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.

 

Kodomonomori

The first Thursday of every month is a teachers’ professional development half day at Catie’s school. Normally we’d use the time to go see our friends at Kokko, but yesterday Tomiko & her husband invited Reiko & Haruto and Catie & I to go to Kodomonomori with them. About an hour’s drive north of Morioka, Kodomonomori is a free children’s museum, park, playcenter run by the prefectural (state) government. Yesterday we had the place to ourselves. It was awesome! Here are some photos to show what we did…

We stopped for lunch at a food court. After the kids finished eating they (Catie) insisted on ice cream from Baskin Robbins. Aizen and Catie took turns giving tastes to Aizen's little sister, Mikaze.

To get into the main play area, you have to walk though a twisting tunnel that changes colors, gets really dark, and has a strobe light, all while freaky noises and music play in the background. The kids decided the safest way to approach the tunnel was to hold hands. None of us managed to get a photo when all 4 of them were holding hands, but it was pretty cute!

The main play area has a 3 story tall climbing structure right in the middle of it. Only children age 4 and up can enter, so Catie, Mikaze, and Haruto went to play on a smaller play structure and slide in another area while Aizen and Tomiko scaled the top of this thing and then took a super long tunnel slide down.

All 4 of the kids enjoyed being bonked around by a punching bag on this soft mat.

 We all had way too good a time playing with this peg board!!!

Then we visited the imagination train. Each car had a different theme and the kids really enjoyed playing pretend.

The post office

Haruto Catie, & Mikaze scooping ice cream. In addition to the normal flavors
you'd order in the US, you could also get muskmelon, azuki, and vanilla sour :-)

Doctor Catie is in the house!

Shusi chef Haruto preparing a snack of octopus sushi for his mom

Engineer Catie driving the train, while mailman Aizen jumps aboard

 After leaving the imagination train, we entered the spa. Here, pretend baths were filled with toys and wooden balls. Catie loved putting the balls down the ramp so they would pop out the lion's mouth. 

We enjoyed some quiet time in the beach reading room. The sound of the waves was so soothing and the chaise lounge so comfortable that I almost fell asleep! Catie preferred reading in her "nest".

The most exciting attraction, or at least the most talked about one, was the giant potty complete with giant stuffed poop. In the background you can see Catie over by the wall of animal butts, each sporting a different kind of poop. This is a children's museum brought to you by the country that wrote the book "Everybody Poops". Minna Unchi ALL!!!