Beaches and Peaches

2009-09-13T20:22:00.000-07:00

Earlier this week, Mom asked if we wanted to help her can some peaches and head up to Bear Lake to do some boating this weekend. Since we haven't been up to Logan in a little while, we decided to go.

Since my brother Jack's in-laws, have a peach tree that still had some peaches that needed to be picked, they let me climb up and take the rest of the peaches down on Friday before we left.

We headed up to Logan on Friday night and just headed to bed. Saturday morning, we started the day by getting about half of the peaches canned. After that, it was time to head to Bear Lake! This was my first time going to Bear Lake.

We had a lot of time at the lake. Dad rented a boat for us to use while we were there. It turns out that neither I nor April had ever been able to get up on water skis before. We had both tried before but failed. So I guess the photos can speak for themself.

We both made it up on our first try!

Dad also tried his legs at skiing again. He made it up, but got tired really fast. John and Holly also made it up to the lake to hang out. All-in-all we had a great time up at the lake. On our way home, we got some raspberry shakes.

That night we watched the recorded BYU game. Woo Hoo! 54-3. Even though I knew the score earlier, I still enjoyed watching the game. Let's see how they do on Saturday against Florida State.

From Japan to Portland, with a stop in Hawaii

2009-08-29T16:36:00.000-07:00

August 24, 2009

What a trip this has been so far! Since this will be the first entry into our blog, I guess I should start at the beginning of it all.

April is currently working at a company that makes disposable medical supplies called Merit Medical. They have a customer over in Japan that they’ve been having a little trouble with over the past few months. After they hired April, they found out that she served her mission in Japan for a year and a half and that she spoke Japanese well. So April’s boss said, “Hey, we should send you to Japan to help get this figured out.” Sounds good to me! Finally, about a month ago we purchased our plane tickets to leave for Japan on Monday, the 17^th. So here is what our schedule has been for the past week.

Monday

After being tossed around from one bank branch to another, we finally found a place that had some Yen we could exchange for before we left on our flight. Our flight left SLC at 1:30 in the afternoon. Since April has done this flight before, she realized that the best thing for us to do would probably be to stay up during the whole flight to Tokyo so we would be able to sleep that night. Surprisingly, I did pretty well. I guess the movie watching and continually standing did the trick.

We arrived in Tokyo Tuesday night around 5:00, and then we had another quick flight from Tokyo to Osaka. The frustrating thing was that our flight to Osaka was supposed to leave around 6:45, but we didn’t end up leaving until about 8:00. Needless to say, we were not too happy to just be sitting around when we could have been sleeping in our hotel. By about 11:00 we were finally at our hotel and getting to bed as soon as possible.

Wednesday

April had to be at work around 8:30, so I pretty much had the whole day to myself. I must say, we got an awesome hotel. Thanks Merit, for picking up the bill for that one. We stayed at the New Otani Hotel. It was really nice: bellmen and room service nice. The location was really good, too. The hotel was literally across the river from a large park area of Osaka Castle. Since it was close—and I didn’t want to wander too far away on my first solo attempt in Japan—I decided to check out the Osaka Castle for a little while.

I really liked the castle. Since it had burned down twice over they years, they had decided to keep the outside looking historic and modernize the inside. I thought it was really neat.

Once April got done with work for the day, the owner of the company invited us all out to dinner. This guy was 82 years-old, and still running his company. He was also really nice. He took us to the restaurant on the top floor of our hotel. It was really fancy and really expensive. I don’t know how much it cost, but it was worth every yen. The restaurant was similar to places like Tepanyaki or Benihana’s where there is a large grill in the center of the table and everyone sits around it while the chef cooks up the food right in front of you. The only difference was that these chefs were all serious and didn’t do any tricks with the food. It was also cool to see the view from the top of the hotel. Right outside our window was a great view of the Osaka castle, which was lit up for the night.

Thursday

This was my big adventure day. To start my day off, I had to get up around 5:00 to catch my first train. This train eventually led me to the main Osaka station. From there, I got on a bullet train that went to Nagoya. Now, why did I do this? There is a Toyota factory near Nagoya that gives free tours to the public. So after another train ride, a bus ride, and then getting lost, I finally made it to my 11:00 tour time (you have to reserve a spot on a tour at a specific time, otherwise they won’t let you go.) with about an hour to spare.

The tour was pretty neat. We toured the plant where they make the Prius. Apparently there’s a huge waitlist for the Prius even during these economic hardships. I noticed that that they made vehicles at that plant with steering wheels on either side of the car. It made me wonder if they were the only Prius factory in the world, or did they make them elsewhere as well? I still don’t know.

So after the tour, I looked around the museum they had there. It wasn’t really a museum as much as it was a show room of all their new models and what they were working on now. After that, it was time for me to head back to Osaka so I could meet up with April and everyone else for another awesome dinner. This time it was a Korean BBQ place. It was really nice. We had our own private room. It was another great dinner.

Friday

One of April’s biggest fears while we were in Japan was that I was going to get lost somewhere and I wouldn’t be able to get back to her. So, since I didn’t get lost at all the day before, I was feeling pretty confident about getting around foreign cities in Japan. So while April was at work, I headed to Kyoto to do some sight seeing. I should note that for the other trips that I’ve taken thus far I’ve had a pretty good set of instructions on where to go and what I was doing. However, in Kyoto, I couldn’t find a really good map to help me get around. I had a guide book that told me places to go and vaguely how to get there. Apparently, I needed more than just the book, because in an effort to get to the first site, Nijo Castle (Nijojo), I got lost. Woops. Fortunately, I eventually made it back to Nijojo and then back to Osaka. Since April’s boss headed back to Salt Lake earlier that day, the company decided not to take the two of us for dinner again. That was okay. They already gave us so much over the past two nights. It was time for us to go out on our own. So we did.

