Author Archives: Mike Kuper

Smoking Cold

In my last post I mentioned how much I’m enjoying the new wood pellet smoker/grill. Last month I learned about cold smoking. Cold smoking is a technique that can preserve food and add smoky flavors without cooking the food. Specifically, I wanted to create smoked cheese.

Of course, if you cook cheese, it melts. The wood pellet smoker grill cannot operate without creating heat, so you need to have another smoke source. There are external smoke generators that pump smoke into an enclosed vessel for smoking foods, but that was too elaborate for what I wanted to do.

The answer was a smoke tube for creating smoke from smoldering wood pellets. I used the Z Grills smoker grill as a place to concentrate the smoke and hold the cheese I wanted to smoke. The thing is, ideally you want to keep the temperature no higher than 80 to 90 degrees. Cooler is better. I smoked the cheese on cool mornings and after the first batch, was able to keep the temperature in the 80-degree range.

To do this, you fill the smoke tube with wood pellets and light it with a small torch. I used a kitchen torch intended for uses such as glazing the sugar topping on creme brulee. You need to keep the torch on the pellets for at least 30 seconds to make sure the pellets are well lit. Let it burn for at least five minutes with visible flame, then blow it out and it will continue to smolder. My tube will smolder and produce large amounts of smoke for five or six hours when filled.

I removed the heat diffuser from the smoker/grill and placed the smoldering smoke tube in the bottom of the smoker/grill on the far left where the pellet feed is located. I put the grills back in place and placed the cheeses to the right side, near the chimney. My first attempt was a learning process and I learned a couple of things.

I used gouda and cheddar cheese. I placed the gouda to the far right on the main rack and also on the smaller second rack. Then I placed the cheddar more in the center portion of the racks. Cheddar has a higher melting point than gouda, so I thought it was safe to have it closer to the smoke tube which generates some heat.

It turned out the cheddar was overheated and also over-smoked. But it wasn’t all that bad. The gouda was very good. I watched a lot of YouTube cold smoking videos and tried to learn something from them. Everyone has their own take on how to do it and I tried to glean the best tips and combine them. Everyone agreed on one point – do not taste test the cheese right away. When it first comes out of the smoker, the flavor is harsh. It needs to be wrapped and aged in the refrigerator for a minimum of one week – two weeks is much better.

For my second round of smoked cheese, I added a step to the aging and also smoked the gouda first, then the cheddar as a second batch to keep all of the cheese on the far right – away from the smoke tube. I smoked each batch for two hours this time. I then wrapped each piece in butcher paper and put them in the refrigerator for 48 hours. Then I removed the butcher paper and wrapped each piece in plastic cling wrap and put the two batches in large zip lock bags to age for two more weeks. This looked much better.

Aged smoked gouda wedge on top, cheddar bar below

I used cheese from Costco – a two-pound wedge of Dutch Tradition gouda and a two-pound block of Coastal cheddar. I made eight pieces of each for four-ounce packages. I made a third batch and Donna will add them to Christmas gift bags.

These are good quality cheeses from Costco at less than $7/pound. Smoked cheese costs more than double the price of plain cheese – plus it’s a fun process to make it yourself.

Here at Viewpoint Golf and RV Resort, many of the snowbird residents went home for the Christmas holiday, so it’s a little quieter around here. Donna had her Christmas performance with the Viewpoint Concert Band Sunday night. They had a full house despite the missing snowbirds. Their next concert will be on January 19th.

Donna has been working with her Good Neighbors organization to provide Christmas meals and some gifts for residents of Viewpoint that do not have relatives nearby. I’m planning on making a double-smoked pineapple-bourbon glazed spiral ham and we will share it with neighbors.

We couldn’t ask for nicer weather – it’s been great. The forecast calls for daily highs in the mid-70s to 80 degrees from now until Christmas. With that, I’ll wish a Merry Christmas to all.

Christmas stockings hanging in the Arizona room/man-cave

Holy Smokes!

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We’ve decompressed from our Japan trip and things have reached a new normal for us here at Viewpoint. Donna has revised her activity schedule – the break made her realize how hard she had been pushing herself all summer long.

She has since put golf on hold until after the busy winter season here. She also resigned her position as President and Secretary of the Viewpoint Concert Band and bowed out of a tennis committee. She filed for and was granted non-profit corporation status for Viewpoint Good Neighbors, the volunteer organization she founded last fall. As the Executive Director, she still manages the day-to-day activities of organization but has delegated in-person visits to volunteers. Viewpoint Good Neighbors exists to assist mostly elderly members of the community that don’t have relatives nearby to help them. Good Neighbors provides limited meal service, household help and also can run errands for them and provide companionship. It’s a worthy endeavor and is funded through donations from others in the community. She still plays in the tennis league and also plays clarinet in the band.

At the beginning of November, I put a pork shoulder on the Traeger smoker/grill to make pulled pork. I was watching football in the Arizona room as the Traeger went about smoking the pork. I checked on it from time to time to make sure the temperature was in range and pellets were feeding. At one point, I looked out the glass slider and the carport was filled with smoke. I couldn’t even see the street!

I ran outside and found a disaster in the making. Something happened, either a pellet feed problem or a grease fire – flames were coming out of the grill vent and the pit temperature skyrocketed above 450 degrees. I used a squirt bottle filled with water to extinguish the flames and shut the unit down. Meanwhile a couple appeared through the smoke – they were driving by and thought our house was on fire.

After I had things calmed down, I restarted the Traeger and observed the pellet feed. It seemed to be working fine, but there was noise coming from the auger that feeds the pellets. The pork shoulder came out of the mess just fine and made a good batch of pulled pork. I started troubleshooting the Traeger and found the source of the noise to be the fan on the auger motor. There are two fans on the Traeger, one fans the fire pot to keep the pellets burning hot, the other cools the auger motor as it operates at high current and high load. That’s where the noise came from. A replacement auger motor (the fan is integrated with the drive motor) costs less than $30. The problem for me was the disassembly required to access the auger motor. It would take more time and effort than I was willing to do.

After nine years of reliable service, I decided to retire the Traeger. Donna posted it on her “Buy Nothing” Facebook group with a description of what was needed to bring it back to normal service. Several people wanted it. Donna ended up giving it to a nice young couple that had time to fix it and could afford to pay for a new motor, but couldn’t afford to buy a Traeger.

Now I needed a new smoker/grill. I did some research and found that technology had marched on since I purchased the Traeger. The biggest advancement came in the form of the controller that regulates the unit’s temperature. Older pellet smokers used a relatively crude method of regulation that used a duty cycle for control. The duty cycle selected set a certain amount of time the auger would turn (the duty part of the cycle) and a period of rest with no pellets fed. This duty cycle was adjustable to within a small range for each temperture setting in the upgraded controller I installed on the Traeger.

Newer, quality units use what engineers call a PID controller. This uses more sophisticated software to regulate the pit temperature. PID is an acronym for three algorithms used for control – Proportional, Integral and Derivative. This allows for much more precise control than duty cycle operation and the software is an adaption of that used in industrial and agricultural applications.

I ended up choosing a wood pellet smoker/grill made by Z Grills. This company originally made smoker/grills for other brands – in fact they made some of Traeger’s grills until around 2015. In 2017, they started making grills and distributing them under their own brand. Their PID software is advanced and regulates the temperature precisely by controlling the pellet feed to the burn pot and also varying the fan speed blowing air through the burn pot. It also incorporates two temperature probes that can be inserted into the meat to determine the internal temperature of the meat without opening the grill.

It came in a surprisingly compact box. Some assembly was required. I saw where people online claimed anywhere from one to three hours of assembly time. I figured I should be able to do it in two hours. I met that goal with some assistance at one point from Donna. The instructions warn that two people are needed for some steps. I only needed Donna’s help when I installed the legs.

Z Grill in operation with temperature probes in use

I smoked a spatchcocked 11-pound turkey for Thanksgiving. I had a temperature probe in the meaty part of a thigh (P1) and another in the center of the breast (P2). I had already broken the unit in with the initial burn-in and a trial run with a spatchcock chicken. I did something new to me for the chicken and the turkey. I used a syringe to inject melted, unsalted butter into the breasts and thighs before smoking them. The outcome was delicious. After about 20 minutes of settling time after start up, the temperature remained true to the setting with only an occasional variation of just five degrees. Excellent performance!

Near the end of the turkey cook, I turned it up to 375 degrees to crisp the skin. I took it off the grill when the breast read 163 degrees and the thigh was at about 185. I let the turkey rest for half an hour before I sliced it.

Donna made dinner plates for our next-door neighbors, Allen and Lois. They are in their mid-80s and Allen needs a knee replacement. He has a lot of trouble getting around and it’s been hard on Lois. She also made two plates for a Viewpoint Good Neighbors volunteer who spent the entire summer in the hospital fighting for her life. She and her husband greatly appreciated it! Viewpoint Good Neighbors delivered a total of 26 home- cooked meals to residents who might not otherwise had a Thanksgiving meal. Altogether, it was a very good Thanksgiving.

Before Thanksgiving, I got my rating with the Viewpoint Tennis Club. I wanted to play in league matches, but before you can join a team in the league, you need to have an official rating. This is done through arranged play of games observed by a professional tennis coach from outside of the park. I needed a minimum of a 2.5 rating to qualify for men’s league. I haven’t been playing tennis for very long – my first game was in April after four months of coaching and practice drills. I’m happy to report I was rated at 2.5. Whew! So, now I’m on the Viewpoint Men’s 2.5 Tennis Team and we play weekly matches in the East Valley Senior Tennis League (EVSTL). This has me committed to play three times per week – a team practice day of 90 minutes, a round robin day with 90 minutes of play and a EVSTL match either here at our courts or away at another tennis club participating in the league. Donna plays in the women’s 3.0 league. I’m also an official EVSTL score keeper for matches played here when my schedule allows.

Another thing I’ve taken up again post-Japan is guitar practice. I hadn’t picked up my guitars in many months. I just got away from it for some reason. It took a little while to build up callous on my fingertips and regain the dexterity, but I’m having fun again.

My guitars, amps and cabinets corner in the Arizona room

Donna is back to regular clarinet practice as we’re back in the concert band season.

Although I was unsuccessful in my search for Japanese straight razors in Japan, I’ve managed to acquire a few through auction sites and from members of the Badger and Blade forum. The stones I bought from Morihei are proving to be very good for finishing the edge on a razor.

My latest acquisition is the SanKan pictured above on the Morihei Oozuku mizu asagi stone. Japanese razor brands can be interesting. In the 1950s through the 1970s, many brands used names “borrowed” from German makers as German razors were highly regarded. I have one with a German name – Sonnal. The SanKan name is interesting – san (pronounced sahn) is Japanese for the number three. On the backside of the tang on this razor is a trademark stamping with three crowns arranged in a triangular fashion. The word okan means crowns in Japanese. So, SanKan seems to be these two words joined without the “O.” The kapton tape on the spine in the photo is there for protection while honing.

