The Countryside in Yoshii

うきは市吉井町。

The cute chart of plans Ayumi made for me. Subject to change due to weather, of course.
Note the hat she's rocking.

Some forty minutes east of Kurume by kuruma, Yoshii is home to just over seventeen thousand residents. And I am precisely the second foreigner in the town, after Julian the half-Japanese ALT, who serves the elementary, middle and high schools.

Passing by a particularly tasteful house
on the way to the town of Yame.

We actually sighted Julian briefly, at one point. Did not stop to get a picture. It's surprisingly easy to spot someone with a description as simple as "not black hair" in a town like this.

Somehow that's quite refreshing.

My willingness to actually employ Japanese in public slowly grows with every day and, with that, my confidence.

Over the past few days, taking it easy in Ayumi's home town, we have done a little sight seeing, and a lot of good eating. But it's served as the taste of authentic Japanese life I've always wanted, and has renewed my desire to live here for a time.

It's also given me a chance to look through Ayumi's many childhood photo albums. That's given me a view into her life that I'd never really gotten before.

And let me just say...

There were some others that I don't think I'll upload here. But this one is one of my favorites.

I've also been able to play Hanabi (the card game) with Ayumi's sister, Megumi. She said she would try using English for me, for which I was very grateful. But it's a pretty simple game, and even my shoddy Japanese does just fine. We had good laughs as Megumi was eager to win, and as we talked about how she'd probably have fun playing with my mom (with whom it's very fun to play Hanabi for her "helpful" facial expressions), and my sister.

The first course
at Nanakusa.
Special tofu,

Ayumi has also taken me around, in spite of the rain, to see her elementary and junior high school--which I will get picture of once the rain lets up.

Because of the two typhoons coming in, it's been literally nonstop rain (with the time of my writing this being the only break we've had from it for days).

Two days ago we ate at the amazing Nanakusa, in the nearby town of Yame, where we had a four course meal of soba, tofu, vegetables, and finishing with matcha and pudding.

Costing only about 3,000 yen for both of us, the experience was particularly elegant and delightful. I'm not one for food photos, but...

Egg, tomato and lettuce, pickles, a different type of tofu, and eggplant with okra.

Hand-cut soba with chicken-mushroom rice, more pickles, and the soba dipping sauce.

A dessert of matcha with pudding (yes, and frosted flakes on it).

The building itself was also quite elegant. One of the students at the English school where Ayumi works used to live here, and wound up selling it to the folks who now run Nanakusa out of the building. It would have made an amazing house, albeit quite loud when the cicadas come out.

Ayumi peeking out from the Nanakusa front entrance

...and me in front of it.

Check out the actual sound of these cicadas. It's amazingly loud.

Please note: to our detriment, I let in about ten mosquitoes for the sake of this video. I have proof all over my ankles.

After that, since the town of Yame is famous for its green tea, we went to a place called "Yame-cha Soft Cream" to have some green tea ice cream.

Taking a picture of you...

...Getting a shot of me!

With more coming later, of course. It's hard to keep up on blogging because we're spending so much time doing things. Which I quite enjoy. We're about to leave for Miyazaki, en route to which we will stop at 熊本城 to do some sight seeing.