First Day of School

Emma

"I had a good day today.  I made new friends.  I can tell you a girl I met and her name is Isabelle.  I played with my friend Euclid, Kazuya, and Joshua at recess.  It was fun.  My teacher is nice.  Her name is Ms. Switzer.  Today we went to centers and there are these black bands and you get them when you do something nice for somebody.  You earn the bands and then on Friday you get to have your own free time for earning bands.  You start out with 5 bands and today I earned one for playing nice so now I have 6 bands.  Our teacher gave us a treat bag today that had an eraser, and a maze game, a marker, a hershey kiss, a pencil and a smarties candy.  She is really nice.  On the way home on the bus my friend London made me origami frogs.  He told me that tomorrow he will make me more frogs." 

Peter

"I had a good day.  My teacher is Mr. Applegate and he is very nice.  He has tiny peanut butter and jelly snacks we can earn for either doing good work or winning a class contest.  There is one kid in my class who is on my soccer team.  His name is Jade.  There are six people who were in my class last year.  Their names are Sophie, Sachie, Brandon, Tito, Cai, and Annie.   Mr. Applegate told us the rules of the classroom and stories about why we should obey the rules.  Mr. Applegate does magic tricks when we have spare time.  He can shuffle with one hand without looking.  He can be a strict teacher but he is also really nice.  We can get books from our classroom library and I picked a book called, "Chronicles Edge." It has 300 something pages. 

I went to Host Nation today and our teacher's name is Nemoto sensei.  She is the nicest host nation teacher in the school.  Nemoto sensei said that Tito and I were doing a good job today because we were trying our best.  The girls chased me at recess today.  I was toasting at recess because it was so hot.  Almost everyone I saw today was sweating.  For the first time in my life I saw 5th graders at the playground.  I got to sit in the new cafeteria upstairs where the old MPR room was.  It is really nice and there is a menu right before you can get your hot lunch so it is kind of like a restaurant. 

At the end of school I got on the bus.  London gave me a book on origami and some origami paper so I could make UFO's.  He had tiny origami papers so I could make a normal UFO mothership and tiny UFO spaceships." 

Andrew

"My first day of middle school was really fun. It was different than other middle school days. Today I did A & B days. First period I had Math, second period I had Science, third period I had Social Studies, fourth period I had PE, fifth period I had Language Arts, then I had lunch/recess, sixth period I had Reading, seventh period I had Band and eighth period I had Seminar.  This was both A & B days crammed in one day. That must’ve been hard for the teachers.  A days I have math, science, social studies, and PE (in the second semester of school my PE class is gone and I go to computer apps).  Last year in 5^th grade my class took a tour of the middle school. This was near the end of the school year. I saw a girl’s binder and it was HUGE. I think my binder might be that big someday or bigger.  I hope that I don’t get too much homework."

Abby

 

Abby is excited to be at home with mom during her last year before Kindergarten. She looks forward to lots of mommy and me time where we will play but also work on writing letters, learning to read, and being creative with art.

Collecting Shells at the Beach

We spent the afternoon on the Miura peninsula collecting shells at the beach by our friend's home.  The previous storm had brought a bunch of cool shells along with some nasty seaweed.  Most of the shells had been picked through by the locals but the kids still found some great things to take home.  Brother and Sister Nelson were so great with the kids and for a moment it was like having their grandparents there with them.  The kids really enjoyed being by the water and seeing all the jellyfish that kept washing up onto the shore.  Ever since the kids were little we have always lived by the water.  We might just have to visit Grandma Anne and Grandpa Franz more in CA when we move back to the US.  They live near Monterey and Carmel which are great beach places.  We love the beach, the sand, and collecting shells.  What a great evening we had with our friends by the water. 

