November

At the end of October I came down with a bad cold. Conveniently it started Friday night and finished Monday morning. This is Hannah and Minimi comforting their poor old Dad.


Hannah loves watching the movie 'Totero', and also loves to read the storybook of the film. Perhaps because one of the main characters is a 3 year-old.

Akasugu Nov-Dec 2009

Hannah is now over 90cm and is now 'outgrown' Akasugu magazine. She did her last photoshoot in mid-Oct for the Jan-Feb issue.

Some of the photos in the Nov-Dec issue were from the photoshoot I blogged about back in 2-Aug.

Alice? Alice? Who the #&@$ is Alice?

When we visited Disneyland it was just before Haloween and they had a special event where visitors could come dressed in costume or even hire costumes to wear. Dressing up or 'cos-play' (costume play) is very popular in Japan and the park was full of enthusiasts.

Here are some photos I took of other visitors (none are Disneyland staff). The most popular costume was Alice in Wonderland.


An important part of cosplay seems to be posing and taking pictures of each other. Here are 2 Alices are taking photos of a Peter Pan and Wendy.


A panorama of Alices in front of Disneyland Castle.




Some Rococo Lolitas - we often see this style in Harajuku

Tokyo Nezumiland

In late October we went to Tokyo Disndyland. I'd won a family ticket to Disneyland in the costume competition at last years office christmas party



It was a lovely day with beautiful clear weather and not too hot or cold.

As always Hannah loved riding the carousel (twice)


And she loved the Mad Hatter's tea party ride (3 times -until Dad got sick)






I liked the old Orleans - Victorian architecture is lovely even when it is fake.






Although we went duing the week the park was quite busy because of a special Halloween event.

Family RoadTrip 2 - Yui and Shizuoka City

When we got to Shimzu Hannah didn't want to leave the boat and get back into her car-seat.



From Shimizu we drove (loudly) to Yui which was the 16th station (post-town) on the Tokaido road from Edo to Kyoto. It has a lovely museum dedicated to Hiroshige and particularly his series of prints of the 53 stations of the Tokaido. This is the print of Yui as it was then.

And this is Yui now. We were lucky to arrive just as the Yui matsuri was taking place.




Hannah and Rika outside the museum. The picture shows the date of a compound where dynamos and their entorages would stay. The museum itsself was in a compound like this.



After Yiu we went down to Shizuoka City and stayed the night at Ya-chan and Makoji-chans apartment. Hannah playing with Ya-chan and Makoji-chan.





The next day we looked around Shizuoka city. In the middle of the city is Sumpu Park which is the grounds of Sumpu Castle.



This castle was the home of the 1st shogun Tokugawa Ieysau. After he set up the shogunate in Edo (Tokyo) he 'retired' here in 1605. His son became the 2nd shogun in Edo, but Ieyasu effectively ruled from Sumpu until his death in 1616. (And apparently he looked a lot like George W Bush, as you can see here)


As I mentioned before, Shizuoka City is sits right on top of a major fault line (where the Philippine Sea Plate, is subducting under the Amurian Plate ) which is responsible for many large earthquakes. Sumpu castle was partly destroyed in 1707 by the Hoei earthquake, and again in 1855 by the Ansei earthquake. More recently, parts of the rebuilt walls collapsed in this years earthquake.



InsideSumpu park is the Momijiyama Japanese Garden which is a minature landscape garden with a Mt Fuji with azaleas representing terraced tea fields, and a Suruga Bay with sandy beaches on the West side and a rocky shore on the Izu peninsular side..


While we were in town we could enjoy a bit of the Shizuoka Street Dance Festival, abd then we reluctently said goodbye and took the Shinkansen back to Tokyo.

Sunset at Matsuzaki

From Matsuzaki we had a lovely view of the sun setting across Suruga Bay.






With a zoom the Shizuoka coast can be seen across the bay.

Family Road Trip 1 - Izu and Suruga Bay

In the Oct 10-12 long-weekend we went on a family roadtrip with Baba, Majoji-chan any Ya-chan. I was very tired from work and the weekend seems to fly past before I knew it.

We took the train down to Shimoda at the bottom of the Izu peninsular where Makoji-chan is currently living. Shimoda is a seaside resort with lots of good beaches. So Hannah was able to visit a beach and play in the sand and sea for the first time.





After that we drive up the west coast of the peninsular to the town of Matsuzaki where we stayed at the Hotel Izu Matsuzaki-so overlooking the beach.


This is the dinner we had at the hotel. As you can see, it was huge.






Hannah showing how old she is. 'Ni-sai!' ('Iam 2 years old')


The beach outside the hotel. I think this may be damage from the recent typhoon.


The next day we drove further up the coast. The west side of Izu is very rocky and has dramatic scenery with lots of headlands, inlets and coves and small beaches. The main road is also dramatic with lots of tunnels.





About lunchtime we got to the port of Toi and took a ferry across Suruga Bay to Shimizu. It was a lovely day and we had a good view of Mt Fuji on the north coast of the bay.


Panorama: starting from north-west, the panning to Mt Fugi to the north, then west back towards Izu peninsular and the port of Toi.




"Suruga Bay is a place of contrasts. Japan's loftiest peak, Mount Fuji at 3,776 m (12,388 ft), rises from the 2,500-m depth of the Suruga Trough running up the middle of the bay, which makes it Japan's deepest

Suruga Bay was formed by tectonic subduction of the Philippine Sea Plate and the Eurasian Plate at the Suruga Trough, making it a source of considerable seismic activity, [2][3] and giving the bay its extreme depth

Panorama starting looking south-west to Shizuoka coast, then panning north to Mt Fuji and finally east towards the Izu peninsular.


Looking south-east towards the southern Izu peninsular.


This is Shimizu bay which is the port of Shizuoka.






And this is a Hiroshige wood-block print of Suruga Bay.