Trip to Okinawa

Aaron and I flew to Okinawa this past Saturday, for our postponed anniversary trip. We landed amidst quite a storm, after we circled for an extra half hour (during which I could have used a tranquilizer). We finally arrived at the Marriott Okinawa Resort & Spa, and were in heaven with this view from our room. We were treated like royalty at the resort, customer service here is amazing!

Our first night in Okinawa, we went to the Howdy BBQ restaurant and enjoyed local Okinawan pork and listened to live music. Most of the songs were in English, so we had a great time.

I was looking forward to this trip very much, as my grandpa had told me that Okinawa was a beautiful place so I wanted to see where he had been.

Aaron and I were great tourists and explored the Memorial Peace Park and Museum:

Himeyuri Monument, and downtown Nago on our first day. After all this, we enjoyed happy hour in the lounge and then had a delicious Chinese dinner. Yes, I know we're in Japan, but I love Chinese. And, we tried the local drink of awamori, but 1 sip was all I could do. Aaron said it best "I think we flew here on this fuel".

Then on Monday, I think Grandpa Al intervened so that we could have a beautiful, sunny day on the beach instead of the forecast rain! We spent the morning at Kariyushi beach, with Aaron working on his tan and me napping under the umbrella. Then we headed off for more tourist fun. I was insistent on going to the Nago Pineapple Park, which was a huge tourist trap, but I just wanted to buy some pineapple wine!

We also visited some interesting subtropical gardens, and apparently we were the first visitors in quite some time!

To wrap up the tourist circuit, we visited Manzamo,a beautiful place made from fossilized coral that looks out over the East China Sea.

For our last night in Okinawa, we ventured out for some local food and tried a local dish made from goya (bitter melon), spam, and eggs. Spam is incredibly popular in Okinawa! Then we went to the spa and enjoyed very hot hot tubs, a cold plunge pool, and the sauna. We wish vacations lasted forever!

Our 2nd Anniversary

On Sept. 2, Aaron and I celebrated our 2nd anniversary! We had to postpone our planned trip to Okinawa, due to torrential rain, but Kelso was pretty thrilled that he didn't have to go to the kennel. He did have to wear his raincoat though. We will head to Okinawa at the end of the month and are praying for nice weather and no typhoons!

We celebrated with a very delicious dinner. Kobe-niku wa oishii desu, aka Kobe beef is delicious! If you've ever gone out with me, I love the self portrait. So, here is a self-portrait of us outside the restaurant.

Here is a picture of my beautiful Kobe

tenderloin steak and vegetables. Presentation is very important here, the eggplant was carved to look like a leaf!

Osaka Weekend

Aaron and I headed to Osaka the weekend of Aug. 23rd to meet up with my Uncle Joe! He was the first family member we have seen in Japan. Osaka, the largest city outside Tokyo/ Yokohama, is home to a very big aquarium (shown on the left), so we met up there to begin our Osaka adventure.

Highlights of the aquarium are the whale shark and the Japanese spider crabs. The spider crabs live in the ocean depths and look sort of like outer space oddities.

There were several different types of animals, everything from a tree sloth to an iguana, to my personal favorite, the sunfish.

Then we hunted around for a good place for dinner, and ended up in a tiny Italian restaurant with Japanese chefs who cooked the food right there at the counter. The last stop for the night was literally called The Beer Restaurant!

On Sunday morning, Aaron and I headed to the Umeda Sky Building, one of the top architectural sites in Osaka and also a controversial building. I guess you either hate it or you love it. We loved it. To the left is the view from the connection between the 2 towers, as we're standing on the ground.

After riding a glass elevator to the 35th floor, you take a 5 story escalator that is a glass tunnel. Pretty cool views!

Here is the view of some of the Osaka skyline. Other interesting sightings included tennis courts on the top of a building and a large swimming pool on a rooftop. You can see all the Osaka pictures by clicking on our Shutterfly link on this blog.

The rest of Obon- Nara & Nagoya

To wrap up our Obon holiday, we went to Nara to see a beautiful Buddhist temple and pet some extremely tame deer, called Sika deer, that are believed to be messengers of the gods in the Shinto religion. We fed the deer special deer cookies and then we all cleaned off our shoes before we got in the car!

