Japan 2013 (Day 14 - 25th of July)

Hello! I'm back!
I forgot to post photos of our room, i took these on the 24th but am posting them before i complete the 25th post. I would love to see these if it was one some other blog so i hope you appreciate it too. <3

This is the room's door. It had a key of course, even though it gives the impression you can slide the door open.

This is the view from the entrance once you step in. There's a small table with a decoration element on the right, a corner with a floor lamp on the left. Of course there's a step and then there's that wooden floor. You have to leave your shoes near the step as usual. 

The doors on the right are storage, on the right there's a corridor that leads to the bathroom and toilet. The big doors in front lead to the main room.

This is the room, the right side. The doors are not the ones you use to get in, those are behind my back (i'm taking the photo obviously). The white sliding doors are where the futon is kept with extra blankets etc. 

There's only decorative elements as you can see, the table with the "chairs" and those boxes have tea and snacks. The sliding doors in front lead to the balcony area. 

This is the balcony, the length is the same as the room, its pretty big. The windows are huge and there's two seats and a table with a ashtray. On the end of the balcony there's a fridge.  The doors of course slide and shut... and if you notice there's a sort of difference in the level of the sliding doors in the bottom, those tiny doors also slide and there's clear glass so you can just kind of peek without sliding the actual door but just a piece of it. 

After dinner someone had already set our futon space up.. this is the other side of the room, you can see a bit of the table there. There's a tv in front of the futon beds and i'm obviously doing my makeup in a makeup station set up there. There's also another pair of sliding doors which reveal the closet space. 

We woke up in that amazing but foreign place and I felt like that could be some sort of dream... it just seemed very odd.

I sometimes wonder what'll be like to go back home and sleep in my tall but not so wide bed again. My mattress is also very soft which is the complete opposite from sleeping like this. I bet my back will hurt like they did when i fist slept on that mattress. Strangely enough, my older brother picked it, we went to Ikea and he loved it so much when he tried it i just got it anyway haha. Strange huh?

I got ready and we went to the breakfast room and had something to eat. It was, of course, a typical japanese ryokan breakfast which means a tray filled with odd looking things that again, most of my friends would not eat willingly.

I'm still very foreigner so my favorites were the potato salad, the veggies, the sea weed, the non cooked tofu, the fish and the yogurt. 

We then left to get our luggage ready. When leaving we realised someone had taken our slippers by mistake which in the end confirms my theory that is "leaving your shoes out and having slippers, does not really mean that your feet will be safer" haha. I didn't care anyway, i figure the chance of getting some skin disease was not high and i like living dangerously (just joking, it was either that or leave with nothing on).

I got ready really fast with our luggage so we decided to wait in the lobby where i took some photos for you guys to check out everything.

Remember this? Now you can see it in the daylight, still pretty nice huh? I thought so.

And of course all lobbies have seating spaces... this is where we watched the jazz performance.

Since I am getting even more addicted to coffee here i asked if i could order some since it was an extra. My husband said yes and got some for himself too. It came with a small local snack, it was tasty and i was happy. <3

This is the kid's corner, there are books, toys and even a small desk and seat. Isn't it adorable?

And there was a collection of old hollywood movies etc... the room also works as a small projector room and during the days when there's no live, they play them for guests. What a nice idea? Black and white movies go specially well with the environment, don't you think? 

After everyone got together we said goodbye to the staff, bowed a lot etc and got in the car. I thought we were going to ride for a while but after a few minutes we arrived to our next location.

Yep, that's the famous Meoto Iwa I talked about on the other post. We only saw it from afar though.

I like taking photos of my husband taking photos. :X

So what were we doing here? Well there's a local attraction called Futami Sea Life Paradise which is an aquarium. And my inlaws thought Mari would like it.

At the entrance. Mari seems to be wondering what kind of a place that would be.

The first animals we saw were fish, different sort of fish and Mari was in love! They were big and swam around the tanks so she followed them with her eyes and laughed. 

People could line up and touch some of the animals. Mari seems happy then but after a few seconds she started crying haha the poor thing.

There were also penguins which she liked as well.

There were two huge walrus... you could touch them too so I did. Mari didn't, we did not want ti scare her.

And of course dolphins.

 Well I've got to be honest, i was glad to be there and Mari had a blast but i have honestly never seen any other place with such terrible conditions for animals. I saw huge turtles in a ridiculously tiny aquarium, etc... and also really bad taste sort of themes and decorations such as:

The sushi store tank. There's a plastif fish on the right there on top of a cutting board, the sushi banner and some sushi photos in the glass. I understand wanting to teach kids where their food comes from but... 

I saw a miniature chair (wish i had taken it for my dolls because it did not belong there!), other random stuff, this shoe!

This has got to be my favorite so i'm keeping it to the min because the post will be too long. It's some sort of word pun probably but yes, that's a dead man's plastic hand inside the tank. Lets just hope the paint is not toxic.

After this Mari eventually fell asleep so we left the aquarium. As like everywhere else in Japan, there was a small shopping area for gifts and stuff  (there's hello kitty everything here. it so strange!) and had some icecream.

My first choice is always matcha (green tea). It's my favorite and there's none in Portugal!

 And then I saw the weirdest souvenir tshirt ever that i will forever regret not getting to give to my older brother as a gift. You must open the photo and read it carefully. I was all like "what now?". Very strange.

After that we got in the car and rejoiced because of the cooler. It was really hot that day. 

I did say we got Mari a bathing suit did I not? Well it was finally time to put it to use.

We stopped at this hotel and my father in law told me we'd have to pay to go to the beach. You heard me, one has to pay to go to the beach in Japan. It's shocking to me. But anyway we did and went to the beach. Mari got in her bathing suit and off we went!

The hotel in the back looked like this, the whole area was a bit sad looking really. 

And this is the general view of the beach, not many people were there. The sand wasn't white and thin like the one we have in Portugal but a bit darker. But there was a lot of sand so even if a lot of people were there, there was plenty of room for everyone.

Aww she's just so cute and look at her, she's getting tanned too! With all this care... she's still gotten tanned. Geez.

I approached the sea carrying her and just placed her tiny feet in the went sand and wanted for the water to gently touch her feet. When she was confortable i kept advancing and advancing until she sat in the water and eventually wanted to play and splash. After that we could finally get it in the water.

She loved water so much, she had a blast!

I decided to go japanese style and wear my tshirt in the sea. They do that all the time here. The sea was so warm, its so odd for me. It's really cold where I live. It also want's deep at all so i'd have to go very far away if i wanted to swim. 

So that was it, Mari's first time in the sea and my first time in the sea in a looong time too.

We all took a small shower, got in the car and finally started the trip back home. We did not have lunch so we stoped at a convinience store and got some munchies. I had this:

Super expensive, about 3 euros or more but it was amazing, i'd eat one right now!

And this is us getting back home! Everyone was happy but tired.

After a while we had dinner (instant curry!)

Watching tv as a familly is one of my favorite actities as a whole and it is also so in Japan. My inlaws like shows about food, culture and love crime investigation series as well. <3

Mari was really happy and we always play with her a lot. 

And I had gotten some pants and running shoes so we started doing just that, running from time to time. It's another of my favorite activies in Japan.

I know, pink! I now oen 3 pairs of running shoes. I do not look like it but i exercise.... -_-;

And that's all for today, i hope you liked the post and i'll see you next time. <3

Jo