August 7th

DEER PARK!!!

Today we all went to Nara which is world famous for its deer park and worldest oldest standing wooden building.

Grandpa even came! When we mentioned Nara during small talk, my grandpa shouted out that he wanted to go. So after convincing my grandma he was allowed to come too. He doesn't get out much so it meant a lot to all of us.

Random face lol

This was our first experience with the deer! They just randomly crossed the street lol.

Cassy and I with the amazing deer.

My grandpa just kept laughing at everything like usual. It took us two hours to drive here but it was worth it. It was pretty cool compared to some other days so that was a plus.

You can buy crackers as snacks for the deer so when my grandpa fed the deer he started to laugh so hard.

Nara is also famous for the worlds oldest standing wooden building. It was built back in the 1300's. Use the people in the photo as a scale to see how big the building actually is.

Inside the giant building is a gigantic Buddha. It was probably 6 stories high. Its made of bronze and still today they don't know exactly how they made it.

There was another smaller Buddha on the right too. Use the people again as a scale to see how big the thing was.

We found the worlds steepest steps too.

Grandpa chillin in his wheelchair.

Mom and daughters

Front of the temple.

This deer would stick his tongue out when you would feed it. Brilliant.

Cassy with her Cassy chocolate.

Btw, we found out that Cassy is allergic to deer today HAHA. After a couple minutes of petting them she broke out in hives. She was so sad...

Check out the video to see the hives!!!

August 6th

Today was the 65th anniversary of the day Hiroshima was bombed in WWII. So making a day trip to Hiroshima today was pretty interesting. There was a ceremony for all those that passed away or injured on that day starting at 8:15am but we couldn't make it there that early. We left around 9:30am and got there three hours later. It was Cassy's first experience on the bullet train so she was pretty excited.

(we actually got on the wrong train, the one shown, and we had to get off at the next station and switch trains lol)

It took us about 3 hours to get to Hiroshima, but if anyone knows how Cassy and I are, then you know that those 3 hours felt like 20 minutes.

We had to take another small trolley to get to the site, but once we got there the main building is sitting right in front of you. Since today was the anniversary, there were a lot more people there then usual.

This guy was painting this on the street right in front of the building. Great painting if you ask me.

Back when the bomb fell, there was one older lady that was seriously injured and while she was laying in her hospital bed, she slowly started to fold paper cranes to help ease her mind and before she died, she folded nearly 1000 cranes. Being a true story, every year since then, people all across the country in memory of her and as an symbol for peace, fold 1000 cranes and send it to the Hiroshima Museum. There were so many cranes everywhere and we even found trash bags full of them laying around the sidewalks.

Cassy obviously fell in love with the paper cranes.

Here is a picture of what Hiroshima looked like after the bomb fell. The center building in the image is the memorial building that Cassy and I took a picture of earlier.

The left picture shows pictures of the actual mushroom clouds from the bomb. And on the right, the red ball indicates where the bomb exploded. The bomb didn't actually hit the ground, but exploded in the air which results in greater damage.

Flag at half mast

The museum was extremely sad and I didn't take many photos because I wasn't really thinking about taking pictures while viewing everything. But after we left the museum, we walked around the surrounding area and just soaked in the environment and people.

Some guy was playing his violin in memory of his great grandmother. He wasn't very good but his story made his music beautiful.

We crossed the bridge that the pilot who dropped the bomb was aiming for. Kinda strange to stand there and think that something like this actually happened only 65 years ago.






Our train back was at around 5:30 so we got to spend about 3 hours in Hiroshima. I'm not to familiar with the surrounding area so we just mainly came here for the museum.

Cassy with her little bunny ears on the bullet train...

Overall our trip worked out really well. The weather was great, the train was fast, and we both had a really great time together. Being at Hiroshima on the anniversary was also really interesting.





Needless to say, I was starving like always...

So when we got back to Wani, my home town, I made Cassy go to Fuji Ramen with me.

I got a 24 ounce Asahi draft and a おおもり Ramen (Extra Large) and killed it within like 15 minutes.

