April 13, 2008

Walking around Isahaya (Mitachiyama Shrine and Tenyuji Temple), leaving Nagasaki for Arita by train

By late morning we decided to take a walk around the neighborhood and came upon a small patch of bamboo trees. It was a rainy morning as well but the walk was nice.

Bamboo trees in Isahaya

Later on we took another walk to Mitachiyama Shrine, where we drank water from the well.

Near Mitachiyama Shrine

The first drive-through pharmacy I have ever seen…

A mosaic tile on the sidewalk

Just for fun!

Then we went to the Tenyuji Temple, which had a very nice small pavillion park. At the end we reached Megane bashi (glasses bridge), where a festival took place.

My brother Thomas, Nobuko, and me

Cherry blossoms in Isahaya

A rockery, Japanese style

Nobuko, her niece Haruna, my brother

Passing Huis Ten Busch on our way to Arita

By late afternoon we had to say good-bye to our friends in Isahaya and took the train via Hizenyamaguchi to Arita. We got to Arita about 90 minutes later and with the help of two very helpful local high school students we found our minshuku. Our mistress only spoke Japanese, which gave me a rare chance to practice my Japanese!! Arita, usually a very touristy town, was dead on Monday night. We were getting really hungry and got lucky by finding a Chinese restaurant which was still open at 8:00 p.m. Arita seemed like a very sleepy town that night.

We got back early to the minshuku, even though we took a quick stop at a nomiya with our 14-year-old son. We had a quick beer and headed back to our tatami room at the minshuku, ready for a good-night’s sleep.

We watched a bit of TV before going to sleep and finally got to see Kai on TV, the mascot/character from the company Softbank. The Japanese had been talking about him, and we just could not imagine a pet taking on such a big role in the Japanese society. His character turned into a TV show where he – the dog- plays a teacher and his human wife is the principal…

With that thought on our mind, we went to sleep.

Tags: drive-through pharmacy in Japan, Japanese bamboo, Nagasaki

Some other posts you might like to read:

This entry was posted on Sunday, April 20th, 2008 at 9:37 am and is filed under Japan, Travel Log. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.