Category: Family Journal

An archive of our family’s daily life.

Beijing & the Great Wall of China

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Chinese Flag Soaring over the Tianshou Mountains and the Great Wall

I am catching up with my blog posts during our trip to China last week. The internet connection at the hotels was not very good.

I was very excited to see China. Because it is so large (3 times the population of the USA) and growing economically so fast (estimated that it will pass the USA as the world’s largest economy in 2028) the influence China has and will have on the earth is huge. All of us should understand the country.

We stayed inside the second ring in the center of Beijing at the Prime Hotel, located near the APM mall and walking street shopping district. It was a 4-star hotel and with Chinese management,  was very Chinese and is still learning how to cater to foreign tourists. It was nice to walk to the mall and see all the expensive store fronts and electronic billboards. Our first night we took the kids to Pizza Hut after an almost 4 hour-flight from Osaka.

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Reunited with Uncle Jack at Pizza Hut Beijing! 

My uncle arranged a tour guide to show us around the city for three days. We first visited the National Stone Palace and watched the craftsmen cut jade into jewelry and large and small statues. The ancient Chinese valued jade, believing it brought fortune and health. There was a patio set (table and chairs) for $45,000 and statues for sale over $65,000. We bought a bracelet for Ocean and a series of carved spheres within spheres which represents good fortune through the generations.

We then visited the Ming Dynasty Tombs (1368-1644), a huge cemetery complex covering 80 square kilometers, one of the many UNESCO world heritage sites near the city. After visiting the tombs, the Forbidden City and Summer Palace during our stay, the power, wealth and egos of the rulers is truly awe-inspiring. The tombs are at the foot of Tianshou Mountains and we drove through them after leaving to visit the Great Wall of China.

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Ocean and Nadia Climb the Great Wall of China

China has a very long history and the country grew and shrank, depending on the strength and unity of its rulers. At times, warlords were fighting each other and chaos followed. Other times, a family was able to seize control of the country and make it strong. At the time the wall was built (approximately 700-200 BC), the Mongolians, who ruled China for a long time were driven out and the wall was built to keep them out. We walked a long section of the wall called Mutianyu. It is about 70 kilometers outside of the city in a rugged mountainous area.  It was a beautiful, sunny and cool day and perfect for walking up and down the wall. It is one of the great iconic sites of the world and being there was unbelievable.

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The amount of work that went into the fortifications is amazing. Much 8,000 kilometer wall is in ruins. It would be an interesting hike to walk the entire wall, which I am sure someone has done. There are some shorter hikes (2-4 hours) people can do and if I ever get back, I will try to do some of them. Every 500 meters or kilometer there were fortification towers to house soldiers. I wonder if the wall was effective in keeping out the invaders from the northwest. Modern times and tourism infrastructure have come and there was a sort of bobsled run you could take on the way down to the entrance to complex which was quite fun for the kids.

We finished the day by seeing the 2008 Olympic village, stadium (bird’s nest) and torch. China is an immense nation and the Olympic architecture matched it.

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Oliver’s Soccer Season Coming to an End

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Oliver’s middle school soccer team is preparing for this weekend’s Western Japan Athletics Association tournament taking place on Rokko Island over in Kobe. Oliver is in sixth grade and a starting member of the “B” squad. They will be playing in the “B” tournament.

A couple of weeks ago our school hosted a futsal, which is played with smaller goals on a smaller field with less players, tournament. The semifinal game against Canadian Academy of Kobe finished in penalty kicks. As you can see in the video, Oliver had an opportunity to take a shot in the penalty kicks.

I hope to make it the second day of the tournament on Saturday.

Skiing Over Lake Biwa

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Ocean (blue) Owen (black and white checkered jacket) on the slopes

It was an exhilarating day of skiing today at the Biwako Valley Ski Resort. Lake Biwa is a large freshwater lake north of Kyoto. The Hira Mountains abut against the lake. It makes for a breathtaking backdrop as you can see from the photos. It only took 1 hour and 15 minutes to arrive at the parking lot of the resort, which makes it an easy day trip.

