanese Latern

Barbed Wire Along Hiking Trail

Free Advertisement for my breakfast

Small Statue Surrounded by Ume Blossoms