More Mountain Photos and Aodaisho

Here’s a few more pictures of the trail we hiked this past Sunday. My legs are still complaining – with good cause, as you can see by the photos.

Getting started

After everyone gathered (a bus brought most of the hikers to the trail head), some people spoke and then we took the requisite group photo. Afterwards, we all stretched as a group. That's really common here and it cracks me up. You don't every really hold one position long enough to get a good stretch, but no one seems to mind.

A line of hikers

A view

I think this was the worst part. The trail here disappears very briefly into a rock wall. The ropes have been thoughtfully placed in a strategic position to help you navigate your way across. So, the trick was to grasp the rope and shuffle along as you find places to put your feet. By the way, I was nowhere near the oldest person on this hike. There were several people who were probably in their mid-60’s.

Ropes


Lastly, here is the snake Aaron and the boys caught while I was finishing the hike. It’s a Japanese Rat Snake, or “Aodaisho”. It’s funny to me just how uncomfortable Japanese people are around snakes. Today, Ridge rode home with Ryuuya and his mom. She asked about whether or not we would set the snake free (I suspect half the village knows about the snake, now). Ridge replied that he didn’t know, so she asked him to please not set it free in the park, if we do let it go. She said that she is afraid that it might bite her if we put it in the park. Rat Snakes are completely harmless. In fact, this one is rather friendly and doesn’t mind being handled at all. Ridge and Holt, while not interested in holding it, don’t seem to have any fear about being near it or touching it. Unlike Ryuuya – who would only look at it while hiding behind a door in our house and insisted that Aaron put it back in the cage.

Aodaisho

Mountain Climbing and Bragging Time

I just have a short post today. This is a photo I took Sunday as I was hiking up a local mountain. Every year, the folks at the city offices in Nishiokoppe organize this hike, and this year we joined it. Aaron generously agreed to only hike halfway. One of my co-workers, sensing our desire to hike together, had offered last week to hang out with Ridge and Holt for a little while so Aaron and I could both hike a ways, with the understanding that one of us would turn around halfway and come back for the kids. We are in the land of no babysitters, remember? So, this was a pretty awesome offer. Anyway, this is a view from past the halfway point. If you look closely at the second photo, you'll see two peaks. We hiked to the peak that is furthest and to the left. You can even see a bit of the trail that follows the ridge. Needless today, I’m still recovering today! I’ll post more of the photos later this week.

As for the bragging bit, I guess I’ve decided that I finally deserve a little bragging time regarding my weight loss. Aaron and I started to “do” the South Beach diet back in January, something that caused and still causes no end of consternation with our Japanese friends (“what do you mean, ‘no rice’?!”). Aaron’s now lost almost 35 pounds. I’ve lost almost 20, and have started running three days a week (the other days I walk or run up the steps to the shrine 3 or 4 times). My goal is to be running 5k by the time we return. I’m up to 3k now, but my legs need a break after our killer hike yesterday. Anyway, here’s a couple of photos. It seems that the only pictures I have of me are photos someone gave me, so I had to take a picture of a picture – the quality is therefore not very good, but you can still get an idea of how much I’ve changed. The first one was taken at the end of September in 2005. I actually gained weight after that picture was taken, and have since lost it. The second picture was taken yesterday as I was resting on the top of the mountain. I was so stunned by how I looked, I guess I just needed to brag a bit.

September 2005

June 25th, 2007

English Camp (a.k.a. English Lock-in)

Back in January, Colin and I did a lock-in at the Komu. For those of you who might never have had the joy of a lock-in, it’s basically an overnighter in a place that is usually off limits. In the U.S., they usually happen in places like churches, but occasionally you get lucky enough to go to one in a museum, zoo, or other cool place.

A long time ago, Aaron and I decided it would be very cool to have a lock-in at the Komu. It’s such an awesome place that it just begs to be taken advantage of. Also, part of our job here is to teach culture, right? Well, a lock-in is totally American, in my opinion. To make a long story short, I was finally able to pull one off in January, with Colin’s help, and it was a huge hit. We had sixteen kids who all had a wonderful time. Well, except for the fact that I fed them instant oatmeal for breakfast. That was NOT a hit. At the conclusion of English Camp I (“lock –in” is really hard for Japanese people to say), Mr. Kamaya asked Colin and I to do one more before we left. So we did, the same day as Undoukai – back around the second of June.

