Moka Rose Garden

We went to Moka to visit the rose garden today. There were a lot of people because most of the roses are close to full bloom, but it wasn't TOO crowded and was definitely worth the trip. Even though the garden here is much smaller, it reminds me of the Portland rose garden quite a bit; even the fountains have similar modern designs.
After the garden, we went back to the Brazilian restaurant where we ate several weeks ago for dinner. The first time we went, we thought maybe the buffet was only for lunch, but they had it again tonight, so that must be the usual style. Like last time, the food was fantastic-interesting flavors. LOTS of pork, beef and chicken, and salads and desserts with LOTS of coconut (MMMmmmm...I love coconut...)

Thank you gifts from my students last year

On my last day at a couple of the elementary schools where I taught last year, many students presented me with origami gifts that they made. Some of the creations were amazingly detailed and creative. I especially like the pair of origami birds with Japanese and US flag themes. (BTW, the school year in Japan ends in March, so these pictures are only a little late...)

I saw a wild pheasant

Some of the schools where I teach are a little far out in the country-this afternoon, I was driving home from school, and I saw something running across the road-I got closer and it was a pheasant! Nozomi says they are common outside of the cities.

Utsunomiya Zoo AKA 1960s Time Warp

I didn't even know that Utsunomiya had a zoo until I lived here for over a year.  The zoo is small; small animals in a small zoo looked mostly comfortable; big animals in a small zoo looked a bit unhappy. (Although even the small squirrel monkey in the picture has kind of a sad "I'm in jail" look--well, OK, maybe that's just my imagination...) The fun thing is you can actually feed the animals and get very close to them. Half of the park is the zoo, and the other half is a small amusement park that looks like it hasn't been changed since the 1960s. Nozomi agreed to go on the small roller coaster with me and said that it was actually kind of fun (other than when it was scary-now that I'm thinking about it, if the park really HASN'T been changed since the 1960s, that roller coaster really COULD be scary...). Fantastic weather and a fun day!

Finally, some updates!

So.... if there's anybody that still looks at this blog (that DOESN'T use Facebook), I found a way to automatically post to both sites at the same time, which means this blog will actually get new posts now.
AND... after ten months, I'll finally post a wedding picture here:

Japanese Brazilian food and steam engines

We saw (and tasted) some interesting things when we visited Moka a few weeks ago...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%C5%8Dka,_Tochigi

Sakura

Nozomi & I took a walk yesterday in the park near Utsunomiya Art Museum. There was an AMAZING sakura tree in bloom.