As a Pan Am flight attendant in the 1970s, Meryl had the envious job of flying to Tokyo, Singapore, and Hong Kong several times a month. I was a fledgling young photographer then and made several trips with her to buy cameras and accessories for my business. In Hong Kong our days were spent wandering down Nathan Road, taking the Peak Tram for the incredible views of the city, and exploring the myriad of side streets and alleyways lined with vendors selling everything imaginable.
Hong Kong was certainly a different city then, congested, fragrant, and exotic. To reminisce, we took a day to explore some of our old haunts, traveling the old way from Hong Kong island to Kowloon via the famous Star Ferry.
Riding the Star Ferry was always one of the fun things we did in Hong Kong in the old days. With the cross harbor car tunnels everyone just drives or takes the subway.
A very large group of Tupperware reps from Malaysia were visiting Ocean Promenade which features plaques of famous Asian actors. Here a women is comparing her hand print with that of Jackie Chan's.
Meryl doing her best to emulate the poses of the tourist groups on Ocean Promenade.
The venerable Peninsula Hotel where we used to have high tea. Too expensive now.
Our all time favorite Hong Kong lunch: dim sum with char sui bows.
Meryl walking along the Ladies Market on Fa Yuen Street.
The famous flower market along, what else, Flower Market Road.
Exploring the Yuen Po Street Bird Garden where Chinese men come to "walk" their birds.
Almost every imaginable bird is for sale in the Yeun Po market.
Again, rather than write a lot about our visit to Hong Kong, it's best to share it in pictures.
Notice the little blonde head second from the right? That's Quinn in soccer class with six boys. Ya need a girl to show them how to play the game with finesse.
Like her parents, Quinn only knows one speed: full tilt boogie. She fell asleep in the car, stayed asleep as I carried her into the house, and remained asleep for an hour on the couch.
At 16 months Conner is learning the finesse move of balancing a soccer ball (somewhat flat) on his head.
You just know what's going to happen to this tower of bricks in about 2 secs (they are foam).
Putting a paintbrush in a toddler's hand is a somewhat dangerous act for those around him.
Quinn gets to visit the dinosaur exhibit at the Hong Kong Museum of Science.
Family fun time at Sheung Nong playground.
Christa leads a rousing game of "Simon Says" on the lawn of the Clearwater Bay Country Club.
I have to say I could learn to enjoy this after eating on the boat everyday.
Quinn loves to drive grandma to China in the Tuk-Tuk at the Thai restaurant.
Quinn and Conner welcome daddy back from a business trip.
While coming back from the Science Museum with Quinn in my arms, this lady insisted I take her seat on the subway. Thank you.
We flew from Sapporo to Osaka and then on to Hong Kong, this time on Vanilla Airline. Actually it was a nice flight, but again with the super tight seat pitch. We got to Christa's house at about 3:00 am, tired puppies.
We enjoyed the next week just hanging out at the house with Christa and the kids, taking the kids to soccer lessons, the Science Museum, and a special day for Meryl and I tracing our old stomping grounds in Kowloon when Meryl used to fly to Hong Kong in the 70s and 80s.
Rather than a long narrative, we'll let the pictures tell the story. I do have to start, however, with this photo from the baggage claim area in Osaka.
Got to love Japan. Even the "gangstas" wear Hello Kitty jeans.
Maybe this is where the movie "Lost in Translation" got its start.
In Hong Kong, 3-year-olds go to school for 1/2 day everyday. Quinn walks to a bus stop where a mini school bus picks her up, with a bus mother supervising the kids on the bus.
On the home front, Conner keeps everyone on their toes. He has radar eyes for anything that looks like an iPhone. One of these days he's going to buy a Ferrari on eBay without anyone knowing.
The Chinese like their food fresh and its common to find restaurants with huge fish tanks outside. That's dinner you're looking at.
With a large ex-pat population, local grocery stores have a surprising good selection of foods.
After a long day shopping one of our absolutely favorite things to do is to get a foot massage. The best!
