vacation Friday2: Tofukuji Temple, shabu-shabu

After we finished the gates, we took a ten minute walk over to Tofukuji Temple.  This was one that Ben had found on-line and we didn't know much about it...and it was great!  There were barely any tourists there, so it actually felt peaceful.  It also had a rock garden and a plant garden.

The walk over there was like all the other walks in Japan; let's go down these random side-streets that are small but clean and end up at your destination.

The buildings here were huge.  One of the signs said that that was one of the goals: make the largest temples.  This seemed like an odd juxtaposition to the theme of the temple grounds which was Zen and meditation.

We took a brief bathroom break.  This sign was inside the toilet.  Normally I would have ignored the sign, but Cheryl said the same thing that I had thought a moment earlier: "don't put babies in the toilet"

Then we walked around the rock gardens.  There was only one main rock garden, one small one, and two that included plant life too.

It was a nice place to sit and be calm for a few minutes.

The bridge in the background is the next place that we go.

Cheryl mentioned this looks like a quilt that I had made in the past.  She's right, but it would also be interesting to make one directly based on this picture.

I just liked this tree.

We went over to the garden area next.  There were a few more buildings and a bridge over a river.

I liked the red trees in mostly green trees.

At the small bridge overlook

A garden by one of the building above

More rocks!

Several of us, instead of going over the big bridge on the way back, went down into the valley and crossed over on the small bridge.

Every time Scarlet saw an animal we stopped to observe it.  In these pots are some small fish.

It started to sprinkle just as we got into our taxi.  We did use the umbrellas so I guess they were worth carrying around.  We grabbed our luggage from the hotel and went to the train station.   We ate lunch at a restaurant there; it was fine and had some different foods that we were but I don't remember it being amazing either.  We had a little bit of extra time so we got a few snacks - assorted flavor mochi balls and some triangles.

Travis kept teasing Isaac by calling them mocha or machi balls.  Honestly, I said the wrong word several times.  The fact that you can have macha mochis is a bit confusing.  There were five flavors and I think they were soybean, macha, chocolate, strawberry, and peach.  Soybean was the least favorite.  I don't remember the favorite but it wasn't macha.

We arrived in Okayama and the hotel was connected to the train station which was super nice.  We met up with Larry and the president, Mr. Kitahara (pictured below) and his nephew.

On our way to the rooms I tried opening the wrong door first; I forgot which room we were in.  So imagine my panic when ten seconds later the door opens and someone comes out.  Luckily, it was only Travis and he just happened to be coming out; he didn't hear that I tried to open his door first.  We deposited our stuff in our room and had a few minutes to relax.  Except Ben and I didn't.  We took out the dress clothes for tomorrow and tried to figure out how to work the pant press.  We didn't really figure it out until later when Ben looked it up.  I was unimpressed and think there should have just been irons in the rooms.  (We could have requested an iron.)  These rooms were probably the largest of the trip - they were a bit larger than a hotel room in the US.  I got to sleep with Isaac this time.

The view from our hotel room in this "small" city.

For dinner we had shabu-shabu, which is very thinly sliced beef and vegetables that you cook yourself in hot broth.  The vegetables need to be cooked for a while while the beef only needs to be cooked for a few seconds.  Sashimi and sushi were also ordered, since we hadn't tried any of that yet.

Sashimi: I'm not a huge fan.  It was ok, but I don't think I appreciated it well enough to understand how good it was.

The cooking chopsticks were gigantic!  We were getting pretty good at chopsticks by this point, but Ben and I both had trouble with these.  The waitress put in a bunch of vegetables for us at the beginning, but she really put in too many.  It was a bit hard to get what we wanted after that.  

The beef was excellent.  There were some dipping sauces but even without those it was really good.  

The sushi was really good too.  I think Isaac had one from this plate but I think I ate the rest...and one off Travis and Scarlet's plate.  Last time I was in Japan I remember the sushi being really large and hard to eat because you have to put it all in your mouth at once.  These, while large, more easily fit in my mouth and so I was able to enjoy the taste instead of worrying about how to eat it.  (*Sigh, yes, maybe I have a big mouth now.*)

Thursday: "It was a good day, and then it got better"

Today, for me, was a pretty normal day.  It was rainy out, which was lovely, and I got several chores done.  Several of them were on the computer, which aren't always my favorite chores to do.  Then I took a nap!  Then I checked my email...and there were two good things.

