Golden Week greatness part I: Yakushima

Ah, Golden Week.  What’s that, you ask?  It’s a series of national holidays the first week of May which this year resulted in a three day weekend immediately followed by a four day weekend.  I realize that I am super, incredibly, ridiculously, immensely behind in this blog, so I’ll try my best to catch up as quickly as possible.  I have a LOT to write about, so please stay with me!

The first weekend was spent on the island of Yakushima with Mary and Hiro.  Yakushima is part of Kagoshima Prefecture, which is south of us, but is way out at sea.  Saturday morning started off extremely early at 5AM after going to bed at 11PM.    Since we stayed the night at Mary’s, she fixed breakfast for us, and we were on the road by 6AM to make our ferry in Kagoshima City at 8:30AM, which is the only car ferry to the island each day.  That ferry was the nicest ferry I’ve ever seen.  There were two decks for vehicles and three for people.  In addition to the normal large passenger rooms, there was a gift shop, information desk, karaoke room, children’s play room, locker room, showers, little restaurant, and I’m sure many other rooms that we didn’t even get to explore!  While still in the port, we stayed outside on the deck to watch Kagoshima go bye-bye.  The water was a really nice blue color, and we could see jellyfish and large chunks of kelp floating by.  One thing that really blew our minds was the express ferry (below left).  It looks like a normal ferry, but once it leaves the busy port area, it lifts up on stilts and cuts through the water at incredible zooming speeds.  Our ferry was four hours long, but I think I heard someone say that the express ferry only takes an hour or so.  !

 

During those four hours, we napped, talked, wandered around, went out to the decks, etc.  I’ve never been out to “high seas” before, so to be surrounded by beautiful blue water on all sides without any sight of land was quite a new experience for me!  In addition, it was wonderful weather that day—big puffy clouds in the blue sky, tiny white sail boats dotting the horizon, and when we reached land, it was green jagged mountains in the distance.  We did see quite the interesting character (above right) who we named “Mr. Fancy Pants.”  This guy looked like he has stepped off of the set of an old western movie, complete with a three piece suit and old timely leather luggage.  Although we never actually spoke to him, he was studying an English grammar book. 

When the island of Yakushima finally came into, everyone formed a line around the exits to get off the ship.  We said goodbye to Mr. Fancy Pants in our mind and set off on our Yakushima adventure!  After a quick bit of lunch, we went on our first hike, a five hour trip to a view of the interior of the island.  Hiro, Mary’s boyfriend, drove the whole weekend, and his driving skills are…..Asian to say the least.  As we were driving up the curvy, dangerous mountain road to the trail, he was rounding out corners, driving on the right side of the road (in Japan, you drive on the left), speeding when he shouldn’t have, etc.  I’ve never felt car sick, but I think that’s the closest I’ve come.   

Our first adventure of the day included crossing a small river to get pictures.  Everything on Yakushima is green and gorgeous, so of course we had to get to the other side of the stream and pose on the rocks (below left)!  The water was crystal clear and very cold.  I know this because crossing the stream involved me getting my shoes completely soaked in the area where there were no rocks.  On our hike up the mountain, Hiro became our guide.  None of us thought he was very physically fit, and Mary even said that he balks when she suggests they work out together.  He would be in front of us, and we’d have to holler at him to slow down and let the fat Americans catch up!    Mary and I joked that his mother is not his real mother.  Instead, he is part billy goat.  Although the trail was steep in some parts, it was nothing like Mt. Ichifusa, and for that we were thankful!!  The hiking trail was rather busy.  TONS of people go to Yakushima during Golden Week, and we could literally follow the string of people all the way to the top, which actually worked out in our favor because people at the top could get pictures of the four of us together (below right).    

 

After our hike, we checked into our hotel, soaked in an onsen, grabbed breakfast and lunch for the next day, and finally made it to bed around 10:30PM.  We were already exhausted from our early morning and hike, but the adventure was far from over.  Sunday was our planned ten hour hike to the Jumon-sugi, a HUGE old tree estimated to be 2,000-7,000 years old.  It’s one of the most popular trails on Yakushima.  That morning, we woke up at 3AM after only 4.5 short hours of sleep.    We had to be up that early so that we could be at the bus station by 4:30 and on the trail by 5:30.  It’s a long, long, LONG ten hour hike, and if you don’t make it to the halfway point of the tree by noon, you have to tuck your tail between your legs in defeat and turn around because under the thick canopy of trees, daylight is lost earlier than normal.  I’m convinced that NO ONE should EVER have an alarm set for 3AM.  That was miserable waking up that early, and honestly I thought we were nuts for attempting such an early morning hike.  How were we supposed to see without daylight???  However, since it is such a popular trail, everyone and their mother was at the bus stop at 4:30AM right there with us.  I COULD NOT believe the amount of people!  We had to take the bus up to the trail head, another good forty minutes away. 

