CoCo's

While the guys were out golfing today, the ladies and I took a trip to Ashikaga and out to the Coco's winery to have lunch and sip a little wine.

The COCO Winery in Ashikaga

Today Heather, Chiho, and I went to the COCO winery out in Ashikaga for a day of relaxation and wine tasting. The weather was awesome as we sat outside and tasted our fair share of thier product, and I must say it was all good. Their vineyard is layed out in the side of a pretty good sized mountain which many people like to climb while participating in a tour and educational program. As we had all seen grape vines before, we decided they probably werent any different at the top of the hill than at the bottom, took a pass on the climb, and stuck to sampling. http://www.cocowine.com/english/english.html

Ōarai 大洗

On Monday we drove to the coast and spent a day in the port city of Ooarai. We visited the fish market at Naka Minato, a large public aquarium called Aqua World, the Marine Tower, and finally spent some time walking on the beach. The quantiy/quality seafood available at the market was amazing and very inexpensive. The aquarium was as nice as any we have visited in the states and had some pretty unique diplays. As the ocean goes in this part of Japan the water was very cold and the sand a little dirty, but it was nice just the same. As its only a 2 hr drive, Im sure we will return.
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=oarai+japan&layer=&ie=UTF8&z=12&ll=36.341955,140.525436&spn=0.182519,0.31311&om=1