August in Japan

We are back from Sumo but Florrie doesn't have everything ready yet so we have decided to start a quick update of our lives here in Japan. We figure we can stick one of these in when things are kind of slow. We arrived here in August which is a great month to arrive in northern Japan as there are lots of interesting festivals going on. We went to some festivals in Misawa.

Some festivals were more interesting than others!

After looking at the butts notice the drums in the picture above, they are taiko, Florrie is learning to play them. Maybe one day she'll march in a festival too.

We went to festivals in Hachinohe;

that's one big taiko!

 

The dolls hemline is close to my height. Periodically they get new weapons or make other changes; it’s very odd but fun. We pass them on trips into the mts.

Nemo and I made some new friends.

Some were more friendly than others!

We also discovered some interesting Japanese traditions like decorating rice fields and bathing naked with friends and strangers (no pictures of that, sorry!)

And, where as in Iceland you can find fish hanging on clothes lines here you can find fish impaled on sticks! There is a little on man who sells these outside of our favorite grocery store every Sunday. Once Chris brought him some freshly caught fish.

There are also all kinds of interesting shrines in lots of different places here in Japan.

I always enjoy hanging out with like minded spirits!

This was August in Japan; another time we will tell you a little about September here. This week Florrie will work on getting the Sumo blog together. Until then konnichiwa.

ESCAPE FROM GTMO

 

Escape from GTMO!

For two years we tried everything we could think of to get out of GTMO. When Florrie went on that field trip to the prison with the 5th grade we tried to convince her to steal the bus and escape. Sadly, GTMO is sort of an island on an island, just as the prison is a prison within a prison.

One day we were so desperate we thought about going through the mine field. After a while, once I realized that unlike my illustrious predecessor, I couldn't walk on water OR mines we gave that idea up

 

Another time we decided that we could try selling the house.

Who knew that putting a for sale sign on a house on a military base would cause so much trouble!

 

Next we decided that we would sneak over to the north gate and hope that some Cuban would grab us and put us on a boat.

 

When that didn't work Nemo made himself a shark proof suit and decided we would swim to the real Cuba, where we would be more free than we were on the base. "But wait" I reminded him, "I still can't walk on water and Florrie and Chris could get shot by guards on either side of the fence; this is not a good idea"! He finally listened to me. 

                       

 

I could see that Nemo was getting more and more desperate. One day he must have snuck out and having only that small fish brain, forgotten his shark proof suit. Unfortunately he was snapped up by a fish, fortunately someone who recognized our friend caught the fish and returned Nemo to us.

Finally it happened! We received word that we were being released, not for good behavior; probably because they didn't know what Nemo would try next. We were so happy we didn't care that we were told we could get hundred's of inches of snow where we were going!