Tokyo Chandlers: Osaka- Mission Presidents' Seminar

This past week we attended the Annual Mission Presidents' Seminar in Osaka, Japan. The Area Presidency trains all the mission presidents who come in from their various missions in our area. There are twelve missions. We attend because Gary is in charge of planning all of it and making sure everything runs smoothly. It's a wonderful and spiritual event that we get to enjoy. Last year we went to Seoul, Korea for this event. Elder Ringwood said he wanted to go to Seoul again this year but Elder Chandler decided we were going to Osaka (I think he was kidding). Hope you enjoy seeing the places we visited. There are so many great pictures that we'll put them in two blogs and you can flip through them quickly.

Riding the Shinkansen (bullet train) at 200 miles an hour on our 2 1/2 hour ride from Tokyo to Osaka. I love the perfectly manicured fields of Japan.

Like everyone here, the ticketmaster is extremely polite when he asks for your ticket. I guess if you don't have one they throw you off the train at 200 miles per hour. You won't forget again!

The first major city after leaving Tokyo-Yokohama is Nagoya which is the 3rd largest city in Japan.

Some more beautiful fields south of Nagoya. These are rice paddies that have just recently been harvested.

Arriving in the outskirts of Osaka. Osaka is the second largest city in Japan with a metropolitan population of 19 million--more than all the Los Angeles Basin.

We stayed at the New Otani Hotel across the street from the Osaka-jo castle and grounds. It was a great place to walk around the trees are all in fall colors. There are two moats around the castle.

View of the castle at night from our hotel room. The roof you see at the bottom of the picture is a big concert hall.

View of Osaka from our hotel room. It's a very beautiful city and not so congested as Tokyo.

This view is the other way from our hotel room and off in the distance you can see the top portion of the tallest building in Japan. They can build taller buildings in Osaka because it isn't quite so prone to earthquakes.

View across the first moat as we took an early morning walk. The leaves were beautiful.

The smaller building on the right side of the picture is our hotel which was very nice.

OK, enough of the castle!

Now we're on our way to Kyoto which is the 8th largest city in Japan although it is really just a suburb of Osaka. It takes 15 minutes to get there on the Shinkansen or about 1 1/2 hours by bus. Our whole group went on the bus. Kyoto is the ancient capital of Japan and has many world heritage sites.

I just knew you wanted to see a close up view of a rice paddy after harvest. Every place there isn't a building there is a field.

We are now nearing the Tenruji Temple (Heavenly Dragon Temple). The kids are supposed to cross this bridge (Togetsukyo meaning Moon Crossing) after receiving a blessing at the temple and are instructed not to look back as that is bad luck.

The only rickshaws we have ever seen in Japan.

Beautiful fall foliage as we enter the temple grounds.

Carol with Adam and Carey Aalders. Adam is the director for temporal affairs and is responsible for all church construction and maintenance and church employees in the Asia North Area. They are from Sydney, Australia and are very good friends.

This doesn't look like much but it is perfectly manicured gravel and is a very famous site.

Carol was trying to tackle Elder Ringwood. Maybe she should play for BYU. He was trying to sneak in our picture and then run out real fast.

Left to right: President and Sister Christensen, Korea Seoul Mission, Elder and Sister Ringwood, Gary and Carol, Elder (President) and Sister Yamashita, general authority and president of the Japan Nagoya Mission.

The really bright colors are the Japanese maples.

Gary and Elder Whiting trying to point the picture taker (Carol) in the right direction.

President and Sister Zarbock, Micronesia-Guam Mission.

The Japanese writing here says pure heart or clean heart. Washing here is symbolic of cleansing your heart.

Arashiyama Bamboo Groove--a very special place in Japan. The wind makes an amazing sound as it blows through the grove. Bamboo wood is used for making furniture, floors, boxes, mats, boxes, etc.

We are on our way to the restaurant where we had lunch-sushi, soba, and tempura. We passed this nice museum and we thought it strange that it would have a plastic Santa our front.

We also passed this building on the way. You can't see it too well because of the pole but it is a very unusual McDonalds that is two stories high and looks like a house.

Pachenko parlot--gambling is illegal in Japan but there are thousands of the Pachenko parlors filled with slot machines. The prizes you win are bags of candy or chips. Then you take them outside to a door behind the building and trade them in for money. They are extremely noise and filled with smoke. They are all run by the Japanese mafia which the government ignores because they are non-violent and they are always the first to respond to big disasters.

Carol and Gary (the old white-haired guy) finishing up their sushi and soba. Across the table are President and Sister Wada of the Tokyo South Mission.