Ten days in Japan

Nina and I came to Japan last Wednesday. We already spent ten days in Japan. The first week is usually spent for recovering from jet lag every time. Now we can enjoy our fun time with my family and friends without getting tired in an odd timing. I was hearing that it is unusually hot and humid this Summer in Japan before we left the US. But fortunately the weather has been pretty much like a usual Summer (it is still very hot and humid, though!). So I think that made us easy to adjust ourselves to the climate here.

My father lives in the city by Tokyo Bay where is about 50km away from Tokyo. We mostly stay my dad's house when we are in Japan. The house is built about 35years ago. He has a tiny Japanese garden in front of his house. Those beautiful pine trees were much much smaller when we moved in this house. Now they look so solid and tough.

Well-kept Bonsay trees and flower containers.

Keeping a tiny flower bed became my Dad's hobby these years. It is so nice to see colorful flowers every time we come back here. He is a very good and hard working gardener.

We visited the Onsen (hot spring public bath) in our town with my sister's family. There are many different kinds of hot tabs. Each tab has different active ingredients in its water and also they are in different tab styles like "Ne-yu" which is a very shallow tab you can lie down, "Awa-buro" which is a jacuzzi, "Goemon-buro" which is a deep tab looks like an ancient rice cooker, and so on! Many of Japanese people love taking a bath. And we are not the exceptions. The picture below is our pretty girls got high-spirited before taking a bath!

You gotta have a yummy ice cream after taking a superb bath!

When you see a big dinosaur, you have to climb up to the back of it. How can you resist?

Brand-new thing to Nina. Mastering to ride a RipStik (it is named "Braveboard" in Japan). It took a couple days but now she can ride and turn!! I am afraid we gotta buy one when we get home! (She is borrowing it from her cousin.)

I didn't prepare any projects to do on the trip this time. I just didn't have time to think and prepare before we left. I just grabbed some crochet hooks, Tatting shattles and some lace yarns for killing the time on the plane. So I pulled out some left over yarns sitting in my old room here and started some motif crocheting when Nina went to her cousin's house for sleep-over. There were not enough amount of yarns to make a large thing. I am thinking to use these for embellishing a scarf for this Fall. I just cannot spend days without making stuff. There are more supplies I could not transport to the US. So hopefully I will spend some of them while I am here in Japan.

The rose from my Dad's garden.

I am going to Tokyo tomorrow to see my best friends. It is my favorite event I am looking forward so much for a whole year! We are going to have a delicious lunch and talk and talk and talk for hours! Also I will shop around fabrics, craft supplies and books, too. I will report about my shopping in Tokyo (mainly in Shinjuku area) soon. So please stay tuned if you are interested in Japanese craft trends! Hope you have a wonderful weekend. Happy traveling!