Month: December 2023

Japan is a country of jingles or tunes. One of my favorites is the Family Mart entry door chime. Every time the sliding doors of a Family Mart open, a Panasonic door chime plays the melody above. This blog post about Family Mart in China, explains the origin of this melody.  I wonder what the employees of Family Mart think when they have to listen to the song all day long? Do they get tired of the tune? It brings back memories of our time living in Japan. Our kids love Family Mart, over 7 11 and Lawson’s in the Japanese Convenience Store market. There are many 7-second jingles in the train stations, with departure and arrival tunes and stores also play their own theme songs.

I also made a short video above of Nadia and I cycling back from the grocery store. There are many narrow alleys and roads in Japan, often dating back centuries to the Edo Period. This particular road in our former neighborhood is called Kyusaigoku Kaido. Kaido is the name of any historical trail/path/road. This particular road meanders from northern Osaka to Kyoto. I’ve taken it all the way to the Suntory Whiskey Distillery in Kyoto. I love the old wooden homes, lanterns, and Japanese-style gardens along the route. We rode it often when we lived here because it has less car traffic than the busier roads.

Finally, we are catching up with old friends. It is so nice to see them again and Nadia and I have fond memories of our time working at the Senri and Osaka International Schools of Kwansei Gakuin and living in Minoh. Fumie, Ritsu, and Izumi (sick yesterday) took good care of our family, helping us navigate Japan and the school as we adjusted to the distinct culture of the school and country. Kurt and Cari were close family friends of ours and Kurt was a trusted colleague on the leadership team. He always gave good advice and cared about the students. My heart was filled with happiness that all of them are healthy and still enjoying life. Until we meet again!

I had a really nice relaxing day, enjoying both urban and suburban Japan. Oliver and I worked on his university applications with his friend Kenta. They are applying to US universities and I gave them advice on their essays and help in filling out the forms. Afterwards, we went to a restaurant serving tonkatsu (Japanese deep-fried pork cutlet). I of course ordered the winter menu set that came with deep fried Hiroshima oysters. The meal is accompanied with miso soup, cabbage, rice, and a special tonkatsu sauce. Absolutely delicious! Although it is deep fried, it is not oily but crispy and it just goes so well with cabbage and rice. The breading is “panko” a white-bread, non-crust bread crumb. The cabbage topped with sesame dressing gives the meal some more crunch.

After a short nap, I went for a long walk in the hills of Saito, above our rental home. I love that we lived in a nice suburb close to nature. It was sunny and cool and perfect walking weather.

Oliver and I then went downtown Osaka to pick up Nadia and Ocean. We stopped at the Hankyu Department Store and watched people and drank a nice craft wheat beer. We then drove back home. Owen went skiing with friends to Hakuba and will be gone for a few days.

Nadia and Ocean were tired so we drove back north to our rental house. I wanted to stay downtown a bit more, but we will go again. Below is a short video of us crossing the street in Umeda.

We continue with our nostalgia tour with a walk around Senri Chuo Park. Japan has some beautiful green parks, especially in the suburbs. We spent a lot of time in Senri Chuo Park when we lived here from 2014-2019. I loved watching birds in the pond and running/cycling the trails in and around the park. The kids loved the giant slide and playgrounds. We also used to take the students from OIS for an annual picnic in the last week of school here. Many good memories.

We forgot how beautiful the northern Osaka suburbs are. There are breathtaking views of the surrounding Minoh Hills and the manicured parks and cycling trails. We also visited one of the neighborhood parks, Matsuide. We remember our first day in our house in August of 2014 with all of us sweating and going over to the park. Lots of good times in the park after getting over the culture shock and jet lag…

Yesterday Nadia and I went for a 20-kilometer bike ride. I took her on some of my old cycle routes around Expo Park and back to Onohara-Nishi. The rental house comes with two electric bikes that are quite popular in Japan. Japan is ideal for cycling because of its courteous and safe drivers, excellent roads with many bike lanes, good weather for most of the year, and a lot of people do it so drivers and pedestrians are used to cyclists. I am against electric bikes because it is “cheating” but it is nice on the hills and when you are doing errands and are tired after a day’s work.

One of my favorite aspects of Japan is the food. Japanese eat seasonally and each season comes with a different set of seafood. I ordered the Winter 5 set at our neighborhood sushi restaurant, which featured the famous Tiger Blowfish and scallops. Eating sushi in Japan spoiled me and all other sushi I eat in other countries pales in comparison.

We had an awesome family night at Round One Entertainment Center. Round One is a chain of 108 amusement stores in Japan that was founded here in the Osaka prefecture. They have karaoke, billiards, darts, arcade games, bowling, batting cages, and table tennis. We bought the multi-pass and rolled two games of bowling, an epic table tennis match between Oliver and Owen, and finished off the night with a couple of hours of karaoke. Lots of shared fun with the family, something we haven’t done in a long time.

