Museums and Sake

Today I got out of bed at 6:30 day in Sano and beyond. My host family fixed me a HUGE breakfast. I swear I thought I would lose weight - but I'm going to end up gaining weight on this trip. I am eating non-stop! The breakfast was delicious - oishee - eggs, sausage, a bagel, half a doughnut and half a sweet bread. And yes, I ate it all - well most of it anyway.
After breakfast we left to meet up with the team. It was great to see everyone again - even though it had only been one night. It was as if it were a reunion - but it was nice to feel comfortable and to not have to worry about language issues. However, I must say I am learning japanese much faster now that I am being forced to use it more!
Our first stop was the Ashikaga Gakko, the oldest school in Japan. It was very beautiful and all I could think about was how much my mother would enjoy looking at the school, even though it was a university not an elementary school. Beautiful raked pepple lawns and cherry and plum blossoms just starting to bloom. Gorgeous!
Next we went to a ceramic museum which has beautiful works of art. The museum features a plate made for a king that the japanese refer to as a national treasure - worth more than 500,000 yen! The museum is privately funded and the owner spent quite a bit of time talking with our resident museum fundraiser, Amy, who offered him lots of tips on how to raise money for the museum. Let's hope he takes her up on some of the ideas!
The next museum we went to featured some beautiful works of art painted on paper. They had such a sheen to them it was as if they were painted with gold flecks or sand. There were three museums tied to this one and we flew through them all. The last one Sheila and I were finally chased out of by one of the Rotary club members. We were enjoying all of the fossils and didn' realized everyone was already gone.
Our last stop was the Sake factory. I am rapidly becoming a fan of Sake. Here I thought of my sister and how she would get a kick out of how they make sake. It was very interesting and I enjoyed how the sake brewer? was so demonstrative in his descriptions. We almost didn't need a translater.