Summer Flowers in Japan

Now I know that we have wonderful flowers in the U.S. and probably the same ones as here but I guess I never really had the time to look.  Sad but true.  Here are some flowers and things we see on our walks everyday.  Such beautiful flowers make your day better.  Of course our house has none, so we are probably known as the lame house on the street.  LOL.

Julia decided to bring her Lovey.

 Check this spider.  He made a web over the trees and was wrapping its poor prey.  Sad but cool.

 These trees line the path we walk on.  They might be a kind of cherry blossom.

 This was a brilliant red flower.  Very cool.

 This is the happiest budda I have ever seen.  It is at the temple not to far from our house.

 And for some reason it has money in its mouth and around the base.  I think it is a budda who helps with money.

 Big preying mantas.

 These lizards are all over the place.  Really one about an inch long with blue and purple colors.  I know they are there but they seem to startle me every time.  I have seen one without a tail two days in a row.  So now I have named him stumpy.

 These are my favorite.  Such a bright pink.  I hope I can get some of these at home.

It sure is beautiful here.

Our First Japanese Meal

The hotel had three restaurants:  Japanese, Chinese and Western.  The first night we decided to have Japanese.  Julia was not to cooperative but feel asleep half way through.

First course:  Sushi, a sweet red tea, and something green in the little box but good.

 The meat and veggies that we get to cook.

 Second course:  Japanese salad.  Sushi and veggies with a light sauce. The green thing is tofu, not bad.

 Third course:  Soup. You drink from cup and it had a good onion flavor. Julia liked this and ate much of Jeff's.

 Fourth course:  Cold veggies you are suppose to dip in miso.

 Pickled veggies, not so good.

 More tofu.  I didn't care for this one.

 The menu, in case anyone can read Japanese.  We cooked the meat and veggies and had a garlic and sesame dipping sauces.  Plus rice and miso soup.

Dessert:  Miracle pudding.  A little flavor that is hard to describe.  Very good.

Add beer and good service and we had a great meal.  The next night we had the Western meal.  Local Hida beef that was so tender you didn't need a knife to cut it.  I would love to eat like this all the time.

Takayama Weekend

Takayama is a little less than 4 hours away and in the mountains.  We thought it would be a nice cooler weather get-a-way. No such luck on the cooler weather but a very cool place.  We drove through lots of tunnels as we drove up into the mountains.  Our hotel was older but very nice and a great view of the city and mountains.  Breakfast and dinner was included in the price of the hotel.  Once we got there we walked around the "old town" which is filled with shops, temples, restaurants and sake tasting.  Since we didn't want to drink and drive we decided to wait on the sake tasting until after dinner so we could walk down from the hotel.  Of course everything was closed by then and it was only 7:00pm.  Very strange how places closed so early in a tourist town.  What do they expect you to do?

This is a structure we saw on the way.  I think it was the travel machine from the movie "Contact"

 Sake tasting... but only before 5:00.  So we bought our own bottle.

 Wandering the streets of old town.

 Cool arch at the end of an old bridge.

 Julia is going to see the temple.  Shortly after she found a puddle that of course she had to sit in.  I guess she was hot.  Glad I carry extra clothes

 Another temple

 This was a dough ball with meat and onion inside.  A little sweet but a good snack.  They came in various colors but we went with the basic one.

 Scary looking dude outside one of the temples.

 Jeff in his Japanese jammies.  I guess you are suppose to wear to dinner which we didn't know until we went to dinner and saw most people wearing them.

 Julia in hers.  A little to big but she thought she was cool.

 At night before the storm.  View from our room.

 Cool structure.

 The next day we drove up further in the mountains and tool the rope line up close to the top.  Julia and I hiked around on the top level and Jeff made his way to the summit.  About a hour there thunder, lightening and then downpour.  About 45 minutes later Jeff enters the lodge soaked.  He is still drying out his boots.  Julia and were nice and dry in the lodge.  It was much cooler at the top and the lodge lost some power during the storm so we ate ramen and hung out.

 The double decker that takes you close to the top.

 Julia made a new friend.  This woman loved Julia and asked to hold her. She held her up on the ride up and part of the time in the lodge.

 Jeff and Julia enjoying the ride down.

 Before driving home we went to the Folk Village set up like an old school Japanese village.  Very cool but so hot so we went through fast and went back for ice cream.  Julia in her hiking outfit.

Yes that is right. A monkey crossing sign.  We did not see any live monkeys. 

 Our goods:  A traditional Takayama doll, sake, rice and soup bowls, sake cups, and cookies.

Another fun trip.

Kakegawa Summer Festival

This past weekend was the Kakegawa summer festival. Two nights of food, music and games for kids.  I guess you could say it is their version of a fair.  They blocked off the streets and there were tons of people.
The food is much different then what you would get at a fair in the U.S.  Here they had lots of meats and fish on skewers, noodles, chocolate covered bananas, soy beans and some other things I was not sure what they were.  On the second day they had cotton candy, french fries, ice cream and snow cones.  Their snow cones are huge and more in a cup then the little paper cone.  There are never any garbage cans around so you carry your garbage with you home.

Meat skewers with onion.  A little greasy but not bad.

 Noodles with egg.  Actually very good.  I did not care for the pickled pink stuff.

 Soy beans for sale.

One of the many dance groups.  This one was mainly older ladies.

 Julia was pretty memorized by the dancing.

 A group of girls wearing kimonos.  I didn't want to be to obvious when taking the picture.

 Here is where you could sit and eat but they only had a few tables.

 Lots of people having fun.

 Kakegawa castle all lite up at night.

Some of the music :  Jazz, translate in any language   

Japanese Rock Group

Something more traditional or so we thought until they busted into a Japanese 50s music dance.

The first night was less crowded and had better food.  It was fun being out and about.  I guess they have another one in October with costumes and floats.  We will be checking that one out too.