We spent the next day down in the crater. We saw many of the same animals we had seen in the Serengeti, but they were much more abundant and closer together in the crater. It was stunning. The landscape diversity was crazy – there were marshy parts, forested parts, dry parts, and lakes/ponds. We saw flamingos, rhinos, elephants, zebras, wildebeest, warthogs, ostrich, jackals, hippos, and many more. We got the best look at lions we had on the trip. We saw one pair (male and female) lounging about. They got up and walked right next to our truck, not more than five feet from us. They were beautiful creatures.

We ended our safari around noon and started our trek out of the crater. The road our was even worse than the road in. It was more narrow, in worse shape, and right on the edge of the crater. One wrong move and the truck would plummet over the edge. Our driver was very confident, I’m sure he had done it dozens of times, but the rest of us were white knuckled passengers. The route seemed to be right out of Jurassic Park. We stopped at the final outlook point and snapped a few pictures and went to the restroom.

On the way to the airport we stopped a curio shop and had our box lunches. We did some shopping. Alana and I had a good bit of Tanzanian Shillings we had to get rid of, so we picked out some items. The vendor drove a very hard bargain, however every time we walked away, showing him all that we had, he accepted. After shopping were on our way back to the airport. We arrived at the airport around 630 PM and started the lengthy check in process. We filled out our customs cards, we were given a survey by the customs agent. The line to check in was very very long, and growing by the minute, so we sped through the survey and handed it over. As we started walking towards the line, the customs agent blocked our path and started questioning Alana about the survey. She asked why she didn’t put how many people were traveling in what age groups, if the money spent was for both of us or just one, etc etc. We humored her for a few minutes then just kind of walked away.

We stood in line for some time, the airport getting hotter and more crowded (no AC). Eventually we reached the counter, Jamal went first and had some trouble. They asked to see his itinerary, but he didn’t have it even through we specifically told him to bring it. We gave him ours to try, but the guy said he couldn’t find him in the system and couldn’t do anything since he wasn’t listed on our itinerary. He was sent over to another counter to resolve the issue. Meanwhile, Alana and I checked in with no problems.

We went over to help Jamal at the other counter. The guy said he couldn’t find Jamal in the system and wanted to see the itinerary. Jamal managed to pull it up on his phone. When we were looking at it, it became clear why they couldn’t find him. He had booked a flight for the next day, not the same flight we had. Panic ensued. They weren’t able to move him onto our flight because it was already oversold by 14 people. We tried getting in contact with Holly, but were not able. I went through customs to get Clarence’s phone, the only international phone in the group. We couldn’t get a hold of anyone. We ended up giving Jamal about 400 dollars and then put him in a cab to find a hotel. We went through security and got on the flight, only after Alana shed many tears. We had sent Holly an email through Clarence’s iPhone requesting her help. When we arrived in Dar es Salaam, she had responded back, and so had Jamal. He managed to get to a swanky western hotel in Arusha without any problems. Our driver was going to meet with him for drinks to make sure he was alright. Alana was able to relax.

The rest of our flights went off without any problems. In the Amsterdam airport we got a “fish foot spa” treatment. Little fish eat all the dead skin and grossness off your feet. It was ticklish, but felt quite good after the long flight and the long week of dirt, grime, and working. Our flight to Ohio was delayed by about two hours, which was very frustrating. We Finally arrived home around 730 pm.

The next day was more safari, and driving to Ngorongoro Crater. There were more amazing animals, views, and more rough roads. Ngorongoro is a conservation area, not a national park. This is because the Tanzanian government allows the Massai to live in the area and raise cattle in their cultural tradition.

On the way to Ngorongoro, one of our trucks broke down. We were miles from anything and anyone when the driver mysteriously started slowing down and pulled of the side of the road. He jumped out and started talking to the other drivers. We found out his brake pedal had sunk to the floor and stayed there when he tried to brake for an animal in the road. The rear brake line was heavily leaking. The driver simply cut the line, and crimped it off with some pliers. He pulled out some “86 lubricant” and refilled the brake fluid reservoir. Our truck only had three brakes for the rest of the trip, and I was worried that he didn’t use real brake fluid.

On the way into the crater we stopped at a Maasai village. For a small fee (23,000 Tanzanian shillings, about 15 dollars), the village men and women performed a traditional “Welcome” song and dance, and the jumping dance. You also get a short tour of one of their homes, get to see the kindergarten class, and get to shop. The whole thing was clearly put on for tourists, the village clearly supported by tourism at this point. A lot of the items for sale were hand made in the village, but they had many items that we also saw elsewhere for sale, so it wasn’t clear how much and what items were actually hand made by the villagers.

The welcome song and jumping dances were very cool. They do a harmonized throat singing that is very interesting. Jamal was filming them with his GoPro. When they saw this, they pulled him into the group to get a cool shot. During the jumping dance, we were invited to participate. When given the jumping stick you enter the middle of the group and jump your highest. I think I was able to get close to their vertical jump. I’m hoping someone got pictures of it. The tour of the hut was very quick because they are very small. It is three “rooms.” One area for the mom and dad to sleep, one for the children, and one common area. When entering the hut our Maasai host started pointing out the different areas, but we could not see anything. It was completely dark except for the glowing embers of the fire. Alana pulled out her iPhone and turned on the LED so we could get a bit of a look. There wasn’t much, just a few blankets in the bed areas, the fire, and small sitting area around the fire.

After our hut tour, we did some shopping. The village was built around a small circle that was set up with souvenirs. Our Maasai guide acted as our personal shopper. As we looked through the items, he would pick up anything we showed any small amount of interest in. After we had finished looking over the items, he pulled us back behind some of the huts and started pricing items. He was a little pushy, Alana had done most of the shopping, but she didn’t negotiate with him. I think they pulled us behind the huts to separate the groups of people so we couldn’t hear the prices other people we were getting. Since we didn’t negotiate we certainly paid more than most. We ended up spending 395,000 Tzh (about 245 USD). We bought a lot of jewelry and a few wood carvings, basically anything that looked truly hand made. After shopping we given a tour of the kindergarten. It was a small building made of sticks out behind the main village. The Maasai laughed when we sat down next to some of the children on the small benches in the room. There was a small heavily used chalk board and that was it. In the center of the room was a small locked metal box with a slot in the top. They asked for donations for the children when they go to primary school to pay for supplies. We put in 10,000 Tzh. One of the children kept poking me in the side when he thought I wasn’t looking. I got the impression he was checking to see if I was real. Maybe he didn’t get to touch white people very often.

After the village we continued our drive to Ngorongoro. It was a mountainous climb on some very rough roads. We ended up with another truck break down. The alternator froze up and the belt was melting. We moved all the people and as much luggage into the other two trucks. Several people had to stand for the last 1.5 hours of the drive to the hotel. The truck was left behind. When we were in the process of changing trucks, several Maasai that were walking by came up and tried to sell us the bracelets and knifes they were wearing. Dr. Clarence ended up trading one of them a paracord bracelet for one of theirs, we also gave them many rubberband bracelets that Dr. Clarence had brought to pass out. We gave them some of our extra food, and they asked us for any pens we had. Pens and pencils are very rare in area, we gave them the few we had on us, and they were very grateful.

After arriving at our hotel for the night, we were stunned by the view. The lobby had a deck/eating area that was built out of the edge of the crater with a gorgeous view of the entire thing. We checked in and went down to our room, only to be stunned again. It was definitely the nicest accommodations we had while in Africa. The view was outstanding, best I’ve ever had and probably ever will. The shower was excellent, almost as good as my home shower. If you go on Safari here you must stay at Ngorongoro Wildlife Lodge.

The last few days went by in a blur. We met downstairs around 7 to have breakfast and get everything in order. We were supposed to have our bags down and ready to be packed by 8 on the safari trucks. After breakfast we went back up to the room and finished up our packing, hauled everything downstairs, and met the safari drivers. We handing off our clothing and food that we were donating to the orphanage. We started saying our goodbyes while the drivers packed up the safari trucks (Toyota LandCruisers). The goodbyes took a long time, Sara and Anna came out from the school to say goodbye to the group. We took a few group pictures and loaded up into the safari trucks. There were 6 in two of the vehicles and 7 in the third. They were surprisingly comfortable for being heavy duty trucks.

Holly had told us the night before to multiply anything our safari driver said by at least 1.25, she is was definitely right. The driver said it would take about 3 to 3.5 hours to reach the Serengeti park. Around four hours later we were still driving with no end in site.
Now I had been quite dehydrated the last few days from working so hard out in the heat and sun all day. I was drinking at least 3-4 liters of water per day, but could not keep up with the sweating. I wanted to make sure I was completely re-hydrated for the safari so I drank a lot of water the night before. I held off in the morning, knowing we would have a long drive to the national park.

The roads had become progressively worse as we got further and further away from Tarime (which is quite surprising since the roads in the area are not very good). My bladder was about to explode, even though I forced out as much pee as I could before we left. I had an empty water bottle in the truck that was looking better and better by the minute. I was sitting in the very back of the vehicle, so we played the telephone game and asked the folks in front of me to find out how long till we stopped. When word reached Tara (Tar-a), said she also really had to go. The driver said it would be another 1.5 hours till we stopped. We asked him to pull over somewhere for us to go, he just kind of gave us a nod, no real answer. This was pretty typical of an African person who doesn’t speak much English and didn’t really understand what you were saying. I became concerned because the driver really hadn’t spoken much since we started out. We passed several places that appeared to be good pee spots to me, as I thought about pissing my pants. We played telephone again as I asked to confirm he would be pulling over. I got a more affirmative response this time.

Several more minutes passed before the driver finally pulled over. I’m not sure what he was looking for, because the spot he picked didn’t seem that different from the hundreds of others we passed. After stopped, I jumped out of the vehicle and took the longest, most satisfying pee of my life. Everyone else had to very bad too, I’m surprised I was the first to say something.

We pile back in the truck and clamored down the road. The drive was very rough, the roads were nothing more than packed dirt, a single lane wide. There were lots of ruts, and many parts of the road were filled with long stretches of ridges, I’m not sure what these were from, but they were kind of like rumble strips in the US only raised instead of recessed. They made the truck vibrate front to end like you can’t believe and vibrated straight down to your bones. Our truck was built for these kinds of roads, but we passed many motorcycles and Toyota wagon sedans. I don’t even want to think about what they felt like on those rides. The roads never really improved once we got off the initial paved road until we got many miles from Ngorongoro and close to Arusha where they were paved again.

