Friday, June 20

Jonathan & Chris head off to work for the
morning. Kendra & I relax after breakfast & catch up (At this point - I'm thrilled that I ate my own breakfast without sharing any off it, drank a full cup of coffee before it went cold AND didn't have to clean anything off the floor). While the guys worked, we headed to a local department store. It had over 8 floors!I didn't take a picture of the shoe dept but it puts Nordstrom's to shame. It was HUGE. Kendra is pictured with the summer kimono (aka Yukata). I didn't think people still wear kimono. They don't really in public (except maybe special occasions) so these are more for home wear - like we wear robes. We met J&C for lunch so we've had our 1st sushi (of hopefully many) meal - let's just say that the stuff in the states is good... this is AMAZING. We didn't have anything crazy but had a standard lunch special. It included miso soup, tuna, squid, yellow tail, shrimp, makeral, squid ear (a new one for us), eel, & I can't remember the other 2. The experience is very similar to sushi in states - 2 differences are: 1) tastes fresher probably because it was still alive that morning; 2) they put the wasabi in-between the rice and fish not a big glob on the side. I was excited to see Kendra's every day life of the grocery, post, etc. so after lunch we stopped at the grocery to pick up a few items. J drove the "cart" which is basically the basket in a metal holder. Fruit can be very expensive here. Just to prove the point, pictured is the $60 (6000 yen) melon.