Table tennis really helped our family get through the COVID-19 lockdowns in the spring of 2020. We played everyday and we all became pretty good at it! We tried a couple of the arcade games, but lost right away. The bowling was fun, I especially liked the front and back cameras that show your form. If people were serious about improving their bowling, this would be a great way to analyze your form. This is a long way from when I started bowling at Pladium Lanes in Iron River, Michigan in the early 1970s. You needed to keep your own score on a bowling score sheet. They had a really beautiful bar and I remember my dad bringing home their greasy hamburgers with pickles from the Saturday Night Mixed Couples League my mom and dad were part of. We had a babysitter and always looked forward to eating them.

The karaoke was awesome. Nadia and Ocean have good voices and Owen, Oliver, and I have a lot of enthusiasm and stage presence. The kids chose a lot of Kanye West songs and Nadia and I chose 80s songs. With the jet lag, we didn’t stop singing until 2:00 AM. The Round One was in downtown Osaka in the East Yodo River section. I am seeking permission from the kids to post some of the karaoke videos.

We are getting over jet lag (4-hour time difference) and travel fatigue and settling into our holiday in Japan. We are renting a home of a former colleague in the suburb of Ibabraki, the suburb next to our former home suburb of Minoh. We are on the outskirts of the Osaka metropolitan area and are surrounded by the hills and trees of the Minoh Hills National Park.

On our first full day in Japan, we visited our old house, which is now vacant and in dire need of TLC. We also visited former school, the Senri and Osaka International Schools of Kwansei Gakuin. I was impressed with the improvements to the campus that Kwansei Gakuin University has been doing, the place looks great. The kids are full of nostalgia and we did have a nice life in our beautiful neighborhood of Onohara Nishi. I loved going to our old Starbucks and Q’s Mall. Q’s Mall is an outdoor mall that is now at the end of the Senri Chuo Line. They are opening a subway station which started right before we left 4 and 1/2 years ago.

We watched Wonka, the musical by director Paul King. I loved it because the songs were great, it was old-fashioned in that it had the look and feel of the original 1971 movie that I loved as a kid and lots of great actors, costumes, and sets. I see the appeal of star Timothee Chalamet who starred in a young Willy Wonka. The story was a prequel to the 1971 original. I give it a “thumbs up”!

Winter skies in Japan are so blue and clear! The summer is hot, humid and hazy but winter is dry and cold usually.

We had a nice final day in Tashkent before traveling to Japan in the evening. I did a lot of yoga in the morning, went to school to close a few pending issues, and packed for the trip. The kids and Nadia were so excited to return to Osaka where we lived from 2014 – 2019. We have never returned to a place where we lived and waves of nostalgia came over our kids as we drove around our neighborhood.

The Tashkent airport was unusually calm with few people flying out. We flew Korean Air, the flag carrier of South Korea. They have 3 flights per week to Seoul and I highly recommend them. Koreans are much quieter and politer than Uzbeks when they are flying. It made for a pleasant night of travel. We made our 90-minute connection with no problems. Incheon Airport is one of my favorite airports, very comfortable with complimentary sleeping pods and plenty of male skin care products. 🙂 Korean is much more western and modern than Japan in my opinion.

Arriving at KIX (Kansai International Airport) brought back many memories. I used the toilets and forgot that the Japanese make the rest of the world look like barbarians when it comes to the bathroom experience. I need to install a Toto toilet seat in my house in the USA. Nothing better! We then took the “limousine bus” to the Hankyu Umeda Train Station in the center of Osaka. KIX is on an artficial island in southern Osaka Bay, a 70-minute bus ride from the center of Osaka. From their we took our old Kita Senri Hankyu train to the end of the line. From Kita Senri Station, we took a taxi to our friend’s home in Ibaraki, a far northern suburb of Osaka. It is adjacent to our former suburb of Minoh, so we are familar the area.

After getting settled in, we drove to our old house and school. We decided to eat at Nishiki Warai Restaurant that specializes in Kansai-style Okonomiyaki, a popular street food in Osaka. In English it is translated as “What you like” – “grilled”. It is basically a flour based dough mixed with yam and cabbage and then add pork, shrimp, octopus, squid, green onions, etc. It is known as “Osaka Soul Food” and the closest in our cuisine would be pizza. There is a hot griddle (teppan) in the middle of the table and the patrons finish cooking it. You can also put bonito flakes, Japanese mayonaise, a dark type of Worchester Sauce. Delicious!

It has been a relaxing few days since we ended school last Friday, December 13. I am on flexible working schedule this week and am spending more time with family. On the work side of my life, I am wrapping up personnel and facilities issues before the end of the calendar year. I also got a couple of basketball practices in with the girls varsity team. On the personal side, I am doing more fitness and exercise, blogging my trip to Tanzania, and preparing for our trip to Japan.