As we neared Serengeti Park, we started seeing lots of animals. The driver would slow down and point out what we were seeing, stopping occasionally for us to get long looks and photos. We saw the infamous blue-balled monkey (Cerocopithecus lomamiensis). He truly does have brilliant blue balls. According to Discovery.com, this monkey was not discovered and classified until 2007. I find it hard to believe since they were just hanging out by the side of the road. We also saw giraffes, elephants, and had a short glimpse of baboons before we got to the park.

We finally arrived at the park, we stopped by the ranger station to have our box lunches. Most of us were worried about what we would find in our boxes. It ended up being the best meal we had in Africa up to that point. It was a butter and jelly sandwich, delicious samosas, banana, mango juice, flat bread, and a sweet potato. A small group of us walked down to the main gate to take pictures. A few minutes later, one of the trucks came flying down the road at us. Apparently the rangers had yelled at our drivers because you aren’t allowed to walk in the park at all. We had to ride back in the truck, but only after our driver let us finish taking pictures.

After lunch we officially began our safari. We started driving through the park and saw animals right away. There were zebras and elephants in the distance, more quick views of baboons, and a few others. After about 10 minutes Tara asked the driver how long until the next stop. She had to go to the bathroom already, the group collectively groaned. We turned back as the drivers snickered among themselves, the other two trucks went on a head. Back at the gate, we all squeezed out a few more drops then piled back into the truck to catch up with the others.

The next few days were filled with beautiful views, lots of amazing animals, and good times. We stayed the first night at Seronera Wildlife Lodge. This lodge is in the middle of the Serengeti park, and is absolutely beautiful. If you ever go on safari, you must stay here. There is an amazing pool, eating area, and deck that over looked the whole Serengeti. Absolutely stunning. The dinner and breakfast were both very good, the best food we had in Africa. They had real bacon.

Today was our last day at the school and orphanage. We arrived a little before 9, I went down to the orphanage, applied sunscreen, then went out back to work on building the kitchen. I moved bricks, sand (for mortar), and gravel (for cement) for about 1 hour or more. Then I split off to search for Joesph, who had been avoiding me all week. I needed to teach him to use the tablet computer we brought for him; Joseph is an old gentlemen, I’m fairly certain he is scared of the tablet. He had promised me the night before we would meet first thing in the morning. I came today with three goals in mind:

1. Teach Joseph how to use the tablet.
2. Get the internet working on the tablets (we were having issues with SIM cards).
3. Help Holly to wipe some sensitive files from the computers they were going to give to the some former students going to college.

I got the run around looking for Joseph, no one had seen him, eventually I had Anna give him a call. He said he was there, but his car was not. I took this as a misunderstanding meaning he was on his way. Since Joseph was not at the site, I started looking for Holly, she was also no where to be found.

Since no one was around, I helped with painting of the new lab building that was recently finished. We put three coats of primer on; the walls soaked up paint like you wouldn’t believe! When we were close to finishing the third coat I split off to search for Joseph or Holly again. I didn’t find them, so I took some lunch (cheese crackers and PB&J).

On my way back to painting, I ran into Holly. I had her show me the computers she wanted wiped. I spent probably two hours working on the computers. Holly had brought two AirTel SIM cards to try in the tables per my request, so once I finished working on the computers, I started back on the tablets.

I popped the AirTel card in, got the registration message, and after some fiddling with the connection settings, the Internet was working just fine on Holly’s tablet. I had discovered some hidden connection settings that I thought might allow me to get the Vodacom SIMs working, so I found Anna and borrowed her tablet to try. I fiddled with it for a good while, and eventually got it to work for about 2 seconds. The Vodacom network is just too poor out at the orphanage.

After I got Holly and Anna set up with their AirTel cards, I eventually ran into Joseph. I spent a good amount of time with him showing him the different features of the tablet. He was very impressed and happy with the capabilities, but I could tell he was not comfortable with the technology. I don’t think he’ll be to using the tablet much.

By the time I was finished with the tablets and computers, the painting was done. I went back down to the orphanage to see if there was anything I could help out with. Matt, Julie, and Susan had started cooking dinner for the night, a spaghetti feast for the kids. They had everything covered so I spent about an hour hanging out with some girls who were preparing some fish for morning porridge. They had asked me my name and giggled, hiding their faces. They were nervous and embarrassed to talk to me, which I found very amusing.
I sat down right by them, and forced them to talk more, it wasn’t long until they wouldn’t stop!

They had me play some music on my phone and tried to get me to dance. I said I wouldn’t unless they did. This went back and forth for sometime, eventually another girl came over and agreed to dance for us. They ran and got an old gas container to use as a drum and she did an African dance. They girls took turns dancing, it was very cute. Eventually they all sat down and told me it was my turn!

I said I would only do it if one of them would teach me. They eventually agreed, and two of the girls got up with me and the drum started. The dance was very basic, I really didn’t need instruction but just wanted them to have fun with me. They fell down laughing several times at me, especially when the butt shaking part came around!

After we finished dancing I said I was sorry but had to get back to work. They seemed disappointed, but there was a lot of work to do tearing down the dental lab. I went up and helped with this for some time, lots of packing and moving boxes, loading trunks, etc. We finished up, then all piled into the back of the pickup truck and rode back to town. I didn’t really get a chance to say goodbye to anyone, which was disappointing.

There was a movie and popcorn planned for the kids with dinner at the orphanage, but we decided not to attend because it was already 7, and the food would be gone because they started serving shortly after we left. We wanted to make sure we had some dinner, so that meant skipping the movie.
I had the spaghetti with minced meat for dinner at the hotel. It tasted like curry.

Today we arrived at the site around 9 in the morning. We gathered in the main room to plan for the day. This trip could have been so much more organized and we could have gotten a lot more accomplished if it had been scheduled in advance. The only thing that was really well thought out was the dentistry aspect, the ideas and most of the materials needed for the projects were present, but there was no plan for who would be doing what and when.

We decided to start moving bricks to the building area for the kitchen that is being built. I did that for some time while I waited for Holly to arrive with SIM cards for the tablets. We she arrived, we installed the cards in the tablets and attempted to activate them. The messaging and voice functions worked just fine, but we were not able to get data functioning. We tried several different locations two different SIM cards and were not able o get them online.

Charles said he got his personal SIM card working just fine the night before, so there is obviously some error with with the cards. Hopefully we can get them functioning tomorrow.
Jamal was feeling sick (might be the two bottles of gin, two whiskey shots, and several beers he had list night, “guys I’m drunk”), so he stayed back leaving Alana and I with camera duty. I asked Mr. Gilbert to help me choose a classroom to set the camera up in, we picked an English class (I believe, didn’t stick around), so I set that up and let it run.

I went back to help out with the bricks some more, and ran into Bob and Maaru. Maaru asked Bob and I to paint some shelves that were assembled by the last missionary that was there. The shelves were massive, probably 10 feet long, and four feet high made out of half inch plywood. They will be used in the new kitchen when it is complete. We gathered the paint and brushes, and got to work. We put one coat of white on, took a short break for lunch, then got split up a bit. Bob went to instruct Sara and Anna in some basic business, while I was drafted by Lisa to help build some brick ovens for the cupcake business they are trying to start. I got some of the women and Clarance Jr to work on the ovens, then went to back to finish priming the shelves.

Bob came back and we started the final coat of “broken white” (beige). It went on much more quickly since the wood was already primed. About half way through Anna came out and said she found Holly’s iPhone so we could try the SIM card in it (as I requested earlier), I left Bob and went to work with Anna. The iPhone uses a mini SIM and the tablets use a larger SIM, so we didn’t have any luck. I went back to finish painting with Bob, and he had nearly finished all the inside and front. We finished that up, then moved on the top, sides, and back. I went up to the clinic to see how things were going. Everything was okay, Jamal had come out to the site earlier, but was now looking worse for the wear again.

I went out to the boy’s hostel because there is some solar lighting that was supposed be installed. I did not see anyone working on it or the materials, but I did run into Valance who is wishing to become an engineer. We talked for a good long while about the process and what he needs to do to succeed. He is very worried about his upcoming exam, but said he studies hard and has good marks. I kept assuring him he would do fine. He said his next worry was how to pay for advanced level (what they call grades 5 and 6, basically technical high school). He did not seem to know the price, but was worried about it. He is on scholarship at Angel secondary – his sponsor works in Lisa’s office, but I did not catch the name.

We continued to talk and walked up towards the dental office, on the way we ran into Maaru. He asked for my assistance moving the shelves back inside, so I agreed. I then asked him if he would take me into town to buy a new hand saw and hammer for him. He agreed, but had to take care of some items first.

I walked up to the entrance where everyone was gathering to wait for the shuttle back to the hotel. Bob and Sara were talking about her starting to tutor one of the drivers and how much money she should be charging him. It was fun to watch their back and forth. Then we got back on the subject of Sara and Bob’s son. Sara is very beautiful and young, and Bob has a similar aged son. He is hoping to hook them up. Sara whispered in my ear that she already has a boyfriend named John who lives in another city, but said not to tell Bob.

Maaru came up on his motor cycle and we rode into own and went to the hardware store. He picked out a nice new saw and a decent hammer, total cost was 16000 shillings, about 10.60 USD. He then drove me over the hotel where I took a shower, went downstairs to the staff dinner.

We honored the staff tonight to thank them for all their hard work. In just three years they rose from an unranked school to the number 9 school in the district of out 172. They have plans to be in the top five year. It was very moving, but very slow. Everyone introduced themselves, which took about two hours, then we had dinner which was about 30 minutes, then there was another 45 minutes of speeches and handing out bonuses.

Today I took it much easier than yesterday. I was not feeling very well when I woke up and had no appetite all day. I had to force myself to eat breakfast and a small snack during the day. I had a little hunger at the end of the day. We arrived a the site around 9:15, I went to check in at the dental clinic to find out what Lisa had planned for the tablets. My goal for the day was to get them distributed to the people who are need them and train them how to use them. The first one went to the Charles, the headmaster of the school. I sat down with him for a bit and explained the tablet. He picked up it very quick and said he generally knew how to use them. We tried putting his SIM card in the tablet to get internet, but were not able because he did not have credit. I then met up with Holly, the American who is managing the project for Lisa. I showed her some of the basic stuff she needed to know on how to use the tablet, she also picked it up very quickly.