This time around, I think word had gotten out, and before I knew it, 33 kids were signed up. That was 3 over my limit! I was excited, though, and just took it all in stride, happy that so many kids wanted to come to my little “to-do”. I also figured no one would be staying awake until 4:00 a.m. like last time, since they were sure to be tired from Undoukai. I can’t believe now how naïve I was.

As before, we began at 7:00, starting with a group game. Right away I could tell this was going to be a lot more work than I had bargained for. Keeping track of 33 kids who speak English is a challenge, but when you don’t even speak the same language…wow! Colin’s Japanese is great, but they were still a little out of control. I managed to rein them in somewhat and divide them in to two groups, just like before. Colin and I each took a group and taught a set of Alaska themed vocabulary to them, and after half an hour, the groups switched. By the time I got my second group and began our games, I had sweated about a bucket’s worth and had one girl in tears. I promise, it wasn’t my fault! She’s prone to crying, anyway, whenever she thinks one of the other fifth grade girls have been mean to her. It’s no big deal, but it’s very distracting and I’ve never acquired the Japanese to be able to deal with it. I always have to allow the students to sort things out themselves.

We still managed to have fun, though, and by 8:30 we were ready to break out the snacks. I had made brownies (a very sought after treat, here, since they can only get them from me), oatmeal cookies (a personal joke of mine, based on the fact that they hated the oatmeal last time), and popcorn (poor Aaron popped 10 bags of microwave popcorn and brought it to me). The kids loved it, but there were so many of them that I really couldn’t get anyone’s attention to explain what the food was (i.e. if you don’t like raisins, don’t eat the cookies). By this point, I began to feel like I was herding cats. Keeping a positive outlook, I observed that, except for the third grade boy who was now sobbing for some unknown reason off in a corner, everyone was having fun.

I quickly came to the conclusion, though, that trying to teach them how to play capture the flag was insane. So, we turned off all the lights (can you believe they gave us FULL run of the place?) and played hide-and-seek with flashlights. This was an enormous hit and went on for nearly an hour. I made Colin play and sat in the darkness of the office, watching kids run by, resting.

By 10:00, I declared, with the help of a sixth-grader named Musashi, who was very good at using the loudspeaker system, that it was time to get ready for bed. My idea this time was to separate the boys and girls. I felt that the sixth-grade boys were a little too interested in hanging out with the sixth-grade girls. So, the kids sorted their things out and picked spots to claim as their own. By 10:30, I had started “Brother Bear II” and set out some games for the kids to play. They went nuts over the cards, UNO, and the two checkers games I had made. They had never played checkers (it was impossible to find a game here), and loved it when I taught them how. Many of the older kids had, unfortunately but not unexpectedly, brought their little Nintendo games to play with each other.

By midnight, I decided things needed to wind down. After all, everyone had had a very long day, right? I declared “lights out” and made sure the boys went to their part of Komu to sleep. Colin would stay with them. The girls settled in, with no intention of sleeping of course, and I laid out my sleeping bag in the hallway so they couldn’t sneak past me. One of the middle school teachers had encountered some trouble in the form of kissing games last summer on their class camping trip. Though these kids were younger, I just didn’t want to take any chances. That middle school teacher caught a TON of grief over that situation!

By two o’clock, only five kids were sleeping, and I had not slept a wink. Colin and I were walking around at this point, and agreed to let the kids have one room that they could be in and be awake. The instant we game them permission, 22 kids thundered into the room, broke out the checkers, cards, UNO, and electronic games, and the building came alive with their sounds. By four a.m., some of the sleeping kids had woken up and the sun was fully risen. There would be no sleeping now, that was for sure. By four-thirty, they began begging for breakfast. This was a request which I just laughed at. By five, they were really slowing down and whining incessantly for food. Finally, at 5:30 I complied and began to warm up the breakfast sausages.

