Since September Mark and I have not been up to much, just handling every day life. Mark is doing well at his new job and I am teaching some English classes and taking some college courses of my own. Ruby and Lucky are doing well. Lucky is continuing to improve and is a true blessing in our household. So nothing really worth blogging, but here are some small highlights of life over the past couple months.
In September we attended the Air Force Ball, as always it is a good time!
Also in Setpember I went to a Portable Shrine Festival on Respect for the Aged Day (敬老の日). This is a holiday that celebreates the elderly within the community. At the festival I was asked by one of the dancers if I wanted to help carry a shrine. As you see below, they are large and heavy, it takes serveral people to carry one shrine. Also, they are not only carrying the shrines, they are dancing around and bouncing the shrine up and down on their shoulders, at one point almost throwing the shrines in the air and catching them. Oh, and did I mention it was pouring rain for the first 30 minutes? It was one of those amazing moments in life where you feel totally alive and in the moment. I was pulled in, robed up and sent to work.
FYI: There may be some bare butts in the photos below, Japanese men make thongs out of strips of cotton and wear those during festival parades and sumo.
Mark and I have also been doing a lot of hiking. We went on (what we expected to be) short hike near the Ome mountains to see some waterfalls. We walked to one, then decided to find another. We looked on a posted map and between our iPhones and our intution found the road that led to the trail. We ended up driving up this huge grade on a tiny road to get to the parking lot. We started the hike heading in the direction we though the waterfalls would be (we guessed which kanji symbol meant waterfall). We found the 3 waterfalls we were looking for, but then there was a sign pointing up the hill with a 1.5km sign. We thought maybe it was an outlook or shrine and decided to make a go for it. Did I mention by this point it was late afternoon? Prior to this point the hiking had been slightly challenging, but the trail quickly turned into scrawling on a ridge up the side of a mountain...while 90 year old Japanese people whiz on down past you. So we make it to the next sign where we find, you guessed it, another sign. It was just a trail crossing! After that we had to shimmy down the mountain as fast as we could to beat the sunset. We safely made it, happy for a day of challenging hiking.
Halloween came and went, we won best couple in a costume contest! Can you guess who we are?
The most recent thing Mark and I did was travel to Okutama Lake for the afternoon. We ate at a TINY ramen place (sorry I didn't take a picture), but our waiter/chef was dressed in a striped shirt, purple adidas warm-up pants from the 80's and fuzzy slippers. But the ramen was good! We rode on the longest rollerslide in Japan and walked on a floating bridge. Also, WE SAW MONKEYS! Finally, I can die happy, I have seen monkeys in their natural Japanese habitat. It was a good day!
 |
| THERE WERE BABY MONKEYS TOO!!!!!! |
And I guess there was one more thing: Sunshine City! If you are ever in Tokyo on a rainy day (or not so rainy as it was) and want to wander a mall/amusement park/planetarium/aquarium/etc., check it out. Mark had a rainy Monday off, so we found this adventure:
 |
| Namja Town |
 |
| Gyoza City, Mark is in Heaven! |
 |
| Lef: Miso-spicy. Right: Some multi-colored mystery set. |
 |
| They taught a California Sea Lion to bow! |
 | ||
| Sunset behind Fuji from the observatory |
Thanks for reading!
