Trip to Osaka

This past weekend, Ayako and I took a trip to Osaka to meet my parents at the last stop of their Japan trip. We took the bullet train down there. since all the regular reserved seats were booked well in advance, we rode on the "Green Car" which has nice, big seats and lots of leg room:
We met up with my parents in Osaka and then did lots of walking and shopping on Saturday. Here we are in a famous area called Dotonbori:
There's lots of big signs there:
As well as famous statues in front of restaurants that people take their photo in front of:
We even found ourselves on screen above a store at one point:
Here we are, close up:
On Sunday, we went for a walk and arrived at Osaka castle:
Here's Ayako with my parents in front of Osaka castle:
Here's Ayako overlooking Osaka from the castle:
Just before we left Osaka, we stopped by a rose festival that was taking place in a park near our hotel:

And that was our trip to Osaka. Not super exciting, but nice to my parents before they returned to Canada.

Family visit to Japan - Part 3

The day after the two families met, we went to Hamamatsu train station early to drop off Elizabeth and Carl so they could catch their train to Osaka. The rest of us continued on to go to the Hamamatsu festival. The festival is every year on May 3, 4, 5. You can see previous year's pictures in my posts from May of past years. We went to Ayako's mother's area where we were given the local 'happi' coats with the area's symbol on them:
We had a bus ride down to the beach where the festival takes place, and then had about a 20-minute walk to the site of the festival:
Everyone enjoyed watching the kids playing their bugles:
As well as seeing some of the interesting hairstyles done for the festival:
We went out to the big field to see the kites flying:
Everyone was quite impressed with the scene of many groups flying their area's kite as well as the noise from the bugles and chanting. They also found that flying the kites was harder than it looked. Here's Jason giving it a try:
Here's mom and myself trying to control a kite:
And here's Barbara helping mom:
They also got to see the celebration of a new baby where their local area flies a kite with the baby's name on it and they carry the family while chanting:
Here is a picture we had taken in front of Ayako's sister's area's kite:
We also walked down to the beach and saw some of the groups relaxing there:
There was quite a view of the kites from the beach:
We returned downtown to go to the international food fair that always happens during the festival time. On the way, Barbara had her photo taken with some local girls who were made up for the festival:
After the food festival, we tried to find a spot to watch the parade of neighbourhood floats that happens each night of the festival. Here's Jason striking a photographer's pose to get some good shots:
And here we are before the parade came by:
The next few photos are of the "yatai" floats going by:



Here's a close-up of the girls playing instruments inside a float:
And here are some of the people pulling the float and carrying lanterns:

The last full day that my family was here, we went up to Hokoji temple. We were given a good tour in English this time (I've never received one before). I found out that the it was a temple and shrine together actually:
Here's a shot overlooking the temple on this overcast day:
And here is dad ringing the bell at the shrine:
After visiting Hokoji, we went out for an early Mother's day lunch, since we wouldn't be together on Mother's day:
Here we are before eating our partridge on rice meal:
After lunch, we visited another temple, Ryotanji:
They have a famous garden that even the emperor once visited:

At the end of the day, we visited a local historical site in my town which used to be the border gate between areas and where people would have to show their passports (and prove that they were male) in order to pass to the other area:
On Tuesday morning, my parents went off on the rest of their Japan tour, starting off in Nikko, and Barbara and Jason went off to Kyoto to start the rest of their Japan tour. Ayako and I will be joining my parents at the end of their tour in Osaka next weekend.

Family visit to Japan - Part 2 - "Wedding" Day

Since Ayako and I got married last year, this day was for the 2 families to meet each other for the first time. Ayako's family came over early and Ayako's mother helped Ayako put on her kimono and and helped me put on my hakama:
We decided to go to Garden park (which is close to where we live) to have photos taken of the 2 families together. Unfortunately, in the morning, it was raining a bit:
Here's a shot of Ayako's 2 nephews under an umbrella:
Even with the rain, Barbara got some photos done in the park:
Early in the week, Ayako and I had gone to the park to find the best place to take photos. There's a nice part of the park called Monet's garden, which is where we decided to have photos of the families together. Luckily, by the time we got there, the rain had stopped. Here are some of the pictures that were taken with various groups from the 2 families:






Finally, we had some more shots done with just the two of us:

And one last photo with Jason and Barbara:
We then had a short drive to a nice restaurant, Torizen. Some of us rested on the ride there:
Here we are at the restaurant before the meal:

We had a very delicious meal. Luckily by that time, it was a sunny afternoon and so we could go outside afterwards and enjoy the weather. There was a nice large window facing the lake from our room and a door led to a nice veranda overlooking the lake. Neo and Rio enjoyed playing in this small garden area:
Here's me preparing a ball toy that Rio received so that he could go play with it:
We all enjoyed the weather out on the porch area:
And even had some nice photos taken there as well: