The first activity was going on a walk by the Tokyo Tower. While we were on our walk we went to the Zojoji Temple and guess who we saw??
The adorable monkey that we saw with Mike and Britt with a new trainer!! This monkey must be making a good living!
It's so nice to have Brooke in town!
Brooke and Carl make such a lovely couple!!
Brooke had a bad back ache so while she was resting, Carl and I got up early Monday morning and participated with our ward in the weekly onigiri (rice balls) making for the homeless.
We put cooked rice in these forms with a sour plum in the middle.
The onigiri are then put in plastic containers,
closed with an elastic, and a piece of nori or seaweed is added to the top. Afterwards, we went home, got Brooke, and took her to an incredible chiropractor who massaged her back and worked with her for over an hour. Dr. Otani definitely gave her some relief.
That night we went to the sumo wrestling match. On our way we saw......
the cutest little girls in their school uniforms. Have you ever seen such adorable first graders?
Riding the trains in Tokyo is truly a pleasant experience. All of the trains are not only precisely on time, they are immaculately clean. Thank you Tokyo!!
On our way to the Sumo match, we saw this hand painted picture at the train station that we just couldn't resist putting our heads in. Carl and Brooke, you are both going to have to do better than pushing out your cheeks or smiling to fill in those heads! Maybe you should put on a couple of hundred pounds and you will fit quite nicely!
This is the front of the arena where each of the Sumos have a flag waving.
This is the entrance to the arena.
No, he's not real, but this is life size! I think there is nothing more masculine than a Sumo wearing a beautiful apron with Hello Kitty on it!
This is one of the hallways in the arena.
Since I found out about the sumo match only days before, we were lucky to get any seats. Notice how each of the sumo wrestling champions pictures hang above our heads in the arena.
You can see the dohyo behind us. What is a dohyo?
We don't mess around when it comes to walking by a bakery. Of course we have to stop and buy delicious taste treats! This particular roll, one of many, had the most delicious custard cream on the inside. Yummy!!
This incredibly, beautiful roof hangs above the dohyo.
The following pictures will depict what happens at the match.
The men in black are judges and the man in pink is a referee.
Before the matches begin, each of the wrestlers come out as young men accompany them holding flags with their sponsors names displayed.
Before they begin, the two wrestlers face each other and wait for the referee to give the signal with the paddle to go. The man with the broom keeps the dohyo in perfect condition.
They are now going at it. Who will win? Hmmm.....
After the match we had to go get a Choco Curo in Rachelle's honor. She became a fan of the Choco Curo while she was on her mission in Tokyo.
Brooke wanted to hold babies whenever and wherever she saw them. Luckily she got her chance with this little one. He was fascinated by her.
The mother was happy to let Brooke hold her son, and the baby was quite content with her.
However, when Dad tried to hold the baby, he wanted nothing to do with Dad! Poor guy! Are we talking about Dad or the baby?
The trip would not be worthwhile without eating our favorite Thai food at Thaisen. Coconut soup, garlic-peppered shrimp, morning glory (it's a green vegetable with ground meat and a little bit of seafood), soft shelled crab curry, deep fried fish, and pad thai. We were absolutely stuffed afterwards, but our mouths wanted more!
This is after our meal, and yes our bellies were full!
But wait! We had to have dessert! See those faces of great satisfaction?
The satisfaction in their faces is from this incredible coconut tapioca with a few small pieces of mango in it. Oh my heart this is so good!
The next day we got on a train and headed for......
Kamakura to see the Daibutsu or in other words the big Buddha.
This is the entrance/exit way at the Daibutsu.
The "onis" that are displayed at the gates have to ward off the evil spirits from coming on the property.
We stopped at a restaurant in Kamakura and had a traditional Japanese meal which consisted of soba (Japanese buckwheat noodles), tendon (shrimp tempura, veggies and egg over rice), and oyakodonburi (chicken, egg, and veggies over rice).
This is the entrance to one of the shrine's we went to.
The following pictures were taken inside the shrine grounds.
These dolls represent people who have passed on.
Each doll is purchased/rented by the family of the deceased person.
This is overlooking the city into the bay from the shrine.
We had to make a stop at a little pastry shop.
This is a pastry? Yes, it's a Japanese traditional pastry made from mochi with sweet bean paste inside. Mochi is a kind of sticky rice that has been pounded into something that looks like dough.