Breakfast was sausages, muffins, and milk, and it was a very quiet affair. About a dozen of the kids had never so much as layed down during the entire event. Amazing! We finished eating about 6:30 and several of the kids promptly fell asleep. However, we weren’t done yet! I still had an art activity planned. At 7:30, we made everyone get up so they could decorate an Eskimo mask. They actually were more interested in it than I thought they would be, given their lack of sleep.

The original schedule had been for the event to officially end at 9:30, but by 8:45 I had declared English Camp II to be finished. Though I had not expected to get much sleep, I had not at all anticipated the kids staying awake all night. By 10:30, I was home, showered, and in bed, not to rise again until 2:30 in the afternoon. What an experience! After I had rested, I decided that I had really enjoyed most of the event, but Colin and I also made it clear to Mr. Kamaya that, under no circumstance, should the next English teacher do an English camp with more than 16 kids!

Undoukai, part III

Sorry, everyone! I totally forgot to post these photos along with my previous post about Undoukai. This main photo is the second bento that I made.

Everyone is gathered, ready to start

Ridge, standing at attention during the Opening Ceremony

Ridge and the other first graders reciting their speech

Here's what they said in Japanese:

(bow) Otoosan, Okaasan, Ojiichaan, Obaachan

kite kurete arigato. Bokutachi wa hajimete no undoukai nanore gambaremasu. Kite kurete ureshii desu. Kore kara undoukai ga hajimarimasu. (bow)

Translation:

(bow) Father, Mother, Grandpa, Grandma, thank you for coming. This is our first Undoukai, so we are going to do our best. We are happy you have come. Now Undoukai will begin. (bow)

(side note: It's now been three weeks since Undoukai. I just now asked Ridge to repeat what the kids said, and he did - quickly. Then he translated it for me!)

Ridge racing

Holt racing

Aaron and Holt preparing for their race

Mr. Terada and his daughter during the pre-school relay race

Holt and his prize

Cool Dude

Ridge during the marching band performance

Ridge, again

Standing at attention

Large human pyramid video

Another human formation (big video file)

Undoukai, Part II

So, now my life has kicked into high gear. I’ve had to do my adult English class monthly cooking class (carrot cake – turned out yummy), cook muffins, sausages, brownies, and cookies for English camp, make another bento for Undoukai, and deal with a multitude of other details in order to prepare for my lock-in. Needless to say, I was running a bit ragged. I woke up Saturday morning even before the fireworks made their announcement. As I went on a short run, I passed the elementary school to see if anyone was already there setting up to ensure themselves a nice spot. Surprisingly, the field was empty save for some tent tops and about half a dozen squarish taped off areas on one end of the field. I assumed these taped off areas were for folks to set up their “camp” for the day, and I made a mental note to ask Aaron to pop down around seven to set up.

When I arrived back home, Ridge and Holt had bounced out of bed, and, as I mentioned before, were dressed in record time. By the time we made our way to the school, they were just oozing with excitement. Aaron had scored us a nice spot right near the finish line. It was perfect for picture taking. I later found out from him that the reason no one came early to set up is because they already had marked their area: the tape. The school had not put the tape up; individuals had, and they had done it more than a week earlier! No wonder no one was hanging out a six a.m. to get the best view! They had staked their claims long ago!

Aaron, Holt, and I settled in and chatted with friends near us. Ridge dashed off to join the other first graders and their teacher. The event began with all the students marching onto the field and lining up to listen to some Important People make mini-speeches. For the most part, they all said things like, “do your best.” Nothing earth shattering. Next, a representative for all the students came to the podium, raised his hand, and promised (basically) on behalf of all the students, to not cheat. The last group to go was the first graders. They gathered on the podium and recited (some together, some individually) a speech they had memorized. Ridge actually spoke the very first word, all by himself. The first part of the speech was “Otoosan, Okaasan, Obaasan, Ojiisan…” which means, “Mom, Dad, Grandma, Grandpa…” A student spoke each word independently, and Ridge is the one who said, “Otoosan”. I was so proud of him! For him to say that in front of all the people gathered there really spoke volumes about how much his self-confidence has grown.

After the speeches, everyone (and I mean everyone) did a group warm-up. I think they must all do this particular warm-up routine everywhere all over Japan, and they’ve done it for about a million years. I say this because every single person who was watching knew exactly what to do, and they did it to the sound of a recorded voice. Well, I guess not everyone did it; the families didn’t do it, but all the teachers, students, and Important People (including the police officer in uniform) did it.