The trail head itself was incredibly busy considering the early morning hour.  There were buses coming and going, people using the bathroom one last time before the hike, hikers with high spirits smiling and taking pictures before stepping foot on the trail, guides instructing their followers to stretch, and person after person, group after group starting down the trail.  The first part of the trail was rather nice—it was flat and followed an old railroad bed.  We didn’t understand why everyone kept saying how hard this hike was—it was flat and smooth!  The only downside was that the ties were uneven, so we constantly had to focus on where we placed our feet to avoid tripping.  Another downside (kind of) was that the trail had these footpaths over rivers without any side rails (below left).  We were up probably 200 feet in the air, and all I could think was “Don’t trip!”  Just to show you how high up we were in the picture, those are the tops of the trees.  You can’t see the river below, but trust me, it’s there!

 

The easy part of the trail lasted for about two or three hours, and then we reached the actual hiking part of the trail.    That part lasted FOREVER.  It seemed to be one continuous staircase.  Step after step after step after step.  We took breaks often, but my gosh, it just never stopped!  One of our breaks was beside the Wilson Cedar, a giant stump of an old cedar tree.  At least ten people were standing inside the stump taking pictures, and it wasn’t even crowded.  That’s how big this thing is!  If you take a picture from a certain angle looking upward into the tree canopy, the opening of the tree makes a heart.  Unfortunately, we couldn’t get a picture of it because Ian’s camera lens couldn’t fit the open end of the stump in one shot.    At another stop, we rested by a stream and filled up our water bottles.  Evian, Dasani, Fuji, and all of those other high end water bottle companies, eat your heart out.  I drank from a mountain stream, and it actually was fresh spring water!  I know that you’re not supposed to drink from streams like that, but I saw other people doing it, we needed more water, and honestly how polluted can mountain stream water be??  By 9AM we were tired and ready for lunch.  Whenever you wake up at 3AM, it seems like it’s time for lunch by then!  I joked and said to look at how much we can accomplish when we wake up at 3AM—hiking a mountain by noon!    Instead of having lunch then, we held off until we literally didn’t have the energy to go farther, and the break was much needed!  Ian, Mary, and I made sandwiches, stacking the meat high and thick and calling them “American sandwiches” (above right).  Food in our bellies was EXACTLY what we needed, and after resting for a bit, we pushed onward to the Jumon-sugi, which was just around the next curve of the trail. 

Although we’d been passing and being passed by people all day, it was strange to see so many people (below left) lined up on a hiking trail to see this tree (below middle).  The tree itself is really massive, even if the picture doesn’t do it justice!  I heard that ten grown men could stretch out arm to arm around the tree and not be able to reach.  That’s quite a distance!  We weren’t able to stay at the tree for very long because there was a constant line of people behind us pushing forward and wanting pictures.  On our way down the mountain, we were completely surprised to see our buddy, Mr. Fancy Pants (below right) on the trail still dressed in his amazing three piece suit. It was crazy that he hiked that far and that long in that outfit! Although he did look a little ragged…

    

Our spirits were completely waning on the way down.  We had all hit “the wall” that runners talk about when they do marathons and hated our lives at the current moment.  There were some pretty cool holes in the ground that we found out were where people hid during the war (below left).  You aren’t allowed to go in them anymore, but it was still pretty cool.  When we reached the flatness of the railroad bed trail, we celebrated!  Even though that portion was longer than the mountain trail, walking on flat ground was such a welcome relief opposed to stumbling over rocks, roots, and steps.  Several people stopped at that portion of the trail to break and admire the waterfall.  As Ian was taking pictures, I felt a drop of water…then another…and another.  Mary said, “Is it raining?”, and as soon as we realized that it was sprinkling, Ian waterproofed his camera, shoved it into the backpack, and back down the mountain we went.  The rain started softly—first sprinkles, then light rain.  The thick canopy of trees was great for shelter since we knew it was raining but couldn’t feel it.  However, as the rain began to pour, we felt more of it.  For the last hour and a half, we were walking in the pouring rain.  ALL of us were exhausted and moody by this point, and I’m not lying when I say that not one word was spoken on that last leg.  We only stopped once or twice long enough to catch our breath and swallow a gulp of water.  The longer we rested, the more soaked we got.  I had my water proof raincoat, and it really kept my core dry, but my jeans were soaked ALL THE WAY THROUGH from top to bottom.  Each of us was drenched by the end of the trail.  Mary and Ian were REALLY hating life at that moment, but I said, “I know it sucks now, but just think about the future when we can look back on this time and laugh and say, ‘You remember that one time we went hiking in Yakushima and got caught in the rain…..’”  I’m still not completely certain that Mary or Ian find humor in it currently…..    If I could title the following picture, it would be “Despair.” 

