Hi again. Here is a mainly pictoral account of want Mom and I have been up to. This covers a few of the first weeks activities.

Judy continuing here--This is an areial shot coming into Narita Airport of an enormous golf course of which I seen quite a few. There are screened in driving ranges that look like they would fit in the parking lot at Onward,and they are everywhere. The plane ride over didn't really seem like 12hours and 35 minutes and the scenery from up there was amazing-this certainly is a large country-lots of land and lakes.The next picture is from the Ryokan we stayed at in Tokyo the first night here.We slept on quite comfy futons on the floor and had breakfast brought to our room in the morning-will show you more pictures of that when I get home. Also had my first experience in a Japanese washroom-----interesting!!!!!!

This is a picture of my hotel Yukata. It is a robe that you were when you shuffle around the place. They are cotton and very comfortable. The ensen (hot bath) at this place was a little too hot though. It was about 40 degrees which left my skin quite red!

This is the Shinjuku area of Tokyo. We were here having a little breakfast and waiting for our bus back to Shiojiri. It was starting to rain again.

After Tokyo, we headed back to Shiojiri and went to elementary school. The students were all shocked that April had a mother. After lunch all the kids brush their teeth on the floor. They sat and watched us for a while as they did this.

On Wednesday, one of April's friends from a community group called and asked me if I wanted to go out for the day. She could speak a little bit of english. It was enough to explain most of the things we saw. We went to a temple in Shiojiri then we went out for lunch and shopping. It was a lovely day.

On the weekend, we went to Nagano City to visit Zenkoji temple. We met April's homestay mom, Chiyoko and had a lovely day. It was quite hot. After we toured the temple, we went to the neighbouring town of Chikuma to meet Nakajima-san, a kimono and Japanese manners teacher.

She dressed me in a Yukata and the girls in Kimono. A yukata is a summer kimono. The girls (April and Gisela) wore more formal kimonos.

Then we took A LOT of photos of us all dressed. We had tea and chatted for a while and then returned to Shiojiri for April's fundraiser. I went home and slept though. It was a long week.

On Sunday morning, we drove to a small town in the far north of Nagano prefecture called Saku to pick clothing for the clothing drive. The drive was really beautiful. In the background of this picture is Mount Asashi, (I think). It erupted two years ago. The spot where I took this picture was completely covered in ash after that. Which is pretty amazing considering the mountain is about 20 kms from that spot.

On Thursday, I went to a three hour tea ceremony in Shiojiri. It was arranged by some of April's adult students. It was in a man's house in the community. He had designed a completely traditional Japanese house and was a master of the tea ceremony.

Today is friday and April has a half day off school. We toured all of her schools and met many of her co-workers. This weekend we are going to attend some festivals and get ready to go to Kyoto and Tokyo. More photos to follow. See you soon back in Canada!