Mito

I had a week off, but couldn't get it together to take the whole time and do something with it. Mostly, it's because of laziness, but also because of the cats. With Pudgy having died so recently, I don't want to entrust the little darlings to a stranger, and it's hard to ask a friend to look after them.

Anyway, I decided to go to Mito for a night. K would feed the munchkins, and I thought it would be a good idea to check this town out. I'm generally down for random towns, so off I went. I input a few geocache coordinates into my GPS, and I hopped the train north.

After checking in to the Toyoko Inn, I went and found a cache on the Sakura River, an uninspiring concrete lined trench cutting uniformly through town. The cache was well hidden, though. The second one was more interesting - it was at the site of a former water tower, and looked transported from a Disney fairy tale, all pastel and obvious decoration. I also walked past some nice red brick buildings, and a big prefectural library.

Then I went to the movie theater and watched Wanted. Truly horrible. Skip it.

Thursday, I went to check out Kairakuen, which is supposed to be one of the top three classical gardens in Japan. There was a cache there that I couldn't find, but it was nice to walk around the grounds. Truthfully, though, the garden was a little boring. I preferred Ritsurin Koen in Takamatsu on Shikoku. Perhaps if I went during plum season I'd feel differently.

After the garden, I had a stroll around Lake Senba. Track team junior high schoolers were training, running the lake course. A few older folks having an amble. Maybe the best part of the trip, this just walking.