What followed, for the most of the morning, was a series of races; sprints, relays, goofy relays, and games. I’m afraid I just don’t have the energy to explain everything, but suffice it to say these folks really love their Undoukai! At noon, the air raid siren rattled our nerves the same way it has for the past 680 days (give or take a few days we may have been out of town overnight), and everyone broke for lunch. We tucked in to our part American/part Japanese-style bento and watched everyone else doing the same.

At 1:00, the activities promptly restarted. The elementary kids did their little “marching band” bit, where in the first graders, not having learned an instrument yet, marched around with their peers waving little pom poms. They seemed quite content to do so. After a few more elementary activities, the middle school students performed their human pyramid, etc. feats. I’m not sure how to describe it, really. The most notable aspects of what they do every year are the unnervingly tall shapes they make by climbing on top of one another. The tallest this year was four levels high. The first two levels consisted of students kneeling in a circle, the second layer kneeling on the backs of the first. The third layer consisted of three or four students standing on top of the backs of the second layer. The fourth was one student – Akane- who climbed on top of the shoulders of the kids in the third level. If I were her mother, I’d have thrown a fit. Let’s just leave it at that! I explained to the students in my advanced adult English class that these activities would never happen in American, unless you were on a cheerleading squad and had signed a million release forms. Apparently, this activity is a little unique to Nishiokoppe. In other schools, they might form human pyramids, but usually only the boys do it. However, Nishiokoppe Middle School only has 30 students, so they can’t really do much if only the boys participate.

By 3:00, we were finally finished, and the boys were hot and tired. We headed home and I began to mentally prepare myself for the evening ahead of me: English Lock-In at Komu!

Language Lesson and Anecdote

I’m working on completing my post regarding Undoukai, including loads of great photos, but I wanted to take a break and share a funny story before it escapes my memory.

Watching Ridge and Holt acquire a second language has been a fascinating experience. Though I knew, logically, that they would pick up Japanese faster than I could ever hope to myself, seeing it in action exceeded all my expectations. Once Ridge entered pre-school full time last April, his Japanese knowledge practically exploded. Holt’s, in turn, took a big leap forward after Ridge started first grade and was no longer around to help translate for him at the pre-school. One day, while marveling over our children (no one will ever accuse us of being objective), we counted up the number of hours during the day during which our children are in full immersion Japanese.

Holt goes to school from 8:30 until 4:00 five days a week. For a year, Ridge’s schedule was the same. Currently, he is at school slightly less, but even after school he is frequently only around his friends. When all is said and done, they speak Japanese for nearly more hours than they do English, at least during the week. It’s no wonder they are so fluent.

It’s not just the vocabulary that is so fascinating, either. With Ridge, we have been able really enjoy watching his problem-solving abilities grow as well. At first glance, it might seem easy for him to translate for us, but not so. There are several steps involved that you might not really be aware of unless you see it all the time. For example, because Ridge has learned Japanese through immersion, there are many Japanese words and phrases that he can understand, but he doesn’t know how to say it in English. The best example is counting. He can count much higher in Japanese than in English. Also, he knows that he goes to the “shogakko”, but the doesn’t know that the English word for that is “elementary school.” Yesterday, he heard someone on T.V. use the word “idiot” and he asked me what that meant. Without thinking, I responded, “baka”, which is the Japanese word for “stupid”. Being the typical big brother he his, “baka” was one of the first Japanese words he learned. Needless to say, Holt learned it pretty quickly also.

About a month ago, we had a little barbeque with the guys from my office. Between the four of them, they can communicate pretty well with me, but only because I’ve managed to pick up a bit of Japanese. Their English is limited. While trying to describe what Aaron’s father does for a living, we were stumped by the word, “x-ray”. How do you describe that? We had just about given up when Mr. Oohara turned to Ridge and asked him if he could explain it. Aaron and I looked at each other, thinking that our six-year old doesn’t know what an x-ray machine is in English, much less in Japanese. Then, to our astonishment, Ridge responded, in beautiful Japanese, “It’s a machine at the hospital that they use to look inside your body with.” I swear you could see the light bulbs lighting up over all their heads. “Ahh!” They all exclaimed. Mystery solved, we continued on with our conversation. It was awesome to watch Ridge piece together an explanation to help communicate a word that none of us could translate.

