Another beach party

We took a big risk and tried having a beach party on Sunday even though there was a typhoon coming and it looked like it might rain at any time. There were some none believers that thought a beach party couldn't happen, but we had to try. We got to a new beach about 3:30 and it didn't start raining until 11:00 at night, so everything went just right.
At the beach, we...barbequed some delicious food:
...and ate some good food:
...played some soccer:
...went surfing (Sam, not me):
...played with light sabers (Obi-Wan Keisuke & Andy Skywalker):
...roasted marshmallows:
..and enjoy just sitting around the campfire:

Roland DG party

There was another of my classes finishing in September and so there was another class party Saturday night. This time it was in Act Tower, which is the tall tower in my city that you can see on the side-bar picture. It was a fancy dinner with some very good sashimi (raw fish):
And here's a couple shots of my students and me:

Univance party

On Saturday night, I went out with my Univance class. Here are some pictures from the night (with my old camera that seemed to work better than before):

Breadmaker

I got me a new toy yesterday...a breadmaker:

And my first creation was raisin bread...yum yum:
I still have to experiment with it to get it just right, but it was a tasty first try.^^

UPDATE: On my third try and trying an easier recipe, I made a fine-looking loaf of rye bread:

Beach party

On the weekend, about 20 people gathered on a beach an hour outside Hamamatsu for a farewell party for jenny and Daniela who are leaving our school. We got there an hour before sunset so a few of us could go surfing first:
We then set up our tents for the night, and had lots of food for the BBQ:
We then were up late into the night around a campfire listening to music:

The next morning, many were up by 7 o'clock since the sun had made our tents into little ovens. We went surfing again and just playing in the ocean and on the beach.

In the afternoon, we went to a water park to go down some fun slides. Unfortunately in Japan, summer is officially over by September and so this was the last day the water park was open, even though it will still be hot here for more than another month. I guess since kids are back to school in September they shouldn't have distractions like pools or water parks open, even on the weekends...oh well. Luckily for me, the ocean is open all year round. ^^

Bowling

On Wednesday night, a number of teachers went out bowling (which may become a regular event? - we'll wait and see). Here are some pictures from that night starting off with my nice form^^:

Camping on the Atago River

Over the weekend, Ayako and I went on a camping trip about 70 minutes north of my home along the Atago River, which is nice and clear and very popular in the summer. Here's a picture of the river we were on:
We managed to get a small piece of land, almost like an island, to ourselves where we set up camp:
We did lots of swimming and had wonderful food to eat such as BBQ meat:
And yummy oatmeal raisin cookies Ayako made:
I also enjoyed the drive there and back where there are some nice narrow roads through the forests:
Finally, here is a shot of us at a look out point overlooking Hamamatsu:

Back in Canada

As many of you know, I was back in Canada last week...for a week. And here are some photos from my trip.
These photos are from the Orgill BBQ at my parent's house:
And here are all the cousins together:
Next, it was up to the cottage for some relaxing to be done:
Unfortunately, it wasn't all relaxing since a tornado had come through 2 weeks ago and there was some cleaning up of trees and branches to be done. Luckily, there was no damage down to out cottage. Here's some pictures from all of the havoc:
Robin, Insung and Adam joined us up at the cottage and on the way back, we stopped at the zoo in Peterborough to look at the animals, go for a train ride and play in the playground: We finally had a BBQ back at our house in Peterborough and took some group shots then.

Karaoke & fireworks

To add a new twist to going to the fireworks this past weekend, we all dressed in yukatas and went to sing karaoke in the afternoon before the fireworks: After that, we got on the train and took a 20-minute train ride to a nearby city for their fireworks display. This one is the largest our area with 30,000 fireworks being set off (10 times larger than the average). It felt like a finale for the entire 2 hours of the fireworks and of course the actually finale was even better. Hopefully soon, I'll be able to put up a video of the finale that I can get from a friend.