Hachgamine Park Part Two

 The park had this awesome Obstacle Course set into the mountain.  So you walked, hiked and climbed up and around the mountain and encountered these obstacles.  The kids LOVED it.  You paid  300 yen and got a white apron thing you wore to show you'd paid and you could just go for it.  We may or may not have gone in order.  They were numbered and I made the girls turn around at #27 when we ran out of time.  So there may have been more stuff, I'm not sure.

Since I am now 10 days behind on posting this,  I'm just going to tell you that it was fantastic and the girls had a marvelous time and here are the photos.

Hachgamine Park: Part One

 May 5th was a teacher work day and there was no school for the Elementary School.  It was also "Golden Week" for Japan, so Rylee was out of school as well.  Poor Joshua still had school and was so sad when he found out I took the 4 girls on a fun adventure.  My friend Laura texted me to ask if we wanted to go to Hachgamine Park with her.  Um.... yes!!

We've been planning to go for a while, but it has never quite worked out- usually due to rain.  So I was delighted to go, and very happy to have the opportunity to follow someone else out to the park.  I'm glad I did have someone to follow!  That place is crazy up in the mountains on windy-twisty roads!

The park is built into the mountain and it is quite foresty, and you could not really see the different things to do.  So after cruising the lots looking for somewhere to park the car, we finally found a suitable spot in the throngs of Japanese who also were out to enjoy the day there.  We were by a fun little park.  It also had a little mountainside to climb up and slide down.  The girls were in heaven.

We had a picnic lunch under a lovely shady tree that Marian just HAD to climb.  The Japanese take picnicking very seriously and there were many little tents and picnic blankets all over.  It was crowded but fun. Having little blond girls was definitely an advantage because they were easy to spot in the sea of dark heads.

After lunch and playing almost to their heart's content, we moseyed along the hillside to the roller slide area.  It was 300 yen (about $2.75) for 3 rides down the slide.  We paid, got our tickets and little carpets for sitting on, and headed up the mountain.  It was a good 5 minute climb to the top of the roller slide, but the ride down was awesome!

We meandered around and discovered a lovely flower garden and then a park with fun dinosaurs.  Yes, the girls had to pose with them all!  I really did spare you the majority of the photos, for there were many!  But here are the best of the photos of the day:

There are 3 girls in the tree and 2 of them are mine.

The climbing hill.

Ice cream vending machines are my girls' very favorite thing about living here!

I loved that Marian chose to wear this hat for most of the day.

Going down the roller slide!  It is made up of individual rollers and you slide along them.  It sets up quite the vibration on your bum!

And you can go pretty fast.  Most of us experienced the painful burns that come when your bare skin comes into contact with the metal sides as you zoom along.  I found that slowing down worked best if you pushed your shoes against the sides.

It was warm and they may have been getting cranky from all the hoofing it all over the mountainside. But the flowers looked and smelled amazing!

Riding the dino.

Ryle insisted on wearing her Yochein summer hat.  I'm thinking she was wise, because she avoided getting any sunburn.

Hee hee hee.  I sneaked this shot from afar!

Someone is a ham.

Ys, yes she is!

3 little girls are squished in this din's tummy.

Callie's pose.

Marian does have a good face here.

Ryle may need to expand her "looks".  She's stuck on "cute kid".

Delaney's got it though!

I love the face on this dinosaur.  So appropriate!

And yes, Rylee is pretty a doggone cute kid!

Friendship Day: Part Two .... The Air Show

It rained all day long, and rain is really NOT conducive to a successful air show.  You can't see through the drizzling clouds, and looking up at the sky can result in raindrops in your eyes.  Still, the Air Show went on and the planes buzzed busily all through the gray, cloudy day.  I only got photos of the last act.  It was the "Blue Impulse"- the Japanese precision flying team.  They were pretty good, but some of their cooler things relied on smoke stream.  I know this from pictures posted by friends who saw their Saturday practice.  But they had one where they drew a heart in the sky and some other neat things. Those ended up being too high in the sky and fading quickly into the gray clouds.  They were still pretty cool, and I did take a plethora of pictures.  See the fun below.