Holt, too, has had his moments. In Japan, there are three kinds of written language: kanji, katakana, and hiragana. Katakana is most often used to express loan words. For example, take the word “lemon”. The Japanese for this word is “remon”. When written in katakana, the characters, “re” and “mo” and “n” are used. There is no “l” sound in Japanese. “R” is also absent, and instead, the character “ru” is used. Holt’s name in katakana is written “Ho Ru To”. This habit of ending words and sounds with a vowel such as “o” or “u” is one of the things that gives Japanese people their distinctive accent when speaking English.

Well, Holt learned at an early age that if he didn’t know a word in Japanese, he should just “katakana” it. That means that if he doesn’t know the word for “black”, he’ll just stick an “u” at the end of it, change it a bit more, and say it with a katakana accent: “bu ra ku”. Since there are so many loan words in Japanese, this will often work. Take the word “basketball”. The way to say it in katakana is “ba su ke to bo ru”. Magic. Change some of the letters and you can suddenly speak Japanese! Holt also knows the difference between talking to a Japanese person and an English speaking person when it comes to these words. If he says his name to a Japanese person, he says, “Horuto,” but to an English speaker, he will say, “Holt.”

The other day, though, he stunned me more. We were talking about his Undoukai dance, which is called the “Osojiki dance”. “soji” means “to clean”. The “O” is an honorific pre-fix. So, it’s as though it’s the “honorable cleaning dance” (we pretended to mop while doing the dance). I was relaying the information to Aaron and got the name wrong; I said it was the “Osoji” dance. I accidentally left off the “ki” part. Holt corrected me immediately and said, “No, Mommy. It has a tree sound.” Now, you might wonder what in the world does a tree sound have to do with this? As it turns out, the word “ki” means “tree”. I had left off a sound that was also the Japanese word for “tree”. Holt noticed that I didn’t say it, and this was his way of correcting me. Make sense? I was floored. What an interesting way for him to conceptualize the language.

I just re-read that paragraph, and I think it might be difficult to follow if you haven’t been living in Japan for two years, so here’s another breakdown of it.

Name of the dance: OSOJIKI

Honorific pre-fix: O

To clean: SOJI or SOJIKI

Tree: KI

I said: OSOJI

Holt said: It has a “tree” sound (i.e. the word KI)

Hope that didn’t just make you more confused!

Abashiri, part II

Sorry it’s taken so long to write and post this. Life just got pretty busy for a while, and I now find myself battling what seems to be hay fever. It’s not too bad, though, and the beautiful weather is worth it.

Two weekends ago, we were scheduled to have Undoukai (Sports Day). For days before the event, everyone was glued to the weather channel, anxiously watching and waiting to see what the weather would bring. The Saturday prior to Undoukai dawned with a fierce rainstorm that flooded about half of the field. The students all went to school for their practice day, and ended up having class instead. Ridge actually didn’t go, due to his fever. The following day, Sunday, was cold and gloomy. At precisely six o’clock a.m., according to the “rain plans”, an announcement blared forth from our community radio, announcing the inevitable postponement of Undoukai. Instead, students needed to go to school as usual, and they would attend classes until about 11:30. Part of the reason the students needed to go to school on Sunday (and actually have classes) was due to the fact that Monday and Tuesday had been scheduled as days off – with no school for teacher or students – as sort of “make-up” days for Undoukai. No school lunch had been planned, and therefore staff and students needed to work in order to justify having Monday and Tuesday off.

Ridge was feeling much better, so we got him dressed and sent him off to school on a Sunday morning. What a strange experience! I was pretty bummed, since I had spent so much time and effort making the Undoukai lunch. Also, the rain date for Undoukai coincided with my English Lock-In, which meant that my next week and weekend would necessarily be very busy.

