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This weekend Catherine and I went to Fukue with Shingo Kohara. He’s a math teacher at Narao Elementary School and he and Catherine work together once a week. Shingo is from Fukue and he wanted to take us around his island, see his house, meet his family, etc. He invited his girlfriend, Tomoko and her sister, Sumi, from Fukuoka come out with us. It was the best weekend! Shingo is a really sweet guy and an amazing host. We did so much in such a short weekend together and Shingo wanted to pay for all of it.

We left early (like 7:30 a.m. early) Saturday morning and took a ferry to the island. This is me driving. The beginning of the adventure!

Taking pictures on the ferry... Here’s Shingo and me. Me not quite awake yet.

Catherine and me on the ferry. This picture manages to make both our noses look really funny, don't you think? Mine's not usually shaped like that...

Our first glimpse of Fukue. Looks a lot like Kamigoto actually. It’s so blue because we were messing around with the manual settings on Catherine’s camera. By the way, thanks so much for all the pictures Catherine! I’m still waiting to get my camera back from America.

Sumi and Tomoko had arrived on the Taiko Ferry just before us so they were already waiting with Shingo’s father. First we went to Shingo’s high school, Goto High School, which also happens to be a castle!! Then to the castle garden, shaped like a heart, with a large pond in the middle. It was really beautiful.

Tomoko, Sumi, Catherine and Sierra all at the entrance of the castle (also Goto High School). Shingo walked over this bridge everyday as a high school student.

We saw a yochien (kindergarten) next to the castle. These kids were talking a walk and holding their “leash.”

This little terror was hammering his shovel into the tree, probably for attention. It was cute.

Next we went to a temple, the oldest on the Gotos and had a tour by this cute old monk who studied dancing in New York for five years. He explained all the important things in the temple to us, but in Japanese. I could only understand the easy parts of each description, “The white Buddha on the right… The tall statue in the back… ” and when he said years/numbers. It was exciting to be able to understand that much though.

The temple.

They had some Buddhas lined up around the exterior of the temple. They were wearing these red aprons with prayers written on them. Each had a piece of candy in front of it—until you got around the corner and saw that a few Buddhas at the end had ¥1 coins instead. Maybe someone got hungry.

Here you can see that Fukue’s landscape is a bit different from Kamigoto’s. There’s more flat land so they do some rice farming and keep cattle.

I like the way this picture turned out.

The official flower of Goto is the camellia. In Japanse “tsubaki.” I used that as one of my questions in Jeopardy in class last week so now I see tsubaki all over the place. These are all tsubaki trees that were blooming heavily in January. You can see some small pink flowers way in the back (if you know what you're looking for and have a good imagination).

After the temple we went to a Catholic church. It was very simple with these old wooden pews that looked straight out of colonial America. We also got to drink French tap water. Obviously something got lost in that translation. The water was supposed to be extremely healthy, but how is that connected to France? Not sure…

Next we went to meet Shingo’s mother and see their flower shop. His mom has a perm! I was surprised to see a Japanese person with curly hair! It was cute. Then we bought some cakes at a cake shop across the street and went to have lunch. We ate ramen at this small shop near the onsen. It was so delicious!! I think it was “salt” flavor, but it had shrimp and a leafy vegetable in it too. I was so stuffed by the end of the meal! Shingo’s sister stopped by and so we met her quickly. She was too shy to speak English, but was really nice… and so beautiful!

Our ramen chef.

Catherine, Sumi and Tomoko eating salt ramen. Okay, not yet, but they will be soon.

We saw Catherine’s dream car on Fukue. “I WILL own it someday!” she said. It already matches her shoes.

After lunch Shingo’s tour continued. We went to a beautiful beach. It was too cold to stay for long, but it was nice to see. The water was so blue, you can see for yourself!

Shingo, Tomoko, Sierra and Sumi on the beach together.

The white sands of Fukue’s beaches. Gorgeous!

Randomly took this picture and I liked it a lot. It’s very… bonsai, don’t you think? My father would be proud.

Shingo was such a great tour guide. After hanging on the beach for a while he said it was time for our next stop. Did anyone need to use the bathroom now? Then, while we were all at the bathroom, Shingo bought five hot teas and coffees from the vending machine and put them on the hood of the car as a surprise. Here we are drinking our beverages in the car!

Whoops, the cord got in the first one…

Next we went on this great hike on the east end of the island. There’s a lighthouse way out on this cliff-like rock and there’s a path that you can hike to get down to it. It was so beautiful out there.

