We had an awesome Mito trip this past weekend.
We made it up to Mito in around 1.5 hours, which seemed to go by really quickly. I really like the landscape around Ibaraki prefecture, so it was a fun trip and the kids were well behaved.
When we got to Mito we went to Kairakuen koen right away. It was beautiful weather out, so we had a small picnic. The grounds around Kairakuen are beautiful and we had a nice time.
Here are some pictures of the kids and the grounds.
At the end of our lunch, we went around the lake, took a swan ride, bought some food and headed up the hill where it seemed most of the people were or were going.
On the way up, we wondered whether we’d see Mr. Okada-san, who was volunteering at the park and would be busy. Sure enough, as soon as we got into the park, we saw him in one of the stands, handing out papers and other information. It was great to see him again, since we hadn’t seen him in almost 2 years. The kids were really happy to see him.
It turns out there was a tour guide who could speak english, so they took us on a 1/2 hour tour. We found out that Kairakuen koen is the 2nd largest city park in the world – after Central Park! Who’d’ve thunk?
After checking out the park for a bit, we checked into the hotel and met up with Mrs Okada-san and Momoka, who treated us to dinner (thank-you!) in the hotel. It was really great! We had Ibaraki beef and pork, which was delicious.
Then we headed out to the park again to see the fireworks. They were great and it was terrific seeing the blossoms all lit up at night.
The next day we headed out to Kasama to check out the pottery shops. On the way we stopped off at a park/science centre where they had fun rides for the kids to play on as well as sheep, goats, rabbits etc. The kids had a good time there. Then we went to Kasama, which was Nicole’s target for the trip. She bought some nice pottery and we treated the girls to some pottery making, which was a lot of fun. We met Momoka’s friend Tomoko who also happens to be a math teacher for the same grade kids. Seems like the two of them are twins!
While the girls were doing pottery, I was out in the grounds playing with the kids – we played hide-and-seek and various other games and the kids came up with a game called “tentacle” or something, where they “grew” two extra arms and they would have to tag each other with a “hand”. Very funny.
We headed home around 4:30 or so and got home around 6, just in time to get some last-minute groceries and get dinner ready for everybody. It was a whirlwind trip, but it was great to see the Okada-sans and Mito again!