Matsuyama and Miyazaki's Bath House

On Monday I went with Justin and Sarah to Matsuyama, it took us under two hours because we took the expressway. I felt like the car would explode any minute, we got it up to 120 . . . km/h. Heh heh. That's not so fast when you convert it into miles per hour, only around 75 mph. Above is a picture of the Matsuyama Castle. It's only the second castle I'm ever been to, so I was impressed (Marugame is like a mosquito compared to it), but others said it was actually a lot smaller than other castles.
Later I stopped by a famous clock near the Dogo Onsen. Later we watched the clock open and do a little show, complete with little wooden bathers doing a little dance. The bird on top of the Clock is the same heron found on top of the bathhouse: legend has it that the hot spring has healing powers, and when it was first found a white heron was soaking its wounded leg in the water, then it was miraculously healed. There are other miracles of healing in the stories about the hot spring.
Here's the main entrance to the Onsen (hot-spring). This bath-house was the inspiration for the bath house in Miyazaki's Movie "Sento Ochihiro . . "(Spirited Away). It was my first time at an Onsen, and this is the oldest onsen in Japanese recorded history, it was mentioned in a book dating to somewhere around 500 AD.
The onsen was different, one thing being that everyone, men and women, stripped down to their skivvies in the same room, in plain view of the open sliding doors overlooking the street. When they explained to me that I was to change there, I triple checked to make sure they really meant right there, before changing. I didn't want to misunderstand and start getting undressed in the wrong place! I sat there for a while until a jkind-spirited english speaker confirmed to me that yes, I was supposed to change right there.
The hot spring itself was a smallish room, you shower first then get into the water. the temperature was pretty hot, so I only stayed for a while. The whole experience actually reminded me a little of the temple.
The Miyazaki store . . . Totoro madness!

Here's another shot of the castle.

Nicolle and Colette strike again

Nicolle and Colette had an easter-egg hunt with the fam back in Utah, here are some photos they sent . . .
Colette loves the extra attention: from Brett, Betsy, Jamison, Amy, Chris, Great-Grandma Bennion, and of course Grandma and Grandpa. Nicolle said that when they all left Colette woke up and started crying, saying, "amy!" Amy!". How quickly I'm replaced, eh?!

Church talk in Japanese

I miss my babies incredibly. The house and car and everything feels so empty.

Today I spoke in church in Japanese. A three-page talk turned into a five-page talk when it was written out in romanji so I could read it. Kaeta helped me by translating the talk into Hiragana, then romanji, then recording himself on my minidisc player so I could listen and practice. There are four types of writing in Japanese: Hiragana, the basic alphabet; Katakana, the alphabet for foreign words; Kanji, the beautiful pictoral symbols; and romanji, japanese words written with the roman alphabet (a,b,c, etc).

I practiced my talk all week. I hooked up my minidisc to our car stereo and listened to Kaeta saying my talk all week long, everywhere I drove.

When I first read my talk out loud on Monday, it took me about 45 minutes to get through it all. Kaeta's recording of the talk is only about 8 minutes long. It was very difficult, much harder than I'd imagined. Saturday night when I practiced reading through it for the last time it took about 25 minutes.

Today at church it went pretty well. Things finally clicked to a certain extent, and this week I learned so much japanese it makes me want to study japanese seriously. The sounds are very similar to spanish sounds, and today at church for the first time I could understand a large amount of what was said, because of studying my talk all week and our stay here in general. I feel very lucky to have had the chance to learn so much, it makes me want to come back again and really buckle down and learn the language. It's not as far out of my grasp as I'd thought before.


Anyway I miss my wife and daughter very much. Tomorrow I'm going with the Bytheways to Matsuyama, to the oldest onsen (japanese bath) in recorded history. This onsen was the inspiration for the bathhouse in Miyazaki's "Spirited Away".

Saying goodbye

Miwa is a good friend who's helped us a lot with different things. Nicolle and Colette said goodbye on Saturday.

Last night the Takashimas had a party at their house with all the Gaijin from our branch (except Steve, who was in Hiroshima), to say goodbye. Many of us are going home in the next two months.

Get the baby out of the house!

Yesterday as Nicolle was trying to pack (we have to send off her bags tomorrow) Colette kept running off with things or rearranging them to her liking, so Nicolle asked me to take her somewhere, I obliged. We got on our bike just like old times and rode off! As we rode up dokigawa I noticed that we weren't so far from Kotohira so I decided to finally climb all the way to the top of Konpira-san. Colette slept almost the whole way there and up, so I imagine she was surprised to wake up halfway up a mountain . . . here are some pictures of the top. I'd only been about halfway up before, to the main platform/shrine level with my Dad and Chris when they visited.
I love the orange colors, just like in Kyoto.
Colette immediately went to work throwing rocks over the edge.
The spring colors are beautiful!
Fists full of Rocks.

Colette loves our bike rides. That was probably our last one here in Japan, since my babies are going home on Monday, and I'm staying till May 4th. It's going to be a lonely house for a while!

