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| This view of Nijo Castle is the most famous of all. I am pleased my photo came out just like I've seen on postcards. |
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| I was very intrigued by the roof lines. There are simple parts and very complex parts that ninjas must have enjoyed hopping around (ok, I watched too many ninja movies). |
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| I enjoy taking pictures of Aly! She is a natural model. |
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| This is my grandmother's house. My uncle's family live here now. I spent many childhood days catching bugs and played freely with my cousins. |
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| I imagine I looked like this out in the field, feeling happy to be out playing in nature. |
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| Aly went to see what my aunt and uncle were doing by the rice field. Children should be outside playing and exploring like this. I am glad Aly experienced another piece of my childhood. |
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| Aly was happy she caught a tadpole. This girl fearless when it comes down to frogs and their babies, but she does not do spiders. |
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| This image is grainy and I have much to work on, however is one of my favorite! This cow is going to be expensive Matsuzaka meat soon. I looked at her eyes and she looked like her soul was taken out. I told her that I thought she was beautiful and that we appreciate her ultimate sacrifice. I love to eat good meats and I felt the heaviness of her life and journey. I hope she wouldn't suffer. |
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| Aunt Misao (holding Aly), cousin Mizuho, cousin Aya (who just had a baby) and aunt Kyoko. They are super nice and hardworking people. It's good to see that I come from a great family! |
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| The pictures are not in order, but this little cat caught Aly's attention at the ranch and she begged me to take picture of her. Here she is Aly! |
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| Aly was so excited to visit Anpanman Museum, she could not stop smiling! |
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| At Uncle Jam's bakery. It was cute and a well-made museum. |
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| The view of Kobe port. It's a beautiful place. |
One thing I was sure before I made this trip was that I wanted to take lots of pictures. I wanted to capture both people in ordinary everyday settings and classic beauty of Japan like you see in magazines. I know I have unique set of eyes now that I have lived overseas for so long. The native side of me knows where to find the scenes I want to capture and the non-native side of me find interesting things which residents wouldn't even consider taking a second look.
On the second day of our arrival, I took Aly to the ancient capital of Kyoto to visit a shogun palace called Nijo Castle, famous for grandurous and ornate architecture. It was hot. I am no longer used to the sweat inducing humid air. I saw many foreign tourists who were all dressed in tanks and shorts but many of the locals were still wearing long sleeves. I don't know how they do it.
The castle was magnificent. It is so neat that a building that was built by famous shogun in 1600s still stands although some parts of it was destroyed by numerous fire. The roofline laying across the blue sky was so beautiful, I was snapping away. Aly was asking me all sorts of questions and it felt good to teach her a little lesson in Japanese history. We toured the inside of the palace and what a show off Tokugawa family was! Every inch of the surface was decorated with some type of design, all sliding doors had gold and beaufitul drawings of cranes, eagles, cherry trees carps, everything beautiful. Aly enjoyed finding animals on the sliding doors. The shiny dark wood floors squeaked as we walked on them. They were in-house motion sensor to detect any intruders walking on the hallway. Maybe that's why Ninjas learned to walk silently! We enjoyed our visit to Kyoto and it was a successful photo-wrothy visit.
My aunt Kyoko was kind enough to take us to Matsuzaka the following day to visit my cousin who gave birth to a baby boy. We could not meet the baby unfortunately, but was happy to see my cousin Aya, aunt Misao and uncle Hideo, and cousin Mizuho. Aya was beaming with mothery beauty and she looked happy. We had lunch together at a Matsuzaka beef restaurant and tasted one of the best beef in Japan. It was delicious! Aunt Kyoko took us afterwards to my late grandmother's house in Oishi, 30 minutes away from Matsuzaka. As we got closer, all the familiar sceneries unfolded before me and I was at a complete bliss. I don't know how often I think of the very scenery I was looking at. That was always the place I come back to in my mind when I think of my childhood, not my house in Osaka, but the peaceful rice fields with green mountains in the background. Uncle Iiko was at home and he invited us in. I sat at the very couch my grandma used to sit and had tea with my aunts and uncles. The smell of the woods, the tea, the coolness of the conutry air, it was a treat to be there again in person. We went for a walk afterwards to visit the ranch deeper up in the mountain. My aunts and uncles used to take me for a walk with my cousins the very path we took. If I could stop the time, I thought. I felt like my grandmother woud be home waiting for us. If I could talk to her just one more time... Aly had a lot of fun trying to catch tadpoles in the rice feilds. She caught some and my aunts swiftly made a cup using a big leaf. I cannot thank my aunt Kyoko enough for taking me there. It meant so much to me.
Gosh, this post is getting very long! I will be brief about the visit to Kobe. On the third day, we went to Kobe to see Anpanman in his new museum. Anpanman is a bread-headed superhero who feeds the hungry animals and people. The cartoon has been around even before I was born. It might seem odd that he takes a chunk off from his head and feeds it to someone in trouble, but the author's philosophy behind is that food is the ultimate necessity in all living creatures and sharing one's food gives life and peace. I guess it had a deeper meaning than I thought! So, here we went to meet him since Aly has been watching him since she was little in America. The place was packed with many little tots and more numbers of parents and granparents. Behind every child followed several adults in groups and it was rather loud and chaotic. Alyson was busy checking out different play areas and it was so difficult to keep a track of her. It's geared towards toddlers and Aly was too big for most of the attractions, but she had fun anyways. There was a TV news crew taping the segment about the museum and they approached me and asked if they could interview Alyson. The reporter asked several questions to her, but Aly didn't answer her. :-( I thought they wouldn't air her part since she took off in the middle of the interview, but my friend, Kayako, called me and said she saw Alyson on the Saturday TV news. If I had known!
So, we had a wonderful start to the stay in Japan and we were wide-eyed and excited to see what fun things await us next. We will write about visit with friends next. Thanks for reading~ Time for bed for me.
