Marys Visit

Marys Visit After a long delay, my sister Mary made it to Japan to visit the family. I wanted Mary to come and help out with Eric and see how things are here in Japan. We have a (very) high standard of living here and it was good for her to see that except the lack of central heating and chairs in Gotemba I think everything went well. We went to Gotemba on Christmas, and all opened presents together. After that we went out to Numazu to have a few drinks with my friend Brent at his bar. The next day we went sledding at Yeti Snowboard Park in Susano. It was supper expensive. Inside it was a little disappointing because there was only one tiny run for the kids to sled on. We made the best of it and took some illegal sled runs down a longer hill. Eric brought his friend Drevon and they had a great time. The following day we all went to Fuji Safari Park. With the coupons we got while doing some site seeing in Gotemba, we were able to get into the park extremely cheap. The wait to ride the the animal feeding bus was about 2 1/2 hours which was almost perfect amount of time to see the rest of the park. The tour bus allowed you to feed the animals and let animals like this big fella get right up close and personal. Even with all the steel and wire between us, I was a little nervous. We went to Gotemba Kogen Beer to see the lights and eat the food! Finally before we left Gotemba Mary watched as we made mochi and soba. After getting back to Tokyo Mary and I met up with my friend from Rugby Matt, we had a few drinks together at the local HUB. It was the start of the New Years Holiday and many things were closed like public buildings, but we managed to get some site seeing and shopping done. We visited, Shinjuku sky-scraper district, Akihabaras Electic Town, Harajuku, Shibuya, and Shibuya 109. It was a long day that we capped off with some beers at The Club House at their closing party. Finally the next day we got everything together and went to Narita Airport and Mary, just like that was gone. I was pretty sad to see her go but had a lot of things that needed to get done so I rushed off and tried to make it back to Gotemba stopping along the way at Akihabara and other place to look for some geek stuff like a new TV and laptops, or netbooks as the type I like are called. I almost did not make it back to Gotemba but thanks to Satomi picking me up at the bus stop, I made it and slept the night away. The next day New Years Prep started and everyone was in full swing cleaning and getting ready for New Years. More on that later.