Wednesday

Today was culture day. Also, our third anniversary! :)

We drove out to Omori to check out the silver mines. The Iwami Ginzan silver mines have recently been declared a World Heritage site for both cultural and industrial reasons. Erik and I visited them on our first trip to Japan, but lots has changed, and Pete was in, so off we went.

We stopped first at the new museum explaining the history of the area, and the special way that the silver was extracted from the mines. Then we continued on to Omori, first to have lunch and meet up with Yuko. While we were looking for a place to eat, we ran into Matsuba-san, the woman who owns the samurai house that we stayed at on our last trip. She invited us over for lunch, and we had a fantastic meal in her beautiful house.

After lunch we checked out another samurai house, and visited the shrine with the special dragon that roars when you clap in the middle of the room. After a stop for ice cream, we realized that we were too late for the mines. Hopefully we'll be able to do it another day.

Steve had a taiko practise that evening, so we were on our own. We found a rooftop patio and hung out there for a bit before continuing on. There was a big bingo festival happening outside the grocery store, but we were too late to get in on the fun. Ran into Asano-san, the woman whose family owns a sake brewery.

Picked up some groceries, and had dinner at home for the first time. Pete's a good cook! We had been given some fresh fish at the bbq we were invited to on Monday, so we grilled it, and it was delicious.