After the horrible day that we had dealing with the driver’s license test, we had one amazing weekend. On Saturday morning, I rode my bike to pick up something that I’ve wanted to have to breakfast for a long time….cereal. Not the only option of corn flakes or chocolate corn flakes but the “snack” cereal that I was talking about a few blogs back (picture below). Ian and I had a wonderfully delicious chocolate cereal breakfast while we Skyped David and Lucy. We talked to them for nearly two hours and switched to Jessica, who we haven’t talked to in a while.
Ian had to go to work that afternoon. Originally, I was going to ride to Nishiki with him and hang out with Justine, but Rebeca and Yuusuke were spending the night with us that night, and I needed to prepare dinner and pick up a bit. They drove down for a rafting trip that Krista had planned. (Ian wanted to go, but he had to work, and I wanted to save the money for next month when we’ll be home.) While Ian was at work, I cleaned the house (after we got home on Friday night, we threw our things everywhere) while watching episodes of Toddlers and Tiaras. (Please don’t judge. I already hate myself for doing that. 
) Ian was supposed to be home by 5PM or so, but he went to Justine’s house to help her put in her new screen door. Therefore, I went ahead and started dinner, fajitas. Ian’s Aunt Margaret sent us a couple of packages of tortillas last week, so we saw it fitting to use the crap out of them. 
We had originally said we’d have dinner at 6PM, but Rebeca and Yuusuke didn’t finish their rafting adventure until about then, and they were an hour away from Yunomae, and Justine actually beat Ian home! 
Even though we ate a little later than planned, it was a fabulous meal that we all enjoyed. We watched Snow White and the Huntsman afterwards. I have heard really good things about that movie and was looking forward to watching it…..however, we got a very crappy copy of it. I liked it, but everyone else was a bit disappointed with it. I’ll admit that Kristen Stewart is a crappy actress and tends to just stare at the screen, but I still thought it was good.
Sunday morning I woke up early despite the fact that I didn’t have to go to work. I really hate doing that! On the mornings when I want to sleep in, I can’t, and on the days that I can, my body won’t let me! Ian calls me an old person, but I’m a light sleeper, so when I see the sunlight (which starts rising around 5:15) I wake up. I usually wake up a couple of times each morning before I actually get up. Anyway, I tossed and turned in bed for a bit, unwilling to wake up the other sleepy heads, so I turned my computer on and played around on it until everyone else woke up.
I made toad-in-the-hole for breakfast as we plotted our day: swimming somewhere. I tried to text and call Mary, Melissa B, and Justine to see if any of them wanted to go as well, but none of them answered their phones! 
Rebeca started studying Japanese, and Yuusuke was helping her with that while Ian stalked Melissa and Justine via Skype to get ahold of them. One of the town announcements went off, and both Rebeca and Yuusuke were surprised that we had our very own announcement box in our house. We told them that we had unplugged it because it was annoying going off all of the time! Plus, we always joke and say that the announcements are probably silly things like “The women’s club will not meet tonight. Attention: the women’s club will not meet tonight.” 
Yuusuke actually listened to the announcement and said that monkeys had been seen in the area and was warning people not to engage them. (Monkeys might seem cute, but I never, ever, EVER want to be close to one. They will seriously tear your face off!!) I know that there are monkeys living in the mountains around here, but I’ve never seen one in our neck of the woods. Krista, who lives about five minutes away from us in Mizukami, said that she saw monkeys on her roof the other day! Ha, ha!
Once Justine and Melissa came to Yunomae, we loaded up the cars, took some snacks, and went out to have a lovely swimming day. We had two options: the pretty bridge place (not actually sure what the name is) or the lake. Although the pretty bridge place is beautiful and has a rope swing, it’s a pretty popular spot for swimming, and we didn’t really want to be the loud, obnoxious foreigners coming in and ruining other swimmers’ day, so we went to the lake. The lake is actually more of a big pond fed by a mountain stream off a tiny gravel road. Had I not gone there with my ES students on a field trip when I first got here, I would have NO idea of its existence!
It was a GORGEOUS summer day for swimming. Even though it’s rainy season, we’ve been extremely fortunate with the weather. I thought that rainy season would be a hard driving rain all day, every day. With the exception of a few days, it hasn’t been at all like that, and actually the rivers and lakes are very LOW for this time of year. Even though it was hot, the water was still a little chilly. We swam, skipped rocks, ate snacks, and then explored. Justine captured some tadpoles in a water bottle and said that she was going to raise them until they turned to frogs. Melissa, Rebeca, and I laid out on the rocky beach while the boys attempted to damn the river. (Why do ALL guys try to do this?!?) At one point in time, Ian was bent over standing on the edge of the river. I could not help myself. I seized the opportunity and shoved him in. We all laughed about it, but I immediately regretted it because I KNEW he’d do the same to me. I tried to run away and beg for forgiveness, but he caught up to me and threw me in the river. However, the joke was on him because as he threw me in, I dragged him down with me, and he hit his knee on a rock in the river.
Whenever we finished goofing off, we decided it was time for a meal and made our way back to Yunomae to one of the few restaurants in town, Tokumaru. The food there is delicious, relatively cheap, and they make the BEST curry bread! Melissa was being her typical courteous self and pouring water for everyone, but we were being sarcastic little brats and drinking it as fast as possible so that she’d have to continuously pour. This backfired on me because when she realized what was going on, I started laughing mid-swallow, which caused me to choke. I spit my water out in my cup and proceeded to gulp for air for the next couple of minutes. It was a little scary and funny at the same time because I was simultaneously thinking that I was dying and laughing. Our sweet waitress noticed that I had spit up the water, and she brought me a new glass without having to ask for it!
After we enjoyed our dinner, everyone went their separate ways, and Ian and I went home. I decided to pick up—wash the dishes and a load of clothes, fold the ones that had been hanging—and then cap off the night with a double feature and try not to think that another wonderful weekend was over and it would be back to work on Monday. Living over here would be so much more fun if it was a constant vacation!
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