Funny Japanese Signs

For how many people can speak English here in Japan--their translating skills are HORRIBLE!! Almost everytime we go out we end up laughing at someone's shirt, a sign, etc. I need to start taking more pictures. Here are a couple of signs we saw when we were in Tokyo with my parents.

I thought this purple sign was funny--the pictures are hilarious and I have no idea what they are trying to say!

When we were in Asakusa, they had a bunch of people like this all over the buildings--I thought they were pretty cool.

Lake Yamanaka

This weekend we had a chance to get away for the holiday. We went up to a place called Lake Yamanaka which is at the base of Mt. Fuji. We stayed in some cabins right off the lake with 4 other families from church. The weather was a little crummy--rainy and foggy, so unfortunately, we didn't get to see Fuji--this picture is off of the cabin website. However, despite the crummy weather, we did have loads of fun and can't wait to go back again.

They have tons of these awesome swan boats that you can rent and go ride around the lake--we plan on doing that next time we go up!

The kids and Eric roasting hot dogs one night for dinner.

Walking along the path that goes beside the lake

There were tons of fishermen out one morning--it was kind of cool to see.

I thought this was a cool picture with the fog over the lake

Sunday morning while we were there we looked out the window and saw thousands of runners--they were having a race around the lake (it is about 13 km). It was so fun to watch all of the runners and especially those runners that dressed up in costume. We saw people dressed up like characters from Toy story, a man running with a cape, a man dressed as a bird with a bird puppet on his hand, etc. I was sorry I didn't have my camera with me.

You can't really see, but all those little dots on the other side of the lake are the runners.

This isn't the best picture, but driving up we passed a ton of rice paddies. I thought it was just the most fascinating thing--this is a quick picture I took out the window.