Our daughter and son-in-law in Hong Kong have skied at Niseko over the last several years and we were thrilled to be invited, although a little concerned about such a drastic change of climate for us. Antigua lays at 17 degrees North latitude and Niseko at 42 degrees North. Brrrrr!
The ski complex, now a combination of three separate ski areas, Annupuri, Grand Hirafu, and Hanazono, is situated in the lower portion of Japan’s northernmost island, Hokkaido. Numbing cold wind sweeps down from Siberia to the north and picks up moisture as it crosses the Sea of Japan, where it then dumps mind-boggling amounts of dry powder snow on the volcanic peaks. We had heard tales of chest-deep powder from our daughter and wanted to check it out for ourselves.
Meryl and Quinn spending some quiet time together.
Conner, in one of his rare quiet modes. Otherwise is balls-out, full tilt boogie.
More important than the skiing, however, was the opportunity to visit with our two grandchildren, Quinn, age 3 ½ and Conner, 16 months. We could hear the pitter-pater of little feet as we awoke from a very sound sleep and saw Quinn peaking through the door. She’s always very shy when she first sees us during our six-month hiatuses, but soon she was jumping on the bed and talking a blue-streak, more the Quinn we know. Melba, Christa’s helper, already had Conner up and was feeding him breakfast, which he didn’t seem to want to disturb (he has a very healthy appetite) to say “good morning” to Mimi and Poppa (what the grand kids call us).
Soon Nash and Christa were up, with Christa mapping out the logistics of a complicated day ahead. We would take the bus over to the north most ski area, Hanazono, get Quinn in an all-day ski school, then get a tour of the mountain. Nash and his buddies Christian and new bride Pau (from Hong Kong) and Chad (a college buddy now an attorney with the Air Force in Okinawa) would hike up the mountain and go off-piste skiing, meeting us later in the day.
For us, used to getting up in the morning and putting on shorts and flip-flops, getting into the layers for thermal underwear, sweaters, ski pants, and parkas was quite the ordeal. We felt like penguins about to venture forth in Antarctica.
Quinn perfecting the "french fries" ski position.
Quinn was so bundled up we could barely recognize her. Nevertheless we watched as our breath condensed in the cold Arctic air and were glad to get on the warm bus. As Quinn was signed in for ski school, Meryl and I got fitted for rental skis and met Christa outside the modernistic lodge. We watched Quinn’s lesson for awhile, where the ski instructors made analogies to the “pizza” wedge shape of your skis for going slow and the french fry configuration for going fast. Funny to hear instructors yelling out “pizza, pizza” as little 3-year-olds went whizzing by.
Going up the modern high-speed chairs, we marveled at the size of the ski area. From the top, on a clear day, I’m sure you could see Russia. Turn around southeast you see the towering presence of the dormant volcano, Mt. Yotei, a ski destination for more adventurous skiers. I always judge a mountain by how consistent the slope of the runs are, and Hanazono had some nice face skiing but also the boring flatter sections. The real appeal of Niseko is skiing in the trees, but today there just wasn’t enough fresh snow, just that boring beautiful blue ski and sunshine (unusually for Niseko).
Christa and Meryl with Mt. Yotei in the background.
Christa took us all over the mountain. She’s certainly her mother’s daughter with a very fast and strong ski style. I’m always amazed how quickly skiing comes back to us. Meryl and I originally met when we were both ski instructors in Seattle and we’ve skied our whole lives. With age, however, I think we’re starting to lose the magic of skiing and preferring to ski on only “perfect days.” We’ve spent enough time in the freezing rain of the Cascades on marginal days paying $60 a ticket to really enjoy skiing like when we were young.
Some people think of the Japanese as being very quiet and retrospect . . . not at a ski area where they have a raucous good time.
We took an early lunch to check on Quinn and partake of the excellent food at the ski lodge. We ran into Nash and his friends and heard of their adventures. I chose a huge bowl of curry rice and tonkatsu, while Meryl had her favorite ramen noodle bowl. The quantities of food where amazing, maybe to satisfy the appetites of the hoards of Australians who’ve found they don’t have to travel all the way to Whistler to get great skiing. Yes, Niseko has been discovered.
