So glad I didn’t spend this gorgeous day in the car driving home to Des Moines. Instead I got a long awaited swim in a lake, which I have been longing to do all summer. Better late than never and had a great swim in Lake Michigan at Hollywood Beach, a pleasant stretch of sand a short walk from where Emma and Rocket live in Edgewater — another great thing about their neighborhood!
Later we went to a funky place called the Rodgers park social club and made our own at the excellent Bloody Mary bar, which came with a chaser of beer or cider. Explored the neighborhood a little- a food store with lots of Midwestern products (and a shopkeeper from royal oak, Michigan …my hometown area; a little sculpture garden. Tonight we had a great dinner at Shaw’s where I tried a new dish that was as good as my aunt said it was – fresh grilled tuna in a soy ginger sauce with crispy thin sliced potatoes and chives.
Great to see our longtime family friend from Pennsylvania, Marjorie V., after so long.
Nice to have a story I wrote about our trip to Japan’s Yamanashi prefecture in today’s Des Moines check it out there
Or below:
Iowa farmers’ highlights from trip to sister state Yamanashi
Betsy Rubiner, Special to the Register11:50 a.m. CDT August 2, 2016
(Photo: Betsy Rubiner/Special to the Register)
After jumping at an invitation from Iowa farmers to tag along on a July trip to Japan’s Yamanashi Prefecture, I got even more excited when my guidebook had no mention of Yamanashi. I love traveling off the beaten path.
But Iowans – farmers, students, business leaders, governors – have beaten a path to Yamanashi since the 1960 “Iowa hog lift,” when Iowa donated breeding hogs and feed corn to help the region about 80 miles west of Tokyo recover from a typhoon.
So began the Iowa/Yamanashi sister-state relationship, the first between the United States and Japan. Exchanges of people, agriculture products and kindness have followed. (On the State Capitol grounds in Des Moines, check out the monument sent by Yamanashi residents in 1962.)
Our group from the Iowa Farm Bureau (where my husband works, hence the invite) was warmly welcomed with unusual opportunities, including an agriculture tour through a fertile valley surrounded by mountains, with stops at a peach orchard, rice paddy and grape greenhouse (rebuilt with some Iowa aid after a 2014 snowstorm).
But here are activities available to all:
Experience Mt. Fuji: Catching sight of Japan’s highest peak (12,388 feet) is thrilling – and not guaranteed, we soon learned. Among Japan’s most iconic images, the snow-capped, cone-shaped volcano can be found on everything from famous woodblock prints to hand towels and cookies. The real Mt. Fuji greeted us full frontal, with only a wispy cloud drifting across its mid-section, when we arrived at the Highland Resort Hotel, in the small city of Fujiyoshida, about a 33-mile drive north of the mountain. The next day, Fuji was gone, gobbled up by clouds. “She’s very shy,” explained our charming Japanese guide.
July and August are peak Fuji hiking season, including popular overnight climbs. Although I wasn’t among the Iowa farmers who went on a short, well-reviewed day hike, I joined a mid-mountain visit, arriving by tour bus after an hour’s drive south. Although the “fifth station” parking area was packed with visitors and buses (private cars weren’t allowed), being on Fuji and peering down into its spooky, dense green forest from the visitor area decks was a kick.
Japanese bathing: Yamanashi is a good place to try Japan’s famed communal bath houses, many with water from natural hot springs or onsens, thanks to the area’s volcanic activity. (Fuji hasn’t erupted since the early 1700s.) Yes, this is nude bathing. But there’s one area for women, another for men. (Some onsens offer private rentals for coed bathing.)
A typically American, solo shower gal, I discovered that lounging around in shallow pools of water (indoor, outdoor, hot, tepid, cold, rosemary-infused) is a relaxing way to end a day as a Yamanashi tourist, especially in hot-and-humid July. It’s also a very Japanese experience, with well-defined and obeyed rules that newcomers pick up, sometimes after a mishap or two. (Word to the wise: Wash yourself before entering the pools. And no people with tattoos allowed.)
Peach picking time in Yamanashi: One of Japan’s top fruit-producing regions, Yamanashi’s famous softball-sized, white-fleshed peaches are sold at roadside stands, indoor markets and pick-your-own orchards. (Look, too, for delicious peach ice cream.) We also spotted peaches hanging low from trees, each wrapped in paper. The result: pricey peaches pampered to perfection, rosy and blemish-free on the outside, sweet and juicy inside, sold in expensive Tokyo department store food halls.