I started offering a knife sharpening service for people here at Viewpoint and have had several takers. I charge $5 for one knife, three or more are $4 each. I enjoy sharpening and it keeps me proficient. My knives and razors hold their edges really well and don’t need to be sharpened all that often. Some of the knives brought here for sharpening are completely dull or even chipped and damaged. I bought a couple of coarser stones to take care of these problem knives and it’s working out well. I don’t call a knife finished unless it will slice through an unsupported magazine page without catching and cleanly make thin slices through a tomato.

Donna has her raised garden bed replanted after harvesting the butternut squash that grew in late summer/fall. She’s planted cold weather crops – broccoli, spinach, cabbage, fennel, cilantro and dill. We went to the Arizona Worm Farm where she bought the starts and I bought 300 more worms to restock the bed. The hot, dry summer was hard on the worm population so I wanted to jump start the colony instead of waiting several weeks for them to re-populate.

We’ve had daily highs from the mid-70s to low 80s with one surprise rain squall last Thursday night. Friday morning I took Donna to the airport. She flew to San Diego for the weekend and her sister, Linda also flew in from Florida to celebrate their mother’s birthday. Donna’s been going to San Diego one weekend each month to visit her mom.

The weather ahead looks slighly cooler – lower 70s with some cloud cover. We’ll see if it includes precipitation. I think that just about catches up with all we’re doing. I’ll close with a dinner plate Donna made with an excellent pork chop with green beans and a cheesy potato pancake made with leftover mashed potatoes from Thanksgiving.

Japan Part Five – Closing the Loop in Tokyo

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We boarded the Shinkansen Monday morning, October 7th. Due to the mountainous terrain, the train route to Tokyo was somewhat circuitous. We went northeast along the coastline of the Sea of Japan and had occasional ocean views. Then we followed a valley that rose to Nagano in the south. Nagano was home to the Winter Olympics in 1998. We saw varied countryside from mountain forests to farmland as we left the mountains behind and continued southeast back to Tokyo Station.

We changed to a local train on the Ginza Line. We were familiar with the route – it was the reverse of the way we left Tokyo for Kyoto a week earlier. We originally planned to stay at the Banrai Hotel, but before we left Kanazawa, Donna changed the reservation to a traditional Japanese room at the Hotel Wing International. This room wasn’t available earlier, but appeared online when Donna rechecked availability.

We felt like old hands at navigating our way through Asakusa Station to the hotel. This time our room was on the 11th floor and we found out what traditional Japanese room meant. The entry was a small hallway and we had to leave our shoes there. The main room had tatami mat flooring. The short hallway had a door to the bathroom on the right and what turned out to be small closet at the end on the right. A doorway on left led into the main room.

Looking back from the main room to the hallway and closet

The bedding dominated the room and I wondered how we could manage to unpack and get comfortable in the room. Donna got the bright idea to fold up the futon bedding into chairs.

The room included a coffee maker and coffee packets that were actually quite good. That reminds me, I forgot to mention the breakfast buffet at the Torifito Hotel in Kanazwa. We usually went out of the Torifito for breakfast at Family Mart before the buffet opened. One morning we decided to give the buffet a try.

The buffet was more than twice the price of breakfast at Family Mart, but still relatively inexpensive. We weren’t sure of what to make of some of the food it offered though. There was steamed rice, of course, and some fruit. The scrambled eggs were the wettest scramble I’ve ever seen. There were some kind of fish dishes, but fish isn’t my idea of breakfast. They had fruit juices and tea. We had to search to find the coffee. It was made with a machine like you would find a convenience store, but didn’t have as many choices as we usually found. It had a button for coffee, which gave about a half cup of awful coffee. Then there was a choice of “weak coffee.” After filling my cup twice to get a nearly full cup of coffee and I told Donna the buttons should be honest and say “Bad Coffee” and “Really Bad Coffee.” I had the scrambled eggs and a couple of sausage links and rice for breakfast. I was wishing we had stuck to the Family Mart. Donna figured out the runny scrambled eggs were meant to be mixed with steaming hot rice. I wish I had figured that out before I ate. Back at Asakusa, we stuck with convenience store breakfast – the Wing didn’t offer a breakfast buffet, just a few pastries and drinks.

After unpacking, we went out for the remainder of the afternoon and figured we would find something for dinner along the way. We walked south along the boulevard from the hotel – the opposite direction from the way we usually went. We wanted see if we were missing anything in this direction. After wandering around for half an hour or so, we found ourselves heading back to the more familiar area north of the hotel.

Before we knew it, we were back at the Kaminarimon Gate where the large lantern marks the entrance to the Asakusa outdoor shopping area. Behind the gate and lantern is a wide alley with market stalls in the center. These stalls are like connected one-car garages with roll-up doors. When the stall is open for business, the doors are rolled up. When they close, they roll the doors down and lock them.

The large lantern is a tourist attraction and we always saw a small crowd in front of the gate to take photos and selfies.

We found a liquor store I wanted to visit. I was thinking about bringing a bottle of Japanese whisky back to the US. The store turned out to be mostly high end liquor with a lot of decorative or collectable bottles. I figured Duty Free at the airport would be the way to go anyway. Donna took a few pictures of the some of the bottles while I browsed.

We continued to wander and look for interesting finds. The Axe Throwing Bar seemed interesting, but we passed on it.

We found a statue of Ten Ryu next to the giant lantern. I’m not sure if it’s commemorating Emperor Daigo II or the “Divine Dragon,” a mythical being.

I can’t remember what we found for dinner, it wasn’t anything special. Later we found ourselves at another familiar place – the Not Suspicious Bar.

The trendy drink was a Tokyo negroni and Donna had to try one. I think the Not Suspicious version of the drink contained absinthe. I stuck with my favorite – Hakashu Japanese whisky.

Back at our room at the Wing, we had another nightime view of the Tokyo Sky Tree.

After striking out on finding old Japanese barber’s straight razors, I decided to make another trip to Morihei in Asakusabashi. I sent a message to a friend in Louisiana, Eric, to see if he wanted/needed anything from Morihei. He responded with a request for one of the Oozuku hard awasedo stones and a chu nagura. I need to explain two things.

First, I said a friend in Louisiana. Actually, I’ve never met Eric face to face. I first found his YouTube channel, The Cajun Blade, where I learned many things about straight razors and honing them on natural stones a few months ago. Then I figured out a guy on the Badger and Blade forum was him. I bought a couple of Japanese whetstones from him and he gave me a good deal.

The second thing I want mention is the nagura. What’s a nagura? A nagura is a rubbing stone. You rub it gently against your base stone with water to create a fine slurry of stone particles. The slurry can come from the nagura, the base stone or both. The slurry helps the stone to cut the steel faster and also can work on both sides of the edge as it comes over the top of the edge.

I hadn’t thought about a chu nagura. I have a few different nagura stones, but never tried chu. Tuesday morning, Donna and I took the train to Asakusabashi and walked to Morihei’s shop. The guy that helped me the week before was tied up with another customer. I think he was a wholesale customer negotiating a large transaction.

I browsed around and waited. A woman came out to see if she could help me. Her English was limited but I managed to let her know what I was looking for. She showed me a couple of stones and a synthetic nagura. I tried to explain that I wanted a natural stone nagura.

Then an older gentleman came out. He offered Donna a chair so she wouldn’t have to stand around while I shopped. He found a few stones for me to examine. When I told him I was looking for a natural nagura, he didn’t seem to understand at first, so I tried some rudimentary Japanese. I told him I would like to see tennen toishi ao nagura. It basically meant a natural stone white nagura. He motioned for me to wait while he disappeared out back. Later I learned that there was a second floor to the store and also a small museum of their private stone collection.

He came back out with three small chu nagura stones. Then he took me over to a sharpening station and demonstrated the awasedo stones I was looking at by honing a razor with them. I bought two more Oozuku awasedo and two chu naguras. Before we left, Donna asked if she could take a photo of the two of us. He motioned me over to the sharpening bench to pose with him.

The gentleman was very nice, but didn’t speak any English to me. He seemed to be the head honcho of the place and we noticed a couple of poster size blow-ups of magazine articles with his picture on the back wall.

I later learned he was Oguro-san, the president of Morihei and a well-respected expert on Japanese stones, mines and also Japanese knives. He is an advisor for natural whetstone researchers at universities and government agencies. I can vouch for him as being a nice man.

We walked back toward the hotel and stopped for a great ramen lunch. After resting in our room for a bit, we went back out and it was raining lightly. Rainy days are not uncommon in Tokyo at that time of year.

Closed shopping stalls behind the Kaminarimon Gate

Rain doesn’t stop activity here, much like light rain is a normal condition in Seattle most of the year. We window shopped and Donna found something interesting.

It was beautiful portable shrine in a window display.

We found the covered street to shop without an umbrella. We had umbrellas that we picked up at the lobby of the Hotel Wing – they keep loaners in a basket for guests. When we returned with wet umbrellas, they have a special dispenser that you poke the collapsed umbrella into and it gets covered with a thin plastic bag so it doesn’t drip on the floor!

The following day we did more of the same. We wandered around the area looking for anything interesting. We found the Mishima Shrine. This was confusing, the Mishima Shrine Taisha is a famous shrine in Mishima, not Tokyo. I later found out that the Mishima Taisha is the most famous and other Mishima Shrines can be found such as the Mishima Jinja which is in the Shitaya District of Tokyo.

Later, we made a stop at the upscale Hotel Tobu. I don’t remember how many floors this hotel has, but it was one of the taller buildings in Asakusa. We went to the top floor bar for liquid refreshment and a look at the expansive views.

Donna and me at the Tobu – Tokyo Sky Tree in the background

Another strange thing we found in Tokyo was go-kart rentals. If you posess an international driver’s license, you can rent a go-kart and convoy behind a tour leader for a two-hour tour, zipping around the streets of Tokyo.

I guess danger equals excitement to some people. This looked like a dangerous activity to me. We weren’t interested in the least bit about touring Tokyo via go-kart.

The next morning was the 10th of October, the day of our departure from Japan. We had a lazy morning and packed our bags. We checked out a little before the 11am checkout time and left our suitcases in a storage service across from Asakusa Station.

We had a lot of time to kill. Our flight was scheduled to depart from Narita Airport at 8pm. We walked across a bridge over the Sumida River and headed toward the Tokyo Sky Tree. We didn’t need signs or directions, it can be seen from miles around. It turned out to be a longer walk than I expected. Once you get closer to it, the scale of the tower starts to sink in.

Along the way we saw some people playing a game called padel. Padel (Spanish for Paddle) is a game that originated in Mexico. It’s like a combination of tennis and raquetball. It’s played on an enclosed court and the ball can be played off of the walls enclosing the court, which is slightly smaller than a doubles tennis court. I’d heard of the game, but never saw it played before.

