OK, so I'm back now to explain! Let's see here...
First, we drive down to the bottom of the island. We see some familiar things there, as we'd gone to a cave down there before with both families, which was really fun. Anyway, we're looking at the map, and the park that we're looking for, of course, is NOT on it anywhere. The town, however, is. So we get to the town. We drive in circles. We stop to ask some surveyors where the festival is. They direct us to a Golf Club. We go there. No festival. We go around again, thinking we'd missed it, no festival. We go around again and turn onto a road near the course. No festival. We ask some security at the golf course. They send us around again to a hill... which we find. We're so freaking excited that we're seeing pink flags... "it must be around here somewhere" we thought. We drive up this huge hill. People with batons are directing us up, up, up, and through some farmers' fields. We have no idea where we're going. We turn left and all of a sudden, no more guys showing the way. And we're back on the road we were on to begin with. We turn right and figure that can NOT be the festival. So we go around again. This time, we turn left at the end. We drive a little ways and find others turning at the place and parking right where we'd been about an hour before at the golf course. Gosh darn it. Finally, we really are there. The Japanese think it's funny to make me back the delica into a tiny spot that is blocked by some concrete things protruding out of the grass. Then they direct me in. Then they make me move over again. After we're all out of the car, it's 1230 and the kids are starving and cranky. We give them a go-gurt and head over to the buses which will be taking us back up the hill...
The kids enjoy the bus ride. 
And the go-gurt. 
Mel loves the "big boy".
After a terribly bumpy and smelly ride through the farms, we arrive at the top of a mountain to the festival.
It was really small. They had 3 goats and 2 little piggies to see. Oh so adorable.
No dancers besides the old locals. 
But we realized why everyone came from the local town. There was a special jar of saki that they said something in Japanese about, set up some special tables, and handed out tiny drinks to everyone who wanted some. 
The boys were getting restless.
So P and I had some saki. Don't worry, it was just a sip and I couldn't even finish mine. It was the best saki I've ever had, but it burned my throat to bad. I'm not much of a liquor girl.
Then we were off to see the trees.
And climb the hill to the beautiful view.
And take a break on the terribly jagged and dangerous castle ruins.
Then we hit up the park there, which had this awesome 10 person swing thing.
And of course, Mel swang and swang some more.
After we were tired out, we took the kids to this place that looked like a cool park...
Unfortunately, it had been condemned and was blocked off. We went around the barracade anyway, just to see what was back there. It was huge. A giant parking lot surrounded by western theme metal things. It was surrounded by a huge concrete wall (just like everything else here) so we couldn't see much. We were very lucky, though, as we drove over a huge gutter that had only two small grates on it, which we didn't notice until we were going over it the second time! whoops! we did, however, find the coolest plant that i've ever seen. It was a huge plant with small leaves and the flowers were like tiny balls of red feathers. We realized how much time we had left of the day, so we headed to the city to a busy shopping street to walk around
and have dinner.
We each got a meal.
And the bill was $39. How awesome is that!?
1 comment:
I'm so glad that it all worked out in the end. I used to get lost every time I'd try to go somewhere here in Germany. Finally Greg got me a GPS, which has helped tremendously -- although, in your search to find that place, I'm not sure a GPS would have gotten you there mush sooner. Sounds really confusing!
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