Last Day

We made some plates today. After a morning walk and breakfast, we took a train to Gifu City with the Omoris. We went to a restaurant for a drink and pastry, then made a clay plate with decorations. Adrienne’s is a beautiful cherry blossom and mine is “Hunter” written in Kanji. After that, we went up a new building to the 43^rd floor to view the city. It was amazingly high with an open view on the elevator that kind of scared me as we rose.

We ate out for lunch. It was really good. We went to a Japanese noodle restaurant. Before we got to the restaurant, we tried some samples of food at other restaurants. Our favorite thing was the little octopus. It helped that it was covered in deep fried bread crumbs. When we got back home, we had time to pack and dress up for the farewell dinner. The mayor and some other people spoke a few words. A lot of people cried. There were students from middle schools in St George visiting schools here. They had a great experience with their host families, just like we did and were very sad to leave.

Now, we are so excited to get back to our children. We have a lot of gifts to give them from us, our hosts, and our host’s friends. One thing we learned is that not much is needed for children to be happy. In the home we stayed, there were not Nintendo’s or electronic games. Tsumugi just creatively played. On day, she made a model of Adrienne by taking a glass bottle, adding yarn for hair, and a marker to draw a face and body. When the children would put on shows for us, they just used what they had to make music and perform. We did some origami with Tsumugi. They were always so happy and found great ways to entertain themselves and others. We will always remember this trip and how kind the Omoris were to us.

The Race

I decided I would do the race since I've been feeling good here running without any injury. The Omori family was so excited to hear I would do it and made a poster saying, "Go! Iain".

There were about 5000 marathoners and 5000 half marathoners. I did the half marathon and planned on just starting with the front group. If they went to hard, I would just drop back and enjoy the run. The course was very challenging with a lot of uphill on the way out, then downhill. The pace felt good and I ran with two Japanese runners on the way up. Near the turn around, the started running harder and I dropped back from them, but stayed in third place to the finish. My legs are tired, but I think I'm fine in terms of injury. Pepi, the master's winner from St. George finished 6th which he was very happy with. The awards ceremony was fun. They had the top 6 on the awards stand. We all spoke our thank yous to the audience and received our awards. They do not give cash awards in Japan, but they had great trophies and medals. This is a picture of first place receiving his 60kg of rice. I got 10kg of rice, a medal, two plaques, two certificates, some pototoes, pumpkin, and onions. The Omoris are excited to share the food with some friends.

After the race, we went shopping at the 100Yen store. For dinner, some friends came over. We had a fun party with Tsumugi and her friends putting on a show for us. They were very entertaining. Adrienne and I even had to sing a song, so we chose "Popcorn Popping on the Apricot Tree".

We also picked up Tsumugi from school. There is a picture of her in her uniform here.

Reception Tanigumi

When we arrived, Tsumunji had made a sign for us to welcome us to their home.  It reminded us of something our kids would have made if we had been hosting a family from Japan.  The Omori family has been wonderful to us the whole time.  In the afternoon yesterday, they took us to see a Buddist mummy.  There were shrines and buildings with a lot of history from the 12th century.  At the bottom of the hill where we walked up to the buildings, there was a box filled with walking sticks for anyone that needed them.  I might need one after the race.  I知 going to do the half marathon instead of the full one.  Up on the hill, we met a man with a poodle named Bon Jovi.  It was very entertaining to hear his story even though he only spoke in Japanese.    The trees there reminded us of autumn in Utah.  The colors are all changing now.

Yesterday, after touring the marathon course, we had a reception with the staff from the Ibigawa marathon.  Gifts were exchanged and we had a great buffet lunch.  Gil is a city council member from St George.  He is our main representative.  The photo is him with the mayor of Ibigawa.

While we were driving the marathon course, we took a few breaks.  We spent a few minutes soaking our feet in a hot spring at a rest stop.

Last night, Mie invited a few people to visit for dinner.  Two of them are running the race.  One even went to run St George last year as a representative of being the best local runner.  We all went around the room introducing ourselves in English.  It was a fun night.

Day 0 and 1

We made it to our host family after a very long day.  It took three flights and a 2 hour bus ride.  It all went well and we were on time.  We arrived in Ibigawa at 10:30 pm and had a reception with the mayor and the host families.  After we were introduced, we went home and settled in for the night.  Our family has two girls (Hanna is 2 and Tsumugi is 7).  Tsumugi was in school, but you can see Adrienne with Hanna in these two pictures.  We had fun with her while we waited for the bust this morning.

  I added a picture of their frog that they keep outside because John and Meghan would like to see that they have a little pet.

   Giraffitti enjoyed the day traveling to the Golden Temple.  It has gold leaf all over the second and third floors of it.  She had a good bus ride too.

   Our lunch was at a fancy hotel.  It was a buffet and we liked everything we tried.  Neither of us had the squid, but the raw tuna was good.

  There is a picture of our whole group at the entrance to the Golden Temple.  They are all really fun to be with.

  We saw the bullet train, but we will not get to ride on it.  Tomorrow, we will tour the marathon course and we have a party in the afternoon.