The enclosure was a clear plexiglass, so we could observe from the sidewalk. It was a very quick game and good reflexes are needed along with paddle skills. I think I’ll stick to tennis for now.

As we got closer to the tower, the size was awe inspiring.

We finally reached the entrance and I was shocked at all of the space and attractions inside. There was an aquarium, a theater, rooftop viewing area and a food court along with stores and a large grocery.

There are several floors of retail space inside and you can also take an elevator up to the viewing section near the top. It requires a reservation though.

We had lunch in one of the food courts. They had many different styles of food available. We had our last authentic Japanese ramen meal – it was delicious.

We walked back to Asakusa following a different route. We went through the Sumida Park and crossed the river on a pedestrian bridge. Walking ahead of us on the bridge was a guy wearing what looked like a security guard outfit. I noticed he was using a microfiber cloth to clean the hand rail as he strolled across the bridge. The handrail was spotless.

Donna took pictures of Love Locks on the bridge. Couples put padlocks on the bridge fencing to symbolize their love.

Love Locks on the Asakusa side of the river – Sky Tree in the background

By this time I was much better at recognizing the various trains from the platform. We caught an Express train to Narita. This had fewer stops than the train we first took from Narita two weeks earlier. It also cost less than I anticipated.

At the airport, the first thing we had to do was return the portable wifi. They had provided an envelope and instructions to return it via mail and warned us to post it before we went through security as there are no mail drop boxes on the secure side. We did that with a little assistance from an information kiosk then went to departures to check our luggage.

I was dismayed when I saw the long lines there. We walked past the first long line and I saw it was a departure line for China. Our flight was on Hawaiian Airlines which was partnered with Japan Airlines (JAL). We saw the line from the checkin counters going way to the back of the large building! They didn’t start check-in yet, we had about a 10-minute wait before the line would begin to move. Donna asked an attendant if it was the right line for us. She looked at Donna’s ticket and told her we should wait behind a couple of other people near the head of the line.

When they started boarding, first class/business class went first. We then saw some people from the long line move up as they were in the wrong line. We were through quickly and felt a little weird as we had jumped ahead of a lot of the people from the wrong line. Oh well, we were just doing what we were told to do.

We found directions to the JAL airport lounge. Now this is what first class is all about. It was a spacious lounge with three levels and lots of open space. We had already eaten and soon regretted that fact. Donna found a full dinner buffet on the upper level. We found a comfortable spot and I found a well-stocked bar with open bottles to pour for yourself. They had top shelf liquor – I had a Japanese whisky on the rocks.

We had money left on our Suica cards – nearly a thousand yen each. The Suica cards expire after 30 days and we had no way to use them. They are non-refundable. I also had some coins which I couldn’t use. I could exchange the paper money at the bank at home, but not the coins.

There was a young girl busing tables and cleaning up. Donna went to her and gifted her the Suica cards and coins. The girl didn’t speak English. She quickly left with the cards and left the dishes she was picking up in a tub on the table near us. Seemed strange. A little while later she came back with a supervisor that spoke English. The supervisor asked it why we gave the girl the cards and money. I told her it was a gift- we were getting on a plane a wouldn’t be able to use them. The supervisor looked like she wanted to keep the cards, but she relinquished them to the girl and gave her an explanation in Japanese. It wasn’t much money, but I thought the cards would get the girl back and forth to work for the next week or so. The girl went back to work. I was impressed that she would go to her supervisor instead of just quietly accepting the cards and small change. Integrity.

Once again we were comfortably seated in the front of the plane and headed to Hawaii. I didn’t buy any duty-free liquor at Narita because I was worried about going through customs in Hawaii. That wouldn’t be a problem, but getting back through TSA security would. I didn’t want TSA to take it away.

When we arrived in Honolulu, we were quickly through immigration with our USA passports. Then at customs they didn’t even stop anyone or ask any questions – we were waved straight through! That’s when I realized I could have bought duty-free and then packed it in my suitcase in Honolulu before I checked in for the next leg of the journey home.

We checked our bags then took an Uber into Waikiki. We had a few hours of layover time. Many of us think of Hawaii and Waikiki as paradise. This time I didn’t. It seemed crass and dirty compared to places we had just visited. Even the beach was less inviting.

Walking down Kalakaua Avenue we saw a couple of presumably homeless drug addicts picking through trash cans right in front of us. We needed to find a restroom and couldn’t find a public toilet. We eventually went into a Macy’s store where you had to have a key code from a store clerk to enter the restrooms.

I hate to say it, but we went from a polite and very civilized society to something that was far less.

We had backtracked across the International Date Line, so although we left Japan at around 8pm Thursday evening, we arrived in Phoenix at 11pm Thursday night! Jet lagged, but home again.

Donna’s loot – gifts she brought back from Japan

When Donna is asked what she liked best about Japan her answer is “The people!”

She also told me she could live in Kanazawa. We thought it was a once in a lifetime trip for us, but we’re scheming out ways to go back again.

Japan – Part Four Kanazawa Continued

Kanazawa was probably my favorite place to visit in Japan. Although they list a population of more than 400,000, it’s relatively compact. The cities in Japan are generally densely populated and Kanazawa doesn’t sprawl. The best way for us to get around in Kanazawa was either by bus or walking.

Saturday morning, October 5th, we took a bus to Kanazawa Castle. Google said we could walk there in about 30 minutes, but we knew that once we were there we’d have plenty of walking ahead of us. There are a few different bus lines operating in Kanazawa. The JR (Japan Rail) West line is the only one that accepted our Suica cards. This worked out fine for us as it had a stop near the Hotel Torifito on the busy Kanazawa Ekidori Avenue. This bus made a stop within a few blocks of the entrance to the castle grounds.

The castle dates back to the 16th century although it burned down and had to be rebuilt a few times. Currently there is renovation work in some areas and some paths were closed due to damage from the Noto Peninsula Earthquake earlier this year. Admission to the grounds is free although some buildings have fees to enter.

We found one of the gates to enter from Ohori Dori Avenue and crossed a pedestrian bridge over the outer moat.

The grounds from this entrance resembled a large park – lots of grass with people lounging around.

It was a bit of a hike to reach another moat before following the walkway into the castle courtyards.

We wandered through the grounds, unguided. Once again I was awestruck by the woodwork – the scale and the carpentry skill was unbelievable.

One of many large entrances with huge doors

The woodworkers skill is something to behold – huge armored door behind me

Much of the walkway had bamboo fencing. The bamboo was tied together, no nails or screws!

After a while we found ourselves at an entrance to the Kenroku-en Garden – a garden park first established during the Edo Period (1603-1868). There is a small fee to enter the garden grounds – it’s worth it. Rather than trying to describe it, I’ll post a few photos.

Natural landscape at the garden entrance

View of the city from a high point in the garden

We retraced our steps and skipped the bus. We followed signs directing us toward Omicho Market. This is a large indoor market with stalls selling seafood and fresh produce along with food stands. I found it much more interesting than the Tsukiji market in Tokyo or the malls in Kyoto. I think I like it because we were able to check out each stall without fighting our way through crowds of people.

We also saw the merchants prepping fresh fish brought in the from the port a few miles away. Most of the shoppers appeared to be local Japanese buying fresh food to prepare at home. There were far fewer foreigners than in Kyoto or Tokyo.

Shoppers at a seafood stall in Omicho Market

Fresh fish processed right in the stall for presentation and sale

Styrofoam boxes of fish brought in from the port

We grabbed a quick lunch at a counter – some kind of skewers is all I can remember about it now. We realized weren’t very far away from Hotel Torifito and we walked back to take a mid-day break.

After resting for a bit, I started looking online for a happy hour place and dinner. I was having some trouble, there were izakaya in the area but nothing seemed to appeal to me. I was looking out the window of our fourth floor hotel room when I noticed a couple of people on the rooftop area of a building kitty-corner to our hotel. I asked Donna to take a look and see what she thought. She echoed my thoughts – it looked like a rooftop bar.

We walked over there and found a four story building with a different restaurant on each floor including the one with rooftop seating. We went up there and sat outdoors for a drink. Looking at their menu, we went for an appetizer. This soon turned into a tapas-type dinner for us as we added a few other plates to our order. We had an enjoyable evening – the two businessmen that we had spied on the rooftop left shortly after we arrived and we had the place mostly to ourselves.

One the things I was hoping to find in Japan was old Japanese barber straight razors. I have a modest collection of straight razors and I shave with them. I like the history behind some of the razors which were once found in almost every household. There’s a small cadre of straight razor enthusiasts today and I enjoy the ritual of face lathering with a bowl and brush and shaving the old fashioned way.

Unfortunately, our timing didn’t coincide with the flea markets I’d heard were a good place to look for razors. Sunday morning we took a bus to go shopping at a couple of antique shops that were open. When we walked to the bus stop across Kanazawa Ekidori Avenue, the JR Line bus was just leaving. We missed it. As near as I could decipher from the schedule placard, it looked like it would be 20 minutes until another JR Line bus would arrive. By the time I figured that out, another bus heading in the same direction we wanted to go came.

I told Donna we should get on. Once the bus starting moving, I realized the Suica cards wouldn’t be accepted on this bus line. I had a moment of panic when I remembered reading that you need correct change for city buses. When we got to what I thought was the Hashibacho district I had observed other people paying with paper money and receiving change from the machine when they got off of the bus. Whew! End of panic. I paid after a little confusion when I put in a 10,000 yen bill thinking I had used a 1,000 yen bill. That made for a lot of change coins.

We found a couple of antique shops but I didn’t find any razors. In one shop I tried to convey to the proprietor what I was searching for. I made a scraping motion across my face with my finger and said “Razor?” He just gave me a puzzled look. Then I used the Japanese word kamisori. Uncharacteristically, he laughed and said “Convenience store.” So much for finding an old Japanese razor on this trip.

A funny thing happened after the first few days in Japan. Many Japanese words and phrases were familiar to me. Donna noticed that I understood much of what was spoken and I often used a Japanese phrase to answer someone. I can’t explain it, just hearing many words and phrases I learned from my mom when I was kid came back to me. I used words and phrases I hadn’t spoken out loud in 50 years. Odd. Donna even started to greet people in proper Japanese.

When we gave up on the antique shops, Donna said she saw Geisha at the previous bus stop a few blocks away. We decided to walk in that direction. I wasn’t exactly sure of where we were. I used Google maps on my phone and figured out where we were and it wasn’t that long of a walk to cross the Asano River to the Higashi Chaya district. This area had traditional tea houses where Geisha perform and also has some tourist attractions.

There’s the old Geisha House Shima, a heritage building. This is also the home of gold leaf artisans and there are many museums in the area. While we walking toward Higashi, I saw an interesting sight. We walked past a firehouse and I saw a fireman prepping some gear in front of a fire engine. The interesting part was the size of the firetruck. In Japan many of the streets, especially in residential areas, are very narrow or dwellings are only accessible through narrow alleys. So, the firetruck was sized to drive down these streets.

