Finally, some pictures!
Wednesday, September 28, 2005
Tuesday, September 27, 2005
Heading for home...
This hotel has free internet, so I have to take advantage.
Just a quick update, because Erik and I are hoping to do something fun for our last night.
We spent four days in Tokyo. What an adventure to go from rurual Ohda to the metropolis of Tokyo. More details to come, but some highlights included a day at the Sumo basho, a trip to the fish market, and a baseball game.
We headed to Osaka last night to have dinner with one of Steve:s friends, stayed there last night, and today headed for Kyoto for the day (not much to do in Osaka). Saw some wonderful things in Kyoto, then tried to avoid the fact that it was time to say good bye to Steve (he somehow thought we were leaving today...so he had to head back to Ohda tonight). We took the same train heading for Osaka, but he stayed on, and we had to get off, so it made for a quick and relatively painless gooodbye. We will see him again in France sometime, and can t thank him enough for such a wonderful vacation.
So, now we are in Osaka, dreading the return of real life. So many things to think about in preparation for France, but it will all have to wait until we land from the painful 13 hour flight home.
We hope everyone is well, and look forward to catching up with everyone, (and sharing our photos...there are sooo many).
We ll talk to you soon,
Torie and Erik :)
This hotel has free internet, so I have to take advantage.
Just a quick update, because Erik and I are hoping to do something fun for our last night.
We spent four days in Tokyo. What an adventure to go from rurual Ohda to the metropolis of Tokyo. More details to come, but some highlights included a day at the Sumo basho, a trip to the fish market, and a baseball game.
We headed to Osaka last night to have dinner with one of Steve:s friends, stayed there last night, and today headed for Kyoto for the day (not much to do in Osaka). Saw some wonderful things in Kyoto, then tried to avoid the fact that it was time to say good bye to Steve (he somehow thought we were leaving today...so he had to head back to Ohda tonight). We took the same train heading for Osaka, but he stayed on, and we had to get off, so it made for a quick and relatively painless gooodbye. We will see him again in France sometime, and can t thank him enough for such a wonderful vacation.
So, now we are in Osaka, dreading the return of real life. So many things to think about in preparation for France, but it will all have to wait until we land from the painful 13 hour flight home.
We hope everyone is well, and look forward to catching up with everyone, (and sharing our photos...there are sooo many).
We ll talk to you soon,
Torie and Erik :)
Thursday, September 22, 2005
Crazy Japan strikes again!
Today we leave for Tokyo, so this will likely be the last update before we get home. So let me fill you in on what we've been up to for the last day or so.
Yesterday we went on a hike with the junior high students at Kitasanbe School (one of Steve's mountain schools). What a serious hike! Mt. Sanbe is the highest mountain in Shimane prefecture, and is actually one of a series of mountains that once formed the outside of a volcano (I think, but as I don't speak Japanese, some details slip by. But it makes for a good story). So the day started with a climb to the top of Sanbe, about an hour. Then we descended that mountain through a gorge of slippery rocks to a lake at the bottom, and climbed up to the top of the next mountain, where we had lunch. Luckily, the weather was not the best yesterday, it was supposed to rain, so they cut the climb short and we omitted one of the mountains from the excursion. The climb continued along a ridge between the second mountain and Sanbe, and we arrived again at the top of Sanbe (very tired, legs like jello and ready to give out at any moment...). I've never been so happy to be at the top of a mountain. Back down to the bottom and we were all done. It was a full day, we started climbing at 8am and were not done until around 3pm. We couldn't have been happier to get to the onsen that afternoon, where we relaxed and then watched sumo and ate icecream.
We were then ready to start eating again, and decided on kaitenzushi (conveyor belt sushi) for the third time this trip. We were craving something called ebi-fry-maki-zushi, which is shrimp tempura roll, and soooo good! One of the kids on the climb has a brother who works at this place, and she was making fun of us because the last time we were there we ordered six of these. Anyway, half way through the meal we found out that the pizza place we wanted to go to was open, so we left and headed for our next round of eating. One pizza, six beers and three free sausages later, we were at the local Lawsons to pick up some refreshments and snacks. Many people wanted to see us on our last night in Ohda, so we had a mini party here at Steve's house complete with mini-Japanese style keg to serve nama (draft) beer.
Thats about it. We don't really have too many plans for the rest of the trip except that we hope to leave for Tokyo today around noon, however at the rate we're going, it will be much later than that.
