The weekend that was...

This weekend we went from being hermits at home to social butterflies flitting about the countryside! Things kicked off after school on Friday when we jumped in the car and headed to a nearby town called Nakatsu to stay with an English friend of ours who was dieing to play tour guide to all the local hot-spots! After a night of way too many Japanese snacks, a delicious made-from-scratch curry (thanks Dash) and giggling over stories from school we set off the next morning to check out the Nakatsu castle.


If you've been to Japan you'll know that once you've seen a castle or two they all start to look the same but this one was much bigger than others we have seen and made for the perfect back drop to try out our sweet jumping poses!


From there we headed out to the countryside to a famous tunnel which was built by hand way back yonder by a monk who for some reason felt he needed to devote his life to such a mission. It was pretty impressive and once again lent itself nicely to a few more sweet jumps!



And with that... the sights of Nakatsu were all done and dusted so we headed back into Yamaga to spend the afternoon and night at Jo's. Not only were we treated to an amazing roast lamb meal (we were seriously in heaven) but we also got to make and decorate not one but two kinds of cupcakes for the kids' school fair.

Which is of course where we spent all of this morning! It was actually a lot of fun to the see the kids that I teach letting loose and enjoying themselves without having to constantly stand in lines and bow! The morning started with mochi making... both Nathan and I showed our muscles (or lack of) by having a turn during the pounding process and then moved through to the kids entertianing us with an operetta... we might not have been able to understand a word of it (we did pick up that it was about a fox... and at one point the words for cold, snow, blue and red were used) but Emily did an amazing job with her solo part in one of the songs!



The morning ended with what they call a Bazzaar... basically the school fair part when lots of random stuff gets put out that you can buy along with lots of yummy food. We came home with lots of the baking Jo had done... some of the cupcakes we had made... and a touch lamp from the 60's (random!) but it only cost 100 yen - who can resisit a bargain!