Friday, November 27, 2009

First Geocache in Japan

YES!

With all our decorating finished, we decided on another first for our family in Japan. We went Geocaching. Gracie (Arielle's friend) is sick. Mollie (Gracie's sister and also Arielle's friend) came with us. It was her first time geocaching. Hand-held gps units and a book on geocaching was a family Christmas gift in 2005 - one of the best gifts we've ever done. LOL

Mollie took the lead
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Even *I* didn't need to read the sign to know it would be silly to venture this way. ::snort::

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OUR FIRST FIND IN JAPAN!!!
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Jared tries out his reading skills - this is a bass pond which we will visit in the future

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Jared found some lures LOL

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As we drove off I saw a white goose, no a SWAN. I rushed to get a photo....obviously I RUSHED. ::snort:: I didn't realize that the swan were nearly tame and will eat "moss balls" from your hand. There were three Japanese nationals on the lake shore with some of those HUGE camera lenses....they got quite a laugh out of my little point and click.

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I tried out a few elementary Japanese phrases and they were glad to chat with me. The lady asked if I was from the "asylum" - base. ::snort:: She was happy to hear I lived in the city. She told me to come back with a nice camera and that the Swans STAY HERE for the winter. I sense it will be a winter project to catch some nice shots. I haven't a clue why they come here in the winter when it is cold....


We attempted one more find. I've written before about the Train Park. It was here that Stacia decided to make my photo at an inopportune moment. ::snort::

It's the perfect place for a cache...and we couldn't find it. Part of geocaching is not letting on to outsiders what you are doing. This is always a challenge with a large family.....in some of the spots you find yourself...we discovered being a large, American family, in Japan, trying not to call attention to yourself, as you geocache, adds a new dimension to the fun. We'll probably look for out of the way caches in the future. I think we managed to give the impression that Americans are simply crazy about trains. LOL


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It was too dark to really eyeball this one....we tried. We didn't find it. We'll try again.

Choosing Joy!
©2009 D.R.G.

~Coram Deo~
Living all of life before the face of God...

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Sis: How much fun could that be? What a blast you all must-of had. NEAT! Glad you got to use some Japanese phrases. Did Jared manage to read the signs pretty good.

How neat about the swan's... Was the first one a black swan or was it just an overcast making him look blace?

love you, miss you, praying for you all. -- Mom T.PS: some ideas for Jared.

Romany said...

Were there not many swans in Texas?

DeEtta @ Courageous Joy said...

He was white, Mom.

Actually, Dorothy, I've not seen swans in ANY of the states we've lived in...OR, MT, TX, AK....Are they common in England?

Romany said...

Oh really?

Sure, they are very common here, even the ones that belong to the Queen LOL!

All swans living in the River Thames technically belong to the Crown.

They stay all year here too, so maybe it's a Latitude/Island thing?

DeEtta @ Courageous Joy said...

Cool. We were going to do some resarch to see why they stay year round...we thought they'd be leaving.

I'd never seen a swan until I got to Japan.