Weekend number 2 in Nagoya

While many of our NIS counterparts head to music festivals in Osaka and Tokyo this weekend, the Pearlzes are still in heavy-duty set up and back to school mode. We spent the week, and the weekend, getting ready for school to start....gulp...tomorrow! It's been a whirlwind...new teacher orientation ended Monday, everybody reported back Tuesday, and we've been head down trying to get set up and figure out all these new systems in order to stay one step ahead of the students next week. The boys have been bored out of their gourds with no tv, friends, dog, etc, but they have been troopers! They are appropriately nervous and excited for school to start tomorrow.

Here are pics of our weekend...couch and school supply shopping at the 100 Yen store (one billion times better than the dollar store in the US); and Gar and I took a great 2 hour walk through the giant forest park right next to our house/school. Emm and I practiced his walk to/from school, through which he has to go through dragonfly alley. He also took some pics of some things we found amusing while poking our noses in nearby stores. We're blogging from our neighborhood Starbucks, as our bottomless wifi at home seems to have found a bottom.

 Missing Burta Reynolds, so we turned Emm into a cat; 

 First lake near our house

 Abandoned baseball field in the park; planning for Peca playing and kickball matches

 Gar in mid-stretch 

 G enjoyed the extensive labeling at this park

 Beautiful man-made lake; lots of fast runners passing us by

 cool cloud!

 Jeff Dungan tried to get G to upgrade this hat (I think the new one is in the shipment...)

 Tried to snap this dragonfly; much cooler looking mid flight!

 We enjoy the colorful tile roofs of the neighborhood

 Ample signage to pick up your poop; gardens everywhere!

Pretty street; this is the size of the neighborhood roads!

 At the fancy lifestyle store...why snood? 

 We think Aunt Katie will approve of this level of sun coverage

 Just fyi

strange message from a drinking vessel