It's finally mikan season!

Last year we arrived at the mid-tail end of mikan season. Mikan are essentially satsuma oranges/tangerines...but even better. This year we went mikan picking with friends.

They have a special type of scissor that allows you to easily cut the stem.


The trees are pretty much our height, so it made for easy picking.

It also made it easy for Ian to walk underneath. I had to do a lot of ducking to keep up with him. Of course, he had a tendency to go for the moldy mikan on the ground.

Here is Ryan proudly displaying his basket (along with Tim smiling for the picture). We had a contest to see who could pick the smallest mikan. (typically the smallest mikan taste the best) Ryan was in first place for a while, but by the end of the day he dropped down to 3rd. There was also a contest to see how many mikan you could eat that day. I think Ryan's boss ate somwhere in the range of 12-15. That's dedication.



We came home with a lot of mikan...which is a little tricky when we're heading to the US in 1.5 weeks. You really can never have enough mikan, though, so we'll be fine.

Sankeien

Last weekend we checked out a park near Yokohama. (about a 25-30 min. drive from us) It definitely reminded us of Kyoto. We didn't quite time it right for the fall colors (we're just starting to see leaves turn), but it was still beautiful.

Here we're either people or fish watching. Between the koi in the pond and the people walking across the bridge there was never a dull moment.



You can see a ton of maples in the background. We'll have to visit again in about a month.

The park has a pagoda and 10-15 buildings that have been restored. Many of the buildings have been moved from other places (Kyoto, etc.) to be displayed in the park. Most of the buildings have a thatched roof.


Of course we needed a picture on the red bridge.


Ryan tried to pose Ian by this old fence door...and apparently this is what Ian thought about posing.


Ian was pretty much moving non-stop.

In one part of the park they had a flower display. Here is a man dead-heading with a pair of chopsticks.



I believe they're mostly chrysanthemums?


This is one of those places that you can go year-round and be guaranteed to see something new. (i.e. fall colors, flower displays, cherry blossoms, iris, etc.)

Halloween

We had a great Halloween this year. We went to parties on Fri. and Sat. nights, so we had plenty of time to celebrate. We did skip the actual trick or treating on base since Ian is still too young for candy and I have no self control with sweets.

Ian actually had two costumes this year. I wasn't sure if we'd get his Turkish costume in time, so we also had a back up.

Here are our 1950s costumes:


1.5 hours before our first Halloween party, Ryan still did not have his costume ready. He went to the local Japanese Goodwill to find a leather jacket a la Fonzie. He came home with a leather jacket a la Bill Cosby. It looked like it was straight out of the 1980s. I thought he was joking, but no, this was the jacket he picked out. Apparently he didn't watch enough Happy Days in his childhood. So...45 minutes before the party we made another trip to the Goodwill and found this jean jacket that actually fit. Whew!


Ian was practicing his "I'm too cool" look all night. It's hard to tell from the picture, but we had his hair slicked to the side. His comb-over hair worked perfect for the 1950s style.



Yes, my hot pink skirt had an actual poodle on it.


For party number two, Ian sported his Turkish costume. It came with a hat, but the hat was off within 5 seconds of putting it on. Ryan somehow managed to catch him right before he took it off:


Ian loved the costume, though. Who wouldn't when you look this good?


At the parties there were a lot of great costumes. Here are a couple of my favorites:


The Anthony family went as characters from Peter Pan. Hallie made all the costumes. Brilliant! (the Crocodile is also an Ian - he's 3 months younger than our Ian)

The Putaansuus went as Minions from the movie "Despicable Me." I haven't seen the movie yet, but the costumes are impressive.