One Man's Park Is Another Man's Water Park

I love when I find really cool things in my town. I HATE when I find them a year later. How nice this park would have been the first year we were here and the whole beginning of this summer. It makes me wonder what else we are missing out on. Probably a lot.

Rev and Xander told me there was a park that they walked to from their school that had a really long roller slide on it. Getting directions from a 5 and 3 year old though is rather impossible. So a few months ago we found the park. It is HUGE. It is very pretty and has several little playgrounds for the kids. Also on one end of the park is a big pond (only a couple feet deep) with a big fountain in the middle. The first time we were at the park was at night and there were no kids playing in the pond. Since I can't read Japanese I had no idea weather kids were allowed to play in the pond or not.

Fast forward another couple of months and our neighbor (who has the little boy) was telling us that she was just at the park playing in the water. So again, we set out for the park but found no little kids in the pond. I figured that maybe I had misunderstood her (it happens a lot here) and that maybe they had played around the pond but not actually in it. My kids kept begging to jump in the water but I did not want to be those "foreigners."

A few weeks later we were talking to her again and she was saying she was playing at the water in the park. So we asked her if we were allowed to actually get in the pond and she said yes. So we set out the next day with our swimming suits and towels. And continued to go everyday until it got too cold to play in the water anymore. Too bad we only had a few weeks to enjoy this park before it started to get cold. Now we know, next summer should be lots of fun.

I really can't figure out if these were put in to make the place look decorative, or if they were put in so kids could play in them. They are perfect little slides for boys like mine.

Isn't this place so pretty?

So the first time we came I noticed that there were no kids in swimming suits. They all showed up and either got in the pond with their clothes on, or they took their clothes off and swam in their underwear (I think after you turn 3 or 4 that is not really an option in America, especially if you are a girl). I figured that maybe the kids did not plan on getting in the water when they came and were thus unprepared and did not bring their swimming suits.

That explanation seemed to work until we came back a few times and noticed that people would bring towels and things to dry off with (obviously planning on getting in the water) and yet they still swam in their underwear. That's when I started to realize that most of these kids probably don't own a swimming suit. I am guessing that swimming is not the popular sport that it was in America among the kids. We had several pools and water parks in our town back home. But I guess a park with a pond works just as well. And now we know we don't even need swimming suits for it (although I am not sure I could pull off swimming in my underwear).

The boys were so excited to play in the water.

All the boys under the water.

I sent Rev and Xander to go the bathroom and I caught them holding hands. Hopefully Xander is the person I catch him holding hands with....

A Bunch of Crazy Monkeys, And I Am Not Talking About the 4 I Live With

Our area is known for the wild monkeys that roam around the mountains here. I am starting to think this is just a wild rumor that has plummeted out of control. That they put up these big blue plastic tarps around their gardens to make people believe that there are wild monkeys that roam around. And then they ship in some crazy monkeys and put them all in a cage to show off all the monkeys that they "captured" around here. Hah! I am so onto them.

But that did not stop us from going out once again to find those "wild monkeys". We took a dirt road that we thought was a road full of these monkeys running around. So we drove through the mountains on this road which then led us straight to....drum roll please..........the monkeys in the cage! Yes, we found those darn monkeys in the cage again.


We figured this time we would enjoy the monkeys a little more. We decided to ignore the "No Feeding" sign and decided to throw the monkeys a little bit of grass (of course this was only done when we saw nobody around watching us) But we relaxed a little when we saw some Japanese people feeding the monkeys as well.
The monkeys kept reaching their hands under the fence to try and grab the grass that was growing on the other side (even the monkeys know the grass is greener on the other side). We decided to help the monkeys out and throw some grass closer to the fence so they could reach it. And that is how we started the monkey riots:


For all we know they are still rioting....and probably arguing over who started it....

And here are all my crazy monkeys....they also like to riot about small things like toy cars, water bottles, seats in the car, tv remotes, time on the wii and also have been know to fight over tiny blades of grass!

Are You Celebrating a Birthday or a Funeral???

Shimokita likes to have a welcome party for all the new JET's that come. This year we had 7 new JET's in the area. Amy was in charge of planning the event (she is the CIR here so she deals with all international relations in the community). She does an awesome job planning things. The event this year was held outside so there was plenty of room for all the kids to run around and not bug us too much. There was LOTS of good food to eat. The Japanese brought lots of yakiniku food and Amy had hot dogs. I went a little crazy with my cooking (I do that a lot), and made a pasta salad, potato salad, 7 layer dip, 6 dozen cookies, and 2 birthday cakes. Trevor was sure I made WAY to much food but it almost all got eaten (I don't know why he doubts how good my food is. :))

Nakanishisan is the best. I was distracted during the party and looked over to see her feeding Dasch. She spoils them rotten.

I can't remember who this is. But she wanted a picture with my boys so I figured I would take a picture of her too...

So Josie and Kristi (2 of the new JETS) both had birthdays. I think everybody deserves to have a cake for their birthday so I decided to whip up a few of them. Josie wanted a chocolate cake and I made Kristi a carrot cake. They looked delicious (I wasn't eating sugar then so I didn't get to taste them). One of my Japanese friends helped me write on them because you all know how bad my handwriting is (and you should see my Japanese handwriting).

So they wrote on the cakes and then I got out my candles that I bought at the store to put on them. Cuz that's what Americana's do right?? After I put the candles on my friends asked me to see the box that I was getting the candles out of. They both read the box and then started to giggle. They kindly let me know that the candles I had just put on the cake were candles that the Japanese put on graves. Ooopps! I guess it did NOT pay to just go for the cheapest box of candles they have. Good thing they were not too offended. They told me they would not tell anybody else what they were. And all this time I thought a candle was just a candle.

And it probably would have been a good idea to take a picture of all the new JET's. Yep, don't know why I didn't think of that then.

Thanks Amy for the great party!

No Club the Club For Us, This Is A Family Event!

Another festival..Are you surprised??? Luckily we only drop by for an hour or so and we don't have to pull the floats through town like these people....And I may have taken this picture while I was driving....(but I did pass my driver's test on the first try so no worries). I guess they carry the floats around town and then they all meet up which signals the beginning of the festival. They then party for a few days and when they pull the floats away that signals the end of summer ( I could be very wrong on these details....trying to remember what Lindsay told me about this festival).

But that really means nothing to us. We just go for the festival food; octopus balls (wow, that sounds really gross, I wish I could remember what they call them in Japanese), karage (fried chicken), okonomiyaki (very famous Japanese pancakes), chicken and beef skewers (you have to make sure that is what you are getting though because they also sell chicken skin skewers and liver). We also had snow cones!! Always a treat. Oishikata!!

And another reason for Rev and Xander to wear their yukata!

We wanted to stop at Club the Club, but no kids allowed. I just want to meet the person who thought this would be a good name for a club. I am just hoping it sounds better in Japanese!

Our kids are like celebrities when we go to events like these. And my boys just eat it up!

They had a stage set up and had some kind of performance going on.

The music is my favorite part of these. It's kind of loud but I could listen to this all day.

We let the kids play a few carnival type games. Rev and Xander had to throw some balls to try and knock over bottles. The guy was very nice and let Xander get really close and he gave him extra balls (it pays to be a foreigner sometimes). Since Rev was bigger he had to stand farther back and did not knock over as many. So Xander got a better prize. Somehow Rev convinced Xander to trade with him. I guess if Rev's sports skills are not up to par, we know his swindling skills are far above average!