View From The Flying Fuji-San

 Sato and I went to the flower garden and we went up on the flying Mt. Fuji. It was a ride that goes up and it gives you a 360 degree view of the area in seven minutes. We went up at a good time, because the sun was setting.

 Here is a view of.....the parking lot, but beyond that you can see all the buildings of the city.

 Here is the lake in the flower garden. The purple is flowers, but it just looks like a purple blob from up high. lol

 This is the other half of the lake, you can see the bridge that goes over the lake. During the winter they put up lights all over the place, but during the Fall you get to enjoy the natural colors.

A shot of the sun setting before we started going back down. Next blog will be of the flowers that we saw, and don't worry there are PLENTY of photos. Oh, and the flying fuji-san is what we were on. The middle of the carousel is Mt. Fuji and since it's up in the air Sato and I were calling it the Flying Fuji-san. lol

Rice Paddy

 It was raining, so the owner wasn't working on his rice paddy, but the birds were hard at work....picking up the loose rice grains. There are pigeons, but there are also sparrows, which you can't see because they blend in with the cut rice stalk.

 This is what the rice paddy looked like before they started cutting the rice. This is a view from my window on the east side.

 Here is the guy cutting down the rice stalks and a woman bundles them up to dry....see the bottom of this picture for the bundles.

 Here is the woman that is putting the rice stalks into bundles to dry. She is covered from head-to-toe to protect herself from the sun and bugs. Most women who work in the field is dressed like this to protect themselves...sometimes it looks like the same woman is in three different fields since you can't see her face.

 Here is the machine that the guy uses to cut the rice stalks with. Although, the machine broke down so he couldn't finish cutting the rice stalks. He came back again the next day with three more guys and a bigger machine, but that broke down too. Tough days for the rice paddy owner.

This is what the field looked like when they gave up on trying to fix the machine. I think they wanted to finish cutting half of the field, but that didn't happen. Now, the field looks like the very first picture that you saw. Rice stalks in big bundles with birds pecking around, picking up the extra rice, and probably earth worms since it's raining.

A View From A Train Station and Curry at Coco's Curry House

 I took this picture when I was crossing over the train tracks to get to the exit. One of the windows was open and I could see the tracks for a while. Also, you can see the part of the tracks where people and cars cross over (I walk over this part to get to Sato's house every time from this station).

 The other night Sato and I felt like eating curry so we went to Coco's Curry House which is all over the place like Denny's. For how cheap it is they have pretty decent curry. I had the veggie curry at a level 2 (you get to choose how hot you want it) and it's a decent kick.

Sato had the seafood curry at a level 1 since he doesn't like spicy food. He had a tiny little bite of mine and the first thing he said was "Hot! Oh yeah, that's spicy." and drank down a lot of water. lol So, if you don't like spicy food or can't handle spicy food, choose level 1 for how hot you want it when eating here.

Sushi-House: Ayame

 This restaurant is so good that we have come to this restaurant 3 times in the last month! It's a sushi house, but we always order the spicy eggplant dish (I was unable to take a photo of this dish, because we were so hungry that we devoured it before I even thought about taking pictures). This picture with the shrimp, tofu, cabbage, mushrooms and various other seafood items is a nabe, or hot pot. This particular hot pot is made of paper! It doesn't burn and the water doesn't go through it, but you can tear it like paper (we tested this). We think that once the broth and food is gone the paper would burn if the fire stayed lit .

 Here you can see the flame for the nabe and the wire basket holding the paper in place.

 Sorry, we were REALLY hungry that this isn't even the first plate that we ate. Literally, there were about 2 of these plates before this one that we just descended on it like seagulls finding the one piece of food on the beach. This one had abalone on the left, sea urchin on the bottom right and above the sea urchin was tuna rolls.

 Here is a picture of a type of clam that I don't know in English, in Japanese it's called "akagai" (I'm not a fan of this clam, but I can eat it). The rolls were tuna again.

 Here is an actual visual of the inside of the tuna rolls. Next to them is the tuna nigiri, YUM!

