The conference officially ended today (Sunday) at 12noon. I was able to squeeze in a bit of sight-seeing before I need to catch my next flight on Monday back to Tokyo and on to Istanbul. The first stop – coffee at Tully’s!
The pastry item next to my “honey milk latte” is a ham and gooey cheese thing. 🙂 It was very good and inside, yes there was gooey cheese!
After some food, were were off to explore the area. First stop was a little shopping area where I could pick up a souvenir for my office that would remind me of Akita. Next, we were going to go to the Art Museum. As we approached the plaza, we could hear chanting and singing. As it turns out, Japan was playing in the World Cup today so there were hundreds of fans watching the game on a giant television screen on the side of one of the buildings. They were pretty excited! This is me with one of the “cheerleaders” of the group…
There are statues and artistic representations of the Namahage everywhere. He is considered the “protector” of Akita but the tradition dates back hundreds of years. Here are a few of the ones I liked:
As we walked through some of the shops, it became very clear that the Japanese are very creative and will invent (or sell) almost anything like this toilet game…
or these brushes to clean your dishes…
And so many choices for snacks…
But there were a few familiar things as well…
The last stop of the day was a walk through Akita City Park. This is a beautiful space in the heart of the city. I took a lot of photos but wanted to share these….enjoy.
Tomorrow morning, I’ll take the bus back to Akita Airport and fly to Haneda Tokyo Airport…and then transfer to Narita International Airport. My flight for Istanbul leaves in the evening and I should arrive there at 5am! I’m sure I will be totally rested 🙂