We go out for sushi

After we finished, we were very hungry, so our hosts took us to a sushi restaurant. It is so fun to watch all the sushi glide past. There are many kinds of sushi – salmon, tuna, octopus, prawns, eel, fish eggs ... we tried them all! 

 With Octopus

With Prawns

It is taller than us!

What is it? Oh, it's fish eggs!

They also sell other foods too, including clam miso soup - it was delicious!

Do we want tuna or salmon?

And if you don't see something on the conveyor belt that you want, you can order fresh sushi and it is sent to your table.

They even sell sushi made of smoked ham and apple. It reminds us of Germany.

We are very full now. Maybe we should go home and get some sleep.

Good night for now. We will write more later

Paul and Hans

We help our host to make handmade paper

Monday was Heather's day off, so she had an interesting project for us.

When we woke up, we saw all this on the table, and we wondered what it was for. Then Heather told us we could help her make handmade paper!

First, we take some of the paper scraps and blend them into a slurry.

Be careful, Paul! Don't fall in!

After Heather put the slurry into a deckle, or frame, then we helped sponge it dry. 

 Ta-da! Here is our paper. You can see that it is still wet, but after it dries it will be our paper! 

We climb a mountain

 

It was a beautiful day, so our hosts decided to climb Bizan. It means “Eyebrow Mountain” in Japanese, and from far away, it really does look like an eyebrow. But we only saw it close up.

Along the path are old graves, from the lords and samurai who used to rule here about two hundred years ago.

This is such a steep path! 

Look at this interesting Japanese. Paul decided he wanted a closer view, so he is sitting inside the Japanese number two. It is a very big and old rock. We were curious about it, but our hosts don't know why this big rock is in the middle of the mountain!

Are we there yet?

We made it! Can you see where we are staying? I can almost touch our hosts' apartment building – it is the long brown one here. It is really hazy today – that's too bad. Heather says that on a clear day she can see the mountains on the islands next to us.

On our way back down now, we are tired and having fun. Let's climb this little mountain and see where the path goes?

On our way down we stopped under the ropeway. We wanted to ride it down, but it is closed for maintenance. We're only halfway down!

 

Look at the steep path we just came down! It was quite slippery. There are many different paths down the mountain, and we don't want to say anything bad about our hosts, but it is possible they chose the wrong path down :) Next time, we will take a different path down!

What a lovely day! It was really nice to be out in the fresh air – we are so glad it stopped raining.

Hope you are well!

Hans and Paul

We practice some sumo wrestling

Hello, everyone!

We had an interesting day yesterday. Unfortunately, it rained heavily all day, so we had to stay inside.

 

We looked at some books about Japan, and dreamed of what we want to see when the weather clears up. It is a very pretty country.

Then we watched some sumo wrestling on television. 

 

It looked like fun, so we thought we might try it ourselves!

These pictures show us different ways to win a match. We think it takes a lot of practice to do it right!

Now we say see you later - or, in Japanese Jya, ne!

Hans and Paul

We arrive in Japan

Konichiwa!

We have arrived safely in Japan and were met by two sumo wrestlers! There is a sumo tournament this week on television. I hope we get to watch some!

After that, we helped our hosts choose something to eat. 

The sushi looks good, but Heather said she would take us to a sushi restaurant next weekend. So, we will have chicken and egg with rice. 

I guess we had better learn how to use chopsticks!  (Using chopsticks is very hard!)

We will write more tomorrow,

Hans and Paul

P.S. Heather says hello and thank you for letting us come visit.

Last day in Germany

 Today we did a walk in to the nice town of Baunatal. At the civic center of Großenritte a part of town Baunatal we found a fountain with a fountain figure on top!

The fountain figure shows the protagonist of the frog prince. It is a realy nice monument.

After the walk to the civic center of Großenritte we eat cake and drink coffee. Today is our last day in Germany! 

 

After coffee and cace it was time to say goodby!

In our travelingbox we travel save to our new host Heather from Japan!

It will our first time in Japan, so we are so excited!

Bye bye Bob

Today we have to say good bye to our frind Bob. We hope that you always finde new frinds and hosts.Take care of you. Your frinds Hans and Paul!