Beautiful View

Don and I went for a walk the other day because it was so nice out and we needed to get out of the house. Our walk down to the ocean is usually more beautiful than the ocean itself. In the distance you can see the mountains in Mashike, still covered with snow. They look like they're hovering like a spaceship to the right, because of the fog and clouds. To the left by the wind turbines are the yellow rapeseed fields of Reuke Farm. Beautiful!

Forgotten Potatoes

Spring In Japan - After Golden Week We Did a Bunch More Stuff

This is another hundred and something pictures of things we did this spring.  With everything in bloom and the snow melting we spent a lot of time outdoors.  And that means we have a lot of nature shots and close ups of plant and bugs for all of you lucky viewers!

This album includes a few different Hanami Parties (Cherry Blossom viewing parties), which is really just a BBQ under or in the vicinity of a Cherry Tree in bloom.  There are also some shots of the mountains in our town and some amazing yellow plants called Rapeseed which is where they get Canola oil from.  They are the brightest yellow and almost blinding.  Then we finish up with some shots of Chrissy chewing on octopus and more sparkler maddness!!!  We have developed a new tradition that whenever we BBQ we light a bunch of sparklers after and take pictures.  This time there was a casualty, i lost a bit of hair and burned a whole in my scalp (a burning chunk of sparkler fell on my head when I was running down the street).  You can see the bald spot in the last picture!  Also, I accidentally hit the camera with a sparkler when Chrissy told me to throw it towards her.  Sparklers fly much further than you think, I almost burned her face off!

Golden Week In Southern Hokkaido and Northern Honshu

We are really behind in updating the blog.  Here are over a hundred pictures of what we did during Golden Week, the big holiday season in Japan.  We took a road trip to the southern potion of Hokkaido and went to Hakodate, the 2nd biggest city in Hokkaido.  We didn't stay in Hakodate but we took a ferry from there to the main island (Honshu) where we went to Hirosaki Castle and looked at the cherry blossoms.  Then we went on to Lake Tazawa and stayed in a bungalow and had a BBQ.  If you go to the supermarket after 8:00pm they mark all of the meat and fish down 50%.  We bought this huge platter of BBQ meat for about $12!!! It was a great deal and we were stuffed afterwords.  It was also Chrissy's birthday dinner and she loved it.

Next we went to Osorezan which is at the very Northern part of the island and is believed by Japanese to be the Hell.  They believe that when you cross the river and enter this area you leave the world of the living and are literally in Hell.  The area is filled with volcanic activity and hot springs and horrible smells coming from the ground but it was really cool, colorful, and beautiful.    We camped near here for a few nights and then took the ferry back to Hakodate where we spent some time with my supervisor and his wife before we headed back to our home in Rumoi.  We put a few thousand miles on the car and had a blast!!!

Last Full Month

I know we haven't posted in a long long time. But here is a summary of some recent news:

• my plane ticket has been purchased (July 26th is the date) but I will not be flying with Don, unfortunately. We don't know any of his flight details yet.
• my wool-felted brooches are on SALE at a local coffee shop! Woo hoo! Too bad on the cute little card, that each brooch is attached to, my katakana-ized name is spelled wrong and instead sounds very close to their word for "shit"... need to fix that ASAP.
• we are looking for teaching jobs in Queens, if you can help, please do!
• last night during a karaoke session I ventured into Celine Dion territory and it was pretty awesome. Thanks for your help Miki!