Happy Birthday II

We both had a great nights' sleep. We had talked about doing a low key day today..getting unpacked, signed in here on the base and generally hanging out and having a birthday!

Our favorite cheetah came to visit!

While the others were still sleeping we wandered around..
This beautiful cherry tree is beside the Baird's house.

Chippy Two (Executive Officer) lives here :-)
(That's our Dave!)

Sarah the goldfish came to live here today.
Her family is moving back to the states.

It turned out to be such a nice day that we decided to go on our first adventure...

to the train...

smooth, clean, on time-GREAT!

We rode west to Odawara Castle, founded in the mid-15th century. It is a national historic site and the renovations are still ongoing. It was a delightful afternoon....

Lunch stop at the foot of the Castle Keep.

Inside the Keep are exhibits of Odawara
history and Samurai culture.

There were windows on the way up

overlooking the cherry trees below...exquisite roofs

and at the very top there were walkways
around the outside of the building

The mountains to the north

The train station and town to the east..
the Sagami Bay to the west.
Back down at the bottom...time to walk the grounds.

The flowering plums were beautiful also.

Now just some pictures of the grounds...

Akagane-mon Gate (copper gate)

Inner Mote

Cherry Blossoms

Wall construction model

Hotoku Ninomlya-jinja Shrine

As we were leaving we stopped to watch the archeologists doing the excavations below. It was a wonderful afternoon. On the way back to the train station we stopped...

at a pastry store---yum!

don't know what was cooking in here-

smelled great!

back to the train...

an hour after we got home the birthday
boy got treated to this wonderful dinner...

that ended with cake and a song...

Happy Birthday to You!
What a way to celebrate!!