For our next treat adventure, we have ice cream with doraiyaki. Doraiyaki is like a small pancake with sweet bean paste inside. This was truly a yummy treat! Nice find, Carl!
We then went to the beach to cool off our feet. Check out all of the sail boats in the background!
Happy faces!
Here's a view of part of the beach.
After a long day in Kamakura, we head home for........
a close-by ramen restaurant. Oh ya!!
These are excited faces for a yummy bowl of freshly made ramen with a plate of potstickers (gyoza) on the side.
It doesn't get much better than this!
Costco, move over. Your potstickers are a shame!
Carl doesn't need a bib like the rest of us!
As we walked out of the restaurant, Dad was recognized, so we chatted with these cute ladies and their kids.
Brooke just had to get another baby hug!
She has and always has had an incredible way with kids no matter what culture, language, or age.
They all love her.
The next day we got on the 7:00 a.m. flight from Tokyo to Hiroshima and headed right to Peace Park.
This is the remains of the dome that was bombed from the atomic bomb.
This is a memorial to Sachiko, a little girl who died as a result of the bomb, where children from all over the world make paper cranes and deliver them to this monument in remembrance of her.
Peace Park Memorial with the dome in the far background.
Selfie!!
I love seeing the school children on their field trips eating bentos/lunch. This was at Peace Park.
We are on the train on our way to Miyajima.
In order to get to Miyajima Island, we have to get on a ferry. This was part of the dock where we got on the ferry.
Brooke wanted a Japanese soda drink called Lamune, but thought that shaking the bottle first was how you opened it. Oops! Maybe not!
She only lost half of her drink!
If you look in the distant background, you can see the Torii gate in the water. However, the lovely couple in the foreground is who we are focused on.
This is the ferry that took us to the island.
When you get to the island and you are walking toward the shrine, there are hundreds of little shops tempting you to buy all kinds of foods and souvenirs
Of course Hello Kitty is one of the big items.
This is a giant rice paddle. The shape of the rice paddle started right here on this island, thus the display.
We love selfies.
There are many wild deer, who are not afraid of the people, just roaming around the island as if we weren't even there. When the tide is out, you can walk out to the tori gate.
The shrine is built on stilts to keep it above the water during a high tide.
More selfies!
Once we finished our Miyajima trip, we went back to Hiroshima and got on the shinkansen (bullet train) headed for Kyoto.
As soon as we got off the shinkansen, look what we saw? The pie restaurant in the Kyoto train station that we went to when Britt and Mike came. There is no way on earth that we will walk by this place without buying a piece of pie. It is to die for! Notice the joy in Brooke's eyes and the drooling look in Carl's eyes.
We got in a taxi and went to our cute little minchku.
This is the entryway.
After a wonderful night's rest, this lovely breakfast was provided for us.
Have you ever seen such an elaborate breakfast? Don't count on any Captain Crunch cereal at this table.
Our destination for the day was Arashiyama.
Our first stop when we got off the train from Kyoto was the bike rental shop.
We rode our bikes to monkey mountain, parked them at the bottom, and then proceeded on with our hike.
As we hiked up the hill, we saw vegetation growing on rocks! Unbelievable! The only thing you see on rocks in Utah are little varmints like spiders, snakes, ants, and the like. This was a much prettier sight.
The hike was beautiful and invigorating.
Seeing wild monkeys roaming around was amazing!
Once we got to the top of the mountain, we noticed the beautiful view of Kyoto and......
The hut where we could feed the monkeys.
No time was wasted as we went in and were amused with feeding the monkeys.
The hierarchy in the monkey kingdom was more than entertaining to watch as the older ones would shoo the younger ones away from the food. This guy seemed to have Brooke's undivided attention.
After spending quite a bit of time with the monkeys, we headed back down the trail to our bikes.
We road around the community and found ourselves......
in the bamboo forest. Is this cool or what?
The countryside of Arashiyama is so beautiful. What a great day we are having! After a few hours biking, hiking and exploring, we headed back to the train to Kyoto.
Our next adventure was to walk up to a famous shrine called Kiyiomizudera. The road that our minchku is on, is so cute!
Of course we ran into these beautiful young ladies going to the shrine. We not only wanted a picture taken with them, but they wanted a picture taken with us.
We saw school kids, moms and little ones, older people and, of course, we saw rickshaws.
The various shrines along the path were fun to stop and look at. At this shrine, people make these little balls our of cloth and then they go back to the shrine and hang them.
