Some more pictures about life in Japan

Sorry for the boring appearance of this page. It gets the job done though I suppose. You can click on the pictures to see a full version of the picture. I recommend this as the pictures quality has detiorated for the sake of space on this page. When you get to the link page you have to scroll down to the bottom to see the picture. Sorry.

Here is Dan at the Sports Festival. In May many High Schools cancel class for a week and prepare for the sports festival. On the day of parents come and the kids do all kinds of track events and some crazy fun activities. This is Dan trying one of the crazy activities. He though it would be easy to get the wheel moving, but in fact it was quite a job and he nearly cost his relay team the race as a result of his poor showing.

Dan again at the sports festival. This time there was no crazy event. Just an all out sprint. The event was the thirty person relay. The teachers team did terrible and pulled out all the stops by running inside the track to shorten the distance, etc. Dan ran the normal route and even was able to gain some ground on one of the students. Maybe it was because he was wearing shoes!!

April and May were gorgeous months here. The weather warmed up and the flowers were beautiful. This is a shot that Sarah took at the park near our house.

I feel like you are right beside me and I am explaining these pictures to you. Now they are a little out of order. This is a picture that we took in February. We went hiking in Nagasaki prefecture up a volcano. The mountain is famous for freezing trees. They really are beautiful. There is a layer of snow and ice covering each branch and the effect against the blue sky was amazing.

Another picture of the freezing trees. It was quite the hike up the snow covered mountain. Many of the Japanese hikers were wearing spikes. We made it up and down in tennis shoes. We went with an informal hiking group of teachers from our area, who hike two or three times a year. Two of them are pictured. The guy in the front is Ichi in case anyone is wondering.

Back to spring and some of the traditions in Japan. Of course the most sacred thing in Japan is rice. Here the farmers can get two crops in if they are efficient. So right at the crack of spring the fields are flooded and the rice is planted. Looks like all these little lakes come up from nowhere.

Another spring tradition has to do with cherry blossoms. Some people when they think of Japan think of cherry blossoms hence the beautiful border to your left. It is quite a nice time of year. I am convinced that the only time of year that cherry trees, at least the ones that grow here, are useful is during this time. And boy are there a lot of them. Japanese people celebrate by having drinking parties under them. It is one of the more rowdier weeks of the year and the number of traffic fatalities is always well documented.

One Saturday this spring we took a short boat ride to a Japanese destroyer that was docked in the bay outside our city. The army was inviting people to come aboard and see what is protecting the Japanese citizens from the North Koreans. We felt a little strange to be on a Japanese fighting ship. Especially one that only played American fight songs. But we promoted international understanding as we always do, by our presence and hopefully there will be no repeat of Japanese-American animosity any time soon.

The end of March marked the end of the old school year. The new year started on April 1. To mark the occassion Sarah took some pictures with each of her classes. This is the dubious group of youngsters that gave Sarah sensei the most problems. They really got off on the wrong foot when three of them slept on the floor during their first class together.

Hope you enjoyed this update. Soon we'll put up another page of daily life stuff.