Day 6 Visiting the History of Utsunomiyia

Morning started out with another one of those delicious pastries from the French bakery. YUM YUM add a cup of coffee and its the best breakfast I can think of here!!! Hubby and I so love the morning its our time together while we are here to sit and talk about what we are going to be doing for the day. With the time change Marlon and I are always up at least 2 hours before he leave for work.

Around 9am Belinda called and said she would be down after she ate breakfast. When she arrived around 10am she had a map of Utsunomiya with her. On the map she had circled 3 places that she wanted to go today. Utsunomiya Castle ruins, The big Ginko Tree, and the Catholic Matusgamine Church. We went down to the front desk where they helped us by guiding us in the right direction when we leave the hotel then showed us the easiest way to get to where we wanted to go. : -)

We headed out towards our first stop which will be the Catholic Matusgamine church. Upon arriving to the church we took several pictures outside including the garden. We could tell that the church housed a day care, first clue was about hundred pairs of little shoes sitting outside the church. : -) There was girl standing outside the door of the church and we asked her if we could go inside the church. She said she would check and started up a set of stairs where the church service would be held. We followed her up the stairs and she went in and came back out and said we could go in. We asked if we had to take our shoes off and she said no. When we opened the doors and went in the big organ was playing and it was music that filled you up with happiness. I love to hear the organ being played, this organ was playing by itself. The church is so beautiful inside and out. The entire church is made of Oya stone.

Now we are headed out again and taking the walk to find the Big Ginko Tree. We found it was the help of asking a lady who gave us directions. We were headed in the right direction so all is good. Reached the big tree and it was amazingly HUGE. This tree is over 400 years old. This is definitely one big tree.

Learning the history along with seeing the historical sites has been a great experience. Today is all about learning some history about Japan. : -)

Next stop is Utsunomiya Castle Ruins Park and I am so looking forward to visiting this place. Now its still early and many of the cherry blossom trees have not bloomed yet so the site will not be as beautiful as it can be but that's alright we are going to learn the history of the castle. Just one fact to share about the castle it is believed that Masazumi Honda lord created a suspended ceiling that could be dropped to crush those underneath. The legend is that this special ceiling was designed in an attempt to assassinate the 3rd Shogun.

Well going to see the castle ruins was the best part of our day!!! We met a very nice man who worked at the castle. He liked us so much that he became our tour guide!!! He tucked us under his wing and away we went. He pointed us towards the elevator which required us to buy a ticket but not us we had our own tour guide. I'm thinking our blond hair may have something to do with us getting some of the attention we are getting but oh well i don't care. : -)

Ticks me off so bad when I don't save on this computer as i had just finished with todays journal and then I hit a wrong key and everything I have written is deleted BOO HOO BOO HOOO

The gentleman starts walking to the elevator and points for us to enter. Now we were hoping that we did not have to pay him to go up in the castle didn't even know the cost. He took us up in the castle and showed us the tiles on the castle have markings that show who the owner is. Every castle I guess has their own markings I have taken a picture of the markings for Masazumi Honda Lord's castle. It was pretty hard to understand him because most of the time he spoke it was Japanese but you can say alot by using your hands. He told us about the holes in the wall of the castle, some were used to shoot guns with at the enemy's and others were used to shoot bow and arrows from. We made our way up to the castle where we took our shoes off and went inside. I'm sure he was telling us about the suspended ceiling and how Lord Masazumi Honda created it. The suspended ceiling could be dropped to crush those underneath. the legend is that this special ceiling was designed in an attempt to assassinate the 3rd Shogun.

We thanked our personal tour guide (arigato gozaimasu) and went over across the walk to look at some history over there. While we were in there a 80 year old gentleman who spoke some English told us about the fire axes and how they were used. He ended up instantly becoming our friend he told us he would walk us back to our hotel by way of short cut? Now we are a little Leary of him but we follow him. We had stopped to take a picture of the castle before we left and he stopped us. He showed us how to take the picture and include the cherry blossom trees that are starting to bloom. Great idea the pictures came out beautiful.

I asked him again short cut back to our hotel? Wanted to make sure he wasn't taking us back to his place. He did tell us he has been married 50 years and had some children that are grown up. It was very interesting walking with him at 80 he is in very good shape. The short cut was great we got back to the hotel in 1/2 of the time. : -) He told us he had a 50 dollar bus ticket paid for and he still had rides on it to use he was taking the bus back to his home. We thanked him and walked him to the corner of our hotel. He told us that he hopes we meet again before we go back to America, and I'm sure if he has anything to do with it we will meet again. He knows where our hotel is and I'm sure one day we will walk out and he will be waiting for us. : -) At least I hope so : -)

We went to our rooms and the next thing I hear is Belinda knocking on my door. She said her room was locked and she couldn't get in with her key. She thinks its because they owe money for the room. Its crazy but they only let you pay 2~3 days at a time. They know they are staying 3 weeks but they don't care the max you can pay is the rules of Richmond. Belinda called me and ask if I wanted to come up and have peanut butter and jelly sandwiches? I told her yes we were going to stop on the way home so I could buy some but didn't go the same way home remember we took the short cut LOL I went to her room and we ate lunch which consisted of peanut butter sandwiches man she even had crunchy delish. After eating I showed her how to download her pictures from her camera and upload them to Facebook. Showed how to go in and read my notes of our daily activities of our time here in Japan.

After we were finished with the learning session we decided to walk over to the mall so I could get peanut butter and bread. : -) We also shopped around for a pair of gloves for Belinda, we looked in the drugstore and did not find any. On another note i bought some liquid stuff that you apply at night thats suppose to take your wrinkles away. Belinda had seen it and showed it to me. I went and bought a bottle i mean it was only $2.78 and the girl at the counter pulled her face tight and told me in so many words it works. LOL Belinda ended up buying a bottle also I'M sure in the morning after we have applied this stuff we will be wrinkle free......; - D

We still have not given up on finding something to fit us. The sizes are S M L or LL. Well we know that we might be able to wear a LL if you could find that size. Same with the shoes S M L or LL. Belinda tried on several shirts and none fit her I did end up finding a shirt to fit me and I love it. :-D

Got my crunchy peanut butter, bread and grapefruit down at the grocery store and now we are back at the hotel waiting for our hubby's to get home. Been a long day and spent hours walking but all is good.

The guys are home late from work and its RAINING....... : -( Marlon got ready to go out to eat and decided we would eat at a chicken taco place down the street. We found the place at least we think we did I mean everything is written in Japanese but there are chicken feet prints on the window : -)
We went in and were seated by a very nice man. I motion for him that we are ready to order and he speaks no English so he gets a girl that can speak some . I saw a picture on the wall and pointed at the taco shells Marlon said tacos? She said hum hai (yes) She took our order and then comes back with a bowl of pie shaped cabbage leaves and a brown spicy dip things that make you say HUMMMM she shows us to take a piece of the cabbage and dip it so we did. We both loved it so tasty and we were so hungry. We received the tacos which consisted of a entire chicken breast cut in slices and 3 soft taco shells along with homemade spicy salsa with kiwi and a chunk of cream cheese. I am not kidding these tacos were excellent for Japan LOL I would eat there again any day. Home now and am relaxing for the evening. : -)