Road trip

Before Stanley broke his arm we had planned on trying to catch a hop (military plane) to Okinawa for spring break to enjoy some sun and sand on Japans tropical island.  Obviously swimming and building sand castles doesn't lend itself well to a cast so I started planning a road trip along the south eastern coast of Japan.  We set off bright and early on a saturday morning aiming to make it as far as Osaka, Japans 3rd largest city.

 Minami Alps along the way

traffic was marginally better in Osaka, but still a nightmare.

We checked into our hotel and headed to the Dontonbori district for dinner.  A very popular shopping and people watching district we found a restaurant famous for serving Hokkaido snow crab and enjoyed a very memorable meal.  The kids opted for sushi, and we would have preferred not to have had our crab cooked in a miso soup base, but it was an experience not soon forgotten by any of us.

my happy explorers

it was a rainy chilly evening...

 Dontonbori is along this canal and is very pretty in the evening

this is a famous sign, but not sure why....

this poor crab tried in vain to escape the entire time we were waiting for a table...

got a chuckle over this one!

shoe cubbies, no shoes allowed, as is quite normal here

dinner

sushi lovers!

The next morning we decided to go to Osakas world famous aquarium which did not disappoint.  Known for its huge whale shark, this is still the most talked about part of our trip by the kids.  Expensive, but a great way to spend a drizzly dull day.

This looked an awful lot like dinner from the previous night!

On to Iwakuni!