In Higashi Chaya there are authentic geisha but we also saw many of the fake geisha that I described in my last post. I think some of what we saw may have been maiko, a young geisha in training. I think the local businesses pay these young women to attract customers to the area and specific stores or restaurants.

We had lunch at a small restaurant with a few tables and chairs at the counter. Two geisha’s were at the table next to us. The place was full and by the time we left there were people waiting for a table. We wandered through the area with no real destination.

Typical restaurant/bar entrance in Kanazawa

We found an ice cream parlor that featured ice cream coated with gold leaf sprinkles.

The gold leaf is really gold! Edible gold leaf has a high purity level, it’s almost pure gold. Who knew?

We walked back to the hotel to take a break and rest. It was my birthday – October 6th marked my 68th revolution around the sun. We went for a celebratory dinner at Sushi Tora. This was a small sushi restaurant a short walk from the hotel. This sushi bar has only about eight seats. It’s run by the “oldest sushi chef in Ishikawa Prefecture.” He’s 82 years old – I didn’t get his name – and he’s been in business here all his adult life. He makes the sushi while a woman takes the orders and serves the food. I don’t know if she was his wife or daughter, I’d heard it was a family run business – she didn’t appear to be an octogenarian, but then he didn’t seem that old either.

The woman seemed to enjoy telling Donna about the various cuts of fish in the sushi. She would describe them with the Japanese words, then try to translate to English. I knew many of the names, like toro for the fatty tuna from the belly of the fish, but she also had descriptive words that were new to me.

I went for his signature ten course sushi platter while Donna opted for an eight piece plate. I was a little put off by the uni nigiri – sea urchin sushi. I’d only had uni once before in Seattle. It tasted like I was drinking from a tide pool. But I braved it and what a difference! I don’t know if it was the freshness of the urchin or the preparation but it was very tasty. I wonder if I can get uni this good anywhere in the states.

Ten course sushi platter – uni nigiri wrapped with nori in the second row, second piece from the right

The meal was outstanding served with a bottle of Kirin beer.

After dinner we walked back to the rooftop bar for a nightcap. We were welcomed back by the staff – we were the only customers there. There was the same male bartender from our previous visit and he appeared to be in charge of two young women servers. The women seemed to be shy at first but they wanted to work on their English language skills and we were soon engaged in conversation.

They asked us where we were from. Then they showed us a world map on the wall with pins in it depicting the many places visitors had come from. They placed a pin in the Phoenix area for us.

I asked for one of my favorite Japanese whiskys – Hakushu – and they gave me a full adult dose. Most Japanese bars are somewhat stingy in their pours. Not this one. Two drinks and I was at my limit. We had a fun time talking with them but after a while we realized they were only staying open because we were there. It was Sunday night after all and no one else came in. So we said good bye and they insisted on a selfie before we left.

Pie faced with the staff at the rooftop bar

Thus ended my birthday evening out.

It seems like I’m missing a day with this narrative, but after more than a month, much of the time is a blur and I didn’t take any notes. This is just my recollection of how the trip went.

I had booked seats for us to take the Shinkansen back to Tokyo. At one point on Sunday, we walked over to the Kanazawa Station – again booking seats alone didn’t get you to the platform. You must have a paper ticket to feed into the machine to access the boarding area. We went to the station to get our paper tickets in advance to avoid any possible delays when we departed.

It turned out to be a good idea. The JR West ticket counter was crowded. You had to take a number and wait. I was number 136 and I think they were on 103 or something. One person waiting told us they waited for nearly an hour! I noticed a small line outside of the office with people getting ticktes from a machine. I got in line and observed what was going on. I had an open machine in front of me in no time. I was a little puzzled by the instructions for using the machine, but a JR security woman came over and walked me through the process. Voila! We had our tickets. Donna gave our number 136 to someone else with higher number in line.

We were heading back to Tokyo on Monday. While we were at the station, I reloaded our Suica cards anticipating the charge we would incur taking the train to Narita Airport when we left Tokyo in a few days. Then we bought Bento box lunches for the train ride. It’s about a two and a half hour train ride over the mountains near Nagano back to Tokyo.

Donna’s Bento box lunch with chopsticks under a bow

I’ll close the loop with our final days in Tokyo in my next post.

Japan Part Three – Kanazawa

The last post ended with us needing to plan our next stop. We were scheduled to leave Kyoto the next day and hadn’t finalized our plan. Before I get to the plan, I have to step back to the Not Suspicious Bar in Asakusa, Tokyo.

When we were there, we took seats at the bar. There was an empty seat to the right of me, then a group of four Australians occupying the rest of that end of the bar. A young man took the seat between me and the Australians. It turned out he was an American from Florida and taking an impromptu 3-week holiday in Japan. I assumed he was military as he said he had some time off and jumped on a flight to Tokyo.

We made some small talk and he also engaged in conversation with the Australians. One of the Australian women was very talkative and gave the guy next to me advice about where to go and what to see. Donna overheard much of the conversation as I talked to the bartender and didn’t pay as much attention.

After the Australians left, the bartender told us the talkative women had been coming to Japan for a few months per year for about 16 years! She was an avid skier and had a home near Kanazawa. Donna made note of this.

While we were planning our next move, I had an ulterior motive. I wanted to head northwest to the west coast of Japan. I wanted to make a visit to the Takefu Knife Village outside of Echizen and then go to Sanjo near Niigata – another knife making area.

Donna checked on hotels in Echizen and didn’t find much that we would want to stay in. Echizen is fairly small and mostly agricultural although there are electronics and apparel factories. Donna brought up Kanazawa and recalled the Australian woman being very enthusiastic about telling the guy at the bar all of the things to see there and how it wasn’t as crowded and also slower paced than Tokyo or Kyoto.

The Shinkansen train to Kanazawa stopped at Tsurugu Station where we could transfer to an Express train to Echizen. The thought was we could make Takefu Knife Village a midday stop, then continue on to Kanazawa. I checked train schedules and we found a way to make it happen, by continuing on Shinkansen from Echizen to Kanazawa. We decided to take some time to get to know Kanazawa and bag the excursion to Niigata. It was too much to try and Kanazawa seemed like the right thing to do. We would stay there until we went back to Tokyo.

The story behind Takefu Knife VIllage could fill several posts, but in a nutshell it comes down to this. In the 1980s, the Japanese knife industry was facing a crisis. Sales were down and artisans crafting the knives were aging. Fewer young people were interested in apprenticing in the small villages and shops to learn to become master bladesmiths.

A group of Echizen knife makers got together, informally at first, and discussed solutions for the future of their craft. Eventually, 10 makers formed a cooperative and created the Echizen Knife Village. This is a shared workplace offering clean, fully equipped facilities with master bladesmiths willing to take on young apprentices and teach them the craft. This worked – it attracted a number of young people interested in creating traditional Japanese knives. Many of them came up in the 1990s and 2000s and have established their own businesses and worldwide clientele. I have a knife from a Takefu graduate, Yoshimi Kato. I bought it several years ago and today his knives are commanding premium prices.

Donna booked a hotel in Kanazawa, I bought train tickets and we were all set. This is how I like to vacation – a set beginning and end point with spontaneous destinations in between. I like the flexibility rather than a rigid schedule and I like hearing first hand from people with local knowledge about places I might not have otherwise considered.

On Thursday, October 3rd, we made the trek to Kanazawa Station. We had a better idea of the layout, but it was just as large and confusing as the last time we were here. I found the Shinkansen JR ticket office. Although I had bought my tickets and reserved seats online, I still had to check in and get paper tickets to get us through to the correct platform.

We gave ourselves plenty of time and shopped for Bento box lunches to take on the train.

The platform was nearly empty when we arrived. I had a little confusion over where we should wait to board the train. A monk I assumed was a Buddist showed me where we should wait to get on our car.

The monk walking away from me directed us to wait here for the train

The platform filled with people just before the train arrived and the monk had steered us right – our car stopped right in front of us.

When we reached Echizen Station, we found a modern and very clean facility – of course. I don’t know what I really expected, but I figured Echizen was more of an outpost. I guess it was – we were the only people to depart the train there. We deposited our luggage in lockers. Like just about everything else in Japan, it’s automated. You choose a locker, put your stuff inside, then pay through a machine. The machine spits out a ticket with a bar code that will open the locker when you use the code reader on your return.

It was raining lightly as we left the station to find a taxi to Takefu. It wasn’t hard to find, but the thing is, you don’t pay the driver cash. You need to go to the information booth and buy a taxi ticket. I bought a round trip at a cost of about $5 each way and off we went. The knife village is outside of town and we drove through farm land for about ten minutes and were dropped off at the entrance.

We went into the retail shop and reception area where we were greeted by a couple of clerks. We were told where to start the tour and it was free. It was interesting for me, but I already knew the knife making process and what we were seeing. Probably less interesting for Donna, but she had a great time shopping for kitchen accessories in their retail space.

We worked our way through the viewing areas, then found another small shop with another viewing space behind the retail store. A guy walked past me, turned and looked me straight in the eye and entered the shop. As he walked to the back of the shop, I realized he was Yu Kurosaki, a young and already well-known knife maker. There were only a couple of workers in the shop as it was lunchtime, but then I noticed their shirts had Kurosaki Knifeworks logos. Yu and his brother Makoto came up through the Takefu apprentice program and now own their own businesses.

After the short tour and Donna’s shopping adventure, we took a taxi back to the station. It turned out that Donna’s plan to make Takefu a stopover on the way to Kanazawa was a good call. I didn’t need more than a couple of hours to take it all in.

I know I’ve already talked a bit about the toilets in Japan – even public toilets are mostly elaborate. Donna snapped an instructional toilet placard in the train station restroom.

Kanazawa Station is fairly large, but not on the scale of Kyoto or Tokyo Station. We found the main entrance/exit easily enough. We had reservations at the Hotel Torifito Kanazawa a few blocks away from the station.

This hotel lobby was similar to what we would expect in America. A few clerks at a check-in counter with a roped off area for patrons to line up. It had a small restaurant attached to the lobby and two elevators. There was also a small business center with additional seating for any time you wanted to hang out in the hotel lobby.

Our room was on the fourth floor and a little larger than I expected. It was late afternoon by then. To be honest, I don’t recall what we did for dinner, I was tired from the day’s travel.

The following morning we found Family Mart a couple of blocks down the street from the hotel. This Family Mart had a seating area, the usual coffee machines and cold breakfast selections. The freshly made sandwiches and noodle dishes are intended for breakfast or for lunch. They also had packaged fruits – I may have already described the packaged fruit, but I have to say I’ve never found anything like them here in the US. It’s not packed in syrup – high fructose or whatever. Instead it has a light but tasty, natural juice and I really liked it.

We walked and explored the area near our hotel. Right across the street from the hotel was a small playground and Shinto Shrine. On a few occasions we saw parents bring young kids to the playground and use the swingset. We often saw people walking on the street stop and bow and presumably say a quick prayer at the shrine.

