We love just hanging around the house with Mom & Dad and spending time with the boys, but it's also fun to get out and show them some of the neat things that we do here in Japan! We seem to take all our guests to a fish market, so that's what we did in Hachinohe!

I have plenty of other pictures of the fish market. You've seen enough of octopus tentacles and sea urchins, right? We had to stop by the squid ink cake, of course. Mom tried it (why's she look so worried? It's cake! Yum!) She also tried some seaweed, which she didn't care for as much as the cake!

We were planning on going to Children's Land (Kodomo No Kuni), and had with us some confusing directions. (There are better ones online now!) It took us a very long time (and a lot of convenience store stops and hand drawn maps) before we found it. Then, apparently, Monday was a holiday — Marine Day — so the park was closed down on Tuesday, too! That two hours of driving to finally get there and we didn't even get in the gate. Hopefully we'll get to take the boys soon!

Since Children's Land didn't work out, we went to Fantasy Dome at the Lapia Mall. The boys and Mom and I rode the train, the carousel (with Elmo), Matt and Rhino and I pedaled the helicycles (raised up above the first floor), and Mom and Matt and I rode the crazy, jerky rollercoaster (on the third floor.) It was tons of fun! The helicycles made me just a little nervous, cycling around that little track while looking down at everyone. Then the rollercoaster (one person per car, one car at a time) was just wild! It really jerks you around, but made us all laugh so hard!

We also checked out the pet store next to the mall and saw the expensive puppies and adorable, tiny turtles. We had lunch at the Shimoda Mall (Pepper Lunch is a must for our guests!) Rhino got to play at Buna Park, right next to the mall parking lot. It was a great time, visiting all the malls around us with Matt's parents!

On this day..

• Mel's Spot : 07/21/01 - 2001