Tsukuba-san

One of the tricky things for us to juggle at the moment is the fact that Steve, working for his Australian company, has the Australian public holidays, while the girls, in their Japanese public school, have the Japanese public holidays. As one might suspect, these do not often align. We are trying to make the most of our time here though, so with the Easter long weekend on the horizon, we booked two nights away at Mt Tsukuba. 

I had been to Tsukuba-san (as it's referred to in Japanese), before with my Japanese homestay family over twenty years ago. They had taken me because it's famous for frogs, which I love. Steve was wanting to get some actual mountain climbing practice in (not just stairs training) and Tsukuba-san looked like it would provide some ideal conditions for the mountain climbing (if not the freezing cold altitude of Fuji-san). Since the girls were at school on Friday, Steve took the train early in the morning and spent five hours climbing a mountain. The girls and I took the much later (and more crowded) train after school to join him. 

It was a cool and cloudy day, so even though not the best for the views, pretty tolerable for mountain climbing. Steve smashed out his climb and took the cable car back down the mountain even before school was over. 

We just stayed in the main town of Tsukuba, rather than at the mountain. I would have liked to go all the way up, but with the girls it was tricky. Still, there was plenty to do. Saturday we had breakfast out, stumbled upon some markets and then made our way to the Space Centre and Geological Museum. 

The Space Centre had an actual rocket, but was otherwise a little underwhelming. The Geological Museum was really interesting, with lots of displays and a huge interactive map of Japan that you could layer different information over. 

This was all the onsen (hot springs)

It's a little confronting to put things like "all the active volcanos" and "earthquake faults" on the map and see so many things light up. Steve mentioned that I seem a little concerned about all the ways we could die here. I guess coming from Australia, we are so used to all the warnings about animals that can kill you, while the natural disasters that could do the same are more few and far between. In Japan, there aren't that many animals that could take you out, but the list of natural disasters that would is pretty long. 

All the active volcanos

Also, Japan are way more prepared for all the emergencies; Rachel bought home a "what would we do in a flood" planning guide from school for example. People tend to store things like bottled water, incase of an emergency when the water is cut off, and have extra food in their floor cupboards. To be honest, even if I bought surplus food supplies, we'd have no way of cooking them if the power is out, so there isn't much point. Steve also pointed out that if we were at that moment in an emergency, we'd likely be at a friend's house or looking for ways to leave the country anyway. Let's hope it doesn't come to that. 

Anyway, back to the travel blog!

Getting out of the complex that the Geological Museum was in (which was the Science Research Centre for Tsukuba and actually had guards at the entrance) proved a little tricky, since we took a path to the rear only to find a locked gate stopping us from getting through. Luckily, someone who worked there road past us on a bike just as we turned back and we were able to get out after he swiped his card, saving us a long walk back in the heat. Did I mention it was 28 degrees? Such a warm day! 

We stopped at Tsukuba Brewery and Steve had a tasting paddle of three pretty good beers. I guess Steve would say they were all great, but I only really liked the first one. 

Then we bussed back to our hotel and I took the girls for another walk through the markets before we snacked at Mister Donuts. Lastly we walked through the central park to the Expo Centre (with yet another rocket). This place looked cool, but since it was already 4:15, we weren't sure if it would be worth it to try to smash through the exhibits in the 45mins before closing time, so we strolled back through the park to the fountain area outside the hotels that the girls were keen to play in. 

They hung out there on the rocks for ages doing who knows what. Scheming probably. Then Steve took them to get a cat shirt for Sophie and come back to the hotel for dinner. The girls were not feeling like going out for dinner, so we had strategically bought convenience store dinner for them (cup noodles and chicken pieces) and left them in the hotel while we went out. 

I tried my first ever eel, which was delicious, and Steve had tempura and soba. Back to the hotel for some time watching random Japanese game shows with the girls before bed. 

Sunday (Easter Sunday!) we had some chocolate eggs that I strategically packed all the way from Australia. Steve had said (back in February when I bought them) "We'll be able to find Easter eggs in Japan right?". Oh, so wrong Steve. I was glad I packed these precious Cadbury gems. They were well worth the luggage allowance that they took up. 

We didn't have much time on Sunday to explore Tsukuba more because the girls had their first meeting of Girl Scouts that afternoon, so we pretty much packed up and shipped out to be home in time for that. We saved our actual Easter celebrations for Monday, when we had a bit more time at home and were feeling much less travel worn. 

All in all, it was a good little get away.