on the second parents visit

from saturday, may 20 to tuesday, may 30, my parents made the very wise decision to visit japan. the strict itinerary was to visit nagoya, kyoto, nara, hiroshima, and tokyo. amanda and i both took a bunch of paid days off work to travel with them.

the short story is that it was a great time. everybody involved had a blast. my dad had the time of his life. he travelled to europe for 4 months when he graduated university and we still hear stories about greece or yugoslavia or italy to this day. im suspecting well get stories about tokyo or hiroshima or nagoya for at least another 25 years after this, which is great. my mom also had a great time, as she did very well walking everywhere with us on what was admittingly an ambitious schedule. amanda had a great time meeting mom and dad and got along with them very well. and i had a great vacation. ive toured japan quite a few times up to that point and theyve all been very fun, and this time was no different.

we started with 3 days in nagoya. i originally thought that it was too long, but my dad insisted that he must see our "daily life." having no idea what our daily life consisted of, i was at a loss of things to do, but we ended up filling 3 days quite comfortably. amanda and i got off work saturday night and headed straight to the airport to pick them up, who were surprisingly not jetlagged. dad thus presented amanda with a bag of canadian beaver droppings. after that, we took the train into nagoya station and dropped everything off at the hotels quite cozy double room. amanda had prepared a nice dinner for us all so they came to see our apartment and were shocked that it wasnt a dump.

the next day we had breakfast at the hotel (which was conveniently only 2 minutes away from our apartment on foot) and set off to see nagoyas main sites...nagoya castle, atsuta shrine, osu kannon temple. dad loved atsuta shrine due to the japanese weddings being held there...it was a good example he said of japanese "daily life"...i was relieved. for dinner we went to yamachan, a japanese izakaya where i think jetlag finally hit mom.

on monday, we went to inuyama in the morning to see the castle. it was my 3rd time to the tiny castle but its still the oldest standing castle in japan so it was worth it. mom and dad got to see a working ecc so that was good too. amanda had to teach a 2 hour afternoon class so mom had a rest while dad and i went for some beers in nagoya station. for dinner, we met amanda in kanayama and had a great dinner at one of our favourite nagoya restaurants...great except for the disgusting seaweed tea the friendly owner always kindly serves us after were finished eating.

the next day we took the shinkanses to kyoto and went to the traditional sites...kiyomizu shrine, nijo castle, and sanjusangendo temple. the real highlight though was the hotel...dad mistakenly booked into an expensive hotel, so we had flash rooms and maybe the best dinner buffet money can buy 2 nights in a row. seriously, thats maybe the highest quality all you can eat all you can drink buffet ive ever seen. tempura, filet steak, and lobster bars? sashimi and crab crepes and tons of other fish? great dessert bar? beer and sake and wine all right there too.

on wednesday we spent forever getting to the golden temple, kinkakuji, before heading to nara in the afternoon where it proceeded to rain. home to the hotel for another buffet after.

the next day amanda had to leave the tour to go back to nagoya to work for 2 days, so mom, dad and i headed off for hiroshima. after seeing the a bomb dome we decided to head for miyajima, the famous water temple youve probably seen on japanese postcards. it was nice weather and there was a beautiful view that day. at night, mom went to bed while dad and i had drinks.

on friday we went to the somber peace park museum where its tough after seeing that to justify the use or even production of nuclear weapons. unfortunately it rained hard that day so we couldnt really walk through the peace park too much. we did drink some more beer at hiroshima station before taking the shinkansen back to nagoya for my parents second tour of duty at the hotel sunroute nagoya. we met amanda and unsuccessfully tried to find a restaurant on a busy friday night before settling on our favorite ramen restaurant.

on saturday morning we took the shinkansen to tokyo for a great day...ueno, tokyo national museum, asakusa, and our favourite place in tokyo, the donki restaurant. an all you can eat all you can drink barbeque establishment where we all got stupid. i had way too much beer and sake (theres a beer fountain for crying out loud) and mom had way too much ballantines scotch...so much so that the walk into ginza subway station was one i wont forget but one im sure she has.

the next day we made the excellent choice of forgetting about sightseeing and about shrines and temples and castles. instead we went to tokyo disneyland for a day of fun. awesome rides, awesome dinner at the blue bayou restaurant, great day.

on monday we saw some of "new" tokyo...ie ikebukuro and shibuya, but the highlight was finding a cinnabon and eating a great cinnamon bun after a long absence of doing so. i think it was amandas highlight having never tried a sugary cinnabon before. we took the shinkansen back to nagoya for the third tour of duty at the sunroute nagoya before going to our favorite izakaya, watami, for even more japanese food, beer, and sake. by that time i think dad convinced himself that hed like to live in japan for the rest of his life.

sadly the next day amanda and i had to drive them to the airport. they provided us with such a great trip that we really didnt want it to end and go back to work. i havent got my pictures developed yet...i think dad took about 400 on his new digital camera so those should be developed soon. it was a really great vacation and one were all still recovering from i think.