Adventures in Oita Part II

This post will be primarily photos since our trip to Oita was less about packing in activities, but more about relaxing, catching up with family, exploring the countryside, visiting friends, and eating delicious food. Not too many things to write in detail about, but lots to see.

William and I exploring

Beautiful countryside

tasty shiitake!

Theo, Dustin, and his father went on a hike of the nearby mountain trail

and saw a bit of wildlife in the form of this colourful millipede

and evidence of boars from the traps

We also strolled around Usa Shrine for a bit

We left the day before Easter, so we decided to have a little egg hunt before heading off

It took William a little while to realize that there was candy and chocolate hiding in the bushes for him, but when it comes to food, especially treats, he is a pretty fast learner.

Just having discovered his chocolate bunny

At the train station, heading back to Hiroshima

Goodbye Oita, we hope to see you again!

Adventures in Oita Part I

The first week after my in-laws arrived we stuck around Fukuyama and kept it mostly low key. I am really glad that we planned for a whole week of down time since Dustin's father was really hit hard by a combination of jet lag and stress about leaving his business for a month which gradually turned into a cough and cold. None the less, we had a nice time catching up and enjoying the nice spring weather around the house and in our little neighbourhood playground.

Puttering around with Grandpa

Playing Catan Jr. with Grandma and Papa

"Heeeelp"

Theo, doing typical Theo things that only he really understands

On March 27th, even though dad wasn't really feeling fantastic yet, we packed up and got on the shinkansen for a trip south to Oita Prefecture. It is funny to think that after being in Japan for nearly two years it was the one of the first real trips we have taken. We have taken small trips all around our prefecture and the neighbouring prefecture of Okayama, but beyond that most of Japan is a mystery to us. It is not that we don't like traveling, Dustin and I love it and the children hold up fairly well on trains and in hostels or hotels, but all four of us (and soon to be five) on one income doesn't usually leave much room for jaunts across the country. Also, anyone who has ever traveled with multiple children under the age of five knows that by the end of a trip you feel utterly exhausted, glad it's over and that everyone managed to survive, and a little bummed that every restaurant and entertainment choice was based on what your children wouldn't complain about or could handle. That being said, with adults heavily outnumbering children, this trip was great.

And why Oita Prefecture, you may ask? None of us take any kind of pleasure strolling around in a large city, so immediately Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka, and Kobe were off our list of places to visit. Really what we wanted was a chance to get out into the country and show Dustin's parents a taste of raw and natural Japan, not the heavily populated, neon lit, metropolitan Japan that many tourists experience. There is a family that we have always wanted to get to know better that live in rural Oita, so we took the opportunity to visit them and enjoy the gorgeous weather and countryside. We had a great time visiting and got to stay in their amazingly beautiful cottage:

Spring came early on this side of the globe (sorry to all of my family back in Canada that still have snow in late April!), and even earlier in Oita compared with Hiroshima, so we were able to see beautiful blossoms everywhere.

The children were ecstatic to find out there was a chicken coop full of friendly, inquisitive chickens. Theo especially took an interest in the chickens and spent hours every day feeding, watching, and talking to them.

He even went so far as to insist on having a chicken costume made so that he could "trick them into thinking he was a chicken too". I drew the line though when he asked if he could sleep in the chicken coop at night.

Theo is still talking about his friends and I have been consoling him with the promise that one day we too will have enough space for a chicken coop of our own. 

...to be continued!

Anticipation

It has been a while since my last post, and mostly because the past few weeks has been extremely busy for all of us. I guess I have a lot of catching up to do! 

Unlike Canada, the school year in Japan ends in the middle of March and begins in mid-April. On February 28th, Theo's yochien held their end of year performance. Like last year (and every December as well), this included four mind numbing hours of plays, instrumental ensembles, and singing. This year, Theo played a mouse in one of the three plays. I vaguely caught the premise of the play which was as follows: A bear finds a door in the middle of the woods and passes through to the other side. The door transports him to a magical land of ice and snow where he finds ice fish swimming in a river. After gorging himself,  he becomes a magical ice statue, only able to move his eyes but unable to speak. All the other animals of the forest notice that he is missing, find the door, and travel through to the other side. When they find his frozen body they debate on the best way to free him from the spell. Music of course! Once the song has done its trick the bear and the animals head home. I am not sure if there was supposed to be a moral to this tale. Maybe don't eat other people's fish without asking?

