trip Archive

As usual this season, we went to Karuizawa for a short stay. This time, we played golf. Never mind about the scores we made, we enjoyed the beautiful landscape, walked a lot, and had a very healthy weekend.

Well, almost three weeks have passed already, though.  The swine flu commotion didn't stop us or anything.  We flew to Texas and completed the "20 top things" list, which could not have been made without the help we got from those nice people in Texas!  Everything worked out so perfectly.

 1. horses (ranches were everywhere and also I saw many cowboys on horses at Stockyards and rodeo)
 2. cows (cows were all over... longhorns were impressive!)
 3. buffaloes (found a peaceful herd of buffaloes on the way from DFW airport... saw Teddy the camel as well.)
 4. cats (we were surrounded... and so happy)
 5. hats (had our photo taken in cowboy costume!)
 6. country antiques (bought a nice Christmas ornament of a cowboy snowman)
 7. books (bought a Texas guide book, thick and heavy encyclopedia of cats)
 8. music (Black Hawk, George Strait, Books & Dunn, Marty Robbins, Wilie Nelson, etc... and a bluegrass CD too)
 9. supermarkets (Walmart and Target... Costco was awesome)
10. drug store (Walgreen... nice place to buy souvenirs)
11. Tex-Mex cuisine (Chilis, Los Amigos... Tacos was surely very good... now I'm a big fan of jalapeno peppers)
12. steak, BBQ, fried chicken (had plenty of them... now I know chicken fried steak is not fried chicken at all)
13. tequila (had three shots of Cabo Wabo tequila!)
14. Dr.Pepper (guess I completed all kinds... visited the Dr.Pepper museum)
15. IHOP breakfast (ate Belgium waffle with strawberry sauce for dinner!)
16. architectures (old west fort, old town of Graham, Rangers Stadium)
17. ball games (Texas Rangers VS Chicago Whitesox... Rangers won 5 to 1!)
18. UFO (I saw something flying, and it disappeared while I looked somewhere else for a second... might had been a airplane, but unidentified)
19. beauty of the nature (Blue bonnet, Indian paintbrush... it was the best season to enjoy them blooming everywhere)
20. rubber ducks (found some at Walmart and Walgreen... ordered many of them at Amazon and took them back with us)

It was absolutely a great trip, but we suffered a heavy jet lag for a week after we came back, our job kept us busy and post-holiday blues made us lazy, could not finish arranging those photos we took.  Well, now we are recovered!

...and having a great time :-) I've taken so many pictures and just cannot choose which ones to upload on this blog. Anyway, I guess this longhorns picture will best explain where we are right now.

Hearing that the cherry blossoms in Ueno Park are in bloom, I took a short trip to Ueno. Although it was a weekday, so-o-o-o-o many people were visiting there to see the cherry blossoms. Nice weather for a daytime picnic, but I guess it is too cold to enjoy viewing them at night (actually they are very beautiful, though)

My wife is in her "yaku-doshi". (this site best explains what it means) Actually we are not very superstitious, but her dad strongly recommended her to have her bad luck exorcized at some temple, and she decided to do so. After taking part in the solemn ceremony at a big temple, we were completelely free from bad luck and greedy thoughts. We could even slightly feel the road to nirvana lying in front of us... maybe not.

After a long journey from Texas, the envelope of Flat Stanley arrived in Tokyo, Japan, the other side of the globe. The envelope was opened by a married couple, and Stanley was greeted with a great surprise for being so flat. Stanley experienced traditional Japanese breakfast and Setsubun, (spring celebration event) then he was taken to Roppongi and Ginza. After eating sushi for lunch, they visited Asakusa, where he found all the good old traditional stuffs. Stanley enjoyed Tokyo a lot although he only had one day for sightseeing. He said goobye and folded himself to fit in the returning envelope.

Since Ahiko-san's business trip to Paris seemed a good chance, I decided to go with her taking a week off. I mainly visited the museums and old architectures in the city, took TGV for Mont Saint-Michel when the weather was fine, and bought some wine and food for souvenirs. Paris is a fabulous place to visit (sort of dangerous for travelers, though), but I preferred the country-side scenery viewed from the train window.

Ahiko-san won a night stay at Kinugawa Onsen. Well, it's such a chance to visit Nikko where I had never been. The hotel was disappointing, but Nikko was superb for sightseeing.

Summer is almost over. We took a walk to Ueno Zoo.