Ohisashiburi

おひさしぶり

"おひさしぶり"　O-hi-sa-shi-bu-ri means "It's been a long time."  And so it has.  Life's been zooming by, sometimes great, sometimes challenging, often just so-so, but very busy nonetheless.  A couple of weeks ago, Martin took me to Holland for a few days, just the two of us.  The last, and only time I'd been there was five years ago, passing through on a trip to Germany.  At that time, I had a broken shoulder which I'd suffered while skating my first time on the Rin Rin Road  (I was a skating newbie then).  That was also the time my suitcase was stolen right out of my hand at the Amsterdam train station... but aside from that, it was a lovely trip, too short.  This time, nothing bad happened at all.  We rented bikes for our entire stay and had a chance to explore Amsterdam, a city that abounds in canals and interesting buildings.  It is so very different from Tokyo as well as the America we know.  We rode through the park several times, but only saw an occasional solitary skater.  The park is near the Van Gogh Museum, which we thoroughly enjoyed one afternoon.  GO HERE for Martin's "around the city" pictures.

Martin booked us in the Renaissance Hotel.  The room was nice, but what was really special, was that it came with a porch.  I kid you not!  And the view from the porch was of this fabulous old dome which used to be a church, but is now the conference center of the hotel.  The porch was a unique and very useful surprise.

Because the timing of our trip coincided with peak tulip season in Holland, we took a bus tour to Keukenhof, which is a famous open air flower show near Amsterdam.  On the way, as we passed expansive fields of growing tulips, the tour guide prattled on in five different languages, saying her spiel in Dutch and then repeating it in English, French, German and Italian, we think.  We learned that tulips came to Holland from Turkey over 400 years ago and that in 1624, the tulip trading market in Holland went a little crazy, resulting in the financial crisis called Tulipmania.  Bizarre but true. 

The site of the flower show was the former estate of a noblewoman, and now it is just amazing.  I learned from a gardener at Keukenhof, that they work for 10 months of the year, completely tearing out and redoing all the flower beds and even the grass every year, (not the trees or sidewalks, but everything else, it seems) so that it can be open to the public for two amazing months.  HERE　for Martin's Flower Pix from Holland 

It was a great trip, thanks in large part to Christopher, Monica and Jonah's Uncle, who came and stayed with the kids and the dog.  Did we forget to tell Uncle Chris about Toby?  Oh, surely not.  Even so, he did give the dog a funny look when he came in from traveling for over a day and 14 time zones to get here, only to learn about the twice daily walks, the leash, and the "doggy bag" that goes on every walk no matter what.  My husband was rather surprised, and maybe a little jealous at how fast his brother and his dog had become best friends during the week.   

But Toby wasn't Chris's only friend here in Tokyo.  Part of the bribe that we agreed on was that I would arrange for four of my English speaking Japanese friends to each spend a day with him, take him sightseeing, kind of a "friend for a day".  And Chris is an easy sell in that he is pleasant, fairly intelligent, funny, (sometimes on purpose), adequately attractive...  in other words, you can take him out and expect him to behave himself.  Which is more than I can say for Toby.

From what I hear, Chris really had a great time in Kamakura on Monday with Hiro, Tokyo Bay on Wednesday with Chieko, Yokohama on Thursday with Hiroko and Kabuki and Ueno Zoo on Friday with Yuko.  And each of them is still my friend, so I think we're good. 

ブログでお久しぶり書きました。二週間前に主人は私をオランダに連れ行きました。とてもよかったです。今とても疲れたので、今度は英語で書きました。未来がんばります。　　マーティンの花の写真を見てください。HERE　for Martin's Flower Pix from Holland

 

Comments

[Martin]

What fun!!