 I took an extra photo of this one because it was like the rice had a roof over it's head! I'm thinking it was the last of the tuna and it ended up this shape, but it was just funny to see a house made of tuna. I would have eaten this gigantic piece, but I was sooooo full! It was a lot of food, you don't understand how much Sato and his brother (especially his brother) can eat! The restaurant is small and it was at full capacity today, but I think we were the ones that mainly cleaned out the restaurant's stock of fish for the day.

 Here is what Sato's dad was eating. His dad is pretty picky about what he will and won't eat. It's hard to say what he will, but he will eat this egg roll and eel. The egg is a little sweet and it is soooooooo good!

 This is what our table looked like once we were all done and all the food was eaten.
                          The seagulls are now full and are heading for home.

For people who want to have sushi delivered to their home this is what sushi would come in. Once the food is gone you would rinse it out and return it to the sushi house. I think this sushi house only uses it for New Year's Day when every one has a reservation for food to be delivered to their home.

Jietai- Japanese Military Doing A Drill Performance

 So, when I took this photo it wasn't a big deal. It seemed more corny than anything, but then after I took the picture I realized it looked like Japan was organizing their military. lol I just wanted to clarify here that it was a drill PERFORMANCE and there really weren't that many military people and half of them had to be driven in from other prefectures. This is probably the only time they get to use their ammo (blanks) and gas and training...unless there is a natural disaster somewhere....or if one of the neighbors find a snake in their yard.....

 I felt bad for the marching band. They had to play for so long! They had to play for a good 2 hours altogether and half of that was continuous.

 I liked the fish mark on the tank and thought I would share. This mark was on most of their vehicles, apparently it is to show that it is Nagoya's property.

 When I took this picture I thought it looked like flying bugs. This is the second one so it doesn't seem like it as much, but the first one really did look like bugs were coming at me.

 Their helicopters doing some drills overhead.....it was more loud than interesting.

 They really didn't do more than this. It was just a fly by to show how much gas they could use in one day.

 Here they are fake fighting. Showing off their skills....I wonder how handy this skill is in real battle since they would have to actually hit someone.

 Showing their fire power (it was all blanks), but it was really loud. They had some soldiers raise signs to tell everyone to cover their ears.

 The yellow smoke is supposed to be smoke from gunfire....I guess? There was red smoke, white smoke and then this yellow smoke. Maybe it was just for effect and no real significance other than to symbolize smoke from gunfire.

This was probably the most interesting part for me. This building has been standing since before World War II. It was formerly their mess hall, but is now their garage.

Well, I hope you liked the Jietai drills. I tried to keep it short, but still show you what kind of drills they did. They have been doing this kind of performance, once a year, for over 30 years. I guess the people like it since a lot of people did show up to watch. Truthfully, I like the Blue Angels show much better, but that's just me.

Marron With A Mask....Don't Even Think About Taking It!

 Here is Marron with Sato's face mask. He just finished working and took off his mask and Marron snatched it out of his hand for her fun time. For some reason this dog loves face masks!

 She is sooo cute!....except when you come close to the mask she growls.

 Notice she is not leaving the mask alone.

 I didn't know where else to put this picture, but I thought I would show how many plants Sato's mom has.

This is only their veranda. In the kitchen there is just as much in there. I think half of these are plants that Sato bought and his mom is now taking care of them. lol I think she likes the plants though, so that's good. My apartment has one plant and I made sure it was a plant that I could periodically water and it will still survive. I do not have a green thumb.

A Cat In The Car....Wait, In A Car?

 This is an ordinary car that was in front of us, except.......

There is a cat walking around freely IN THE CAR! That orange-y blob in the middle next to the lady's head and bun is the cat on the front dash! I would have had a much better picture for you when it was sitting in the back window and meowing, except I was so shocked that there was a live cat walking around freely in the car, that I didn't even think about my camera until after the cat had moved. It would have been a perfect picture...if I HAD MY CAMERA READY! You do not understand how bummed I am that I couldn't show you a better picture. The car turned left not too long after I took this photo. If I am lucky I will see this car with the cat in it again.