Saturday: Aug 4th

This morning we woke up about 5:30 am, just about
sunrise. The matress is probably 10" wider than the
box spring so both Chrissy and I have a portion of the
matress that floats over nothing. If you get to close
to the edge you are in danger of rolling out of bed.

Right now, A-rod is at bat and hit a double. The
broadcast is in Japanese, but I still hate the Yanks!
The game is tied 1-1 with KC. I am just waiting for
Chrissy to get ready and then our day will really
begin.

We've talked about going to Kobe today or Osaka. We
also have a couple of cultural sites we could hit in
Nishinomiya. Nishinomiya is divided between Northern
and Southern portions of the city. The Southern
portion of the city is where we are and is mostly a
flat coastal plain. We are centrally located in the
souther portion. For those who got our satellite
picture, our building is located just north of an
intersection where 5 roads come together. I will
re-load that link.

http://maps.google.com/maps?ie=UTF8&ll=34.750322,135.343199&spn=0.002658,0.003895&t=k&z=18&om=1

We should be in the center of the picture. The
northern part of the city is on the other side of some
3000 foot peaks. On the map there are some toll roads
which tunnel through. I can also ride around the
mountains to the east or west to get to the northern
part of the city. The terrain is very diverse. We
have a guide book which shows a lot of the
attractions, we could spend quite a bit of time just
exploring this city.

One place I want to visit soon is a Buddha in the
Northern section of the city. I think the easiest way
to get there will be to follow the Mukogawa River into
the hills. I will let you know how it goes.

There are a lot of temples and shrines locally too.
One is about 100 yards from here.

The Sogo Center, our main office, is in an old
elementary school. It survived the Kobe quake in the
mid 90s. I don't know if I find it encouraging that
it survived or not. The schools which I have seen so
far are pretty much non descript concrete boxes, not a
lot of architectural interest.

Most of the housing, in our area seems to be very new.
In our apartment we have two interior walls which are
made of concrete that divide our apartment into rough
thirds. I am sure this building was built after the
quake.

Enjoy your Friday night and weekend. I am sure I will
write more soon.

Rex