Thursday, February 2, 2012

Huis Ten Bosch

Huis Ten Bosch is a replica of a Dutch Village complete with windmills, blooming flowers, and gondula rides.  This was the Cinderella style coach in the entrance that us girls could not resist climbing inside.
 Then, of course, the dragon guarding it was calling the boys.

 This is "teddy bear land", and you can guess who was in love.

 Trying on wooden shoes.....
 Sitting in enormous wooden shoes...you just can't tell because our budding photographer daughter cut off the shoes.
 The handsome knight on his white steed!
 The ferocious Ninja saying farewell to his Ninja steed.
 The river and buildings using our sketch setting on our camera.
 The silly pirates!
 The sword fighting pirates!
 The gondula ride.

 The Japanese are really into their trash sorting.  Only in a Japanese Dutch Village can you find the cutest garbage receptacles ever.  I just hope you can read the Kanji to understand which garbage goes into which hole.  I always end up tapping someone's shoulder, holding up my trash, and shrugging my shoulders as cute as I possibly can.  Usually......it works!

The 99 Islands and The Lantern Festival

On Friday afternoon we took a cruise on "The Pearl Queen" around the 99 Islands of Kyushu.
 It was very peaceful, tranquil, and COLD!



 Technically there are 208 Islands around the tip of Sasebo, but many of them are insignificant rocks, so they have named this area the "99 Islands".  This area is famous for it's Oyster and Pearl Harvesting and every restaurant in this area offers oysters prepared in many different ways.  I'd like to say we tried some......but we didn't!  I was, however, hoping to get a little "Mikimoto Pearl" action, but that didn't happen either.


At the end of the cruise, Chloe announced that she felt like we had been on a ride around Neverland on Captain Hook's ship.....Ryan, and Callista completely agreed.

The Nagasaki Lantern Festival
After our cruise we drove over to Nagasaki.  To celebrate the Chinese New Year, China Town in Nagasaki has a lantern festival.  It was breathtaking.


 This picture of Callista was not only taken by us, but by about ten other people.  There is just something about a blonde haired, blue-eyed girl in pig tails that the Japanese just can't refuse to take a picture of.

 The bottom half of this picture is a river with lanterns from above reflected on the water.

Who knew you could do so much with paper?