Theo is the 7th child from the left. The one doing some kind of salute.

William and I were very lucky that Obaasan and Ojiisan decided to come and see Theo's performance. William spent most of the time being entertained, fed, and followed around by Obaasan which was really the only way he and I survived all four hours without any major meltdowns. 

On March 3rd we once again failed to celebrate Hinamatsuri, or Girl's Day. Theo did make a little paper craft at school and we snapped this shot of him posing as the Emperor without an Empress, which I think was a tiny bit more effort than last year. 

And finally, the much anticipated (by Theo and not so much by me) day arrived: the last day of school before spring vacation. Here is Theo posing in what he calls his "fancy pants" for the last day of class. 

Actually, Theo has spent the past week in a state of heightening excitement due a number of things on our horizon: first was the beginning of spring break on March 15th, William's second birthday on March 19th, the arrival of Dustin's parents for a month long visit also on March 19th, a trip that we will be making to Kyushu in the last week of March, and Easter with all the egg dyeing and goodies it entails. Every morning, he runs through this list of future events asking me if any of these days have arrived yet. How frustrating it would be to have very little concept of the passing of time! 

Cycling the Shimanami Kaido

This is a post I have been meaning to write for a few days and have continued to put off for one ridiculous reason or another. However, even though it is several weeks too late I will now regale you with my tale of cycling the Shimanami Kaido. {side note: this will be a personal narrative, if you are looking for detailed information on taking this trip yourself I suggest you go here or here or here.}

Final bridge connecting Shikoku to Honshu.

My story probably starts closer to the beginning of our time in Japan when I first heard about the Shimanami Kaido  which links Onomichi, Hiroshima Prefecture, with Imabari, Ehime Prefecture. It's a 60 kilometer-long toll highway exclusively for automobiles that links the islands of the Seto Inland Sea with nine individual bridges. Each bridge consists of a road way and a cycle/pedestrian corridor. In addition to the bridges the wonderful folks behind the Shimanami Kaido also designed and incorporated a complete cycle route with access ramps and signs that guide you the entire way. On top that, they even painted a blue line on the highway all the way from Onomichi to Imabari city centre. In other words if you get lost, well you probably deserved it. 

The cycle route is slightly longer at about 70kms

But I digress, when I first heard about it another teacher from my school suggested we cycle it sometime, however when plans were finally made we only ended up driving his car to certain points and cycling around them... also it rained and we got completely soaked. At this point I can not stress enough, if you are going to attempt this trip be aware of the weather. Not only does cycling in the rain suck, but the wind on some of the bridges can become down right dangerous if not given a healthy amount of respect. 

Fast forward to very recently, October 20th to be exact. A second attempt had been planned with the addition of one more to the party and coinciding with me getting a new road bicycle the week before. So with high hopes that the weather would hold two of us set from the starting point of the ferry terminus on Mukaishima, the first of the islands we would have to cross. On the other side of the island we met up with my fellow teacher and tackled the first bridge.

My new bike is the one on the right.
The Trek belonged to the other member of our group
and is a significantly more expensive bike then mine. :(

The first bridge we had to overcome and the only one where
the cycle path is actually below the cars on second level.

The weather held and we could not have asked for a more perfect day for cycling. Once we reached Oshima island the teacher from my school called it a day and turned around in order to return to his car, while the remaining two of us continued on. Just outside of Imabari City my other companion also turned around, so that he could make it back home before dark. I had intended to to finish the entire route so I continued on alone. When I finally reached Imabari at around 2:00 in the afternoon I was tired and hungry but happy that I had finally completed something I had been wanting to do for some time. I was also rewarded at the end of my trip with a bonafide Giant store, which if you know me is second only to discovering an Apple store. :) 

I highly recommend that if you ever find yourself in this neck of the woods and have a day to spare that you spend it cycling the Shimanami Kaido. 

Attempting to not be the tallest one out. Walker-sensei (L)

One of the longer bridges we encountered.

Walker-sensei (L) Fujita-sensei (R)

Fantastic signs that show the effort put into making this one of premier cycle routes in Japan.

Restaurant where I ate my much needed victory meal.

Imabari speciality: Rice, fried pork and two sunny side up eggs.

If you know me you would realize how giddy this made me.
 And the fact that I asked one of the girls working at the shop to take this picture really made her day.