Last Week's Trip to Kashiwa

It has been a couple of weeks since I posted so I wanted to be sure to include last week's little adventure.

This weekend we were supposed to go to Sanrio Puroland in Tama City. However, my daughter, my wife, and I have all come down with a pretty bad cold. On top of that, my sister-in-law's 2 year old came down with a bad cold just a couple of days ago. He had a temperature of 40 degrees C (104F). They took him to the hospital on Friday night and the fever has gone down. He should be OK. Sanrio Puroland just was not to be this weekend, so we've decided to take it easy at home this weekend.

Last weekend we visited my father in law's cousin's house in Kashiwa. This town is about 30 minutes northwest of Inzai City, close to Ibaragi Prefecture. Before meeting up with my father in law's other cousin at the Takashiama department store, we picked up some goodies in the bottom floor of the store as a present for the family we were to visit.

If you ever visit Japan you must always make sure you see the lower level of any department store you visit. The sweets and chocolates that they sell here are from here and all over the world. You could spend a month's salary here just on chocolate. I included a couple of pictures here.

The family we visited in Kashiwa has my wife's second cousin and their three kids, a couple 1 year old girl twins and a 4 year old son. They were all very cute. We played the new Nintendo Wii. Their 4 year old son was a pro with the bowling. This is already being sold in the USA now and has been available in Japan since last year. I'm just wondering when my wife will give me permission to buy one for our house.