Today Micah had an off day, but also had to fly out for a week long road trip. We at least got to spend part of the day with him. We got up, Micah cooked breakfast, and got ready to go to the park and the Buddhist temple behind our house. I found out it's the largest here in Hokkaido, which is the prefecture, or state, we live in. It's beautiful. We went by ourselves, so we didn't really have a clue about what anything meant, but it was neat to walk around. Next time we will take Hide, our interpreter, so he can give us all the details. As we were leaving a guard realized who we were and gave us a bag and said "gift." It's a bottle of something and a wooden piece with rabbits and fish on it. Can't wait to find out what each one means. We have no idea what's in the bottle since the label is in Japanese. It's on the counter waiting on Hide to interpret it for us.
There was this huge water thing that everyone was crowding around before entering the main temple. We watched and they were washing their hands and then sipping the water out of these wooden cups and rinsing their mouths out. Not very sanitary if you ask me! :) Not sure what the reasoning is behind it, but I will find out next time we go. We opted just to rinse our hands.
Micah will be gone until late Sunday night, so it's just the two of us. We will fill our time with the park, the zoo, and the indoor playground when it's raining. It seems like it's always raining! The other American's family stayed back for this road trip, so their girls and Addyson will have some play time too. Addyson's understanding about Daddy going on road trips. When he laid her down for her nap he told her he was leaving for a week and to be a good girl for Mommy. As he was shutting her door she said "Daddy, don't go. Stay here with us." Talk about break your heart! So, needless to say, we are counting down the days til he's back home!
The next stop was Nagoya. We actually got to ride the bullet train called The Shinkansen. It goes over 300 mph. What a neat way to travel. You get to have your cell phone on, there are no seatbelts, and you can get up and down as you wish. It was wonderful. Addyson was so excited because her daddy told her it went really, really fast. Nagoya has an Outback Steakhouse but it isn't open for lunch. As soon as the game was over the first night we jumped in a cab with Hide and walked into Outback at 10 p.m. We laughed that we use to talk about people who took their kids to dinner late at night and here we were. Oh well! Anything to have something that reminds us of home. We all ate until we were stuffed and Addyson was really good even though it was way past her bedtime! This baseball life makes us do CRAZY things...just look at where it brought us!
