And, Of Course, Cats

I'm just noticing how well Callie hides from the camera!  Even Marian was happy to let me get pictures of her with the kitties, but as I see here, there isn't much Callie.  

The girls' very favorite thing about Kintai is probably a toss up- ice cream, chicken on a stick, or cats.  There are a ton of cats that roam there and Callie just name every single one she sees.  She also wants to make friends, with varying degrees of success. There were fewer cat encounters than usual, probably due to the cold and recent rain, but there was a bit of cat cuddling going on that morning.

Saturday morning at Kintai

 Joshua had an opportunity on Saturday to earn some volunteer hours.  It merely required him to be at Kintai from 9:15 am to noon, and to take a guided tour (for FREE!).  All he had to do was to give feedback to the Japanese guides on how well they did it in English.  I jumped on this opportunity to get the kids out of the house.  After several rainy days, we needed some fresh air.   Thankfully, the rain dried up just as we left the house and the morning was merely overcast.

We brought along Delaney's friend Kirsten, since she's moving away soon, and we wanted some fun memories and photos with her.  We dropped Joshua off at his pick up point and he went off to his tour.  I took the girls and we spent the next few hours meandering and enjoying the time to thoroughly enjoy the sights.

Delaney and Kirsten at a Torii I had not seen before.

Ryle wanted a picture too. 

The girls were fascinated by this shish dog, because his mouth was full of coins. 

Of course, they had to add their own yen to the pile. 

Oh, Rylee's new glasses came that morning and she loaves them. 

Getting their Zen on. 

Posing at the koi pond. 

Yeah, I don't know what this was. 

Selfie with the weird statue dude. 

We crossed paths with Joshua once and he was having a great time.  He was all excited to share with the girls the stuff he'd learned. 

How super cool is this?! 

Ryle thought she was soon funny! 

 Rylee and the cool Zen Garden guy.

Despite the freezing wind and chill temp, these girls still wanted ice cream. 

Posing on the rock. 

Selfie with the bridge.  Nope, never gets old! 

Delaney and Kirsten, on the bridge, with the castle in the background.   

Me and Rylee, feeling awesome. 

Delaney wanted to do this pose.  Pretty cool! 

 So, then Rylee had to do this one.

And then I made her do this one, because the Iwakuni Castle is always awesome. 

And yes, that's my kid, in 50 degree weather, wearing shorts and (well, not right now) flip flops, and wading in the frigid water.

Then they played in the fountains.  Yes, there were some wet shoes and maybe more.

But they had a very good time!

Poor Levi

 Poor Levi started licking his hind paw a little obsessively.  I checked it out and he seemed to have a tiny abscess in between two of his paw pads.  The next day he had about licked the bottom right off his pads in his attempts to make it feel better.  I was worried about my poor doggie, so off we went to the vet.

They concurred.  A tiny abscess.  But they didn't do anything. I'd kind of thought they might lance it to relieve the pressure or something, but nope.  Didn't even wash the over-licked appendage. Just gave topical antibiotic, oral antibiotic and an oral anti-itch pill.  And a cone of shame.  Apparently the one we bought back when he was a mere 6 months old was no longer big enough to fit his burly neck.

Having a good time at the vet office.

Not so fun now.  He's hoping the door will open and he can escape. 

Fitted for his cone. 

And feeling quite depressed about the entire situation.

And now, some follow up.  The cone was demolished in under 3 hours.  Not because Levi even tried to break it, it was just that cheap and crappy. It disintegrated on contact when he ran into the side of his kennel.   

He licked his paw for the next two days and I think the abscess did it's thing, and he's been licking less and less.  He hasn't limped at all the last 2 days, and we took him on his usual Sunday walk and he was delighted.  No limping or discomfort at all. Yay!

Kendama Class with Rylee

 Rylee and I went on a Cultural Adaptation trip last Saturday.  We met at 8:45am, took a bus over to the Yuu Elementary School and got our culture on!  We got to participate in some Ice-Breaker games.  They were very Japanese.  The first one was called "Look up.  Look Down", where you stand in a big circle.  The guy in charge would say, "Look down!"  and everyone looked down.  Then he would call, "Look up!"  and you looked up, and tried to catch the eye of someone.  If you made eye contact, you walked towards each other, shook hands and introduced yourself.  You were suppose to say something about yourself as well.  Then you traded places and did it all over again.  Not a great way for the Americans to really get into it because there was a lot of awkward eye-avoidance!

The best ice breaker was a hula hoop game.  Still in the big circle, everyone held hands.  It was awesome to see how the Japanese men were perfectly comfortable holding hands for this, and the Americans were really uncomfortable with it.  Anyway, the hula hoop was hung over someone's arm. At the whistle, you tried to get the hula hoop all the way around the circle, without letting go of hands.  That meant everyone had to climb through it and work together.  It really was fun.

Then the Kendama instructor came out.  The Kendama is the ball and cup game that Japan apparently has taken to a whole other level. The instructor was very fun and entertaining.  He joked around as he pulled out a bunch of  different kinds of kendamas and showed off his mad skills.  We got to practice and try everything.  He showed us a couple different games and things to do with them.  The "unicorn" was the favorite, and we got a group shot with everyone doing it.  Very fun.

Next was lunch.  They told us to bring a lunch, so we did.  But they also brought out some fruit and  okonomiyaki for us to try.  It was pretty good.   We were delighted with their fresh and delicious strawberries.  We cleaned up, went outside for photos and then loaded up and went home.  It was a good excursion.

Ryle trying to master the ball.

Master Instructor showing the tiny kendama after theatrically pulling out increasingly larger ones.

Showing her kendama.

Well, not the best trick. But a cute little face. 

This was a really fun one.  A super long stick made it really difficult, but the oval shaped ball was painted like a chick.   

Doing the "unicorn"! 

Selfie with my partner in crime. 

Loving the sweet strawberries for lunch. 

And being silly with her apples.

Finally- Star Wars!

We do not get first run movies.  We have to wait about 6 weeks for them to arrive here.  Usually, it's not a big deal, but was a long wait, for this movie.  The base did a great job.  They showed all 6 of the previous Star Wars movies, in order, for free the 2 weeks leading up to the premier of "The Force Awakens". Then they showed the movie for a week, twice a day, and they had R2D2 and the storm trooper out to do pictures and entertain before each showing.

Callie and I went to see the movie and Callie grudgingly agreed to pose for a picture for me.  She was unenthusiastic.  Storm Trooper guy made her hold the weapon and she did great.  She pretended she didn't want to, but I know, secretly, she loved it!  We both loved the movie.  (Dan saw it twice.)