2 months + later... thursday in japan

this is the train that took us away from chieko and ray

a sad day for me

saying good bye at the station

this is out of order, but it is just cute

maybe i already posted it even

from kanazawa, we went to nara

the first permanent capital of japan.

the place is crawling with "sacred deer"

pretty manhole cover

we did not ride in a rickshaw

the deer were THIS close

and they were friendly, although casey knows someone who was bitten by one of the deer

so they sell food

and this is what happens when the deer know you have some

todai-ji temple

the world's largest wooden building

inside the temple is a tree..

It is considered to be good luck for visitors to crawl through this hole.

there was a line of people waiting to try... everyone i saw, made it through

just wandering down a side street

wednesday in japan

pretty sunset at casey and chieko's

wednesday was our last day at casey and chieko's.... the last day with sweet baby ray.. for now!! casey, laurie and i went to kanazawa station to get our train tickets for thursdays trip to nara/kyoto. there are lots of shops and a places to eat in and around the station. we had lunch at a german bakery/bread shop and laurie got some more souvenirs. casey is reaching his limit with the shopping... i don't know why boys hate shopping so much... we went to dinner at a yakitori.... food on sticks.. bowls of edamame... it was excellent.

the 3 hour tour

our tour guide

tokyo tower

the window in the floor

laurie, beautifying herself before entering the shrine

the entrance to the shrine

sake casks, used in ceremonies

a wedding at the shrine

the former imperial residence

samarai

bridge outside of imperial palace grounds

some pictures

here are some pictures from our first day... in tokyo

breakfast

the assortment of bread

laurie with her dog shaped pastry

my choices

tuesday in japn

100 YEN SHOP!!!

okay, so it's like the dollar store at home, only it has japanesey stuff. and not everything is 100 yen. i got myself a supply of rice crackers. laurie struck gold, haha.

she found all kinds of neat things to bring to her gigantic list of friends and family. i would be tempted to bring everyone the same thing, a keychain, some chopsticks.... of course i am bringing nothing back for anyone this time around, haha. she is so nice, she is thinking about each person with each purchase.

we also went to a childrens shop where laurie was able to find the cutest little outfits for her little people. again, i am bringing nothing!! maybe i will share my rice cakes....

we spend a restful rest of the day, took ray for a nice long walk.

monday in japan

i knew this was going to happen... i have mixed up my days, can't remember what we did or when... no one else is awake to refresh my memory!!

well monday was a national holiday.. it was a day to honor old people....

hmmm... i am going to say that this was the day we went back downtown to the fish market and then to lunch at an italian restaurant. after lunch we went to shopping for souvenirs and to the kenrokuen garden. we ate some shaved ice with stawberry syrup (not thick) and milk (similar to sweetened condensed milk, don't even pretend it doesn't sound delish). it was so refreshing, have i mentioned it has been hot here? even though it has been raining, it is kinda muggy.

today is friday, it has taken me 2 days to write this post.... i suppose we went back to casey and chieko's, had dinner and passed out!!

sunday in japan

sunday we went downtown... we had lunch at an all you eat buffet. i had rice and a japanese corn dogs, which was just like an american corn dog only small. a little spaghetti and some vegetables, and bread and butter. finished of with a little steamed green tea cake. all just yummy. we walked and walked to the tea district, higashi chaya... lots of little shops.. there was a jazz festival going on. we encountered an old woman (she was probably not that old) who started yammering on to casey and chieko about the little rash around rays mouth. she said they need to get water from some onsen and keep it in the fridge to put on him... ray seemed to know she was talking about him and he started to cry, poor baby. anyway it wasn't even a bad rash and it is going away by it's self and i hate her. before heading back to the car, we walked down to the river and sat relaxing for a little while, again, it was freakin hot!! we took the loop bus back to where we started and came home. the neighbors were having another barbecue when we got home... i have been so tired at night i can't even read one chapter before my eyes roll back into my head.

sweet baby ray

well what can i say...

he is a doll. he is such a good baby. he is adorable. he is happy. we have been dragging him around for 3 days, messing up his meal and nap schedules and he really has been taking it in stride. he cries some of course, when he is tired and hungry but for the most part just goes with the flow.

i was worried that he would be afraid when he saw me in person, because even though we video chat almost everyday, he only sees my head. and although that is scary enough, plop it on this body... frightening!! anyway, he was happy having us holding/playing with him as long as casey or chieko was around. if they both left the room, he would start to cry. that was just the first couple of days. now he is fine with us alone. he likes us better now, haha. i love the way he looks at laurie, i think he is in love.

we took him for a nice walk yesterday while casey was at the gym and chieko was talking to an insurance salesman. we were gone for quite a while and he never cried. he kept looking back and smiling, screeching sometimes, laughing. i must bring him home with me. i could look at him all day long.

