Day 1 continued..

Just as I was about to leave, another bride turned up! See end of previous post!

Couldn’t resist this tiny garden ...don’t want to give Paul ideas....I am not spending valuable stitching time raking the drive!!

This lovely arrangement made me think of Mum. Can you believe it is now over 7 years since she departed this world. Hope she is getting good transmission reception as I am sure thinking about her and wishing she could see what I am up to now!

So that took care of my day. After leaving the park I headed back to the bus stop, took tourist bus back to the station and then back exhausted but happy , to my hotel. Before I leave here on Saturday I will take a picture of the room....tiny is one word for it, but thankfully the bed is comfy!

Testing photo process Day 1

So here I am after effectively two nights with very little sleep, but I have arrived so better get on with my jolly Holiday!   After dumping luggage at the hotel I went to explore the station, met with tourist office and headed out into the big world to go to the tourist bus stop. On the way I stopped off for a short while to have lunch which I bought from a large french bakery!  Forgot about calories but shouldn’t have worried  as didn’t pig out! After half an hour on the bus, I arrived at Tokugawaen. This is a beautiful park with a lake, waterfalls and lovely trees although very little autumn colours.

The koi carp were gigantic- the biggest I have ever seen. Note for Paul, they were about three times as big as “dinner”, also would really punish a heron as the fish would definitely be too heavy for them to ‘hoik’ out!

Just to warn you to be careful - definitely dodgy when wet around here!

 Mother of ?  the bride rushing out of the way...oh just touch up the lippie...

Take a good look at the size of foot to shoe... 

Must be agony to walk in!

Rethink of strategy called for!

Guess who got very frustrated when I discovered that my iPad refuses to send emails to a group.....yes thought all ok, but obviously sent test shot from pc! Duh!,
Never mind.  After a lot of messing about I have reverted to doing the bog as before as I will not need to bother anyone else!

Had tried to email from Frankfurt and failed miserably and the same issue in Japan! So back to business.......watch this space and please spread the word to all and sundry.....I will try to notify everyone but am bound to miss someone out!

Will post this then get stuck in as have two days of news to report but need to do phone call to Paul first!
TTFN!

Friday market photos

I think I told you that I had wandered around trying to find a museum and seen lots of strange characters outside shops...see what you make of them....

This was the marriage house.....no-one about today so obviously not a good day for weddings!

Another sign to add to the collection...

Now I am in the department store looking at all the kimono bits and bobs...I always head to this section as it is where you find the crafts i am interested in even if it is only made things for sale.

This si the small museum where they had all the ikat samples and the Noh theatre kimono...

This is the chap who took me around the weaving 'factory'  - limited photography allowed as they are anxious of copyright issues...

I was walking through one of the arcades when my ears were assaulted by the huge noise of drums banging.....it was a small troop of chaps who were giving their instruments some punishment....all very dramatic as the sounds built to a climax!

Yet more to drool over....

 £11,700 or more!

...that's over £14,000...just for the obi....and they end up on a market for sale at around 1000Y so bargain hunters like me can buy them and then have to pay surplus luggage charges to bring them home!!

I will be adding more posts and photos in the next few days, please stay with me while I try and finish documenting my journey.  Got to get up now as today is the big day...Ruth and Andy are moving in to London Road...yippee...we will not have to work quite so hard as the house won't be quite so available to us...they will be living in the chaos!  Hopefully we will all still be speaking by the end of the day! ttfn

Home safe and sound but into frantic whirlwind of decorating....

Arrived home and all is well, but life just a tad frantic...first hadn't been able to connect to internet but too busy till tonight to sort that out...normal connectivity now re-established so caught up on email and the Blog is next in line!  Daytime is spent totally working at London Road house trying to finish jobs so Ruth and Andy can move in even though they will have no heating or hot water till after January 8th!!   Added to that the houses in our little row have been advised of a water leak somewhere on one of our properties and the fixing of this is the owners responsibility .....and if that wasn't enough, a small leak on the sewer was discovered at the foot of the down-pipe on Saturday.......it never rains but it pours!!  Trying hard to take all this in our stride!  The carpets go in on Thursday so once Ruth is free we can start to move their worldly goods out of the garage and into the house......

Will be catching up with photos from both the end and the beginning of my trip and will put them all into labelled posts so you will know what you are looking at....hopefully!

I would like to thank you all for following my journey and for all the emails and comments along the way.  It would have been lonely without you all and I hope you are not missing your morning fix too much! I can't believe I have been home for a week already!

Keep reading...I am aiming to catch up with the last few odds and ends over the next few evenings assuming not too worn out with all the decorating etc!

ttfn!