I ran into Jamal and wandered around a bit with him. We went to see how progress was going on the house being built for Anna, the head mistress. They painting was nearly complete, and it looked good. We then went and found Mr. Gilbert, the biology, physics, and chemistry teacher. We were able to sit in on one of his classes, which was very interesting. The students were very smart and involved in the class, very different from my experiences in school. A small group of students had prepared a lesson about sulfur dioxide, how to product it, what its properties were, effects on the environment, etc. They taught the other students, with the teach interjecting where needed. The teacher had the class ask several questions of the group presenting, then the group quizzed some of the students. Each time a student spoke they had to stand at their desk. Many seemed to be shy about us being in the classroom, they would cover their face or mouth when asked a question and try to suppress their giggles. After class was over I was able to attend tea with a small group of the teachers. We were served a sweet corn bread and some sweetened barley tea. I had a good time chatting with the teachers.

Later I found Anna to teach her how to use the tablet. She had many questions but seemed to be a quick learner. I gave her my email address in case she has any questions in the future.
After I was done teaching Anna, I went to find Lisa so we could go into town to purchase SIM cards for the tablets and to get Maaru some tools I want o get him. Holly had already taken the truck with some other members to deliver soccer balls to another village, so we went to see the new land Lisa had purchased.

She bought a 1 acre site for 2.5 million Tanzanian shillings (about 1700 USD) and another 4 acres for 10 million Tanzanian shillings (around 8000 USD). The plots are nice and abut directly to the orphanage property. We went to meet the woman who sold Lisa the smaller plot. She was probably in her 60s or early 70s. She invited us into her home, which was a small compound with two mud huts and a small cement building. There were a lot of baby chickens running around and a small, completely adorable, puppy. She thanked Lisa for buying the land and said it made her able to send her grandson to school, but she was sad she could not afford to send her daughter. She asked us to help her. Lisa said we would think about it. As we were leaving the woman picked up a chicken and gave it to Lisa as a gift, “for dinner.” I think it was the first time I’ve ever been asked to hold someone’s chicken for a moment while they tied their shoe.

Later we went back to the school, I helped cover some children’s books with plastic protectors, and there was a girl who passed out so I ran and got our dentist with the most medical experience. She recovered after a bit but was very shaken up. She was on some kind of medication and forgot to take it. We are not sure if she at an asthma attack or seizure.
Once that was cleared up, there was a small dedication for the sewing building that was recently built in honor of a girl who passed away. Her parents donated the money because their daughter loved to sew.

We made our way back to he hotel and had dinner, it was a chicken curry with mashed potatoes. It was very good.

Alana woke up sick around 3 am this morning. She was puking and had very bad diarrhea. It was very difficult to sleep because the power kept cutting in and out and the hotel generator would kick on, which is right below our window. It is very loud and the exhaust comes in our window. The dogs were going crazy all night, Alana kept getting up to run to the bathroom and the fucking rooster outside our window started crowing around 4 am, and would not stop.
When I did get up I felt alright, went downstairs to have some breakfast, it was picked over. I ended up custom ordering scrambled eggs (good but small serving) and eating a left over breakfast “sausage”(basically a hot dog). I went up to the room to check on Alana, ended up having some diarrhea of my own. I took a Cipro and started to feel a little better. I went down to the bus waiting for me to go out to the site. At this point I was feeling very sick and was worried I wouldn’t make it through the ride without vomiting. The worst part was the dirt road out to the school. I was greatly relieved when we arrived.

I was not feeling well, so I planned to just stick around for a bit then head back to the hotel. I went to check out the tilapia pond that was recently almost completed. It was basically a concrete cistern filled with river water. Jamal was with me. and we decided to follow the supply hose down to the river. It was probably about half a mile to a mile through fields until we got there. The river was completely filthy. We passed a few folks building a small structure. I asked them what they were building, he pointed to the river, then to the talpia pond saying “fish”. My suspicions were confirmed – they were building a pump hose for the pond.

We walked back to the school and poked around for a few minutes. I looked for the bus or truck to take back to the hotel since I was still not feeling well, but it had already left. I was stuck so I figured I might as well be productive. I re-rigged the small swing that was bought with the rope and hose we purchased yesterday. I borrowed a chair from the staff and hung the rope swing. It was discovered a few hours later by a little girl, I ran over and snapped a picture of her playing. Much later Lisa said she had to break up a fight over the new swing. I caught another boy playing on it and snapped his photo, he was having a grand old time.
Again on my mission to find the bus I wandered back to the dental clinic to see if they knew anything about it. I was feeling a little better at this point, but still wanted to go visit Alana and take a bit of a rest.

The dentists were in semi crisis because they could not find the boxes left last time to raise the patient chairs. They were constantly bending over at the waist or kneeling on the concrete floor. I was drafted to work with Joseph to find the boxes. We searched for a while and tried calling Tanzanian Holly to ask if she knew were they were. She did not, so we called Anna, she said her husband Maaru had stored them from last time in the shed. Maaru did not know where they were. He took us to the storage shed where he had put them. We did not find them, so we were asked to try and build something. Bob and I worked with Maaru and found some plywood (a very rare item, I am wondering if it was being saved for something else). Bob and I started planning while Maaru went to gather tools. He eventually came back with a very old hand saw, a tape measure, pencil, and hand poured nails. Maaru went to try and find the hammer, while Bob and I got to work measuring and sawing.

I’ve never used a hand saw to cut a 3/4 inch piece of solid plywood. I never will again. Oh. My. God. It took so long and we had to switch back and forth to get through the full 4 x 8 piece of lumber. By the time we had a few pieces cut, Maaru came back with a “hammer.” It was a piece of pipe with an old hammer head crudely attached. Gotta work with what you have. We finished one box and took it in to Dr. Edelen, he was very happy to have it. We noticed the other doctors kneeling on the concrete floor, so before we started the next box (needed four total), we rustled up some cushions for the doctors to kneel on temporarily.
Bob and I went back to start work on the second box, Maaru helped us with some of the cutting so it went much more quickly. We finished up the second box and delivered it to Dr. Moening, he was super happy.

We went to start on the third box, and Bob got pulled away to talk to some of the staff about what he will be teaching them while here. Maaru and I finished up the last two. He did most of the sawing, God bless his soul. He could not have had a better attitude. The saw was very dull by the end of the last box, and he was really struggling to finish the last cut. I could tell he was disappointed about losing the saw. I told him I will buy him another. Between the 3rd and 4th box, we took a lunch break. I had to force Maaru to come inside for a short break, I tried to get him to eat some of the food they older volunteers had prepared (PB and J), he refused until the older black lady basically forced it on him. This is very common in this area. Many people are lucky if they get one meal a day. I was never able to get Maaru to drink some water, but I was happy he at least got some food.

Maaru and I went right back to work after finishing our small meal. We finished up the fourth and final box for the doctors and delivered it. I took a small break from the work to check out the shop that was setup to help raise money for the orphanage. They are teaching the girls how to sew purses, shirts, and wallets to sell. I ordered a custom African shirt, they took my measurements and said it would be ready tomorrow. Cost will be forty US dollars. When I was getting my measurements taken Maaru came back to ask me to help him install the camping showers Lisa had brought. I was feeling very beat, exhausted, and sunburn, but I just had to help him after all the work he did for us.

I was incredibly moved by working with Maaru, he worked so hard, never complained, hardy ate or drink, all for what is probably only a few dollars a day. Reflecting on the experience later with Alana I broke down in tears talking about it.

We went and hung the showers in the boys bathrooms first. Their current bathing method is to fill a small tub with water and basically rinse off with the tub. We installed a battery powered camping shower. There is a battery pack and switch (4D cells), connected to a small pump with a hose and small spray head attached. The pump sits in a bucket of water, when turned on the water sprays through the hose. According to the reviews, one set of batteries should last about 1000 showers. We left extra batteries and solar rechargeable batteries for them to use. We moved on to the girls shower. We installed three of these showers in each bathroom. One of the girls was soooo exited to have a “real” shower she turned it on and jumped in with all her clothes on and did a little dance! Installing the showers took a very long time, and the smell in the bathrooms is awful since there is no running water or flushing toilets. They are all squaty toilets that just basically drain to a hole in the ground. I was feeling okay up to about half way through the installation, then the smell started getting to me. I started to feel very sick again, and I think Maaru could tell. I felt bad because I couldn’t help him as much as I would have liked.

I helped Maaru clean up his few tools, he was very appreciative of my help, grabbed my hand with a big smile on his face and asked if I could help more tomorrow, of course I said yes.
After putting the tools away I started walking back up to the dental lab to see what the plan was. There was a land cruiser just about to leave so I hopped on board. I was worried I would be sick on the ride, but managed to survive. On the way back to the hotel we passed a large field with maybe forty kids in it, tilling the soil by hand with hoes. The truck had to slow down for a speed bump, the kids caught site of us and ran over screaming for us to take their pictures. They were working insanely hard. Some of the folks tried to snap a few pictures when the supervisor noticed us and started running toward the truck scream very loud, the driver speed away, a little scared. He obviously didn’t want us taking pictures of his child laborers. The older black lady (Dr. Clarence’s mom) was very upset by what we just saw, she kept asking the driver why the children were working. She eventually screamed at him, “Why are there children working in the field and not adults like you and me?!”she was very deeply upset, and I don’t blame her. The driver politely ignored her, either because he didn’t want to get into it or he didn’t understand what she was asking.

We arrived back at the hotel shortly there after. I stripped and jumped in the shower. I felt so exhausted, sick, sunburned, and just worn down. It doesn’t sound like we did much, but I’ve never had a harder days work, physically or emotionally.

I relaxed for a while and recapped my day for Alana. I wondered of Maaru was able to relax or if he was still working. Visited briefly with my mom and Jamal and eventually wandered down stairs for dinner.

I spoke for sometime with Lawrence’s cousin, Chris. He lives in Nairobi and is currently between jobs so he is working as a translator for the week. He does PR/marketing for oil and gas companies. Dinner was vegetable curry. It was good.