I love spending a day outdoors with my children. I wish Nadia liked skiing, but she stayed in the lodge for the afternoon. It took a couple of runs for me and Oliver to get comfortable, but we did have fun going down the main run at the top of the mountain.

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The resort is small but picturesque. A gondola takes groups up the steep cliff to the start of the ski area. You cannot see the ski runs from the parking lots. There are only six different trails that are fun to ski. There were a lot of people, but the majority were beginners on the bunny run. Once away from them, there were really no wait times. There are two longer runs which were our favorites. It is not a resort to spend a week, but for a day of skiing, and being so close to our home, it is perfect.

 

 

My Beautiful Ocean

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Winner Again in the Bookmark Contest

Ocean won the bookmark contest again this year. She designed a Minecraft-themed book mark. The annual competition is sponsored by our library and Ocean won the prize for grade 4.

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Ocean has a natural inclination for design and color and is a promising young artist. She loves making things with her hands. We nickname her little miss busybody and when she puts her mind to something, she just powers on until it is finished, whether making a basket out of paper, mosaic of glass tiles, a DIY folder organizer, etc. She just loves working with her hands.

Above is her flower arrangement from a recent ikebana workshop. Ikebana is a traditional Japanese art of flower arranging, dating back to 600 AD. One of the school parents is an ikebana master and led about 40 students and parents in a beginning session.

 

 

Kralovec Children Doing Well!

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Owen with his back page article

 

I was surprised at how touched I was by seeing my son’s byline in the student newspaper. Owen wrote an article about the transition from middle school sports to high school sports at our school. He is a ninth grader, and turned 15 on Wednesday. A cliche, but I can’t believe how fast time goes with the kids! Owen is becoming more studious, as I write this in the morning, he is finishing a mathematics project. I think the rigor of Japanese culture in our school has helped him get through his rebellious teen phase a bit quicker.

 

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Oliver with teammates Kotaro, Aoto and Antonio

 

His younger brother Oliver also had an academic accomplishment. He won the middle school Knowledge Bowl on Monday! He answered many questions for his team, the “Dust Collectors”. When I asked him why they called themselves that, he replied, “It is ironic.”

Oliver is very well read and has a lot of general knowledge. At this stage of his mental development, he is lacking organization and attention to detail, but he is an avid reader.

Finally, Ocean and I went Christmas shopping earlier this week to Q’s Mall. She is such a lovely girl. She was talking in a cute British accent while we were riding to the mall. I love night bike rides with her. Wish they could last forever!

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Camping on the Kanzaki River

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Last weekend we got away from the city and work and headed up to the Kanzaki River in the mountains of Shiga Prefecture for some “shower climbing”. Shower climbing is what the Japanese call canyoning or river hiking. The Kanzaki River starts in the mountains between Lake Biwa and Nagoya Bay. We set up camp on a quiet part of the river and spent two days relaxing and enjoy nature.

August weather in Japan is oppressively hot and humid, so it was such a relief to swim in the cool, clear waters of the river. The water was not as high as in previous times we’ve gone up there, but we enjoyed it just the same. The kids are so much more confident in the water now than they were two years ago. Our two hikes consisted of scrambling over rocks and stopping at water holes to jump from the cliffs and swim. As you can see below, I am not quite as brave as the boys regarding jumping heights.

I really enjoyed the camping. Nadia had an air mattress for us in the tent and it was a perfect sleeping temperature. We ate well, with Naoki on the super deluxe Coleman camping stove! Between the views of the white rocks, green trees and blue skies and the refreshing water, it really recharged my spirit. It also reminded me of the importance of wilderness and I plan to take the family out more often this year.

 

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Ollie, Ocean and Sam hop between rocks

It was also nice to pleasant to connect with friends sitting around the campfire.

 

Home & Family

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My family and I have enjoyed a week in my hometown of Caspian, Michigan and getting back in touch with family, friends and my roots in my beloved Upper Peninsula of Michigan. I wish my mom and dad were alive to see their grandchildren and us. Jimmer, Andy and I took a photo in the doorway of our house, the first time all three of us have been together in a long time.

