Day 26 - Lake Biwa

It rained hard at about 4:00 am and it woke me up.  I snoozed a bit more but eventually decided to get up and explore the town. It was a quiet Saturday morning as I walked down toward the lake and I passed joggers and dog walkers but hardly any cars. It was already obnoxiously hot and humid at 6:00 am.

Lake Biwa is really pretty in the morning light... it's easy to see why it's the subject of lots of classical stories and poems and travelogues. I'm surprised that I hadn't ever taken the 10 minute train from Kyoto to see it before. I'm here this time only because we rented an airbnb place that happened to be in Otsu.

After breakfast in the apartment, we talked about plans for the day and decided it was a great day for a swim. We took the train around the lake to a small town called Omi Maiko that has a beach that's popular for swimming. The beach has coarse but pretty sand and beautiful Japanese pine trees that come within a few meters of the water. There's a buoy line that runs the length of the beach about 10 meters out and signs saying that the lake gets really deep at that point so be careful. From this point of the lake, you can barely see the mountains on the far side of the lake - it's really big.



We all swam and then got lunch - yakisoba and kara-age - from a little old lady who runs a beach inn and restaurant called Takanuma's After lunch, Ang, Amy, and Meg decided they were done and took the train back while  the rest of us swam for another hour. Unfortunately, Isa and Lila didn't reapply their sunscreen quite as well and they could have and got some sunburned cheeks and noses. Even still, it was a great way to cool off. I'll definitely be back.



This evening, Ang and I went into Kyoto to see the red gates of Fushimi Imari Shrine. We had a nice dinner together and found some aloe gel for the red girls and some food for tomorrow.

琵琶湖の水はきれいで涼しかった。

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Day 45 - All the way home

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Well, we did it! 45 days in Japan with a family of 6 light-backpacking travelers. The weather has been good (but hot), none of us got sick (except some pesky light rashes - I blame the humidity), and the memories will last forever. I am so grateful for Angela and the hard work she has done to make sure we had what we needed for the trip - people all over Japan have commented on how lightly we traveled for a large family (of girls), but we had everything we needed. It was a great way to experience the reality that we can live happily with far less than we have. I am also grateful for the girls who have been amazing travelers. I hope they see the value in what we've done now, and I am very confident they will see it as they grow up. It's been a blast to share Japan with them. I'm grateful for all the people we met on our way. To the Serizawa's for their generosity and kindness to us at the beginning of the trip (and to the Stouts for helping set it up), to my old...
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Day 39 - To Kumamoto

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We took a train to Kumamoto at midday - the Shinkansen makes it so much faster to travel around Kyushu than it was when I was here before. Ang got a pick with her new boyfriends... a boy band that has done a lot PR for trains around this part of Japan that i recovering from a major earthquake last year. We got lunch before boarding a trolley for the trip through downtown to our apartment. The apartment is a really interesting place. I think it used to be an office in a building that has apartments on the upper floors and businesses on the bottom. They have done a really nice job making a cool living space that is plenty big enough for all of us. It's clearly our favorite Airbnb so far on this trip. The kids especially love the "yoga hammock." Walking around the shotengai - shopping streets - has brought back a million memories both of my missionary and student time in Kumamoto, and we took a bus to Kumamoto University, where the memories really hit me like a ton...
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Day 38 - Omuta Memories

After a slow morning in the apartment, Isa decided to have her 1-on-2 date with the parents and we headed south about an hour to Omuta, the first area from my mission. Predictably, it was crazy hot and humid, but we had a nice lunch at a small restaurant near the station and then walked to the church which is on the second floor of a commercial building near the station. No one was there, but lots of memories flooded back from my first days and weeks in Japan in 1988. I remember feeling out of my comfort zone as everything was so new, but also feeling safe because of the kindness of those around me. We then walked to my old apartment which is still there and still looks just as shabby as it did almost 30 years ago... not worse, just the same. We stopped at a 7-11 for ice cream and drinks and then headed back to the station and home to Fukuoka. This evening we went back to Canal City. Ang, Amy, and I got street vendor Hakata Ramen which was good, but a little anticlimactic, and then...
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