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The June Rainy Season Brings...

So for the past few days, my host family's middle child who lives in Nagoya and works as a massage therapist came to visit for a few days. She was nice-- a little quiet, but kind-- but I didn't see much of her since I had school and she also had some work to do here at a spa or something in Kanazawa. But I had us take a "family portrait" before she left today:


From left to right: Naoko with Cocoa, Me, Nobuko, and Ryuichi.

Then my host parents took me to a place just on the edge of the mountains where there were fields and fields of irises.





There were something like 20 different varieties of irises...it's been raining fairly hard these last three days so some of the flowers were bent over, but the ones that were standing were vibrant from the rain and covered with water droplets. The air was fresh and it was lovely--reminded me more of spring than summer.

Then I went back to the Higashi Chaya district that Ryo and I went to briefly at the end of May. Sometimes it's nice to go back to an area and just wander about it by yourself, and go into whatever shop you want just to look without worrying that you're boring someone. And then I found a shop that sold gold plated items (of which Ishikawa produces 98% of in Japan) and they had an entire building, inside and out, that was plated in gold, I kid you not:


This picture does not adequately display how SHINY that building was. I can't decide if I think it's a disgusting waste of gold or just really pretty...

And then I spent a quiet afternoon at home and so my last day of break passed...tomorrow it's back to school.

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