After skiing we collected Quinn from the ski school and made our way back to the Gondola Chalets where we had drinks and snacks, and then walked down to a uniquely Japanese institution, the onsen. With a very nondescript entrance, you pay, grab a few beers from the beer dispensing machines, and then go into either the men’s/women’s side where you disrobe and sit on little white plastic stools and clean yourself using a handheld shower. There is a volcanic-feed hot water pool carved out of rock on the inside, full of boisterous Australians, respectful Japanese, and a smattering of Americans all drinking beer and relaxing. Later we went to the outside onsen, a little larger and surrounded with snow-covered rock walls. It was close quarters but very relaxing after a long day of skiing.
Christa and Nash love to dine out, and even more they love exotic restaurants and food. I wish I remember the name of the restaurant, but we entered a private room and sat Japanese style around a very large, but low table. The table had sand-covered inserts in front of each person with a little mini BBQ set up between two bricks with a metal grate. On the left of each person was a large tray of raw meats, fish, scallops, and vegetables. It was up to you to BBQ your food to your own taste. Wonderful meal but we were wiped out by the long day. Tough to hang with a bunch of 30-year-olds.
The Nash-Webber clan gearing up for some serious snow play.
Quinn and Conner in a race to the death.
Christa chasing Conner through the snow caves. He's a fast little guy.
Hoping the kids are all pooped out from playing in the snow, but knowing that they aren't.
On Friday the 14th we had a lay day and took the kids to the Kid’s Snow Play park where they had a great time playing in the snow caves and sledding down the “bobsled runs.” We also went to a nearby hotel where they had a great indoor pool and hot tubs and swam some laps and just relaxed, then down to an Australian pub for a good old American-style hamburgers. It was both Valentines Day and Nash’s birthday so we baby sat and they had a rare date night without the kids.
Nash and Christa doing some off-piste skiing.
Nash, Christa, and Chad in the back country.
Christa hitting some nice deep powder coming off Mt. Yotei.
On our last day of skiing Nash, Christa and Chad got up early for an attempt on Mr. Yotei. They had tried for several years to climb up but the conditions were never right. We were surprised to see them at the Hanazono lodge later in day when we came in for a warm up and hot cocoa. Apparently the conditions continued to deteriorate as they approached the summit, with Christa worried about being thrown about by the strong winds. With a wise decision they decided to call it a day and ski down the mountain on their fat skis.
The good part is Nash and I got to pull Quinn out of ski school and take her up the chair for some real skiing. Now I don’t know about you, but a 3-year-old who can ski a chair run is a pretty big deal to me. Not to Quinn. She took it all in stride and skiing down in perfect pizza and french fries style. Those two runs with Quinn were the highlight of the trip for me.
I had to laugh as Quinn skied her way through a class of 16-year-old male Japanese students, all with the same parka, pants, googles, and skis; and skiing with military precision. I can’t image what they thought of this little tyke decked out in bright pink and purple charging her way down the hill.
On Sunday the 16th we packed up and took a family van with the whole clan down the airport at Sapporo. This time we were early for our Vanilla (another discount airline) flight to Osaka and then on to Hong Kong. Christa and family took a later flight on Cathay direct to Hong Kong, a good choice given the limited patience of two tired kids after a long ski vacation.
I just realized how depressed I got writing about our recent Narita experience. Unfortunately, it continued.
We got up early on Monday, the 10th, to brave our way back to the airport for our flight to Sapporo. I remembered thinking, we are seasoned travelers and have learned our lessons, so we now possessed a return train ticket to the airport. No more long lines for us.
We got to Shibuya station extra early, just in case. Rather than stand down by the train platform and freeze to death, we opted to go to the top of the escalator were there was heat. There were constant announcements, but they were all in Japanese. At some point it seemed like a lot of people from the train platform were headed back up towards us. Fortunately a helpful Japanese man asked if we were going to Narita airport. We said yes. He said someone had fallen on the track at another station and the train was canceled.
Oh, my God, I thought, here we go again. We joined the rushing throngs heading back towards the station. Finally found a train guy (speaking no English) who told us to take the subway to a certain station and then we could connect with a semi-express subway to the airport. (Unbelievably, this train also announced it was shutting down because of a person on the track, but soon reopened).
