Spring in the Kanto Plain

Mt. Mitake
On Tuesday, March 26th, we jumped into the car and went looking for spring blossoms.  It turns out we were still a little early but did succeed in finding a cable car that took us near the top of Mt. Mitake.

From the top of the cable car we had a beautiful view of the Kanto plain all the way into Tokyo.

We then followed the walking trail through the small, mountain-top town of Mitake on our way to the Musashimitake Shrine.  It was mostly uphill since the shrine is built at the top of the mountain (929 meters--3048 ft).  

A view down the stairs leading up to the shrine.

Takasaki

Our next venture took us about an hour and half drive from Yokota to the town of Takasaki.  There we saw Byakui Dai-Kannon, the Goddess of Mercy with a height of 41.8 meters weighing 6,000 tons.

On the way home from Takasaki, we saw a sign for the Tomioka Silk Mills and detoured through Tomioka to visit this historic site.  It was a silk mill which was established in 1872 based on French silk mills and operated until 1987.  The mill is now a museum and National Historic site but most of the machinery is still on site.

Yokosuka

We took the weekend of March 28/29 off from tourist activities due to a brief, but painful bout Doug had with a kidney stone.  We picked up where we left off on Tuesday, March 31 for a quick trip to Yokosuka accompanying one of the UMUC faculty to that base.  Although Doug had made numerous trips to that Naval port, he had little time to look around since he was always teaching on his trips. While Doug's colleague was teaching her class, we drove to the tip of the peninsula and viewed the area surrounding Yokosuka.  It was evening so we weren't able to take many pictures but did appreciate the coastal atmosphere.

Ueno Park, Tokyo
With cherry blossoms coming out everywhere, it was a challenge to decide where to go view them.  We decided to see how the parks in Tokyo looked and experience the spring seasonal events.  It was quite a cultural event to see thousands and thousands of people enjoying the trees on a Thursday evening after work.