Video courtesy of my brother in law.

Today was our first full day at the orphanage/school. We loaded on to the land cruiser about 9:15 in the morning and headed out to the site. We started by going through all the cases to find the dental equipment, then carting those cases out to where the lab was set up. It took several hours to get everything sorted through and carried up to the dental lab, because it was quite the hike. Once it got a bit later, some of the school children got back from church and started helping carry stuff out and it went much quicker. I started unpacking the dental gear and helped set up the lab for the rest of the morning. Once the lab was in decent shape I left it to the experts to finish and went back down to the main building to help setup for the “shop” we had for the staff families.

Lisa organized donations for the staff to come through and pick up things for their kids, such as backpacks, clothing, pencils, crayons, a few small toys, soccer balls, shoes, towels (a huge luxury item there), some toiletries, and the flashlights Alana and I purchased with the money we raised. The idea was to have each family have a helper, to get things for them and help pick out clothes, most items they were only suppose to have one of (like the flashlights), however it sort of turned into a free for all. We tried to keep them from taking more than their quota, but as soon as we turned our backs they started stuffing extras into their bags, so we eventually gave up and whatever they got, they got. We set a side a few extra flashlights to check with the staff members tomorrow to make sure everyone got at least one.

Before the store event went happened, Alana, myself, Lisa, Lauren, Matt, Maaru (Anna’s husband/contractor for the school), Anna (one of the head teachers), and our driver William went into town to pick up some extras for the night’s party and some hardware that was needed to repair the swing set. On the way, we stopped at Williams’ house. He has been driving for the school since it started and saving all his money. He bought a plot of land near the school with his savings, and has been building a house by himself with the help of his friends for the last 2 years. The house is very impressive and very large compared to the shanties and huts most families live in. It was quite amazing to see what he was able to do with the help of the orphanage.

After we left William’s house we went back to the hotel for Lisa to change some money. We then went to the gas station to fill a tank for the generator and the pickup truck we were riding in. We were all hanging out in the back of the truck for the ride. It was a true African experience. Lauren caught the eye of a guy a the gas station, he pointed at her then winked at me and gave me the thumbs up telling me he liked her. We then went to the hardware store where Alana, myself, and Maaru got out. Lisa and the others went off to by plates, plastic tubs, and silverware. The hardware store was in one of the shanty shops back in the heart of town. The roads were all dirt, only the two main cross roads in town are paved. The first shop we went to did not have the size bolts we were looking for. I thought saw some in the counter and asked to see, they would have worked, but where just a bit too long. Maaru insisted we not buy them and check elsewhere. The shop keeper did not like this and started slamming the screws back into the bin. He shouldn’t have been so upset as we did buy about 12 meters of rope from him and a piece of plastic tubing, so it wasn’t a complete loss. We went down a small alley to another hardware store to check for screws, they did not have what we were looking for either and sent us across the street. How many hardware stores does one town have? The last hardware store had the screws we were looking for (sort of), so we purchased them. The shop was run by an old married couple and only had a few small bins of screws on the shelves. They seemed happy to have the business.

Maaru called his wife and they came by and picked us up. We went back to the orphanage and unloaded our purchases. We finished setting up the shop for later, then went back to the hotel for a short break, some water, and to freshen up (poop). We went back to the orphanage about 30 minutes later, and found out they had already eaten all of the food for the party (some of our group had stayed behind and started the party since they came out later in the day than we did). This was disappointing as most of us were very hungry. The party started with long introductions, the school teachers performed some native African dances for us, a small prayer service was performed. After all this we had the store event for the families (described above). We cleaned up and partied a bit, the African kids sure love to dance, and boy do they have moves!

We went back to the hotel around 8, ordered dinner and sat around bullshitting until our food arrived at 9:45. We asked the kitchen what would be quickest, they said fried chicken and fries, so we all ordered that. It took more than and hour and a half to prepare! I think they actually go out after an order is placed and buy the chickens, pluck them, and cook them (not joking!). I’m not sure what we got could really be considered chicken by US standards, it was more like bones with some skin attached. I got about three decent bites of meat off mine.

We paid our bills, then headed back to our rooms to shower and rest. I showered first, so I actually had some hot water, and I didn’t even get shocked! Let me clarify about the “shower”. Its not so much a shower as a navy bath. You wet yourself down with the shower head (that just barely trickles water), shut the water off, soap up, then do your best to rinse off.

Today we had breakfast at the Nairobi hotel. It was buffet style, consisting of hard boiled eggs, small read sausages, cinnamon toast, baked sweet potato, an assortment of fruit, as well as coffee and tea. It was pretty good. We boarded our bus at 7 am and took off for a very grueling ride. We drove for about 2.5 hours and stopped at an over look for the great rift valley. There were many people selling curios, but they were laid back and not pushy. The view was gorgeous, the pictures do not do it justice. It is quite odd because it is not a national preserve of anything, so there are a few small developments in the valley. The most notable consisting of several very large telescopes.

We got back on the bus after about 20 minutes, and headed down into the valley. The roads got progressively worse as we went, but remained paved the whole way to our next hotel. They were very rough and full of potholes, and each cross road had a small town filled with shanties. At each little town there were several enormous speed bumps. These speed bumps grind everything to a halt because you have to creep over them. They are not like US bumps that just require you to slow down a little.

After another 2-3 hours of driving we stopped again at Kissi Mart, basically Walmart in Africa We explored the store a bit, and stocked up on water a 50 shillings for 1 liter. Most places sell bottled water for 150-300 shillings. Jamal bought some whole milk in a paper carton. It was like a large sized version of the icy triangle push pops we have in the US. Lisa purchased some trash cans and brooms for the orphanage/school. Back on the bus we went.

We drove another 3 hours and reached the border of Kenya. We drove across and parked in the neutral zone. We sat on our bus for a few minutes while Lawrence organized what we had to do. Several people from the orphanage/school met us at the border, they had been waiting since 2 pm, we arrived around 5 pm. While waiting for Lawrence, there was a very loud verbal argument happening on trucks next to us. It started getting out of hand, then a police officer showed up and calmed things down a bit. We went to the Kenya passport office, which was on the backside of a building down a very narrow walkway. It felt suspicious, but everything worked out. The customs guy just glanced at our visa, stamped it, and sent us on our way. We then walked across the boarder into Tanzania, and waited in line at their customs/immigration office. The line moved slow, but we got through without any issues.

The school people unloaded our bus while we were going through the customs process and loaded them onto the orphanage/school buses they came in. We brought so many cases that they had to organize a few extra cars to drive us. I ended up riding to the hotel in an old Toyota truck with three guys who only only spoke Swahili. As we drove, kids would look at us, and when noticing I was white, would start waving. The guys in the truck thought this was hilarious when I waved back.

We arrived at the Goldland hotel, which is actually surprisingly nice considering the location. We dropped our stuff off in the rooms, then headed right back down to the buses to go to the orphanage. Its about 20 minutes to drive out to the site, the first 10 are on paved two lane roads, then the last 10 or so is a single lane dirt path approximately 2 km long. It was very bumpy, we ran into several herds of cattle and had to wait for them to clear the road.
We approached the orphanage the children ran outside, extremely excited to see us, they were jumping up and down and screaming. They mobbed us as we got off the bus, hugging us, shaking our hands, asking our names. It was very touching. We unloaded the bus, which took quite a while. It got dark, so we loaded back onto one of our buses and headed back to the hotel. We had dinner, which was flat beef steak, mashed potatoes, and coleslaw. It was good, cost was 10,000 Tanzanian shillings. We checked our email on WiFi at the bar, then headed up to the room.

Alana tried to shower, but could not get any hot water. I went in to assist. I turned the temp up on the on-demand electric water heater. I then tried to turn the supply valve to the heater on, because Alana said it was just a trickle of water. I had her turn the shower on while I adjusted the supply valve as the water was running. I reached over to adjust the shower head and got the shit shocked out of me. There is definitely some faulty wiring. The power went in my right hand, across my chest, and out my left hand. It was very painful. Alana thought I punched here at first because my hand shot back so hard. I was very shook up the rest of the night.

Preface – I want to take just a moment to preface this blog before I get into the details of my trip.
First, as you read, keep in mind that most of this was written after the end of very long days. I was tired, jet-lagged, and physically exhausted. I’ve only done some light editing after the fact, so if certain parts aren’t up to my normal standard of writing or don’t flow well, you know why.

Second, I want to provide a few quotes from my favorite philosopher, Terence McKenna, before we begin. I didn’t hear these quotes until a week after my trip, but they really struck a chord with me. The first quote is about people who don’t travel, or more generally don’t push their own person boundaries:

“The people who don’t go anywhere are in danger in missing a major point about what is going on.”

People who don’t travel and don’t expand their horizons will always be stuck in the same place. This was a tough trip for me physically and emotionally, and I am now a different person from when I left, which leads me to the next:

“What happened to me in ten days, was more than happened to my friends back home in a year.”

I think it is fair to say this is a very true quote of this trip. Our trip was only ten days, but in those ten days I’ve grown more than most people I know will for the entire year. I saw the bush, the plains, the desert, I jumped with the Maasai, played with orphans, saw endangered rhinos, learned African dances, and was witness to extreme poverty:

“Nothing is as boundary dissolving, except psychedelic compounds, as travel. Travel is really up there, go to these places, there are many many places and they are not to be taken at face value. They are parts of your own psyche, they are syntactical intersections of intentionality and cognition. The fact that you have to fly there on KLM is only incidental. Because what you come up against in these other places is cultural relativity, and the deep coming to awareness of cultural relativity is finally permission to look at who you are, not who they say you should be.”

When we go to these places that our outside our own cultural norms, you really begin to look at not just yourself, but the people you surround yourself with and the culture you have built together. Many people just go a long with the pack, and blame their faults and traits on the culture they were raised in. However, there needs to be an awakening – we are the culture, we create it, everyone has an influence on it:

“A alchemist, Athanasius, said “the highest mountains, the oldest books, the strangest people, there you will find the stone.”

Be forewarned – the first day was not terribly exciting since it was all travel. Now…on with the show.

