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Japan July 2005 Trip Report
written & typed by Nils Bertelson, edited formatted & added to by Alice Bertelson.
DAY 13 - Wednesday July 13th

Push ups 33. Got up at 7:30. Had some toast and banana with peanut spread (Japanese peanut butter). It was definitely, definitely not like American stuff. The chef is taking the morning off so the rest of the family will have to fend for them selves.

Matt and I took off around 9:15 for the golf course. I bettered my score by 1 to bring me to a 33. The weather is very nice out today. Partly cloudy skies with some good sunshine. Alice and the girls are down at the lake and we are going to join them in a bit.

Well we didn’t make it to the lake but the girls had a really fun time.. This place is about to go into full swing. Friday the 15th is the day the season starts and the diving boards, tennis nets and all the other amenities get put into place. Everything should be set up tomorrow so we will get to use them without all the people being here yet. Ok back to today.

Around 2 p.m. Mel and I went food shopping with Alice's brother and Alice's brother's wife. We went to the 100 Yen store first and then to Beisia (super Walmart) I stocked up on general needs and spent 200.00 dollars. (20,000 yen) Alice's brother's wife pointed out an unusual fact. Boneless chicken breast is less expensive than thighs with the bone in. Apparently the juicy thigh meat is valued as the best part of the chicken. Got some good tuna slabs to make sushi. I also bought some fish eggs and quail eggs too (very small bird eggs) Can’t wait to make sushi again.

Got a little sushi snack for he ride home. Good thing too. I had planned on going up to the little grocery store close to home but we were running late so that was not going to happen. I ended up getting a Japanese meal from the 7-11 (American convenience store). Alice enjoyed it and she said it tasted like Chinese food but that it was good. The kids ate some bread style Japanese Pizza and they were happy.

Rainman was watched for the third time and the Jig saw puzzle will be done before I go to bed.

Ok time to state the agenda for tomorrow. Would like to get up at 6 and be teeing off by 7. Finish up the golf and head over to the Sillavan's to start on the tile project. Back splash behind the kitchen sink and behind the 2 bathroom sinks. Lunch would include taking the Sillavan’s to the Authentic Japanese Noodle place. This is the place where I got the best gifts of the trip and I am sure we will get some more.

Lunch was fun and once again we had to use the vending machines to purchase our food tokens and then we gave them to the cooks and waited for the goods to get cooked. While we were waiting we looked around some more and I ended up getting another really nice pair of scissors, another sushi knife and a 10.00 dollar pair of toe nail clippers for my dad. Noodles were up and it was time to do some slurping. Lunch was very good.

Now it was time to get ready for the big wakeboard journey. We reserved a boat and a driver for 3pm. So we went home and got ready and headed over to the marina. The boat was really nice and myself, Matt, Mel, H (15yr niece), Z (11yr nephew), and J (13yr nephew) were ready to give it a try. My efforts were all in vain. Even though I have a great background for this kind of thing I did not have good instructions. The driver of the boat only spoke Japanese and it was very difficult for H (15yr niece) who did not know how to wakeboard to try and translate instructions. I gave it my best 4 tries and my 15 minutes were up.

Fortunately for the rest of the gang they did real well. Matt, Mel, Z (11yr nephew) and H (15yr niece) all got up and had a blast. Matt did the best but he had done this many time before. J (13yr nephew) almost got up and still managed to do better than the old uncle. I took some good video and some still shots too. It was a very fun adventure and I am sure some of the Sillavan’s will want to try again before the summer is over.

Well as I have waited a little to long in getting this Journal typed up I am making some mistakes in time of events. The wake boarding actually happened tomorrow but I am leaving it in. I will try and get things straightened out with the next day. This day is almost over and I am going to work on the jig saw puzzle and go to bed. Got a busy day ahead of us
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 DAY 14

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