October 14-20 (Mon-Sun) - Two castles and Glico(TM)

Monday: Was a holiday! Team Sunday gathered. Original plan: Ocean. Revised plan? Well. Drive places. So we saw the Echizen Lacquerware Village (I drive by it almost every week...),

 then went over the mountain. It was beautiful! A dubious road, but as long as there is no traffic, peaceful. 

And we found a lovely water resource. 

(Well, the running water comes from pipes to the left. This is just pretty.)

When we reached Ono, the first thought on our minds was food. So we searched for a cafe of some sort, discovered there’s not much of anything in Ono, then went to a restaurant that stopped serving breakfast hours ago. But they made an exception for us! Isn’t it cute?

Then we hiked up to Ono Castle. I’m beginning to think every city has a castle. Ono is an original castle, which is nice when you think about it, but not so impressive to look at, especially because it’s small. We forewent the visit inside, so it was just a nice location. 

Also, on the way up, we played Guriko. (Actually it’s Glico, the maker of sweets.) Usually played on stairs, the opponents janken (rock-paper-scissors). When a winner (or more) is decided, what they win with determines how many stairs. ‘Gu’ is rock, and this moves you gu-ri-ko (3 stairs). ‘Pa’ is paper, so you move pa-i-na-tsu-pu-ru (6 stairs), and ‘cho’ is scissors and thus chi-yo-ko-re-i-to (6 stairs). 

After Ono Castle, we drove to Katsuyama Castle. Actually the goal was ice cream, I guess famous in that area, but I liked the castle best. It’s a new castle, or a replica if you will, so it’s not ‘authentic’ but it sure is pretty!

I scaled the walls...

We went home. Kaori and I took a walk, and I admired the sasaki. It looks like feathers, doesn’t it? And guess what — it’s soft too! It might be my favorite plant.

For dinner we did home-made ramen. We were going to watch a movie, then we got an unexpected invitation to a nearby festival. (The invitation being a parking-space invitation. Quite nice of them.) So we went to the festival and walked up and down, lamenting just a little how full we were, but Kaori and I tried some fried cheese anyhow. 

And Taiiku no Hi (PE Day) ended. 

Tuesday:-Friday: — The rest of the week is kind of a blur. I was really busy and tired. All I wanted to do after each class was to sleep. The end.

Well, 1. the Spot It game is a miracle, and 2. I had Halloween classes at Kitanakayama. Aren't these cute?

Saturday: 

Hugh and I went to check out a Crafts Fair except not. Industry Festival maybe? Never quite caught the name. Anyway, our purpose was to see the Murata robot:

Murata makes MLCCs, they have 3 sizes; small, smaller, and so tiny they look like sand. These tiny ones go into the iPhone, I can’t remember how many exactly but I think it was 300 (in each phone). 

We also saw this nice carriage,

some interesting fashion,

family shrines,

and I shaved wood. Then one of Hugh’s students we saw bought us sticks of cow tongue. :O

Then I studied lots of grammar with Nathan.

Sunday: Kaori and I did yoga and had a lazy morning, then we went out shopping and to get movies. We made dinner and watched movies. It was quite relaxing.

Also, I found new Kit-Kat flavors.

Passion fruit,

and strawberry.

Recent Japanese:

kouka (硬貨) = coin

umeru = to bury

chokin (貯金) = savings

ihou (違法) = illegal (I keep wanting to ask ‘is it illegal to~’ but I can never remember the word)

tsuukin (通勤) = commute

seiza (星座) = constellation, star/zodiac sign