We started our trip from Columbus International Airport (CMH). We dropped our dog off at the dog sitter’s, went back home, packed up the car, then went to pick up Alana’s brother. We loaded his stuff into the car then took off for the airport. There was some confusion at check in because Alana did not come with me, she dropped us off with our four bins and large bag then went to park the car. The Delta attendant didn’t seem to understand why she wasn’t with me when I started to check in. Jamal and I go our four large bins checked, leaving the dental chair for Alana to check.

A few minutes later, she came and checked in, the clerk asked her if she was checking two bags. Alana didn’t remember what she picked on the self check in and just assumed she said two, so the clerk marked her carry on bag and the large dental chair bag. As we were walked away from the check in counter the woman came calling after us, all flustered. She had marked the dental chair bag to go to Boston, and another man’s bag to go to Tanzania. She disappeared, then a few worried minutes later reappeared and assured us everything was kosher. We gave each other worried looks and went to security. Sure would hate to be the guy going to Boston when he finds out his bag is in Tanzania.

We got through security, with only a minor problem – Jamal had a large bottle of water and got detained for a few minutes. Rookie mistake. Arriving at our gate, we discovered that our flight had been delayed by an hour giving us only 1 hour in Detroit to transfer. Jamal got a big greasy burger from Johnny Rocket’s, Alana got chicken strips (having craved a DQ chicken strip basket earlier), and I got a chicken club salad.

We got to DTW, made our flight, got to Amsterdam, got lunch at BREAD!, then went through security at the gate to meet up with my mom and the rest of our travel buddies.

The flight to Kenya went fine, but was grueling and a little cramped. KLM doesn’t leave quite as much room as Delta. We de-boarded the airplane on the runway, and walked to a VERY crowded and smelly bus. The bus drove us a good ways to the terminal, where we unloaded. We got through customs without any problems, and much quicker than anticipated. After a lot of scrambling and worrying, we rounded up our 37 bins, and headed out.

Leaving the airport was the first and only time I’ve ever truly felt like a minority. A sea of white eyes with black faces met us as we exited the airport, staring us down. We crammed all our crap on the bus, having to forfeit many of the seats to hold equipment, and took off through Nairobi to our hotel. Traffic was crazy, no one seemed to notice that there were lanes painted on the road, people just drove where ever the hell they felt like. We drove down many narrow winding streets in our giant bus, our driver an expert navigator. We checked into our hotel, which was a bit of a wake up call. I’m sure its probably one of the nicer hotels in the area, but is disgusting by US standards. The walls were dingy, the shower gross with all the grout lines covered in mildew/mold, and I don’t think the comforter had ever been washed. On the upside, they did provide toilet paper.

Today was quiet by design. I have been exhausted and feeling run down the last few days. I went to bed early and got up around 730. I ate a quick breakfast of yogurt and Japanese “granola.” I went to the gym to run for a bit, did what lifting I could. A hotel with a gym is a luxury in Japan, we are staying in a very nice hotel, but the gym is very small. There are a three treadmills, a two bikes, and two ellipticals. A machine for bench pressing, a machine for leg extensions, and an ab machine.
After showering, packing up, and checking out, we walked around downtown Utsunomiya a bit. We went to the main temple in town, which has a huge set of stairs leading up to the top. There were several vendors and people looking for donations in the square down below. There was an animal rescue organization with dogs out for people to pet. They were very friendly. I took a picture of two of them and a Japanese man came running over yelling something. I thought maybe I upset him by taking pictures, but he ran back to his bag and grabbed a pair of reindeer antlers, put them on the dog and wanted me to take a picture. Of course, I did and thanked him very much! Things in Japan always have to be dressed up and presented in some way.

We climbed up to the temple. It was small but beautiful. The temples in Japan seem to be a sanctuary for birds because they are really the only places in the city with a decent number of trees. The birds were out singing in full force since it was a warm and sunny day. We didn’t spend long at the temple, many of them are similar; if you’ve seen one, you’ve seen most. I founding it interesting/sad that even in the temple, Japan’s most sacred ground, there are vending machines. That didn’t stop me from buying my favorite lemon and honey tea.

After the temple we went to an outdoor mall with many shops, both local and chains. It was similar to Easton in Columbus, except the walk ways have a very high glass cover. We saw the usual stores selling dried goods, snacks, and clothing. One had dried octopus on a stick (bleck!), as well the tiny dried fish that were on my broccoli yesterday (gag!). I’ve been doing well with the fish smell, but I think I’ve had enough, I couldn’t take much more today. We walked around looking for a decent place to eat. I was still hoping to find a good ramen shop, but we had no luck.

In the mall, there was a woman on the street performing with a monkey. It was quite an impressive display. He acted just like a little person, walking on two legs the entire time. He pretended to listen as she whispered in his ear and then whispered back in her ear. He walked on this hands, and jumped a huge gap (a good 10 feet) between two sets of stairs. He would land on his hands and walk down the stairs.

In one of the stores, they had fresh produce in gift boxes. Some of the prices were insane. The most expensive I saw was a cantaloupe for 15,750 yen, about $189 USD! It better be one hell of a melon for that kind of price.

We ended up walking back to the train station by our hotel and going to the food court. We found an Udon noodle place that made the noodles fresh in the shop. It had a long line so we figured it would be good. I got the torotama udon – regular udon noodles, a poached egg, some type of white “dipping sauce.” I also got a piece of deep fried sweet potato and a serving of rice wrapped in seaweed. The potato and rice were both excellent. The Udon was pretty good, but I’m just not much of a soup/noodle guy.

We went back to the hotel and picked up our suitcases. From there it was back to the station to board the bullet train to Omiya. In Omiya, we transferred to Kawagoe and checked into our hotel. I spent about two hours doing Christmas shopping. We met in the hotel at 6, with plans to go to Oatman’s because we were craving burgers. Unfortunately, Oatman’s was closed for a private party. We ended at a Korean BBQ place, which was good. They had an interesting suit of classical style armor (reproduction I’m sure) on display. They gave us candy and gum after the meal, I got a piece of hard blueberry candy that was very good, and some “dry” gum. Not sure I want to find out what the “wet” gum is.

Today our Japanese friend took us out to Mashiko to try our hand at traditional Japanese pottery. Mashiko is an area of Japan that is famous for pottery; it is located close to the large city of Utsunomiya where we are currently staying. For breakfast, I was planning to go down to the grocery store and get some yogurt and granola, but the store did not open until 10 am. I was stuck with getting the hotel’s free breakfast. There was a choice between two Japanese breakfasts and a “western” style. One Japanese style consisted of a bake fish and a bowl of soup, the other was three different soups.

I of course opted for the western style, not being a fan of fish or Japanese soups. The western style consisted of runny scrambled eggs, three slices of salted meat (salami?), two croissant rolls, a small bowl of soup, yogurt with cornflakes, and the world’s smallest hash brown. The eggs were acceptable, but tasted like they might be powdered. The hash brown was okay, but gone in two bites. The meat was questionable; I ate one slice and declined the rest. The yogurt in Japan is very sour; if you get it make sure you mix something sweet with it. I mixed in the jam for my croissants and it was not bad. Soup was bleck.

Our friend picked us up at 10 am, and we drove to his house. The ride was enjoyable because it took us through many small parts of Utsunomiya, and into the surrounding countryside. The countryside was cool, many small old houses, winding roads, small plots of trees and bamboo, and rice patties or other fields anywhere there was usable land. Our friend’s house was large for Japanese houses, and he had a garage, which is very rare. He proudly showed us his garage filled with his toys – three motorcycles, a scooter, a snowboard, and tools. His house was beautiful from the outside; I really like the more modern architecture here. Unfortunately, we did not get to see the inside. His family (wife and three daughters) came out to meet us, and joined us for the rest of the day.

We followed our friend’s wife since her vehicle (Honda Stepwgn) had navigation. I think the Stepwgn would do very well in the US. It is a tall van/SUV style car similar to the Honda Element. We had some trouble getting to the restaurant for lunch, as no one knew exactly where it was. It was up a very large hill and our friend’s wife was worried her car would not make it. At little encouragement from her husband and we were at the top without problem. The restaurant was tucked away back in the woods. It was a very beautiful multi-level building with lots of windows and blond wood. I think my wife would have loved it.

We ordered our meal; the main dish came with a small buffet bar we were permitted to visit once. We went and filled our plates. I was excited to see tofu, real salad, and broccoli, which I love and haven’t had since leaving the states. I filled up my plate with broccoli; I was pumped. I also got some potato salad and salmon salad. Back at the table, I dug in. The potato salad was very good, the salad excellent. I dove into the broccoli, and was disappointed to notice a fishy flavor. I took another bite to make sure I didn’t get some salmon or something mixed in. Nope, definitely the broccoli. I took a closer look at it, and noticed the “shredded veggies” I thought were mixed in were actually whole tiny fish! This really freaked me out for some reason. I thought I was going to lose it at the table. I’m not sure why it freaked me out so much, the taste wasn’t that bad, just the concept of eating an entire little fish without realizing it caught me off guard. I did not want to finish the rest of my broccoli, but I had filled about half my plate with it. Childhood memories of being forced to eat scalloped potatoes flashed through my mind. I didn’t want to offend or stick out, so I forced myself to polish off the rest of it.

Our main course arrived and was beautifully presented. I was a wee bit concerned how I was going to eat a pork chop with chopsticks, but as I tried to pick up the patty it was obvious it would not be a problem. The pork chop was so tender I was able to pick it apart with my chopsticks. The meat was delicious, definitely the best pork chop I have ever had. I wish I knew how they got it so tender and perfectly cooked. There were more assorted veggies and salad with the chop, also good.

After lunch, we visited the small bakery in the restaurant. It smelled awesome. Inside I saw some muffins with mushrooms baked into the top! If I wasn’t so stuffed from lunch I would have bought one. I didn’t think to take a picture.

We left the restaurant and made our way to the pottery section of town. This was not easy task due to the small gravel winding roads. The navigation system apparently was not accurate and we ended up behind some apartments, stared at by an old woman. We made our way back out to the street and found the pottery area nearby. There was a small food market with some interesting fruits and mushrooms. I tried samples of various Japanese pickles, a Japanese pear, and a persimmon.

