Kid's Forest

Elin went to Tokyo for an overnight with her sensei and a friend. The kids and I went to the Bennett's house for a cook-out on Saturday. I forgot to take my camera so we didn't get any pictures. It was supposed to be for a few hours, but we ended up staying from about 1:00 until 6:30 or so. It was a really good time.

On Sunday, we got up and made egg muffins (Savannah's new favorite food) and hash browns. We go through about three bags of English muffins a week. Then, we went to a park that my sensei told me about. I cannot remember the name but the sign in the parking lot had Japanese for "Kid's forest" so that's what I am calling it. I was happy to get out to the woods. Hunting season is coming up in the U.S. and I am a little depressed about missing out this year. I am sure the deer behind our old house are happy though.

There was a typhoon that rolled into southern Japan this week. Usually, it moves up from the south to the north bringing rain. I thought we were going to have a rainy weekend, but the weather was nice - but it is still hot and humid. We were told that the week after Obon was the hottest and then it would start getting cooler. 3 or 4 weeks later, we are still waiting for the coolness to begin.


This was a view looking up the mountain side from the parking lot. They had many rows of cut firewood. I thought it was a bit odd, but it made a little more sense later in the day. There are several lodges and also a tent camping area. I think we will have to go back and try camping out some time.





Denny in the parking lot... once again making it difficult to get a serious picture of him.













Savannah in the parking lot.












We had to walk up the road to the main lodge. I don't exactly understand how it works, but you can see all of the mattresses (?) or futons hanging over the side of the railing. I thought the shape of the building and the mountains in the back looked neat so I took a picture.





This was the first set of steps that we had to climb. Yes, I did get a picture of Denny without the peace sign... I ambushed him. I called his name as he was walking up the stairs and caught him when he turned around.









Savannah starting up the stairs. I noticed today how tall she is getting. It hits me every now and again how quickly they are growing up.










They had a suspension bridge that you can cross to get to a tunnel that went through the mountain side. If you bounced on the bridge, you could really feel it. The kids were not happy with me jumping up and down on it.








Denny and Savannah on the bridge.









I think this was a view from the bridge looking down.









This was the stairway leading up to the tunnel. You can just see the entrance. You can also see steel cables tied to the trees. We could not figure out what these were. There were a bunch of them. Eventually, I thought of a possible reason... The last row of trees had the cables tied to them. I think it was to help catch any trees that might fall and hit the bridge. I am still not sure what the purpose of the tarps were.






This is a picture from inside the tunnel. It looks well lit, but actually, it was pitch black. I used to camera to see how far it went. The kids were starting to get hysterical about me going in. Denny ran down the stairs to get away from it so I had to go back out.




Yep... Denny at it again. He made this face for about 2 solid minutes while I tried to get his picture.










Savannah in front of the trees. She has our map in her hands. We stopped two Japanese people asking about the park. There was a young man and an older woman. I was stumbling through my Japanese and the man started talking to us in English. Sometimes it is a shock when that happens, but most of the time, it makes things much easier.

This was the "Hiking Course". There is a look-out on top of the hill. I thought it would be tough to get up, but hey, it can't be that bad if they have a trail right? WRONG!

Denny starting up the hiking trail. I begged him not to give the peace sign in the picture this time.

This is the picture from the top of the hill we climbed. I swear, at one point, we had to have been going up at a 70 degree angle. I had the kids in front of me so I could grab them if they started back down the hill. The ground was covered in sticks and bark which made it tough to climb on. I think the trees may be cypress or some type of pine. It was really difficult getting up the hill and also tricky coming down. We found a better trail to use for descending the mountain. It took us about 45 minutes to go up and back down.

This is the look-out tower at the top of the hill.

The next few pictures are from the look-out.

If you look close, you can see some of the houses at the foothills of the mountain. there was a lot of rice fields. The rice has been green all summer, but it is now turning yellow as it nears harvest time. I think we go back to our rice field next week to harvest.

Another picture from the look-out.

And another looking up the mountain side.

And another with a view of the mountains in the backdrop.

You can see the yellow rice fields in this one.

We kept seeing these hula hoops tied to trees and an indication that there was some type of golf course. We found out that this is Frisbee golf. You have to throw a Frisbee through the hoop in the required par for that hoop. Unfortunately, we never figured out where to get the Frisbees.

Picture of the other side of the lodge as we were returning to the car. There was a large group getting their picture so we waited. You can see some of them in the picture.

Another picture that I snapped while we were waiting for the group to finish their picture.

We saw a dragonfly at the car. Usually, if you hold your finger up, they will land on you. I got this one to land on my finger and managed to take a picture of it.

Savannah getting ready to eat curry rice. She put an apron on so she did not spill it on her clothes. She is all showered up and ready for a show and then off to bed.

Denny looked to be half-way there already. He has a fake tattoo on his arm. Yesterday, he got into the stamp pads. Between the tattoo and the stamps all over his arms, he looked like pretty bad.

One of the obstacles that they had was a Tarzan swing. You had to swing from one stump to the next and land on it. You had to stay until the next person swung over to get on the stump. The next person, then the next and so forth. We only had three in our group so it was easy. There was one group that managed to get 8 people on about a 1.5 - 2 foot diameter stump. I could not get the kids away from the swing.

I had to swing first most of the time because if the kids went first, I would knock them off. Plus, I was able to grab them when they swung over and it made staying on the stump easy.

Swing and a miss...