Our trip to Japan

For the last couple of years Carol and I have been talking about taking a trip to Japan, I lived there for 5 ½ years while serving in the Army.

I started studying Judo after I returned to the United States and wanted to return to Japan, to pay my respects to Jigoro Kano at the Kodokan, the birthplace of judo.

We would have returned this week.

We booked passage from Vancouver on one of those luxury cruise ships. We would have left Vancouver on the 7^th of September. There would be a stop in Dutch Harbor, Alaska. We might see whales and icebergs calving and Russia for sure. Our final destination was Otaku, in the northern island of Hokkaido.

We would spend 2 days exploring the island prefecture of Hokkaido. We found a couple of interesting accommodations in the guide book. Hokkaido is known for its natural beauty and is the site of several National Parks.

We would travel by local trains through the rural north of the big island of Honshu stopping off to enjoy the typical tourist traps.

Next was Tokyo for a week. Planned were several visits to the Kodokan. Shopping for a nice/new judo gi. Shopping for new yukata. Shopping in a brush store. Taking some lessons in shodo, Japanese calligraphy. Visiting temples and historic areas and museums. And of course many of our destinations were about the food. We had rented a VRBO in Kawasaki.

Next was Osaka, it was going to be more of a central hub for us to explore the Japanese communities accessible by train, so a lot of area, temples, castles, gardens, shopping for kitchen items and of course restaurants.

“Sukiya Living”, is a magazine about Japanese residential gardens, how to build them, and how to maintain them. They sponsor two 10 day garden tours in Kyoto. We signed up for the fall tour. It is truly an experience of excess, you get to see some of the best examples of Japanese Gardens, the food is over the top, there is tea ceremony and other cultural activities.

I was studying Japanese 2 hours a day, hoping to have some interesting conversations.

Damn, it was going to be an awesome trip!