There was a lot of beautiful handmade pottery. Everything you could want: rice bowls, regular bowls, plates, cups, teapots, sake sets, etc. If it wasn’t impossible to get a set home without a large hassle, I definitely would have bought some. We made our way to the place that you can try your hand at Japanese style pottery. We opted to only paint some items rather than spin them ourselves due to the restricted time and cost. We had fun decorating our items, but were told we would have to wait a month to pick them up because the kiln was all backed up. Luckily, our Japanese friend will be travelling to the US in February and promised to bring them for us.

We looked around a few more shops, which had some interesting Japanese antiques and more pottery. There were tons of tanuki around! Tanuki is a type of raccoon dog, and is a symbol of either good fortune or fertility, depending on who you ask, in Japan. There are many legends associated with tanuki, he is a mythical creature that likes to play tricks on humans. He is able to shape shift and sing songs. Wikipedia says tanuki must have the following characterists:
The legendary tanuki has eight special traits that bring good fortune, possibly created to coincide to the Hachi symbol (meaning ‘eight’) often found on the sake bottles the statues hold. The eight traits are:
-a hat to be ready to protect against trouble or bad weather;
-big eyes to perceive the environment and help make good decisions;
-a sake bottle that represents virtue;
-a big tail that provides steadiness and strength until success is achieved;
-over-sized testicles that symbolize financial luck;
-a promissory note that represents trust or confidence;
-a big belly that symbolizes bold and calm decisiveness; and
-a friendly smile
Sounds just like me!

After our pottery adventure, we climbed back into the car to go back to our hotel. On the way back our friend asked if we had time to go to the game center. We did, so we stopped at his favorite place on the way back to our hotel. It was not what I was expecting. I was thinking it would be like an American arcade. It was similar, but also had slot machines, all types of claw machines, and other random games of chance. They had some cool interactive card games. Players would place their playing cards on the table and the game can sense what the card is and what properties it has; The cards are moved around to fight battles. Claw machines are very popular in Japan. They seem to be addicted to them, even though you rarely see people winning. I picked a game I knew I could win at since some of the items were hanging over the edge. I won serve pieces out of the machine, the particular one I played was for Japanese candy. When I won, a Japanese girl dressed in a “sexy Santa” costume came running over yelling and clapping for me and gave me a bag to hold my goods, and give us all high fives! The bag reads, “Caught it cause I didn’t give up on it!” In other words, I pumped all my money into the machine until I won!

For dinner, I wanted to try some authentic Japanese ramen. I asked our friend where I could find some, and he pointed out a place on the way back to the hotel. I later walked back to the restaurant. It was pretty fancy inside so I asked to see a menu before being seated. There was no ramen on the menu! I asked the host if they had ramen and he flat out said no. I guess my friend was mistaken, or I went to the wrong place.

No worries, I walked down the street and stopped in a small shop that had some decent looking dishes on the picture menu. I ordered what I thought was going to be a tofu curry. The dish was definitely not a curry, but it was good. In Japan, there is a spice used in some dishes, I do not know what it is, but has a lemon piney taste and makes your mouth tingle. This dish was very heavy on it, my I thought my tongue might run right out of my mouth by the end of the meal. It was also served with a soup, which I didn’t care for.

After dinner, I walked back to a shopping center near our hotel call La La Square. I explored the stores and didn’t find much new; many capsule machines, electronic stores, clothing, restaurants, etc. I did see some type of relaxation pod. I wish was able to ask the store workers what exactly it did. I went back to the hotel to relax for the rest of the evening, sans pod.

Work today involved meetings in the morning to discuss a design change, then over to the Proving Grounds for quality meeting. I didn’t get to see much of the Proving Grounds due to our schedule, but it was still interesting. I got to ride on one of the straight away tracks and see a few of the other tracks. We saw several interesting new cars driving around. On the high-speed loop we could hear an incredible machine whining through gears like nobody’s business, but were unable to get a glimpse. The entire ring is surrounded by very tall (maybe 15-20 feet?) shrubs to keep prying eyes out.

Lunch was Japanese style fried chicken chunklets again, with a cabbage salad. Today’s twist, the chicken was covered in egg salad! Different but good, but I’m sick of fried foods. There was a cabbage and seaweed soup, which was okay. A pasta salad in a mayo style sauce, some kind of greens in a vinegarish sauce, and the usual rice.

We took a taxi home from work today because the traffic looked absolutely terrible. We told the cabbie that shortcut was okay. He took us down many back roads and allies. The cabbie was probably late fifties or early sixties, however he drove like a teenager who just gotten the keys to dad’s car. We were flying around curves and darting out into traffic. He gunned the engine anytime he had the chance. I’m certain my wife would have gotten car sick had she been along for the ride. It took about 35 minutes for us to get to the hotel, probably would have taken 1.5 hours on the bus. Cost was 4930 yen (58.88 USD).

One of our native Japanese coworkers/friends promised to take us out to dinner. He picked us up at 7 in his Honda Vamos. He apologized for the small size of his car, we said it is no problem. His car is actually relatively big for a Japanese car. We three American’s fit without too much trouble, my knees were in the dash, but it was not so bad. He had a manual transmission and explained to us that Japan actually has two different licenses, one for manual and one for automatic. The automatic is what most people have because it is cheaper and easier to get.

He drove us to his favorite Okonomiyaki restaurant. Okonomiyaki is typically described as a Japanese pancake, however it is closer to an American quiche. It is similar to yakiniku in that you cook it at your table, only it is on a hot griddle instead of a coal-fired grill. He ordered us medium marbled beef and pork (which ended up similar to bacon), as well as two different types of salad, an appetizer, and two Okonomiyaki bowls.

The beef and bacon were both flavored with some type of sweet soy sauce and had an excellent flavor. Both were very succulent and we were able to cook them exactly how we wanted.

One salad was similar to western, was large leafy greens with sliced yellow peppers, and sliced diakon. I don’t typically like the diakon, however in its raw sliced form was actually pretty good. It is usually served as mush and flavored. The dressing was light and mild, I think a type of soy sauce. The second salad was a bit more interesting. It had some type of bean sprout, miscellaneous small greens, and what appeared to be pasta. Our Japanese friend would not tell us what it was until after we had tried it. We all tried it and agreed it was good (it was). Grinning like a small child who just pulled one over on mom, he told us the “pasta” in the salad was intestine; I do not know what type. Even though it was good, I couldn’t bring myself to have seconds.

For the appetizer, again he refused to tell us what it was until we all tried it. All three of us thought it should have been cooked on the griddle before eating, but he insisted no. We tried it, none of us particularly cared for it. Robert liked the taste but not the flavor, Matt and I did not like either. It was fishy, incredibly slimy, and very chewy. It was a very strange combination of slimy and chewy that did not work for me at all. I came close to spitting it out, but did not want to offend our host. I swallowed it down with some Chuhai. After we all tried it, he told us it was raw octopus, one of his favorites.

Chuhai is an alcoholic fruit drink in Japan that is made from Shochu, soda water, and fruit juice. Shochu is popular liquor drink in Japan. It is similar to vodka, except it can be made from sweet potatoes, rice, or sugar cane; sometimes it is made or mixed with fruits or other flavoring. I tried a lime Chuhai and one with a Japanese critus that I cannot recall the name. Both were very good and had not alcohol taste. One could easily drink many of them and be drunk before you know it. Later in the night I tried Shochu (served over ice) that was mixed with tantaka flavoring. I’m not sure what exactly tantaka flavor is, he told me the English translation, but I cannot remember. The taste is kind of pine like with a hint of lemon balm.

The Okonomiyaki bowls where assorted greens, rice, a raw egg, spices; one had beef and the other shrimp. He mixed the bowls up and them poured them on the griddle. He let them cook for a bit then flipped them and let them cook some more. After it was cooked he brushed on “bullfrog” sauce, I’m not sure of the exact Japanese spelling, and sprinkled them with dried fish flakes. The bullfrog sauce like a sweet American BBQ sauce crossed with a soy sauce. After he covered the pancake in fish flakes we watched them dance. The fish flakes are so lightweight that the heat from the food/griddle makes them move around and dance. It looks like your food is crawling over the griddle. It continues to do this for a few minutes, even after being transferred to your plate. It do not seem right and was very surreal. There is a video embedded below, but unfortunately, due to YouTube down sampling you do not get the true effect. I liked both dishes (beef and shrimp) very much, even though I do not care for fish or shrimp.

After Okonomiyaki, we crossed the street to a small restaurant/lounge/bar. We were seated in an area that was a hybrid of US and Japanese traditional style seating. The room was sunken and you sat on a common bench with a further sunken floor, so you it was easy to sit cross-legged or with your legs down. We were surrounded on both sides by tables of girls in their early 20s. They stared and giggled at us most of the time. Our host ordered us several dishes and more drinks. He ordered chicken, which was similar to prosciutto. It was uncooked and salted, and smoked. We were all hesitant to try it. I tried a small piece and so did Matt, Robert refused. I did not care for it, it really tasted how you would imagine raw chicken tastes. I hope I don’t get sick and die. He also ordered us some yakitori, again he insisted we try before he told us what it was. The first was okay, but fatty tasting. The second I did not care for, it tasted of blood so I guessed it was kidney or heart. The first was chicken hip, the second was heart. Think I’ll pass if ever offered again.

Today was a quiet day in Utsunomiya. We had to ride a bus to work, as the facility is outside the city a good bit. We got on the bus at 7 am (right on time, as always). The drive to work took approximately 55 minutes. We only travelled maybe 15 miles, but the traffic was bumper to bumper the entire way. I was told this is always the case. The lights are not timed to allow traffic to flow at a good clip. We were passed by bicycles, scooters, and motorcycles the entire ride.

We arrived at the facility, which houses the main R&D branch for my company. The facility is enormous. I mean big, really really big. I found it interesting that parking was not really an issue. There were several large parking garages on the campus. There was a parking lot exclusively for two wheel vehicles. One side for bicycles, stacked two high. The other side is for motorcycles and scooters.

Utsunomiya was very close to the Great East Japan Earthquake (9.0 magnitude) that hit in 2011. Most of the buildings had already been repaired, but the severely damaged buildings were still being fixed. In some areas there are people working at desks in the hallways with power and network cables strewn across the hall because their normal office space is still under construction. The main cafeteria was destroyed and is being remodeled. We went up to the nicer cafeteria, which had just completed construction. It was beautiful. Without a doubt, the best cafeteria I have ever seen at a company. Two walls were floor to ceiling windows with an awesome view of the surrounding mountains. Everything was very sleek and modern, with complementary (but terrible) coffee to boot. Japan is not good at coffee. We had a meeting in the cafeteria in the morning, and stayed for lunch.

