The Hendersons in Himeji: Food, friends and fun...

Well another week has come and gone and things are going wonderfully here in Himeji. The past couple weeks have been busy with work but we have also been fortunate enough to have the opportunity to spend some real quality time outside of work with some of our coworkers. A couple of weeks ago Audrey and I were invited to the home of Mr. Yamamoto who once was the principal of Himeji High School and also Kotogaoka. His wife still teaches at Himeji High School and is known through out the school as tremendous cook. She made a delicious spread that included sushi, shrimp tempura, vegetable tempura, meatballs, a spinach and beef dish, french fries and much more. The food was fantastic and the company was even better. We enjoyed chatting with several English teachers from Himeji High School, the chaperone's from our exchange school in Australia, an English teacher from Audrey's school and her husband who also teaches with me at Himeji High School. We left that night feeling stuffed and so blessed to have made such wonderful friends here in Himeji. Saturday was another exciting day for us. We finally got to take a tour of the Himeji Castle. We had wonderful tour guides that spoke English very well and were incredibly knowledgeable about the Castle. It is amazing all of the history that is associated with this castle, that was built over 400 years ago. We could talk about it for hours and tell you all about how the castle was made as a fortress and how there are many defense mechanisms built right into the Castle and surrounding areas but if you want to know more than you will just have to come visit and see for yourself. Then just as we were able to breath again after all the food we ate on Wednesday we were invited for another dinner party on Monday. This time we were having dinner with the head of the international language department at Kotogaoka. His wife made us a traditional Japanese dish called sukiyaki. It was a hot pot filled with beef, carrots, Japanese radish, cabbage and some other mystery foods we have never seen before and cooked in soy sauce, sugar and sake. You can check out the picture below to get a better idea. Once again, the food was delicious and we ate way too much. I think we actually ate more in those two nights than we typically eat in a week here in Japan. Besides our exciting excursions everything else has been going pretty well. We have had typhoon warnings and massive amounts of rain the past couple weeks. We are definitely not complaining though since we don't see much of the wet stuff in the valley. We just wish it would rain when we are NOT forced to ride our bikes. For some reason it pours all morning and we get drenched on our ride to school. Then of course it stops raining or slows to a sprinkle for the rest of the school day, but when 4:00 rolls around and our underwear are just about dry, it starts coming down in buckets again for the ride home. The rain has brought much cooler weather also which is so nice. I don't think I have ever worn a long sleeve shirt it September before but I did last week. I think the high on Monday was 70 so it was perfect long sleeve weather. Well, we have lots of exciting things planned for the next couple of weekends so we will do our best to keep you all in the loop. We miss you and love you all and pray that all is well in your neck of the woods!