Yesterday Shumpei and his friend Mariko (who just arrived from 1 year in Vancouver, Canada) and me made a day-trip
to the Matsumoto-castle and the city of Nagano, which was the place of the olympic
winter-games in 1996. It took nearly 3 hours for one distance, but Shumpei
drove me / us very good. The tour was only up and down the hills.

In Nagano we were not able to visit the city, but we saw a very interesting

Temple which has the Manji as a symbol. Manji is a buddhist-symbol,

but now I ask myself why Hitler was Vegetarian and used this Buddhism-symbol
as symbol for the German Empire ?! I really dont know and was very
surprised by seeing this symbol. If you like you can use google, click
onto PICTURE and write: Manji and press enter. You will be very

surprised what kind of results you will see.

Matsumoto-castle was a really amazing visit. The big castle

is really old, built for a Shogun, completly out of wood.

It looks so beautifull, exspecially by night. But sorry: The night-light

pictures did not come out very good. I am sorry for that.

You will also find some picture of the visit of Shumpeis grandma

and also about a funny dinner in a japanese traditional restaurant

where I eat again with chop-sticks and tried to close the entrance-door

without knowing that it was an automatic-door which runs with an electric motor.

Sunday we had just a relaxing and shopping day. So: no pictures.

But on monday I start a trip by my own to Kyoto and Hiroshima.