More Recently

This week, the weather stopped flirting with Spring and made it official: from here on in (until the rainy season) it'll be warm and getting warmer. So to celebrate, all the flowers are blooming. These tulips were donated to Toke H.S. by the Takeyama's, the same people who dressed Laurie in kimono when they had us over for a nice Christmas dinner.



We recently walked to Togane from our apartment (it was a Saturday or two ago, actually) and got to see the rice fields beginning to turn green.



Even more recently, we took the train to Togane and walked from there to the ocean (an 8km jaunt for anyone keeping track). The wind was chilly, so we stayed long enough to browse for shells (didn't bring a comb) and have a picnic of onigiri and bottled tea before heading back.



Most recently, the Koi-Nobori were hung up in Showa-no-Mori. Koi-Nobori are windsocks that look like giant, colorful goldfish. The largest ones are probably 12 feet long or so. If I could figure out where to buy the big ones I'd for sure send some home so Dad could hang them up with his flag collection.