Visit a traditional farming village, sort of: To Iowa eyes, Saiko Iyashi no Sato – a recreation of a farming village destroyed by a 1966 typhoon – brings to mind the Des Moines area’s Living History Farms. But this open-air museum/crafts showcase in the woods above one of the Fuji Five Lakes is distinctly Japanese, with traditional thatched roofed houses along winding paths dotted with purple hydrangea. Inside many are shops selling artwork and food, from Mt. Fuji depictions to green tea ice cream. (Yamanashi’s Fujiyama Museum specializes in Fuji art.)
Roller Coaster Riding: I hate roller coasters. But plenty of farmers were game to try the coasters – billed as among the world’s steepest – at Fuji-Q Highland, an amusement park well-known in Japan and located right behind our hotel.
Japanese dining – or not: Familiar restaurants near our hotel include a Big Boy, KFC and McDonald’s. But word has it, the hamburgers were less familiar – bun-less and more like meatloaf with gravy. All the more reason to eat Japanese classic cuisine at our hotel’s restaurants or at Aiya, a chain restaurant with an encyclopedic menu worthy of an Applebee’s, featuring greatest hits such as sushi, tempura, Udon noodles, karaage (chicken nuggets) and tonkatsu (akin to Iowa’s pork tenderloin). Fortunately, Aiya’s menu also has point-to photos, since our Japanese is pathetically limited to words like “arigato” (thank you) and “Ohayo” (good morning). And refreshingly, no one in the restaurant spoke much English.
Betsy Rubiner, based in Des Moines, writes the travel blog TakeBetsywithyou.
I’ve always thought the area just beyond Lake Shore Drive on Sheridan Road in Chicago looks more like Miami than the Windy City, with its old school highrises blocking the lake views, with names like “Malibu” and “Tiara.” So it was interesting to finally see what the public beach looks like beyond those highrises. Gorgeous views of the endless water and to the south, the towers of downtown Chicago looking like a glittering, far-away Oz.
We’re accustomed to a much closer view of downtown – from North Beach near my Aunt’s “Gold Coast” apartment. But the Edgewater neighborhood’s view is lovely in its own way – sort of a reminder of the leafy, relatively quiet neighborhood’s distance (but also proximity) to Chicago’s more hardcore urban downtown. We visited three small patches of beachfront – one by a Jewish temple that I’d never noticed before, whose sanctuary must have one of the best views in the city. There’s a little cafe at one beach, a snack bar at another with handy and fairly clean public bathrooms. Not many people were swimming but families and couples and other groups picnicked on the grass, played catch in the sand and admired the view on a rare holiday weekend when Chicago weather was at its best.
If you go: along N. Sheridan
Berger Park (with the Waterfront Cafe) north of Granville Ave.
Lane Beach Park (near Thorndale Ave.)
Hollywood Beach and Kathy Osterman Beach House (and snack bar), north of Hollywood Ave.
EAnother gorgeous day in Chicago and we had a great vantage point to see the Big City in all its glory– Terzo Piano, the sleek all white and windowed restaurant in architect Renzo Piano’s new wing of the Chicago Art Institute. A wedding party commadered the terrace but we had a fine view of the skyline and throngs of Sunday saunterers in Millenium park from the restaurant. Good food too – hearty bloody Mary’s served with a chunk of cheese, sausage and olive on a toothpick, the rim of the glass dusted with Aleppo pepper (which apparently is from Aleppo, Syria and getting harder to get as a result of the unending war there….and now, awkward transition, back to our relatively carefree existence…) Brunch was reasonably priced (apparently compared to other meals there) and delicious. I had brioche French toast, others had lox and bagel; biscuits and gravy, eggs with the best kale chips I’ve eaten (and I generally don’t eat them.)
We looked at a Gordon parks photo exhibit then took the cool elevated walkway over to the lovely gardens in Millenium park ((lots of purple and green and the occasional dazzling red poppies). Tons of bicyclists around (a reminder that someday we’d like to ride the bike the drive event, which took place today on lake shore drive. one fashion trend we have noticed this trip. Men wapearing heavy leather harnesses around their upper torso. Why?
Great day exploring the Edgewater/Andersonville neighborhood surrounding our “kids” great new digs in Chicago. THey bought a lovely condo in 100 year old brick building on a leafy street with a great deck in the back overlooking neighbors gardens and old housetops.
Lickety split
Feels like an oasis from urban life but smack dab of n the big city too. We had good dim sum at old time place, Furama (get the crispy, fried stuff more than the gooey boiled stuff), frozen custard at Lickety Split, also on Broadway, and incredibly crispy but not greasy fried chicken at Big jones, which does lots of other southern staples. bought some cards and paper goods at Foursided. PErfect day.