So,,,thats it for now. We're looking forward to hearing from everyone, and settling back into our lives (do I really have to go back to work???).
Talk to you soon,
Torie (and Erik)
Today we leave for Tokyo, so this will likely be the last update before we get home. So let me fill you in on what we've been up to for the last day or so.
Yesterday we went on a hike with the junior high students at Kitasanbe School (one of Steve's mountain schools). What a serious hike! Mt. Sanbe is the highest mountain in Shimane prefecture, and is actually one of a series of mountains that once formed the outside of a volcano (I think, but as I don't speak Japanese, some details slip by. But it makes for a good story). So the day started with a climb to the top of Sanbe, about an hour. Then we descended that mountain through a gorge of slippery rocks to a lake at the bottom, and climbed up to the top of the next mountain, where we had lunch. Luckily, the weather was not the best yesterday, it was supposed to rain, so they cut the climb short and we omitted one of the mountains from the excursion. The climb continued along a ridge between the second mountain and Sanbe, and we arrived again at the top of Sanbe (very tired, legs like jello and ready to give out at any moment...). I've never been so happy to be at the top of a mountain. Back down to the bottom and we were all done. It was a full day, we started climbing at 8am and were not done until around 3pm. We couldn't have been happier to get to the onsen that afternoon, where we relaxed and then watched sumo and ate icecream.
We were then ready to start eating again, and decided on kaitenzushi (conveyor belt sushi) for the third time this trip. We were craving something called ebi-fry-maki-zushi, which is shrimp tempura roll, and soooo good! One of the kids on the climb has a brother who works at this place, and she was making fun of us because the last time we were there we ordered six of these. Anyway, half way through the meal we found out that the pizza place we wanted to go to was open, so we left and headed for our next round of eating. One pizza, six beers and three free sausages later, we were at the local Lawsons to pick up some refreshments and snacks. Many people wanted to see us on our last night in Ohda, so we had a mini party here at Steve's house complete with mini-Japanese style keg to serve nama (draft) beer.
Thats about it. We don't really have too many plans for the rest of the trip except that we hope to leave for Tokyo today around noon, however at the rate we're going, it will be much later than that.
So,,,thats it for now. We're looking forward to hearing from everyone, and settling back into our lives (do I really have to go back to work???).
Talk to you soon,
Torie (and Erik)
Monday, September 19, 2005
Finally a day off!
Kayaking was cancelled due to Kuri-san being sick, and us being rather tired/under the weather after a night out with some of Steve's teacher friends. Red wine was a bad choice!
We checked out some beaches on the way back from the cancelled outing, saw some fisherman making salt from sea water, then napped until 3pm. I think we'll check out the driving range later today.
We leave for Tokyo on Thursday, and Erik and Steve have been religiously following the sumo basho (tournament) in prepartion for the trip.
Its bento time!
Check you later,
Torie
Kayaking was cancelled due to Kuri-san being sick, and us being rather tired/under the weather after a night out with some of Steve's teacher friends. Red wine was a bad choice!
We checked out some beaches on the way back from the cancelled outing, saw some fisherman making salt from sea water, then napped until 3pm. I think we'll check out the driving range later today.
We leave for Tokyo on Thursday, and Erik and Steve have been religiously following the sumo basho (tournament) in prepartion for the trip.
Its bento time!
Check you later,
Torie
Saturday, September 17, 2005
Too bad...doesn't look like we'll be able to post any photos until we get home...we weren't able to get Steve's computer to recognize our card reader. Sorry, I know people were looking forward to those.
Today was sports day number 2, at the Ohda elementary school. The pinnacle of the day was the marching band performance after lunch. Picture six year olds playing the trumpet and marching in formation. Unbelievable. The principal was wondering why we don't do anything like this in Canada. I can't even begin to imagine the amount of preparation and organization that it involves. The entire school did exercises in unison, and teams of 300 performed choreographed cheers. Again, hard to imagine, but not to worry, we took pictures.
Thats it for now. More adventures await us...
Today was sports day number 2, at the Ohda elementary school. The pinnacle of the day was the marching band performance after lunch. Picture six year olds playing the trumpet and marching in formation. Unbelievable. The principal was wondering why we don't do anything like this in Canada. I can't even begin to imagine the amount of preparation and organization that it involves. The entire school did exercises in unison, and teams of 300 performed choreographed cheers. Again, hard to imagine, but not to worry, we took pictures.