Lunch in the nice cafeteria was expensive, but probably be best food I’ve had in Japan. There was a cream potato chowder that was excellent, grilled steak bits (tough), grilled wide noodles, grilled onions, grill asparagus, grill potatoes, rice, and REAL SALAD! The salad made me very happy, I had been craving one for at least a week. It was small, but Oishii (Japanese for delicious). There was also grilled beef patty was filled with a cream cheese. It was unusually, but good. Cost was 900 yen (10.80 USD)

After lunch, we had a meeting with battery experts and were able to tour many of the test labs. I was able to see a lot of equipment I was familiar with from previous jobs, however it was virtually brand new, I’m guessing because the old equipment was destroyed in the earthquake. It was nice to see all the technologies and met the designers behind our vehicle design.

For dinner we went to “chicken taco” as my companions call it, because we can’t pronounce the Japanese name and their main dish is chicken tacos. I of course had to get the chicken tacos. I was surprised when it came out that it was real chicken breast, which is very unusual for Japan. Japanese people like fatty meat. They seems to be much more concerned with the texture of food rather than the taste. The chicken tacos were served with a house made salsa with kiwis and a block of cream cheese. They were good. They had a bottle of pure MSG that can be sprinkled on your food like salt. I tasted, it was very strong and unusual taste. I had a good laugh at some of the menu items which included “cacktails” and friend chicken with bone.

On the way back to the hotel, we passed the singing gyouza. Since Utsunomiya is famous for gyouza there is a statue made out of Ohya-shi stone, but we are unsure why it is a person that appears to be singing. The Utsunomiya area is the only place in the world with Ohya-shi stone, which is volcanic in nature. The stone is beautiful, a tan color with a slight gold hue and little dark bronze pockets. It is

Oh man, I forgot to mention that last night when eating yakiniku, the Japanese member insisted we try diaphragm. I believe it was from cow. It looked bad when it came out, but the taste was very good. It was very fatty and kind of chewy, but the flavor was excellent.

For lunch today I had one of the Japanese dishes, it was again fried chicken, but not like yesterday’s chunks. It was okay, but I am getting tired of fried foods. We also had rice, cold mashed potatoes, some green mixed with daikon in a peanut sauce, and seaweed soup. The potatoes and greens were both good, the soup was not.

We left work around 330 because we had to catch a train to Utsunomiya. We rode the train back from work to Hon-Kawagoe, picked up our luggage, which we checked at the front desk that morning, and rushed off to Kawagoe (different train station). It was a very brisk walk has we only had a few minutes to get to the station, get our ticket, and make it to the train platform. It involved going up a large flight of stairs into the station (while dragging our suitcases), getting a ticket and through the turnsytles and down another flight of stairs to the train platform. We made it with about a minute to spare.

We rode that train to Omiya, where we got off, and then had to buy another ticket to get on the bullet train to Utsunomiya. After purchasing our tickets, it was another walk up a very, very large flight of stairs to the train platform. If you ever visit Japan and plan to visit multiple cities, make sure you pack light. Many train stations have large flights of stairs and no or limited elevators/escalators. You often cannot afford to wait on them if you are trying to catch a specific train. The trains do not wait for you. They are famous for being incredibly punctual, and they are.

The bullet train was a cool experience. Americans should be jealous of it, we could never have something so nice. There are many things here in Japan that simply would not work in the US. The trains use Philips and flat head screws for everything, have real fabric seats, and exposed florescent light bulbs; all of these things would be disassembled, shredded and broken in the US. People are very polite when they are travelling on the trains. We take the train every day, at least twice a day. People turn their phones on silent and do not answer when on the train. Conversations are kept very quiet between the people involved. I have only heard a phone ring once while on the train and it was quickly silenced.

Anyway, back to the bullet train. When pulling into the station, it is very sleek and beautiful machine, and very quiet. You only hear a whoosh of air and a few squeals as the brakes activate. The train has two seats on the left side of the cabin and three on the right. They are very cushy and comfortable. The cabin is very quiet while the train is running. It took us a little over 20 minutes to reach our destination, approximately 50 miles away.

The Utsunomiya train station is very large; it has many restaurants and stores in it. There is an entrance directly to a shopping mall. Our hotel, Hotel R-Metz is just a few minutes’ walk down from the station. The R-Metz is very nice, very modern. Unfortunately, for our first two nights they only had smoking rooms available, so we will be stinky. For dinner, we want to a gyouza shop in the hotel. Utsunomiya is known for their gyouza, it is believed to be where the dish originated. The shop in our hotel is the most famous and best in Japan. It was very good and I ate too much. Notice in the photos, the size of the water (the coin in the photo is about the size of a quarter), and the size of the “salad.” I was impressed by the ice cubes in the water. They were nearly perfect rectangles and crystal clear. We joked that they may be hand craved like everything else in Japan.

Our hotel has coin laundry, so I have no need to wander the streets for hours asking random people where I can wash my dirties! The cost is 300 yen (about 3.60USD) to wash and 100 yen for 30 minutes in the dryer (1.20USD, took two cycles). The soap is included and already piped into the machine. We were a little confused, the pictures on the machine say to put your money in, push a button, then load your clothes. We put our money in, and water started spraying into the tub, so we hit the button and the water stopped. We are unclear as to why this is, however we loaded and closed the lid and the water spray started again. Not sure what the deal is, but our clothes came out clean!

I didn’t get to journal yesterday because we didn’t get back to the hotel will late, and I was exhausted from all the exploring we did Saturday and Sunday. Sunday we met in the lobby of the hotel around 915 and took the train from Kawagoe into Ikebukuro in Tokyo. In Ikebukuro, coming out of the train station is quite a site. You are overwhelmed with the busyness of the city. Advertisements, eight lanes of traffic, and thousands of people jump out at you. During the busy times on the weekends, some of the more popular shopping streets are closed to traffic to allow pedestrians to walk about. Even with the streets open to pedestrians, you are still walking shoulder to shoulder with other people 90% of the time. It is without a doubt the busiest place I have ever been.

We walked down the main drag towards Sunshine City, a giant shopping mall that you never have to leave. It reminded me of Vegas, without the seediness. There are department stores, restaurants, hotels, movies, clothing, and electronics; any type of store you could want. The Toyota showroom and museum is also located in Sunshine city. It took us a little over an hour to get to Ikebukuro, so we decided to have an early lunch.

We stopped at Shakey’s, a “western” style pizzeria. They had a lunch buffet, which was good because we tried many different types of pizza. Items of note: Corn pizza; chicken, squid, pepper, pineapple, BBQ pizza (actually my favorite); mayonnaise, bacon, and potato pizza (actually pretty good); and strange salad. Japan seems to have an issue with bacon; it is chronically undercooked. I’m not sure they understand the concept of crispy. They also had fried potato, the equivalent of French fries. They were sliced, seasoned, and fried; I really liked these too, much better than traditional fries.

After Shakey’s, we walked down to Tokyu Hands, an eight story department store at Sunshine City. The first floor was all Christmas stuff, the second all clothing, the third floor is where it got interesting. The third floor was all toys and puzzles, and science learning kits. Japan seems to be obsessed by capsule machines (similar to what we have a grocery store entrances). There is a huge variety, and they are everywhere – in pretty much every single store and even on the streets. Most of them sell key chains or cell phone dangles. One the third floor I found one that sold mushroom key chains with educational sheets about each type of mushroom. Of course, I had to buy one. They also had mushroom growing kits!

They had a floor dedicated to stationary, which is another obsession of Japan. It is a country of illustrators, and you need a very fine point to write small Japanese characters. There are pens and pencils available in all thickness you could want. The typical 0.7 mm and 0.5 mm used to in the US, 0.3 mm, 0.2, 0.18 mm, and probably smaller. There are erasable pens and highlighters. Mechanical pencils that rotate the lead as you write so you never have a dull/flat tip. All sorts of fancy and smooth pens, traditional ink pens, calligraphy pens, paint pens, anything you could want for writing, drawing, or illustration. The floor also had many stamps, paper selections, and other “office” type supplies. They had paperclips in a dozen different animal shapes. My personal favorite is the staple-less stapler. It punches and flap and hole in the sheets of paper and tucks the flap through the hole to secure the pages. I bought one rated for 4 pages.

Next floor up was a drug store, medicines, soaps, personal care, etc. Another strange thing in Japan are ear picks. They are long pieces of bamboo or metal with a slight curve at the end, used for cleaning the wax out of your ears. The other end typically has a fluffy puff at the end, I guess to use like a Q-tip? There were dozens for sale, ranging from 158 yen to 2000 yen. They also had fiber optic cameras you can use to look inside your ears.

The next floor seemed to be a hobby/hardware floor. Huge selection of bar stocks, pipe stock, channel stock, screws, nuts, bolts, electronic component, etc. It was fun to explore this floor, US geeks would love to have in America. Next floor up was outdoor gear: mountain bikes, climbing supplies, camping equipment. Next floor up was travel supplies, mostly luggage of all shapes, sizes, and colors.

The stop floor was for pets. Mostly cats. Lots of cats. They had a room on the eighth floor you could pay admission to enter. It contained 11 cats you can play with; the admission price you paid determined how many cats would be out to play with you at a time. They had a small selection of dog items, a small selection of rodents, and small selection of fish. Most of the floor was cat supplies and toys.

After spending a few hours in Tokyu Hands, I got separated by from our group. We had planned to meet at the aquarium at 1 if we got separated. I ventured into the bowels of Sunshine City to find the Aquarium on the 9th floor. Getting to the aquarium was an adventure, there is no direct route and no signs in English to guide you. You had to go to the basement and ride an elevator up to the 9th floor. The basement was a maze of restaurants and high end clothing stores. I stopped at the elevator I thought I needed to get to the aquarium, and there were elevator assistants. I spoke with one in broken English (she was very embarrassed about her English, but she got the point across well), and told me the direction and elevator I needed. By some miracle I managed to find it. This elevator also had assistants to get you on the elevator and to the floor you needed. It was very posh and the elevator was very quick, about 20 seconds to get to the 9th floor with no stops.

