The main purpose of this trip was so see our granddaughter. She is almost 15 months old now. She is walking. Pointing and saying Aahh! gets her everything she wants so the verbal skills will come. Did I mention she is so smart? I was talking with my daughter in law about how to spell Hachimitsu and Hachi (honey bee and honey). The baby was playing on the floor with her maternal grandmother when she suddenly went over to her books, went through them, and pulled out a book I had sent her.
I was amazed. I realized she had been listening to our conversation, made the connection, and was bilingual.
The kids are protective of her image on social media so I will only include her in one picture.
Overall it was a great trip, Our goal was to spend time with family. We accomplished that. The value of the Yen is down so our $$ went further. We landed at Haneda Airport, Tokyo and took the Shinkasen to Kobe, where the family lives. They have a traditional Japanese home with Great Grandma, Grandma and Grandpa, my son and his wife, and now the baby. 4 generations under one roof. FYI: great grandma can run circles around me!
My daughter in law's father, who suffers from macular degeneration occupies his time by cooking and he's a wonderful cook. He also walks the dog for hours at a time. While walking, he seeks to find restaurants off the beaten path that are amazing and Buddhist Temples. He took us to about 5 Buddhist Temples. He also took us to a soba noodle restaurant that turned out to be the best meal of the trip. This restaurant had about 5 tables and a straw mat floor. Homemade noodles, broth, dumplings. A big bowl of mushroom soba with tea was about $6.50 US dollars. Pure heaven!
Ume no hana was in bloom. (Plums) Too early for the cherry blossoms.
Everyone we met was warm and generous. Even strangers on a train would go out of their way to help.
Anyway, here are some pictures. The Mount Fuji picture was taken from the Shinkansen on our way back to Tokyo.
I also got a picture of Mount Fuji from the plane when we were flying in to Tokyo. I understand that the opportunity to see it twice, due to cloud coverage, is very rare.