We are getting over jet lag (4-hour time difference) and travel fatigue and settling into our holiday in Japan. We are renting a home of a former colleague in the suburb of Ibabraki, the suburb next to our former home suburb of Minoh. We are on the outskirts of the Osaka metropolitan area and are surrounded by the hills and trees of the Minoh Hills National Park.
On our first full day in Japan, we visited our old house, which is now vacant and in dire need of TLC. We also visited former school, the Senri and Osaka International Schools of Kwansei Gakuin. I was impressed with the improvements to the campus that Kwansei Gakuin University has been doing, the place looks great. The kids are full of nostalgia and we did have a nice life in our beautiful neighborhood of Onohara Nishi. I loved going to our old Starbucks and Q’s Mall. Q’s Mall is an outdoor mall that is now at the end of the Senri Chuo Line. They are opening a subway station which started right before we left 4 and 1/2 years ago.
We watched Wonka, the musical by director Paul King. I loved it because the songs were great, it was old-fashioned in that it had the look and feel of the original 1971 movie that I loved as a kid and lots of great actors, costumes, and sets. I see the appeal of star Timothee Chalamet who starred in a young Willy Wonka. The story was a prequel to the 1971 original. I give it a “thumbs up”!
Winter skies in Japan are so blue and clear! The summer is hot, humid and hazy but winter is dry and cold usually.
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