So much beauty!

We have been doing so much again. Tuesday night we went to Yuka, Hiroko and Keichan's daughters, cabin in Amakusa. It belonged to her husband's parents, but now it belongs to them. It was nestled in between two mountains near the water. We went fishing together to get fish for dinner, managing to get little guys called "aji" and slightly larger ones called "kuro". Then we went back and had a BBQ! We had the fish, peppers, cabbage, egg plant, mushrooms, ribs, beef and chicken! Then the men (Michael and Keichan) went night fishing while us girls (Mom, Hiroko, Yuka and I) stayed back at the cabin, chatted, stretched, listened to music while Mom tried to show us some yoga...not so good for me so I read my book, Sons, by Pearl Buck (the first book, The Good Earth, was GREAT I highly recommend them). I slept right through the men returning and again through them leaving for morning fishing. I don't have that kind of patience! Fishing? Smishing... :p (Though I did catch two things the afternoon before!)

Then in the morning we ate rice  balls and anpan (sweet bread stuffed with chocolate and sweet beans). Then we went to see if we could ride in the glass bottom boat but since the weather was bad, the water was not clear. But  we were allowed to go on the docked boat and look through the glass. We could see some fish but I actually liked to look at the side where you could see nothing but pure blue...so beautiful. It's just a whole different world down there...

Then we drove towards home (it's a three hour drive). But we stopped for lunch at a chyonpon restaurant, which is a seafood noodle soup. yum!
Then we stopped around dinner time for even more food at Hiroko's parent's house. I had not seen her in several years, the mother, but she was as happy and exciting as I remember:) She had made all kinds of food, and in total, Michael counted that we each had twelve different little dishes (since the Japanese have a different dish for everything...). It was incredible, there was even chestnut mash that she made from scratch!

Then today we had several adventures. The first for me was chatting with my friends online. We spent most of the time trying to set up video chat on google plus or something so we didn't as much time to "hang out" as I would have liked, but it was nice just to see their faces and hear their voices:) I talked to Dad last night and Elijah too! I miss everyone but not so badly yet that it hurts...but it has only been two weeks.

Then we drove out and visited a Cosmos Festival, and saw a beautiful, vast field of cosmos flowers, all pink and charming in the sunlight. What a sight! Then we drove to a natural spring that I had gone to before and wanted to go again, this spring is near Aso, the volcano, and pumps out 60 tons of water per minute, and it is stunning how clear it looks and how crisp and green it tastes. I collected it in my water bottle and got to enjoy it for the rest of the day. Soon after that we went to a crazy restaurant where there was a fire pit filled with ash in front of us with a border that we used as a table. Then they brought hot coals and stuck sticks of different foods into the ash so it would cook and also a grill so we could grill more food. But it was sad because there were two fish on sticks and they were still alive....and they moved less and less as they got cooked...I have mixed feelings about that...
However, all the food was great. Mom said she went there with Ojiichan about 25 years ago.

Then we went to Aso! We walked 2 miles to get there, it was beautiful with all the mountains surrounding us. And when we got to the crater I started taking video and pictures and suddenly I became sickly and my throat and chest hurt so I left the crater quickly. If the wind is toward us, it pushes poisonous gases towards the people, which it was doing. If you have health problems you are supposed to stay away but I didn't know...it scared me a little at first. But it was incredibly beautiful.

We had a great dinner and now I have to go take a bath! hurryhurry