The Ito Guesthouse was born, but did not live long! Akihiro's parents' company did some more investigation in the courts after hearing from the current owner that her husband had committed suicide. The court did not publish this information in the court-ordered auction. What does this mean? Well, no Japanese people will live in a house where such an awful thing has occurred and if it occurred on the grounds, a Shinto priest has to come and do a special service before someone will live there. This means that to be feasible, the house would have to be torn down and rebuilt. It isn't worth the price bid, so Akihiro's parents' company withdrew their bid and it will be re-auctioned. Meanwhile, we will (as of Saturday) have a storage unit in Yamanashi full of dishes and some furniture awaiting the Ito Guesthouse No 2. So, it looks like we will continue to stay at the Tokiwa Hotel and continue looking for a guesthouse.
Today we flew to Tokushima and had a beautiful view of Mt. Fuji and the Yamanashi area. To the left of Mt. Fuji there is a string of mountains. Yamanashi is the area just behind those mountains, so we can just see the top of Fuji-san many times.
A few other details to note--have you ever cooked a crab before? Well, I had my first try last night! I had received one from Akihiro's parents and it was taking up too much room in my freezer--those long legs didn't give much! So, I took him out of the freezer and he sat in my fridge and softened up a bit! He was quite delicious!
As far as my "patient", Lois is doing some better, but still suffers from pain in various places. She still needs quite a bit of help because of her left arm in a sling, though. I am spending any free day out there to help out.
It is getting really pretty here as the cherry trees are starting to bloom in some places! Hopefully I will have some pictures soon!