More school kids want to have their pictures taken with "gaijins" (foreigners)!
Seriously they loved Brooke and Carl.
And there are more school kids. They are everywhere!
To make sure the teacher can keep track of everyone, the kids wear the same color of hats. Genius!
Kiyomizudera (清水寺, literally "Pure Water Temple") is one of the most celebrated temples of Japan. It was founded in 780 on the site of the Otowa Waterfall in the wooded hills east of Kyoto, and derives its name from the fall's pure waters. The temple was originally associated with the Hosso sect, one of the oldest schools within Japanese Buddhism, but formed its own Kita Hosso sect in 1965. In 1994, the temple was added to the list of UNESCO world heritage sites.
Kiyomizudera is best known for its wooden stage that juts out from its main hall, 13 meters above the hillside below. The stage affords visitors a nice view of the numerous cherry and mapletrees below that erupt in a sea of color in spring and fall, as well as of the city of Kyoto in the distance. The main hall, which together with the stage was built without the use of nails, houses the temple's primary object of worship, a small statue of the eleven faced, thousand armed Kannon.
The Otowa Waterfall is located at the base of Kiyomizudera's main hall. Its waters are divided into three separate streams, and visitors use cups attached to long poles to drink from them. Each stream's water is said to have a different benefit, namely to cause longevity, success at school and a fortunate love life. However, drinking from all three streams is considered greedy.
The streets surrounding the Kiyomizudera shrine are absolutely adorable with shops of every kind lining the streets.
This shop would be a baby's dream with all of the brightly colored mobiles. We wanted to buy everything in the store to decorate a child's room with. Check it out!
This picture only shows a very small area. This store is filled with thousands of cotton filled cloth shapes that can be hung from various places such as in your window, from your ceiling, from your back pack, from your baby's carriage or car seat, or.......
from a mobile, or..........
or you can hang it from outside your front entrance to your home.
We spotted a real Geisha who allowed us to take her picture!
We went to the same restaurant that Mike and Britt went to when they were in Tokyo.
It's a one-room restaurant with......
one chef!
Our tummies were smiling just as big as our faces when we were finished with this fabulous meal!
Carl is taller than the bathroom door!
Night life on the bridge in Kyoto.
This is the owner of the minchku.
Japan is quickly picking up our U.S. holiday customs. Why not decorate the symbol of virility in Halloween attire?
The next part of our adventure took us to Fushimi Inari and the torii gates.
Dad was a distraction to some people as they recognized him and wanted to take his picture.
Fushimi inari is the origination place of Inarizushi. Yummy!!
Our next stop was Sanjusangendo Shrine.......
Sanjūsangen-dō is a Buddhist temple in Higashiyama District of Kyoto, Japan. Officially known as "Rengeō-in" (蓮華王院), or Hall of the Lotus King, Sanjūsangen-dō belongs to and is run by the Myoho-in temple, a part of the Tendai school of Buddhism. The temple name literally means Hall with thirty three spaces between columns, describing the architecture of the long main hall of the temple.
History
Taira no Kiyomori completed the temple under order of Emperor Go-Shirakawa in 1164. The temple complex suffered a fire in 1249 and only the main hall was rebuilt in 1266. In January, the temple has an event known as the Rite of the Willow (柳枝のお加持), where worshippers are touched on the head with a sacred willow branch to cure and prevent headaches. A popular archery tournament known as the Tōshiya (通し矢) has also been held here, beside the West veranda, since the Edo period. The duel between the famous warrior Miyamoto Musashi and Yoshioka Denshichirō, leader of the Yoshioka-ryū, is popularly believed to have been fought just outside Sanjūsangen-dō in 1604.
Important features[edit]
The main deity of the temple is Sahasrabhuja-arya-avalokiteśvara or the Thousand Armed Kannon. The statue of the main deity was created by the Kamakura sculptor Tankei and is a National Treasure of Japan. The temple also contains one thousand life-size statues of the Thousand Armed Kannon which stand on both the right and left sides of the main statue in 10 rows and 50 columns. Of these, 124 statues are from the original temple, rescued from the fire of 1249, while the remaining 876 statues were constructed in the 13th century. The statues are made of Japanese cypress clad in gold leaf. Around the 1000 Kannon statues stand 28 statues of guardian deities. There are also two famous statues of Fūjin and Raijin.
These 1,001 life size statues are inside of the shrine.
If you look closely at each statue, they are unique from each other even though they may look the same.