There was another Shinto Shrine a few blocks away at the intersection of Kanazawa Echidori Avenue – a major thoroughfare that we would become well-acquainted with. We learned that there was an alternative way to get across the busy avenue. Instead of waiting for the traffic light at a crosswalk, we could go down to an underground passageway. Some of these passages just got you across the street, others were more elaborate and you could enter department stores from below.

We stopped somewhere during our wandering and had lunch at a noodle place.

Donna’s ramen dish with marinated egg and pork

We found a bar later called Harry’s Place. It turned out to be a whiskey bar, one with the largest selection of whiskeys from around the world I’ve ever seen. I had to sample a couple of Japanese whiskys. The bartender was very knowledgeable and asked me about the taste profile I preferred, then made suggestions. After I ordered the first sample, he brought me a book that had descriptions and general information of many of the Japanese distilleries and their offerings. We left after I tried two. Donna isn’t a whisky drinker and that’s all they have there.

I wrote this post later than I expected to. The reason was due to processing of the photos. I take photos from my phone or Donna’s and resize them, compress the jpg image to reduce the file size (it loads faster for you) and sharpen them and/or correct color balance when needed. I usually do this with a quick work process through Photoshop Elements. I don’t have or need the full Photoshop suite – it’s too expensive and I just do a quick clean-up anyway.

Well, my computer started crashing while I was processing photos. At first I thought my laptop was going down. Then it occurred to me that the only time I had issues was when I used Photoshop Elements. So I processed the photos for this post with Gimp. This program is a little more cumbersome and time-consuming, but I learned some shortcuts while doing these images. And had no computer crashes. So I think my theory was correct – Photoshop Elements has a corrupted file and I need to stop using it.

With that in mind, I’ll end this post here, but there’s more to say about Kanazawa soon.

Japan Part Two – Kyoto

I closed my last post with a short mention of the train to Kyoto. I should elaborate on that. From the Hotel Wing International, we made the short walk to the Asakusa Station entrance 2 elevator, which we had discovered after we checked in at the hotel. This was a great find as we avoided having to navigate a lot of staircases with luggage.

We found the Ginza line and an Express train bound for Tokyo Station. I should mention something we learned about Japanese culture and public transportation – actually it pertains to public spaces in general. The Japanese people are very respectful of shared spaces. This is most obvious on trains and buses. No one talks loudly as that would be disrespectful to others – they may be reading or napping. No one talks on their cell phones on trains or buses although 90% of the people are staring into their phones as they read or text or maybe play a silent video game. This stems from the principle of “not causing inconvenience to others” (迷惑をかけない), an important value in Japanese society.

The Ginza Line took us to a section of Tokyo Station – I think it was the west side. Tokyo Station is a huge transit center, the largest and busiest in Japan. More than 4,000 trains arrive and depart daily and more than 500,000 people on average pass through every day.

With all of the train activity, it’s amazing how well it all functions. Trains generally arrive and depart on time. I saw sign boards in the various stations with a message “Arriving late'” when a train was a minute behind schedule! When we got off the train, we followed the flow of people until we entered a concourse area. As I said, the station is huge and daunting. The underground station is covered by a couple of districts overhead. The connecting tunnels include entrances to shopping malls and hotels as well as other train facilities.

We went up to the street level so I could get oriented with the GPS in my phone. We had to go to the Shinkansen station for the train to Kyoto, which was on the east side, about a half-mile from where we were. We stayed above ground and walked through the Ginza business district and followed sparse signage to the Shinkansen station.

Shinkansen translates as “Bullet train.” The Japan Rail website stated the Shinkansen would reach speeds of 177 mph. Sounds pretty impressive. The Green car was very comfortable, surprisingly quiet and smooth. Through the city, the speed was subdued. Once we left the city, the acceleration was barely perceptible. As we sped through the countryside, the speed was deceptive. Looking out of the window, most objects were far enough away to diminish the sensation of speed.

When we went through tunnels, the speed became obvious. The tunnels had lights at a certain interval. I can’t say how far apart they were because they became a blur making it look like a continuous beam of light, like a long flourescent tube. Occasionally we would pass an oncoming Shinkansen and the closing speed of well over 300 mph made the train go by in a flash and it was one of the few times we sensed speed and also exterior noise.

The train took us through Hamamatsu and Nagoya along with a number of smaller towns. The nearly 300-mile distance took a little over two hours.

Kyoto Station is another huge transit center. The underground passageways include numerous restaurants, a shopping mall and department store and a movie theater. Above it is a 15-story building with more shopping and government offices. We had to figure out where we were in relation to our destination hotel – the Irori Kyoto Station Higashi-Honganji.

We walked and looked for signs. I found signs directing us to a bus station – I figured that would be above ground and I could use my phone again to see where we were. Once I did that, I found we were on the south side of the station and we wanted to exit the north side. We went back through the station and discovered more stores and restaurants before we finally found the north exit. This is the Porta underground mall at Kyoto Station.

From there we walked to the hotel – about half a mile away. This took us through an area of Kyoto with high-end hotels, shopping and restaurants. We found the Irori and checked in. It was mostly an automated process – they had e-mailed me entry codes for the lobby and a key code for our room. This room was a little larger than the Wing International room in Tokyo. In fact, it had a kitchenette, small table and chairs and even a washing machine.

Once again, we were tired from travel but didn’t rest much. We cleaned up and headed out. We went back to the Porta area on foot again.

We went on to find dinner. We found a nice looking restaurant, I wish I could remember the name of it. It was sort of a teppenyaki type place. We were led to a private box-like room with tatami seating with a foot well under the table. The table had a hot plate built into the center. By the way, we had to remove our shoes and leave them in a locker at the entry area. We were seated and given menus, then the door was slid shut and we were alone in paper-walled private box.

The menu seemed a little confusing to me. We ordered a la carte. The food was delivered through a small window-like section that slid open and the server handed our plates through it.

A built-in hot plate for sharing and keeping meals warm

The menu started to make more sense to us as we figured out that we were to share food as we wished and the food would stay hot. I had a Highball with the meal – Highballs are standard fare in Japanese restaurants and izakaya. An izakaya is a bar/restaurant – the Japanese kanji for the name literally means stay-drink-place.

I thought this meal would be on the expensive side, but I was surprised to find it was under 6,000 yen – under $40 total. As we walked around the Porta, Donna found a something she had heard we might find – a beer vending machine.

Back at the hotel I thumbed through a sightseeing magazine. I saw an entry for the Toji Temple Flea Market on Tuesday. The Toji Temple Flea Market was something I wanted to do. I immediately looked up how to get there and found a bus route that would get us close.

After breakfast the following morning, we walked to the bus stop a few blocks away from the Irori. Our Suica cards worked for bus fare in Kyoto and we found the right bus stop after about a twenty minute ride. We walked a few blocks and found the entry gate to the Toji Temple.

Inside we found a large courtyard and several buildings. There was a gift shop with people in it, but otherwise the place seemed fairly empty. We went to the gift shop and I found a guy that worked there and asked about the flea market. He shook his head “no,” and showed me a calendar. The flea market was last Tuesday, September 24th. This was October 1st. Bummer.

We walked around and looked at a few of the buildings. There was an entry to a garden and the Toji Temple pagoda. There was an entry fee, but I was so dejected about missing the flea market that I wasn’t interested enough to pay to enter. I regret that.

The pagoda is the tallest in Japan at 187 feet. It’s an Iconic image. We walked through the grounds and found a different exit. It was near lunch time by then, so we walked through the neighborhood and found a small restaurant with about eight tables. I ordered sushi and Donna opted for ramen. The food was delicious and the place was full of local Japanese people by the time we left and people were waiting for a table. We were the only gaijin (foreigners) there.

We rested for a little while back at the Irori then went shopping back at the area we had walked through from the train station. Did I mention how much my feet were hurting? We went into a shopping mall and we found a modern shoe store. My feet were killing me. For an American, finding shoes in Japan can be troublesome. They typically don’t carry sizes larger than about 10. I got lucky and found some Nike shoes in size 12. My feet used to be 10.5, then they became 11-11.5 and now 12! My theory is that as we age, some of us end up with weaker arches and flattened feet that require larger shoes for comfort. These shoes were among the most expensive in the store, but I didn’t care. I couldn’t keep walking in the shoes I brought.

When we returned home, I found a hole in my theory. The tag in the Nike shoes I bought in Japan says “US 12, UK 9.5, Eur 44.5.” The tags in my US sourced Wilson tennis shoes and Babolat tennis shoes, which both fit me comfortably say “US 11, UK 10.5, Eur 45.5.” So, apparently in Japan Nike uses a strange shoe size chart.

We walked back to the hotel – me in my new comfy Nikes. We saw a small brewery near the hotel and went for a cold one. We were a little early, they were set to open about ten minutes after we got there. The young lady inside let us in though and served us beer. Such hospitality! Donna had a porter float and I had a golden ale. The beer was good.

The bus stops we used were outside of a large walled property. This was the Higashi-Hogan-Ji Temple, a large Buddist temple. We went there to have a look around. This is an old site, but the temple had to be rebuilt several times over the centuries after fires destroyed it. The last rebuild started in 1879 and was finished in 1895.

It’s a very large wooden structure built with traditional Japanese carpentry which doesn’t include nails or adhesives. The wood structure is built with tight jointed pieces precisely cut and fitted together. To get a sense of scale, look at the people standing in front of the steps.

Before you can enter the temple, you must remove your shoes. They had plastic bags to carry your shoes if you wanted to take them with you. They also had recycling bins for the bags. We entered and found most of the flooring was traditional tatami matting.

The posts in the picture above are turned from a single log! I wish I had Donna in the picture to give a sense of scale – these posts were about two and half feet in diameter and about 20 feet tall. They are found throughout the building.

The logs were cut from forests in the mountains near Kanazawa – about 130 miles away. To transport the logs, sleds were made to pull the logs over the snowy mountain passes and down to Kyoto. Whole families made this trek, pulling the sleds with ropes. A disaster occurred when an avalanche killed several people including women and children on a mountain pass.

We had the privilege of observing a ceremony in the temple. That’s one of the things that struck about the shrines and temples in Japan – they aren’t just tourist attractions; they are used in the daily lives of Japanese people.

From the temple we walked to the bus stop a few blocks away and caught a bus to Gion – the Kyoto geisha district. Geisha are misunderstood by many tourists. Although geishas are sometimes hired as escorts, they are not in the sex trade. They are generally well-educated and are entertainers. They are mostly hired as hostesses for parties, banquets and corporate events. Some will sing and dance, others play musical instruments and some are escorts that are well-versed in literature or poetry and have conversational skills. To become a geisha takes years of study and training. There’s a sort of apprenticeship where a maiko learns the skills required of a geisha.

