Hinomaru ("sun circle")

We usually schedule a visit to Japan at the end of each year to stay with Mrs danyul’s parents and to visit other family in Japan. Unfortunately we were unable to make it in 2008/09 but this year we were able to fly out to Japan just before Christmas. Our normal schedule would be to spend Christmas in the UK with my family and then New Year in Japan with Mrs danyul’s family. This time around we faced restrictions with time off from work so had to leave earlier so no Christmas with my family this time around. They more than made up for it though by throwing a Christmas lunch for everyone before we left, where MiniMe could open all his presents as though it was Christmas Day.

We headed to Heathrow on the 23rd December with a hope to avoid long queues by going through the Virgin online check-in process beforehand. This seems to be a pretty standard procedure these days so we were straight into the queue for checking in our baggage and then straight through security to wait for our flight. Mrs danyul had some time for some last minute gift buying, which is very much a necessity if you are visiting Japan since it is customary to buy close family a friends a gift. I wandered around with MiniMe in tow and bought myself some JVC noise cancelling earphones for the flight. These were the cheapest on sale within the shops area and they turned out to be a reasonable purchase since they cut out a lot of the flight noise and I might consider an upgrade next time we fly.

Our flight was delayed by an hour since the plane had arrived later than schedule and then once everyone boarded, one of the passengers was taken ill and had to be taken from the plane so another hour was gone while their luggage was located and removed from the hold. Thankfully we were soon up in the air and MiniMe could sit watching some kids movies / TV while I watched some movies at well. Nothing of note occurred on the flight, which is always a good thing, and we were soon touching down at Narita International just an hour later than scheduled. I usually have to spend an hour queueing for passport control along with all the other Gaijin but for once everything was clear so I quickly had my body scanned for heat signatures via a camera checking for people with flu, I had my finger prints taken, and finally a digital photograph taken before my passport was stamped and I was free to go join MiniMe and Mrs danyul to collect our luggage.

We used to stay one night in Tokyo before MiniMe was born but then found out looking after a jet lagged child is not the easiest thing to do at 3am, even in a city like Tokyo, so we now catch a limousine bus across to Heneda Airport to take an internal ANA flight down to Ube, which is located in Yamaguchi Prefecture. The parents-in-law were waiting for us at the airport and thankfully it is only short drive back to their house. They were happy to see the three of us, especially MiniMe, and we were thankful to be able to visit them again.

Giraffe Riding, MiniMe Style

Christmas is not a public holiday in Japan and nor is there much evidence that it is celebrated although I must admit over the years I have seen more and more Christmas decorations dotted around whenever we visit. Mrs danyul’s parents bought a small Christmas tree this year so that MiniMe would have somewhere to put his Christmas stocking all ready for Santa san to visit. They also helped join in the fun by buying a carrot for the reindeer plus some cookies and milk for Santa san. MiniMe had a great time opening his presents with his grandparents and I think they had a nice time being part of MiniMe’s Christmas for the first time.

New Year is a public holiday in Japan and it is a time of wide celebration and also a time for families to get together once more. It is traditional for the ‘oldest son’ to host a dinner on New Years Day, which all the family are invited to. On our early visits to Japan this would mean a lot of visitors since Mrs danyul’s father is the oldest son in a large family so there would be a lot of people arriving at the house for lunch. It is also traditional to give gifts of cash to all the children so it is a very lucrative time to be a child in Japan! As the years have passed we have found that our New Year celebration has diminished each year, mostly because of older relatives sadly passing aways, but also from family members gradually moving to different parts of Japan. On our last visit we moved from a very large gathering at Mrs danyul’s parents house to a more smaller lunch (approximately 20 people) at a local hotel, although again it was hosted by the ‘oldest son’ within the family. This year we just had a visit from Mrs danyul’s brother and his son so we had a small family lunch at home although we did join the crowds at the local shopping mall and also at the local shrine.

Feeding The Lions

The shrine visit is a fundamental part of Japanese culture and a lot of people will celebrate the New Year by being at a shrine as the clock hits midnight; some of the large city shrines heave with crowds at midnight and form the location for live television across the entire New Year period. We went to visit the local shrine on New Year’s day and this time around it was packed with people and for the first time ever we had to queue to pay our respects. It seems that during a time of economic decline more and more people are returning to their local shrine to ask for good luck through the coming year.

We then took a day trip to the Yamaguchi Safari Land, which is just over an hours drive away. MiniMe loves to visit Safari Land every time we come to Japan and I must admit that I really enjoy visiting as well. Safari Land consists of a small theme park area that is free to enter, although you have to pay for tokens that are then valid across the rides, and the Safari Part itself where you could either pay to drive through in your own car or take a guided tour through on a bus. We always go for the guided bus since you also get to feed the various animals on the route through the use of some metal tongs that can be pushed through grills along the side of the bus.

Safari Bus

We arrived at the park to find the first available bus tour was already full so we signed up for the second bus and then took a walk around the theme park section. MiniMe went straight to the go-kart track where he was now tall enough to drive one of the ‘skid karts’ around the track provided that he had an adult sitting next to him. I drew the short straw and had several scary laps of the track with MiniMe at the helm while Japanese pop music blasted from speakers dotted around the course. MiniMe loved it although I hope his driving skills improve as he gets older.

We’ve been visiting the Safari Land for quite a few years now and it was strange to see MiniMe aiming for all the older kid rides this time when previously he would just want to sit on the little kid cars, which do not move anywhere and just resemble the small kid rides you find outside supermarkets in the UK. He did insist on riding the giraffe around, which has a small motor and wheels on the legs, but I suspect that will not be repeated on our next visit since he’ll deem it a ride “for babies”.

It was soon time for our bus tour so we grabbed some drinks from the plentiful vending machines (there are vending machines everywhere in Japan) before taking our bench seat on the bus ready for the tour to begin. This time we had the lion bus and we were soon being driven around the park. Our first stop was to feed some zebra and a camel by holding out some small pieces of bread with the tongs but on a first attempt one of the circling hawks dive bombed the side of the bus and helped itself to MiniMe’s bread. He was not happy with the birds so I had to let MiniMe use my bread while I kept a lookout for more cheeky winged beasts.

Japanese Shrine

The bus then moved through various security gates as we headed into the more dangerous animal sections; first stop was the cheetah enclosure where we have the opportunity to hold out pieces of meat from the side of the bus. Next we moved through the tiger enclosure and the lion enclosure where again small pieces of meat were dangled out of the side of the bus ready for the growling large cats to take their feed. I was once again on hawk duty since the somewhat suicidal birds would swoop down across the side of the bus trying to grab the meat before the tigers or lions could snap their jaws shut. It would not surprise me to find that the lions get an accidental bird lunch on occasion.

The tour pulls to a stop in a ‘petting zoo’ style section where the small goats, llama, and kangaroos seem even more aggressive in their pursuit of people to feed them. There is even a small enclosure where there seems to be hundreds of guinea pigs hopping about but the small furry fiends give Mrs danyul the heebie jeebies so we stayed away this time.

The final stop on the way back to the car park was at the elephant house where MiniMe had great fun holding out carrots and other vegetables for the baby elephant to snack on. Again, Mrs danyul keeps a distance from the elephant since it’s trunk sways around sniffing for food and it does not seem to discriminate between food and scarves if you get too close. This ended our visit to Yamaguchi Safari Land and we headed home with a very content MiniMe snoring in the back of the car.