Unfortunately you had to buy a ticket to do this, and the lines for the ticket machines were now backed up through the station. Since we had a 12:30 pm flight, we were now worried about getting to the airport on time. During these crises, we’ve learned it’s all about alliances, those people you hook up with to help you through the morass. We initially found two Finish guys who seemed to know the subway system well. We progressed through the hour-long line with them and then I overhead another guy say something about a machine hidden around the corner where you could get tickets. A tall Japanese guy seemed to overhear the same conversation and we hooked up with him heading in the direction of the new machine. Sure enough, covered in Japanese writing was a machine with no line. By sheer luck, and the help of our new tall Japanese BFF, it turned out this was a machine for people who already had tickets, but ones that needed to be upgraded. That was us. We quickly got new tickets and beat feet (with our tall friend) down to the subway station. Soon we were on the semi-express subway (not the express train we had ridden in). If we would have stayed in the original line we would have once again missed our prepaid flight to Sapporo.
We also had the issue that once you arrive at Sapporo you still have a two-hour bus ride to the ski area, and these buses all run on reservations. Most buses where already full and others were canceling because of not enough people. Somehow our daughter pulled some strings and found us a bus that would leave about an hour after our arrival at the airport. Thank you Christa. (I’m amazed she hadn’t totally given up on us by that point.)
Once at Terminal 1 we got our two big ski bags out of storage and went over to Peach Airlines (don’t ask) to board 12:30 pm flight, only to be told it was delayed until 3:30 pm. By now this seemed perfectly normal to us (they had already canceled their other two flights of the day) so we headed upstairs to find food and someplace comfortable to camp. I had to unplug a large sign advertising a money exchange to plug in my iPhone, but at that point I simply didn’t care.
Miraculously we got on the Peach flight, which was a very nice Airbus A320, but one unfortunately set up for discount air travel in Japan. This means the normal seat pitch for Americans was reduced to fit the shorter Japanese, and then reduced again since it was a discount carrier. Oh well, we were on an airplane. The flight went well and after two hours we landed in the massive Sapporo airport. I have to say it was one of the nicest airports I had ever visited. It had a huge indoor mall with tons of great restaurants, shops, kiosks, etc. We were starving and quickly made our way to the food court only to see the shutters coming down on most of the kiosks. Only two remained open, one selling octopus balls (I kid you not) and another selling hamburgers. Hamburgers it was.
This photo doesn't do the airport justice. It has huge area with great restaurants, shops, kiosks, and other businesses. It's like three Bellevue malls put together and just as nice.
Found the huge Greyhound-type bus and three of us boarded. The roads were covered with snow but the ride was uneventful. The bus arrived at a huge parking lot at the ski area and we got off. It was absolutely freezing and we weren’t dressed for the Arctic weather. Our understanding was the bus would take us directly to our lodge, but the bus driver spoke no English. After some frantic knocking on doors we found someone who spoke a little English and got the driver pointed the right way. Hauling two huge hockey bags with our six other bags over a ½ mile in the snow at 11:00 pm at night in 18-degree weather was not my idea of fun. Once at the hotel Christa came down and helped us with our bags and we quietly made it into the very nice condo and collapsed on our beds.
The flight to San Francisco was peaceful given the sea of clouds that covered the entire route. Only once we began our descent did the South Bay come into focus and I could see the various high tech companies I used to work for or visit during my career. I kept reminding myself I should have joined Apple on Day One, but that was a long time ago. Not sure I could have survived Steve Jobs, however.
I always like walking out to the concourses at SFO since they have a wonderful “museum in glass cases” along the escalator. This time it featured early Japanese toys and wonderful renditions of “Godzilla Eats Tokyo” monsters. We popped into the Red Carpet Club for our $100 cup of tea (we don’t use the membership often enough to justify it) and then went down to the gate for the 11:00 am departure. As usual the flight was full, so we anxiously watched our little UAL iPhone app that shows seats still available. Then we looked at the list of employee stand-bys (listed by seniority) and did the math. If it looks good it means the computer has screwed up and if it looks bad it is bad. Nothing to do but wait until almost everyone is on board and they are about to close the door when we hear those magic words: “Conner, party of two.”
