Sunday, January 23, 2005



Well Dad arrived and we had a dinner. Li and he were dead tired from sitting for hours on a bus. They crashed pretty easily.

Before they came I had Japanese class and did wonderful with ‘give’ and ‘receive’. I had been having a very annoying mental block sorting out the two in my brain and understanding the sentence structures. I also talked to my teachers mother and she was so happy as we were able to have a half conversation with Yoko (my teacher) translating only sometimes. Felt good.
BUT the coolest part was the baby gift that Yoko gave Li and I…..

A Snoopy on a Rocking horse!!!!! AND there are batteries with little music and Snoopy makes the horse rock. IT IS SOOOOO CUTE!!!! That, and I am totally in love with Snoopy. Heheeh


So anyway, because we all went to bed early we all woke up early. Had a decent breakfast, watched some news and then pondered on what to do. The weather really sucked – it rained.
We ended up deciding to go to Shizuoka even though it was raining.
Dad at the station.

We headed out to this hill called Nihondara. Now, again, it was raining, and on a clear day this hill offers the most beautiful view of Mt. Fuji and beyond. Well today it was so damn cold it was actually snowing on the top of the hill. We were a little startled by that. We took the city bus to the top and headed over to the Cable car that takes you to the ‘Kuno-Zan Tosho-Gu Shrine’.

This is a mausoleum / shrine to Tokugawa Ieyasu. He was given the title of Shogun in 1603. The mausoleum was completed in 1617.
Have you ever seen the movie ‘Shogun’, the one where Kevin Costner and Whitney Huston go to watch on their first date in ‘The Bodyguard’? Well this is the Shogun I am talking about. This shrine was built on this totally inaccessible hill. You have to walk up 1159 stone steps to get there. Thankfully there is now a cable car that will zip you across for a few hundred yen. The shrine is all bloody steps though. I had a good work out today and did not feel even a little bit guilty inhaling a chocolate bar later.
There are some amazing buildings of the Shinto and Buddhist faith, and the loveliest carvings.




There was also a lot of restoration work going on. Dad was fascinated with all the construction work and the tools being used. He was so funny as he would just walk into sectioned off areas to check things out and Li and I would be going… uhh uhhh closed, uhhh.
Silly man.
There was also a small museum that houses some official National Japanese Treasures. They were some beautiful Samurai swords and costumes. I have seen them in movies but this was the first time actually seeing real costumes in a museum. We were STUNNED by how small the armor was. These men were tiny back then!!

After we headed back into Shizuoka city, ate, did some looky loo shopping then headed home. The boys are now resting with there feet on the table watching ‘Saving Private Ryan’ and drinking beer. Li made a great breakfast so now we are all comfortably full and relaxed.

Tomorrow Li has to go to work and I have to pretend I can speak Japanese for dad to get these tickets for him. EEEEKKKKKK……

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Posted by (Top)Andrea::1/23/2005 :: 0 Comments:

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