Tako Yaki - Octopus Dumplings
Tako Yaki being made by a street vendor. These had more octopus stuffed inside than any of the other ones we tried.
Street vendor custard desserts
By chance, ran into friends that I served with 5 years ago. (Both happen to now be living in Osaka, where the picture was taken).
Japanese girl at a Christmas Festival in Osaka.
Osaka Castle
Vending Machine at a truck stop that serves hot french fries, onigiri, hot dogs, tako yaki, and more.
Ice cream vending machine.
Hot and cold beverage vending machine.
I saw about 5 different Kit Kat flavors while in Japan.
Rice field on the way to Kokubunji
Old Toyota Celica at Kokubunji
Overlooking the fields by Kokubunji
Kokubunji
Ai chan
By Kokubunji
Grove of Bamboo trees by Kokubunji
Kibiji Temple
A corner in one of Kibiji Temple's many courtyards.
Bamboo lashed together forming a sheet on top of a pedestal at Kibiji temple
Stone bridge by Kibiji
A courtyard at Kibiji Temple
This comes from my late night walk from the train station to my cousin's house in Okayama. (13 second exposure)
Bridge across from Okayama Castle
Okayama Castle
Eating a Christmas Cake (ranging between $30 and $150 each) is the Japanese way of celebrating Christmas. Uncle Hiura treated us to this one. It's a higher end one.
They also surprised us with a tree and presents. Great Christmas!
What we woke up to on Christmas morning.
View of Kobe from our hotel room.
Stopped by the Kobe honbu to visit with my friend whose father is the Kobe mission president.
They were low on manpower so they asked Kent to be a part of this year's fireworks show. Fireworks were banned in Hawaii the next day, so this will be the Ouishi's last year putting on the show.
New Years Eve in Hawaii.
More fireworks.
Delicious Yakisoba sandwich. (Fried soba noodles, mayonnaise, and ginger).
Lunch at the onsen (natural hot spring resort) in our room.
bento (box lunch) and Calpis
Dad's bento
The next few pictures are from my run through the hills of Okayama.
China being sold at a German Christmas Festival at a plaza in Osaka.
Lunch at a soba restaurant in a shopping mall. I forgot to take a picture before we ate it. The soba was really good.
An older bullet train.
Okayama Castle (taken during an afternoon run).
Japanese way of parking. Elevators bring your car either up out of the ground, or down from the upper levels. This is a very small one. Some of them are many stories high and even rotate like a carousel.
We played Life at the Hiura's. Hard to play in Japanese. Involves a lot of reading.
Life
The graffiti in Okayama wasn't as Engrish as it is in Tokyo. This was the best I could find.
Statues by a shrine I stumbled upon while running in the hills of Okayama.
Looking down from a shrine in an Okayama hill
They drew a little too much detail on the cats in our streetcar.
The socks we were given at the Onsen. Made for slippers.
The description of our 10 course meal provided by the Onsen (natural hot spring resort). The following pictures are all from this meal. I didn't take pictures of all the courses.
Raw Crab on the hibachi
Special rice meal being cooked by flame as we ate. After 20 minutes, the flame went out, and they were ready to eat.
Walking around the Onsen's neighborhood.
Onsen neighborhood.
Camera cell-phones
3D TVs
Pancake dessert.
Delicious fish egg sushi.
Delicious sushi at the conveyor belt sushi restaurant. Natto (fermented soy beans) w/ raw quail egg and green onions.
typical Japanese scooter
Modern old-style rice cooker.
shi-shi dog.
typical scooter
pancake flavored hot drink.
Dad and James's friend, Anpan-man
Ome rice.
Kent's new hat courtesy of the dollar store in Japan.
Brian's matching hat. Reese with her hat from Aunt Telitha.
My college friend Kristy was serving at the Hawaii temple visitor's center when we were there.
Where Brian and Tammy got married. The Royal Hawaiian