We luckily scored two First Class seats (but not together) for the 11-hour flight to Narita. Life is good. Now that we were on the flight I texted Rina, an old Japanese exchange student of ours, to see if we could get together during our brief stay. She immediately got back to us with the cryptic message “Is snowing here.” Not sure what that means and hoping that a lot got lost in translation.
The flight was wonderful. I’m not a big fan of airline food, but in UAL First Class they always serve a hot fudge sundae for dessert. When the steward asked what I’d like on it I basically said “everything you’ve got.” I watched five movies and three TV shows in a row (remember we haven’t had TV for over two years) and then reclined the seat into a bed for a five-hour nap. Life is good.
Upon approach to Narita I looked out the window and saw snow. So Rina was right. The more I looked the more snow I saw. “Wow, I’ve never seen snow in Tokyo before; I wonder how it’s going to effect things?” I muttered out loud.
Upon departing and clearing customs with our two huge hockey bags of ski equipment we made our way to the hotel reservations desk to get a room in nearby Narita. With a very accommodating smile the lady told us in broken English: “No rooms.” Bummer. But that can’t be right so we get our our cell phone and started calling down our list of hotels. In twenty-five different broken English answers we heard “No rooms.” Oh, shit.
No problem, we’re airline employees so we’ll just take the shuttle bus down to the crew hotel and plead our case. After waiting for an hour out in the freezing blizzard, we realized the hotel buses weren’t running, or running on very delayed schedules. So much for that plan. Where there were usually hundreds of taxis queued, there were none tonight. Not a good sign. Life is getting tenuous.
Since we had a flight out at noon the next day to Sapporo we didn’t want to go into Tokyo, we resolved ourselves to the fact that we would have to spend the night at the airport. Boy, never in my life was that an understatement because several thousand other travelers had exactly the same predicament. Being resourceful, I started scoping out various areas of the airport. Someone said you could only stay on the cold bottom level, but others were already making camp in the more spacious upstairs departure level. We found a nice lounge area where we got two rows of three seats (the longest you could go with out an intervening armrest.) We felt kind of selfish doing this so early, but the writing was on the wall. The heat in the terminal automatically shut off at 10 pm and it was getting seriously cold. Outside the blizzard continued and the snow drifted across the runways.
This is not how Meryl planned to spend the night in Narita.
As I went into and out of sleep laying on the seats, I noticed a lady across from me who had a heavy fur hat, a heavy coat, and heavy boots on. Very smart, I thought. Then she pulled something out of her carry-on that looked like a light weight fluorescent sleeping bag and crawled in. Wow, I thought, this is a woman who is totally prepared for travel. Then I somehow realized they were handing these out somewhere and went off running to where ever that place was. Now you have to remember Narita Airport is one of the largest airports in the world, so this wasn’t an easy task. Plus no one speaks English.
Eventually I found the line of people, got two sleeping bags, and emergency rations consisting of Ritz crackers and water. I felt like the King of Marvin Gardens. Life is somewhat good. I did bring back some of the cut up cardboard boxes for the Japanese fellow sleeping on the floor next to me to lay on, and switched seats with an American/Japanese woman from Seattle so she could have some time laying down on the seats.
I noticed outside that the snow had turned to blizzard-like conditions, and while some planes were still landing, none were taking off. This meant that every 20 minutes another 256 people show up. Throughout the night more and more people arrived, and since all the highways, trains, taxis, and hotels were essentially shut down, it meant the airport was getting more and more crowded. At one point I realized what a refuge camp must be like, albeit this one had better accommodations.
Imagine seeing this scene as far as your eyes can see in one of the biggest airports in the world.
These people were smart and scored the plush rugs in front of First Class check-in
Since the entire transportation grid of Tokyo was shut down or running a very limited capacity, none of the airport workers could get to work. At the Red Carpet Club they essentially had one agent to rebook several hundred people. The line snaked through the Club with people sitting on small chairs. Apparently it took up to six hours to get a flight re-booked. The people looked like a geriatric conga line sitting there.
