Dad's Visit

After 10 days of non-stop action, my dad returned home on Monday. I was really sad to see him go. We had a great time together. Many of the places we went have been discussed in earlier posts, so I won't go into too much detail. A few of the places were new, though, so I'll stop and write about those as I get to them.

To begin with, dad arrived on Thursday night two weeks ago. I had to spend all Friday finishing textbooks, but my intention was to stay as late as it took to finish and then be done. That didn't pan out. By 7pm we still had a lot to do, and after 12 hours of non-stop work we were all clearly out of energy. I decided it would be more effective to come back on Saturday - even though it meant one less day with dad. I was pretty bummed. I met dad and Russell at the neighborhood Izakaya and moped.

They were both good sports, though. I got to work early the next morning and by noon Russell and dad showed up with lunch. They stayed the rest of the day and helped with formatting and page number checks. We worked until 5pm, but we got the textbooks finished. We celebrated with yakiniku and two pitchers of beer. The waitstaff seemed slightly taken aback when we ordered the second pitcher.

Now that I was free, we planned our remaining weekend day. Since it was the one of the only days Russell would be able to join us we chose something we could all enjoy - a trip to the whiskey distillery!


After the distillery we headed into Osaka. It was evening, so Russell looked up a highly rated okonomiyaki restaurant and we stopped in for dinner. There was a long, cold wait outside, but we figured that was a good sign. It turned out we were right. The food was awesome. Okonomiyaki is always generally good, but rarely as good as this. I would definitely go back to this particular restaurant. The food wasn't too rich. It was really good.

After dinner we walked around Namba - one of the main shopping centers. It is also the famous home of the Glico man. Dad was an instant fan and seemed a bit disappointed later in the trip that we hadn't been back to visit. Dad got much better pictures of the Glico man all lit up. I was less careful, so my picture is a little less impressive, but it gives the idea.

Starting Monday, Dad and I were on our own. Russell had some serious work to do, so he was glued to the house. Dad and I decided to head into Kyoto. We went to Kiyomizudera first - I've posted about this place a lot. The one new thing we did was go on the pitch-black below-temple-tour. It turns out that if you pay an extra hundred yen (about a dollar) you can go under one of the temples into pitch blackness. You follow the wooden bead railing around through twists and turns until you come to a lit stone. You are suppose to make a wish at this point and then keep following the beads until you come out again. It is really eerie because you have no idea where you are going or what is ahead of you. The first time I was sure there would be stairs or an incline or something, so I kept feeling gingerly out in front of myself before taking a step. Turns out there is no need to fear, though. The walk is all flat and smooth. Sadly, it was a bit overcast, so my pictures are not as good as they sometimes are. That ended up being a theme through all of this trip.

Before we headed out, we stopped at Sanjuusangendo - the really long building with the 1,001 buddha statues in it. This was one of the first places in Kyoto that Russell and I visited, and we haven't been back in a long time. It was a nice stop. The buddhas themselves are all almost, but not quite the same, having been hand-carved individually by several artists over the years. You have to look pretty closely to see the differences, though. In front of the Buddhas are the guardian spirits. These guys are the really fun statues to look at. They are all quite different and detailed. Unfortunately. not pictures are allowed. I only have a shot of the outside. It really is a long building - supposedly the longest wooden building in Japan.


That's going to have to do for now. I'll post more soon. We have 7 more days to go!