Daily Life 4: Visiting James and Audrey in Harima-cho


Despite our best efforts of posting on schedule, it's been a bit of a break since our last post - though it's been on our mind the whole time. But here it is!

We've done a couple things since last posting:
We will write about these topics in the coming days.


visited our Canadian friends James and Audrey in their town


Back story:




Kailey and I went to Harimacho to visit James and Audrey. James and Audrey are our Canadian friends from our city of Victoria, B.C, Canada. James and Audrey got married two days before us!! just down the road from us!! Kailey and I went to their wedding, and James and Audrey came to ours. Sunny days :).



James is now part of the JET program teaching english here in Japan. He didn't get a direct choice of where to be placed in Japan, but ended up 2 hours away from us - pretty close. James came this last August and Audrey came shortly afterwards in September.

We visited James and Audrey!



It was a lot of fun. We left Kyoto on a Saturday morning, stayed the night at their place, then returned home to Kyoto Sunday evening. 

We arrived, dropped off our bags and headed out to do some errands. During the errands-bit we saw the town, went to an arcade, bought some groceries, and naturally did some karaoke afterwards. The whole time James was being greeted by his many many students :)
























































That night some people came over an we made and ate dinner, talked and played Mafia. It was a good time. Oh yea, it was James' birthday. =)


The next morning we went to church! James and Audrey have a nice church 5 minutes walk from their place where their Japanese-fluent American friend also goes - he's a great translator. Because everyone in the church is Japanese except for James & Audrey + friend, me and Kailey were noticed immediately. In fact, after the singing I found myself standing with James/Audrey/Kailey introducing myself and Kailey to the whole church. This was in Japanese and because I was totally thinking and speaking on the spot trying to briefly explain our connection to James and Audrey, I made a funny mistake. I forgot to introduce myself. :)



 After church we decided to have lunch and see more of the town.






We went to a park to see some huts. These huts are pretty cool. You could go inside them and everything - so we did.







While at the park we spotted some kids playing in a rope jungle-gym made in the trees. Naturally we went over and booted the kids out of there so we could play in the ropes.






We ended up making friends and talking with the people there. One of the adults was handling a praying mantis for the kids. At this time of the year the females are too pregnant to fly away.


After the ropes we did quite a bit. We visited a nearby tower, shrine, kids park, raced leaves down a stream, and then went out for sushi.

Went up this shrine tower...
took this picture... (Cemetary on left, kids park on right)


Prehistoric pottery in a museum we went into. From the Jomon people? I'll have to check.
entering the kids park
picture by a pond (shrine tower is on left)


After the park we rode our bikes to a 'conveyor belt' sushi place. I think these places are pretty cool. Sushi is prepared in "the back" and set on the conveyor belt. The conveyor belts twists all around the place and you freely grab whichever sushi plate you want whenever it passes by you.



















At this particular chain you can also order a specific plate of sushi that you want from a digital menu at your table. Wait a few minutes and your specially ordered sushi plate comes to you. Best of all is that it's cheap. Each plate is about $1. I usually find myself eating about 6-7 plates (my stomach has shrunk I think) and Kailey eats about 4-5. See? Pretty cheap. (Other meals are usually minimum of around $8 per meal )






After dinner Kailey and I caught the 2hr train back to Kyoto. We were tired when we got back because it was such a good weekend. Thanks James and Audrey for hosting us!!

Till next time.. :)
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Daily Life 3: Daily School<<<<<                                                      >>>>>Daily Life 5: Host to Japanese Family for dinner


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Completely Different Post: Daily Life 1: We're Japanized!
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Ben and Kailey lived in Japan not too long ago and also visit Kyoto every year.

Ben is developing a Japanese Practice site. It's current main functions are:
1. a Flash Card system that features a leveling system where you must answer correctly and "level up"to gain new cards, receive money and buy new decks - anime decks included!
2. Fill in the Blank system where you can choose to focus on particle practice or verb practice etc.
Japanese Practice Blog is here. Check out the Japanese Practice site here