After Ridge arrived home, we ate lunch and decided to “have an adventure,” as I put it to boys. We thought it would be fun, with three days off, to just get in the car and go somewhere for a few days. Unfortunately, due to a clash between my stubbornness and Holt’s, we were delayed by about two hours. Holt is a VERY picky eater, and Aaron and I sometimes just don’t know how to handle it. I’ve always wondered what would happen if I just refused to allow him to do anything unless he agreed to have one bite of a hated food. So, silly me, I decided to pick a fight with him and I insisted that he eat one bite of meat from his plate. Two hours, many tears, and the threat that “Daddy and Ridge would go on an adventure without him” and I had my answer. I think we will no longer try to wait him out. It’s just not worth it!

So, we piled into the car, brought along my lovely bento lunch to serve as our dinner, and set out. We drove towards the east, still not exactly sure where we would go and where we would spend the night. It was a pleasant drive, actually. Since we weren’t in a hurry, we were able to just stop and look at anything that caught our fancy along the way. By around 6:00, were reached Abashiri, a city three hours to the northeast of the village. After a combination of decoding some Japanese camping flyers and making educated guesses with our bi-lingual map, we managed to find a campground by the name of “Tent Land”. Of course, we didn’t actually have a tent, but we had never really planned on sleeping in a tent anyway. We managed to finally navigate the maze of small roads and find the check-in area about twenty-minutes before closing time. It’s amazing how competent we have become. Aaron was able to secure a small cottage for us, using broken Japanese only. Very cool!

So, we settled in for the evening in our adorable and reasonably priced bungalow, and promptly ate the bento that I had worked so hard on. It actually made the evening quite nice. It turned out to be a somewhat fancy camp dinner.

The Cottage
Ridge, Holt, and Roll Pan Chan snuggled up for the night

The next morning dawned gray and cold as well. We didn’t let that deter us, though, since we were very determined to have an “adventure”. I went out for an early morning run and took the opportunity to explore the park a bit. Almost like magic, I stumbled on to the most interesting playground I had seen in some time. After a quick breakfast, I led the way and took the boys to my discovery.

We’ve noticed that a common feature of some playgrounds here is this sort of hanging thing (that’s a technical term, by the way). I guess it’s a bit like a mini-zip line. Well, we’d seen some fun ones, but the one at this part beat them all, hands down. There was no contest. Check out the photos and video clip and you’ll understand what I’m talking about. Aaron went around it about half a dozen times before finally convincing Ridge to give it a go. Holt was a bit nervous, so Aaron walked beside him and kept it from going too fast. It was too much fun!

Ridge and Holt at the Cool Playground
Hanging thingie
The Coolest Hanging Thingie ever
Aaron helping Holt
On the jumping thingie

After a stint at the Cool Playground, we moseyed up to the check-in office to sign up for another night. As we did so, the attendant kept enthusiastically talking to me about something. I could only make out a few words he was saying, but I confess that I just played along. We played in the rec room a bit, and he reappeared, asking me to come look at his computer. Turns out I hadn’t fooled him, and he had turned to an online translation program for help. Online translation programs really stink, by the way. I guess it’s better than being 100% in the dark about something, but the way they translate Japanese into English is just terrible. Fortunately, I was able to wade through what he wrote and make out what he was trying to communicate so emphatically.

Turns out that the local board of education’s Social Education department was scheduled to have a barbecue at the park we were staying at. Apparently, at 6:30 that evening, they would be cooking out just down the hill from our little cottage, and Mr. Campground Guy thought it would be nifty if he suggested to both groups (us and them) that my family join in the event. Oh my. We were just asked to crash a party. He assured me that it would be fine, and that it would only be 3000 yen for the whole family (remember, people here pay for parties), which is a real bargain! How could we refuse?

Later that evening, we did indeed join in the party. It was chilly, so everyone huddled around the fires drinking hot sake, tea, or cold beer (go figure). The grills were full of sizzling meat and the generous folks we had just barged in on happily plied our boys with chocolate and any number of sugary treats in order to soften them up. In no time at all, we were chatting with the few English speakers and watching strangers ooh and ahh over Ridge and Holt. Once it was dark enough, they brought out a huge box of fireworks (mostly sparkers) and turned the boys loose on them.

