For you, Dad: Umekoji Steam Locomotive Museum Kyoto

My dad is a real train buff, has been collecting antique Lionel trains since I can remember. (Every year at Christmas our tree has a proper model scale Lionel train going around it. He even had ambitions to build his own and had a lathe in the garage.) Now he's mixed in some pretty high tech remote control locomotives and diesels, all set up in his amazingly constructed model railroad room, which by the way is nearly bigger than our Amsterdam apartment. It's quite spectacular. 

I guess the mania rubbed off, because I thought this was one of the coolest things I've seen since going to festivals at Hesston Steam Museum in La Porte, Indiana when I was a kid. I suppose it's a real man and machine thing. And the conquest of land through ingenuity and grit.

Hopper, the little budding steampunk that he is, was so excited to be there that he pretty much just ran around for the first half an hour. (Which honestly had me somewhat worried about overexertion and dehydration. I kept chasing him around offering juice. Look at Nik's shirt in the first photo!)

Unfortunately he didn't much care for other kids sitting in the engineers' seats and was shouting 'niet doen!' (don't do that!) or flat out refused to be in them. And true to toddler form, sometimes simply preferred to spend time on the stairs leading up to them. It was, however, super cool to see all the valves and gauges and to realize how close the operators were to a blazing , pressure cooking inferno. 

They also had great stuff just for kids: a train whistle machine showing matching photos, a full-on scale model railroad with buttons to push for lights and whistles, and a low platform with all sorts of pieces of track and trains to play with. This is where we encountered a revolt when leaving, but Hopper was much appeased by getting a shinkansen at the gift shop. He can even say it!


All these locomotives were built in Japan between 1914-1948 and in use until the 1950/60's. Previously they used American and European models. The shinkansen (high speed) trains debuted in 1964 and pretty much made the old steamers obsolete with the last ones being used in the 1970's. Thankfully Japanese pride has kept them in great working condition.

The station here is the oldest in Japan, and now houses 16 engines in the round house. They even have one in use day to day to give rides! Though, unfortunately, the carriages were of the theme park variety instead of old railcars. We opted out as the line was outrageous and the sun blaring down was too much to bear. But I got a great video of it pulling up, see down below. (Sorry it's shaky from walking. Also, could only upload through youtube, anyone got any tips of video uploading to blogs?)

Here's a link to descriptions and photos of all the models on show: http://www.mtm.or.jp/eng/railway/index.html

sweaty hair and blotchy face

one of many cross-section displays of train components

the kid standing with the green shirt center-left, behind him is a 2-tubed air blower to be used to cool off.  looks more like a teletubbies creation. you can also see one near top left corner. yeah, i call bullshit. they were blowing sahara desert air.

shinkansen likes sushi!

Konichiwa Japan!

Our departure for Japan went fairly smoothly all things considered. 3 bags, 1 travel cot, and a stroller for 3 months, not bad. Despite Hopper only sleeping for about 45 min during our 11-hour flight, we got by thanks to technological support in the way of in-flight movies and the iPad. Really, how did parents cope before? It was also a great help that he had his own seat with buttons to push and a tray table to kick. (And thankfully no one in the seat in front of him.)

We arrived into Osaka, sent our bags ahead to Kamiyama where Nik’s residency in located on Shikoku island… yet another reason why I love Japan: at the airport, as is commonly done, you can ship your bags anywhere in the country, usually within 48 hours, for a nominal cost = flippin genius… and gladly paid for early check-in. The heat had kicked in and we finally had a sleeping boy, which gave us time to change into more weather appropriate attire and decide to eat underground at one of the many shopping center eateries. And I’m not talking some dodgy sub sandwich place or the Golden Arches, the Japanese have scores of restaurants within labyrinthine corridors under streets, department stores, subway stations. I’m sure there are some duds but they’re mostly fantastic noodles, sushi, and the like and a welcome reprieve from the 39C/102F.

We wandered around America town (America-mura) looking for sunglasses (which I stupidly forgot in Amsterdam) and popped into a kiddy park where I promptly got chowed by aggressive mozzies. They're tiny here. And quite stealthy. This was followed by a stop into a bar food joint where Hopper happily noshed on seaweed and squid but got mad about the fried chicken. Toddlers and jetlag.

When we booked our hotel, there were photos of an outdoorsy area that we thought would be great for toddler energy expenditure, but it turned out to be an indoor atrium containing a “chapel” used for weddings. Tricky tricky. We did however find a small lush garden patio attached to the reception hall on the 23^rd floor that we snuck into for an evening fountain peek. Naughty us, climbing over the velvet ropes.

We only had one night before catching a train the next day for Kyoto so I'll continue with our adventures in Kyoto and again back to Osaka before we arrived in Kamiyama, paradise on Earth.

And being that this whole blogging thing is totally new to me, please cut me some slack, I promise it’ll get better.

For now, sayonara!

PS. Getting a better camera... I realize these kinda suck.