In Japan and loving it!

We are in Japan and loving it!!! We are having soooo much fun remembering all the things we loved and had forgotten. A lot of the joy comes from such yummy food! Jun's mom is SUCH a good cook and we are in heaven. She is happy to cook for us and is doing an amazing job and keeping up with our many requests! A shopping center is about a ten minute walk from his house - I like to go often and get yummy snacks. The bread store is incredible. Talk about needing to diet when we get home! Oh well- might as well enjoy ourselves right? We've been visiting some historical sights around Jun's hometown of Shibata. It is a pretty neat city with great historical back round. It has a beautiful castle and an incredible place where the samurai's used to live. Jun told me the name "Asahina" is connected with prestigious samurai from back in the day - how neat is that! It has been fun because we visited some spots where Jun hasn't even seen before! Minori is doing good. Finally after about a week and a half - she is getting used to the time change - just in time for us to mess her up again when we come back to the states.

Crazy thing happened a couple days ago. We heard the firetrucks and Hideko looked out the window and huge flames and smoke were seen. Just a few blocks away a house caught on fire. We went to look at the remnants, and it is in quite bad shape, burned almost to the ground. The sign of the gas station next to it was all melted. A 87 year old man was inside and died. They don't know yet how it was started. It drew quite a crowd. Sad - made us all a little more cautious with the spaced heaters!

On a lighter note - we are having lots of fun and can 't believe time is passing so quickly. The thing I miss the most is a dryer. Not only is it a constant pain to hang and take down clothes, but my pants are too big without being dried and they keep falling down! I'll post more pictures when we get home!