Dad's Visit to Tokyo

We've truly been blessed to have so many visitors to see us in Tokyo these first 10 months. Last month my father came to visit for 10 days, something we've been looking forward to for a long time.

Anthon and my Dad have a special relationship. And right now that relationship is based on watching Snow White together which started over the summer when my Dad began showing movies outside. Anthon is obsessed with Snow White, now, especially the character of the "old heg"...not hag, he pronounces it "heg". Don't ask us where he got it. We don't know. In the hours and minutes leading up to my Dad's arrival from the airport, Anthon was literally bouncing off of the walls. He couldn't contain his excitement. (As a side note, I think any comprehensive energy policy by our future governments should include research into the inner motors of young children. If there is a way to tap into that seemingly unending source of energy we would all be better off!)

But I digress. The reason for my Dad's trip was to watch the LA Philharmonic play at Suntory Hall. Some of your may not know this, but the acoustics at Suntory Hall were done by the same guy who did the acoustics at LA's Disney Hall where the LA Phil plays now. Consequently, Suntory Hall, while bigger than Disney Hall, has an eerily similar look to it.

But I digress yet again. We saw the Phil play both nights, and they brought the house down. I've never seen such adulation thrown at an orchestra and its conductor. Each night, we're talking 2-3 encores and 8 curtain calls before Esa-Pekka Salonen, the soon to retire conductor, led the concertmaster off stage, both nights, signalling the end. Even as the Phil disassembled, the crowd cheered and Esa-Pekka came out once more for a final curtain call. Crowds of people gathered up front to snap one last shot with their cell phones - girls calling him "so cool!" as they ran off. We met the maestro back stage and upon leaving saw a line of 100+ people waiting to meet Esa-Pekka and get his autograph. Truly an awesome experience.

We spent one day in Hakone - visiting the Open Air Museum. This is a contemporary art museum with lawns filled with sculptures for the adults and some interactive art/play-structures for the kids. You certainly can't miss the Chia Head that's one of the first things you see. Interestingly enough, there's also a permanent exhibit of Picasso's pottery - something he took up late in life. There's also a hot spring foot bath, and a lot more.

And of course, it wouldn't truly be time spent in Japan without spending time eating at good restaurants. We focused our time on local eateries that we hadn't tried before and came away finding new favorites. All in all, it was a wonderful time to have my Dad around. But good things come to an end and literally Anthon was in a funk for about a week after his Papa left. MAJOR FUNK.

As with everything in the Cannon family, there is some video documentation. Click on the picture below for the brief video:

Hakone - Part 2: Eating Black Sulfur Eggs

Hakone was the gateway into the Edo (now Tokyo) during the Shogun rule. A road linking Edo and Kyoto (the old Capital of Japan), called the Tokaido road, was a primitive version of the interstate. A check point was set up here in Hakone to filter who came into Edo.

Hakone is mountainous. It's an extremely volcanic area, which is why there are so many hot springs here. Our course for the morning was to see Lake Ashiko where a Shinto torii gate seemingly floats in the water. Then we take a pirate boat (doesn't quite blend into the scenery) to a ropeway (gondola) that takes us up to where they mine the sulfur. Here at the mountain tops you can do some hiking up to where they actually boil eggs into the sulfur hot springs. It's quite an operation. There's pulley system that transports many loads of white eggs to the top of the mountain where they place them into the sulfur hot springs. The eggs then turn black cooking in the sulfur. They sell a half dozen for 500 yen and then ship down the valley via the pulley system the remaining black eggs.

The eggs certainly don't look appetizing, especially if you're not a big lover of the hard boiled eggs. But I guess for novelty's sake you have to try them just to say you've eaten a sulfur egg. Plus there's a sign that says if you eat one of these eggs, you tack on 7 years to your life. Hmm. Once you crack them open they don't taste any different, but they sure are hot! Anthon, not the best eater in the world, downed a full egg all by himself. Maybe we need to start cooking things in sulfur now.

The funniest part, and probably the greatest proof point that Ella has an immature father, was getting Ella to suck on the sulfur egg. She won't take a bottle, and she won't take a binky. Yet she'll take a sulfur egg. At least she's a good eater otherwise.

It's an interesting environment because you can smell the sulfur, which has a rotten egg quality. And as you're hiking around you see plums of steam rising up everywhere from the hot springs. It's almost like you're in a wildfire without the fire.



I think if I were to do this again, I would include in our trip an overnight stay with a trip to the Open Air Museum with a large collection of paintings and a huge sculpture garden. Further, I think a trip to the Gyoza Center (potstickers / dumplings) is in order.

Lastly, here is a video of our black sulfur egg eating exploits.

Hakone - Part 1: Bathing in Coffee, Tea, Wine, Sake and Rose Petals

Japan is a country that loves its natural hot springs. It being a volcanic island - you'll find hot springs EVERYWHERE. In college in Utah, I did a fair amount of hiking and when we would happen upon a natural hot spring it would usually be inhabited by a few naked hippies. So we moved on. And when I was a missionary in Japan, we were not allowed to enter into the hot springs...so I am a relative late-comer to the hot spring (called onsen in Japanese) party.

Hakone is a resort town close to Mt. Fuji, two plus hours south and west of Tokyo. And there are tons of onsen in the region. Onsen are typically segregated into mens baths and womens baths. You strip down, shower off and then soak in the various pools they have. Being onsen newbies we felt a conservative approach was in order here! So we elected to try the family onsen, where everyone was in bathing suits. Think Raging Waters but for hot tubs. It was awesome.

There are seemingly dozens of different kinds of pools you can get into. One outdoor pools has a water slide and a waterfall. An indoor pool is shallow and has balls and toys that kids can throw and play with. One was a salt pool where you could float. Then they get to be a bit more outrageous. One pool is bright pink and has tons of flower petals floating around and smells like a rose garden. Still other pools have coffee in it, or wine, or green tea, or Japanese sake, or charcoal...or my personal favorite fish...yes, those fish that will come up to your legs and feet and eat away the dead skin. That pool was aptly named Dr. Fish and was the most popular pool by far. It was gimmicky, but it was fun. We found ourselves hopping from one pool to the next. Anthon got into it. Ella even got into it. She was so calm and relaxed wading around in our arms in these various pools.

The funniest part was in the wine pool. Three times a day an onsen worker trots out with a huge bottle of wine and like a rock concert the crowd (in their swimsuits) starts crowding the man. Kids were crying, wine was flowing everywhere. We threw our hands in there to get our hands on the wine and upon having some poured into our hands we just looked at it and thought, "Ok, we're not going to drink it...now what?" If you're familiar with the Mormon religion, then by now you're catching on to the irony of the situation - we don't drink coffee, tea, or alcohol, yet we're soaking in it. I think that increased the novelty of it for us. They say it helps to soften the skin. But the only difference in my skin was that it smelled like coffee after the coffee pool, wine after the wine pool and so on. This leads me to the question, can one get drunk via osmosis? :)

Ok, so I'm a full fledged convert and love this place, Yunessun. I'm already thinking about when we can come back.

If you haven't seen it already, Shelley posted about our trip to Hakone as well. Click any of the pictures or this link to see more pictures from Yunessun Hot Springs.