Not even going to lie…..I’m super behind. It’s only about a week’s worth of info, but I’ve got A LOT to write about!
When we went to bed last Friday night, the wind was ferocious. There for a bit it seriously sounded like our house was going to blow down. There was a loud clunk, clunk, clunk in the back yard, and I made Ian go check on it. It turned out that our rake and garden bucket were blown across the yard! The wind continued all night long, and even woke me up the next morning. 
I hate waking up early on my one good sleep-in day each week!!!
We had a good morning of skype dates, and Justine was in Yunomae going to the onsen here, so she stopped by our house. We had planned on going on a short hike that day, but after the weather report called for a 90% chance of rain, we decided to scratch that idea. We went to one of the only restaurants in town for lunch with her, and afterwards headed to her house. Our plan from there was to drop by her house and give Melissa B. the head’s up that we were coming to her house to mow her yard, something that Ian had promised to do all week but then became busy with prepping for his interview. Melissa B. is terrified of mowing her yard because she has grasshoppers in the tall weeds, and nothing strikes fear in her heart quite like a grasshopper. 
I’m not lying…..she’s seriously afraid of grasshoppers. While we were at Justine’s, Ian mowed her yard quickly while we attempted to reach Melissa through multiple phone calls and messages, but she never responded. We all decided to just go over to her house anyway and do her yard. Despite the fact that it was raining on us, we continued to work until the job was done. Justine pulled weeds by her car port, Ian manned the mower, and I used the scythe to cut the super tall grass that the mower couldn’t handle. Since it was wet, the grass kept getting stuck in the mower, and Ian had to stop frequently to pull it out. Plus, Melissa has a lot of tangles of some vine-like plant in her yard, and that also kept getting in the blades. I totally understand why Melissa is afraid of her yard now. As we started cutting the grass, grasshoppers hopped away by the dozens. We also found a couple of tiny tree frogs and a newt. Even though we had three people, it still took us an hour to do her tiny yard.
Once we finished and put away our equipment, we noticed that Melissa had text us and asked if we were at her house. We told her no (we wanted her nice clean yard to be a surprise), but she called our bluff. She said that her neighbors called her and said that there were three foreigners at her house and described each one of us to a T. 
She said that as soon as her neighbors described us, she knew EXACTLY who was at her house. 
So much for surprises!
That night, we went out to eat with Justine, Mary, and Hiro in Hitoyoshi. Although we didn’t have a plan in mind, we ended up at this tiny little ramen shop (below, left). Literally, we opened the door and stepped right up to the counter. It was a tiny little place, but it’s always at those places where you find the BEST ramen, and this place DIDN’T disappoint. Before coming to Japan, the only ramen I had was those little instant ramen packs that college students live off of. Japanese ramen is NOTHING like that! Japanese ramen is warm, delicious, full of meat and veggies, and hearty (below, right). We all really enjoyed our ramen and decided to finish the night with ice cream at Baskin Robbins. Apparently we inspired Hiro to definitely study English that night. Mary has been trying to make him learn, but he told her after that night that he definitely wanted to learn English now because it seems like we always have such a good time, and he wants to understand more of the conversations. Yay, internationalization!
Sunday morning we went to Mass. I tried my best to pay attention to the words and see what I could understand. I got the sign of the cross down! After Mass, Ian suggested that we go to McDonald’s for breakfast….heck yeah! It’s been a while since we’ve been to McDonald’s, and we got there JUST before they switched to lunch. Although they were out of my favorite, pancakes, we had a pretty decent breakfast for relatively cheap, and it was just like being at home….McDonald’s after breakfast. We were the Sunday morning church crowd! lol.
After that we headed up to Kumamoto City for an archery on horseback festival that Justine had told us about. We met up with her and Melissa B., who took an early bus to the city, at Suizenji Park. The park itself is a really pretty traditional Japanese garden, complete with koi ponds, (with koi the size of catfish! Seriously….they could have been dinner!) (below, bottom picture) manicured bonsai, a temple, and even a green hill known as “Fuji-san” (below, right). There were several other ALTs from the city and different parts of Kumamoto attending, and we all congregated together into a huge gajin group. The festival started off with a ceremony in which each archer paraded through the course his horse, and then the real action began. Each archer had a HUGE bow and arrows slung across his back with three targets to shoot at as his horse galloped through the course. Although the arrows were rubber tipped, it was still quite amazing how accurately some of the archers could shoot! Unfortunately, Ian forgot the camera, so the only pictures we got were taken on our iPhones, which isn’t the best quality, so a lot of the pictures were just blurs. After the archery ended, we milled around the park area, feeding the gigantic koi and looking at the tiny trinkets the gift shops had to offer.
Since Ian had his interview on Monday morning, he stayed the night in the city with Ana and Michael while I took the bus back to Hitoyoshi with Melissa and Justine. After we left Ian at the tram station by Suizenji Park, he called me a few minutes later and told me that I still had the car keys. Oh no! He had to hop on the next tram immediately and meet us at the bus station so that I could get them back to him in time. It’s a really good thing that he realized that I had the keys almost as soon as I left because had he not I don’t know what would have happened. Since Ian kept the car and the bus dropped us off in Hitoyoshi, I had to find my own way back to Yunomae. I knew the the last train to Yunomae left Hitoyoshi at 9:30PM, so I banked on taking that home. I wouldn’t be getting home until about 10:30, but I didn’t want to make Justine or Melissa take me home since it would be quite out of the way for either of them. I asked if one of them would take me to the train station since it’s fairly far from the bus station, and Melissa said she would. She should have turned left out of the parking lot to go to the train station, so when she turned right, I asked where we were going to which she calmly replied, “By the way, I’m taking you home.” She drove forty minutes out of her way to take me home! I’m telling you…she literally bends over backwards to help a friend in need! I was so incredibly grateful to her!
That night was incredibly quiet at home. I always take Ian for granted. Even if I’m in one room, and he’s in the other, just knowing that there’s someone else around is a comfort. I guess you’d get used to it, but I don’t know how people live alone. The silence would KILL me. I skyped a few people, including Sarah and Caleb, who were getting ready to have their first baby. 
I haven’t talked to them since earlier in the year, so it was awesome to catch up and see their excitement about the baby.
Okay, that’s all for last weekend. Now to move onto last week and this past weekend…..
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