Because of a technicality and a two-hour delay at Immigrations, we’d now missed our pre-paid flight to Sapporo and had to call our daughter for help. Thank God we’d switched our cell phone over to T-Mobile’s 20-cents-anywhere minutes and had functional communications. Our daughter was extremely helpful and re-booked the flight, but the only seats open were in TWO DAYS. Ugh! It was hard to turn to Meryl and tell her we’d be spending another night in the airport (now with even more people and less food).
By now everyone had figured out the situation and our good seats were full of people. We devised plan three of trying to get to our friend Rina’s house outside Tokyo, but when we arrived at the train station in the bottom level of the airport the line was about 600 people long and not moving. We found a short cut down some back stairs and at least got to where we could see the ticket counter, but again, nothing was moving. Given the cold and crowds we reconciled ourselves to another night sleeping on the floor.
Our new home for night two at the airport. That post had one of the few 110v outlets around and there were about 10 iPhone/computers plugged into it.
This time we got some extra sleeping bags as pads, some more crackers and water (I was getting very resourceful at finding stuff by this point) and we set up camp in a corner by the Tully’s. They had run out of food earlier so Meryl set off to find us some dinner. She reported long lines at the stores still open and restaurants were starting to close. She finally found a 7-11 on the basement floor of the terminal and got us some Cup ‘O Noodles for dinner and told me to be very thankful for that. The night was not too bad, although the floor was still cold and hard and the storm continued abashed just outside the huge window we were sleeping next to.
I got up at 3:00 am to see if I could find any of the blow-up air mattress things people seemed to now have. Walking the length of the terminal all I could see were bodies everywhere in fluorescent yellow sleeping bags, all in little groups or encampments. Some of the younger kids were up sitting in circles playing video games. Every electrical outlet had at least 10 iPhone cords plugged via extensions. It was a very surreal scene to say the least.
The next morning, ironically our wedding anniversary, our daughter and son-in-law gave us the greatest gift, a night in the Hyatt Grand Regency in downtown Tokyo. This early in the morning the train lines were not too bad so we took the Kensai line into Shibuya. (I later read on Twitter that the night before it took 8 hours to take a normally 40-minute train ride into Tokyo).
In total there was only about a foot of snow, not enough to get a good Mid-Westerner to even put chains on his car.
All the way in you could see snow blanketing the earth and few cars moving anywhere. Granted, in upstate Minnesota this would have been a non-event but Tokyo is simply not set up for a storm of this magnitude (the biggest snow storm in 40 years). We had the vision to buy a return train ticket when we arrived. Taxis were now running in downtown so we took a cab over to the hotel in the Rappongi area. There wasn’t that much snow on the Tokyo streets but it was still very, very cold.
Our room at the Grand Hyatt Tokyo was like an oasis in the desert.
Outside it was still very, very cold with occasional snow flurries. Not a good day to play tourist in Tokyo.
Seeing that hotel was like seeing Mecca. We went directly to the restaurant and had a wonderful lunch, then checked into a luxury room and took the longest, hottest shower of our lives. We watched a little TV about the storm, read a book, and went down to the spa for swim, onsen, and massage.
This is the control panel for the toilet. God forbid any hackers every get inside the controls.
I have to add a side note about Japanese toilets, because they are phenomenal. When you enter the toilet room a light comes on and the toilet seat slowly lowers (I don't know how they know whether you are a girl or boy.) The seat is pre-heated and padded. Once you are finished, you have several options, none of which involve toilet paper. It's a little intimidating at first, but you could learn to love it.
We had a wonderful dinner with Rina Kodama, one of our first Japanese exchange students to live with us in Issaquah.
That night we met Rina, our former Japanese exchange student, down in the Oak Door Restaurant for dinner. The bar is were the movie Lost in Translation was filmed. I had probably one of the best steaks I’ve ever had in my life and a great visit with Rina. Such an extreme change from our last two days at the airport.
Thank you so much Christa and Nash for this incredible gift.
