When we last saw Mr. G on his trip, he discovered that people drive on the left in the island nation just before he enjoyed an apple–or rather he watched while the human ate the apple.
Today, I report on the rest of his adventures as told by tour guide Marci Kobayashi-Smith. These adventures took several days for our intrepid Mr. G.
Day 1
We went out for breakfast with the Gingerbread Man.
(They went to Denny’s in Japan!)
He looked over every page of the breakfast menu carefully.
Then we had fun taking pictures while we waited for the food to arrive.
He looked at both options first and then decided to share with Akira. You can see Akira is trying to teach him how to use chopsticks.
(Akira Kobayahi is tour guide Marci’s husband.)
After breakfast Akira paid the bill and let the Gingerbread Man keep the change. He said he’s going to bring it back with him so Q can see how Japanese coins look.
We took walk after breakfast and met someone very interesting but I’ll save that for later. Right now we’re driving to the nursing home to see Akira’s mom. Akira is helping the Gingerbread Man drive.
Day 2
We have a lot to report today! First, I want to share some pics from yesterday. The Gingerbread Man (we’ve nicknamed him Mr. G) found some interesting things.
First, he found a big building just for karaoke. Inside there are many small rooms and people of all ages go in and rent the rooms and have fun singing. We told him it’s not so unusual. There are karaoke buildings like this all over Japan.
Mr. G. also noticed there are a lot of poles and wires. You can see them here in this picture.
In Japan, most of the telephone and electric wires are above ground. Mr. G said that in Puyallup most of the wires are underground. Is that true??
Even though there are many wires, there are still some beautiful streets. This street is lined with Gingko trees.
It was so pretty so we decided to take a walk. And we weren’t the only ones. Many people were out walking…
We also found a flower shop, a grocery store with many bicycles parked out front and a Pizza Hut!!
Mr. G said he thinks there might be a Pizza Hut in Puyallup but he doesn’t eat pizza so he’s not sure. Have you seen delivery scooters like this in Puyallup?
Mr. G was really into the yellow leaves. He asked us to take many pictures…
He saved a few leaves. You’ve probably seen Gingko trees before but just in case he’s going to bring back a couple of leaves to show you. Here is one.
So you are probably getting tired of the yellow leaves, right? Well, on the way back home, we met someone really interesting. And, I’m not talking about the snowman. Take a look at this next picture. Can you guess what it is?
Well how about this next picture? Look carefully and I bet you can figure it out!
Did you figure it out? He is a police officer! The little corner office where he works is called a “koban” and in English everyone calls it a police box. It’s like a mini police station. Every neighborhood in Japan has one.
Usually there is only one or maybe two officers working at the Police Box. Sometimes you can see them out patrolling on their bicycles.
And one last view from our walk yesterday…
Tomorrow I’ll tell you all about the laundromat we visited. And, guess what? Mr. G. went out for sushi!
Day 3
Today Mr. G stayed home but I still haven’t shared some of the pics from yesterday…We went out for sushi. Instead of taking sushi that came around on the conveyor belt we ordered from the digital menu. A few minutes later it arrived on another conveyor belt right to our table. Then, Mr. G got really excited when we put the plates down the shoot. Every 5 plates we get a chance to win a prize and this time WE WON!!!
But, after all that raw fish Mr. G wanted something different so we ordered grilled eel, tenpura and french fries! Yum!
The french fries and plate prizes were a fantastic selling points for Quinton, too! He says he’d rather go on Mr.G’s trip than to Disneyland!
And that concludes the tour. Mr. G is somewhere on his way across the Pacific back to the Puyallup elementary school and Quinton’s class.
Wishing you peace and french fries for this holiday season,