This is the first time we’ve been back in over 5 years and the visit reminded me how beautiful, quiet and remote the region is. For those non-Michiganders reading this post, the state is divided into two peninsulas, with most of almost 10 million people located in the southern, mitten-shaped peninsula. The northern or Upper Peninsula is the size of the states of Massachusetts and New Hampshire combined. The population of the entire peninsula is 303,181. That is a lot of land for few people, which, after living in Osaka, Japan, is a welcome change.

I am concerned with the declining economy and population of the Upper Peninsula, especially the six western counties. The “boom time” for the region was from 1870 to 1920 when iron ore and copper mining were at its peak. It has been a slow decline since then. The 2010 census population of 82,668 is almost 50% less than the peak of 153,674 in 1920 of the six western counties. Overall, the UP has gone from 332,556 in 1920 to an estimated 303,181 in 2016, a 9% decrease. Only the city of Marquette has seen significant increases and has a population of over 20,000 people today. You can really see and feel it in many of the smaller towns, with main streets mostly shuttered buildings or vacant lots and abandoned houses dotting neighborhoods. With not much economic opportunities, young people move to more populated areas of Chicago, Milwaukee, Minneapolis, Detroit, etc. and do not come back. The death rate is also higher than the birth rate, with many retirees coming back due to the outdoor beauty, scenic outdoors and low cost of living, but not young families coming in. I see a continued slow, steady decline in the short and long term future. A few small towns will be fine. Marquette, Sault Ste. Marie and Houghton will thrive due to universities and hospitals being located in them. Menominee will also be OK due to its proximity to Green Bay, Wisconsin and the Fox River Valley.

However, I am still optimistic about the Upper Peninsula. Because there are so many forests, lakes and snow to support outdoor activities, tourism will grow. I also think that technology will keep getting better and allow people to be more flexible in where they live. Although there are places with more dramatic wilderness areas in the American west, the outdoors of UP is just as refreshing to the soul for me and I guess many others. I am concerned about the role of climate change. What will the great lakes and the many smaller lakes and rivers become with increased temperatures?

I am glad to have been born and raised in a place so distant from major metropolitan areas. Thinking back to the pre-internet and pre-cable television area, it was even more distant culturally, from the rest of the USA. Hopefully, I will always maintain a connection to the Upper Peninsula.

 

 

 

 

 

Indians Defeat White Sox

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The Kralovecs at Guaranteed Rate Field in Chicago

The entire family went to Guaranteed Rate Field in Chicago to watch AL Central Division foes, the Cleveland Indians defeat the Chicago White Sox 9-3. It was the Indian’s eighth consecutive win.  Indian second baseman Jose Ramirez was the hero with four hits and 3 RBIs. Cleveland has a solid lineup from top to bottom and is well-managed by Terry Francona and it showed. They had runners on base the whole game.

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We had good seats on the first base side

My big takeaway from the game was realizing that baseball is healthy and its popularity is not lessening. It was a fantastic night out for the family! Most of the people in attendance are not really into baseball, but they are there for the food and beer, the between inning entertainment and just an excuse to sit outside on a cool summer evening. Baseball at the stadium is really a restaurant and bar business, supplemented with clothing sales, parking, etc. The kids were loving trying to catch a foul ball. At the end of each inning, they sprinted down to the first row, hoping the first baseman would flip them the ball as he trotted to the dugout. They were not in luck.

We took the train from Andy’s apartment downtown and it was quite convenient. We are Detroit Tigers fans, but it was our only chance to see an MLB game this year. I wanted to see the Cubs game the previous evening, but tickets were too expensive. It was “Christmas in July” theme night and after the game, fans enjoyed a firework show to Christmas music.

I hope Cleveland does well in the playoffs since we watched them. Francisco Lindor was smaller than I expected. He is also extremely flexible and several of the Cleveland players performed some pretty amazing stretches before the game. Danny Salazar pitched five no-hit innings. The first place Indians are 2.5 games ahead of Kansas City in the AL Central and should hold off the Royals to win the division, but we’ll see. The Astros and Red Sox will be tough competition.

