China

It has become increasingly difficult to find time in which to write blogs. However, our trip to China was SO awesome I knew we needed to write about it. Friday, the 6th, we left from Hiroshima to Beijing. Before we got to Beijing I found out that someone I knew from Deerfield High School was going to be in Beijing at the same time. So when we got to Beijing we threw our luggage in the room and headed out to meet him for dinner. After dinner we hit the town.

Over the next two days we went to the Temple of Heaven, the Forbidden City, Tiananmen Square, the Great Wall, and the Summer Palace. Needless to say, we filled our days. We ate amazing Chinese food and went out at nights with my friend from Deerfield. After the first view days we realized that we had only gotten about 5 hours of sleep!! But we were having an amazing time.

Our flight was scheduled to leave Monday morning. The story is very long, but I will make it short. After 10 hours in the airport our flight was canceled due to bad weather near Japan and we had to stay one more night. We had met some really nice Japanese people who were on the same flight and we went out to dinner with them. We got back Tuesday night. Since then we have been so busy at school and home.

We have less than 2 weeks left in Japan. We are busy trying to arrange plans with all of our friends here, packing, and preparing for the new ALT who will take our place. It will be a crazy 2 weeks. I feel like there just aren't enough hours in a day!

Mike and Sue

As some of you may know, Scott's parents came to Japan June 19th and are here visiting us. We thought we should update everyone on their visit. Since they have been here we have introduced them to many friends, took them to some of our favorite restaurants and showed them around Kure. They have been enjoying meeting people and seeing some of the many things we have talked about in our blog for themselves. Unfortunately we have some quite a few rainy days. We were lucky to have a really nice Saturday in which we went to Hiroshima. We did some shopping, ate out, and they went through the A-bomb museum. They said it was a great, but sad, experience.

Today they went to Scott's school. They met his teachers and even got to help out a little in one class. They had tea with the principal and looked all over the school. There are many things we still have planned to do before they leave July 4th. We are also hoping the weather cooperates!

That's it over here. We have been keeping busy between work and having them here. We are also preparing to go to China 3 days after they leave! It has been very exciting around here. We will keep you posted.

Busy Weekend

This weekend was very tiring, but one of the most fun weekends we've had here in Japan. It started Saturday with a trip to our friend Akiko's hometown....which also happens to be an island. We left in the morning and took the train as far as we could, but then went the rest of the way courtesy of Akiko's father, who picked us up in his boat. After an amazing lunch at their home, it was off for a day of fishing in the Inland Seto Sea. We had a great time, and caught a lot of fish....Vicky caught the most! One of the pictures above is Vicky with one of her many fish. The day was great, and one of the best experiences in Japan so far. Eventually we made it home to Kure Saturday night.
But the weekend wasn't over there...bright and early Sunday morning we left with about 40 kids under the age of 12 to go to a town close to Kure for their English school's sports day. Although we don't teach at their school, we were invited by a teacher who does teach there. The day consisted of games, food, and as much craziness as you can possibly imagine. The picture above is of as many of the students as we could round up, along with some of their teachers and us.
Its now Sunday night here, and we are exhausted. School will come early in the morning!!
Wishing you could all be here!!!
Scott and Vicky

Melissa is here

On May 10th my friend Melissa came to Japan. The trip began with a few problems...her flight was canceled because of the rain in Japan so she had to spend a night in Korea and then when she got here she took a bus to the wrong train station and it took us longer to meet up. But once she got here things got a lot better. We started showing her around Kure and Hiroshima right away. Since she has been here we have gone to the top of Mount Yasumiyama, went hiking in Miyajima, shopping in Hiroshima, went out to eat at many restaurant, introduced her to friends and she came to my school and the English club asked her questions and answered some that she asked them, and many other things. May 19th was Melissa's birthday so we organized a big dinner in Hiroshima and a night out. Then the next day we bought her tickets to the Hiroshima Carp baseball game. Unfortunately Scott wasn't able to come, but we had fun. It was our first day of hot, sunny weather. It was nice, but we both got a little too much sun. It has been great having her here. She flys out the morning of May 30th.

Thailand!!

We are back from our 10 day vacation to thailand. we are sun burned and tired, but we had a great time. We spent the majority of the 10 days in Pattaya going to the beach everyday, shopping, and eating great food. But we also did spend 2 days in Bangkok, where we went to one of the top 100 restaurants in the world(Vertigo, on the 61st floor roof of the Banyon Tree Hotel) and also went to Bangkok's best night club(Q Bar). Some other things we did on our vacation included snorkeling at Koh Larn Island in a coral reef, jet skiing, sun bathing, eating, watched thai dancing, watched thai kick boxing, and of course got plenty of massages.
Our friend Bernard was with us for the whole trip too, and I'm sure he had as good of time as we did. hope you enjoy the pics we took, the ones on here are of the reef we snorkeled at, and us 61 floors up in Bangkok. scott and vicky