Ousezaki Lighthouse.

Squeezing Ousezaki.

The hike down to the lighthouse was easy, but coming back up, now that was a bit tougher! Here’s Tomoko, Sumi, Sierra and Shingo on the trail. I wish we had a good hike like this on Kamigoto!

We made it to the lighthouse!

Isn't the view amazing?

The lighthouse again, up close!

The hike was really great. It woke us up from the ramen-coma we’d slipped into. It’s always nice to do some exercise after eating. Then we made the long drive back around to Tomie (Shingo’s town) and I won’t mention whether or not I was awake for the drive! In Tomie, Shingo scheduled us an appointment and we did ceramics! Can you believe it? We had already done so much for the day. It was so much fun. Shingo and Sumi met each other at Fukuoka’s Art School so you can imagine how perfect their works were, but I was quite proud of my little cup, saucer and spoon that I made too. Imperfect as art should be. With my left over clay I made masses of braided chopstick holders. I can’t wait to see how it all turned out.

I was getting pretty hungry, but we had one last stop on our Fukue Sightseeing Tour: the onsen! (hot spring bath) Catherine loves onsens and so this was her one request for the trip to Fukue. We were only there for a half hour, but it felt so good to relax. They even had an outside onsen—it’s so great to be in hot water in cold weather.

We had a huge dinner with Shingo’s family. So much food and all so delicious. I swear I gained 2 kilos just eating that meal. There was crunchy sara udon, sukiyaki, two kind of sashimi, mussels, korokke, salad and plenty to drink. Shingo’s brother-in-law also showed up and I had a fun conversation with him because he used to live on Kamigoto and knows many Nakagoto teachers because his wife (Shingo’s sister) used to work there. I then got to see their wedding party video and saw three of my co-workers, including my supervisor Hatakeyama-sensei! In the video, one teacher, Iwaseura-sensei, played the role of the “sex god,” as it was translated to me, where he brings good fortune to the newlyweds. That was funny to watch. I can’t wait to go back and tell him what I saw!

Saying goodbye to Shingo’s parents in front of their house. The statue on the left is a piece of Shingo’s art.

Sunday was such a big day too. It’s getting really late though and I’m afraid I won’t be able to write much now. In the morning, after a great pancake breakfast, we went to a soba shop and made soba noodles. Soba are buckwheat noodles from China.

Here we are mixing the soba powder.

And after much kneading we roll it out…

And finally we cut the soba into as thin slices as we can get. Catherine was given a lot of heckling by the shop owner for her cutting technique. Even though her left fingers were not where they are “supposed” to be, she got the noodles cut without taking off any fingers! No faith!

Then they cooked the noodles and brought us lunch! Catherine’s camera ran out of batteries at this point so we have no more pictures from the weekend, but I promise you, those noodles were beautiful! The thickness of the noodles in our bowl varied so much depending on who had cut them; it was pretty cute. And now I know how to make soba, so you’re invited for dinner!

Next, we hiked Mt. One-dake. A large straw covered mountain in the middle of Saikai National Park. It looks like such a bald hill without the trees which cover absolutely all of Goto Islands, but it does have some beautiful views from atop. They grow a crop on it each year too. It looked like wheat, but I’m not sure. We hiked all around it (there’s a big crater like part in the middle) and finished by going down into the crater area and straight back up the side. Tomoko was wearing boots with heels (not very high heels, but heels nonetheless) and I don’t know how she did it! It was a weekend of much needed hiking!

In the afternoon we tried to go see Shingo’s sister in the hospital who had just had her baby a few days ago, but she was breastfeeding and so we didn't get to see them. I just felt bad for Shingo, because it’s his first nephew and he has to wait until next week to see the baby because we were all there!

We had a little time to kill before our ferries left so we went to Goto mall and did purikura (the picture stickers) and had a snack at Mister Donut. I saw four or five of my students there too. Of all the places to see each other, they catch me at Mister Donut!! The were all seniors who were getting their driver’s licenses at the testing center on Fukue. At the port, Shingo’s parents and sister came to wave us goodbye and they gave us omiyage for the trip home! We got cakes and cream puffs from his mother!! Oishikata desu! I slept the whole ferry ride home—woke up once for the stop at Naru and don’t remember a single other thing. It was a fun weekend, but absolutely exhausting!

Thank you Shingo for such a wonderful time! You much come visit Oregon so I can repay you with “Sightseeing Oregon!”
Love, Sierra