What A Day!

Yesterday we took a LONG trip to Hakone. I lost count but I think we took about 5 or 6 trains, a cable car, and rope way to get there. Everyone seemed to enjoy it.

This is us at the active volcano in Hakone. The smoke you see behind us is from the sulphur springs that occur here. Hmmmm...smells good too! There are natural hot springs that occur and we even saw a sign next to one of them that said the temp was about 200 degrees F. Anyone up for a swim!?!?!

This is the warning sign posted before you climb up to the springs! Encouraging huh?

You can buy black eggs (as you see above) to eat. Legend has it that for each egg you ea, you add seven years onto your life. I only added about 3.5 years onto mine because I only ate half of mine. Ok...so why are the eggs black? They boil the eggs in the sulphur springs and it turns the shell black. The inside is a normal egg.

We are getting ready to bored our pirate ship to the other side of Hakone. Argh Matey!

Avery standing in one of the ancient cedar trees in the cedar tree forest in Hakone.

Today we spent the day in Tokyo. We started out by going to the famous "scramble" intersection to watch all the people scatter in different directions at one time. I think about 2 million people cross this intersection per day. Next we went to do some shopping at a place called the Oriental Bazaar....it was difficult to drag Teresa out of there without spending all her money. All that shopping made us hungry...so we were off to a place called Shakey's Pizza. Here we tried all different types of pizza. Teresa got one that we thought just had some cheese and seaweed pieces on it...when what to her wondering eyes should she see...a small fish starring back at her. And yes....it was after her first bite!

Leave it to Phil to find 2 young girls to have his picture made with....at least we got free drinks out of it!

After filling our bellies...we went to see the imperial palace where Avery and Austin had to pose for pictures with some of the local tourist there. They love having their pictures made with American children.

All of us at a fountain on the imperial grounds.

Us in front of one of the gate entrances to the palace


Do you see part of the palace in the background to the right?

Then the boys went there way to look at some guitar shops and us girls ventured on our way to the famous Tokyo Tower, but not before we found some interesting temples and shrines along the way.

Avery in front of a koi pond at the temple we found.

This is a monk ringing the bell at one of the temples we passed on the way to the tower.


This was one of 4 statures placed inside the entrance of the temple where we saw the monk.

The Tokyo Tower in the day and at night!


This is a view from the Tower during the dusk time.

Then I navigated us home from Tokyo...I am so proud of myself for doing it without Curtis. Maybe I know more about Japan than I thought!