Kochi

Here, at last, is the final catch up on of some of the traveling we did when my in-laws were out.

The first weekend in April, we packed our bags yet again and made our way to Shimanto City in Kochi Prefecture. Seeing as Kochi is the birthplace of Anpanman, what better way to get there (and make our children's day) than taking the Anpanman train! William, who is especially obsessed with all things Anpanman at the moment, was thrilled beyond words.

It takes about 4 hours by train from Fukuyama to Shimanto and so the kids were somewhat bribed into good behaviour with the purchase of these Anpanman themed bento.

Theo modeling his bento lid

We only remembered to take a shot of William's bento after he had taken a couple of chomps
out of Anpanman's head

We wanted to have a chance for Obaasan and Ojiisan to get to know Dustin's parents a bit better, so we invited them along with us for the weekend. We were able to book this fabulous house in the middle of nowhere for the time we were out. It is a model eco home built almost entirely, inside and out, with local cypress and smelled absolutely amazing! 

Front of the house

and the back

Grandma and the boys peeking down from the second story balcony

Waiting to eat some yummy nabe

Theo and I hunted down this 5 cm monster for our more squeamish
housemates and deposited him outside

The gorgeous all cypress bathroom

Even more amazing than the house itself were the views of the mountains and the Shimanto River. Directly across from the house was this large display of koinobori strung over the river for Children's Day. 

 Enjoying a walk in the sunshine with Grandma

Trying, and failing, to find fossils in the rocks

We went on a tour of the river on this traditional boat. What you can't see from the photo is that the whole interior of the cabin has tatami flooring, so everyone's shoes were left outside on the deck.

Theo soon made a new best friend when the boatman let him control the motor. Theo sat with one  hand firmly planted on the man's thigh and the other on the tiller, and giving us all a choppy, bumpy ride for most of the trip. I think he was a little surprised (and probably annoyed after a while) to find out that Theo could speak Japanese. There was an endless stream of prattle and questions from Theo about everything and anything he saw.

BFF

The day ended with a barbecue in which Theo forsook all of his previous claims that he was an herbivore. 

And here are some final random pictures of our adventures:

Theo checking out a rock slide that was blocking part of the road. There were also mountain monkeys on the road which we weren't quick enough to get pictures  of.

Dustin, the hunter-gatherer, finding the biggest bamboo shoots the forest had to offer

 And some beautiful flowers that were blooming earlier in Kochi than in Hiroshima

Azalea

Wisteria

More Surprises

As of yet, we have no idea where we will be living in Japan. There are many aspects of applying for the JET Programme that require you to be an insanely patient and laid back person, and this is certainly one of them. Not many people I know would be excited about signing themselves and their family up for a life in an absolutely unknown location in a foreign country. Add to that the 7 month applications time and that you only have a rough guess of what your housing will be like is enough to turn most people off. Though we are certainly not the most patient of people, no one could accuse of not being laid back. The unknown just makes this all the more exciting.

We have been told that we will find out our placement in May. Basically, the government works with various contracting organizations to find best where to place you. On our applications we were asked to put three preferences, but they make no promises that you will actually get placed in one of the areas that you requested. Picking our three preferences turned out to be really informative. After hours and days of googling all of the different regions and prefectures of Japan, we were able to see which had geography, climate, foods, etc. which appealed to us the most. We finally decided on Miyazaki, Kochi, and Okayama Prefectures. They are all in the southern-ish part of Japan since we really don't want to have to deal with cold winters anymore. We also specified that we want to live in a rural community. We feel that living in a small town or village will force us to learn Japanese faster, allow us to experience more traditional Japanese culture, become part of the community, and have greater access to the outdoors. We will be anxiously waiting until sometime in May when they decide where to place us.