Monday, July 17, 2006

Umi No Hi - Our Weekend in Pictures

Today, July 17th, is my mother's birthday - so, Happy Birthday Mom (of course, I know I just talked to you!)

It's also Umi-no-Hi (Ocean Day), a national holiday which made this a nice three-day weekend. (Wouldn't you feel honoured to have your B-day be a national holiday at least somewhere in the world?).

Brian and I took advantage of the fine weather on the Saturday that kicked off our long weekend.

We took my Pajero Mini to Usami beach (in Izu - just a short trip away) on Saturday, finding some scenic roads to avoid the hellacious weekend traffic. We stopped at a lookout on the Izu Skyline:



I had wisely made a reservation at a reasonably priced minshuku (cheap Japanese inn) in Usami, called Minshuku Otsuka (click here to see their site in English). Though the place has seen better days, the dinner and breakfast they served (room service, none-the-less!)was outstanding, and the location (though noisy) is exactly opposite the lovely Usami beach.

This fish was just part of our delicious Japanese dinner:



This is breakfast!!




Sunday morning was cloudy and looked like rain, so after a walk on the beach, we decided to test the Mini's mettle!! We got her off-road, in four-wheel-low - what a great performer!



After a good night's sleep on Sunday, we used this national holiday to go for a good ride in the hills:



And got lucky enough to catch this snake relaxing on the rocks (Brian actually got lucky enough to see another snake beside this one - much, much bigger, he said!).

3 comments:

Team Sharma said...

Breakfast and dinner look vaugely related...

-lyn said...

Love the food pictures. I think we have almost the exact small plate that the fish was served on.

-lyn said...

Also, I forgot to mention: "Oooh, Aaahh" regarding the snake!