Japan Race Association ~Walking Trail with Keiko

Keiko got up this morning and wanted to take a walk.  Marlon and I agreed to go with her to explore the neighborhood.  We walked down the street and saw the cafe called Penny Lane.  The Beatles paraphilia is everywhere inside and outside.  This place has good food and a great place to sit in the shade outside.  Ugie and Keiko have taken us here before.

 we take off down a side street and come upon a big hill to walk up.  At the top is a temple that is located in such a peaceful setting.  I don't remember the name of the shrine but I did enjoy the peaceful setting and all the trees and flowers and old stairways that led to nowhere now. When we got to the top of the stairs Keiko said a little prayer to herself threw in some money and rang the bell.  God bless her in every way as she is such a wonderful friend to Marlon and

I found 3 sets of stairs, loved how old this location seemed to be and I'm sure there is lots of history behind this location.  I walked around this temple and admired all the things I can see.  Oh, yeah, the location had lots of bamboo trees that surrounded the temple also.  

Time to leave the temple and now we are on to a special place Keiko enjoys walking.  It's an area that is taken care of by the JRA.  The JRA Equine Research Institute was founded in 1959 to conduct research on how to preserve good health and to prevent disorders for a racehorse.  The organization is comprised of the Sports Science Research center in Utsunomiya.  From what I could see this place has been abandoned and all the races and horse care is in Tokyo, Japan.  The scenery here was wooded and had walking paths that were mostly mud.  

As we journeyed down the walking paths we had been walking for a while so we sat down to take a break.  Keiko told us about a pheasant she often sees here.  She started making a sound and a pheasant came out and started looking around.  The next thing we hear is other pheasants calling back.  We started looking around and spotted this guy with all its color out in the open.  Wow Keiko, really impressed us that she knew how to draw them out of the woods.

Rest is over and time to continue on with our walk.  We came upon a tunnel that had been carved out to walk through.  Wow, this is a pretty cool tunnel.

This is a neat area with lots of interesting things to look at. 

The paths in some of the areas were graveled.  This did make it nicer then walking in mud.

While walking we met a lady who Keiko happened to know.  This lady went to school with Keiko in Jr. High school.  So nice to see these 2 meets and look at the beautiful happy smiles on their faces.