Horikawacho Park

Not much of a park, but if you have toddlers that need to blow off steam for a few minutes when visiting JR Kawasaki Station, it's worth a look-see.

There is a lot of shopping at the there.

Kito Kato... More new Kit Kats

Special KitKat for Setsubun.

Lemon flavored. They're white chocolate.

Azuki Sando. This was a regional KitKat that my friend Mel brought me and Katie back from one of her trips. Thank you Mel!!!

This one is also courtesy of Mel. She went KitKat hunting all the way to Singapore!

A mixed bag so you can share with your friends. There are some pretty interesting flavors due out in February!

There's more to Mt. Takatori than meets the eye!

The last time I hiked up Mt. Takatori (鷹取山）from Jinmuji Station, I just kept right on going through to Oppama Station. Today, I took a different path.

I did take a little detour to see the Magai Butsu (磨崖仏) again.

I can't wait until Spring when the Magai Butsu will really stick out! I took this photo from a viewing platform above where the rock climbers climb on Mt. Takatori. If you look closely, you can see the Buddha in the middle of the picture.

Just follow that path there and head up the stairs to the viewing area.
These tiles on the ground telling you what you can see the various directions. Mt. Fuji (富士山)was not visible today, but a gentleman hiking showed me his pictures of Fuji that he took on New Year's morning. It really is a spectacular view. I have seen it before from the trail there as well.

This picture is a little out of order. This is the Jimmu Temple (神武寺) early on in the hike from Jinmuji Station. I was having trouble making the photos cooperate for me.

From the viewing platform, you can see Landmark Tower in Yokohama.

This is a trail that starts from the rock climbing area. It divides here. It was very cold when I was running the trail, so I stuck to the trail that directed me to the Taura Station. Next time I'll take other trails!
I thought this area was beautiful.

Happy Chinese New Year... from Japan!

Even if you didn't make it up to Chinatown in Yokohama to ring in the New Year, fear not! There were Lion Dances this afternoon and there will be more festivities in the near future. If you would like to avoid the crowds and the cold, play the video I took. Most of the time I had to hold my camera really high up to clear the heads in front of me. Check out Yokohama Chinatown's web site (Japanese only) for more information.

Look closely, and you'll see the little oxen in the plants. 'Tis the year of the ox.This is what Chinatown in Yokohama always looks like, so when we got there I was worried I had gotten the dates wrong. We were there 20 minutes before the festivities were to begin. Right before they started, three tour groups and a bunch of people showed up. It made viewing the Lion Dance a bit of a challenge.

Here is the lion dancing into a Chinatown business.
We were standing right next to the percussion section.

The picture above is pre-festivities.

Cave Graves and a big white head.

The trail head lists this area as Kogane Cave Grave 黄金 やぐら. I don't know what that means, and I cannot find anything about it on the web. The trail where these caves are is below, and parallel to the Kinubari Yama Trail. Don't go after it rains, it's not safe.

It was hard for me to believe that this trail was so close to downtown Kamakura. It was very quiet and peaceful.

That white thing in the middle of the picture above is the Ofuna Kannon (below). I took the photo below back in May. I intend to go back, so I'll post more about that later.
She's a big statue! You can see her from the train as you near the Ofuna station.

Fuji san was very clear this morning. I saw many photographers along the Kinubari trail.

Obama shirts for sale in downtown Zushi.

Aaaah! Birds!!!

The birds here are insane! They are everywhere. We took some bread out in our backyard because we saw one bird, a hawk, circling above. We threw one small part of a piece up in the air and had a bunch of new friends.

If you look really closely, you can see a small piece of bread on the right third of the picture.

I see dead people.

We went up to view cadavers in Kawasaki today.  It really was neat, but no photos allowed :(

I think it was called Jintai, Mysteries of the Human Body.  Here is a link to an article written a couple of years ago about this.

If you're interested, take either a JR or a Keikyu Train to their respective Kawasaki stop and head to the 0101 building.  Tickets are available for purchase for 1500-yen, less if you print out a coupon from their web site, on the 2nd floor.  Head up to the 4th floor and enjoy all the body parts.