 

It continued to pour and pour and pour all night.  We soaked in another onsen and grabbed dinner, and after that, we all collapsed into bed.  I’m not sure about anyone else, but I slept like a rock that night.  It was beautiful.  I think we all got about eleven hours of sleep, and it was WELL deserved.  After packing up on Monday morning, we grabbed breakfast/lunch in town at a Japanese/American (ish) food café.  Mary and I both had taco rice (remember this—it comes into play later).  Our last thing to do in Yakushima was to find the waterfall park.  Since we didn’t have a lot of time, Hiro used his crazy Asian driving skills to get us there as fast as possible.  Sadly, we ran out of time and had to turn back, but the trip wasn’t for nothing.  We did indeed see the monkeys and deer that roam around Yakushima and are for the most part unafraid of humans (below).  These guys we just found hanging out along the side of the road.  Some of the monkeys we almost hit because they WOULD. NOT. MOVE.

   

On the way back, Mary told Hiro that we didn’t have much time to get back, so he should drive fast.  He said, “challenge accepted” and drove like a crazy person—rounding corners on a one lane road, whizzing through a construction zone that he should have stopped at, and bouncing over pot holes so quickly that my head literally bumped on the ceiling, but we made our ferry!  The ride back was….special.  We felt the boat rolling over waves as we left the port, and I jokingly said, “I hope no one gets sea sick!”    The farther we got away from the island, the worse the surf got.  That ferry was bobbing up and down, up and down, up and down in the ocean.  Ian estimated that it was fifteen to twenty foot swells, and it felt like being on a really turbulent airplane.  The boat would rise up and crash down as I got that weightless feeling in my stomach.  At first it was fun and thrilling, but after two hours of that, it got really old.  Even though we were on the second passenger deck, we could see the waves splash up on the windows.  Mary was starting to feel sick, so she went to the bathroom, and Hiro followed, waiting outside the door for her like a good boyfriend.  Ian and I decided to be adventurous idiots and go outside on the deck (below).  From the second passenger deck, I could feel ocean mist blowing on me.  The wind was ridiculously strong, and I felt like one of those reporters who cover hurricanes.  Even though I tried, I literally could NOT walk forward to the front of the ship because the wind was so strong.  Ian posted a really funny video on facebook of me trying to walk forward.  When we had had our fun and came back inside, Mary and Hiro still weren’t back, so I went into the bathroom to check on her.  Each stall was being occupied, and only sounds of vomit were coming from each.  There was a little girl puking in the sink because she couldn’t get to a toilet.  Just being in there made me feel sick, and I told Mary sorry, but I couldn’t stay in there.  I hadn’t felt sick until that point.  When I got back to our seats, I had to lay down and ended up falling asleep.  When I woke up, we were in Kagoshima Bay, and the seas were much calmer.

 

Mary insists that it wasn’t the bumpy ride that made her sick.  Instead, it was the taco rice.  I agreed.  Later that night I got sick as well, but neither of the guys did.  Not exactly the best way to end a vacation, but it was indeed quite the adventure!!  Stay tuned for the next blog about Nagasaki!

A brief(ish) catch-up of last week

I’m going to try to cover last week as quickly as possible so that I’m all caught up.  I don’t have as much time to blog this week since it’s Golden Week, which means that it’s a three day weekend followed by a four day weekend, giving me a two day work week.     Bonus: I only have my two favorite work days this week, Tuesday and Wednesday.  I get to sleep in both days until 8:30, visit my nursery/elementary kids, and don’t have my Thursday night class.  Hurray! 