We saw geisha and psuedo-geishas in the Gion District. I think some of the businesses in the area pay to have geishas attract people to their stores and restaurants here. You also see people that rent geisha costumes – something that Donna and I found hard to understand. When you see a blond-haired, blue-eyed girl made up as a geisha, you have to wonder who she thinks she is fooling. On the other hand, some people rent geisha costume packages that include a photographer so they can bring home souvenir pictures of themselves in traditional clothing.

Geisha costume rentals usually include hairstyling and all clothing except underwear and cost from $35 to hundreds of dollars depending on what the renter chooses.

We had dinner at a restaurant that featured wagyu beef. The name wagyu is derived from the Japanese word Wa, which means Japanese and gyu, which means cow. This meat comes from pampered cows and has a high intramuscular fat content. It’s considered a delicacy by many. We were seated at a table that had a hot plate on a bowl in the center heated by a flame. I’m not sure of what the source of flame was, I saw the server light something under the iron plate and it heated up quickly.

The meat was cooked rare and sliced into half-inch thick pieces. We seared our meat on the hot plate and dipped it sauces. It was very rich and honestly not really my cup of tea.

The Gion District is over-run with tourists. There were more gaijin than locals. It was like walking in Disneyland. This has created some problems. Local people are tired of rude visitors that don’t respect Japanese customs. Some geishas felt threatened by foreigners stalking them for photos or touching them as they walk from their housing area to work. Parts of the Gion District are now off-limits to foreigners. We saw police at some intersections to narrow streets or alleys leading into neighborhoods. They stopped and questioned people, presumably to determine if they had good reason to enter a neighborhood.

I quickly grew tired of the crowds in Gion and parts of Kyoto in general. We rode a bus back to the area of the Irori Hotel, did some more walking and called it a day. We needed to plan our next stop on this adventure and figure out what we were going to do. That’s fodder for another post as this is too long already.

Japan Part One – Tokyo

In the early morning of Thursday, September 26th, our friend and neighbor Tom, volunteered to pick us up at 4:30am and drive us to Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport. We were starting our journey to Japan.

Our flight was on Hawaiian Airlines with a connection in Honolulu. Due to the long flight time, we opted to step-up to First Class/Business Class for the flights. Our flight wasn’t scheduled to depart until 8:15am, but the airline advised checking in three hours prior to departure for international travel. I don’t know why they advise that, we breezed through check-in and security.

The flight out of Phoenix was on a Boeing 787 Dreamliner. First Class accommodations lived up to that name. We had roomy, comfortable seating areas with privacy and fold flat seating. We were treated to a celebratory cocktail – a Mai Tai – before take-off.

With the time zone change, the six-hour flight had us landing in Honolulu at 11:35am – although it felt later to us. Our departure from Honolulu was scheduled for 12:40pm. This time we flew on an older Airbus 330. It wasn’t as fancy as the 787, but we had ample room and seats that reclined to a flat position if desired.

By the time we reached Japan, we had crossed 16 time zones. After crossing the International Date Line, we arrived at 4pm on Friday, September 27th, Tokyo time. We were tired and in for a culture shock. Narita airport is large, we were directed to the luggage retrieval, then the immigration and customs area and went through the process fairly quickly. They were very efficient. The immigration procedure included an electronic fingerprint and facial recognition screening.

The next order of business was finding the Japan Wireless kiosk. We had pre-arranged pick up of a mobile personal wireless hotspot, which I carried in a small backpack throughout our visit – this allowed our phones to access the Internet. This wasn’t as easy as it sounds. Some of the signs included English verbiage, but not all. When the signs are written with kanji characters, it becomes almost impossible to decipher their meaning. Luckily, there were numerous information desks with English-speaking attendants.

Next, we had to find the correct train station and platform to take us to the Asakusa. District in Tokyo. That’s where we had hotel reservations at the Wing International Hotel. Between the two of us, we figured it out and I quickly learned how to identify which trains were “Local” “Rapid” “Express” or “Limited.” If you make the wrong choice, it might not stop at the station you desire, even though it goes through it. To be safe and make sure we would stop in Asakusa, we boarded a crowded “Local” train. Local trains make every stop on the route and take longer to get to some stations, but I wanted to be sure we would stop where we wanted to get off.

By the time we got off the train at Asakusa Station, we were pretty exhausted and had to drag our luggage through the station. We bought new four-wheeled suitcases for the trip and they were great, except for when we had to climb stairs!

I should try to describe the train stations, Most were underground and some of them were huge. Asakusa station had several exits. Without knowing exactly where the exits were in relation to our hotel, it was just guesswork for us. I couldn’t access Google maps while we were underground. The underground station is covered by several blocks of the city above. We were a couple of floors below the surface and climbed four flights stairs to get out of it. Once we were on the street, I used Google maps to get directions. We chose the wrong exit and had a little hike ahead.

We would quickly become used to walking and consulting Google maps. It was raining lightly and I was soaked by the time we checked in. Our room was on the 8th floor with a view of the Sumida River right behind the hotel.

We could see several bridges, the Asahi Brewing Headquarters across the river (the yellow building that was built to resemble a glass of draft beer!) and the Tokyo Sky Tree Tower. The room itself was small. We set up our stuff as best as we could and were ready to sack out. It was about 8pm.

We were up early the next morning and opted to go for a convenience store breakfast – Donna had read about it and they were supposed to be good. Not much else was open anyway. We found a 7-11 a couple of blocks away from the hotel. 7-11, Family Mart and few other small convenience stores (konbini) were easy to find – they’re everywhere. What we didn’t find is a traditional American breakfast, but what we found was very good. They had freshly made sandwiches with ham and egg salad filling and the crusts cut off. The coffee machines were excellent – you buy the cup at the counter, then go to the machine. After opening the little door on the machine and placing your cup, you make your selection. The machine locks the door, grinds beans, then brews the coffee. After it’s done, it beeps and unlocks the door. Fresh, hot coffee! The machine then locks again and goes through a cleaning cycle to be ready for the next use.

Donna also found cups of frozen fruits or vegetables that were marked “Smoothie.” They had a machine for these as well.

We quickly adapted to this type of breakfast and used convenience stores for 90% of our breakfasts. Donna was embracing the culture and soon started buying onigiri (rice balls) for mid-morning snacks. We became more adventuresome with our breakfast selections over the next couple of weeks.

We took a walk down the River Walk behind our hotel and started to get the lay of the land.

We saw many others walking or jogging down the path which goes for miles on both sides of the river.

Boat on the river with the Asahi building and Sky Tree Tower

One of the things I wanted to do while we were in Tokyo was to visit Teruyasu Fujiwara’s knife shop. TF, as he is known is a famous sword and kitchen knife maker. I have six of his kitchen knives. His shop is located in the Meguro neighborhood, southwest of our location on the other side of the city center. Some map study and train routes were committed to memory and we set off.

The first thing we found was an elevator into the Asakusa Station a few doors down from our hotel! I should mention something else we got at the airport – a Suica card. Actually two of them. They are a type of prepaid credit card that can be used to board trains and some buses. I put 5,000 yen (about $35) on each card so we could enter the train platforms independently of each other. You tap the card reader when you enter, then tap it again when you exit at your destination. The fare is calculated for the length of travel and deducted from the Suica card balance. Pretty convenient.

We took a train to Meguro and once again followed the Google map to TF’s shop. It was a bit of a walk, but that’s just how it is in Japan. Public transportation and walking are the norm. Along the way we traversed a few neighborhoods and got a good sense of how people live here.

Interesting pruning of this tree – new growth was starting

Shoes and umbrellas at an apartment building entrance

We found the shop and I browsed a bit and had a pleasant conversation with the guy there. I’m sorry I didn’t catch his name. He was TF’s knife sharpener. I saw his Japanese natural whetstones and asked if they had any for sale. He told me he gets his stones from Morihei. Before I tell the next part, I have to explain this. As native English speaking Americans, we tend to sound out Japanese words and names phonetically. So, Asakusa becomes Ah-sah-koo-sah. This is not how a Japanese speaker would pronounce it. They tend to slur multi-syllable words and kind of squish the second or third syllable. So, Asakusa becomes Ah-sock-sah.

Back to the TF story. He told me about Morihei, then looked at us and said slowly “do you know where Ah-sah-koo-sah is?” Donna replied, “Yes! Our hotel is in Ah-sock-sah.” I was proud of her for using the correct pronounciation. He then said we were very close to Morihei, their shop is in Asakusabashi – two train stops from our hotel – he didn’t speak slowly or use American pronounciation this time.

Before we left, he gifted us with two Japanese head scarves and told me he was TF’s son!

Finding Morihei’s shop was next on my agenda. We walked back to Meguro Station and retraced our route back to the hotel. My feet were swelling and hurting by this point – we had 10,000 steps before lunch time. I mapped out the route to Morihei, but they were closed on the weekend.

So we mapped out a route to Tsukiji Market. This is a large, mostly open air seafood market near the mouth of the Sumida River. It covered several blocks and was very crowded. We walked the market, taking in the sights. Donna had to snap a shot at one of the stalls selling crabs – it showed the crab brains were sold out. Who knew crab brains were a popular item?

We had a wonderful lunch of sushi at a restaurant and later bought a couple of Asahi beers for $3 each. We just missed seeing a demo of a guy butchering a large tuna. Donna snapped a photo of the results of his work. Not much is wasted.

After we returned from Tsukiji we went back to the shopping/dining area of Asakusa.

We stopped for dinner at a small ramen place – it seated about 12 people at the counter. A woman sitting next to me helped me out with ordering. The food was delicious. We noticed two things there – Japanese men can practically inhale noodles. In the time we took to eat our meals, the seat next to Donna had two different men come in, sit there and finish their meal before we were ready to go! By the way, slurping your noodles is perfectly acceptable in Japan. It’s not bad manners, it tells the cook you enjoy the noodles.

The other thing was those guys got up a left quickly and didn’t seem to pay. I wondered if they had a tab or something. Then we found out what the deal was. There’s a machine at the doorway. You make selections off the menu at the machine like it was a jukebox. You put money in the machine to pay and take your seat. The order is transmitted to the kitchen, you get your food and you leave. By the way, there’s no tipping in Japan. You pay the listed price and that’s it. It’s considered rude and insulting to leave a tip.

Line of people waiting to enter a ramen shop

The next morning we did some touristy things. First we walked to the Senso-Ji Torii Gate and then on to the Buddist Temple. The grounds and the woodwork were amazing.

Donna inside the gate at Senso-Ji Temple

From the temple we set out to walk to Kappabashi. This is a section of Asakusa that has several stores with kitchen supplies. On the way out of the temple grounds, Donna found an interesting drink. Vending machines are ubiquitous in Japanse cities. They usually have bottled water, fruit drinks, cold coffee drinks and whatnot. This one had someting called Tomanade. It was a blend of tomato juice and lemonade. Drinks cost less than a dollar at most vending machines – 120 to 150 yen.

Donna had to try it and it was good!

It was Sunday so some of the markets in Kappabashi were closed and others opened at 10 or 11am. We were a little early so we stopped and sat on a bench outside of a kitchen knife shop. The sharpeners were hard at work inside although the shop was closed.

