Japan Fam Tour
June 5-11, 2005
 

June 8th our first stop of the day was at Daioh Wasabi Farm. It was grown much like I have seen ginseng grown in British Columbia, under black mesh screens. I took a picture of the diagram of the farm, so you could see just how large a farm it is...one of the best snacks we had was here with potato croquettes served with wasabi mayonnaise. Next stop was the Azumino Winery. As well as fruit wines, there were fruit juices and of course different kinds of sake - pronounced (sa-kay). After lunch we headed to the Hiraya Waterfall. This is a park with a 142 foot waterfall. The garden below it looks very peaceful and surrounding the hot pool at the bottom are benches that you can sit on and put your feet into the very warm water. What I thought I was seeing as I was walking by was true - dandelions planted in neat little rows! I guess it's all in our minds isn't it, what is a weed to you and me might be a precious plant to someone else...I also took a picture of a cute little car so that you could see what some of the vehicles looked like over there. The vans were equally small and there were many!

We were warmly greeted as we arrived at the Hida Plaza Hotel in Takayama. I had a corner room with two big windows and I left the picture of the bathroom in because there is something wonderful about the toilets in Japan...a lot of them are heated and have some really neat extras  ... you will have to discover that on your own! The stature there is a mother with her child, we found her in a beautiful little garden that had many of the same. It was a garden dedicated to children. My window looked out onto the city. The next picture shows me dressed in another outfit, this one was wonderful with the pants, so very comfortable as it was a challenge sitting Japanese style with the yukata style. We all wore this to our special dinner. It was a wonderful dinner and just kept growing with more and more dishes being added. We all slept very well that night.