Monday:

Ian had his interview last Monday at 10:30, and I told him to call me as soon as he heard if he got it or not.  I had class until 12:35, but when I got back to my desk, I noticed that he hadn’t called me yet.  I gave him until after my lunch time, 1:15, to call.  I assumed that he had just forgotten about calling.  Since I still hadn’t heard a word from him and was chomping at the bit to do so, I called but got no answer.  I tried back again an hour later with the same result. He finally called me around 3:00 saying that he JUST finished the interview, which turned out to be an interview/training session.  HE GOT THE JOB!  HURRAY!      He’ll be teaching up to three classes a week to factory workers in Nishiki, a town about thirty minutes from Yunomae.  The classes are two hours long each, and the pay is 5,000 yen a class.  Not bad!  I’m sooooooooo proud of him for finding and obtaining this job!

That morning in my 2-1 class we played a game, and I owed prizes to the winners.  A few came to me during the break period, and I assumed that the rest would come sometime that afternoon.  During the break between 5th and 6th period, a few students were milling around my desk looking kind of awkward, and without thinking I whipped out my prizes: a selection of stickers, pencils, American themed post it notes, etc.  The kids looked at each other and then me.  I told them, “Douzo,” which means “go ahead” because usually they’re really shy about snatching a prize.  The girl told me that they weren’t there for me, but for Kyuuma-sensei, the PE teacher who sits beside me.  That’s when it dawned on me that they weren’t even in 2-1; they were third graders!  *face palm*  I was so embarrassed!!

Since Ian wasn’t at home when I got home, I had no distractions and went for a bike ride (below), taking the cycling road again and rode all the way to Asagiri, which took about an hour.  Even though I had a very strong head wind, it was a lovely ride.

When I got home, I started dinner for us, knowing that Ian would be home within the hour.  I wanted it to be super special since we had a pretty good reason for celebrating.  I had stopped by the grocery to pick up a little cake and Coke for celebration time, made a delicious fried rice and caramel drizzle for the cake, actually set the table, colored a “congratulations” banner, and used our nice wine glasses…….. only to have it all go to waste.    As the clock ticked by, I knew that Ian should be home, so I called him.  He said that he was too tired and didn’t feel well, so he had to pull over and take a nap.  When he got home, he looked dreadful and immediately went to the bathroom.  Poor little Ian had food poisoning!  He said that he felt bad all day, but powered through it since he had the interview and had to drive back.    Needless to say, he didn’t want to eat anything and immediately curled in bed.  I asked him if he wanted anything, and he said ginger ale.  I drove to our local conbini and back only to realize that there was a ginger ale he had bought earlier in the day sitting in the passenger’s seat.  Blarg!  I felt so bad for him since he felt awful even though it was such a happy occasion!

Tuesday:  

I had my nursery schools that morning, and I think things are getting a little better at Jikou, where I have younger kids now.  I’m just not used to the extremely shy and quiet type of nursery kids!  At Tobu, all of the kids are always so excited to see me.  One of the kids was making silly faces at me, so I stuck my tongue out at him.  He did the same back at me, but the teacher saw him and said something like “Don’t do that!!”  I was like, “Yeah….don’t do that…..”    Sorry for getting you in trouble, kid!

I was talking to a couple of my third grade girls at the JHS before class that morning, and two girls said that they were best friends and lesbians.  I said “lesbians??”  They nodded.  I’m not sure if they were just wanting to see how I would react to that claim or what, (I highly, HIGHLY doubt they are actually lesbians) but I tried to tell them that no, they weren’t lesbians!

Lunch was great that day because I ate with Obama!  Ha, ha.  A couple of blogs ago I posted about how one of the kids at the JHS is nicknamed Obama, and it just so happens that I ate lunch at his table that day.  (I swear that I’ll eventually get a picture of him!)  I brought my iPhone to lunch that day and played “guess how old Melissa’s family is”.  They love to play that game, and I think it’s rather funny how they have difficulties guessing people’s ages.  It seems like the Japanese look so much younger than they really are until they hit a certain age.  Then once they start to look old, THEY LOOK OLD.  All of my kids are always SOOOOO surprised when I tell them that Grandmother is ninety, Mommy and Daddy are sixty-two, Christina is thirty-one, and Amanda is thirty.  The lowest guess they got for Grandmother was seventy, for Mommy was forty-one, and they thought that Christina was younger than me!  It always makes me laugh!

….and to wrap up Tuesday on a good note, I found out that I won the blog challenge!  Remember how I was a guest blogger and asked you all to visit my friend’s blog so that I could get the most views and win?  Well, I won!  A big THANKS! to all of you who helped me achieve that.  As a result, I won a book!  Woo-hoo!

