Day 16 in Japan

THURSDAY, JUNE 5

Fred reading a two day-old newspaper while waiting for the train.

Miki, sitting next to Jessica, met us at the Shin-Kobe station and made sure we got to the main station in Kobe. Miho is looking up something on her fancy cell phone, while Kotoe dozes a bit. Then, there's me and Mommy.

Patty, Hiroki, Fred and me. The night before, Miki said her brother was looking more and more like their father. She was right. He looks exactly like my uncle.

Isn't this a funny looking little fella? It was right in the middle of the pathway next to my uncle's grave.

Our uncle's grave in Kobe. The symbol at the base of the monument is the Araya family crest. I think Hiroki and another cousin in Akita are the only ones bearing that name in my mother's family now.

Aunt Teruko and Miki at the cemetery.

Hiroki and Pudding.

Hiroki's miniature apricot poodle is named Pudding. Doesn't he look like a stuffed animal?

This is Aya, who is 15, and her mother, Miki.

Here we are, after visiting the cemetery. This is our Aunt Teruko's house. She's sitting between me and my mother. Our cousin Hiroki (far left, holding Pudding) lives in one half of the house. His mother lives in the other half. His sister, Miki (next to Kotoe in the red shirt) and her daughter, Aya (in the orange shirt), spent the rest of the day with us.
This is downtown Kobe, which looks like any other big city. Well, except people are driving on the wrong side of the street and the signs are in Japanese.

John is leaving this restaurant after lunch. I had very good ramen. Really good.

My mother and I found Miss Piggy dressed in a traditional Chinese dress in Kobe's Chinatown.

This was a very expensive kimono store in the Motomichi shopping district in Kobe. You can buy just fabric to have a custom-made kimono. There were already made kimonos. And then there were purses, obi (the wide sashes that go around your waist) and geta (shoes). There were accessories like umbrellas and tabi (socks that separate your big toe so you can wear the geta).

Our cousin, Hiroki, and his wife, Hiroko, who drove us to the train station. Then they actually bought tickets so they could see us off at the platform.

Miho, Patty and John on the bullet train going back to Tokyo.

We had practically the whole car to ourselves on the way back to Tokyo.

We got up early once again, to have breakfast in the hotel. We decided to have the Viking breakfast. Cheryl wanted toast, eggs and bacon.

My mother and I said later we should have gone for the traditional Japanese breakfast. But Cheryl was such a good sport that we wanted her to have something familiar.

By this time, she was getting to be very adept at using chopsticks.

When I said something about it, she looked at me and said, "Well, if I wanted to eat ..."

But I bought her plastic forks, spoons and knives. I think she just forgot to put them in her bag.

And she tasted everything. She didn't turn down anything. I was really, really proud of her.

After breakfast, we packed up and checked out. We walked over to the train station and took the train to Kobe.

Miki met us at the station in Shin-Kobe. It's a new station, so it was very nice. We stowed our bags in lockers.

Our Aunt Teruko, who had been ill, still came out to meet us, too. So did Miki's older brother, Hiroki.

They had hired a bus to take us to the cemetery where their father is buried.

It was raining, but the setting was beautiful. The cemetery was high in the hills.

We paid our respects.

And then we went back to Kobe to their house. They have this huge house. Hiroki and his wife Hiroko and their two children live on one side of the house, and Aunt Teruko lives in the other side of the house.

They have a miniature apricot poolde named Pudding. He is adorable and looks like a stuffed animal.

Miki's daughter, Aya-chan, who is 15, came to meet us. She's a cutie.

We sat and reminisced and rested.

We said our good-byes, then went to Kobe's Motomichi shopping district.

There's a small Chinatown and we there for lunch. We had ramen and it was delicious.

We walked around and did some shopping.

Hiroki and Hiroko drove us to the train station so we could take the bullet train back to Tokyo.

They even bought tickets so they could walk down to the platform with us.

The train was empty. We had the whole car to ourselves.

Because we knew we'd get to Tokyo Station late, we bought eki-ben on the train. Eki-ben is a bento (boxed) meal that's available only at a train station (eki).

There are some eki-ben that are famous in Japan.

I don't think what we had were the fanous ones.

We got back to Tokyo around 8:30 p.m. and we thought we wouldn't have much problem getting back to Kashiwa.

Ha! The trains were so full that we ended up standing most of the 90-minute ride back. We made sure our mother got a seat, but the rest of us were standing.

When we got back to Minami Kashiwa, Ken-chan and Mariko-san were there to drive us back home.

I love my relatives!