Udon the Movie

Well, I finally got around to renting "Udon, the Movie" last night from our local video store. Udon the food is a tasty wheat-based noodle which takes many hours of hard work to prepare, known (supposedly) all over Japan. Kagawa-ken, where we live, is famous for its Udon. Udon the movie came out just last year and is set in our cozy little Kagawa. The story begins in New York city, as a struggling Japanese stand-up comic tries unsucessfully to make the audience laugh. Soon he's on his way back home to backwater Kagawa, where his father runs a tiny Udon shop. A lot of it was filmed right in the shadow of our little Sanuki Fuji mountain, also at the Utazu train station; at the Seto Ohashi park; near the Marugame castle; in the Marugame covered shopping mall; and elsewhere around Kagawa. Part of the storyline is that the main characters are researching all the Udon shops around Kagawa prefecture, so they visit many mom and pop Udon restauraunts around our area.
I had heard that it might have an English track, but it didn't; so we just watched and understood what we could here and there. It's amazing how much of a movie's message can be conveyed by the music, filming setup, body messages, etc.
Here's a link to the movie's website: http://www.udon.vc/movie/.
I might try and buy it as a visual postcard of our year here.

Konpira-san a la sakura

Today Nicolle had her last checkup before going home. Our doctor (Dr. Pooh) has been great, and we've really enjoyed the benefits of an income-based health care system, where we pay little for insurance but recieve great benefits. I know this system would never fly in the States, but it's sure been nice for us here. It's great to have had an ultrasound every visit, two weeks apart.
I saw pictures of Konpira with cherry blossoms, and Nicolle wanted to buy a kimono for herself at a shop there, so we went back to Konpira one last time.


Colette takes a break from climbing back down the stairs. It was quite a workout!

Nicolle's sister Michelle bought tickets for the same flight Nicolle is taking home, so I am very relieved. She'll have someone to help her take the baby home. And Miwa, one of our Japanese friends, is helping us send Nicolle's bags to the airport with the Kuro neco (black cat) delivery service: they charge about $20 a bag and deliver it from your house to the airport. I'm still nervous about their trip, but it seems like things will not be as stressful as they could have been. There's a hotel with free shuttle service about 10 minutes from the airport, so Nicolle will hopefully have a safe, convenient trip back home next week. Thanks Michelle, Miwa, Todd and Guiselle, Mom and Dad, everyone who's helped out so that they can go home safely!

Sakura: the spring cherry blossoms

On sunday we took a break between listening to conference sessions (We're a week behind here, since we're a day ahead . . . try to figure that one out!) and took some pictures at and around the castle. This one's actually in front of Marugame high school, where I think the prettiest cherry blossoms are found.
Colette loves going out and about with the two of us. She runs around waving at everyone she sees. In the background you can see a few tarps and people picnicking, there were hundreds of families at the castle looking at the sakura. We had to park at the school because all the parking was full.
The sakura seems to have a deep meaning and feeling of nostalgia for the Japanese. I can understand why: all the school kids get a two week spring break right during the sakura, and it's a signal of the coming of spring, the weather's warm and the flowers are beautiful. With each gust of wind or breeze a shower of pink petals floats and swirls around like snowflakes. Many songs are written about the sakura, including (if anyone remembers) the theme for the Japanese boxer on Nintendo's "Mike Tyson's punch-Out".

Rob took the country quiz...

You're Brazil!

You're athletic, charming, and probably a good dancer.
Unfortunately, you don't really mind chopping down the rain forest, and you probably
consider homeless people expendable in certain circumstances. Of course, your
personality is so diverse that it's hard to track down exactly what you're like. You
definitely like Pele, the World Cup, and shouting "gooooal" at the
top of your lungs.


Take the Country Quiz
at the Blue Pyramid

Sakura at the castle

fun at school

Sorry I didn't have time yesterday to write about the pictures so here's a brief explanation for those of you that were wondering...
This first one is of Rob teaching his older kindergarten class. He likes it much better than the younger class, for one because he doesn't have to deal with poopy diapers or runny noses, well except for Colette's and he doesn't mind hers:) He also likes it better because there are fewer of them and they are better behaved than the babies. Colette likes this class more too. She especially likes the boy on the far right, when we sit down to watch a video she gives him kisses and pets his head. So strange;)
Next Colette loves to play with her umbrella which she calls "ainy". This day it was actually raining so she got to show off her umbrella holding skills. Lots of people stopped in the street to watch her.
Next is a picture of what we suspect is a "yakuza" car. You might notice the 4's, the benz and the license plate. I just kind of snapped the picture off because another car was coming so sorry it is not very good, but I know that some of you were wondering what they look like so I took advantage that this one is often parked just around the corner from our school. Next we have a picture of some of the girls in Rob's class. Rob did a girl against boy activity and the girls won. You can't tell from the picture but the girls were really excited. These girls are really sweet and cute and I like them a lot, it makes me sad that they aren't regulars, they are just in Rob's class for the "spring special" I don't imagine that they will stay on because the little girl on the left is a twin (her brother is in the first picture, also really cute and sweet, especially when the other boys aren't influencing him:) and they came during summer special but stopped as soon as the special was over. They are 5 years old so they go to regular school most of the time. Lastly we have a picture of Colette in her house slippers. I just bought them for her because I couldn't resist, they were only a dollar and she doesn't have any slippers for the house so she is usually barefoot on the freezing floor and they are boyish so her little brother can have them when they are too small for her. We also have some squeaky shoes that we will bring back, she loves them and although they get a little annoying it is nice to be able to keep track of her, she can be sneaky. And they are blue so they can be hand me downs too. I think I will try to get some video of her with the squeaky shoes on.