Yokohama

Beautiful and sacred Mt. Fuji during cherry blossom time

Gary and Dr. Eliason from Yokohama Harbor View Park

Bridge in Yokohama Harbor--this is the port area for Tokyo where cargo and cruise ships come and also where Commodore Perry landed

View towards downtown Yokohama

A model view of Commodore Perry's landing in 1853

Large rhododendrum plant in an area that was settled by the British so the area has British looking buildings

Old Catholic cemetery for foreigners.  There is an LDS church owned cemetery here in Tokyo called Cumorah.  

Nice palm tree in the middle of the cemetery.

We made a quick trip to Holland to see the tulips--Japan is covered with beautiful flowers everywhere this time of year.

In front of the Yamate chapel in Yokohama.  We just happened to run into a couple of sister missionaries that were coming out the door.  

The country of Japan was dedicated for the preaching of the gospel near this site in 1901.

Alma O. Taylor came here when he was 19 years old and stayed for many years.  He provided the first translation of the Book of Mormon.  It was extremely difficult because the Japanese language didn't have words for God, Jesus, atonement, and many other religious type words.  Many of the words used in the Bible today are not understood by non-Christian Japanese people.

Entrance to Yokohama Chinatown--claimed to be the largest Chinatown in the world and I believe it.  This one of a half dozen gates in various locations.

Buddhist Temple in Chinatown.  It is very ornate as you can see from the pictures below.

Very cool street with hundreds of shops and restaurants in Chinatown.

Where we ate lunch was a very small Chinese restaurant with a very small kitchen--hence, a very small picture.

The waiters spoke Chinese and probably Japanese but since we spoke neither we did our usual pointing to items on the menu.  It's always an adventure since you can't always tell what you are getting and you're still not sure when you eat it but it was very good (whatever it was).  

There were a few people hanging around Chinatown

Typical shop in Chinatown.  Red is a very popular color here as you can see.

Lot's of palm readers in Chinatown.  For only a few dollars you can know all of your future...I wonder if they also read feet?

You can also ride the rickshaw for about $60--I think I would rather have my feet read for that price.

This must be a motorized rickshaw or maybe a Popsicle rickshaw.

There is a very nice park all along Yokohama harbor.

Just looks like a couple of old guys to me--must be foreigners!

Just a few small boats in the harbor.  The red brick building used to be a big warehouse, now it is a big shopping center.

Downtown Yokohama and the tallest building in Japan.  Downtown Yokohama is only about 15 miles from central Tokyo.

There were lots of seagulls flying around and some resting on the cables from the ship.  I assume it's not safe to canoe under the cables.

Must be a bed and breakfast place in the park or maybe an igloo.

A very cute kid playing in the park.

There's lots of towers around Tokyo and Yokohama.  

Back to our place, and there is the local temple just about a block from our house.  They put lanterns on it and had a celebration for one night and took them down that same night. (No, we don't know what they were celebrating.)

This is a motorcycle planter we see on the way to a little store where we shop.  I think it needs a little TLC.

Tokyo Dogs!

These are mostly not our photos because I still haven't figured out how to say, "May I take your dog's photo?"  I'm not very good at taking the photos on the sly either.  What your are about to see is exactly what we see everyday when we go for our walks.  The other day, we were on the train and I thought I was standing by a baby stroller with a baby in it-WRONG!  When I looked closely it was a little dog.  This is normal to see as people go for walks with their dogs in the strollers all of the time; I just hadn't seen that on a train until then.      Here is a pretty normal dog, right?  
You haven't seen anything yet!

Great fashion,wouldn't you say?

Time for exercises or a nap- which one?

I promise we see this all of the time!

Cute huh?  But this isn't my favorite as my favorite was the lady with two little dogs who had on the tiniest diapers I have ever seen! I wish I had taken their pictures.

Beautiful kimono, wouldn't you say?  I wonder if the owner made the dog breathe out all her air so she could fit it properly?

This sweet dog we saw today was waiting for a new dress or something.

These are their babies.

This was an adorable dog we saw today!

 Here is a dog with his owner that we saw at the traffic light today, too

 Upon closer inspection you can see that the driver has his dogs on his lap with the big one hanging over his shoulder. Yes, he is the driver as the steering wheels are on the right side here and they drive on the wrong side!

One thing we really notice is that most of the dogs are very, very quiet.  They like to go up to other dogs on the street and they just smell each other and they don't bark.  One dog we saw the other day was yipping just a little bit so the do owner grabbed his mouth and held it shut until the dog was quiet.  I guess the dogs are well-trained and are very, very quiet just like the people here.

Time for lunch!

Yes, we have seen lots of dogs with sunglasses, too.

 What more can we say about these photos?  Do you see what we mean about the dogs here?  Dogs are very expensive, too.

Last but not least, and yes, these aren't dogs.  These are our pets (after a fashion).  Notice, no beautiful clothes?  That is because they are the feral cats of the neighborhood.  They are sitting on top of a van right by our apartment.  Their favorite thing to do is scream in the mornings around 4:30 am or so; they almost sound like babies crying, kind of.  We have learned that the best way to handle these adorable animals is to go out and squirt them with a hose.  We don't want to get rid of the cats as we understand that if the cats go then the rats come so we will enjoy our sweet pets! (Do you think I should sew them some dresses or something?)  (Ha!)                                                                                         Have a greet weekend everybody!