First of all, Isaac won a drawing for a coupon for new rock climbing shoes.  We bought him some new ones two months ago, but then within the last month he started complaining about them being too tight.  He's managed to stretch them out a bit, but I still don't expect that we have more than a month or two in them.

Secondly, we got an email saying that Scrapyard is expanding!  There is a cross-fit gym in the shared space and that gym is moving somewhere else.  They expect to double their bouldering walls and have everything ready by the end of August.  This might also mean that one of the USA climbing competitions could maybe be held in Holland instead of having to travel so far away.

I picked up Joshua and he said several times that "it was a good day, and then it got better!"  Isaac also had a good day because his history test was canceled.

I took this picture of Isaac reading yesterday.  He looked so...teenager-y.

I also put the cat box up for a bit.  They'll use it for a few weeks and then I'll take it out when it gets actually hot.

vacation Friday1: Tori gates

Today's plan was to do some more tourist things around Kyoto and than train over to Okayama.

We started with the Tori gates, which is actually called Fushimi Inari.  These were so cool.  I love the red-orange color the gates were painted and there were so many of them.  Somewhere I read that they were painted a vermilion color, but personally I think it had more orange in it than vermilion does.

A gate where we were dropped off, waiting for the rest of the group.  They went to a different entrance, which was confusing.  But the day was nice...warm but not too warm.  Grey skies threatening rain but not actually raining.

Joshua wanted a picture with this and since he doesn't ask often it even gets included here.

They had some nice pebble-stay-in-place things.  Not really picture worthy, but I have two kids that like rocks and we talked about the rocks more than I expect most people do.  The stay-in-place things were not comfortable to walk on.  I kind of want to make this a big picture for Isaac.

There were a lot of pictures to be taken.  It was so pretty.  Although it's a bit hard to see in the pictures I select on the way up the mountain all the gates had the same two words on them: accept on the left and serve on the right.

On the other side of all the gates was the sponsor (left side) and the auspicious day that it was erected (right side).

Around this time Joshua just took my phone and started taking pictures.  He had some cool ones.  He was looking around and enjoying himself, so he could take as many as he wanted.

The gates come in all sizes.

Do you see all my umbrellas?  I grabbed my purse strap and then they were easy to carry.

So there is a first section, a second section, and then you can choose to hike around the whole thing for an additional forty minutes.  While I'm sure it would have been a nice hike, everyone decided it wasn't our best choice.  Furthermore, we didn't want to be caught on the mountain if it started raining.

I really like this picture.  I think someone fell right as it was being taken and so we're all looking that way.  (They were fine.)

Not only was it a forest, it was a bamboo forest!  Isaac tried to grow some bamboo and was unsuccessful, but he's still intrigued by it.

When we got to the bottom, there were some musicians that were warming up as though they were actually going to do something.  One of the instruments was the koto.  They tuned up, played for about thirty seconds, and then waited for a long time.  It was part of a ceremony going on in the temple behind us, which we didn't realize at the time.  Anyway.  The stipulation of Isaac not marching at Tulip Time was that he keep his ear out for Japanese music.  There were a few other places we heard some, but I was hoping this would be a place with a slightly longer song. (image credit)

Near the end of our walk down the mountain, Isaac slipped and got his ankle.  We were all worried about it for a while, but after a minute or so he said it was fine.  (Spoiler: it was).  Well, then after the music he started complaining that his feet were hurting.  I tried to have him keep going, but he kept complaining.  We finally found a place to sit while Travis and Scarlet got some food and we got some juice.  Joshua was a bit bored during this time, so he asked if he could go shopping.  I said that was fine, so he just went in a few of the small stores nearby until he found the perfect lucky cat that he had been looking for.  It wasn't too big and the hand moved.  After I went with him to see it, I gave him some money and he purchased it...no big deal.  And it really isn't, but it also isn't something that he does on his own very often.

Oh, this is turning out to be a really long post and we're only at ~10:30am.  I think I'll split it into two.