Well, since I finally have something on here to work with, I have pictures to go through. Unfortunately, there are hundreds upon hundreds, so I'm going to work backwards.. Here are a few pictures I snapped when we went down in front of our house at low tide over the weekend. There wasn't a lot to see, but that's mostly because none of us were brave enough to step foot into the water.. (although you can tell it's starting to warm up.. it felt wonderful when you put a toe in)! One of these days, I'll be brave..
This is at the top of the hill before you walk down to the beach. Right across the street from us. :)
One of the first times we saw a negative tide here was on a Sunday shortly after we moved in. For those that don't know, the Japanese generally don't have a full weekend like we do, they normally have Sunday off (a lot of places will be closed another day during the week, Wednesday is common). We could see the Japanese with mesh bags and hitting the rocks. It took me a few minutes to figure it out, but I realized they were fishing for some sort of shell fish. I figured it was clams, maybe muscles. Turns out, it's oysters.. And you can see why. This was at the water break, water wasn't coming up all the way around them, but imagine if this rock is covered in them, what's going on farther out!
One thing to take mental note of.. We live across the street from a man made beach. Now, I wondered how does one make a beach, and I asked around a lot. Everyone told me lots and lots of sand. Everyone who said that? You were wrong.. ;) They actually use lots and lots of small rocks. Most are smooth, but they still hurt to walk around barefoot on. So that kind of stinks. However, in the older parts of the beach, you can see where the rocks have been so eroded by the waves, that they are almost sand. It's pretty neat.
Anyhoot, Japan is a humid country.. And what comes with humidity? Bugs. Lots and lots of bugs. (Including gnats that BITE.. blech). As you walk along the rocks though, you don't really notice anything until something moves. This (I think) is a super sized sand crab. At least, that's what it looked like from another angle. Pay attention after that, and you'll see them all over the place! This little guy was turned around the first few shots I took, then he turned and "smiled" for the camera. :)
Ok, so my first duty night in here, I was going to get something out of my pantry. I couldn't even tell you what anymore, just that I was getting something for the girls' dinner. I move the pantry ever so slightly, and this SPIDER comes jumping down from the top shelf. It took everything in my power not to scream as I could hear it JUMPING inside a granola bar box. When it finally figured it's way out of the box, I continued to hold my breath and jump up and down (rather like a girl.. haha). I really was trying not to scream so the girls wouldn't hear. Anyhoot, I FINALLY killed the thing.. This is what it looks like. Apparently, they aren't afraid of water. Great. Joy. They're EVERYWHERE! LOL They don't scare me anymore, but man, that first night it was awful!
When we first started out looking through stuff, we saw what looked like a glassy little pool on the far end of the beach, so we walked down there. We did find a glassy little pool of murky water. A PERFECT nursery for these fish. You couldn't see the big ones at first, but out of no where, they started swimming towards us, seemingly protective of the nursery. If you look carefully, you can see 3 larger ones. There were tadpool sized ones alllll over the place. :) Pretty neat thing to see!
So a couple of weeks ago, Kadie was selected for Golden Book. For those of you who aren't here and have NO idea what the heck Golden Book is, it's basically a citizenship award. You not only get to appear on SSN (Sullivans School Network), but you also get to sign the Golden Book with the golden pen, and the book is on display in the office for all to see. It means you did something right and your teacher picked you out of your entire class. Kadie was very excited to get it, even more excited to be on SSN - even if she has MAJOR camera fright and freezes up as soon as they put the camera on her. So that part didn't go over so well. Oh well, she was very happy that Tim got to be there for it, and that's all that matters right? :)
Being told what her award is for.. That's the book in front of her. Very serious stuff here people.
Actually signing the book. I didn't get any pictures of her after, she just stepped down and wanted to get to class. To be honest, we wanted to get out of there too - Tim still had to get to work!
