This is heaven for dog lovers!!

with all the normal pet stuff, we found a giant strawberry cake!

Isn`t this sweet?

Hunny would love to have this in her room for all her soft toys!

and all these cute clothes...

But what really took us by surprise was the selection of dog food!

These are various type of dried treats, I looked at the ingredients but there wasn't much difference from human stuff!

There was chicken and potato, sweet potato, pumpkin tart with chicken, animal biscuits... and much more.

and doughnuts with icing and sprinkles!!!!

and fresh cakes and puddings!!!!

Don't they look delicious??

I bet many people have eaten those by mistake but didn't notice it was meant for dogs!

VIZ is 8!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY VIZ!!!

His birthday was on friday, so, he wasn't very happy that he still had to go to school!

We had a little celebration in the evening with a nice meal

some presents

and delicious cake!

hai, pose! And a big floating heart...

it`s full of love from everybody!

and the day was finished off with "The Test for the Adults"!!!

everybody is doing it very seriously!

Hunny the teacher is checking everybody's answers.

(hehehe... revenge!!

It's just not fair that only I have to do the homework everyday!!) ;-)

This photos been taken a few days after we went to Kyoto.

It was a very warm day, so we went down to the river and had a splash.

Although it was warm, it was windy too!

It was a beautiful sight; so many of the little pale petals were falling, dancing in the sky.

cherry blossom doesn`t last for long, only for a fleeting moment.

we walked on a pink road, transitory life.

but look up the tree.....

already fresh new green leaves are there.
life goes on... xx

Kyoto 2

We moved on to Kiyomizu Temple next, and to get there we went through this narrow slopey street. Both sides of the street are full of souvenir shops and cafe's, but really nice as they are in typical olden time Japanese style.

In front of me,

and look back...

Can you see how busy this is?

I`m using the camera on my mobile, so it might not be so clear, but people are jam packed all the way down to the bottom of the street!!!

After this walk we needed a good rest so we stoped off at a cafe.

Hunny is having a "Cherry Blossom Sundae"
It had ice cream flavoured with pickled cherry leaves and flower.

and Viz is having a mix of Green Tea and Kinako(roasted and powdered soya bean) flavoured ice cream.

Delish! We earned it!! this is the best bit of the day?!

now time to go to the Temple! we can see the tower .

This temple has two big high stages which had been used for dancing or to pray, or those religious ceremony. It's about 13 meters high and the view is superb!!

and looking at a stage from the other stage...

Those cherry blossoms are framing the stage... it was just so graceful, like a fantasy.

The meaning of this temple's name, "Kiyomizu", is holy water. people use a ladle with a long handle to get water to clean thier hands and drink it.

After here, we went to have some food and stayed longer for the sakuras to be lit up in the dark. We walked back to the park . It was about 9 o`clock but all the stalls were still open.

and cherry blossoms have been lit up!

lanterns are lit, still lots of people drinking under the trees...

We left the park with aching legs, and walked back to the station.

This is one of the street(Kiyamachi, it`s along a little stream with lots of restraunts and pubs) on the way back, and here are beautiful trees too!!

we were all so very tired..... xxx

More cherry blossoms!

On sunday, we went to Kyoto to see more flowers

It was Sunday, it was sunny, we knew the place was going to be very very busy, but

the weather forcast for the next day was bad, so we had to go on that day!

walking through the town after got off train in central Kyoto.

after 20minutes, we reached Maruyama Park, beautiful park right next to the Yasaka shrine.(I think the park used to be the part of shrine.)

The main gate is big and facing on to the street, people often use it as the meeting point.

Go up the steps and we saw.....

Lots of people and huge blue sheets!!

These blue sheets every where! People come early to reserve their space to do "Ohanami" and normally that is younger people in the group (kouhai)`s job!!

We found our space between those people, finally we can have our picnic!!

It was so hot, must had been 22c or more!, would have been very nice with a cold beer.....(well, i don`t drink but it was very merry there!) instead we had hot tea in a flask...

Rows of food stalls>>>>>

Viz is having his fortune told

your deam will come true after the hard work>>>

cherry blossom and pine tree<>

The famous weeping cherry blossom tree!!!

It's So Beautiful!

Yasaka shrine

We had a quick look around and then moved on to the famous Kiyomizu Temple....

Cherry blossom

We were going to Hiroshima to see my grandma and have a picnic, but Hunny had a very high temperature on the night before so it was cancelled. A couple days later, now she is better and weather was good (bit windy and chilli but sunny) we dicided to go for a walk.

This is the park by the river about 5min walk from my parents house. the closest place kids can muck about getting dirty(or wet,

Here, it has a couple hundred meater of flower tonnel and about 80% of flower was open.

It`s something very special about cherry blossoms, not just pretty or beautiful but very sentimental for us...

We saw lots of people having a picnic,BBQ and drinking. We got there about 3:30, so must had been very busy around lunch time.

Hunny and Viz.

We are going to Kyoto tomorrow taking a picnic. yay! I love Kyoto!

We should be able to see more blossoms and lot more people too!!