Kamakura

1st stop: Zeniarai benten shrine
2nd stop: the big Buddha statue
3rd stop: Hasedera Temple
and we hiked everywhere.

Ate French Toast at Loncafe

And that ends the day in Kamakura.

Asakusa (2)

After that we ate lunch and took a boat to Hama Rikyu garden. That was a beautiful place. We had tea there then walked to Odaiba where we rode the Ferris wheel.

 Then we ate crepes and decided to end our day of adventure. (It turns out she had never been to Odaiba before either.) We got to the train station and she headed for the sign that said Yokosuka line. I had saw a sign that said the line we were supposed to go on was behind but she insisted. I kept saying, "Are you sure?" She was pretty confident until we were actually on the train. After I finally convinced her we were on the wrong train, we got off at Yokohama and switched the the right line. In conclusion, it was as unique a day as any. :)

Asakusa

I went to Asakusa with my grandmother's older sister. Though she is ten years my grandmother's senior, she is in excellent shape and doesn't tire easily. It was actually pretty fun.

This is some sort of fortune thing. You pay to take a stick with a number out of a cylinder, then you find the corresponding box and it has your fortune on it. Then you just tie it to the poles in the middle of the picture. 

The Japanese think that if you wave the smoke toward you, it makes you smarter and heals you.

They wash their hands in this water fountain before they pray at the temple.

The symbol that is used to represent a temple is similar to the Nazi symbol. And it's everywhere...

O_o

Also saw some sort of TV show going on.

These following few pictures are for a few friends. Ignore if you don't like expensive samurai swords. ;)

Hmmm... this post is getting too long. I will make a part two.

YBC Sunday School Picnic

Everytime I come visit Japan I go to church at Yokosuka Baptist Church. It has been really nice seeing my friends again and last Saturday all of the Sunday Schools had a picnic on the naval base. I don't have any pictures. (sorry) We had an absolutely great time! We played a lot of different games and I got to know some of the teens and others here better. We played a Filipino game with a board with nails on it and different colored stripes at the bottom. Each color had a corresponding number of points. First, you roll a die to determine how many marbles you get. Then, you drop a marble at the top, it bounces off the nails, and when it gets the the bottom it lands on a color. It was an interesting game. We played some other games as well as kickball and dodgeball. It was fun. My Sunday School teacher, Bro. Patrick, has a son named Gen Gen and he and I were playing tag all day. :)

The Sky Duck

We took the train to Tokyo and walked around the SkyTree for a while. Then we ate lunch and spent a little time at Starbucks. There's this thing called the Sky Duck (Japanese people name their attractions the weirdest things). It's a bus that goes in the water and becomes a boat. That was pretty cool. Then we got to go to the Totoro store (I was very happy :))

It's been so rainy and cloudy lately you can't really see anything.



Srarbucks

The guide

Foggy Fuji

Those two words describe the day. Nene and I took a day bus tour.
 First, we stopped at the fifth station on Mt. Fuji. Beautiful view.

If you couldn't tell, that was saracastic.
One thing I did get to do was eat some melon pan (bread with melon flavored crust) that was shaped like Mt. Fuji.

After that we ate lunch and went to Lisa and Gaspard's town. Lisa and Gaspard are som really cute French bunnies. The town is supposed to be modelled after Paris and it even has a mini Eiffel Tower.

Then we went for a boat ride and rode the Kachi Kachi Yama Ropeway. That was interesting. Kachi Kachi Yama is an old Japanese Folk story. If you wanna know more about it, HERE is the Wikipedia link. There are two gondolas that go up and down. One is a rabbit and the other is a tanuki. On the way up there's a recording that plays. The rabbit speaks Japanese and the tanuki speaks English. The only thing is that it's really funny English. Not only is it grammatically incorrect, the way the guy says it is hilarious.

Then we went home. It was a fun day despite not being able to see much.

A Strange Day

I woke up and put on black clothes. Why? I went to the temple for some ceremony for my great aunt's husband who died. I was ready to leave way before everyone else so I was practicing piano upstairs and Nene was still in her pajamas.
At five till our time to leave, which was 9, I told her,
"It's almost nine."
and she said,
"I guess I should start getting ready."
Then my grandfather came upstairs and said,
"Are you ready to leave?"
and she said,
"What?! We're leaving nine-thirty, right?"
And that is how the day started. We ended up leaving her behind. She came a few trains behind us. We got to the temple and I got to see a bunch of relatives I haven't seen in a long while. The ceremony thing was very interesting. This bald guy in a funny outfit came out and started explaining a wooden stick with a bunch of Japanese characters on it. Nene said that was the only thing she understood. :) Then he sat down and started hitting things and chanting. Never seen anything like it before.
After all of that stuff, we went to Yokohama for lunch. It was a really nice place. Before we went into the dining room, I showed them some of my pictures because they wanted to see the farm and Ben. My grandmother was telling them how much my Japanese has improved and how much internet translators make explaining easier and this is the example she chose. The other day I was telling her about the time I visited the dairy near my house and one of the cows had cancer. The only thing was that I didn't know what cancer was in Japanese so I looked it up. (It's gan by the way.) Then we got called into the dining room. When we were all seated, my mother's cousin asked me, "So what happened to the cow with cancer in its eye?" So I told her that the eye had to be removed and then all of the sudden the whole room was really quiet. Here's a fact about me: when I'm nervous, I laugh. It was really quiet and I got nervous so I laughed. Then everyone else started laughing too so it was okay. :)
The food was good.

After all of that, everyone else departed and Nene and I went shopping for a bit before heading home. Strange day? Maybe, but it was interesting as always. :)

Okonomiyaki

We got to go to my favorite restaurant tonight. Yay! Every time we go to Japan we eat here at least once. I always like to get the four cheese okonomiyaki. Okonomiyaki is sort of like a unsweet pancake with veggies in it. It sounds disgusting but I'm telling you it tastes amazing!

 First, they give you a bowl with the ingredients in it and you mix it all up.

 Then you cook it like a pancake. Sort of.

Just about done. Mmmm. That's mayonaise and seaweed with some special okonomiyaki sauce.

I hope we can go again before I return to the states. I drew a sketch of the logo and my aunt (I call her Nene) filled in the Japanese.

8/19

We had dinner with my grandmother's older sister. She is a very interesting lady. I am told she is involved in so many things, she has something almost every evening (ex. tennis). She also likes to feed people. She stick so many things on the table. "Tabenasai!" Or in English, "Eat!" Aparently, the first time Daddy visited her, he ate so much he got sick. You wouldn't undersand how pushy she is until you meet her. In conclusion, she is a very interesting, nice lady. :)

Sushi

This morning I went jogging with my grandparents in the really pretty cemetery. It had a lot of bamboo growing in the middle. I didn't take any photos because what kind of crazy person brings their dSLR jogging with them? Then we stopped at Denny's (which, by the way, is much better in Japan) for some French toast. Mmmm.  I got home and showered and then we sat around till lunch. For lunch we went to Sushi-ro. I'll tell you more about kaiten-zushi later. It was delicious! So here is the picture of my ponderingu donut from Mister Donut that I ate yesterday with my aunt and some sushi pictures.

It is too bad they don't have this kind of donut in America. It's so good!

 The sushi comes in circles on a conveyor belt and you take what you want.

I'm finding it hard to live without Lightroom. I think I'm gonna get the trial version, which is just long enough for my stay, on my grandparents' laptop.