IKEA in Japan

There's an IKEA about 20-30 mins by train from my apartment, but all this time I've never gone. All the talk from folks at home about the new store has made me pretty curious, though. So today I went for the first time. Actually, it was my first visit to an IKEA store anywhere. Pretty cool place:


Photos:

• Left: Entrance to the Kohoku IKEA in Yokohama.
• Right: my purchase. I thought the blue pot was too cheery to pass up. I've named him "Dennis" because it seems like a good name for something green, whatever that means...

P.S. Bonus points to anyone who can tell me what kind of plant Dennis is. I have no idea.

Hakone

This week I took yet another day trip. This time I went to Hakone, a popular hot springs area close to Mt Fuji and about 2 hours by local train from my apartment. After arriving in the town, I took another train even farther up the mountain and went to the Hakone Open Air Museum, which I think is possibly the best museum I've ever visited. If you ever make it to Hakone, you must go. Later, when I stopped at the Tourist Information office after leaving the museum to ask which bus to take to Lake Ashi, they told me that there would also be a fireworks display on the lake that same night. How lucky am I? Here are a few photos from my day:






Photos:

• 1st row, left: group of sculptures on the "Green Plaza" at the museum
  
• 1st row, right: inside the "Symphonic Sculpture" at the museum; all the walls are made of stained glass.
  
• 2nd row, left: close to the entrance to the museum, the "seats" are designed like eggs. They're even cushioned so you can take off your shoes and walk on them.
  
• 2nd row, right: another sculpture at the museum
  
• 3rd row, left: traditional Japanese drumming at the "Hanabi" (fireworks) festival at Ashinoko.
  
• 3rd row, right: my very first glimpse of Mt Fuji. It's beautiful, isn't it?
  
• 4th row, left: some lucky kids are getting new pet goldfish at one of the summer festival tents near the lake. It took a serious amount of will-power for me to NOT come home with a new fish myself...
  
• 4th row, right: fireworks over the lake. You can also see the hundreds of paper lanterns that they floated on the water, if you look across the bottom of the photo.