Another day, another place to explore. This time Pasadena, which I last visited in sabout 1986. lUcy, mike, Dirck and I met scott tuft for Sunday lunch at Daisy Mint, a very good Thai restaurant and then went to Cherry, for frozen yoghurt.
We walked around the expensive shops in the pretty downtown, drove past some gorgeous Spanish style mansions and around the pretty little bungalows and interesting indie shops of south Pasadena (a place I could almost seeing us living in) and then thru the grentrifiying highland park back to Burbank (where we started the day with a steep hike up the hills for a,spectacular view from on high of the city.
I am still not convinced that in a place as sunny, green and vibrantly landscaped as LA, with mountains and the ocean and beaches, it would be wise to live in the faded grandeur of downtown LA.
bUt it does have its hipster outposts and it was fun to visit them today. First stop the jam packed Grand central Mrket where we had excellent falafel and corned beef sandwiches and of course overpriced espresso in a cavernous old warehouse.
fRom there we walked past old facades and way too many homeless people along sidewalks with a faint smell of pee to another old cavernous building that houses “the last bookstore” another new hipster hotspot, packed with used and new books and people (mostly used, not new). The craziest place of all was Clifton’s cafeteria, a revived cafeteria style restaurant and bar and handout with three or four meandering floors and crazy western decor, a mock 3 story sequoia, a huge stuffed buffalo encased in glass, and old fashioned selection of cafeteria fare from Tuna salad in a plastic cup to German sweet chocolate cake. It was a good place to drop,for a bit and sit in stand oversized chairs made of overly shellacked tree bark.
The last time I passed through Santa Barbara was in 1983 in a torrential downpour and it was all a blur. I vaguely remember Spanish arcades and palm trees. This time I got a much better look and it was lovely.
We started about 15 miles south in the laid back beach town of Carpenteria, where as per my brothers recommendation, we stopped for coffee and an Acai bowl at a mellow coffee place called the lucky llama. Then onto the beach where we walked in the fog along what looked and felt like soft pristine sand until we returned to the car and realized our feet were coated with sticky tar that we first thought was from pine needles but later realized must be from the oil spill last year. I made the mistake of trying to scrape it off with my fingers which then got coated. pIty the poor wildlife that had to deal with this sticky stuff.
bUt on we went to lovely Santa Barbara where the Spanish style architecture , the giant palm trees, the bourganvilla was enchanting. Reminded me at times of Santa Fe, Naples (Florida) and even the plaza in Kansas City. We had good humble tacos at Lilly’s taqueria and explore the shops nearby, then we toured the pretty old stone mission (shades of Peru and Tucson), walked to the end of the wharf for a dazzling view back across the water past the Spanish white buildings and the mountains beyond., drove around some of the neighborhoods with pretty old craftsman and mission style houses, ate some ice cream at McConnell’s (since 1949) and drove back to la via orange and lemon gloves and strawberry stands to Burbank.
in the Des Moines airport, our snazzy Swiss Army knife is confiscated by TSA (after we decide not to check our bags, as planned). At ohare, we win a $100 Visa card after I nudge Dirck to try on some pants at a dockers promotion kiosk. Woohoo! On to Toronto!
So glad I didn’t spend this gorgeous day in the car driving home to Des Moines. Instead I got a long awaited swim in a lake, which I have been longing to do all summer. Better late than never and had a great swim in Lake Michigan at Hollywood Beach, a pleasant stretch of sand a short walk from where Emma and Rocket live in Edgewater — another great thing about their neighborhood!
Later we went to a funky place called the Rodgers park social club and made our own at the excellent Bloody Mary bar, which came with a chaser of beer or cider. Explored the neighborhood a little- a food store with lots of Midwestern products (and a shopkeeper from royal oak, Michigan …my hometown area; a little sculpture garden. Tonight we had a great dinner at Shaw’s where I tried a new dish that was as good as my aunt said it was – fresh grilled tuna in a soy ginger sauce with crispy thin sliced potatoes and chives.
I’ve always thought the area just beyond Lake Shore Drive on Sheridan Road in Chicago looks more like Miami than the Windy City, with its old school highrises blocking the lake views, with names like “Malibu” and “Tiara.” So it was interesting to finally see what the public beach looks like beyond those highrises. Gorgeous views of the endless water and to the south, the towers of downtown Chicago looking like a glittering, far-away Oz.
