happy

Nature and beautiful things to see are not far from Tokyo. It was a bit of myth I believed that it was too hard to get out of town. It is not true at all, the road and excellent, smooth and free flowing (most of the time), drivers are courteous and if you dont have a car the PT is amazing. We saw some amazing things this weekend, just 2 hours out of Tokyo. There is no end of things to see. I do believe as an Aussie we need our space and getting out of town for the weekend is just a normal thing to do rather than hit the shops with the (literally) millions of other people. I find weekends in the city quite daunting as it is just so crowded. I'm happier to go there mid-week at 10 am, that way if there is a meltdown of the child, its just me and the other Mums...

My beloved loves to use Google map and find a place usually by looking at the satellite image and seeing where there is no real built up areas, pin pointing a location, getting the town name, putting it into the car navigation system and go!! It's too easy. Lucky too, as we are only in Japan for a short time and I dont want it to be 6 months before we leave and feel like we havent done or seen anything of the country.

We went to see waterfalls, beautiful trees, a big cave with lots of dripping water, shrines, rivers, lakes and just lovely, clean, fresh air. AND the biggest bonus is the the mooch has been so WONDERFUL with no screaming or silly stuff at all. It make me so happy when there is calm.

One of the best things about travelling around Japan is those secret finds. The times when you just go down that odd looking road because it looks interesting and invariably there is always somewhere to eat or drink. Today we found a beautiful restaurant/cafe selling handmade soba noodles and tempura. I think one of the tempura veges was a piece of fern leaf. It tasted very nice. The environment of these places share my favourite things, quiet, calm, beautiful food and nice things to look at. Well, it was nice until the mooch fell off the stool and hit his head...but he just cried for a moment as there was very cute birds and stones to look at outside.

Also, a happy anniversary to my dearest darling. 5 years has passed so quickly. We have done a lot and shared many highlights, we are so happy and lucky. I love you. It struck me today the beautiful things in nature we saw reflect our relationship - abiding strength, simplicity, power, beauty and colour.