he loves "peek a boo" , reading books, and his mom's cooking. he eats rice and vegetables and tofu and seaweed and chicken. and hai hain (rice crackers for babies) he has had fish. he doesn't like fruit so much. we brought him some trader joes o's and some gorilla munch (kix). he likes them, but likes throwing them on the floor more!!

casey and chieko are great parents, loving, attentive, patient. they enjoy their baby, it's going to be hard to convince them to let me have him.

saturday in japan

saturday casey took us to the beach so laurie could put her feet in the sea of japan. there were not many shells at this beach. the sand is very fine and there were lots of crab holes. casey had fun poking a stick in them until one finally ran out. we needed to be sure there really were crabs in them. it was another hot day and it was a nice walk along the water. there were no sunbathers or swimmers, different from a hot sunny day on the cape for sure...

casey and chieko had planned a cook out for the neighbors and some of their coworkers, so from the beach we went grocery shopping. we got lots of meat. i told casey i would make potato salad so we got the makings for that too and of course i had to get some things to bring home with me. $$$.

we got back with little time to spare before people started coming over. chieko made yummy pizza and everyone brought something to add to the meal. i had brought a couple of boxes of brownie mix with me so we popped those in the oven in some cake pans i found in the kitchen. casey and chieko don't have a traditional oven like we do in the u.s they have a microwave/convection oven and it has 2 shelves, so we made 2 pans and popped them in, intending to switch them around 1/2 way through... well it turns out i grabbed PLASTIC pans (they looked like foil to me)... they don't bake so well. when chieko checked them, the pans were misshapen and on the verge of melting.we scooped most of the batter into one glass pan and put them back in the oven, thinking they wouldn't be pretty, but would still taste fine.... that's when laurie noticed that there were bits of one of the plastic pans missing.... hmmm was it melted into the batter, were there whole bits baking into the brownies?... we didnt serve them. we have been eating them, watching for pieces of red or silver, laurie won when she found the first piece of plastic in her brownie. it makes me feel better to know that we are not eating melted baked in plastic, but that the bits are removable. (we would still eat them, they are brownies after all!!)

the barbecue was great... the weather was perfect, the food delicious, every thing got eaten and the company couldn't have been better. we were stuffed.

laurie and i had come inside for a bit and we heard the neighbors calling at the front door, "casey mama, casey mama" so we went to the door and they had gifts for us. casey mama and friend. we all do a lot of nodding and gesturing when casey or chieko are not around, haha... anyway they gave us each a japanese fan, some hashi (chopsticks) that are well known for the way in which they are made. we each got a hello kitty phone charm from the a different region of japan. mine is making a clay pot, representing a region (i think it is from where one neighbor is from originally) famous for their pottery and lauries has a theater mask representing the prefecture known, obviously, for theater. the neighbors said it is "noh", which i believe is a dance. i could be confused and none of what i just said is true, but i think i got it almost right, haha. the gift that they were most delighted to give us was a specially made fan. one neighbor made it where he works, it's an original, hah. it is an inexpensive flat paddle fan with custom made stickers on each side. one side says, "welcome to hakusan city" in japanese, the other side says, "welcome to hentai city" in english. hentai means pervert. they got a big kick out of telling us that. the fans work great, i must say... it has been HOT... it is raining like mad right now though.

hello from japan,,

i am afraid i won't be able to post any pictures until i get back home. i guess leaving my laptop at home was not as smart as i thought it would be. laurie brought her notebook and casey has a laptop, i figured i would just borrow theirs when they were available. i was not counting on casey's computer being out of commission and i don't want to use up space on laurie's notebook, so... no pictures. i am a lousy photographer anyway.

we had an uneventful, (but long) flight on wednesday. we left boston, shortly after 9:30, for washington dc, than onto narita. with the time change, it was thursday afternoon when we arrived. once through immigration and customs, we took a shuttle bus from the airport to the hotel chieko had booked for us. it was old, but clean and very comfortable. i took a nap and then we took walk and got some refreshments. we went to bed early, we were tired and had to get up and ready, fairly early, for our sight seeing tour on friday morning.

we both woke up before the alarm and the wake up call at 7 on friday, so we had a leisurely morning. we had breakfast at the hotel, it was really inexpensive compared to some of the menus we had seen... 1000 yen for 3 breads (danishes, bread and cheese bowl, pastries, pizza, plain and filled croissants, donuts and more) soup and a beverage. i chose the bread and cheese bowl, a small danish and a hum (ham) and cheese croissant. laurie also had a small cheese danish and a plain croissant and a cute little (well not so little) doggie shaped chocolate pastry. we split the hum and cheese croissant, the bread and cheese bowl and the doggie danish. the soup was some kind of egg drop and our beverage of choice was english tea. everything was very tasty and we were quite full, since we don't normally eat soup and 3 pastries.. other than the little danish, the portions were quite generous.

