Tsukuba Mountain Plum Blossom Garden 3-25-12

March 25


Up early this morning and excited about the adventures Ric and Teresa will take me on today.  The weather is a little cool but hopefully it will warm up.  They have decided to take me to Tsukuba Mountain and Hitachi Seaside Park.  
It took about 3 hours to get to these places but the drive was well worth the view of the beauty of plum and cherry trees.  Hitachi Seaside park is famous for the bountiful beauty of daffodils and tulips.
Our first stop is at Tsukuba Mountain which we can see from a distance from Teresa's apartment in Utsunomiya.  There were lots of vendors selling food and souvenirs, and at 10:30am there was going to be a show about frog pee that can heal everything.  LOL  We walked up several flights of steps in the park to get a great view of the beautiful flowering plum trees.  

The lookout shelter gave us a wonderful view of the area and beauty.  

Some  Japanese men wanted to take our pictures which we of course said yes.  Once they were done taking our pictures I went to get some close up shots of some of the flowering plum blossoms.  The Japanese men then ask Teresa if they could take my picture of me taking a picture of the flowers.  Teresa told them to go ahead.  Now the funny part, I was taking a picture of flower, men were taking a picture of me taking a picture and Teresa was taking a picture of the men taking a picture of me. Complete circle of activity. LOL

Its' 10:30am and we are watching the show of how this frog pee is going to heal everything.  Now this guy in the show demonstrates to us how sharp his sword is, by cutting up paper that had been folded together many times.  He then takes the sword and cut his arm with it showing us the blood on his arm from the cut.  He grabs the bottle of frog pee and pours it on a cloth and rubs his arm with it.  When he removes the cloth soaked with frog piss the cut has disappeared (yeah right) the crowd goes crazy and starts clapping.  Needless to say I'm sure he sold allot of frog pee that day. LOL

Demonstrating how sharp the sword is 

 Talking about what the frog pee can heal

 Using the sharp sword to cut his arm and yes it was bleeding

Rubbing frog pee soaked cloth to rub on wound and the wound was gone.
After the show more pictures of the beauty of Tsukuba Mountain

Some flowers were falling off trees making hana yuki (flower snow)

   It's time to leave this beautiful place but first we stopped and enjoyed some plum tea to warm us up.  We talked with some nice Japanese men, one told us when he was in Army he lived in Fort Knox Kentucky.  His English was very good. 

Next we found a shop that I purchased some Plum wine can't wait to try it out. Teresa bought some chips right before we left, we will have some with our picnic lunch. 

Heading out to next destination which will be 2 hour drive.