View from Mt. Bizan

  

So one of the Elementary English teachers and I hung out all day yesterday.  It was great, since sleeping in is impossible while living in the school apartments with the baseball team practicing all hours of the day right across the street...I had hoped that Jessica would be up and wanting to hang out.  She was making breakfast...so lucky me! scrambled eggs, toast and bacon! delicious.  We then headed for town on our bikes to do a bit of tourist siteseeing as well as some additional shopping for our apartments. 

After crossing the bridge to downtown we kind of just dwadled around for a bit exploring some areas of town we hadn't been to before and then decided to head to Mt. Bizan.  Jessica had been up to the top before, but last time she climbed up so we took the ropeway yesterday.  I hadn't gone up yet...don't know why. Its really close, and I LOVE the moutians.  I guess I just don't play tourist enough.  I still haven't gone up to Naruto to see the whirlpools either, and she has done that as well...and I've been living here for a month longer than her.  But then I read or spend my time looking for things to make my apartment more cozy..the interior designer in me I guess!  Anyways, Mt. Bizan.  The view from up there is breath taking, and the city is massive when you see it from up there...it's amazing the Japanese think of it as a small rural city, from my point of view it is huge!

After about an hour wandering the paths on the moutian and trying to find a spot we could catch a glimpse of Seiko Gakuen from the top (and failing miserably) we were both starving...even with saving ourselves the climb up.  So we stopped into the little resturaunt up on the observation area and had a light meal.  Mine was a chicken rice and vegi mixture...that because of it's reddish color I thought was going to be spicy.  So glad it turned out it wasn't, I can NOT handle spicy food in the slightest.  Jessica ordered a coca cola float and shrimp rice.  Hers looked really yummy too, and the view was spectacular.  She and I decided we are definately going back, but are bringing bento べんと with us next time we go.  There are some great little picinic areas up there.  Might even get a group together sometime and have a party.  That would be a lot of fun this summer. 

After our lunch we caught the ropeway back down and got back on our bikes to miander some more around town.  I took Jessica to the 100￥ store and got a few things for each of our rooms and then we headed to a home decor store...one I am quickly loving for it's additions to my apartment.  I'll definately have to take a picture of my room soon, its coming together sooo nicely!  anyways, after going through checkout we got back to our bikes and studied our bit of a delema:

how to get all of our purchases secured on our BIKES

we had:

(decor store)

a rug

a fairly large tray

lint roller, and hanging hooks

silverware

(100￥ store)

garbage can

2 medium sized desk organizers

A3 paper sized picture frame

roll of paper

plates

cups

office supplies

LOTS of hangers (very ackward to pack)

garden spade

notebooks

envelopes

plus a few random things that i can't remember at the moment

please keep in mind this is on 2 bicycles about 30minutes from our apartments!  We were heading back, when I pointed out a second hand clothing store I like to Jessica, who had just been mentioning her need for some jeans and skirts, so we stopped in and both bought some more clothes...to add to our already packed bikes.  My bike by this point is a little difficult to manuver..all that additional weight and all...plus since my bike has 2 baskets almost everything we baught was in my bike.  sigh.  On the way back, contemplating ways to get home without having to use the main bridge (very up hill to get to it) we found a Pizza Hut! Jessica and I agreed that it sounded like a fantastic idea for dinner and stopped in.  No tables just a waiting bench...making us stare at them in shock when they asked if we wanted our pizza "for here or to go."  We were like....where are we to eat it if we said here?  We joked how we should have stayed and offered them some.  Maybe gotten some free pizza out of it!  In the end though we said to go and headed off on our overstuffed bikes and found a little park not far away with a bench and ate it.  That pizza (basil) was SOOOO yummy.  oh Pizza Hut, how I've missed you...and I don't even really like pizza normally!