She's a biggin'

Although we have been overly busy with tests, English Camp planning, and Angie working on her grad school stuff; we have also had our days of excitement. So sorry for not keeping you up to date with our adventures that you have been so anxiously awaiting to hear, so here we go...




Where to start??? Let's go from the most recent:

On Sat. June 19 was the annual fireworks festival. It was as explosive as ever!! One of the best parts about living in rural Japan is that we get to see our students quite often. So at this event where most of the city turns out we meet a lot of students. Just by chance in the vast crowds we met some of our English club girls, which was of course a joy. Afterwards they were going to have a slumber study party, don't know how much studying they actually accomplished.



Of course we had our fill of karaoke in the last few weeks, 2 doses to be precise!

On June 11 we had the annual school hike around the mountain. Also a great time to chat with the students. Here is a picture of some of our favorite boys acting just like any other good high schooler would--goofy!

A couple weeks ago we went on a preliminary hike for the summer. We took to the lower hills to practice for the real mountains later in the summer that we will conquer. The hills that we climbed that day were just behind the school, but that doesn't mean they aren't wild! Signs told us along the path that "bears frequent these areas" and to be cautious, which we were as we ferociously jingled our "bear bells" to ward them off. And it looks like it was successful since we are actually typing this, and all we saw was a fresh, very fresh, bear track!!!!! AAHHHH!!!

In the first week of June we made the most of our five day weekend, for the sports competition, and went south to the bustling city of Morioka. Well, more bustling than Hirosaki that is to say. We rented bikes and saw the sights. Angie got to cruise the streets on the "Bat-mobile." Her bike was stylishly black with cool Batman stickers! What more could you ask for!! She flew through the streets as Travis could hardly keep up on his "regular" bike.

Morioka is famous for many things but one of the better known things is the 500 Buddha statues that were hand made like a long time ago, and line 3 of the walls top to bottom in an old temple. Each of the buddha statues has a different face or sitting posture and some are rather strange....can't see how this brings someone to enlightenment...

Overall, we really enjoyed Morioka and can't wait to go back and finish the exploration and get some more Starbucks (it's the closest town to Hirosaki with Starbucks, and it's 4 hours away)!!!!