Wednesday:

I blogged about Wednesday last week, so check out that post, but I have more to add.  We went out to eat with Mary, Justine, and Melissa that night to discuss plans for our trip to Nagasaki at the end of this week.  When we got up to pay, Mary realized that her 30,000 yen (more that $300) had fallen out of her pocket!    We went back and double checked the booth, her car, the parking lot, EVERY WHERE, but it wasn’t there.  Even the sweet waitresses were trying to find it for us.  She said that the ONLY other place it could be was the shopping center that she went to before she met us.  At this point, I’m sure most of you are groaning and thinking about how that’s $300 that she’ll never see again.  If this was America, chances are that would be true.  However, this is Japan, and people are honest here.  She called the shopping center the next day to see if anyone had noticed the missing money.  The person said that yes, a guy had picked it up and turned it into the police.  All Mary had to do was go to the station, fill out some paperwork, and she got her money back.  It was amazing!  None of us could believe that she got that money back!  I really love Japan sometimes. 

Thursday:

Although my schedule said that I only had one class on Thursday, it didn’t stop it from being a difficult day.  I thought that I was going to have the rest of the day to blog or do whatever, but it was a special PTA day at school, and therefore the schedule was out of order.  The PTA in Japan is NOTHING like it is at home.  From what I remember from my own experiences, parents DREAD going to the ONE PTA meeting that’s held each semester.  Here, meetings are often, and the parents are super involved in the school.  I had to attend an hour long meeting that afternoon in the gym with a lot of the parents and rest of the teachers.  The only reason I had to do this was because they needed me to introduce myself to the parents at the end of the meeting with the other teachers.  Therefore, for an hour I sat there spacing out until I introduced myself, which took all of three seconds.  Ridiculous waste of my time. 

Before my Thursday night class, I finally decided to plant my flowers (below, left).  It had rained on Wednesday, so the ground was perfectly moist.  I had bought miniature sunflower seeds at the grocery, and hopefully planted them correctly.  Ian is (surprisingly) much better at this gardening stuff than me.  He showed me how to barely press a finger into the ground, dump in a seed, and gently rake the dirt over it.  By next week, I hope to have a few green sprouts to show you!  I noticed a few poking out of the dirt this morning on my way to school.  Hurray!

 

Ian went with me to my Thursday night class that night and agree that this group (above, right) is 110% better and easier to handle than our last group.  He gave a little self-introduction to the group, and even though he told them that his name was “Ian,” the girls kept calling him “danasan” (husband).    I mean, it’s true.  That’s what he is! 

Friday:

I hung up my May English board (below) during the break period on Friday and was happily surprised when my vice principal came up behind me and started commenting on it.  I told her who each of the people were and about the holidays as best as I could in broken English/Japanese.  I love it when people actually look at my board because so often I feel like it’s all for nothing!

 

After school on Friday, we had to go to the post office.  Those poor, poor post office employees.  I’m pretty sure that whenever they see us walking in, they silently say “oh, crap!”    Usually all I do is send letters to America, but sometimes I have multiple things to do, and trying to explain it in broken English/Japanese is difficult.    We had four different tasks: pay our car taxes, send a letter to Tokyo, send two letters to America, and send a very complicated registered cash envelope.  The first three things were no big deal, but the final one was a pain in the butt which resulted in a thirty minute process.  In order to get our Japanese driver’s licenses, we have to have it translated by the JAF (Japan Automobile Federation) office in Kumamoto City.  It cost 3,000 yen a piece, plus return postage of 380.  Neither one of us have done the registered cash envelope thing in Japan, which is a very delicate procedure.  I was getting so flustered at not understanding each instruction the post office worker was telling me, but luckily Ian was also there to help interpret.  By the time we walked out of that building, I had sweaty palms and prayed to the good Lord that we did everything right!

Our car is so completely ghetto.  Last week we realized that there’s a small leak on the driver’s side, and now the driver’s door handle broke off.    It couldn’t be on the passenger side or the back…..nooooo!  It has to be the ONE side that is ALWAYS occupied.  Blarg!  Ian actually broke it, but he didn’t say anything about it and waited until I pulled on it so that it would seem like I broke it.  What a turd! 

Anyway, that’s all of last week.  Next up are my wonderful Golden Week adventures!

Weekend wonderland

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…..