Monday, October 22, 2012

I have taken more pictures in the 6 weeks that we have been here than I have ever taken in my life before.  Once I had a roll of film for a whole year before developing it (Back in the olden days when we actually took pictures with film)!  My children can attest to how bad I am with keeping up on photos.  Hopefully I will do better in the future!

We had a successful clam hunt on Saturday afternoon!  We probably found 100 clams in about an hour.  We had such a great time that we decided to try again yesterday after church, but they had the beach closed down!  They had a big van with yellow “Do Not Cross” tape strung across it and two official looking guards blocking the way.  We walked up there and in our limited Japanese tried to find out why.  One guard said, “Bomb!”  The other said, “No, smoke.”  They crossed their arms and said, “No can go.”  We know they get high tides, but we will probably never find out why we couldn’t go down there yesterday.  It’s a good thing we got a lot on Saturday.  We were able to make a large batch of clam chowder for dinner last night.

I went to a temple here in Shintomi with Hong Nan on Friday.  They were having a ceremony and there was a lot of drumming and dancing going on.

Dancer wearing a red mask and holding a Japanese flag fan.

 Drummer

They have little shrines all over the city here.  Here is one I found right in the middle of town.

They also have beautiful cemeteries throughout the city.  I was told the bodies aren’t buried here bu, but the ashes are. They have great monuments and tomb stones.  Some people have fancier spots than others, (their relatives must love them more!) and most have flowers on them, and not just on Memorial Day!

They have huge spiders here and they make great webs.  This one strung his web from the branches of a tree and was hanging right down above the street!  They seem to love to create webs right outside our front door.  You knock it down and it is back the following day!

Scott and I went to lunch with Wenji and Hong Nan the other day.  We need them just to help us order from the menu!  That is the menu in the background!

There is a new Elder in the Miyazaki Branch.  He is from Rexburg, Idaho!  His name is Elder Hammond.

These 6 children stopped by the factory on their way home from school on Friday.  Almost all of them had English words written somewhere on their clothes.  They love to try to speak a few words in English!

This river crab was trying to scare us while we were walking to the beach yesterday!

Here are a few pictures that I took in front of the Miyazaki Train Station.

Those two tall things in the middle are huge palm trees.  I just couldn't fit them in the pictures!