A week in Morioka

Andy had a busy week with more meetings and lectures than usual, but Catie & I each had a nice week. Catie had a fun week at school. She earned gold stars 2 days and on Friday the fire department visited the school. The kids got to investigate an ambulance and climb around on a fire truck- pretty exciting! 

I had a good time with my FIK mom friends during the week. And then went ice skating with one of the SICE students this morning. It’s been a long time since I’d been on figure skates, but after about 10 minutes, it started coming back to me. Between the biking a few miles to and from the rink and the 2 hours of skating, we’ll have to see how sore I am tonight :-)

The only morning Andy had free, we explored the temple complex a few blocks from our apartment while Catie was at school. We walked by the complex the first week we were in Japan, but have never been back. The tops of several of the buildings can be seen from our balcony and I’ve been watching the trees around the temples turn colors as I hang out the laundry everyday, so it seemed like a good time to go explore. Here are some photos of our neighborhood...

Catie eating ice cream at Gandai on Monday.

the grave itself isn't that impressive. I just love the street sign!

 

We stopped at the regionally famous, Mitsuishi (Three Rocks) shrine. According to legend, a demon named Rasetsu lived in this area and would cause trouble and scare people. The people prayed to the spirit of Mitsuishi to protect their village from Rasetsu. Mitsuishi defeated and bound Rasetsu to three rocks. Rasetsu promised never to trouble the people again. As a sign of this promise, the demon left handprints on one of the rocks, thus giving rise to the name Iwate, literally meaning "rock hand".

stone racoons with rosary beads. I don't get it.