Fall Explorations

Columbus may not have made it all the way to Japan, but we decided to honor his holiday weekend with some exploration of our own. First, we went on an hour-long road trip with 5 other couples down south to Nanbu Town to go apple picking. There are all kinds of farms and orchards down there where you can pick seasonal fruit. The orchard we went to has over 20 different varieties of apples, but unfortunately only 3 of them were ripe for the picking when we went. Even so, we had a great time. You pay for an hour of all-you-can-eat harvesting, and then you can buy some to take home. Some of the apples were HUGE! Others had a very unique taste that reminded us of bananas. We bought several and I have enjoyed baking with them over the last week.

Even the babies wanted to get in on the eating! SO cute!

All of the ladies and kids in the back of the truck
that took us back up the hill to our cars.

Afterward, we found a shop where they sell cherry ice cream!

On Columbus Day James and I went out to one of the black sand beaches north of us and went for a walk, took some pictures, and collected lots of sea shells. We also checked out one of the Shinto Shrines there along the coast on our way back. It was a short trip, but we enjoyed getting out of the house and walking around in the sunshine. In a few weeks it's probably going to start snowing so we need to take advantage of the weather while we've got it!!

The "bouquet" of sea shells I put together.