14 June 2009

Sleeping in was really nice today since we had such a long day yesterday. Once I got up and going, Miyo already had brunch waiting on the table for me. Today’s brunch was huge, so I had to turn some of it down even before I sat down. There was a huge dish of yaki soba stir fry that probably could’ve fed three people, plus a piece of salmon with bowl of chestnut rice. Miyo was also going to make me some bread, but I told her not to. I took out about half of the yaki soba stir fly and left it on another dish since there was no way I was going to eat it all. I ate everything else but had to leave a little bit of the rice. I guess Miyo still hasn’t realized that I’m not a huge rice eater.
After eating, Mitsunori told me that he had a full day planned out for us. Toshio and Miyo were going to stay home, so Mitsunori, Masaru, and I jumped in the Prius to start our day. Our first stop was Takashima Castle in Suwa. It was a really small castle, especially in comparison to many of the other castles I have visited in Japan, but it still had a nice view over Suwa from the top. Next we drove for almost an hour to Yatsugatake Museum in Shinshu, Nagano. In plan, it was a very interestingly shaped building, with multiple domes and barrel vaults. The interior was interesting as well since the ceilings were somewhat screened with draped fabric. Mitsunori and Masaru didn’t even seemed interested in the exhibits, so it almost made me laugh since we were literally just walking through the building. Oh well.
The last stop Mitsunori had planned was an outdoor “mall” that he said had gained popularity and fame over the years. He wasn’t really sure what was there, but he assumed I might like the architecture. It was somewhere in the middle of the mountains where you could only get by car. I was a bit skeptical, but I hoped for the best. Upon arriving there, I realized that there were two famous projects grouped with the outdoor “mall”. The establishment was called Risonare, and it reminded me of Santana Row in San Jose, except with a large hotel. The two famous projects were both by Klein Dytham Architects, and I had actually met Astrid Klein during one of our firm visits with Don. The first one we looked at was Brillare, a wedding reception hall. It was long and narrow, and it looked just like the pictures I had seen of it. There was an event going on inside of it, so unfortunately I wasn’t able to get any interior photos. The second project, which is one of their most iconic projects, was the Leaf Chapel. It is basically a huge dome with half of the outer shell being operable. We were lucky that no weddings were currently going on inside of it, so one of the employees from the wedding salon let us tour the structure and its surroundings. Wow, it was so amazing and beautiful! All three of us were completely blown away! I still couldn’t believe that we had stumbled upon these projects completely accidentally. It was a fabulous way to end our outing.
On the way back, we got a call from Miyo saying her daughter Naoko and her husband had stopped by to visit. We were going to go out for dinner since we were all together. There was heavy traffic on the expressway on our way back home since there was road construction, but we still made it back by 6:00pm. For dinner, we went to Sunlake, a restaurant somewhat comparable to Denny’s in Japan. I ordered the cheese hamburg with eggplant and fries. It was really tasty. Naoko and her husband live about 50 minutes away from Suwa in a neighboring town. They didn’t speak any English, so I wasn’t able to directly talk with them at all. After dinner, they left to drive home, and we came back home. We had plans to Skype with my grandparents and family at 10:15pm our time, so we waited around until then. It was nice to Skype as a group again, but the quality was worse than last time. I still can’t quite figure out what the problem is, so it is frustrating. The main thing is that we were all still able to talk, so that was nice, and everyone was happy. I worked on my assignments a bit more then went to sleep to end a long day.