 

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Post game fireworks

 

The Mysterious Paulding Light

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The boys and Uncle Jimmer are awed by the Paulding Light

 

This past week I spent the week visiting my hometown of Caspian, Michigan for the first time in over 5 years. I will be uploading posts from the week as I get them completed. We had slow internet at my house and I am working on a project for my doctorate and had limited time to write. I hope to get several posts up reflecting on our trips this summer.

One of the attractions that everyone should see when they are in the western part of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan is seeing the mysterious Paulding Lights.  This is a natural or unnatural phenomenon, depending on who you believe. The lights were first reported by teenagers to the police in 1966, and ever since, it has been a tourist attraction. The lights were featured on a SyFy channel program. They are similar to the Marfa lights in west Texas.

Paulding is a tiny, unincorporated village located about a 40-minute drive north west of my hometown of Caspian in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. Mysterious lights, hovering and bouncing in the distance horizon above the trees could be seen at the end of a side road off Highway M-45. We have been there several times, both in summer and winter and there are always a few people there. Paulding is not exactly easy to get to, but tourists and locals from northern Wisconsin and the Upper Peninsula. On this trip, some guys in a truck were getting stoned and another family was recording the lights with their phones.

This time my brother and I took the kids for the first time, so we played up the unnatural phenomenon theory. A train employee was run over while working on the lines and ever since then, his ghost swings his lantern to warn others. Others speculate UFOs or I heard some other stories. We had the kids good and scared when we approached the dead end, marked by a roadside metal fence. There is an ATV trail that leads towards the lights, so we hopped the barrier and walked to the lights. About 200 yards from the barrier, there is a small bridge above a beaver dam and after about 30 minutes, we turned around. We saw the lights, but couldn’t work out with the naked eye, what exactly was causing them.

Michigan Technological University researchers discovered that the lights are car headlights and tail lights from passing cars on M-45. An atmospheric inversion has a magnifying effect and allows people to see eerie lights hovering above trees in the distance. I am not sure how that works.

It was a classic UP adventure and the kids loved getting scared and walking through the refreshing pine forests at night.

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Lakeshore Bike Path near Adler Aquarium 

 

The highlight of our second day in the city was riding bikes along the Lake Michigan trail. We rode over 25 kilometers round trip south to the University of Chicago campus. I love the Great Lakes and swimming in the cool, fresh water was invigorating. We stopped at one of the numerous beaches for a quick dip. In the summer, in my opinion, Chicago rivals Miami and other coastal cities with its proximity to the water. Beaches do not come to mind when one thinks of Chicago and perhaps they should promote them and invest more into developing them. There were not a lot of people using them. A beautiful summer day in a city of 7 million people, I would have thought there would have been more people on them. I love bike paths and parks and this part of the city abounds with them. The rental bikes were good quality but expensive. We stopped heading south in part due to the amount of crime in the south part of Chicago.

We stopped heading south in part due to the amount of crime in the south part of Chicago. The city has the largest number of gangs in the USA and a murder rate much higher than LA or New York, but not as much as other smaller cities like Detroit or New Orleans. In reflecting upon the crime statistics, it is a symptom of poverty and lack of opportunity. Most of the victims and perpetrators are African American young adult males. Lowering the crime rate would need a huge investment in the poor neighborhoods to make a whole-scale culture and economic change. NPR’s This American Life did an excellent podcast on Harper High School, which is close to Hyde Park, where we stopped our bike ride yesterday. They really define the daily challenges faced in the crime-ridden sections of Chicago.

 

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Ocean with the Chicago River in the background

Last night we had dinner at the Saigon Sisters which is owned by a childhood friend of mine. His family belonged to our parish in my village and it was great to see him after such a long time. We had a delicious meal and I recommend it. Thanks to Dan for the special treatment! It was another example of people from my village moving to cities and doing quite well. It is sad that economic opportunities are not available in small towns anymore.

 

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Caspian Reunion at the Saigon Sisters