I arrived about 1 month later than Sue, almost at the end of August. (This is mostly because of huge paperwork hassles trying to get my visa processed - you don't want to get me started on that topic.)

The day after I arrived, we decided to tackle Mount Fuji, Japan's highest peak. A group of about 20 foreigners like ourselves piled into 3 rented vans and drove the 7 hours to the base of the mountain. We arrived about 3 hours after a typhoon began. It was pouring rain, the wind was howling, lightning was everywhere. But we came prepared for bad weather and were ready to go. But the pessimists in the group decided that we should at least try to get a little more info so we made a phone call up to one of the rest stations higher up the mountain. (There are several rest stations along the way up) The word from the top was: DO NOT CLIMB. VERY DANGEROUS. A few of us took this as a challenge and started climbing.

Unfortunately, we didn't get too far. We wandered around on the side of the mountain for a couple hours and got lost a couple times. Then we saw a small mudslide and decided to head back for safety. Actually the term "mudslide" is pretty generous. It was actually more of a big, flowing puddle which happened to bring along a little dirt and gravel. But since it was coming straight down the path, we decided not to stick around in case it turned into something worse. Unfortunately the heavy rain destroyed any chance of actually taking any photos. So we scanned in a postcard that we bought instead!

And here's a shot of the brave (foolish?) few who actually faced the mountain. This picture was taken the next morning when we arrived back in Fukui.

Soon after the summer vacation ended, Sue's school (Maruoka High School) had their yearly event known simply as sports day. It is a very large event. The students are broken into groups and they have a large variety of competitions. They also put together giant paper mache statues (for lack of a better term). This year's statues included Mickey Mouse and Popeye.

The town of Maruoka is fairly well known because of a castle in the middle of town. The castle has become quite a tourist attraction, despite the fact that it is pretty small. It is the second oldest wooden castle in japan, built in 1576. Apparently it used to be surrounded by a moat for better protection, but when that was no longer necessary, it was filled in. Unfortunately, the castle was detroyed in a massive earthquake in 1948, but it was rebuilt again using 80% of the original materials. Here's a photo of the castle, as well as a small shrine which is on the castle grounds.

The castle is pretty close to Sue's school. Here's a photo of the school taken from the window of the castle. (The green patches between the castle and the school are all rice paddies).

On a warm September afternoon, we took a short trip to Sabae. Sabae is a small town which is only a 10 minute train ride from our home in Fukui. There were several interesting things to see here. First we made stop at the Joshoji Temple where there was a very cool dragon fountain.

Next we visited Nishiyama Park, a massive park on a hill in the middle of town. The park contains a tiny zoo. They only had a dozen exhibits, but there were some cool monkeys. And their star attraction: Lesser Pandas from China. (very cool!) Unfortunately, they would never lift their heads long enough to get a photo of their faces so our pictures just don't do them justice.

The park has many nice hiking paths, some of which were lined with hundreds of waist-high rock statues. It was pretty amazing. Check out the picture of Sue with her favorite statue.

And if you were ambitious enough to climb to the top of the hill, you were rewarded with a great view of the surrounding countryside!

While we were walking back to the train station, we stumbed across a beautiful temple. Check it out!

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