Road Trip out West . Day 5

Nozawa Onsen and Shiraito Waterfall

We spent the last part of our trip exploring the little town of Nozawa Onsen before visiting Shiraito Falls on our way home.  It was a quaint little town with fun little shops.  This little town is known for its many public onsens and its open air onsen used by the locals for cooking vegetables and eggs.  Mike, Abby and I headed down to this open air onsen to watch some local residents cook their eggs.  While we were down there a bunch of fellow Japanese photographers just adored Abby and started taking pictures of her.  I think there were 5 people taking her picture at one time.  It was quite hilarious and she really pulled out everything from cute to silly.  We continued to explore this little town that not too long ago was full of Olympians during the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano.  We saw the ski jumps and the ski lifts and runs that were used during the Olympics.  It's amazing how things get run down after 14 years. 

more unique flavored kit kats

gotta love all the finger socks people wear here in Japan

this was the house we rented for a few days...gotta love its odd shape

After leaving Nozawa Onsen we headed towards Tokyo but stopped along the way to view the famous Shiraito Falls that our boys know from the Legend of Zelda game.  Luckily it was a short walk from the parking area because at this point in our trip we were all a little tired.  The falls were everything I thought they would be.  They were absolutely beautiful.  The falls stand only 3 meters high and 70 meters wide.  The waterfall, which never dries up even in winter, is at the springhead of the Yukawa River.  The water comes from the rainfall that falls on Mt. Asama and penetrates underground.  It takes about 6 years to spring out at the top of the fall.  The water temperature is relatively high at 11.8 % centigrade which is thought to be the effect of geothermal heat from the surrounding volcanic activity.  These falls were literally one of the coolest and most unique falls I have ever seen.  We were definitely glad we stopped to see this wonder of Japan.             

Road Trip out West . Day 4

Kurobe Gorge and Kurobe train

This morning we headed up towards the coast of Japan to see Kurobe Gorge and ride the Kurobe train.  We literally went through 27 tunnels just to get there.  Since this part of Japan is really mountainous and the Japanese are stellar at building through them we found ourselves driving through lots and lots of tunnels.  The little town where the Kurobe train station was located was a pleasant little place.  There was a beautiful red bridge crossing over the Kurobe river which we actually crossed over as we started our trek on the train.  The train ride was so much fun.  We got to follow the river below and view the beautiful green mountains on both sides of the train.  We decided to ride the train all the way up to the last station which was Nakeyakidaira.  We walked down to the river and walked along the trail to view the Owl Tree and the Kurobe Gorge.  It was a fun little hike and everyone walked without any probelms--including Abby.  At the entrance of the trail was a little hot spring that people sat and put their feet in.  It felt so good.  It wouldn't have been a typical day near the water if the kids didn't try and build dams and throw rocks in the water.  It was a little different than we were used to as there were rope barriers preventing us from venturing out further along the river.  That is the Japanese way though.  I miss the freedom you have in the US to explore at your own risk. 

The owl tree

the crazy lady with the rainbow hair who wanted her picture taken with the kids

 

the $80 watermelons being sold at the station

 

one of 27 tunnels on our trek today

Traveling home was interetsting as we didn't necessarily fill up on gas before heading onto the expressway because we had "enough" to get us back to where we needed to go.  As we got closer to our exit Mike and I started to get a little nervous with how little gas we had so we decided to pull off at the next exit to fill up on gas.   No problem right...WRONG.  Since we were in a rather remote area we didn't realize that the only gas stations in that little town would be CLOSED.  Appartently they closed at 7pm.  Our only option was to head back onto the expressway and try and get to our exit where my GPS showed another gas station.  It was a good thing that the expressway from that point on had a 4% downgrade because we were in neutral the entire way.  Once off the exit we were once again annoyed that the gas station we were going to use was also CLOSED.  Running out of gas in this part of Japan would not have been good so we kept on going, praying along the way, hoping that we would find another gas station that was actually open.  Futher down the road as we headed into the heart of another little city we found an open gas station.  We had never been so happy to see a gas station before.  We should have been more prepared and this was another reminder to us to no let our tank go below the half way point.  I was so happy this day did not end bad.