The snow has mostly melted in Tashkent as temperatures are now mostly above freezing. I need to wear my Japanese Heat Tech™ underwear to feel comfortable when temperatures are below zero Celsius. I heard that older people feel cold more because of decreased circulation. I don’t remember feeling this cold when I was younger. With the long underwear I am fine and I enjoy the cool weather of a Tashkent winter. I’ve been walking Obi more to get daily sunshine and went for a 5 kilometer run yesterday. I want to add cardio to my power yoga workouts over the 3-week Winter Break. When I return in January, I want to add weights as well. Listening to a Peter Attia interview, as one ages, especially after age 75, muscle mass decreases significantly. I want to have muscles to ensure an active lifestyle for next 20 years. After today, I will be 1/3 the way through my Power Yoga 108 which is truly life-changing experience for me as advertised.

The big news in our family is the return of our eldest son Owen. He is visiting us this month after completing the first semester of this third year in university. It is always nice to have our family whole again and I really miss having him around. We celebrated his 21st birthday last night by going out to Nadia’s favorite restaurant in Tashkent, “Cheese Factory” or Сыроварня. He is maturing into adult and we are all looking forward to reconnecting with him the month. He is suffering from jet lag but fought through dinner last night. Ocean and I are connecting over basketball. She is a really good athlete and I am slowly getting through to her regarding her use of fundamentals. I am quite positive over our team’s chances this year in the year-end tournaments. Oliver and I ran some errands the past couple of days for Nadia. She made a Venezuelan Christmas favorite, Pan de Jamón. It is baked bread with ham, cheese, olives, and raisins inside. I also take every opportunity to drive Oliver and Ocean to where they want to go.

My mouth is healing from a tooth extraction last Monday. The swelling is going down but I was not able to take out the stitches last night. I just need to not smile as I am missing two teeth on the left side of my mouth. I need to do some research about implants because I don’t think it should take this long. Sitting at dinner waiting for my family to arrive to the restaurant, I was so filled with joy when they walked in. I am so blessed to have such a beautiful and healthy family. I am trying to savor all of these special moments with my wife and children. Below are some scenes of Tashkent from my walks with Obi.

On our way back to the capital Dar Es Salaam and our flight home, we stopped at the historic port city of Bagamoyo. I was fascinated to read about the East African Slave Trade. As an American, I read a lot about the slaves from West Africa being shipped across the Atlantic to the USA. I didn’t know that almost 1.5 million slaves were captured in the interior (mostly Congo) and put to work on coastal plantations or shipped to India, China, Persia, and Arabia. You don’t see a large population of Africans in those countries today. I wonder why? In America, just under 400,000 slaves were sent to the American South and today African Americans make up around 10% of the total US population. Were they killed after slavery was abolished? Sent back to Africa? Worked to death?

We stopped at a former Catholic mission, Holy Ghost Mission, in Bagamoyo which is now a school and a museum. In the photo above, you can see Livingston Tower on the church. It is named in honor of the famous African explorer. His body was interred in the mission while waiting to be transported back to England. The Catholic missionaries helped freed slaves and brought development to the area. It was nice to read that the Muslim leader Sultan Majid, gifted the land to the French Catholics to build the church and convent.

It was sad to read that only about 20% of the slaves captured in the interior, survived the journey to the coast. What a tragedy! I can’t imagine the conditions and I guess it is easy to look back over 200 years ago and judge the cruelty of the slave traders. The museum also gave the history of German colonization of East Africa. The British took over the settlement after World War I. In 1916 British troops invaded and took the city from the Germans.

Today Bagamoyo seemed to be a sleepy small town. We stopped for dinner on the way out Fish Eagle Point and and lunch on the way back at a hotel owned by a French woman. I was trying to buy some souvenirs, but really nothing to buy. I laughed at the advertisement below of the hairstyles. I asked Ocean to get the “Ariana”.

We drove through the traffic of Dar Es Salaam on the way the airport. We drove right by the US Embassy and other embassies and stopped at a shopping mall to buy some Pili-Pili Sauce. It is a hot pepper sauce that I really like and I bought the regular and mango. Delicious! We also like Aramat, an MSG/Corn/Salt seasoning that makes everything taste good. Dar Es Salaam didn’t look particularly appealing, hot, lots of traffic, a bit chaotic and crowded. I sure it has its charms but we were not in the city long enough to enjoy them.

The Tanzanians I met were very friendly, loud and positive. Like many African nations, it is fast growing (4.39 children / female) with a demographics skewed towards young people. Tanzania was country #69 on my life list and my first visit to Africa. With a population of 62 million, it is the largest country entirely south of the equator. It is one of the most stable countries in Africa, with no major strife since its independence in 1964. The nature is amazing with the world’s deepest lake, mountains (Kilimanjaro), tropical coastline, forests and one of the biggest safari tourism industry (21 national parks) in Africa. They have presidential term limits of 2 x 5 years = 10 years. I was very interested in hearing people speak of their tribes. There are over 125 ethnic groups and over 100 languages Swahili is the national language . “My people are from the mountains.” one guy told me. I couldn’t tell the difference between the tribes, only the Maasai, who were much thinner, were distinctive. It is poor with 61% below the poverty line, but I see strong relationships, large familes and generally people have smiles on their faces. The country is 2/3 Christian and 1/3 Islam and I didn’t see or feel any strife between the two groups. I would definitely return to Tanzania and I would love to live there someday.