Three Falls

Since we moved here we kept hearing about 3 falls and 7 falls.  Three falls is a set of smaller waterfalls only about 45 minutes away, while 7 falls has larger falls, but is a couple hours away.  We finally got to 3 falls, in two separate trips.  First my husband took our son one day while I stayed with our daughter at naptime.  Then I got to take our daughter with some of my wonderful, adventurous friends while our son was at Kindergarten.  Here's some photos from both our trips...

One of the upper falls, taken by my husband

Our son "fishing"

The beautiful forest along the trail

And my trip with friends...

Thanks to my wonderful friend Sarah for setting up her camera on a timer for this one 

My friends in front of the largest waterfall

Crossing the stream to find a nice picnic area

All of us taken with my self-timer

And another thank you to my friend Sarah for catching my daughter and I during our lunch

One of the falls on our return

Our daughter running along the path back to the car

A beautiful day with wonderful friends.  I am so thankful to have them here with me in Japan.

Coolest Park Ever!

One thing's for certain, Japanese know how to make incredible playgrounds.  And fortunately, unlike the US they don't have to worry much about sue-happy people like the US.  Not that their parks are more unsafe, they just don't go overboard on limiting what's fun for the risk of lawsuits.  For example, how often can you find an unsupervised zipline?  We found one...

Here's our new favorite park and zipline, right up from our favorite beach (hence the swim suits.)

And finally, the most exciting part, the zipline...

Wonderful park, wonderful day for the kids.  Especially since nobody got hurt.

Photo Class!

This weekend I had the exciting opportunity to take a photo class with our base's most favorite photographer, Danielle Caceres. In high school I took beginner through advanced photography classes, and still remember the basics (like how to use an SLR in manual and the rule of thirds), but I was just looking for any extra tips to make my photos as phenomenal as Danielle's (besides my need for a better lens!) Luckily, there's always more to learn, and we got a nice little opportunity to photograph at the Kintai Bridge. Here's some of my shots from class...

And I had to catch the class as we were heading out...

Fun class I definitely recommend, especially for someone trying to figure out how to manually use an SLR (single lens reflex) camera or what type of lenses and gear to use for your SLR camera.  If you are interested in signing up for a class, check Danielle's class schedule online.  She also does traveling photo classes to fun scenic locations, night photo classes and photoshop classes.

Sanzoku "The Chicken Shack"

I recently had a birthday, so my family let me pick a place to go to dinner. I chose Sanzoku "The Chicken Shack." I had never been there before, but heard many wonderful reviews of the food and scenery. Fortunately, it held up to all my expectations. A definite must for anyone visiting Iwakuni, Japan. With Halloween rapidly approaching, the place was extra decked out in Halloween decor.

Though this was just seasonal, the place is always decorated with beautiful Japanese lanterns and gardens. There is also a little marketplace with souvenirs and packaged food for sale. Here is what it looks like...

Yes that is a fish in the water!  Lots of giant orange and white Koi.

Here's what some of the food looks like...

Those are just a preview of what you can order inside. Inside are Japanese style tables with mats to sit on. The kids thought it was fun to have tables their size, and we were happy to not have to keep them from crawling under tables or climbing on regular furniture.

Dining room prepped for a large dinner party

Entrance to one of the dining areas

Fun outside the restaraunt

View from across the street

A fun night here in Japan! Friends and family, come visit, and we'll take you there. ;)

Japanese/American Goodwill Modified Triathlon

Before we were stationed in Japan, my husband and I had been doing triathlons for about a year.  I had signed up for my first triathlon 3 months after our daughter was born.  My husband thought they looked so fun that he did one too.  Suddenly, we were alternating races and taking turns with the kids every couple months for that year.  So of course when we heard we would be moving to Japan, one of the first things we looked for was races.  We discovered the Annual Japanese and American Goodwill Modified Triathlon.

This year's shirt design

  This race is longer than a sprint, but just under the Olympic distance at 1k swim/ 4k run / 28k bike / 4k run.  (The run is separated into 2 parts because the location of the swim start is not appropriate for a bike transition area.)  Though this is only one race per year, we were stoked.

After quite an uneventful stay here as far as races are concerned, we were very excited once registration finally opened and we could find a way to get our training on track.  With children and a husband that works long hours and is often out of the country, it makes training hard on BOTH of us!  Thankfully I was able to round up several athletic-minded friends and start a "Mommy training group" and my husband got to do some training while working out of the country for a couple months.  During that time I got 2 mommies consistently into training with me, plus another occasionally joining for fun, and we all got to take turns watching each other's kids to train.  Still complicated, but enough training to complete the race.  I am extremely thankful!  And, I ended up talking 3 women into signing up for the race.

RACE DAY!  My husband and I were both signed up, so we needed a babysitter!  Luckily a wonderful friend volunteered to help out.  There were only 49 Americans total entered for the race and around double that in Japanese.  The small American turnout was disappointing for us to see, but it was nice to see my little training group was not the only group of females entered.  Here are all the American female competitors prior to start...

The race was split into 3 mass starts with 2 times around an out and back course.  Here's what it looked like...

If you're thinking that looks crowded, you're absolutely right.  A somewhat frightening MESS!  An ordinary triathlon has a rough start for 50 meters or so, but when you're doing 2 laps around the same course with overlapping groups, we were running into people the whole swim.

From the water we ran up to our shoes and ran 2.5 miles to the bike transition area.  Here are 2 of my friends the gym got a photo of exiting the transition area...

We biked 3 laps around a bike course before returning our bikes and heading out on the final 4 km (2.5 mile) run.  Someone at the gym barely caught me in the blue running off down the sidewalk...

This run was 2 laps back to a finish line in front of the gym.

Thankfully, we ALL finished!  My husband got a flat tire, but managed to repair it and still beat a lot of people.  My friends did amazing, especially the first-timers.  I was so proud of them.  Most incredible were the Japanese athletes who attended the event.  They dominated it, taking almost every metal in every category.  Though, I was extremely lucky to capture one. :)

Beautiful day, wonderful friends, couldn't have asked for anything more.

Remembering 9/11

The US military does a pretty good job keeping up with important holidays and dates in history.  Today for 9/11 the base school had a "Hero Walk" to honor the surviving heros, and remember the innocent lives taken from the horrible 9/11 act of terrorism 11 years ago.  Parents were informed of the event and allowed to attend, so I decided to dress in red white and blue and bring our daughter to go walk with our son on this day of rememberance.  Classes and parents walked laps around a sports field and the total distance tallied for our heroes.

We are always thankful to have our family and freedom on this day.

First Day of Kindergarten

Yes that's right, Kindergarten.  We officially switched from Yochien to the base school system.  We are quite sad about it as our son was treated so lovingly by the Japanese teachers, and got to do so many special new things.  His teacher sent home a special frame with photos of him with his classmates and a quote "It was fun playing with you.  We are Friends Forever!! From Fuji 2 class's everyone."  We would have loved to stay, and had no problems with the Yochien, it was only because we weren't sure how our son would do in the American school system.  (A bit ironic, huh?)  So, here we are, back to learning the skills emphasized in the US... and no more uniform.

And here we are with our neighbor who is also starting Kindergarten...

The day went great!  Our son loves making new friends, so it was a very easy transition for him so far.  His favorite part was "They speak English so I can understand them."  He also gets to ride a bus, though just a plain white bus, nothing "cool" like the Yochien character buses.