Summer Vacation Report

Let me give you a brief report of my Summer Vacation.

I took 3 days off, from August 14th to the 16th, and went to my wife's hometown in Kyushu. She is from Kumamoto Prefecture, specifically the town of Arao. Arao used to be a mining town, and actually her grandfather worked in the mines. Now, the most famous site in Arao is the Arao Horse Track. When I go there, I always look forward to eating the Mentai-ko, which are red fish eggs and called "seasoned cod roe." Luckily, this time I could also eat a lot of them!! Not including the funeral I attended a month ago, it was the first time I had been to Arao in about one year and a half.

I took the Bullet train to Kyushu after class on Saturday and arrived late at night. My mother-in-law picked me up at the station. It is a small station, and it was around 11pm, so the train station was "manless," that means there were not any train officers there because their working shifts finished and everybody already went home.

It rained the whole day on Sunday. It was literally like a monsoon. But there was a first. I went jogging with my wife. We never go jogging together, so it was a first! In all we jogged around 10k, and half of the time it was pouring. For a few minutes there was even thunder and lightening. My wife is scared of lightening so I had to protect her. I was a good husband. While we were running my wife turned to me and said, "Wow, this is so much fun. I have never rain in the rain before...I am soaking wet, but this is cool!" At that moment, I knew she had changed. She would never have said that to me 5 years ago when we were dating.

On Monday, we had dinner at an Izakaya with my sister-in-law, and brother-in-law, and nephew Yuta. He is now 2 years and about 4 months old. He just began to talk a lot and he is very cute. I enjoyed spending time with everyone, and expecially enjoyed playign with him. If you want to see his cute pic, just ask me and I will show you. I have some photos saved in my cell. Speaking of my cell, it broke (because of my sweat!) just before Obon Vacation, so I got a new one. I am not used to it yet, but I like it.

Then, on the 16th, I came back to Osaka on the Bullet Train. But this time, I got a "Green Seat." It was my first time to sit in a "Green Seat" and I liked it. The seats were much more comfortable and bigger than the regular seats. In addition, there was a lot more leg room, and I got a free face/hand wipe too from the train attendant.

Anyway, I really enjoyed myself in Arao with everyone. It was a lot of fun, and also relaxing.

Below are some great photos from Ehime. Ms. K's hometown is Ehime, and she went back to her hometown, like many people do in Japan during the Obon Holidays. She lives near the beach and went swimming and fishing and spent time with her neices and nephews and dogs. She also said she had a great time. (Tomorrow I will put some more photos of Ehime on the blog, but these photos are from Ms. H. She is also from Ehime and also went back to visit her family. Now that I think of it, many students are from Ehime...it's strange)