We are now in the U.S…

Our last couple of weeks in Japan were filled with farewell parties each day of the week! Below are pictures from some of the events.

Enjoy!!

 Hello everyone!

 There’s not much more to say than… we are coming home!  We can’t wait to see all of our family and friends.  Though this has been an awesome journey, we are ready to come home and be with all of our loved ones and then start a new chapter back in DC.  Hakim gets to start school in August and I have an awesome job to get to… so, we’ll be busy. 

 We’ll be in Portland for nearly a month.  We’ll see you all soon. 

 As for our last week here… it’s filled with parties, parties, and more parties.

 This past Sunday was Hakim’s last basketball game with his team, Nazuna.  They played a bit of an older team and showed no mercy… poor guys.  Throughout the whole game, his team was always double the score of the other team.  So, needless to say… they won. 

I don’t have any pictures of them playing basketball cause I was recording the whole game, but below is a picture we took after the game with the team. 

 This past Saturday Hakim and I went sightseeing with two students in his eikaiwa class (adult English class).  We saw some beautiful rice fields that took a lot of work to do.  Normally, many farmers plant the fields using a machine depending on how big their land is, but this place, because it was on a mountain, hand planted theirs. 

While my sister was in town in April, it was the beginning of the rice planting season and all of the fields were mainly brown, beginning to sprout green, but now our whole town is sprouting vibrant green rice fields. 

 Below are some pictures of the field. 

This past Tuesday all the English teachers from all of my schools came together to throw me a Farewell Party. It was nice having all the teachers together. I’m so used to seeing them separately on different days. We ate at a French restaurant and were served a 6-course meal. It was delicious! They also gave both Hakim and I some gifts.

Below are a couple pictures.

This past Sunday marked our one year wedding anniversary. We ended up going out to dinner at this restaurant that only serves one table/group at a time. It’s an Italian restaurant in the chef’s modern home. The dinner was a delicious eight-course meal.

Below are some pictures.
   

Below are pictures from a BBQ earlier in the day at Omiko Beach in Komatsushima.
    

This past Saturday, Hakim and I went on a bike ride around Komatsushima. It didn’t last too long, however, because of the heat. Below are a few pictures.

This past Friday Hakim and I had some friends over for food and games. Below are some pics, courtesy of a friend, from that night.

Enjoy!

Just this past weekend Hakim’s father left after staying nearly 10 days. The week was filled with all kinds of fun stuff for him to experience while in Komatsushima and other cities in Japan. During his stay Hakim and, sometimes, I took him around Komatsushima, Tokushima, Naruto, Kochi Prefecture and Kyoto. He was able to experience a traditional Japanese tea ceremony, a welcome party for him hosted by Hakim’s students, some of the night life in Tokushima, many temples, Mt. Bizan, the Naruto whirlpool, a Monet Garden, Awa Odori dancing, and much more.

Below are some of the pictures taken during his stay.

This past weekend Hakim and I went to a rose garden at someone’s home and we also had a little gathering at our place.

We found out about the rose garden from a friend of ours. It was really close to our house and you would have never suspected this house even had a garden. From the outside of the house pulling up to the driveway there was no color in sight, but immediately when we walked to the back of the house we were greeted with beautiful roses all over the place, in a garden that seemed to never end. Although the roses weren’t as beautiful as what we’ve seen in Portland, it was still nice to see roses… you don’t see them too often here. Also, it turned out that the house belonged to a family of one of my student’s.

The gathering at our house was with some friends of ours. We feasted on various dishes, beer and wine, then played some games.

Below are a few pictures of the weekend.