Japan 2014 - Monday

Japan Trip - Nov 1-11, 2014

Eden in front of the family car

Leanna picked us up from the airport on Sunday afternoon. It took 2 1/2 hours to drive to the base. We were very tired from the 13-hour plane rides, and the time change. We gave her kids a squeeze, had a bite of her wonderful Cafe Rio dinner and headed to our hotel room on base to go to bed early. The room Julie and I had was very nice... like a condo really--kitchenette, 3 bedrooms, two baths... Sweet.

This is where we stayed 3 nights

Monday - Today we woke up and walked to Leanna's house.  She made some yummy whole grain pancakes. We then took Annie with us on a wonderful bike ride around a lake. We saw a big Japanese temple on the way and got some fruit at a market on the way home. Loved trying a persimmon for the first time.

We took Mike to lunch or rather, he took us to lunch, at an Indian Food place.  It was really good food. We had some curry and nan (bread). Yummy.

 Then Leanna arranged for her kids so we three could drive back to Tokyo and  we went to a fun Alice in Wonderland restaurant. We couldn't find it at first, so Leanna stopped to ask a kid if he new where the place was by showing him on her phone the place we were looking for. He didn't know the place, but immediately got help from his friends, and they were all looking it up on their phones and looking around. They wouldn't give up until they had found just where we needed to be. We loved how kind and helpful they were.

We walked around a bit checking out the big billboards and tall buildings  and crazy intersections of Shibuya. It's quite amazing - all the people, and all the businesses that are packed into a small place. They definitely build UP! We're spending the night in a very nice military hotel here in Tokyo. In the morning we're going to the fish market and checking out some more sights here in the Tokyo area.

This is the busiest intersection in the world. Crazy!

Hachiko Statue is a famous statue of a dog who possessed legendary loyalty to his owner.

Japan 2014 Tuesday

Tuesday

We got up and went first thing to the fish market. It took us a while to find it. All kinds of fish and people working in booths preparing the fish and packaging them and delivering them. Pretty smelly. We tried to find a place to have breakfast, but ended up just getting some kind of an egg thing on a stick.

Then we checked out of our hotel and went to some Gardens where we took a ferry to the Asakusa temple site. We sat by the nicest lady on the ferry. She had some treats (choco sticks) that she shared with us. We enjoyed them. Then she gave us a whole box of them, and then another stick apiece. She didn't speak any English, but she was so very cute in her sharing.

Cute group of Japanese school kids on our ferry

"This is the way we dry our clothes..."

Asakusa Temple near Tokyo

Cat all dressed up for the temple

Street leading up to the temple

We got some lunch at a fun sidewalk café. Very authentic Japanese food. I was accidentally given green tea instead of grapefruit juice. Yuck!

We loved these Japanese traffic helpers

Then the three of us squished into a Hackney and paid for our driver to pull us around for a bit. He was hilarious! He wouldn't stop jabbering animatedly in Japanese, despite the fact that he knew we couldn't understand a word, giving us a tour of the market and streets roundabout. 

We took the ferry back to the gardens and walked around there for a bit. 

 There was a gentleman there who took it upon himself to be our helper, showing us a particular good viewpoint and explaining rainbow bridge with its three layers-- top for cars, middle for buses and bottom for pedestrians. Nice guy.

Rainbow Bridge

We took the subway back to our hotel. We walked to the nearby LDS temple which is squished in the middle of some other buildings. What a fun sight to see.

Next-door was another fun park. After walking around a bit, Leanna drove us back to her home.