Saturday

FINALLY, we got to be together the whole day and do some sightseeing. We decided to head back to Kyoto, which was April’s first area. When we got there, we first met up with a lady in the ward that was really nice to the missionaries when while April was there. It took April a little while to remember where exactly she lived, but we finally made it there, and had a good time visiting with her. I didn’t understand anything, but it was still good to meet with her.

After that, we went and visited a few places. Eventually, we met up with two guys that used to hang out with the missionaries. They spoke a little English. April tried to encourage them to speak English on my behalf, but it didn’t work too well. One of them understood English really well but was nervous about his speaking, so he would just speak in Japanese. It was kind of fun to speak with him. He would ask something in Japanese, and I could usually guess what he was asking and answer his question. Sometimes it freaked him out. I just chalked it up to experience with Hungarians on my mission.

That night we went out to an authentic Japanese restaurant. It was pretty good. There were certain things that I didn’t like, but there were certainly a few things I did like.

Sunday

It turns out that Sunday was Stake conference for the ward April wanted to visit. Fortunately, April got in contact with a member from the area who told us. Since she is all alone—her kids are all grown up and her husband is out in Utah going to Salt Lake Community College—we hung out with her all day. After church, she took us back to her place in Nara for us to change into more comfortable clothes and for lunch. We then did some sightseeing in Nara. I think we all enjoyed each others company. We stayed as long as we could, but we had to hop on a train back to Osaka.

Monday

April still had a little bit of work she needed to get done before we flew out that night. So April went to work that morning while I packed up the suitcases. It was kind of hard to pack up because the Red Sox were playing the Yankees. Finally it came time for me to check us out of the hotel. With all of our luggage in tow, I made it down to train station where we were to meet. If this was my first time carrying a whole bunch of luggage through the train station alone, I would have felt awkward, but once again, my mission trained me well.

We met up around noon, and April was finally done with all the work she needed to do. Now she could relax for a few days. Eventually, we made it down to Osaka Airport for our flight. Our flight left Osaka around 11:00 pm, and we arrived in Honolulu around noon. From that flight, we learned that it’s really difficult to get a good night’s sleep on any flight.

Once we arrived in Honolulu, we got our rental car, and decided to head out to tour Pearl Harbor. That was really cool. We first went to the USS Arizona memorial. The video that they show before taking us out was really helpful in understanding what happened in Pearl Harbor both before December 7, 1941 and after.

After that, we went on a guided tour of the USS Missouri. When we first got there, it looked like it was going to be just the two of us and Sid, our guide. Just before we were supposed to leave, we were told that a tour group of about 26 people were going to be joining us. It seemed like Sid was a little disappointed that the group suddenly grew, but we were okay with it. We still had a great time learning about the significance of that ship. I, for one, didn’t know that Japan surrendered to the Allies on that ship in Tokyo Harbor.

After we finished with the tour, we explored the ship a little on our own until we had to leave. Once we got to the car, we decided to head into Waikiki to get a bite to eat and check in to the hotel. Not too long after that, we decided to hit the hay.

I should mention that when we checked into our hotel, we were given a free “upgrade” to a single king-sized bed suite. We didn’t ask any questions about the room at the time. That was a mistake. Our room was on the third floor. So around 5:00 am, we heard a bunch of trucks coming through the alley for the next hour. It woke both of us up. In the morning, we saw that they had given us one pair of ear plugs for us to use. I guess they’ve had complaints about the noise before.

Tuesday

We spent the whole day at the Polynesian Cultural Center. We got there when it opened around noon. It was pretty fun. We went around to all of the different areas to see their presentations. I would have to say that the Samoans were my favorite. They were just so much fun to watch.

We stayed for the night show they put. It was really good. They’ve created a new show that opened about two weeks ago. After that, we headed back to hotel to sleep.

Wednesday

Our flight left late that night, so we had to check out of our hotel that morning. So we packed up the car with all of our stuff as we headed out for the day. We first went and hiked Diamond Head. It wasn’t too bad of a hike. It probably took us about 40-45 minutes to make it to the top. The view from the top was really cool.

After the hike, it was finally time to hit the beach! We went to Hanauma Bay to snorkel for a while. That was a lot of fun. It was cool to swim around the reef with all of the fish. After a few hours of snorkeling and lying on the beach, it was time for us to get dinner and head out to the airport.

We had another one of those wonderful overnight flights over to Portland. Unfortunately, neither of us slept very well on the flight. I don’t think we’ll be taking any more of those flights any time soon.

Thursday

We arrived in Portland at 7:00 am. There really isn’t anyone in the airport that early. Eventually, we met up with my Aunt Marty and Uncle Harold. It was nice to see them. We never got together with them that much while I was growing up, so it was good to visit with them and learn more about them. My family also lived in Beaverton (just outside of Portland) for a few years before I was born. Aunt Marty and Uncle Harold took us around the city for a while. They showed us the houses that my parents lived in. While I was growing up, I always heard about the house on Tiger Lilly Lane. Now I know what they were talking about.

Eventually, we made it back to the airport where we sat around for a few hours for our plane to leave. A quick hop later, we were back in Utah heading home in the car.

Overall, I think the trip was a lot of fun. It was nice to get away for a little while. We were lucky to not experience any major problems. We made some great memories together. But play time is over now. I start school on Monday, and April is already back to work.

Here's the link to the Japan Photos:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2284858&id=17823234&l=2f699ff634

Here's the link for Hawaii Photos:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2284879&id=17823234&l=e97676d7b9

Jordan & April

Beaches and Peaches

From Japan to Portland, with a stop in Hawaii