The kanji at the bottom center of the window says “Sharpening Team”

Donna had loaded Google translate app on her phone. I had a different translate app. The Google app worked better than mine, so I ended up installing the Google app. With it you can use your smartphone camera to look at kanji and translate it to English. Very convenient. Also, Donna used it speak English words into her phone and it would display the appropriate kanji symbols. She used this in stores to ask clerks questions. Without these aids, it would’ve been much more difficult to communicate.

When I came to Japan as a kid, we didn’t have these technologies. It wasn’t a problem for us because my mom was born and raised in Japan. As a Japanese native she could translate for us and of course speak her native language and read everything.

We shopped in several Kappabashi stores. Donna wanted to find Japanese cocktail napkins to use as gifts for friends when we returned. We soon learned that paper napkins really aren’t a thing in Japan. In fact, most restaurants have tissue paper for napkins unless it’s a higher end place with cloth napkins.

Also, in Japan it really isn’t acceptable to walk down the street or sidewalk while eating or drinking. That’s probably one of the reasons the streets are so clean. Everything in Japan seems to be exceptionally clean.

She gave up on the cocktail napkins but eventually found a soap dish she wanted for our new bathroom sink. I checked a few of the knife stores for stones, but struck out.

I should probably mention the Japanese bathroom facilities. The toilet in our hotel had electronic controls. I didn’t pay much attention at first. I noticed a retractable wand inside the bowl and assumed it was a bidet for women. It also had a heated seat. When I finally checked out the control panel I saw it had English words in small print under the kanji and line drawings. One said “Front” and another said “Back”. Hmm. I gave the back button a try. I heard the wand extend then woosh – it started shooting a perfectly placed stream of water on my butt crack. No mess, no wet butt cheeks, perfect aim. I could hardly believe it.

When we were out we found these toilets everywhere – in restaurant restrooms, in public parks, in the train stations and so on. All of the restroom facilities were very clean, even in public parks.

We started a routine of going out for breakfast early in the morning, then sightseeing or shopping. After lunch we would come back to the room and rest for a bit, then head out again. Our smart phones recorded our daily steps and we usually found between 14,000 and 16,000 steps even on days that we took trains! A 10,000-step day felt like we were slacking.

Later Sunday afternoon we took a river boat tour on the Sumida river from a dock near our hotel down to Odaiba Beach in the Tokyo Bay. I had mapped out a return route on the train, but we were a bit too tired to walk to the train station. We found a return boat that would take us back near the dock we left from and bought tickets – it was the last departure of the day.

After we returned, we walked to the Asakusa shopping district to find dinner.

We found a katsu restaurant and had a great meal. Most of our meals were very inexpensive. Breakfast for two with two cups of coffee each was under $15. Lunch for two usually ran from $20 to $30 including a beer for each of us. Most dinners were in the $25 to $40 range for two, including drinks. The katsu was very good – I had the traditional Tonkatsu which is fried pork. Donna tried a variation of it that also included large green onions.

Donna’s dinner plate with cabbage, miso soup and of course rice

Rice and finely shredded cabbage are a staple that’s included with most meals.

I wanted an after dinner drink. Up to this point, the only bar we found was in the Banrai hotel and I didn’t want to go there. We wandered around until Donna said, “I think we should look down this alley.”

Halfway down the alley we found a bar called “Not Suspicious.” We found out it’s a foreigner friendly place and has a lot of social media attention – lots of people seek it out. We went in and I sampled a few different Japanese whiskys. I found that I really like Japanese Whisky (like Scotch, Japan doesn’t have an “E” in whisky).

Donna taught the bartender how to make a Holland Razor – one of her favorite cocktails.

All of the notes left taped above the bar are from foreign visitors.

I had created an account online with Japan Rail and I purchased Shinkansen (bullet train) tickets to get us to Kyoto. We were set to leave around 11:30am Monday. First, I had to make a trip to Asakusabashi to see Morihei’s shop. We took a train and arrived right as they opened at 9am. Luckily an English speaker worked there. I ended up buying two Japanese natural whetstones from the Oozuku mine. The price was hard for me to believe – it was about a quarter of what they go for in the rest of the world.

We chose to walk back to the hotel. We were already packed and planned to check out right before 11am and head to Asakusa Station. We took an Express train to Tokyo Station, which is huge. We had to find our way to the correct Shinkansen line to get us to Kyoto. We figured it out and boarded our reserved seats in the green car. The green car is sort of a first-class car on the train with roomy seating and food and drink available. We had Bento box lunches we bought at Tokyo Station. It doesn’t cost much more for the green car than standard coach reserved seats, so why not? I’ll stop this now and resume the story about Kyoto later.

View from our hotel – Tokyo Sky Tree at night

Fourth and Final Housesit

We had our fourth and final housesit of the season at the end of August. I mentioned in my last post the construction work on our home, adding a half-bathroom and laundry nook. The work started a bit late on Monday, August 26th. There was some confusion on the expectation and what the construction crew thought they were doing. Donna had met with the contractor and had a fairly long discussion going over what she had in mind and how it should lay out. Ron, the owner of Paragon Home Services, said it looked straightforward and easy.

He sent me the job quote while Donna was away in Vermont. I looked it over, but I wasn’t there when they discussed the project. I wish he would have included a drawing of the layout instead of just a written description which was a little vague in my mind.

We had a meeting with Ron and his foreman, David. Once we were on the same page, they went to work. We thought we would be heading to our housesit in Alpine, California the next morning, but that was also a case of mis-communication. We actually had to arrive on Wednesday, August 28th. This was good as it allowed us to see how the home project was shaping up. Tuesday afternoon, as they were finishing up for the day, I asked David when he thought they would be finished. He said he thought it would take “a few more days” and he would send photos to my phone.

We left Mesa around 9am on Wednesday and made the familiar drive west on I-8. We’ve done this countless times over the years in cars, motorcycles and the motorhome. We made the usual stops – Dateland for a date shake, Yuma for gasoline before we hit California gas prices and El Centro for lunch at Las Palmitas Taco Shop. It’s a pretty authentic Mexican restaurant – my phone even said “Welcome to Mexico!”

We made good time and left I-8 at Japatul Valley Road east of Alpine. It was a little too early to show up at the ranch, so we did a drive-by to find the private road to the ranch, then went into Alpine. Donna bought a new charger for her phone – she forgot her charger at home and wanted a back-up anyway.

It was a 15-20 minute drive back to the ranch from town. After we arrived and had a tour of the house, a custom built ranch home with exquisite woodwork, we went out to the barn to see how things would be done. There were 13 sheep, five Border collies and a cat to take care of. The ranch is on 10 acres of land. The set up was impressive and included an on-demand back-up LP powered generator. If the power went out or dropped below a specified voltage, the generator would automatically start and the electrical power for the entire ranch would continue nearly seamlessly.

The number of animals seemed a bit overwhelming at first, but Donna adapted quickly and the Border collies were so well behaved they took very little care. On the first night, Marcy the home owner, had dinner for us and two other guests – one is a boarder that rents a small studio apartment attached to the barn. The other fellow was a friend from Great Britain, the Isle of Man specifically. It turned out that Sean and Jim were motorcycle enthusiasts and we had a lot of interesting conversations.

I didn’t take many photos – many missed opportunities. Here are a few landscape views of various points from the ranch house.

View south west – terrain is steeper than it looks

I found a suitable spot to set up my telescope and equipment. The preferred portion of the night sky would be in the northeast. This had the fewest obstructions and pointed away from the San Diego light dome, over the sparsely populated Cuyamaca National Forest, Laguna Mountains and desert to the east. We were about 2400 feet above sea level.

The days were warmer than normal with the high temperature exceeding 90 degrees. This was still about 20 degrees cooler than home. The nights were pleasant in the upper 60s.

Friday morning we drove to San Diego, about 40 miles away. I dropped Donna off at her sister, Sheila’s house in Point Loma. I went to Shelter Island to take some photos but made a stop for a quick lunch. Once I was out of the car at Shelter Island, I didn’t find any good photo opportunities for birds and wildlife. I took too long for lunch and was pressed for time. I saw one interesting thing – an amphibious vehicle, a duck tour bus.

We saw similar tour buses in Branson, Missouri but I had never seen one in San Diego before. I saw two of them at the boat ramp on Shelter Island.

Donna helped Sheila plan on the furniture layout for Donna’s mom. She is relocating to San Diego and will live in Sheila’s vacant Point Loma home with some help from a caregiver.

With my astrophotography effort limited to a northeast target, I was at a loss to find an interesting subject given the time of year. I decided on IC 1396, a star forming gas and space dust region in the northeast sky. This is a huge target and if I had known that was going to be the target, I would have brought my William Optics GT71 for its wide field of view. But, without knowing which direction I would be pointing, I brought the AT115EDT as I thought this was my best compromise, since it’s the mid-range of my telescopes. Not ideal.

I had issues the first two nights – it’s been months since I last tried to capture a deep sky object. I figured out the problems – there were a few settings on my laptop software that needed to be corrected. This happens sometimes when the good people at Microsoft automatically apply updates and they choose default settings for me. Grrr.

I ended up shooting two-minute exposures over four nights. I used a new-to-me filter setup. First I used an Askar Colormagic Ha+OIII filter. This brings out the red hydrogen component and bluish oxygen gas. The filters don’t add anything. On the contrary, they block unwanted bands of the light spectrum. This eliminates some effects of light pollution, in essence enhancing the desired color spectrum. Then I used an Askar Colormagic SII+OIII filter, This should allow more of the greenish and bluish light through. I did two nights of imaging with each filter.

IC 1396 is such a dim target that I couldn’t see what I was capturing with a single two-minute exposure, so I was shooting blind. When we came home, I went through the images and stacked 206 of the two-minute exposures for a total integrated time of six hours and 52 minutes. I was a little disappointed in the result, but here it is.

Speaking of coming home, we were in for a surprise. David never sent me photos of the finished construction. We found out why – it wasn’t finished when we came home 10 days later.

To be fair, there was a long weekend over Labor Day included. But here’s the thing. Ron never told us he was retiring on Friday, August 30, four days after the job started. David was taking over the company. David still didn’t have the full picture of job – note the lack of ceiling in the photos above. To compound the issue, when we were back, I noted that different workers showed up to do a part of the job each day and it seemed each worker only knew his or her small part of the job. No one seemed to know what the finished product was supposed to be. This goes back to Ron only doing a written description with no floorplan. He had the whole thing in his head and he was gone.

One of the workers, Brenda, also told me that excessive heat had them knocking off by 2pm on a few days. Well, it was finally finished on Tuesday, September 10th. Everything was straightened out and we were happy with the finished product. These are quick cell phone snap shots.

I also had them install a stainless steel restaurant style sink in the shed where the old washer/dryer was. This will be my knife sharpening and razor honing station. I need to do some finish work and clean out the shed too.