Todai-ji is a beautiful Buddhist temple, home to the Daibutsu-den (Great Buddha Hall), which is the largest wooden structure in the world. This temple was built in the 700's, but after some fires, wars, and earthquakes, the current building is from the 1700's.

The Great Buddha is one of the world's largest bronze structures. It weighs about 500 metric tonnes, which I'm pretty sure is a lot! The Buddha is 15 meters tall and is quite an impressive site in person.

Outside the temple there are the Nio guardians.

To wrap up our last day of holiday, we went into Nagoya and visited Nagoya-jo (castle). This is a resconstructed castle, as it was destroyed in WWII, and you can see the Nagoya skyline nicely from the top.

As the day started getting cloudy and a storm seemed to be approaching, we checked out Oasis 21 in the Sakae neighborhood and there is the TV tower in the background. For some reason TV towers are sightseeing locations here in Japan:)

When we picked up Kelso and his friend Beamer from the kennel, they felt just like we did after Obon. Wow, time for a nap after all that sightseeing!

Obon Holiday Week

On Friday, Aug. 8th, Aaron and I departed for Tokyo to meet up with our friends Kit & Jody Bishop. They came all the way from TX to spend the week with us and were our first visitors so far. We saw a lot during this week and this will be a long post! Please click on my Shutterfly link on the left side of the blog to be able to see all of the pictures.

Tokyo: we spent the first evening catching up and trying to find the Olympics Opening Ceremony. We went to a local sports bar and then ended with a fabulous dinner (minus the weird tofu appetizer I insisted we order). Sat. morning we were up at 4:30 am to head to the Tsukiji Fish Market for the tuna auction at 5:30. A single tuna regularaly earns several hundred thousand dollars, with some selling for up to $15M!

Next up (after a nap), we explored the beautiful Imperial Gardens

In the afternoon Jody and I did some shopping, and discovered that there really is Hello Kitty everything here!

We also saw a cool virtual aquarium show via HD at the Sony Building. We ended the day by going to the Sky Room at the Asahi headquarter to taste some Asahi beer and admire the view from the 24th floor and then heading to a local Italian restaurant.

Sunday morning before we headed out, we went to Meiji-jingu, a beautiful Shinto shrine in Tokyo.

Our last stop for the day was to see the waterfalls near Mt. Fuji. Otodome and Shiraito Falls are very beautiful and the cool water and air were refreshing in steamy Japan!

Kyoto: Monday afternoon we headed south to Kyoto, got checked into our hotel, and headed out for local cuisine and Japanese homestyle cooking. It was an interesting meal, featuring everything from duck to sashimi to yuba (a starchy product from tofu). I drank my meal:)

Tuesday I tortured us all with a walking tour. It was in the upper 90's and very humid, but we saw a lot of great things. Kyoto is home to 17 World Heritage Sites!

Kiyomizu-dera temple:

Kodai-ji temple:

Maruyama koen (park):

Yasaka-jinga shrine After all that walking we got cleaned up for a relaxing dinner in Ponto-cho, a traditional Japanese street chocked full of restaurants and bars. We dined along the river on an elevated patio and even enjoyed unagi, a delicious eel dish. We finised the night with cocktails at a cool little bar called Side B. You had to ring up to get buzzed into the little place.

Fukui: Wednesday we hit the road again, arriving in this smaller city near the Sea of Japan (the western side of Japan). Our first evening we went up to Tojinbo cliffs for a beautiful sunset, and then had a yummy dinner of yakiniku (basically Korean BBQ)

Thursday we got up and headed to Mihama town to visit the beach. The water was very nice, but the beach was very rocky. We also went on a cruise of the 5 lakes that make up Wakasa Bay.

That night we dined on local sushi. I prefer the sushi rolls, and Aaron found a fried rockfish dish

I will finish the Obon week entry later, including the fun from Nara and Nagoya. Thanks again to the Bishops for visiting us in Japan, we had a blast! Also, thanks to Jody for some of the pictures in this blog!