This is the Great Kannon who the soldier are protecting.
This place is very impressive.
We finished in at Sanjusangendo and headed for Tokyo.
Waiting for the shinkansen bound for Tokyo.
Here it is!
Before we got on the train, we made a pit stop at a most fabulous pie shop and bought two pieces of pie to eat on the train.
These yummy pies consisted of a light, flakey crust with custard in the middle and fresh fruit on top. Can it get any better than that?
By the looks on our faces the answer is no. This was truly the best pie we had ever tasted and we were so sad that it was gone.
This is Dad working hard at it every day making sure that Kyani is running smoothly throughout Asia.
I had to add this picture of rice fields being harvested. So fascinating!
Once we got back to Tokyo and unloaded our bags, we headed right to Shibuya.
There is no place on earth quite as crowded and busy as Shibuya crossing.
A shopping experience in the Tokyo Department store's Food Show is a very overwhelming experience for first timers.
Beautiful fruit gift baskets were mind blowing.
Just to purchase these two Musk melons, you are looking at about $275. Really?
After the shopping, we had to experience another bowl of ramen.
You just can't find this anywhere in Utah, maybe even in the U.S.
Dessert from he Cerulean Tower Hotel by their famous french chef, was the treat of the evening. This citrus tart is to die for!
This particular dessert is Maron cake; or in other words, Chestnut. Both pieces of edibile art were the perfect treats to end a great day!
The next day we went to the Tokyo Temple.
After the temple, we went to one of our favorite restaurants.
Maisen, a famous and most delicious tonkatsu place.
It's tough to beat this meal! It's a pork, fat-free cutlet breaded with Panko, deep fried and then you eat it with their homemade sauce drizzled on top. The thin sliced cabbage is about as sweet of cabbage as I have ever tasted. So delicious!
When we finished our late lunch, we went shopping again......in Ginza. Tokyo's most expensive shopping area.
Let's pretend we are Christian Dior models! (Mike and Britt, you have some competition here.) Where are the straight faces like the woman on the building? You guys are too cheesy, sorry! Dior isn't about happy faces. It's about his happy pocketbook!
We had to do a selfie in the middle of the street in Ginza. Notice the joy that comes over Dad when he is shopping!
We went into the department stores and saw anything and everything you ever wanted to lay your eyes on including.........
an incredible olive bar.
How does a mother not buy all of the clothes in the children's store? I think these were running around $200 apiece.
Dad and Carl were done with shopping. They are going crazy!
The next day was Sunday and we had the opportunity to go to our English speaking ward which is located next to the Tokyo temple.
We decided to walk part of the way home which included beautiful Arisugawa Park.
It's hard to believe that we are in the middle of the city.
Such a great walk!
On our way home, we were interrupted by the Uyoku nationalists who have people screaming from incredibly loud speakers mounted on their vehicles about their political beliefs. They are out every weekend and it is rather old.
The billboard says it all!
Wake up everybody!! The train is honestly an adult cradle.
Our next destination was the Imperial Palace. Say "cheese" everyone!
This is a partial view of Tokyo Station and the end of another great day.
It was a beautiful morning so a day at the beach sounded like a dream!
This is a map of Kamakura and the beech.
An empty beach!! Yea!
Perfect for gathering shells!
This is a perfect GQ photo!
Which shells should they take home?
Mother/daughter selfie!
Another mother/daughter selfie!
Catching a little sun on the beach.
It was all too soon when we had to leave.
On our walk to the train station, we walked passed this home. Pretty cool, huh? All but one of the windows are closed up.
We noticed this huge statue on our way to the beach and decided to stop on our way home.
We walked through the town to get to the statue.
We made it!
We ended the day at the Tokyo Tower and
food shopping!
The next day was going to......
the happiest place on earth! Disneyland!
You can't go to Disneyland without eating a turkey leg!
Chow down, Brooke!
We didn't get the memo stating to dress up.
We searched and searched for these shoes, but couldn't find any! Ha! Ha!
Two cool drivers getting ready to put the peddle to the metal!
Today was the end of a great day and a fun trip to Japan Tomorrow Brooke and Carl return home.
Because the airport is so far away, they had to take a special bus to the airport.
It was great to have Brooke and Carl with us for a couple of weeks. This trip was a long awaited trip for them and for Mike and Britt. How grateful we were that they could come and visit us.
Sayonara! We will see you back in the U.S! We love you guys!
Dad and Mom