This is my favorite restaurant and favorite food...

Haha, don't worry, I finished my beer. This was the perfect way to end the day. After I got home I knocked out...

If you ever come to Japan, make sure you visit Hiroshima to learn from History, and make sure you get a good bowl of noodles.

August 6th-9th

Iv been so busy I dont have time to work on my blog! I still have our trip to Hiroshima to do (August 6th) and our visit to the deer park (August 7th) and now today Cassy and I are leaving for Tokyo so I will have to post all that when I get back on the 9th. We both have a long couple days ahead of us so I need to start packing! Were going to be staying with a family friend in Tokyo and hopefully do a lot of shopping and looking around. Theres going to be a lot to read when I post everything so I hope you can enjoy later!

^-^

August 5th

Yeah today basically sucked. I woke up with a sore throat and runny nose. Today was the start of Cassy and I's JR train pass and we were supposed to go to Nara which has the famous deer park, but I was to sick and we couldn't go.

Check this link out! Deer park!

Anyways, I slept all in day in the hopes that I would feel better the next day because we are going to Hiroshima on the 6th.

Hello from us!

August 4th

I woke up at 4am today to take my dad to Osaka for his flight home. Kinda crazy that two weeks already went by. Seems like all of us just got off the plane yesterday.

Here's a pic of me right when I woke up. The sun rises so early here...

My dad woke up my grandpa to say good bye. I think it was to early for my grandpa to know what was going on haha.

Dad with mom and grandma in front of the house.

It took us about an hour to get to the airport and traffic was really light. We actually got there before the airport even opened. We were the first ones in!!!!

We had some breakfast and my dad got a blueberry crape. Typical.

Final shot before my dad took off.

Thanks dad for everything you did with us while you were here! You know all the best spots to go and forced me to wake up almost every day to go swimming or running! I'm sure Moose will go crazy when he sees you. Love you!

August 3rd

Today we went to a place called Genki Mura. Japanese translation means "Happy Forest". After driving up a super steep road there is a park with a really long roller slide and some other cool things to play on.

 Cassy near the bottom of the slide! You can actually get a lot of speed coming down but it gets to the point where it starts to hurt so you have to slow yourself down.

Then there is this giant rope jungle gym. Its pretty huge and extremely dangerous in my opinion lol. I remember as a little kid when I would come here to play this was my favorite thing ever. What 8 yr old boy wouldn't like a giant rope thing to climb on??

 A picture of me from the top of the jungle gym. There was a pretty awesome view from up there.

 Another view from the top of the rope thing over looking lake Biwa.

 The real reason we came up to Genki Mura though was for the water fall that is there. You climb up into the mountains a bit and hiding in the woods is this beautiful waterfall with extremely cold water.

Here's a group shot at the bottom of the Taki aka waterfall.

 Im just going to post a few pics. Enjoy!

After messing around in the water for awhile we went back into town and had lunch! Its my dad's favorite place since 20 yrs ago. Its a fast food Chinese family place and its so good.

FOOD!

Sorry this post is pretty long...
After dinner we all had to get ready for the local town festival. It happens every year on August 3rd and local vendors and live music mixed with a lot of Japanese people make this a really fun time.
Enjoy the pics!

My friend Nakagawa joined us. I haven't seen him since 2002 so it was really good to hang out with him.

Cassy had to take a picture of this guy.

One of the vendors gave the girls free drinks because they were American lol.

Group shot with a group of people that work at a Mochi factory across the street from my aunts house. They invited us over a few days ago while they were having a BBQ so they had a stand at the festival and invited us into their tent.

The night sky.















Heidi and Cassy together!










We all had a great time and couldn't wait to sleep. We had a non stop day from 10am till 9pm so we were pretty exhausted. The worst part was that I had to wake up at 4am to take my dad to the airport the next day. Ill post about that later.

Our time here is slowing winding down but were trying to enjoy each day as it comes. Cassy and I are having a blast and cant wait to live here soon. I hope you enjoyed the pictures!