A Weekend in Tokyo

We packed our bags and drove to the New Sanno Hotel in Tokyo Friday night to spend the weekend filled with swimming and sightseeing. It was a weekend for Megan to get her mind of her upcoming surgery on Tuesday. We waited what seemed like forever for Don to get home from work on Friday, luckily I talked Kyle into taking a nap on Friday after swimming (which he rarely ever does anymore, thank goodness the heat and swimming tires him out). With directions and toll money in hand we braved the open Japanese roads. The first time we went to the New Sanno we went by Train. We were doing excellent getting their until it said "at the OI toll pay 700 yen", we were on the Shuto Expressway, which we hadn't been before, trying to get to Rainbow Bridge and the sun was starting to set and all of a sudden we see an exit off of the expressway that says "OI" we started wondering is this our exit? Do we get off or do we stay on and the OI Toll will be straight ahead? Since you have like 10 seconds to make a decision on the roads here, Don swerved to the left and we got off. In my limited Japanese I tried to ask the Japanese man at the toll booth were we on the right way to the Rainbow Bridge? We showed him our directions. He said 700 yen please. We paid him our 700 yen and then he pulled out a map, had us pull over and told us we had got off the wrong exit. Luckily, Don could understand the map. We drove up the road about 1/4 mile and there was another on ramp with a toll bridge which was the one we were supposed to get off on, we hopped back on paid another 700 yen to go through the tunnel and we were back on course. We made it over the Rainbow Bridge to set in Tokyo traffic for about 20 minutes. We finally arrived at our hotel about 730pm, checked into our room on the 7th floor and ate dinner about 8pm which is so late for our family. The kids were upset that there was no pool that night, but we made up for it the rest of the weekend. Here are some pictures from our weekend in Tokyo.

Saturday morning after swimming and breakfast we took a train to visit Meiji shrine. It was about 90 degrees and humid on Saturday. They had a iris garden there but unfortunately they had already bloomed and were gone. The Meiji Shrine is one of Tokyo's biggest shrines and was established to honor Emperor Meiji. While we were there a Japanese couple was having a traditional Japanese wedding in Kimono's. The bride wore here Kimono and then her bridal Kimono. The guests and bridal party would keep following them back and forth through the shrine. Kyle asked one of the Japense if they kissed and she said "oh, no!". There were lots of tourists taking pictures, even other Japanese so I didn't feel bad.

These are empty casks that are used to fill Japanese sake.

Here are Don and the kids under a Torii Gate on our path to the shrine.

Here we are cleansing our hands before we enter the shrine.

Here is the Meiji Shrine built in 1920.

Here are pictures of the wedding ceremony. The one on the left is the bride and groom. The bride before her wedding kimono. The ones that follow the bride is wearing her wedding kimono and a picture of the wedding party that follows her back and forth, it seemed like every 5 minutes they walked from one side of the shrine courtyard to the other. The picture is a little fuzzy, everytime I went to take a picture of her someone always walked in front of my camera.

After visiting the shrine we went back to the hotel for some much needed food and swimming. Then off again to visit the Tokyo Tower. The Tokyo Tower is 333 meters tall. Interesting fact...It is taller than the Eiffel Tower which is only 320 meters. We went right as the sun was going down and got some good shots. Although, everytime we got up somewhere high for a view it's always so hazy/smoggy we never get a view of Mt. Fuji, which was the case this time too.

Here is a glass window they have in the floor. I had both Megan and Kyle (eventhough they were scared they were going to fall through), sit on the window so I could take their picture so you could see the bottom of the tower.

The view at night was great. Aren't these pictures Don took Awesome?

A visit from an old friend

I got an email from a friend of mine that I met in Hawaii that her and her family would be in Tokyo for a few days and could we get together? Well, of course! How many times does someone actually come to visit you when you move overseas? Laurell and I met in I believe it was Quantitative Methods class at HPU (Hawaii Pacific University) while working on our Masters' Degree back in 1996. We figured the last time we saw each other was when I lived in Virginia and she in Maryland where she lives now, so it's been about 6 years.

