March 2010: History Museum, Ichigo Picking and Sake Tour!
Lets rewind and go back to March. I forgot to post a tour we went on through the base's travel agency. We hit up a museum, picked some strawberries, and sampled some sake. Yum.
On the way to our destination we took the Tokyo Bay Aqua-Line (which is a bridge-tunnel combo) since we were heading to Chiba prefecture (Chiba is across Tokyo Bay from us, so you'd have to drive past Tokyo to get there). The bridge tunnel line connects Kawasaki to Kisarazu --which in turn cuts the travel time down from 90 to 15 minutes. Unfortunately the line isn't used as much because it costs a whopping Y3000 ($30+) to cross in a regular passenger vehicle! :O
But the cool thing is that at the cross over point from tunnel to bridge there is an artificial island called Umihotaru. On the island are restaurants, convenience stores, arcades, gift shops, etc.
It was pretty cool!
Our next stop was the National Museum of Japanese History in Sakura City, Chiba Prefecture. It had five main galleries with 27 themes that took us through the history of Japan from beginning to end.
Some of the locals.
The traditional dress and miniatures throughout the ages were what really peeked my interest. Above is one of my fav periods to read about --the Hiean period. It's where the ladies blackened their teeth, redrew their eyebrows and wore their "twelve-layered robe" called jūnihitoe.
It's also when the first novel was wrote --The Tale of Genji by Murasaki Shikibu. (She was one of those ladies wearing a jūnihitoe.)
More exhibitions. Some of the larger ones were almost like they dug up every item and just transported it to the museum to put on display.
One of the exhibitions covered WWII. We were allowed to take pictures throughout most of the museum (some parts had old artifacts), but were not permitted in the WWII section.
Oops. I did anyway. Hooray iPhone.
Well hey, it's WWII Terry!
And no Japanese history lesson is complete without Gojira!
The grounds around the museum were beautiful. I wish they would have allocated time to explore the gardens. Sad face.
Back on the bus. Boo.
Next stop... was in the middle of Nowhere Chiba.
No really, we were at Isoyama Strawberry House... picking Ichigo! Yay!
I wasn't really a strawberry eater when I was younger because everyone describe them to be so sweet and divine or whatever fawning over them that they did. But every time I ate a fresh one they were tart. And young Liz was mucho disapointo.
But alas! Japanese strawberries are AMAZING AND SWEET AND DIVINE! The Japanese take their strawberries very seriously, it was to be expected.
And these ichigos delivered. We were allowed 30 minutes to pick and eat as many as we wanted while we dunked them in sweetened condensed milk. Oishiiiiiiii neeeeee.
After pigging out they had a strawberry store and sweets shop to visit. Unfortunately the strawberries for sale to bring home were sold out. Grrrrr.
Oh yah, we ate more ichcigo stuff.
But apparently Terry wanted ice cream and he got gelato instead. >:[
Our last stop was Aiyu Sake Factory, which has been there since 1804!
First on the tour was for everyone to take of their shoes and switch out to their inside sandals. I could tell a few of our fellow Americans were a bit put off (and some amused) by this --but hey, you're in Japan, you should know better, lol.
Our tour guide translated for us. The representative showed us how sake was made in the simplest terms, also showing us the machinery used along the way.
The tour was a little short --I was really interested in more even know my tour comrades were falling asleep.
Also, the inside of the factory was c-c-cold.
And last but not least, we sampled some of their sake. I'm not much of a sake enthusiast (I drink the hot cheap stuff), but their sake was delicious. Yeah, we bought a lot.
We've actually got two bottles left in the fridge. Hmmm. Suddenly I'm thirsty. *shifty eyes*
This was the shrine next door to the sake factory. As you can imagine they have a relationship between each other, as many sake barrels were on the shrine grounds.
We stopped at another one of those fantastic Japanese rest stops on the way home. And I had myself an Ebi burger at Lotteria, one of the first places to ever serve the shrimp burger! Yummmmm.
Anyway, it was a great tour. I'd like to get out to Chiba again before we leave... it's just quite the trip. Eh.