All of the boxes under the sink contain various whetstones for sharpening/ honing. That reminds me of another quick story. Before we left for Alpine, we met up with our friend, Marcia, for happy hour at Fat Willy’s. While we were there, Donna had to excuse herself to take an important phone call. While she was away, Marcia asked me what I was up to lately. She knows I dabble in a number of hobbies. I reluctantly brought up straight razor shaving and razor honing. I say reluctantly because eyes usually glaze over if I start talking about this topic.

Marcia asked me if I used whetstones. This surprised me. I was more surprised when she said she threw one out that very day! What? She said she had an old one in a box, but the box was broken and she didn’t have any use for it. Then she said it was just in her kitchen trash and she could retrieve it if I was interested in it. I told her I would like to look at it. I envisioned a coarse hardware store offering in a plastic box.

The next day she brought me this.

I could see under the gunk what appeared to be a translucent Arkansas stone in a wooden box! The top of the box was broken, but she had all four pieces. I asked her what she wanted for the stone and she said I could have it – she’d thrown it out.

A little Titebond glue and a couple of clamps was all it took to repair the wooden box top. I soaked the stone in Simple Green and gave it a good scrubbing. The stone is a butterscotch translucent Arkansas stone suitable for razor honing. It appears to be at least 70 years old – the stone itself is obviously millions of years old, I ‘m talking about when it was mined, cut and marketed. Without any stamps or labels, it’s impossible to accurately date the manufacturing era of this stone, but the box style and joinery seems to indicate a Pike-Norton from 1930s or 1940s. I’m not clear on whether this stone came from Marcia’s father or her grandfather.

Now I have two translucent Arkansas stones and both are old stones that were gifted to me. Makes me a happy guy.

A week from Thursday, we’ll board Hawaiian airlines for our trip to Japan. We’re excited about it and I have no idea what to expect. It’s been nearly 60 years since I’ve set foot there – I was just a little kid. Donna has a few ideas, but we mainly want to see the countryside and visit some smaller towns and villages to get a glimpse of the culture and lifestyle of the average person. We’ll see some of the tourist spots, but for me that’s not the main attraction.

We’ll be mostly offline for our two weeks in Japan, so I’ll try to catch up on our adventure after we return.

Summer Sits

The summer is getting away from me. I haven’t been up to posting lately. No motivation. We had three housesits so far, I don’t think I mentioned the last two. One was in Prescott, only about five minutes from downtown. It was a large house in a gated community situated on a steep, rocky hillside with pine trees, overlooking a driving range near the golf course clubhouse.

I brought my AT115EDT telescope and Losmandy mount along with all of the associated equipment, only to find the terrain was too steep and sightlines were blocked by trees and the house anyway. So, that was out.

The house had two levels – the main floor and a finished walk-out basement floor. On the main floor the master bedroom and bath were on one end and a guest room and bath on the opposite end. What I found to be a little unusual was the basement floor – it was an exact replica of the guest wing – same layout and same bed and furniture, just one level below.

The owners had two dogs and one cat. It was an easy housesit. We watched Wimbledon on the tennis channel every day. And our visit coincided with the Prescott Frontier Days – an annual rodeo that’s been taking place since 1888, making it the oldest annual rodeo in the world. It was hot – the temperature was in the 90s, but we enjoyed the final day of the event.

It was a fairly uneventful housesit. I brought my terrestial camera equipment with the hopes of capturing some wildlife images, but that was a failure too. The birds seemed to stay away from the back deck – most were in trees too far away to photograph. One day a coyote trotted along the woodline on the far side of the driving range – again too far away. I managed to get a couple of shots of a hummingbird that came to the deck.

The hummingbird flew into a bush. I approached slowly and could see it well hidden inside the bush. I focused on the bird, shooting between branches. It resulted in a natural vignette, with the branches in the foreground well out of focus.

With no wildlife to point my camera toward, I focused on a flower instead. Look closely and you’ll see an ant inside the flower.

Our next housesit was a four-day sit about 10 days later. We came back to the house near Prescott Valley in an area called Williamson. We had a housesit on this rural property around the same time last year. Again, it was a large, beautiful home on acreage. Last year, I captured images of the Dumbbell Nebula and the Fireworks Galaxy from this property.

This year I was out of luck again. The weather pattern had thunderstorms forming every afternoon with gusty wind and passing showers. The skies were cloudy by late afternoon and into the night every day.

I had better luck finding things to photograph in the mornings here – namely birds and lizards.

One afternoon we took a drive over to Chino Valley, about 15 miles away. We were looking for a Thai restaurant for lunch, but when we found it, it was closed for a few weeks. There was a Mexican Restaurant nearby, but when we entered to check it out, it was more of a fast food type outfit and Donna didn’t like the vibe there.

She found another Mexican restaurant that was off the beaten path. We followed the directions from her smart phone and I was getting a little pessimistic about finding anything good as we were on the outskirts of the small town, well away from highway 89. We eventually found El Charro Norte and had a wonderful lunch there. Great food, good service. We would go back next time we’re in the area.

The weather has been hot – what else would you expect in central Arizona in the summer? We’ve been getting out of bed early to play tennis three days per week. We play from 6:30am to 8am. We usually have a group ranging from four to eight players and we enjoy it. After nine years of pickleball, I felt like my playing had reached a plateau and no longer improved. With tennis, I have a potential upside and I’m enjoying the challenge of learning the finer points of the game.

Earlier this month, Donna made a scheduled visit with her parents in Vermont. Her father was in the Vermont Veterans Home – a skilled nursing facility in Bennington. Her mom is currently in Brookdale Assisted Living, also in Bennington. Her father’s health took a turn for the worse – he was in the end stages of Parkinson’s disease and kidney failure. Unfortunately, her father, Duke Connor passed in the early morning hours of Monday, August 19th – just two days after Donna returned from Vermont. Rest in peace, Duke.

We have a lot on our plate right now. We’re having a small addition built on our house – it’ll be a laundry room and 1/2 bath. The contractor has the crew scheduled to start on Monday, August 26th. While Ron, the owner of Paragon Home Services, Inc was here to make an estimate, he found we had gray polybutylene pipes in our plumbing. This was bad news. This product has been banned since 1998. It corrodes from the inside out – the outward appearance may look fine while the pipes are about to burst.

We had Paragon immediately replace all of the gray polybutylene water supply lines in our place with Pex lines. Meanwhile I’ve purchased a new LG washer/dryer, sink, bathroom cabinet and toilet for the room addition.

Timing is everything, right? We have a housesit scheduled for the 27th through September 5th. The room addition will take about a week to complete and we’ll only be here for the first day. Donna sees this as a blessing in disguise. We trust Ron and will leave him a house key. We won’t have to be living in the house while the construction crew sets to work and tears out part of the Arizona room wall. Also, Ozark the cat will be staying with our neighbor during this time, so there’s no worry about her getting out while they’re working.

The housesit is near Alpine, California – east of San Diego, on the western side of the Laguna Mountains. It’s a 90-acre ranch with 13 sheep, five border collies and a cat. The border collies are trained to herd the sheep out of their pen and into a pasture for the day. In the evening they will herd the sheep back to the pen. It’ll be something different for us, that’s for sure.

Speaking of something different – here is dinner plate Donna made. Crawfish Scampi with cheesy grits and green beans.

When we return from California, we’ll have three weeks at home before we leave again. We have a two-week vacation in Japan coming up.

With Japan on our minds, Donna made an entree of Japanese chicken curry.

Triple digits are forcasted for the remainder of the month – nothing unusual about that. What has been unusual is this year’s monsoon season. We usually have several thunderstorms and downpours of rain at this time of year. Thunderstorms and damaging wind have occurred in the area, just not here in Mesa so much. We can see thunderheads and rainfall around us in the Superstition Mountains to the east, up near Fountain Hills to the north and the San Tan valley to the south, but we’ve only had passing showers. Alpine, California should have daily highs of 80-90 degrees and nighttime temps in the 60s. We can live with that.

Graduate

It’s summertime here – just like it is in the rest of the northern hemisphere. But, here being central Arizona, summertime has extra significance. It can get hot, very hot! We’re playing tennis three days a week from 7am to 8:30 am. Starting tomorrow we’ll move the start time a half hour earlier.

We escaped the heat for a few days when we flew up to western Washington on June 12th for our granddaughter’s high school graduation. Donna had us booked through Trusted Housesitters to housesit in Arlington only a few miles away from Kevin and Alana’s place. My other daughters, Jamie and Shauna, showed up with some of their family members as well. It was nice to have everyone together all at once.

Alana is my oldest daughter and she has two daughters, Lainey and Gabriella (Gabi). Gabi is the younger of the two and she was graduating from Arlington High School. The graduation ceremony was held in a hockey arena in Everett. It was a nice venue and Kevin and Alana secured box seats for family and friends. This was a deluxe accommodation with a private room, snacks and beverages – including adult beverages. I found it a little funny to have drinks served at a high school graduation – they were available to private box suite attendees only. I can’t even get a beer at a college football game!

We were definitely out of the heat in Washington. In fact, Donna and I were downright cold! Our first couple of days were very pleasant with afternoon temperatures in the low 70s. But it was down in the 50s Thursday evening and never got past 60 degrees again for the duration of our stay. It also drizzled rain on and off. Typical for this time of year in western Washington.

The property we were housesitting was on four or five acres and was very nice. I wish I could’ve packed my camera along as one morning about a dozen band-tailed pigeons came into the bird feeder in the back yard. I’ve never seen band-tailed pigeons at low elevation – I’ve only found them above 3,000 feet above sea level and higher. They’re only found in parts of the west coast and some higher elevation areas of the soutwest and Mexico. They are the largest north American pigeons.

We also had deer traipsing through the yard.

Kevin and Alana had a house full of guests most of the time and always had plenty of food and drink on hand. They also set up games in the yard. Our youngest granddaughter, Petra, daughter of my youngest daughter Shauna had fun with all of the attention.

Somewhere along the way, Donna picked up a bug and stayed behind to rest on Sunday. She felt better on Monday and we hung out with the crew then caught a ride to the Paine Field airport in Everett to fly home. We never warmed up until we got back to Phoenix.

Last week the bug caught up with me and I’ve been off of my game for a week. I rarely catch a cold or any other bugs, but it got me.

Tomorrow we’ll be packing up the Jeep for a trip to Prescott early Tuesday morning. We’ll be housesitting there until the following Monday. The high temperatures here will be triple digits – 102 to 108 degrees. Prescott will be 10 to 15 degrees cooler. I plan to pack my AT115 EDT telescope although I haven’t settled on an astrophotography target. I plan to also take my camera bag.

I’ll close with a dinner plate from earlier this month. Donna came up with something new – crawfish scampi. She served it with cheesy grits and green beans.

Flying The Koop

…from real estate to wheel estate and back again

Author Archives: Mike Kuper

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Summer Sits

Graduate

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