Thats it for now. More adventures await us...
Friday, September 16, 2005
Hello all!
We've gotten lots of positive feedback on the blog, and we're glad that everyone is enjoying it. It's fun being able to share our trip with you all.
Here's our latest update.
We just got back last night (2am) from an adventure down to Shikkoku, one of the smaller of the four main islands of Japan. This is the place that Erik and I visited last year, and had a particularly negative experience that involved lots of frustration with not reading Japanese, and driving. So, this time we brought Steve. We left on Tuesday morning, and drove down to Hiroshima to activate our JR passes that we will be needing later on in the trip (thanks Karina!). These passes arae only available to visitors, and we had some concerns that Steve wouldn't be able to activate his, but we were lucky, and had no problems. We're looking forward to taking advangtage of the rail system later on to get to Tokyo.
Anyway, after that we kept heading east to Onomichi, where we picked up bikes and started biking across a series of tiny islands that connects Shikkoku to the main island, Honshu. It was an amazing ride. The bridges were fantastic, and the scenery was even better. We made it half way the first day, and got in late to the only town on the middle island. The only place we could find to stay at was an awesome ryokan with an amazing onsen. Just what we needed after a day of biking. After a traditional Japanese breakfast there the next morning, we headed out again (our behinds are quite sore at this point) and headed to the next island to check out a shrine that houses most of Japans "National Treasures" which were some pretty spectacular samurai swords and armour (I'll let you guess whose idea this was...) :)
We had reached our time limit at this point, and biked back to the ferry that took us back to the ryokan where we had another bath (soooo nice!) before taking the ferry the rest of the way back to the mainland (so much easier by boat!:). After paying for our ridiculously expensive parking, we continued driving east to catch another ferry back to Shikkoku so we could head into the Iya Valley. It was getting pretty late at this point, so we cancelled our intended destination (a place called Chiiori, we never made it, but more on that later), and stayed the night in Kochira, and climbed the 800 steps up to a beautiful shrine the next day, on the top of Kompira-san(H, J, and K, I think you did this on your trip). A nice walk down and another great bath, and we were back in the car heading into the depths of the Iya Valley.
What can I say about the view? It was amazing. We drove down some pretty unbelievably narrow mountain roads, did a quick run across the vine bridges, then drove down a mountain. Pretty scary stuff. The roads are just wide enough for one car, and are very windy. Lots of backing up to let other cars pass.
A couple of hours later we were back in Oda, exhausted. Woke up this morning to go to school with Steve to Tomiyama valley Elementary School. I can't believe how beautiful these schools are! Anyway, this is the "Ebi-Cani Dance" school, and we started the day off with a rendition of that. The kids were so cute, and we got to take part in some cool drumming thing, and then they dressed us up in costumes to take pictures. Everyone has been so nice!
Wow. I can't believe that we've only been here for about a week. Steve is keeping us very busy, and we're having a great time. Hope everything is going well for everyone back home. Now I'm going to see if I can figure out how to post some pictures....wish me luck.
E+T:)
We've gotten lots of positive feedback on the blog, and we're glad that everyone is enjoying it. It's fun being able to share our trip with you all.
Here's our latest update.
We just got back last night (2am) from an adventure down to Shikkoku, one of the smaller of the four main islands of Japan. This is the place that Erik and I visited last year, and had a particularly negative experience that involved lots of frustration with not reading Japanese, and driving. So, this time we brought Steve. We left on Tuesday morning, and drove down to Hiroshima to activate our JR passes that we will be needing later on in the trip (thanks Karina!). These passes arae only available to visitors, and we had some concerns that Steve wouldn't be able to activate his, but we were lucky, and had no problems. We're looking forward to taking advangtage of the rail system later on to get to Tokyo.
