Ibigawa with Rebecca: Kyoto tour

We got up at 6:00 to go for a run. I woke up at 5:00, but was done sleeping. I read and did emails for a while. I went for 5 miles and Rebecca was going for a walk, but decided to see how her new shoes felt. After one step, she just kept on going. When I got back, I didn’t see her shoes in the entryway and worried that she might still be out there lost in a rice field. I grabbed my shaver and shaved outside while I cooled off and looked down the road to find her. I decided to look inside again. She had taken her shoes off inside and was freshening up the first time I went in. So, all was okay.

After a great breakfast (the persimmons were really good), we went to Kyoto. We started at Sanjusangen-do (National Treasure). There was a long hall of 1001 statues of Buddist deity. It was so long with nearly full size statues. It’s fun to see all the ways the people worship with candles, incense, water, and so on. The stories behind the statues were interesting. You can learn about it at if you care about it more.

Corn Flakes - We also had persimmons, egg, sausage, juice, toast with chocolate almond spread.

Lunch was at Hankyu Hotel. It was great buffet. We dined on tempura, fish, shrimp, steak, curry, ice cream, cake, green chocolate fountain, rice, egg soup, and other things that we don’t know what they were.

The invited guest this year is Lisa Mitchell with her husband Dennis. She gave birth to her fifth baby on 4 October in Saint George and got stopped by the marathon and couldn’t get home for a while. As she watched the runners go by the thought “I want to do that next year”. She blames that thought on hormones and emotions, but started running and did the next 18 consecutive marathons. She wasn’t a runner at all before that. She’s very happy and is so excited about being here.

Lisa and Dennis Mitchell

We made it to the Golden Palace. I was here in 2009 with Adrienne. Here are the photos from then and now. We tried lots of food samples from the booths lining the paths. Unfortunately, but not surprisingly, none of them pleased our American pallets. ;) There are a lot of desserts made with bean paste. They look so good, but when you start chewing, you fight the urge to spit it out.

Our whole group at the Golden Palace

Some funny things happened today, but you kind of had to be there. We laughed a lot on the bus, usually because of Aaron Metler.

Aaron Metler at the first meeting with his host family thinking his headband says he is the God of Wind. It actually says kamikaze which has a more recent meaning from WWII which he didn't know about. We had a good laugh about that on the bus after he wished he hadn't worn the headband.