Eh, you know the drill. I don't feel like writing so much as I do sleeping, so I'll try to make this brief.

Today we went to Shizuoka via the bullet train, Hikari. Its top speed is a staggering 170 MPH, allowing us to traverse around 100 miles from our hotel in a mere hour with just 2 stops. I didn't take any pictures of the outside of the train, so just google the term, "Hikari Shinkansen." The seats offered more than enough leg room and reclined to an angle that wouldn't bother the passenger behind you, while still offering you the comfort you need. Something interesting about the train staff was that whenever they would exit your car through the door at the end, they would turn and bow to the entire car before proceeding.

Pretty roomy huh?

We arrived in Shizuoka around noon I believe, and proceeded on foot to Sumpu park, home of the former Sumpu Castle and Tokugawa Shogunate. Walking through the east gate, we happened upon a class of elementary school kids. As we walked by them, a few of them here and there would say to us, "Haro" (Hello). Beyond the gate was the park, and despite there not being a whole lot to see here, it was very calming in itself. In the center near some flower beds, stood a large statue of Tokugawa Ieyasu, the  founder and first shogun of the Tokugawa Shogunate. Next to it, was an orange mandarin tree planted by the very same shogunate himself over 400 hundred years ago. On the opposite side of the park was a small, but absolutely gorgeous tea garden called Momijiyama. It only cost 150 JPY to enter, but to our surprise included an English audio guide and free tea in the casual tea house. I'm unsure if I can be 100% certain with this statement, but this may have been the most beautiful place I've ever seen. That aside though, the real gem in this expedition was the audio guide. I am pretty sure the voice for the audio guide was George Takei. I'm not sure how it came to be and I have nothing substantial to back up my claim, but I am almost positive it was him. I know he is fluent in Japanese, and spend some time studying at Sophia University in Tokyo, so maybe its not so far fetched after all. Needless to say, this was extremely entertaining and I found myself struggling to keep in the laughter. Soon we got to the tea house, a casual little place with little tables and a long bench along the wall. There were four types of green tea available: gyokuro, sencha, matcha, and hojicha. We ordered the hojicha and my God was it tasty. I usually don't like any kind of coffee or tea, but this kind really did it for me. I definitely want to buy some while I'm here. Also, in the tea house were some things you can buy (all in Japanese but presumably packages of tea) and one such item was priced at a hefty 35000 JPY (450 USD). This was the exception to the rule though, as everything else was more or less affordable. 

A nice panoramic of the tea garden.

With two hours to kill before our ride back to Shinagawa, we found a Don Quijote store (popular discount chain). I can't explain how cool it was without going into immense detail, so rest assured it was indeed a cool store. 

Don Quijote. All four floors are packed with just about everything you could think of.

So that wasn't exactly as brief as I had intended, but I figured it would end up this way anyway.


Daniel

A cute little Shiba puppy in a pet shop in Shizuoka.

 Manhole covers in Japan are often decorated.

These things were all over the place in Sumpu Park.