Anne and Bob - Trip to Japan     -     March 17-April 5, 2016 (if you click on the pictures you will usually get a larger version)
First 3 days - March 17-19
Thursday, March 17 at 8:00 we flew from Landvetter airport to Heathrow. There we changed planes for a direct flight to Tokyo and 5 hours after leaving Landvetter we were flying back over our home in Hultafors, but towards Japan.

Friday, March 18 - It was 7:30 (Japanese time) when we landed in Tokyo and headed for the trains. Our friend Rob (former team member of the Australian orienteering team and now orienteering map-maker) had sent us very detailed instructions to help us find the correct trains on the correct lines to reach his place in Mishima in a reasonable amount of time.
One of the first things that we noticed were the drink machines with both cold and hot drinks - all over the place.
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Anne preparing for our first train ride.
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Japanese drink machine
Rob and his younger son Caio met us (11:30) at the train station in Mishima and drove us to their new home (built March, 2015) on the side of Mt Hakone. The main part of Mishima is on lava from Mt Fuji.
In the afternoon Anne went out to practice for the Japanese Orienteering Champion-ships in an area near Mishima.
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Larger pictures of the text if you click.
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Mishima - train station to Plowright's
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Anne's introduction
Saturday, March 19 - We had a guided (Rob) tour aroundhe center of Mishima and got to see a number of different things. One that particularly attracted Bob was the window with different arrangements of ice cream. He finally fastened for the strawberries and ice cream in the crepe cone.
Besides looking in stores and windows we walked through some park areas. Among other things we saw signs with information as to volcanoes and their lava flow some of which you see above. 
Other signs along the rivers told more of what volcanoes can create (below).
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Food menus were often pictorial
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Ice cream alternatives




​We visited a Skinto shrine where we hope to see a lot of cherry blossoms in a few days.  There were men putting up lamps in preparation for the cherry blossoms that were soon to come.
We also saw a very large black bird which may have been a Japanese Cormorant.
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Here to the right is a short video showing a little of the Plowright's house and the Shinto shrine park where there should be a lot of cherry blossoms within a week.