JapanGirl64

Well, the Momiji Season is upon us. I thought we might miss it altogether this year since we will be gone most of November.  But, when our free weekly edition of The Stars and Stripes arrived, we read an article about the Night Walk at Showa Park and decided to check it out. Showa Park is HUGE. (It takes well over an hour to walk from one end of the park to the other.) In honor of the Momiji, there are a few areas in the park that are lit up at night. One of the areas is a Ginko tree lined avenue and the other main area is the Japanese Garden.   Along the Ginko Avenue they have music playing in time to changing colored lights. There were SO MANY people there! After a few minutes looking around, we noticed everyone was doing the same thing - holding up tiny Ginko leaves next to their faces/lips and taking selfies! It was so entertaining to see all the people doing the same exact pose! I was too self conscious to take a pic of the people taking the selfies, but you can imag...

Rented e-bikes and rode around Lake Kawaguchiko near Mt. Fuji. It was a perfect weather day (sunny and in the upper 60s), but the clouds did cover the top of Fuji. Oh well, I loved the ride, e-bikes are the WAY TO GO, and the fall vides were everywhere!                      I have got to get a new helmet. I honestly think this one is 30 years old! Food truck area along the route. We stopped for lunch and enjoyed a Taiko drum performance.                               Got my favorite food - Hiroshima style Okonomiyaki - so good! Notice the tiny drummer. He was so cute and did all the moves. You can't see the rest of the group in this pic, but they are also scrunched down behind their drums. He beat the drum in almost perfect timing and tried so hard to follow all the moves the group did. Startin young!  We were a few weeks early. This is a ...

Okinawa has been on our bucket list since we arrived in Japan, and this week we made it there!  Here is a run down of what we did for 5 days. Day 1 - Friday Oct 6, 2023 We left from Haneda really early and arrived in Naha by 10:30am. The rental car pick up was madness as everyone who flies into Naha rents a car - literally plane loads of people all moving from the plane to baggage claim to the rental car counter! (there are very few train options, so it's rental car or the bus). Dad and I were surprised by how big the Naha airport is and by how many people travel through there each day. Once we had a car, the next order of business was to get some lunch. I had several recommendation to try the Okinawa favorite - Taco Rice. So I insisted dad pull into the first place we came to that advertised Taco Rice. I think it must be a fusion food coming from the US military influence. It is pretty simple actually. Japanese white rice on the bottom, with seasoned ground beef taco meat, shredde...