Oh, Where To Begin?

Wow, it's been almost 2 weeks since we got here and I haven't posted since the beginning. We've done so much and taken so many pictures. It will take me a while to catch up. I think I've decided that I should go ahead and post about things as we do them and add the pictures later as we get around to downloading them. We don't download pictures very often.
So, since we got here, we have eaten at all the places, accept one, that this tiny post has to offer. We have discovered everything on post on foot, since we don't have a car yet. Jeff and I got our Japanese drivers licenses and now they think we're "professional drivers"! Scary! Driving here is completely different. We have gone swimming, bowling, to the park and the library, to a kids Japanese class, and ventured off post to eat at a pretty good Chinese/Japanese restaurant and to look through quite a few little shops. We found Disney movies dubbed in Japanese and bought a couple. Marin did a week long soccer camp that was coached by British Soccer (football) Pros. They were a lot of fun! Marin loves soccer and we have her signed up for the Fall season.


Marin is our soccer kid! Whoa, I guess that means I'm a "Soccer Mom" now.

All tuckered out

Marin took this one! She's good at centering the people she takes a picture of. I didn't crop this at all. I'm so proud of my kid!
(Notice the designated parking. I am among my own kind now! Let's just hope that I don't have reason to use this parking for at least a couple years.)

This is lodging. Can you see Marin waving in our window?

The cars here are tiny!

In town



Fish anyone?



These trees are commonly found over driveways, though driveways themselves are not common.

The coolest thing we have done so far is take a trip with Outdoor Rec to Mt Fuji. We traveled on a tour bus for 2 hours to the small town of Kawaguchi. It was a beautiful drive! Much of it reminded me of the drive from Charlottesville to Wanesboro---many forested hills jutting up here and there and you can see for miles and miles. I'm glad to see that there are actually parts of Japan that aren't packed city. While there, we picked blueberries that were delicious right off the bush! Then we went to a tourist area where we went on a little paddle boat on Lake Kawaguchi. But the best part was taking a tram up a small mountainside and took a short hike where we could see down both sides of the mountain, the lake on one side, and on the other, a city filled valley with an amusement park between us and Mt Fuji. It felt like we were on top of the world. Beautiful, majestic views in all directions!!

Blueberries! Yumm!

The paddle boat. Marin steered, and we wove back and forth all over the place. It was lots of fun, and just beautiful!

Kawaguchi Lake from the tram

Top of the tram

Majestic Mt. Fuji---the inactive "active" volcano

Something beautiful