Mom Haggerty's visit - part 2

Friday, May 25 Ian took a vacation day to spend time with Mom. The day was rainy so we opted for an inside activity and went to the Edo-Tokyo Museum. I really enjoy this museum and was pleasantly surprised to see a couple of new exhibits since we visited in February. Everyone else enjoyed the museum too! It was the perfect rainy day trip.

The Edo-Tokyo Museum and the Tokyo Sumo stadium are in close proximity to each other. The May tournament had started about a week prior to mom's arrival. At the station closest to the museum and stadium, there were these cute cut-outs of sumo wrestlers. Addy, who loves sumo, had to try it out. Here's our Pea as the Yokozuna, the highest rank a sumo wrestler can achieve.


A palanquin bearing the emblem of the Tokugawa shogun. This one is much smaller than the one you can "ride" in.

Of course we had to ride again!

Samurai sword and armor from the new exhibit.

Addy took this picture!

What a ham!

As Addy would say "Pedal, pedal, pedal"!
On Saturday, May 26th, we headed south to Kamakura. The day was sunny and windy near the ocean. We went to Kasa-dera Temple first. A new experience for all. The temple had beautiful views of the ocean and beautiful hydrangeas that were just starting to bloom. Addy especially liked the ponds and looking for fish. Benten-kutsu Cave was especially interesting to me. The cave holds a carved image of Benzaiten, a sea goddess, and therefore, the cave is sacred. Next, we visited a favorite of Addison's, daibutsu. The line wasn't very long to go inside daibutsu so we paid our 20 yen each (about 20 cents) to walk inside. It is definitely not for the claustrophobic. There is one narrow stairwell and people move in both directions at the same time. I was pretty nervous because I was carrying Addy. At the top of the stairwell is the main floor where you can walk around the perimeter. It's really not very exciting, but we can say that we did it!

We finished our day with a stroll near the beach. We had no idea how many people surfed in this area, but we quickly found out! We stopped for dinner at a "California" restaurant. The dinner was yummy. Ian was mistaken for a celebrity by the waiter. Ian was wearing his Japan national team rugby jersey and the waiter asked if Ian played for the national team. It was pretty cute to see Ian blush - tee hee! Ian explained that he liked rugby and the jersey was a replica of an official jersey. My husband, the rugby star!