At the aquarium I was about five minutes late. I was the first to arrive. It took my companions 30 and 45 minutes respectively to find their way to aquarium, and I thought I had an adventure. The aquarium was 1800 yen (about 22 USD). It was much smaller than I anticipated. It was also depressing. I felt bad for many of the fish, particularly the very large ones that were on display. Their tanks were much too small for their size. Many of the fish seemed in poor health, inactive or with fungus growing on them. We saw one cuddle fish that was missing a huge chunk of his hind end. The one thing that was very cool was the Japanese Spider Crab. It has to be the world’s largest crab. The body was bigger than my head, and leg span had to be about 10 feet.

After the aquarium, we went back to the Ikebukuro station and to the Yamanote line to Akihabara (Electric Town) district of Tokyo. Electric Town is the classic area frequently seen in movies of Japan, the buildings are covered in billboards and flashing lights. Japanese pop music blasts from store fronts. Japanese people seem to be drawn to blaring pop music and flashing lights like the proverbial moth to the flame. Anytime a storefront had these two things, there were crowds in front. Stores without both were less visited.

We saw the Sega store, if I were still a child I would have been overwhelmed to see. There was an “adult amusement park,” which based on some of the items we saw in one of the other “normal” gaming/video stores we decided to avoid. Our first stop was at an video game/anime/video store. It was 8 floors tall, and incredibly crowded. The first two floors were dedicated to video games (PS Vita, PS3, Xbox 360, WiiU, etc). The third floor was dedicated to robot models and games. The fourth floor was dedicated to anime video and figurines. Nearly all of the figurines were of anime girls, many of them were in provocative positions. There is a photo of the mildest of these in the gallery with this post.

The higher in the shop you went, the more adult themed it became. The fifth floor was racy (i.e. erotic) anime. We found it very unusual, but funny. The sixth floor was sexually explicit anime; incredibly weird and bizarre. The seventh floor was all real pornography. There was a porn star there posing for pictures with fans. The eighth floor…well we never found out exactly what it was. There was a closed door at the top of the stairs, the first person in line peeked in and was promptly ushered out. He said he saw a room full of men and a woman on stage. We later learned it was the “event floor,” whatever that means.

The most unusual thing about this is that it was treated completely normal by everyone. On each floor the workers asked if you needed assistance or could help you, no one gave you dirty looks, men (and a few women) were openly browsing and reading descriptions. I can’t imagine a store like this in the US where people wouldn’t be embarrassed or ashamed to enter and buy items.

After our strange adventure through anime sex, we went back out to the main drag. We stopped in many electronic stores, some selling very high end machines and parts to build your own machine, some selling second hand equipment, many selling Chinese cables and knock offs. We found one little market area that is an electrical engineer’s dream. Any sort of connector, component, project box, or tube you could possibly want. If only there was such a place in Ohio.

One the way back to the train station, one of my companions got a six pack of octopus balls. They weren’t balls in the testicular sense, but dough balls, similar to a dough nut, with octopi tentacles inside, fried and drizzled with chocolate syrup and fish flakes. We all tried one. They actually were good, except for the chewiness of the octopus.
We then took the Yamanote line back to Ikebukuro. We decided to take a different train back to Kawagoe than the one we rode in on because it was an express with fewer stops. We wanted the Saikyo line, but based on the map it looked like we wanted to the Shonan-Shinjuku line. The signs in the train station were not clear, and some of them were not in English, so they weren’t much help. We checked to train platform and looked at the LED signs for the stops we wanted to find the correct train. We got back to Kawagoe in about 50 minutes on Saikyo line.

Nothing too exciting today, we ended up getting to the cafeteria late for lunch, and the only meal option left was the “western.” It was fried chicken chunks (kind of like nuggets) of dark meat with shredded cabbage salad. Sides were rice (like always), some sort of mushroom with sprouts in a sweet soy sauce (meh), and a paste with potatoes, some kind of green, mixed with mayo and mustard (okay, guess it was suppose to be potato salad?).

I needed to do some laundry (out of clean socks!), so I brought all my dirty laundry with me to work. One of the guys that was here last week said there was a Laundromat just down the road from the plant and pointed out the direction to me. He left last week. I went in the direction he pointed, and found nothing but a dry cleaner. Another guy in our group said there was a Laundromat on the other side of the train station close to a McDonald’s. I found another dry cleaner there. I pulled out my translation app and put in the Laundromat. I asked several people where it was. They all told me the other side of the tracks. I wandered around a bit to make sure I wasn’t missing it anywhere and then headed to the other side of the tracks. I walked around the area for a while, then decided to ask a few people. Different people pointed me in several different directions. One guy walked me about half way then pointed down the street and said to keep going. I kept going, and going, and eventually ended up in a residential area and turned back. All in and all I wanted nearly all the streets surrounding the train station for about a hour. I can say with a high level of confidence there is not Laundromat in that area. Guess I’ll be washing my socks in the sink tonight.

Today we met in the hotel lobby around 9 am. We set out to explore Kawagoe for the day. Kawagoe is known for their sweet potatoes and candy shops.

We started by walking to the Kurazukuri zone (Old Warehouse zone). On the way to the Warehouse zone we passed by a small temple that had a local flea market. We stopped in the market to see what was happening. There was a wide array of items: old tools, electronics, ancient coins (both real and fake), used clothing, figurines, food vendors, etc. I bought a Tanuki figurine for my desk. We stopped at a food vendor and got some sort of dough ball (buckwheat?) that was skewered, grilled, and dipped in a soy/teriyaki sauce. The taste was good but had a bit of a tangy punch to it. At the temple, I made a small offering, rang the gong, said my prayer, and rubbed the Buddha for luck. There were a couple of cats lounging in the sun grooming themselves on the steps of the template. They drew quite a crowd.

We arrived at the warehouse district, which was very cool. The buildings are from the 1700s, built by the shogunate as fireproof storehouses. They have four different layers to prevent the fires from entering. They are mostly all food shops of one type or another, selling candy, prepared toppings for rice meals, and fresh produce. Most all shops have samples and strongly encourage you to come in and try everything. I tried many new foods today that I did not recognize, and there is little chance of getting a translation from most shop keeps.

Candied ginger is a very popular snack, which I really liked. There are all sorts of candied or spiced beans. There were also pottery, knifeware, and chopstick shops. The knife shops were very interesting to see, the workmanship is incredible, and the blades are beautifully marbled.

During walk down the street, a procession went past. We were not sure what exactly it was. One companion of mine said it might be a wedding procession. I think it might have been an advertisement by a local theater group as there was a man walking behind them passing out flyers for a show that looked very similar to the people in the procession.

After the warehouse district we went to the Kashiyayokocho (small lane of tiny candy shops), also known as Candy Alley. Candy Alley is where the famous candy from Kawagoe is made. There were several places hand making beautiful candy, and many more candy stores. Walking down the lane, there was a vendor selling baked sweet potatoes that were made over hot stones for 100 yen (about 1.20 USD). I bought one, he wrapped it in paper and handed it to me. It was delicious, definitely the best food I’ve had on this trip. I bought quite a bit of candy to take back to family and coworkers.

After Candy Alley we were getting hungry. We had passed a restaurant that sold exclusively meals made with eel. One companion said he loved eel and wanted it, the other wanted to try, so I said I was game. I was expecting the eel to be chewy and somewhat rough; however, it was tender. Taste was just like any other mild fish. The meal was served with a side of pickled carrots. They were the only thing on the trip so far I have spit out.

After our eel meal, we went to the Tokino Kane (Bell Tower). The bell tower is the symbol of Kawagoe. It has been named one of the 100 “sound sceneries of Japan” to be forever preserved by the government. A recording of the bell rings four times a day: six am, twelve noon, three pm, and six pm. The tower is 16 meters tall and was rebuild in 1893 after the great Kawagoe fire, based on the original that was built in 1624.

There were more local produce and food shops near the tower. We went into a local alcohol store, which sold local beer and sake. I bought a small jar of sake for a friend back home.

After the bell tower area, we walked to the Kita-in Temple. The original temple was built in 830 by Tendaishu Buddhists. In 1638, a fire destroyed the all of the temple except for the main gate. It was rebuilt by Iemitsu, the third Tokugawa Shogun, as it stands today. The temple houses 538 statues that represent the disciples of Buddha. Each statue was handmade and unique. Legend has it, if you visit the temple in the night, feel the head of each statue, and only one will be warm. You mark the warm statue and come back in the morning. The marked statue is supposed to be the one that most closely resembles you. I felt several that I though resembled me, only was a slightly warm, but the sun was shining on it.

While we were exploring the statues, the groundskeeper came over and started talking to us. He said there are twelve statues, each with an animal from the zodiac. If you find your zodiac and touch the head and wish for happiness you will receive it. I found the Ox and wished, however I just looked on Wikipedia, and I think I might be a rat!

After the temple, I walked back to a different grocery store close to our hotel. I wanted to see if they had any unique Asian fruits. There were not very many, however, I did see the prices of some citrus and grapes were outrageous! For two large citrus (not sure what they were) it was 1599 yen, or about $20USD. For a small bundle of red grapes it was 999 yen, about $12.50USD.

For dinner we went to a sushi-mat. The restaurant has a small conveyor belt that transverse the whole place. A couple of sushi chefs stand in the middle and place small servings of sushi on the conveyor. You grab what looks good to you as it passes by. They calculate your bill based on the number and types of plates you have when you are ready to leave. The restaurant had a powdered green tea at the table you could scoop into a cup. There were hot water dispensers right under the conveyor, for the whole length. The sushi was okay. It was much different than American style rolls. I prefer the American style.

After dinner, I wandered around Taisho-roman Street, also known as Crea street. Crea street is a popular shopping and dining area for you people. I bought a few small items in some of shops and people watched. In an electronics store, I was surprised to see how inexpensive laptop computers were, and how much more stylist they are. Nothing like what we get in America, they are much more streamlined and cool looking. Prices were probably about 150-200 USD cheaper than an equivalent machine in the US.

I then walked to Mister Donut for a snack. I sat at the counter and a few people waved at me as they walked by. Guess it is unusually to see an American there.