Here are some pictures of our 4 kids. From left my Megan 8, Laurell's son Boone 9, my Kyle 5 and Laurell's oldest son Jack 10:

We went on a ferry cruise of the Sumida river from Asakusa to Hinode Pier. It passes 12 bridges in Tokyo. We all had a great time. We had a great time catching up. My kids enjoyed meeting Laurell's.

Jogashima Island

We spent a hot and humid Sunday at Jogashima Island. We spent 4 hours walking along the rocky shore, climbing rocks, looking for shells and sea glass, having a picnic lunch and enjoying the water and the lovely sticky heat.

Here are the kids after lunch. We just made it down the hill and the rocky climb to the beach.

Luckily, mommy remembered to bring swimsuits. Well actually we had left the house I made daddy swing back around so I could grab them. Here are Meg and Kyle splashing and cooling off, the water was like bath water.

Here is another picture of the kids splashing in another inlet but look in the second picture and see what was swimming with them......a baby octopus! Mommy freaked and made them get out of the water after it squirted at them.

Don and Megan climbed to the top of this cave, it was a slippery little climb. Don had to lift her up. Kyle chickened out and I was just taking pictures. I wasn't lifting him up there. Don decided to chill out while the kids dipped in the pools of water.

The kids excited we made it up from the beach. By the way can anybody read the sign, it's in Kanji? Now we had another climb to the top of the park. It was now really humid and quite a climb. What trooper! Kyle and Megan practically ran the enitre way up.

Here are pictures of a Japanese lighthouse. Looks more modern than our traditional lighthouses.

After our day at the beach, we stopped at a Mexican restaurant right outside the base for dinner. Yes, believe it or not they do have Mexican restaurants in Japan.

The menu is in English and Japanese.

Here is Kyle enjoying his Mexican dinner and Melon soda. Meg and Daddy hamming it up for the camera with a full belly.

The Great Buddha

Happy 4th of July! We spent our Fourth touring Kamakura. When we left base it was over case and we thought it was on the cool side, we thought it was going to sprinkle so we brought our umbrella. When we arrived in Kamakura it was sunny and humid. I did not bring sunscreen. Afraid we were going to fry in the sweltering heat, I popped into the 100 Yen store (the local dollar store) to buy some sunscreen. Everything of course was written in Japanese. I bought a bottle that said sun lotion with a sun on it. I assumed it was sunscreen, so I bought it. When we got outside there was a nice older Japanese man who gave us a pamphlet in English for Kamakura and all the local temples (obviously recognizing we wouldn't understand the Japanese brochures). I asked him if I had indeed bought sunscreen protection. He was kind to read the back of the bottle. I did indeed by sunscreen unforunately it was for the body only, it was not meant to put on the face. We prayed all day our fair skin (Megan and I especially) did not bake in the heat. We made it. Note to self...pack sunscreen in backpack for all future ventures.

Here are some pictures from our venture. We had a great time yesterday.

Cleaning our hands and cleansing ourselves before we enter the temple.

The Great Buddha and his slippers.

Here we are taking a rest. Me in my usual pose and the kids enjoying a tasty treat of Green Tea and Sweet Potato ice cream. It was delish!

Next, we walked to the Hasedera Temple. According to legend, in 721 AD the pious monk Tokudo Shonin discovered a large camphor tree in the mountain forests near the village of Hase in the Nara region. He realized the trunk of the tree was so large that it provided enough material for carving two statues of the eleven -headed Kannon. The statue was eventually brought to Kamakura and a temple was constructed to honor it. Since time immemorial, Hasedera Temple has been known as the 4th station among the 33 holy palces in the Kanto area.
We enjoyed the beautiful views, ponds, and flowers blooming.

Doesn't Megan look cute posing next to this

little statue/shrine? Some Japanese women were smiling at her trying to get her to smile too.

This is us walking up Prospect Road. No prospects along the way....Sorry!

Other views along the way..........

Kyle's Dinosaur Party

Better late than never. I finally downloaded my camera and here are pictures from Kyle's 5th Birthday party last weekend. It turned out really good. I have two cameras and only downloaded the one last week. I am happy to say that my pinata turned out, so well in fact that I had to finally bust it open.

I also made a pin the tail on a dinosaur for the party and a dig for dinosaur pail for the kids to do besides the big bouncy. Everyone seemed to have a good time.