Tour of the New Dental Clinic

Opening of Friend's New Dental Clinic

On Mar 29, we attended the official opening of the new Kubota Family Dental Clinic. The flowers behind us have our name (in black). The family worked closely with the architect to incorporate their own ideas for both a business space and a personal space. After touring the new facility, guests attended a party where there was traditional singing and dance (specific to this area) called "Yagi Bushi" Please look at the video and click on the snapshots to enlarge them.

Mito Ume no Matsuri

This weekend's trip was to Mito to see the Ume matsuri (plum blossom festival). Mito is famous for being the home one of the 3 branch families of the Tokugawa family tracing their ancestry to the 1st Tokugawa Shogun. It was a powerful family and the 9th lord created a public garden in the Edo era with a huge variety of Japanese plum trees. Now the blossoms are in full bloom and many people came to see the festival. We visited many sites and went downtown to eat before returning home. Mito is famous for Anko nabe. Anko is called "angler fish" in English and is an ugly fish of which all the parts can be eaten (except the bones). We tried the nabe, a soup made with Anko, vegetables, tofu and a broth with miso and the liver of the Anko. We ate it all. My friend had a tuna "kabuto yaki", grilled tuna fish head. Please ignore the photo if you don't really like fish!!.