More Kasdans Come To Japan!

So, we are a bit behind in the blog this week. We have been busy being out and about with Mike's parents, Abe and Marcia, and his sister Lisa. They arrived in Japan to visit us on Friday. Our first family visitors, since Ilena's brother Matt visited us in late March. Lisa is staying with us and Mike's parents at a nearby hotel.

It is fun to try and share with our loved ones the many places, tastes, and experiences that we have enjoyed in Japan. We are doing our best. It is also fun just to hang out and spend some day-to-day time together.

Although there was no big storm, it was a dreary day weather-wise on Sunday and Saturday was a deal-with-the-jetlag and relax kind of day. On Saturday, we took Lisa to Kobe and walked (and ate our way through) the Motomachi area, aka Chinatown. Check out this guy hauling a recently departed fish and bag of eels to the restaurant across the street!

Afterwards, we walked down to Meriken Park and Harborland, where Lisa checked out the Kobe Bay, the shopping scene, and we all played some video games.

On Sunday, we scrapped our original plan to head to Kyoto and instead headed into Osaka to the aquarium. We saw an amazing octopus at the aquarium that day, and the next night, Lisa helped us to prepare some octopus sashimi of our own:

On Saturday night, we all enjoyed our favorite Yakitori restaurant, Masaya in Ashiya, and our favorite local bar - Shot Bat Mars Venus, which had a great live jazz band that evening.

All in all, a great first couple of days with our company!