Of Moms and Temples

So my mom is now gone.  We had a great trip but they never last very long.  We did a lot of things and went to a lot of places.  We took a trip down to Shiga to go to an outlet mall.  It was nice, but the Japanese idea of "outlet" prices is very different from the American idea of "outlet" prices.  After that we went to a hotel in a nearby city and relaxed for the evening.  The next day we headed back up north and stopped at Eiheiji (永平寺-which literally means Temple of Eternal Peace...or something close to that）in Fukui.  It was an amazingly beautiful place in the mountains.  All the massive cedar trees were full of snow and it was lightly snowing when we arrived.

Yes, they're in black and white.  Somehow it just seemed wrong taking color pictures in such a serene area.

After this we shot over to the Fukui Dinosaur Museum.  It was pretty cool and there was a lot of interesting things in it.  Also, it was only 500 yen to get in.  I'd hate to see what the prefecture is hitting up taxpayers for on that one!  If you were born in the year of the dragon (this year) it's free to get in.  Every year, if your animal sign matches the year, it's free for that person.  

This is the only picture I'll post of the museum.  This is a meteorite that fell from space.  Visitors were allowed to touch it.  I touched it.  Now I'm waiting to grow an extra eye or ear.

We left the museum and took a trip back to Kanazawa through the mountains.  Despite Kanazawa City's awful road maintenance record, the mountain roads were excellently maintained.  I was surprised and impressed.

The rest of the trip was pretty much an all you can eat buffet.  We ate everything at every restaurant we went to.  Because of that, I am now off to the gym.

Thanks for a great trip mom!