In Japan March 2018 Part II

In Aichi with Ischin's family (and baby #2 growing in there!) We went for "cherry blossom veiwing) first a stop at Toyokawa Inari...

On the way... me with Halle sitting to my right ; )

It has been special getting to ride with Halle, and quite entertaining!

Another day back home:

THEN my very dear friend Clarissa, was in Japan from India! She used to live in Japan and ran an English school too. She left Japan the same time I did. : (    She was telling me about how in India, with her partner in the photo below, since he's younger than she, that she can't sit in public as we were doing. She'd get arrested? Or spat on? as she was when smoking a cigarrete because supposedly only prostitutes smoke. Catching up together- amazing. 

Across the river, a Cherry Blossom Fest event was being set up for a couple days later.

With THESE guys!! Taka got us there! An old Izakaya we used to meet in, in the past. We drank our asses off, Taka barely had enough yen to pay ; )   SPECIAL times again with Chi-chan and Sven-kun!  They poured me SAKE as I'd never had it poured, overflowing into the square cup beneath. I knew of chinese tea being poured like that, but not sake.

OKONOMIYAKI, made Ischin's style along with kagome saue, but shoyu and mayo for me ; )

Watching dancing on TV.

   Us in the kitchen, Halle still kept out safe and sound.

Our last meal with Ischin-tachi. 

Steaks (thin ones, from Costco) and mashed potatoes, with veggie saute. 

Ischin and Masumi had seen we made this dish with Zen in Hokkaido, and wanted it too. We got the same kind of meat from the Costco there too. 

Toyokawa Inari.

We thought Halle would feel freaked out with all these foxes! But she was into them!

Ahhh, this lovely fencing!

Ischin's day off. Choice was to visit an aquarium or this vinegar museum. Aquarium was closed, and this Mizukan museum, opened a few years earlier, was impressive! I couldn't have imagined~~

 
Mizukan is the company that also produces Ragu tomato sauce, and Bertolli pasta sauce, also the Four Monks vinegar, and more!

The way... water? was carried. Ischin's testing how heavy it was.

 
The last area we visited was for-pretend- sushi making ; )

I still don't understand what we were trying to do with that hiragana!

A park at another time.

 
And like with some other people (and dogs) we know, it's so easy to get Taka to play.

One of our last days to get out under the cherry blossoms.

Halle liked drinking from the bottle cap : )

And no, that's not a real beer Masumi was drinking cause she's pregnant with baby girl number two. Due the beginning of August, 2018