we checked out and went to wait for our tour guide. we signed up for a 3 hour tour (a three hour tour). we left promptly (promptness is important here, i would be shaming myself all over the place if i lived here) at 8:05 (i think, haha) to pick up people at other hotels and arrived at the start of the tour site (promptly at 9) and some people departed our bus for other tours (mt fuji, can't remember the others).

our tour guide was a funny man, i didn't catch his name, but he was quite amusing.

first stop... tokyo tower. we took the packed elevator up, got a 360 degree view of the city and a look down from the floor window, yikes!! it was really really hot so laurie and i got ice cream cones (a vanilla/green tea twist.. delicious) according to mr. tour guide, tokyo tower is disaster proof,(earthquakes, typhoons). he said the only thing that can destroy it is godzilla.

our next stop was at the meiji shrine. it is a shinto shrine, (one of the two religions in japan, the other is buddism) we beautified ourselves before entering, by washing our hands, first left, then right and rinsing out our mouths. mr. tour guide told us that some couples still get married at the shrine and we did see one newly married couple having their picture taken with their family. we also saw a new baby, he said people bring their babies to the shrine to be blessed.

then it was a drive through the city to the imperial palace, the garden was closed so we didn't get to see it. figures.. closed on fridays!! along the way we stopped for photos of the akaska guest house, where IMPORTANT visit ors to tokyo stay. it was formerly the imperial residence..

we ended our tour at the "world famous" ginza shopping district. we were overwhelmed. we got directions to the sanrio store and were in hello kitty heaven until it was time to find our way to haneda airport for the flight to komatsu.

mr. tour guide had given us directions to 2 train stations, depending on where we ended our shopping, with the name of the stop we needed to take the monorail to the airport. of course we got off one stop to early because i thought we got on at the "get off at the first stop" station... even though it wasn't the right stop name. anyway, we got back on, then off at the correct stop, onto the monorail and yay we made it to the airport. one thing we had done at the airport in narita, was to sent our suitcase directly to casey and chieko's so we didn't have to lug it through tokyo and we also didn't need to check a bag a haneda. we only had our 100 pound back packs to deal with and back surgery may be needed when we get home.

casey and ray picked us up at the komatsu airport. i don't know if ray recognized me from video chatting or not, but he smiled and didn't cry until we were driving. once we got here, i needed to shower my filthy sweatiness and we enjoyed a lovely glass of wine and some CABOT cheese and crackers...

okay this post is way long...

mugs

we gave these mugs to dad and geny a bunch of years ago,

for christmas.

i used to drink my coffee from them when i visited them.

ramie sent them to me (via eddie) a couple of weeks ago.

they are pretty.

heron

this is the second time we have seen this heron in the last week or so.

it just glides around the bog, checking things out.

it rested in one of the trees before taking off again.

it is huge.

july 8th

i have been awake since 4:11. i hope i wake up early tomorrow morning because i am supposed to take a pilates class at 6. i was going to get some of my daily chores done, but of course i started playing games on the computer instead.

jesse brought over lobsters last night and we had them for dinner. they were delicious. we were going to go out for dinner for doug's birthday, but it was a yummy change of plan. we also had corn on the cob and salad (no one ate the salad, made with our garden lettuce). there was chocolate cake (stop and shop bakery, really quite tasty) and ice cream for dessert.

thanks for the lobsters jesse!!

july 4th

happy 4th every body!!

i am going to try to update a little more frequently. sorry to have been such a slacker. i have been so busy with the fb games, haha.

happy birthday

birthday roses from devin and aimee

lovely... love them

birthday roses from casey, chieko and ray

gorgeous... love them

this is my birthday flip flops from cindi... love 'em

trying to upload a picture of sweet baby, but no luck

okay, not the one i was trying for, but still darling

a few picture of sweet baby

sleeping with grampy (grampy looks like devin)

having fun (really, he was) in the jolly jumper

watchin t.v. with bear

laughing with auntie debbie and grampy

visiting with cousin mackenzie and auntie debbie

i sure do miss them, even 3+ weeks is not enough for me

baby

at sandy neck with sweet baby

spring rolls deleted

i guess they looked less appetizing than they actually were!!

i have been trying to straighten out my office, AGAIN. i am making some progress, but i really need to keep at it.

i hadn't seen little jerry since i went to japan. nitzy spent a couple of nights here right after i left and he won't come in if she is here. anyway... doug said he hadn't seen him since christmas eve day (2 weeks after i left) and that was up the street. so have been calling for him every night and again in the morning. i left food out for him and 3 nights ago i noticed some was gone. 2 nights ago the bowl was almost empty. i mentioned to doug that SOMETHING was eating the food and about an hour later, guess who came to the door?? he looks fine. clean and well fed. i really do need to get him a collar with some identification. i worry that he will get caught on a branch though, with all the roaming he does.

hello 2010

we made it back safe and sound.

no problems with the flights,

although our take offs were all delayed.

we did not miss any connecting flights.

i am really happy to see my family and friends here, but

i miss the family in japan.