Only a Month Left...

The weeks seem to be going along faster and faster. With only a month left of our stay in Japan (that's right, it's almost been a whole year since we came here...), we have been trying to hit up all the local tourists spots. We have also been really lucky this spring season with the weather. It has been around 70 F with the sun out on most days despite it supposedly being the rainy season. We will just count our blessings. Enjoy some of the highlights of the week.

This is at a place called Oyakuen. It is a botanical garden that has a bunch of plants used for medicine. It was started several hundred years ago (1500's I think) and it known as a place of refugee for soldiers to get better after being wounded in battle.

I guess we could have chosen a little better scenery behind us, but the garden was actually really pretty.

There is a trail that takes you all around the garden showing it's various plants and trees. Unfortunately, there wasn't a whole lot of info in English, but like I said earlier, the colors were amazing!

This is another view of a part of the garden. The little building there is on a little island and was used as a tea ceremony room or something like that.  

We also went to the Aizu Sake Museum this week. It was quite disappointing. This is a picture of some of the brewing tanks. We thought we would be able to see the process of making sake here, but it looks like they don't really make sake there anymore.

Imagine that you are on the floor above the brewing canisters... This is what you would see. They had holes in the floor  just above the canisters. Not exactly sure how it all goes together. However, to make good sake, you need to have both good rice and good water. You also need a nice warm season for the rice to grow and a nice cold season when brewing the sake so that not as much bacteria grows. Anyways, Aizu is really famous for sake because it has a good balance for all the key elements that are needed to brew good sake.

There was a tiny display room at the museum and one of the displays had these dolls. Not really sure what they were used for... Some of them are a little scary looking. 

We had omelettes sometime this week. It was pretty awesome. We made it with avocado, tomato, grilled onions and garlic, and melted cheese. 

This is a picture just outside of one of the schools that Emily teaches at. You can only imagine how awesome she thought it was to have a whole field of daisies (if you don't know, daisies are her favorite flower).

Some bridge that Emily thought was really cool by her school.

Some river that Emily thought was really cool by her school. :)

If you remember the post a couple weeks back with the video on the chicks hatching, this is how big they have gotten so far.

This is June's bulletin board that Emily made for one of her schools. She wanted me to say that it is probably the ugliest one so far. However, July's is going to be awesome!

I hope you enjoyed the picture tour of our week. We love you all lots and look forward to seeing many of you in about a month. It's crazy how fast time goes!