Taking Rylee to Yochien

 Things in Japan are a little different. You get so use to punching an address into your GPS and getting (usually!) clear directions to your destination.  Here... not so much.  Address are very different. In an attempt to look for how to get somewhere, I put the address into Google maps and Mapquest. Both sent me nowhere near the area I knew the destination was in.  Same with my iPhone.  (Granted, the problem could be me and not the map system, but this is how it was for me!) The way you do it here is you put the phone number into your map app or GPS and that gives you the coordinates.  If you have friends, they can also message you a "pin" to follow.  I have successfully done that, but I have not managed to figure out how to pin something when I am there.

My friend drove me out to her kid's Yochien (Japanese preschool), and showed me around.  She also put the pin for it into my phone.  I signed Rylee up for the Yochien, and paid exorbitant amounts for Rylee to have this once-in-a-lifetime experience.  Then I had to find my way back there.  I had to find my way from a different direction as well!  I pulled out my phone, found my pinned address and let it take me there.

This is the big road.  I have no idea what it is called.

The intersection with signs I can't really read. 

Lots of bridges over water around here and you can see it is low tide right now. 

It is kind of pretty and the mountains make it less citified. 

Gulp!  Down the narrow road that I had trouble with last time.  (I made it unscathed this time.) 

 They totally look like alleys, but are real roads.  I think they look pretty cool, but less so when I'm driving them.  

Then you have to find the little parking lot, which is set back from the road.  Once you successfully park in the appropriate area, you look around, and there is no school to be seen.  You also did not see one while driving by.  How does one find a school where there is none to be found?!! A GPS is no help here.

 To get to the Yochien, you zig zag through several of thee alleys, which are actually walkway alleys between houses. The houses have no frontage to the road at all.  You access the parking lot and road through these little walkways.

And eventually you will see a fun playground and there is the school.  Rylee was too cute in her adorable uniform!  She says the days are too long to be away from me, but she seems to be doing well. It is full on Japanese immersion- no English at all.  And there are only 15 or so American kids in the whole school.  (I think there are 75-80 kids there.)