Family Day

I was not as sore as I thought I was going to be this morning, just certain spots on my back. We all woke up late today and had breakfast. The weather was foggy and overcast and had rained a lot overnight. It was much cooler today than yesterday and probably never made it past the 70 mark.

Ikeno-san and Masani-san came over today and talked a bit, Masani-san took me and showed me the next fields that needed to be cut, I had previously been cutting buckwheat (Mugi) fields, but the new ones are Soba (a grain that the Japanese make noodles out of). It is heading toward the dam this time.

About 1:00 pm we decided to go to visit another Michi no Eki (road station), there are over 100 Michi no Eki's in Hokkaido and we are planning on visiting them all eventually, we have a booklet that has a blank spaces in it, that allows you to place unique rubber stamps in it from the various mitch no eki's.

So far we have Asahikawa, Biei, Higashikawa, and the new one today Tomah. Maybe you are wondering what a Road Station is, well it is basically a rest stop that has restrooms, phones, vending machines, a small store with snacks and souvenirs that is unique to the surrounding area and sometimes a restaurant. Tomah's specialty was the densuke melon, the black skinned melon that sells for 50-70 dollars on the average.

We had some soft serve densuke melon flavored ice cream, it was great, and we also bought some snacks for a Fujita-san family since they give us so many free vegetables. After there we went into Asahikawa and visited a wood craft store. They had all kinds of wood sculptures carvings and crafts, the coolest thing I saw was a brief case made entirely out of wood, very nice if you have about $800.00

When we left the wood craft shop we searched around for a place to eat and found a curry restaurant called "Indo", I ordered a green lamb curry with rice and a pork cutlet, you could choose the heat of your dish from 1-20, I went midway and ordered a 10, but next time I think I can take a 13, the people who can eat a 20, I take my hat off to ya. Whew!

After eating we headed home and did the normal routine of getting the kids into bed and surfing the net.

Temp: High - 73
Low - 57