We are still in Japan

I haven't blogged in awhile but we are still here in Japan - for just another week. Patrick came on July 5 and we have been doing lots since then. We are able to go out on our own at night while the kids sleep and my parents are at home. The other night, we went to Japanese restaurant called "show". We were served 9 beautiful dishes with sake and came home totally satisfied. It's hard to explain what Japanese food can be to people outside of Japan. The type of food available is also limited outside of the country. I wish there was something like this in the US.

We also made a trip to Nikko. Dad's company has a vacation home there and as kids, we use to go there in the summer every year. It was nice to be able to take Patrick and the kids to a place where we enjoyed as kids. The house is in a mountain and located on a lakeside - Chuzenjiko. It's been so hot and humid in Yokohama but up in the mountains, it was chilly and refreshing. We went to an Onsen, first time for Pat. I was a bit worried about his reaction to the Japanese way of stripping all the way down to get into a public bath with old men but he was fine with it.

We purchased Japan Rail Pass which is valid for a week. Our initial plan was to go to Hiroshima to see the A-bomb dome and the museum there along with other sites. But because of this heat (and even hotter in Hiroshima), we changed our plan to go North to Sendai instead. Terran is making full use of the JR pass. He loves the Japanese trains and shinkansen so for this week that the pass is valid, Pat is taking him on all of his favorite trains. He knows the names of so many trains and gets so excited by the site of them. One main reason we chose to go to sendai is so that we can ride his favorite train, Komachi.... His knowledge of Japanese trains surpass mine for sure.

Ooops, Sierra is up. Photos to come.