Turns out that one of the men there is actually good friends with my boss Mr. Kamaya. His English was pretty good, and he and Aaron had a nice chat. There was another person who spoke good English, but I’ve forgotten her name. In a funny turn of events, Aaron got most of the attention because for the first hour or so of the party, everyone thought Aaron was the English teacher; I was just the children-watching-wife. It’s usually the other way around in Nishiokoppe – everyone wants to talk to me because I’m the teacher. I think we both enjoyed the role-reversal. Anyway, Aaron told the woman that the next day we planned to visit the Abashiri Museum of Northern Peoples. Believe it or not, she is a good friend with the assistant curator of the museum, a man who happens to speak English! She promised Aaron she would call her friend and arrange a private tour for us.


Boys and fireworks
Ridge and a sparkler
More sparklers

The next morning, we played in the sun and loaded up the car. Before leaving town, though, we stopped at the museum for a visit. Aaron was very eager to see it, as he had heard about it a while ago and had been looking forward to visiting it. True to her word, our new friend had in fact called the assistant curator, who met us at the front desk shortly following our arrival. The boys were quickly bored, and I moved off to keep them entertained, but Aaron and the assistant curator toured the museum for some time, chatting quietly. It was a great experience.

We hit the road and made plans to drive past a couple of towns known for their flower viewing. First on the list was Engaru, where the flox completely covers some of the hillsides. The picture I posted previously of the boys came from Engaru. After Engaru, we went to Kamiyubetsu to see the tulips. We visited this place last year, but more than half the tulips had bloomed out by then. This year, it was perfect. I think only two sections of flowers had finished blooming. The rest were in full color. It was absolutely breathtaking.

Tulips in Kamiyubetsu
More Tulips at Kamiyubetsu
Pan and Scan of the Tulips Flowers in Engaru

Finally, we headed home. Arriving shortly before 6:00, I noticed that Mr. Kamaya was still at work (we live across the street from the city offices). Wanting to confirm the schedule for my English camp, I decided to pop in for what turned into a rather lengthy discussion. Since Undoukai was rained out, it was being moved to June 2, the date set for English Lock-in. After looking at a very busy June schedule, we determined that it was best to go ahead and do them on the same day; we simply assumed all the kids would fall asleep more quickly this time, since they would be tired from Undoukai. So, my mini-vacation was officially at an end, since I now had to follow through and finish preparing for a lock in that was to have double the number of kids as the last time! Oh, how foolish I was!

Quick Photo for Today

Life is starting to slow down a bit for us, but I just haven't been able to find the time to get caught up on my blogging and photo posting. Hopefully I'll be done by mid-week or so!

Here's a photo taken on our trip to Abashiri. We are posing with some Ainu figures. The Ainu were the indigenous people of Hokkaido, the island we are on. It's not the most flattering photo of me - the sun was in my eyes, so I have a funny look on my face - but photos of me and the kids seem to be few and far between, so I posted it anyway.

Undoukai, Part I

At six o’clock this morning, the village shook gently with the sound of fireworks announcing that today was Undoukai. Ridge immediately popped out of bed (or should I say “futon”?) and was dressed in a record time of about three minutes. By seven-thirty, I had sent Aaron down to the school to claim a good spot for us, and the boys and I joined him around eight, accompanied by Ryuuya.

After the opening ceremony at 8:45, we then spent the next 5 hours playing and hanging out at the school sports festival. Ridge and Holt ran a number of races, and Aaron and I were pulled into a few as well. There were dances performed, marching, and more games. Lunch began promptly at noon, and we all enjoyed the bento I had spent two hours the night before preparing. I just couldn’t handle the thought that the other Japanese moms would look at our lunch and laugh. Well, maybe they would have anyway, as there was a notable absence of rice in our meal.

After lunch, there were more games, and an exhibition of sorts performed by the middle school students. As I write this, I’m resting from having cleaned up after arriving home (sorting the trash is always time consuming). Aaron and the boys are doing yard work, oddly enough, and I’m thinking ahead to seven o’clock, when my overnight English camp will begin. So, needless to say, this blog is short. I hope to be able to have time to write about “Abashiri part II” and “Undoukai part II” on Monday, when I have a lot of free time to look forward to.

Here are a couple of photos from today’s event. Ridge is standing in formation with the rest of the students during opening ceremony, and Holt is doing his best to run fast for his race!