Anyway, after that we kept heading east to Onomichi, where we picked up bikes and started biking across a series of tiny islands that connects Shikkoku to the main island, Honshu. It was an amazing ride. The bridges were fantastic, and the scenery was even better. We made it half way the first day, and got in late to the only town on the middle island. The only place we could find to stay at was an awesome ryokan with an amazing onsen. Just what we needed after a day of biking. After a traditional Japanese breakfast there the next morning, we headed out again (our behinds are quite sore at this point) and headed to the next island to check out a shrine that houses most of Japans "National Treasures" which were some pretty spectacular samurai swords and armour (I'll let you guess whose idea this was...) :)
We had reached our time limit at this point, and biked back to the ferry that took us back to the ryokan where we had another bath (soooo nice!) before taking the ferry the rest of the way back to the mainland (so much easier by boat!:). After paying for our ridiculously expensive parking, we continued driving east to catch another ferry back to Shikkoku so we could head into the Iya Valley. It was getting pretty late at this point, so we cancelled our intended destination (a place called Chiiori, we never made it, but more on that later), and stayed the night in Kochira, and climbed the 800 steps up to a beautiful shrine the next day, on the top of Kompira-san(H, J, and K, I think you did this on your trip). A nice walk down and another great bath, and we were back in the car heading into the depths of the Iya Valley.
What can I say about the view? It was amazing. We drove down some pretty unbelievably narrow mountain roads, did a quick run across the vine bridges, then drove down a mountain. Pretty scary stuff. The roads are just wide enough for one car, and are very windy. Lots of backing up to let other cars pass.
A couple of hours later we were back in Oda, exhausted. Woke up this morning to go to school with Steve to Tomiyama valley Elementary School. I can't believe how beautiful these schools are! Anyway, this is the "Ebi-Cani Dance" school, and we started the day off with a rendition of that. The kids were so cute, and we got to take part in some cool drumming thing, and then they dressed us up in costumes to take pictures. Everyone has been so nice!
Wow. I can't believe that we've only been here for about a week. Steve is keeping us very busy, and we're having a great time. Hope everything is going well for everyone back home. Now I'm going to see if I can figure out how to post some pictures....wish me luck.
E+T:)
Sunday, September 11, 2005
Erik and Torie take on Japan!
Well, we made it! After travelling for about 24 hours (Toronto-Detroit, Detroit-Osaka, Osaka-Oda) we met up with Steve. He had arranged for us to get a train 40 min. after we landed (I wasn't so sure that would work...) luckily our plane was 15 min early, and the Japanese woman he had recruited was ready and waiting to give us our envelope with further instructions. What an adventure.
Life is Japan is good. Steve took us to a sports day yesterday at one of his old schools, and what an adventure that was. We were all on a team and got to compete in events such as the ball toss, relay and tug of war. Other activities that students participated in were ones such as tire tug of war (junior high school girls fight over tires, dragging them to their side of the court), crazy obstacle courses, and well choreographed dances, one of which ended in a congratulations sign being held up and Erik and I being pushed onto the field. Pictures are coming soon.
That evening we went to a teachers enkai (party) and experienced things such as the banzai, crazy teachers doing backflips, and some crowd surfing. Truly things that one could never imagine.
After an exciting walk home last night complete with sandal tossing, and searching through the jungle for lost sandals, we awoke in time for Steve to take us on a crazy bike ride around and up the mountains of Oda. It was amazing.
Hard to believe we've only been here for three days. Tonight we're staying at some fancy japanese style hotel and visiting a house that will be dismantled and rebuilt in France as some architect thinks it's a work of art. Can't wait.
Stay tuned!
Erik and Torie
Well, we made it! After travelling for about 24 hours (Toronto-Detroit, Detroit-Osaka, Osaka-Oda) we met up with Steve. He had arranged for us to get a train 40 min. after we landed (I wasn't so sure that would work...) luckily our plane was 15 min early, and the Japanese woman he had recruited was ready and waiting to give us our envelope with further instructions. What an adventure.
Life is Japan is good. Steve took us to a sports day yesterday at one of his old schools, and what an adventure that was. We were all on a team and got to compete in events such as the ball toss, relay and tug of war. Other activities that students participated in were ones such as tire tug of war (junior high school girls fight over tires, dragging them to their side of the court), crazy obstacle courses, and well choreographed dances, one of which ended in a congratulations sign being held up and Erik and I being pushed onto the field. Pictures are coming soon.
That evening we went to a teachers enkai (party) and experienced things such as the banzai, crazy teachers doing backflips, and some crowd surfing. Truly things that one could never imagine.
After an exciting walk home last night complete with sandal tossing, and searching through the jungle for lost sandals, we awoke in time for Steve to take us on a crazy bike ride around and up the mountains of Oda. It was amazing.
Hard to believe we've only been here for three days. Tonight we're staying at some fancy japanese style hotel and visiting a house that will be dismantled and rebuilt in France as some architect thinks it's a work of art. Can't wait.
Stay tuned!
Erik and Torie
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