Japan Adventure Begins...

Georgetown, Kentucky is sister cities with Tahara, Japan. This relationship started 25 years ago. Tom Prather was the Mayor of Georgetown then and he is again. He wanted to put together a delegation to go over in honor of this 25th anniversary. He asked people if they would like to make this trip, at their own expense, that served in all areas of Georgetown and Scott County. Claude was asked and said he would go. I tagged along.

The delegation ended up being 10 people. Mayor Tom Prather, Bill and Deni Hamilton who were there at the beginning of this 25 year relationship, Chuck Bradley from the Scott County Fiscal Court, David Livingston from the Georgetown City Council, Jennifer Holbert from the Scott County School Board, Frank Shoop who is a good friend of Mayor Prather and a well respected local businessman, and Claude Christensen, Mayor of Sadieville with his eye candy, me! Kelly McKuen would be our guide and set up the trip for us. His background was a teacher in Tahara years ago for several years and has an amazing relationship with the people there and loves Japan. He was the perfect choice for this trip.

I shall just preface this with the fact that I have two disks for my camera. The settings I have chosen let me take 1,400 pictures with each disk. I carry a battery in the camera and one extra in the case. This gets me through an entire day of our travels. I filled both of my disks this time. I took a good bit of video and that takes up more space than a picture. However, that is still a lot of pictures. I just finished going through them and putting them in order, deleting extras or fuzzy ones, and adding some from friends that shared their pictures on Facebook this morning. There is absolutely no way I can or will post all those pictures. Just remember that I have them all stored and know there will come a day when Claude and I can no longer travel. Then we'll curl up with our pictures and remember those amazing trips we took.

Next, I need to thank my sisters again. There is absolutely no way I could leave my father for this long. They each flew or drove in for a few days so he had someone he could have help him and visit with him all but about 1 day. They were great and I truly appreciate their help. It allowed me to relax and enjoy like I have not on other trips.

This trip would be different than any we have taken before. The first few days were like vacation days. We all agreed to go several days early so that we could tour some of the historic places in Japan. I was able to learn about our traveling companions and appreciate each of their unique contributions to, not only the sister city relationship, but the work that must be done to keep Georgetown and Scott County, Kentucky moving forward. The last few days were spent on the Atsumi Peninsula with the people of Tahara. We enjoyed all that they could show us in those days.  Claude and I were impressed and loved the people of Japan. We learned so much more about the daily life of the people than any other trip we have done.  Every day just got better and better. The trip was amazing.

We flew from Lexington Bluegrass Airport to Detroit. We had a four hour layover in Detroit. Then a 13 hour 49 minute flight to Nagoya, Japan.  Please note, we left Detroit at 12:26pm. The sun was up and we followed the sun around the world to Japan. There is a 13 hours time difference between Sadieville, Kentucky and Japan. If it is 5pm in Kentucky, it is 6am the next day in Japan. We left Saturday (US Time) at 12:26pm and arrived in Nagoya Sunday at 3:15pm (Japan Time). When we came home, we arrived in Detroit 30 minutes before we left Nagoya. I shall just state for this record that these time items play havoc with your biological time clock. Claude and I are still trying to adjust. Don't think we have ever had as hard a times getting back into the time groove.

The Detroit Airport was a nice place to have a layover.  There was a money exchange place located right by our gate. We had waited to use this long layover for that purpose. Dollars were changed to yen and we prepared ourselves to try and understand another currency. There was also a Max and Erma's which we ate at to have one more real American meal before turning to a Japanese diet. We walked through a tunnel upon arrival at the Detroit airport to get to the International concourse. This tunnel was all lit up and played music. The light patterns moved around to the music. I strolled back down there to try and get pictures of the colors and some video of the music and light show. Many people got a chuckle out of me standing there waiting for the lights to get just right for a possible picture or video. Then I left all my stuff with Claude and walked from one end of the concourse to the other and back. This would serve as my treadmill for the day and get lots of walking before having to sit on the plane for so very long. Poor Claude developed Plantar Fasciitis a couple of weeks before we left. He was and is on anti-inflammatory meds and was told to stay off his feet. That was not going to happen so he did the best he could. Then we were off for our long flight. 

As our plane flew over Japan, I told Claude we were going over the Atsumi Peninsula where we would end our trip. Kelly took this great picture of the peninsula and the Irago View Hotel we would spend two nights in. It is the white spot on top of the mountain.

After clearing customs in Japan, we gave our luggage to a company that would transport it to our hotel in Kyoto. It would not arrive until we returned from our first day of touring. So Claude and I packed an overnight bag inside of our suitcases. Before turning our luggage over to the transport company, we took out the bag that would allow us clean clothes and toiletries for the next morning. We would all then travel by a local train to the Shinkansen (we call it a bullet train, the Japanese do not call it that). This train goes 180 mph. It took us to Kyoto Station and our hotel, the New Hankyu Hotel, which was outside this train station.  The first picture is our hotel. The next two pictures are Kyoto Station. This is a huge building. The bus station is located between the train station exit and the hotel. Under the bus station is a place called Porta. Inside it are lots of restaurants and stores for shopping. Inside Kyoto Station are the local trains as well as Shinkansen. Around this and up many storiis are more stores for shopping and more restaurants. 

Kelly purchased each of us a week pass on the Shinkansen. This meant we could ride it all we wanted for a week and not pay any more. It paid for itself in the first trip. There are three types of Shinkansen trains. Our tickets were for the middle type (Hikari). The difference is the number of stops the types make. The highest level only stops at a few of the most major cities. The middle type stops at more of the sizable cities. The lowest type stops at all cities. The reason the highest seems fastest is that it makes few stops. There are 'green cars' on each of these types. They are located in the middle of the train. The seats are so very comfortable with lots of leg room. Definitely worth the additional price.  Local tracks are on ground level. All Shinkansen tracks are elevated so traffic does not have to contend with them and they can move quickly. 

Left to Right: David Livingston, Deni Hamilton, Tom Prather, Frank Shoop, Jennifer Holbert, Sandi and Claude Christensen, Bill Hamilton, Chuck Bradley.

Time to try and sleep and get our bodies used to Japan time.